Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.”

It’s…pretty normal to wake up somewhere unfamiliar after a night of heavy drinking. Sometimes it’s a dumpster, sometimes it’s a broom closet, sometimes it’s your friends hide-a-bed. I’ve done all of these and more, but the beach? That’s a new one.

Which is precisely what I was thinking when I woke up with a tongue made of lead, eyelids made of superglue, and sand in my everywhere.

I definitely remembered the night before, some party or other for a friend of a friend, and I’d drank more liquor than normal for someone who prefers more herbal intoxicants. I’d turned down a ride, thinking I could stumble my way home and be fine for it. Drunk me was never the best at making decisions.

One issue with waking up on the beach; I was in a rather landlocked area when I passed out.

“Did those fuckers send me to Florida?” I muttered under my breath as I sat up, clutching my head as it throbbed under the glaring sun.

“Oh buddy, this is way worse than Florida.” A voice said from above me.

The individual that settled down beside me was vague to say the least, their form humanoid but the details distinctly indistinct. Real Lovecraftian of them, yeah?

All I could make out was a smug grin that I really, really wanted to wipe off their face, but considering the way my whole body hurt in a way only a hangover can, I didn’t like my chances.

“Now considering your current state I’ll make it simple. I’m a god, and an asshole, so I took your sorry ass and dropped you in a lovely little place called the East Blue.” They said, all three of them (or was it four? My vision was pretty trashed at the time.) gesturing as if to showcase the world around us.

“This dream is so damn weird…” I muttered as I pulled my knees up and placed my head between them, fully ready to kiss my ass goodbye.

“Now you’re pretty early on, but considering your ride’ll be here in, hmm…a day? Day and a half tops. I’m dropping you a little kickstart, we’ll call it, and as thanks you’re gonna ride along with these good folks until you die or reach the end of the line, alrighty? Now your kickstarter’s in a treasure chest about ten feet behind you, have fun bye-bye!”

With that the God of Assholes disappeared like a fart in a hurricane, and I passed back out fully convinced I’d wake up in a hide-a-bed or a dumpster.

No such luck.

When I came to I only had a shaky recollection of what happened, but I for sure remembered the chest, which is why I popped it open the moment my head was clear enough to think again.

If I’d had any doubts about where I was before, the contents of that chest dismissed them quicker than anything.

Inside were three specific things. First was a club, or a hunk of lumber that tapered toward the end kinda like a handle. I figured that’d make a decent weapon at the very least. The second was a knife and, yep, it was damn sure sharp, as my poor pricked finger could attest.

The last one was what really nailed it down. It was an aggressive shade of puce, covered in swirls and about the size and shape of a pear.

It was a god damned Devil Fruit, and one I didn’t recognize. It wasn’t my only source of food, I knew that, there was a jungle maybe forty foot from where I stood, but if the God of Assholes decided I needed it, well…

I took a deep breath. Then another. Then I unclenched my jaw, slackened my shoulders, made the sign of the cross, and took a bite.

It. Tasted. Wretched.

“That feels like a hate crime against fruit.” I muttered to myself as I let the remains of the fruit fall to the ground, my face twisted in disgust.

I didn’t feel any different, so I decided to do what I did best.

I cinched my belt, picked up the club, and went and picked a stupid fight I probably couldn’t win.

Somehow, someway, I had failed to find even the inkling of a fight. I’d covered what felt like every square inch of the damn island and hadn’t found anything but fruit (actual fruit, sweet and juicy and delicious ) and rabbits.

So there I was, having busted up the chest for firewood and with a little boy scout hoodoo I’d gotten a fire going roast myself a bit of protein.

And then I heard voices, and that was followed with footsteps.

“Meat!” A young voice cried, and I jumped up with club in hand, ready for a scrap.

Maybe it was the hunger, maybe it was the frustration, maybe it was everything all piling up at once, but the moment I saw a human silhouette coming through the trees I jumped at it, ready to crack someone upside the head with my shiny new whuppin’ stick.

I only realized I’d swung at a woman when a size 10 calfskin loafer collided with my sternum and nearly sent me into the drink.

I barely had a moment to get a breath before that same loafer was coming at my head heel-first and I was forced to roll away, springing to my feet and swinging in the same motion.

The thud that I got out of it as the club met my assailant’s ribs was satisfying. The kick, once again to the sternum, that it earned me however was less satisfying.

“How dare you attack Nami-swan, bastard!” My assailant yelled, finally clueing me in on who was soundly beating my ass.

“If you kick me in the chest again I’m gonna make you eat those fuckin’ shoes.” I growled, anger crackling under my skin as I wheezed for breath. At the time I’d confused it for adrenaline, hysteric strength or something like it.

I veritably blurred into motion, pushing off the wet sand so fast I couldn’t even keep track of myself before colliding with goddamn Sanji of all people.

The hit hurt for the both of us. That’s a damn fact, plain and simple. The full body pins and needles I suffered weren’t great fun either.

“So are you gonna kick me again or are we done?” I asked from where I laid on the ground, migraine throbbing and limbs tingling.

“Apologize first, bastard.” The blond wheezed, and I mustered a weak nod. He must have been clutching his chest, because I’d hit him dead in the ribs.

“Pardon me, miss? Awful sorry about jumpin’ at you like that, I washed up here and I got a touch paranoid, ain’t right of me to swing at someone who didn’t swing first, woman or otherwise.” I said as I pulled myself up to a sitting position.

“It’s…fine, I guess?” The young woman answered, looking a little put off by the sincerity of the apology.

“Now if the jackass in the straw hat would quit eating my dinner? ” I growled, lobbing a fistful of wet sand at said jackass.

“Join my crew!” Was all I got in response.

“Fuck you.” I spat, genuinely angry over my stolen food. Sure it was bland, unseasoned rabbit, but it was meat, and there’re principles attached to such things.

As soon as the words left my mouth though I felt my vision go hazy and chest start to clench, the God of Assholes just barely in my peripheral, voice distant as they spoke.

“Now didn’t I tell you to go with these fine folks as thanks? If you’re going to be ungrateful maybe I’ll put you back in that alley where I found you, let the elements finish you off, hm?”

“F-fuck,” I stammered, I couldn’t breathe , my chest felt like an overwound spring, “let me retract that statement.”

“I’ll join your crew…but I need food first.” I said, my vision clearing and chest loosening as I began to take deep gulping gasps of air.

From the corner of my vision the God of Assholes grinned, and disappeared.

Jackoff motherfucker he is.

“We can feed you at the ship and do introductions on the way, alright?” The redhead I’d tried to clobber said, an entirely too sweet grin on her face.

“Food first, then introductions. I might be low on calories but not brain cells,” I said as I stood, picking up my club and stuffing my new knife in my pocket, “so don’t try and trick me into spilling my guts again young lady.”

She looked away with a tsk turned away to trek back through the forest, the guy who’d probably cracked a couple of my ribs and two others following behind her and leaving me with the kid who was picking his teeth with the bones of what was supposed to be my dinner.

“You gonna just sit there gnawin’ for bone marrow or are you comin’ to the ship, cap’n? ” I asked, sarcasm damn near insubordinate to my new boss.

“Nah, there’s not enough in rabbit to be worth it.” He said as he stood, and I just shook my head and began to walk after the retreating back of the rest of the crew.

They’d apparently docked dead opposite of my camp on the island, in a little lagoon I’d marked as a possible fishing hole.

My trap had been locked shut the whole trip, even after the rubbery little twerp had caught up and started yammering. I’d looked at the club more than a few times debating the pros and cons of cracking him with it just to get some quiet, but I didn’t feel like getting killed for attempted mutiny.

The moment I sat down in that goat-headed caravel’s galley though, the questions started.

“What’s your name?” The redhead asked, and I rolled my eyes before answering with a question of my own.

“What’s yours? Awful rude to not introduce yourself first seeing how you shanghaied me.” I said around a bite of surprisingly juicy meat.

“Fine, asshole. I’m Nami, the crews navigator. The musclehead with the sword is Roronoa Zoro, he’s first mate, Usopp is the geeky one and our gunner, the one who beat you up is our cook Sanji, and the rubberbrain with the hat is our captain, Monkey D. Luffy.” She said, gesturing to each of the galley’s other occupants in turn.

“And you are?”

“Name’s Lee, nice to meet you. So wait, you’re telling me Men’s Wearhouse over here is your cook? You cooked this?” I asked, pointing at Sanji with bewilderment writ large on my face.

“Uh, yeah? Like it’s hard?” The man in question said before taking a drag on his cigarette.

“Hell’s bells, just save some for the rest of us during shore leave, would you? Just fuckin’ unfair.” I grumbled as I cut off another piece of perfect medium-rare steak, glaring at it before popping it in my mouth and chewing.

“You think dartboard-brow has game? ” The swordsman asked, his face twisted in incredulous glee.

“Fuck, maybe? He’s trim, well-dressed, chivalrous, and he can cook. The only thing he isn’t is a prince on a white horse, then he’d have to fight women off with a firehose. As it is he’s just a pain to compete with.”

“Sanji’s eligible bachelor status aside,” Nami said, unfortunately bringing the conversation back on track, “what skills do you bring to the crew, Lee? We’ve got enough meatheads, so I hope for your sake you’ve got something up your…well I can’t say sleeve considering you seem to be allergic to them, but you get the gist.”

I sniffed a little at her insinuation. Sure, a cutoff with a vest over it wasn’t exactly haute couture but it was a sight better than what some people considered fashion.

“I’ve got a head for figures, and my family ran a shipping business for a bit so I know how to work with merchants to get lower prices on supplies. Oh, and I just recently ate a Devil Fruit that I have absolutely zero clue what it does. So yeah beyond that, what you see’s what you get.” I said as I leaned back with a shrug, watching with hidden glee as Nami underwent a journey of emotions from glee to a crushing gloom, Luffy guffawing all the while.

At the time I expected to bite it halfway through Paradise at best. Looking back now? I was underestimating myself and a whole lot of other people.

Chapter Text

“If you’re gonna be dumb you gotta be tough.”

My first few days aboard the Going Merry were peppered with all flavors of conversation as I acclimated to my new companions, from discussions of duties…

“Seeing how you have a ‘head for figures’, congratulations, you’re our new quartermaster. I want a list of supplies, both necessary and luxury, that the crew needs in my hands by end of the week, understood?”

To dietary needs…

“No, no, Sanji, listen to me. Yes I am lactose intolerant. No you do not need to work around it. It’s a waste of time for one and for two I still like dairy so don’t you dare skimp on the cheese.”

To, well, not really conversations as much as Zoro glaring at me while sharpening his sword.

“Message received loud and clear.”

To the conversation I’d been fundamentally unable to have as the other side of it was ducking me like a shipwright with gambling debts.

“Usopp,” I said as I finally cornered the wayward gunner in the cargo hold, “we need to talk, crewmate to crewmate.”

“No we don’t! In fact I think I might have ‘I’ll-die-if-I-talk-to-you-itis’! It’s highly contagious, you need to stay away!” The young man yelped as he began to scrabble over a pile of crates, only to fall directly into me as the ship lurched to the side.

With a grunt I caught him, bracing him with both hands until the floor beneath us steadied.

“You alright there?” I asked as he went stock still.

“I’m. Fine.” He said, most certainly Not Fine by how he sounded.

“Usopp…what’s your issue with me? I’m not gonna get mad or anything so just be straight about it. One bullshit artist to another.” I said as I turned him around and looked at him, genuinely hurt by his nervousness around me.

“I-I don’t have a problem with you, really!” Usopp stammered as he backed away from me, hands raised in clear surrender.

“You’re just really intimidating.” The sniper said as he sat down on a crate, elbows resting on his knees as he slumped over.

“How so? How do I intimidate you Usopp? Let me know so I can actually work with you, alright? For however long I’m on this ship,” I said as I sat down on a crate opposite him, “let’s you and me be friends, yeah? After all, we’re basically the odd-jobbers on this crew.”

“I-It’s nothing you’re doing, really, it’s just…you’re so much bigger than me, it’s a little scary.” He said with a sigh, holding his head in his hands.

“It’s just, whenever you approach me you look like you’re in a bad mood, and with how much bigger you are I just. Run.”

“Well I can’t exactly change my size, but I want you to know this, Usopp; the only time I’ve been in a bad mood this past week has been when Luffy stole my portion of meat last night, and I was mad at him , not the crew in general.”

At that affirmation Usopp visibly sagged in relief before meeting my eyes.

“I can’t promise you I won’t be a little jumpy, but I’ll try not to run when you try and talk to me.” He said with a ragged grin on his face.

“Great,” I said as I clapped a hand on his shoulder, my meaty extremity clamping tight to him, “now help me compile the rest of our shopping list. We dock in Loguetown tomorrow and Nami wants this by end of business today.”

“I should have ran…”

“Land ho!” Luffy shouted from the crow’s nest, and I stood from where I was sat against the mizzenmast.

“Crew meeting time!” Nami called, and like clockwork the six of us assembled in the galley. Zoro and I leaning on either side of the door, Sanji leaning against the countertop, and Usopp sitting at the table with Nami and Luffy.

“Alright, so with help from our new quartermaster I’ve compiled a list of necessary and luxury supplies, so I’ll be delegating shopping lists and budgets to everyone.” I tuned out as Nami spoke, only tuning back in as she got to me.

“Lee, you’ll be purchasing a proper holster or sling for your club and a decent wardrobe, you’ve got 300,000 for that, and another 300,000 for these supplies.” She said as she handed me a shopping list that had to be half a foot long.

“Okay, so I’m six hundred grand in the hole, great.” I grumbled, only for Nami to raise an eyebrow at me.

“No you aren’t. You were marooned on an island with only the clothes on your back and a couple of weapons, I’m not going to take advantage of you like that.” The navigator said, seamlessly flowing back into her delegation.

“Huh, maybe there’s a heart in there after all.” I mused as I read over the shopping list she’d given me. It was predominantly supplies for the ship, things for repairs, and other miscellany, but one thing caught my eye near the bottom of the list.

“Well as the lady dictates…” I muttered as the meeting broke, and soon we were pulling into Loguetown’s harbor.

The six of us had split off the second our feet hit the docks, Luffy dashing off to find the execution platform and the rest of us splitting up to do our shopping, though I moved with a little bit more of a goal in mind.

A goal that was in sight, chuffing on two fat cigars as he watched a group of his men lead away a pack of pirates in cuffs.

I watched him wade through the crowd, and as he passed I began to walk in step with him.

“Morning cap’n,” I said as a greeting, “spare a smoke and a light for a poor soul?”

“And why should I?” The Marine asked, a growl in his voice that I hoped was from his chain smoking.

“Because a smoke and a light is the low low price on some properly rotten pirates that happen to be hanging around your jurisdiction?” I tried, grinning slyly as the white-haired man plucked a cigar from the bandolier across his chest and a book of matches from within his coat and shoved them into my hands before herding me into a dead-end alley.

“Start talking. Now.” He growled, using his superior height plus an arm over my shoulder to pin me against the wall facing him.

“Why captain, this is rather forward isn’t it? Though I do appreciate the view- grhk ” I started, plying bullshit until the good captain’s hand wrapped itself around my throat and hoisted me to eye level.

“Buggy the Clown and Iron Mace Alvida are both here in Loguetown! They’re hidden in the execution plaza with Buggy’s crew!” I rasped, eyes bulging as Smoker squeezed before finally being dropped to the ground.

“Your handshakes must be murder, lord almighty,” I hissed as I rubbed my aching trachea, “we square now?”

“Perfectly square.” The captain said as he turned and walked out of the alley.

“But I will be back to find out how you got your information if it proves to be true.” Smoker growled with a glare over his shoulder, and I felt a shiver go up my spine as I met his eyes.

“Yeah yeah,” I groused as I climbed to my feet, “see you never , locomotive breath.”

Granted I waited until he was out of earshot before making my remarks. Stupid, not suicidal.

With that I set about to actually doing my assigned shopping, and boy was I not looking forward to the last item on my list.

I stretched as I stepped off the Merry’s gangplank, dressed in my new clothes and carrying my two weapons in new holsters, my club slung across my back and the knife I’d gotten with it holstered behind my back beneath the white denim vest I wore.

“Storm’s starting to roll in…not a lot of time.” I muttered as I began to stride away from the ship, my new clothes and the various supplies including one half of what Nami had asked me to purchase, the other half resting in the inside pocket of my vest.

I wandered the backstreets of Loguetown’s harbor for a while, eyes scouring the various shady characters as I went until I spotted the tip of an unholy green pompadour coming around the corner.

Jackpot.

I waited as my target came around and swiftly began to follow behind him, whistling innocuously. He began to walk quicker, I began to walk quicker. He began to jog, I began to jog. He broke into a full on run, and I lunged forward to grab him by the pompadour.

“Hey, now, is that any way to act when someone’s trying to ask you a favor?” I said as I took a seat on Bartolomeo’s back, the mafioso letting out a heavy whumpf as I did so.

“Most people who try to ask me favors don’t look like they’re gonna wack me!” He bitched, words muffled by the hand, still gripping his coif tightly, that was forcing his face into the flagstones.

“With the company you keep? I’m surprised you didn’t punch my lights out the moment I started tailing you.” I said as I replaced my hand with a boot, the heel grinding against the back of Bartolomeo’s skull.

With both hands free I pulled the matchbook and cigar from inside my vest, striking a match on the flagstone next to my captive’s crossed…fingers… shit .

“Geddoffameeee!” The gangster beneath me roared, and a block of barrier slugged me off his back and into a wall.

The cigar flew from my mouth as I collided, rolling out of my reach and into a sewer grate, and that was the straw that broke the camels back.

“Running from me I can understand, even hitting me I can understand, but wasting a perfectly good cigar? That tears it, I’m gonna beat your ass until you’re calling me sir.” I growled as I stood, pulling my club from my back and hopping over a low, hastily made barrier to swing at him.

Of course my swing bounced off another barrier, but with the kinetic energy I swung again, the hunk of surprisingly sturdy wood shattering the translucent blockage and carrying on to meet with Bartolomeo’s head.

He went down hard . Apparently getting hit by a forty pound piece of wood by someone who could generously be called a brick of muscle is painful no matter who you are. Damn.

I reached down and pulled the insensate criminal up by his collar, holstering my club and giving him a few slaps to try and wake him up.

To no effect. He was definitely breathing, the snoring was proof enough, but the goose egg on his head was worrying for sure.

After a few moments I shrugged and threw him over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, the clouds darkening overhead as I began to jog towards the execution platform.

“Sure hope you wake up in time for this rooster head…because you’re gonna kick yourself for missing this.” I muttered under my breath.

I had to admit, seeing Luffy up on the execution platform was heartstopping. At the time I still hadn’t accepted him as my captain, but the words he said next as Buggy stood over him with cutlass in hand, would change that forever.

“I…AM GOING TO BE KING OF THE PIRATES!!!!”

The words rippled across the crowd like a shockwave, sprouting pockets of conversation and confusion, but the words hit me directly in the chest.

A shifting over my shoulder prompted me to drop Bartolomeo, and as he stood bleary-eyed, he saw the exact same thing as Sanji and Zoro began to tear through the crowd of Buggy and Alvida’s mooks.

“Zoro! Sanji! Usopp, Nami, Lee! Sorry, I think I’m a goner!” My captain said as Buggy brought the blade down on him, a million watt smile on his face as his death approached.

And the wrath of god struck, obliterating the execution platform in its entirety and leaving Monkey D. Luffy standing there, straw hat in hand.

“Do you believe in a higher power, Bartolomeo?” I asked the man next to me, his eyes wide as he watched Marines flood into the square and the three heaviest hitters on the Strawhats come hauling ass towards us.

“You can answer later, for now just believe in your legs and move!” I yelled, following the soon to be Monster Trio’s lead and running like hell.

“Roronoa Zoro!”

Oy vey.

“Go! I’ll handle her and catch up!” The first mate yelled over the howling wind as the rain began to blow sideways, and we left him to his battle, sprinting ahead only to come face to face with the local monster.

“Loguetown’s Captain Smoker! My tip panned out just fine, huh?” I yelled ahead, causing the Marine to clench his jaw in anger.

“So you’re a pirate too then?” Smoker hissed as smoke bloomed out like vicious serpents to grab at our group, pinning Sanji and Bartolomeo to the walls as Luffy’s attack went straight through him.

“A man’s gotta do something for a living these days.” I said, drawing my club and silently praying I could pull off what I was planning.

“Dying’s not much of a living.”

With those words more smoke launched towards me, and I reached deep, pulling at that sensation I’d felt fighting Sanji, and-

waitfuckshitwhat my head is full of BEES!!!

With the mother of all adrenaline rushes pumping through my system I gripped my club in both hands and in a homage to the Strongest Creature and a bullshit attempt at intimidation, swung.

“Thunder Bagua!”

It did fuck-all to Smoker himself, but to the pack of Marines blocking the end of the street?

It struck like a blow from heaven itself, sending them all sprawling as the feeling of every inch of my body seizing up struck me.

“Hmph. Your luck’s run out, pirates.” Smoker said as he pinned both me and my captain down, only to stop cold as a voice rang out in the suddenly quiet street.

“Whose luck did you say?”

“You…the government’s after your head!” Smoker growled, lifting up only slightly from my back to look at the speaker.

“The world is waiting for our answer.” The speaker said, and with a hellish gust of wind, Smoker was blown away, Bartolomeo throwing my locked up body over his shoulder as Zoro pulled Luffy to his feet.

Soon we were back at the Going Merry, Usopp and Nami struggling to keep her moored as we approached.

Bartolomeo passed me off the Zoro before the swordsman jumped aboard, and as my body loosened the gangster yelled to us as we drifted away.

“HEEEEEY! STRAW HAT! ARE YOU REALLY GONNA BE KING OF THE PIRATES?” He yelled over the wind, and I couldn’t help but grin as I opened my mouth to yell back.

“WHY DON’T YOU COME ALONG AND SEE IT, DUMBASS?”

“COME ON!” Luffy yelled, one arm stretching out to grab our newest crewmate by his much-abused pompadour and drag him onto the Merry.

“Come with us Bartolomeo,” I said as I clapped him on the shoulder, “to the Grand Line!”

“Oh great, another scary guy…” Usopp whimpered, only for me to pat him on the back.

“Don’t worry, he’s a great guy, really!” I said, only to stumble as Nami cracked me in the head.

“Make friends later, right now we need to not capsize in this freak storm!” Nami screamed, and boy that shark tooth thing never got any less scary.

As a unit we hauled ass to make sure our beloved little caravel didn’t sink and take us with her, following Nami’s orders until-

“Lighthouse dead ahead!” Bartolomeo cried, hair limp from the storm and slicked back for the sake of being able to see.

With a grin, I watched as a historic moment began to unfold.

“Beyond that lighthouse is the entrance to the Grand Line. So what’ll it be fellas?” Nami said as she turned away from the prow and Sanji pulled an empty barrel from off to the side.

“I’m going to find the All Blue.” thunk

“I’m going to be the world’s greatest swordsman.” thunk

“I’m going to draw a map of the world!” thunk

“I’m going to become a brave warrior of the sea!” thunk

“I’m going to watch the pirate king take the throne!” thunk

“I’m going to survive this crazy ocean and prove the world wrong!” thunk

“I’m gonna be king of the pirates!” thunk

As one, the seven of us raised our legs and brought them crashing down on the barrel, splintering it with a singular cry.

“Grand Line here we come!”

Chapter Text

“All right then, I’ll go to hell.”

“Alright, now let’s make like hell for Reverse Mountain and hit the line already!” I yelled after the barrel broke, Nami barking orders the moment the words left my mouth.

We were like ants scurrying all over the deck, hauling ass hither and yon and to and fro at our navigator’s orders, Usopp and Sanji manning the whipstaff while the rest of us pulled at ropes and adjusted sails until finally we saw it looming in the distance.

The Red Line, towering above us and stretching past the cloud cover up into the heavens where corrupt saints sat and stewed in their own lordliness amongst other things.

I couldn’t wait to burn it to the bedrock.

“Hey!” I yelled over the torrent we were sailing in, reveling in the strain of my muscles and the calluses I could feel building on my palms already, “Do you guys know what they say about the Grand Line?”

As I posed my question we hit the canal, rocketing up and jumping into the air as we hit the apex.

“Don’t tell me it’s true…” Sanji said, horrified at what I was implying.

“You’ve gotta be half dead before you get there!” I hollered with a booming guffaw, grinning like a loon as we began our descent.

“We’re gonna dieeee!” Usopp and Nami both screamed, clutching each other tightly as we went into freefall.

Their following cries of despair were drowned out by Luffy’s giddy laughter, and as we hit the water once more a wall of sound struck us.

I knew what was waiting for us. I knew it, and like hell I was going to let Merry get hurt this early on, but I also refused to spoil anything ahead of us.

“Hey, I think I see a mountain down there!” Sanji said from where he leaned against the railing, and that was my cue to get in position, grabbing Bartolomeo as I headed for the whipstaff.

They went on as canon, Nami explaining that there was absolutely no way for there to be a mountain there and oh goodness that’s fucking HUGE .

Even from where I was manning the whipstaff I could tell Laboon was massive , dwarfing our tiny caravel by magnitudes of magnitudes.

“That’s no mountain, it’s an Island Whale! I thought they were West Blue natives, what the hell is one doing in the Grand Line?” I said as I got a good grip on the whipstaff, thwacking Barto on the shoulder to get on the same side as me.

“I see an opening! Hard to port!” Zoro cried as he came running in and took a position on the other side of the whipstaff, pushing it to the same side Barto and I were pulling.

I tapped into that metaphorical hive of bees, pushing my body to pull a little harder as the whipstaff creaked until-

“We’re through!” Nami crowed, pure joy in her voice as the whale began to sink beneath the waves.

And I bolted , pushing the power I’d drawn up further and leaping from the railing, the hatch on Laboon’s back in sight.

“This is for nearly wrecking our ship you big asshole!” I bellowed as I threw open the hatch and dove in, momentum bouncing the metal plate off Laboon’s blubber and shutting it behind me.

Nami watched as the whale dove into the ocean, the barely-christened quartermaster of the Straw Hat Pirates disappearing with it.

“He-he’s not dead , right?” Bartolomeo asked, his fanged mouth hanging open as he watched the waves churn where the whale once was.

All of them were silent in the moments after, expressions ranging between shock, horror, illness, and in Luffy’s case, rage .

“I’ll kill them.”

The statement was not, in fact, the Straw Hats captain declaring vengeance on a creature. Not was it the first mate, cook, sniper, or recently recruited mafioso. No, it came from the crew’s sole female member, the navigator Nami, with a look of bloody murder on her face.

“If they make it out of this alive, I’m going to kill them for being so fucking stupid .” She hissed, winding up for a long and loud lambasting when a sound caught her attention.

Puru puru puru

Puru puru puru

Puru puru puru

There was absolutely no fucking way this was happening.

Inside the galley next to Sanji’s knife block, ringing at an even tone, was a Transponder Snail. Its shell was a gradient of dark green to blue, eyes lazy as it made the bare minimum effort to ring.

Nami stomped over to it, picked up the receiver, and began to verbally brutalize the caller.

By the time she was done, huffing and puffing like she was about to blow down some poor pig’s house, the snail adopted a grin that the rest of the Straw Hats (besides Bartolomeo, who’d been a member of the crew for just shy of four hours now) had gotten familiar with in the week preceding their arrival in and flight from Loguetown.

“Yeesh gingersnap, tell me how you really feel why don’tcha?” Lee drawled, eyes squinted up from how wide they were smiling.

“You dived into a whale! I have a right to be mad because I thought you were the only other person on this ship with a shred of common sense but apparently you’re just another knuckle-dragging meatheaded neanderthal like Luffy or Zoro!” She shrieked, the snail in front of her sweating as spittle sprayed around it.

“ Whoa whoa, Zoro I’ll accept, but I am not as bad as Luffy! I can count to twenty without using my toes, first of all!”

“Lack of intelligence aside, where are you? Your voice is all echo-y, like it’s bouncing around.”

“My guess? I’m, eh, maybe two or three hundred meters under you guys? This whale is weird , there’s hallways and shit in it. I’m gonna see if there’s a steering wheel on this big blubbery bastard too but I’m bettin’ on it being a maze. If I’m not back in three hours, Bartolomeo’s the new quartermaster.” I said with a sigh and a shake of my head.

“Alright, I’ll give you guys a call if I find a way out. And before you say it, don’t worry. I’ve got this in hand.”

“ Lee. If you die I will personally drag you out of Davy Jones’ locker so I can send you back myself . Understood? ” Nami said over the snail, the slimy creature managing a surprisingly good facsimile of her death glare.

“Understood, ma’am.” I responded, hanging up the snail with a ka-lick and stowing it back in my vest’s inside pocket.

As the call disconnected it dawned on me that for the first time since waking up in this strange, unbelievable world, I was truly alone. No crew to depend on, nobody to mouth off to, just me.

I could feel the paranoia creeping up my back, and with a shudder I began to do the one thing I knew would keep my paranoia at bay.

“ I often take these night shift walks when the foreman’s not around …”

I began to sing as I walked down the metal-plated halls, familiar lyrics tamping down the nervous itch of fear and suspicion.

Nami was beginning to worry.

They’d docked the Merry at the little cape off to one side of the canal, and two hours had passed since Lee had hung up on her. They were capable, she knew that, they’d proven that more than once during the week they’d been on the crew already. Despite their preference to brute force things in the same vein as Luffy or Zoro, they’d proven to be levelheaded and true to their word, good with numbers. They were good for balancing books and managing inventory, knew how to delegate when something was out of their reach, could cook a more than edible meal and keep pace with the pair of monsters that were Luffy and Zoro, at least until that odd Devil Fruit they’d eaten petered out and left them with a full body charlie horse.

And that was another thing. ‘They’. She’d been incredulous at first; one person using a plural pronoun? That was odd, but the conversation they’d had after discussing it was…interesting. Zoro had made a smartass remark and gotten verbally flayed for it, but the rest of the crew took it fine.

Usopp had nodded knowingly, Sanji shrugged and took it as it was, and Luffy simply declared it a mystery before bounding off to go stir up some form of trouble.

“Nami, look!” Luffy shouted, breaking the navigator from her thoughts, eyes snapping up to watch as the ocean parted around the whale’s colossal mass.

A gate. A heavy, obviously manmade gate built into the whale’s side. One that was slowly opening, and from inside…

“Made it with time to spare!”

Lee, floating out of the whale on an island with two other people and…a flower?

“Thanks for the ride out, doc.” I said as I tossed the pair of whalers off the false island, pointedly ignoring Nami’s incensed shouting from the top of the cape.

“You took care of that pair before they could do Laboon any harm, so I see it as a fair trade.” Crocus said, smiling as he clapped me on the shoulder.

“Fair nothin’! I was skulkin’ about in the big fella’s innards just like they were, only I was looking for a way out, not a weak point. Right place at the right time’s all it was.” I said with a laugh as I crouched down, pushing that buzzing power to my legs and leaping to the top of the cape, landing right next to the enraged navigator with a heavy thump .

“-AND I’LL MAKE SURE YOU EAT EVERY BITE BEFORE SHOVING YOU HEADFIRST THROUGH A SAWMILL!” She finished, whirling to glare me down, hand drawn back for a megaton slap-

BAM!

-only for Luffy to beat her to it, thumping me over the head so hard I was left sprawled facedown in the dirt.

“Fuckin’ ow , cap’n.” I groaned, one hand coming up to prod at the newborn goose egg on my noggin.

“Don’t do that again, stupid!” My captain barked, and wow, the irony of Luffy calling someone stupid still hurts.

“Yessir, yessir… fuck that hurt.” I muttered as I stood up, blinking away the stars Luffy’s hit had me seeing.

From there things mostly progressed as canon with a few exceptions, the crew hearing the story of the Rumbar Pirates, Luffy challenging Laboon using my club instead of Merry’s mast and declaring their duel a draw, and the Nine & Wednesday pair showing up to beg for a ride…only to briefly show fear when I smiled at them.

But of course with Luffy’s boundless optimism…and carelessness, we began to sail for Whiskey Peak.

Barely half a day’s sail from the Twin Capes, and through surprisingly calm waters for the Grand Line, the trip left us ample time to talk.

“Hey,” I said as I stopped outside the galley, one hand resting on top of the doorframe as I leaned in from outside, “Sanji said you wanted to talk to me? If this is about the Transponder Snails, I’m sorry, I picked based on my own preferences when I should have-”

“That’s, that’s not why I wanted to talk to you, Lee.” Nami said from where she sat at the small table rubbing at her temples, eyes closed like she had a headache.

“Oh.” I said, succinctly summing up my own stupidity.

“Is it about the-”

“It’s about the whale, yes. You dove into a whale, literally uncharted territory, because it was in our way. If you had taken an hour longer we would have been gone and you’d be stranded here and I was scared, Lee . This crew is my family and as new as you and Bartolomeo are, you’re still apart of that.” She said, finally looking me in the eye. Her brown eyes were bloodshot like she’d been crying, the tip of her nose red where she’d likely been blowing it…

I’d caused her actual worry with my shortsightedness.

“Hey,” I said quietly as I stepped into the galley proper, resting my hand on her head, “I’ll not do it again, I promise.”

“After all, I can’t let you herd this pack of idiots alone, can I?” I chuckled before my other hand landed on her head and proceeded to ruffle her hair until it pointed in all directions much to her outrage, shrieks giving way to laughter as tears rolled down her face, this time from how hard she was laughing and not worry.

After a few minutes I sank into the seat across from her, leaning back with an easy smile on my face as she patted and finger-combed her hair back to relative smoothness.

“I needed that laugh, so thanks.” Nami said, smiling softly as she looked at me from across the table.

“Hey, I’m happy to help. Also, in the interest of total transparency to not worry you, this Whiskey Peak place is absolutely a trap.” I said as I pulled a toothpick from behind my ear and rested it in the corner of my mouth.

“Oh it’s totally a trap. I knew the moment they mentioned it.” Nami replied, resting her head in her hands as she gazed at me, or was it past me, at the sun setting behind the already visible cactus rocks of Whiskey Peak?

“Wanna rob ‘em blind?” I asked, following her gaze past Merry’s figurehead and towards the horizon.

“Have I ever mentioned you’re my favorite member of this crew? Because you are.” The navigator said as she stood, walking past me and onto the deck.

“You could stand to say it a little more often, but I’ll take what I can get.” I said as I came up beside her and rested my arm on her shoulder, toothpick in my mouth pointing upwards as I grinned.

Whiskey Peak wouldn’t know what hit them.

Chapter Text

“Always do whatever’s next.”

Seeing the Nine & Wednesday pair’s escape off the Merry was a real experience, but the real show was when we began to slowly pull into the bay.

A town that not only welcomed but celebrated pirates. If it wasn’t for the fact I knew it was packed to the gills with bounty hunters it would have been cool.

Alcohol flowing like water, food by the plateful, men and women throwing themselves at us, to anyone else it’d be heaven on earth.

Unfortunately, they weren’t dealing with anyone else.

They were dealing with us .

-Four Hours Earlier-

“Alright,” I said once the pair of frontier agents were gone, clapping my hands together loudly as Nami let out a shrill whistle to catch the crew’s attention, “Nami and I have put our heads together and it’s pretty obvious this Whiskey Peak place is a trap.”

“And because of that, we have two instructions; don’t drop your guard…and give them hell when the fight starts.” Nami said with a grin that made me think maybe her cat-burglar epithet wasn’t just referring to her kleptomania.

I tilted my head up in the middle of the night to the sounds of gunfire and steel on steel, which meant Zoro was on his rampage as planned.

I stood from the corner booth I’d wedged myself into, knocking on Bartolomeo’s skull where we was slumped over in a puddle of his own drool.

He’d taken to the crew rather quickly, settling into the niche of a musclehead who could still use his brain when pressed, which we desperately needed.

“Whozzat?” He grumbled as he sat up and wiped away the slobber off his chin, eyes still heavy with sleep.

“Zoro’s turning the bounty hunters into mincemeat, time for us to do our part.” I said as I made my way to the back of the restaurant we were in, kicking open the double doors of the back room to reveal-

“Jackpot!”

-a good-sized distilling operation, three copper-pot stills over burners and hooked up to condensers, barrels full of ale and whiskey and more importantly, grain .

“Alright, while Zoro and Luffy put those worthless bounty hunters through the thresher we’ll load up these stills and condensers and grain!” I cackled as Barto and I rolled the barrels out of storage one by one, both of us grinning like idiots.

“Pirate radio and pirate publishing have both been done, but pirate liquor’s uncharted waters!” I giggled as I rolled the first barrel out of the building and almost over the foot of a dark skinned man in a trench coat, his face turning down in a grimace as I diverted my course.

“Oh, pardon me!” I exclaimed as I continued past him and a woman in a lemon yellow dress, a parasol resting over her shoulder, only to stop just past her and backtrack, rolling the barrel of barley along with me.

“Pardon, but I adore your earrings, where did you get them? Were they a custom order?” I asked as I came closer, gesturing for her to turn her head so I might look at the lemon-shaped accessories closer.

“I had them done by a jeweler in the West Blue, the seeds are topaz, with the pith being white gold and the meat being textured yellowed silver.” She explained as I pushed my glasses up to look at the details.

“Well, they’re certainly quality craft! They’d have to be to hold up in your line of work, wouldn’t it Ms. ‘Courier’ Mikita?” I said, a wicked grin stretching across my face as her eyes widened, and seconds later all the air flew out of her with a wheeze and I was pulling my fist out of her folded over torso.

“‘Courier’ Mikita, AKA Ms. Valentine, bounty of seven and a half million beris and Gem of the Border, AKA Mr. Five, bounty of ten million beris. I’m honored Sir Crocodile would send two of his Officer Agents to deal with us but…oh, my apologies, you probably know your boss better as Mr. Zero, don’t you?” I asked as I drew my club and rested the head of it against my thigh, a grin spreading across my face as the two of them began to visibly pale.

“Well what are you waiting for? Attack me!”

The pair obliged rather easily, Mikita straightening as Gem pulled a revolver from his waistband and fired a blast of lethal air into the ground.

I tumbled back from the explosion and got back on my feet just in time to jump back as the kilo-woman landed in the space I previously occupied, a crater surrounding her.

I grinned and flipped my club so I held it properly, my stance low as I began to pull at that power seated within me and pushed it to my legs, dashing forward past Mikita and slamming my weapon into her partner’s stomach.

Only for my world to erupt in light and heat and deafening sound.

Perhaps, in retrospect, bum-rushing the human IED was a poor life decision. Perhaps, but at the time all I could wonder as I flew ass over teakettle for the second time in less than a full minute was how my wooden club was unscathed but I looked like someone who lost a fight with a bonfire.

I heard footsteps approaching as I lay in a heap, the front of my shirt and vest burnt away by Gem’s explosive reaction to my little lovetap.

“So,” Mikita said, looking me in the eyes as she planted her left heel on my forehead and began to steadily increase her weight, “any last words?”

I felt my eyes cross as she passed the ninety kilo mark, the pressure like that of the world’s worst sinus headache.

“Yeah, I admire your dedication.” I said with my jaw clenched against the pain when my eyes flicked away from hers-

“I mean lemon-print panties, too? That’s commitment.”

-and up her skirt, unclenching my jaw just enough to give a lecherous grin.

The flush that filled her face was violent, and the pressure on my skull disappeared as she lifted her leg to deliver a ten thousand kilo ax kick that would have turned my cranium into meat sauce and bone chips if I hadn’t rolled out of the way and to my feet.

I saw Gem raise his revolver again and braced to jump away from the explosive air bullet only to stifle a laugh when it exploded in the barrel, a translucent barrier blocking it as Bartolomeo joined me in the street.

“You couldn’t have joined in sooner?” I asked under my breath, only for the mafioso to scoff.

“I was loading the stills and grain on the ship.” He said with an errant flip of the bird.

“Whatever, just pick a dance partner so we can get this over with.” I muttered as I gripped my club two-handed like a bat.

Across from us Gem and Mikita, no, this was business, allow me to correct.

Across from us Mr. Five and Ms. Valentine stood stoic. Four Devil Fruit users, four Paramecia types, two of them practiced in their teamwork and two of them raw rookies in the Grand Line.

It was goddamn unfair.

Nami was having a blast . Loot stashed all throughout the town, under mattresses, in pillowcases, medicine cabinets, you name it, like an all you can steal scavenger hunt! And best of all, with Luffy and Zoro turning the streets into bedlam she was free to pilfer uninterrupted!

She knew that Lee and the new guy, Bartolomeo, were probably stealing whatever they had that passed as a distilling operation along with whatever supplies they could fit in the hold, but she couldn’t help but worry as she pried a board out of the floor to get at the wads of bills beneath it.

Bartolomeo seemed stalwart enough having apparently ran a gang back in Loguetown, and his Devil Fruit would make ship to ship combat a non-entity unless they had some way of attacking below the waterline, so it wasn’t him she was worried about.

No, after their stunt diving into Laboon Nami was worried about Lee. The whole time they’d been on the ship Lee had carried an air of disquiet, one that only got more apparent if you left them to their own devices, so she’d quickly taken to foisting odd jobs onto them.

She wouldn’t have been surprised if she was the only one to notice the disquiet, mostly because she recognized it for what it was. The fear that every breath you take might be your last. She knew it well. Knew it for the companion it had been since Bellemere’s death until Arlong’s downfall, but where she had secreted it away under layers of sarcasm and vitriol, Lee wore it as an accessory.

The fear that hovered around the quartermaster like a miasma wasn’t hidden, at least not actively. No, it was masked with overconfidence and cockiness and pointless macho bravado she’d expect from Zoro or Sanji or someone with something to prove.

She packed away the last of the bills in the burlap sack she carried and stood, leaping out one window and into another before scanning the room systematically for hiding spots or stash boxes.

But Lee did have something to prove, didn’t they? They’d declared so before ascending Reverse Mountain, when they all broke the barrel and truly became a crew.

“I’m going to survive this crazy ocean and prove the world wrong!”

They’d yelled it at the top of their lungs, struggling to be heard over the howling wind as the storm raged around them just like everyone else.

To reiterate, she was worried about Lee, and she couldn’t pinpoint - aha, found the stash - precisely why. The strongest person in the town was probably the mayor, and he still didn’t look like much of a threat, so Lee would probably be fine, right? Right.

The building rocked as something crashed into it and she fumbled to keep from dropping a handful of necklaces, biting back a curse before shouting.

“Would you morons keep the collateral to a minimum! Some of us are trying to work here!” She shrieked, ready to ream out whichever knuckle-dragger had gotten flung through a wall.

“ Sorry Nami! ” Lee, speak of the devil, yelled up through the floor, “ My dance card’s full but this young lady just won’t take no for an answer! ”

An indignant noise somewhere between a squawk and muffled scream heralded their opponent’s rebuttal.

“ You looked up my skirt you pervert! Death! Death! Death! ”

“ You had your legs spread over my head! My only options were comment on your underwear or ask if you’d like to take a seat! ” Lee replied, a sound like breaking lumber following the words as something crashed back through the same wall the pirate had entered through given how the building lurched again.

And again, this time less a lurch and more the beginning of structural collapse that had the cat-burgling navigator take a running jump out the window, praying whatever Lee had sent crashing back through the wall was a sofa or overstuffed recliner, only to land-

“ Oof! ”

“Nice of you to drop in Nami! Have a nice fall?”

-directly in said knucklehead’s arms, her bag of stolen goodies resting on her torso while Lee bolted for the Merry.

“You aren’t gonna believe this shit red, really you aren’t, me and Barto beat the brakes off these assassins and Luffy beat up the guy in rollers and Zoro beat the fuck of a nun and did you know that Wednesday chick was a princess because I sure didn’t and there's an otter and a vulture that want us dead and I’m actually really glad you fell into my arms when you did how much do you weigh by the way because either you need to gain some weight or whatever I’m doing is going to hurt like hell when it stops-” I yammered on and on, my mouth moving faster than I could think as I ran to the Merry, Nami looking more and more worried as I continued.

“Oh my god Lee are you okay? Did your Devil Fruit fritz out or something!?” She shrieked, louder than usual thanks to the way my hearing was cranked out by the whole body being shifted into overdrive thing.

“No no no this is a conscious decision on my part because if I turned it off right after the fight I’d probably pass out and you’d be hauling my paralyzed carcass back to the Merry that is to say if we didn’t die when that building did its best impression of Sanji after getting shot down.” I said as I hustled up the barrier-gangplank Bartolomeo had provided, the rest of the crew plus a blue-haired young woman and her giant duck sitting on deck.

“Nami this is Princess Nefertari Vivi and her duck Carue, Princess, duck, this is our navigator Nami, I’m going to slowly begin to wind myself down and when I’m done I’ll probably be comatose for half a day so whoever’s closest at the time please be ready to catch me.” I said, everyone looking at me like I’d just grown three different heads and they’d all begun arguing the merits of mirepoix compared to the holy trinity, another ship launching out from the bay ahead of us and Luffy waving as it sailed into the horizon.

“Oh there goes Igaram, you’re lucky Nami, you didn’t see the outfit that fella was wearing. Tell you what, corsets do not look good on dudes with his body type, Sanji’d probably look good in one, hey Sanji how much would it cost to get you to wear a corset?”

“I will slow roast you over the fires of hell, shit-gorilla.”

“Well you can’t blame me for trying.” I said, my brain finally slowing down before-

*KRA-KA-THOOM*

Igaram’s ship went up in fire and smoke, and shit got weird.

Miss All-Sunday did her schtick and I stayed back and watched while Nami climbed out of my arms finally, my Devil Fruit lowering my increased ability bit by bit until it was down to the dull blue lightning of a low-level enhancement and I deigned it time to open my dumb fucking mouth again.

“So, Miss All-Sunday, if that is your real name…read anything good lately? You look like a reader to me, ‘s why I ask. Holmes? Jekyll & Hyde? Kafka? You look like a Kafka lady. Me, I’ve spent a lot of time around historians, so my joint’s historical-” I squawked as an arm bloomed from my chest and wrapped a strong hand around my throat, “-fiction.”

“Not a fan of period pieces?” I asked as the hand squeezed tighter only to loosen suddenly as she burst into laughter.

“You are an interesting one, Mr. Quartermaster. I sincerely hope you survive what’s in your future~” She said with a girlish titter, but underneath the shadow of her cowboy hat I could see her eyes were cold and calculating, sizing up my every weakness like a hawk eyeing a helpless baby rabbit while I just stood there, glaring back as I massaged my throat.

Unfortunately for her this baby rabbit take a hell of a lot more than a holy hand grenade to handle.

With that she made her exit on turtleback, and finally free of danger-

“I’ll be passing out now, thanks. Nami, catch me.” I said as I began to sway on my feet, the woman next to me letting out a shriek as I fell.

-I let my enhancements drop, plummeting to the deck like a lead balloon as Nami yelled for someone to help her.

Son of a bitch, what a night.

Chapter Text

“Every day brings new choices.”

Nami was, to put it plainly, having a crisis.

They’d left Cactus Island behind a little over a week ago, and Little Garden was steadily becoming more visible on the horizon, but that wasn’t the cause of her situation.

Lee was.

She hadn’t been worried over the quartermaster, not any more than she’d been before leaving Whiskey Peak and setting course for Little Garden, but it was something else.

She kept having flashes of it, little moments where her heartbeat would skip thinking about how despite the speed they’d been moving in their flight to the ship, she hadn’t been jostled at all. It came to her unbidden, the feeling of wide palms, cracked and calloused hands holding her in place as they fled. The sight of their black and white bandana, the paisley print she’d called ugly mere hours before, flying off their head only for her to grab it out of the wind and stuff it in her sack of treasure, Lee’s long hair flying uncontained behind them. She still had it, stashed with the rest of her treasure, even!

With a groan she flung an arm over her eyes and melted into her deck chair. She hadn’t felt like this about anyone since Carina , and the way that entanglement ended had her less than eager to start anything similar.

Vivi gave a small gasp next to her, and soon Nami heard a familiar set of heavy footsteps approach before the owner of the steps spoke.

“Hey Nami, you-”

“-got a minute? I’ve got something I want you to try that I think you’ll like.” I said as I shook the glass jar in my hands, the clear liquid inside beading with bubbles that disappeared as quickly as they came.

Nami lifted her arm from her face and lifted her head, eyes going wide when she saw the state I was in.

“Oh, sorry for the full frontal here,” I said, gesturing to my naked upper body, “it’s hot down there in the hold, and Usopp sat my shirt on fire by accident.”

“I-it’s fine, really! What’s in the jar?” Nami asked eyes trained on the liquid inside and not me. I couldn’t blame her, not like I was ever much to look at.

“One half of my secret project. Usopp ought to be along with the other half in just a sec.” I said, just as the sniper trotted up with a bottle of whole cream nicked from the kitchen.

“Sanji let it go, but he wants to try it next.” He said, uncapping the bottle as I did the same with the jar, holding it out for him to pour the dairy in to complete the mixture.

Once the ratio was right I screwed the lid back on and gave the jar a shake, mixing the two together until I was left with a jar of something I was sure didn’t exist on the high seas.

“Milady,” I said as I handed the jar to Nami, “for your tireless service in herding these idiots.”

She mock-bowed in her seat as she took it, leaving me to lean on the railing next to Usopp while she unscrewed the lid, took a sip-

“It’s like tangerine ice cream!”

-and lit up like a fireworks show.

I smiled as she knocked back another drink of it, joyously high-fiving Usopp as he yelled down to the galley, telling Sanji to come get his payment for the cream.

“So this is why the mosshead’s been passed out on deck since morning.” Sanji said once he finally came up and saw the jar, smiling as Nami passed it over to him.

“It was let him taste test or try to fight him off, and I’m still sore from Ms. Lemonade Mouth or whatever her name was.” I said as I stretched, both my shoulders popping loudly.

Then Sanji, rather forcefully, grabbed me by the shoulder.

His face was serene, zen even, but I could tell he was a hairs-breadth from beating my ass with how his swirly eyebrow twitched ever so slightly.

“...not the face?”

I rubbed at the shoeprint on my chest as I stretched out on the bed I’d fashioned for myself in the hold, a thick comforter and two thin pillows on top of two crates full of citrus.

I’d been up all night minding the one still we had running, and after a solid thirty-two hours of wakefulness and a more than solid kick from Sanji I was ready to conk out, but my mind was unwilling, stuck on the mysterious Devil Fruit I’d eaten.

I could tell it let me increase my physical abilities and senses by some magnitude or percentage, always with a drawback, and every time I used it I was wreathed in some kind of sparking electricity, but could I use it on other things?

I reached down and grabbed my club, focusing and trying to push my power into it. When it began to glow with the dark blue of a weak enhancement I smiled, letting the power slip away as I slid it back into its sheathe.

Sleep came quickly after, and I dreamt of…well, some things aren’t meant to be shared.

“Hell of a wake up call…” I grumbled as I crawled out of bed, not bothering with a shirt and just throwing on one of my vests before I climbed up the ladder and onto the deck.

“I say, do you have any ale?” A massive figure pushing through the trees said, his beard bushy and his grin wide.

“W-we have a little?” Usopp whimpered, only to turn when I scoffed.

“We’ve got better than ale big fella,” I said with a smirk, “we’ve got home-brewed liquor and some whiskey we stole.”

The giant’s eyes lit up, only for him to shriek as a dinosaur bit him on the ass , which won it a swift decapitation.

“You bring the booze, I’ll bring the meat, and we’ll feast together! Tonight, you are guests of Elbaf’s strongest warrior, Broggy!” He crowed, belly-laughing all the while.

“Well, you heard the man! Help me get these barrels up, would you?” I said, stifling a yawn as I went back into the hold to unload our first batch of pirate moonshine.

While down there I threw the sling for my club on, cinching it over my bare chest before hefting the first of many barrels onto the cargo lift.

“So a whole year, huh?” I said around the chunk of dinosaur I was chewing. It was a little burnt and tough, but I just thought of it like alligator. An acquired taste, certainly.

On either side of me Nami and Usopp were despairing, the wimps, but a calamitous explosion broke them out of their depression, watching as Broggy strode to meet an equally massive figure, trading blows like the masters of warfare they were.

I took that moment to slip away, knowing exactly what kind of threat was lurking in the shadows of the island.

I trudged through the underbrush, club drawn in case some overgrown lizard got cocky, only to stop as I felt something bite into my leg.

I looked down and suppressed the urge to coo over my assailant.

Latched onto my calf, just barely breaking skin through the denim of my jeans, was what appeared to be a silvery-white kitten, its face splattered with blood.

“Well hey now little fella,” I said as I crouched down, prying it off my leg and picking it up, “you must have got all messy eating some meat, huh?”

I sat my club down and tried to wipe the blood away with my now freed hand, only for more to well up in its place, and then it struck me.

This kitten had been blinded by something.

My gaze snapped up as footsteps approached, a man dressed well for the prehistoric island we were on, his hair done up in a three-shaped topknot.

“Pardon me, but could you please die?” He said as he flicked blood off a pure white knife.

“Hang tight little fella.” I said as I placed the kitten in the inside pocket of my vest and picked my club up, the wood lighting up with neon pink electricity as I increased its crushing power.

“I don’t like anyone who hurts kids or animals. You’ve done both.” I said as I stood, stretching my club arm out like a batter calling his shot.

“Mr. Three, also known as ‘Loan Shark’ Galdino, worth twenty-four million beris.” I said as I took my stance and lunged.

“Your bounty is about to be very obsolete.”

With a crash my club met the ground, cratering the earth with the impact of a near-hit.

I continued to press him, dodging swipes of his wax knife while refusing to give him any chances to use his Devil Fruit.

“Come to think of it you’re partnered with a young girl, aren’t you? I wonder how Sir Crocodile likes having people like you in his organization anyhow?” I said, practically growling near the end with barely suppressed rage.

That twigged him, whether it was the unspoken accusation or the reveal of Mr. Zero’s secret will forever be a mystery, because with the opening his shock and rage gave me I slammed my club into his torso resulting in a mighty crack that made me wince slightly.

“I don’t think he’s getting up soon.” I said, slicking my hair back from my sweat-streaked forehead. My bandana had gone missing after Whiskey Peak, and I’d been left dealing with loose hair since.

“You okay in there?” I asked as I opened my vest, looking down at the curled up and sleeping kitten in my pocket.

Or would it be a cub? I couldn’t be arsed to care, only to carry it with me until I found somewhere safe to leave it.

Now where were my friends?

I’ll admit, I was lost for a while. At least until the explosions started.

I practically flew towards them, hopping roots and dodging hungry dinosaurs until I came into a clearing.

On one side stood my friends, everyone but Sanji ducked behind one of Bartolomeo’s barriers that was steadily growing more cracked as Mr. Five hammered away with his revolver, Breeze Breath Bombs blossoming all over the translucent structure. On the other side stood Mr. Five, Ms. Valentine, and Ms. Golden Week.

And I had yet to be noticed.

Black sparks began to intermingle with pink as I pushed my club’s crushing power further, and I pushed power to my legs until dark green sparks were jumping off them, and I made a repat performance as I charged, swung my club-

“Thunder Bagua!”

-and stole Kaido’s signature technique.

Compared to the version I’d performed in Loguetown this was a whole new level of destruction. The ground was trenched, one long crater following the trajectory of my swing and how it had flung the Baroque Works trio.

“Two nothin’” I said, hocking a loogie into the dirt as I stashed my club back in its sling and made my way over to the barrier.

Everyone looked like hell. Nami had light burns all over, with her shirt seeming to have sacrificed its life to save hers, Zoro was bloodied, Luffy, Usopp, and Bartolomeo were all scorched, Carue looked one step short of Peking Duck, and Vivi…

“Yeesh, princess. We better get that bandaged, before the royal visage is scarred.” I said as I helped her up from the ground, wincing at the starburst burn just under her left eye.

After that things carried on as normal. With the agents sent to pursue us left unconscious in the dirt we sailed through, and awe filled every one of us at the sight of Dorry and Broggy’s Hakoku Sovereignty gouging a path through the Island Eater.

It was late in the evening after we left Little Garden that I felt my vest begin to wriggle at the dinner table and had to stifle a laugh.

“C-captain?” I giggled, reaching into my vest.

“Sorry for doing this twice in a row, but I found us a new crewmate.” I said as I pulled out the yawning kitten, holding her aloft by the scruff as she stretched all four paws out, claws that would someday be deadly popping out as she did so.

“His name is Prince Murdermittens.”

“Shouldn’t it be Princess Murdermittens?” Barto said around a piece of Triceratops steak, gesturing with his fork to the animal’s belly.

“Seriously? Huh. Never looked.” I said, turning the blind animal towards me to confirm.

“Anyway, a ship needs a ship cat, doesn’t it? Especially with all the grain and corn we stole from Whiskey Peak, we might pick up rats.”

“Shishishi, awesome! I like cats, especially tigers!” Luffy laughed before taking a honking bite out of a shank of meat.

“...oh god my cat’s a saber-toothed tiger.” I said, going pale as I watched her flail adorably in the direction of my dinner.

“That’s definitely going to change ration calculations.” Sanji muttered, resting his forehead in one hand as he began to draw numbers in the air with the butt of his cigarette in some futile attempt at mental arithmetic.

For any other crew a day like that would have been extraordinary, but for the Straw Hat Pirates? It was an ordinary day.

Chapter Text

“Wherever you go, go with all your heart.”

Bartolomeo was, to put it simply, knee deep in a shit situation.

The people were fine, more than fine even. Usopp was good for a spare pair of hands, Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji were all reliable in a fight, Princess was still growing on him with how she liked to nibble, Lee was steady, even if they had shanghaied him, and despite her temper Nami was more reliable than anyone else on the ship.

And that was precisely why the situation was as bad as it was. Bartolomeo was used to keeping sick people in bed, Desire’s stubborn ass was good practice for shit like that, but keeping two sick stubborn morons down? Fuck, it was times like this he missed Gambia so much.

Lee and Nami were both desperately ill, fevers blazing away under their skin as they fought to live.

He could hear some commotion outside, something about a drum and a noise like tearing wood, shit, was there a fight going on out there?

He wanted to go, start cracking skulls and throwing idiots around until he felt less useless, but with Nami and Lee both down it would be foolhardy to throw himself into the fray like that. He couldn’t leave them undefended. He couldn’t .

So Bartolomeo sat between the two futons set up in the galley and kept watch while his captain fought outside, and his crewmates fought the illness inside them.

                                                                                                                                                                            is the child of an Oni.

                                                                                                                    A child that does not resemble its parents

                                                                                unloved by those who raised it.

                                                             The dragon’s child

                                  how far will it climb?

A carp climbing a waterfall

Lee fell. For how long they could not recall but Lee

                                                                               f e l l .

“I’ve seen your plan, little changeling!” A voice said, the boom of it audible over the thundering of the waterfall Lee fell opposite to.

“I applaud your boldness, from one of our kind to another, and I shall reward it! Your little plan will go off without a hitch…but not without consequences!”

A laugh shook the dark space in which water flowed and a fool fell.

“Sleep well little Oni…you’re going to need it.”

When I woke up it was to an unfamiliar stone ceiling and an old woman looking over me.

“Well! You’re right on time, aren’t you?” She said as I hauled myself into a sitting position.

“My crew?” I slurred as I scanned the room for the familiar faces of my friends, vision blurry without my glasses.

“They’re around, don’t worry. You slept through all the excitement though. That captain of yours is something, huh? Kak kak kak kak!” The old woman laughed before taking a swig off a bottle of what was likely alcohol.

“Where’re my glasses?” I asked as I threw back the covers and sat on the edge of the bed, feet recoiling from the cold stone floor even with socks on.

“Bedside table. No, the other side twerp.” The old woman snapped as I groped around, finally grabbing the gold frames and putting them on, vision clearing immediately.

“Boots?” I asked, tentatively standing despite the insanely cold floor under my feet.

“By the door. I’d hurry up and get around if I were you though brat, your friends are already on their way to the ropeway with my runaway apprentice.” The old woman, shit, Kureha , remarked as I grabbed my boots and pulled them on, securing the straps over the zipper on the side and tightening the laces.

“ Shit ,” I hissed, patting myself down and sighing in relief at my wallet and knife still on my person, “thanks for the treatment doc, I’ll send you a bottle of sakura-flavored booze as thanks!”

With that I bolted out the door, vaulting over the railing to hit the ground floor running.

A burgeoning bright blue enveloped my legs, speeding me up as I flew past the castle doors and towards the cloud of powder my friends were leaving behind.

“Heeeeey!” I yelled, upping the pace as they hit the ropeway, flinging myself into a jump that only briefly unsteadied it when I landed.

“Oof!”

I turned to the aggrieved noise, coming face to face with Nami and Princess Murdermittens.

Nami was swaddled in a familiar winter coat, black canvas-like material padded and lined with fleece three sizes too big for her, Princess’s head resting comfortably on her shoulder as she snoozed away in the attached hood.

She stole my winter coat.

“Enjoying your ill-gotten goods, cat-burglar and cat?” I asked with a grin as I turned and gave Princess a scratch under the chin. She’d gotten bigger since I’d last seen her, meaning I must have been out for more than a day.

“The fashion leaves a lot to be desired but it’s so warm.” She said, marveling at the warmth of it.

“Well duh, it’s rated for like thirty below zero. You could be in deepest circle of hell and still feel toasty in that thing.” I rolled my eyes as I spoke, stretching out what little I could in the cramped sleigh.

“So does anyone want to tell me what the fuck I missed while apparently comatose?”

“Okay, so let me get this straight,” I said as I helped Bartolomeo and Zoro lower the sails on the Merry, “Nami and I both got deathly ill, Zoro was left to navigate, you guys fought and threw an exiled king who literally ate part of our ship only to then dock at said exiled king’s home island, carry Nami and I up like a mile of sheer cliff face to one of the only doctors on the island, meet and later recruit a reindeer-human doctor, get Nami cured, beat up the king again , and you thought I was just never going to be comatose my whole life because my symptoms disappeared but I didn’t wake up so you were going to leave me on Drum fucking Island? ”

I took a few deep breaths, my voice having gone high and wheezy near the end from lack of oxygen.

“It was a medically sound idea! You were stable but comatose, and even with a doctor on the ship it…it would have been difficult to care for a comatose patient on a pirate ship.” Chopper squeaked out, still more than a little intimidated by me in sheer size alone.

“I get that, but I’m still allowed to be a grouch about it.” I said as I tied off a section of rope and plonked down on the deck, slouching against the railing.

Kestia had apparently gotten Nami and I both and of the two of us I was still feeling it. My joints were still a little achy and I got winded just a little easier, but Chopper assured me I’d be just fine with some rest.

Which was exactly my intent as we sailed away from Drum Island, taking in the sight of the cherry blossom snow drifting down as I nodded off on the deck.

Some days later, in the New World…

“YOU’VE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!” A giant of a man bellowed as he tossed a scrap of paper to the floor, horns scraping the ceiling of the room as he stood. Quickly a shorter figure scrambled out of the shadows to pick up the discarded paper, disappearing as quickly as he appeared as another massive figure made to pacify the horned giant.

“It’s true-dasuyan! The young master had me come as soon as he found out!” The man said, frantically waving his hands as if the motion would help at all.

“I can’t believe that woman! She hid a child from me all these years, my own son!” Kaido yelled, veins bulging in his forehead as he sat back down.

After a few minutes he spoke again.

“I want you to deliver a message to Joker for me. Tell him that if he brings me this supposed son of mine, I’ll…hell, he can name the terms! Just let him know I want that boy, and I want him as fast as possible!”

He punctuated his words with a slam of his fist, the entirety of the building shaking with the blow.

Elsewhere on Onigashima, Yamato couldn’t help but grin.

“I have a brother…” He said as he looked at the figure on the bounty poster.

He was fiercely posed, a flat wooden club held outstretched and dull blue lightning crackling across his body as he sent a Marine barricade sky-high in a single swing, dark hair flying wild behind him and a cocksure grin on his face. “Son of the Beast” Lee, worth 24 million beris. A fairly meager start, certainly, but Yamato was proud nonetheless.

“Is this how Ace feels about his little brother?” He wondered aloud, eyebrow raised and expression ponderous.

And far away on a little caravel, four fishing idiots had a positively queer catch.

Chapter Text

Quartermaster’s Journal Entry 01: The Pronoun Conversation

“Holy hell, I figured out why we keep fuckin’ up on communication here.” I said as I passed yet another freshly peeled potato over to Sanji and picked up another spud.

The chef next to me made an inquisitive noise, curly eyebrow raised in curiosity.

“You’re classically trained . You learned from dudes in funny hats and matching outfits, I learned from watching my ma carry on an argument with my pops from three rooms away while she made food that’d stick to your ribs like cement.” I said, sweeping a pile of potato peelings into the bag at my feet. Kitchen scraps make good compost.

“So what’s the difference?” Sanji asked, turning his head to look at me at last.

“Question for a question, what’s the Holy Trinity?” I asked back, one corner of my mouth upturned into something sly.

“The mirepoix? Carrot, celery, and onion. Any good chef knows that.” He answered, now positively puzzled.

“And there’s the difference,” I said, smiling genially as I placed another peeled potato in front of him, “I say Holy Trinity, you recite the mirepoix.”

“So what’s your ‘Holy Trinity’ then?” Sanji said with a roll of his eyes as he went back to dicing the potatoes for the stew.

“Onion, bell pepper, celery, and garlic.”

“Bullshit, that’s four. You said it was a trinity.” The blond said as he fully turned to me, arms crossed and a disbelieving look on his face.

“Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and the Pope in that order. Pretty simple, honestly.” I said as I shrugged, as if to say ‘what can you do?’.

“Luffy are you sure we need this guy?” Sanji turned to the captain and asked, distracting him from the particularly tough piece of salt pork he was gnawing on.

“Nah, we’re keeping him.” Luffy said before resuming his gnawing, the quiet grinding of tooth on meat an acceptable background noise for the kitchen.

“It’s them, actually.” I supplied before going back to my potato peeling, only to jump when Zoro spoke.

“Don’t tell me there’s more of you.” Zoro said from where we has slumped against the wall of the galley sharpening his katana.

“Top of your head face north?”

“...what?” Zoro asked, lowering the Wado to look me in the eye.

“I said, ‘does the top of your head face north?’. The reason I ask is some kinds of moss grow only on the north sides of trees, and I figure you’re dumb enough for some lichen to mistake you for an oak or something.” I said from where I leaned against the countertop, the potato peeler in my hand looking all the world like a stiletto.

Sanji, meanwhile, was gawping at me.

“I take everything I’ve ever said about you back-”

“What the fuck have you been saying behind my back dartboard boy?”

“-you’re my second favorite member of this crew now.” Sanji finished, unbothered by acerbic interruption.

Two guesses who the first one was.

“...are there more of you?” Luffy asked quietly, weirdly subdued compared to normal, but I blamed that on the lack of edible meat.

“Just between you and me cap’n? I’m actually three opossums and a raccoon in a convincing person suit, just don’t let anybody know.” I said quietly, leaning towards him conspiratorially.

The rubber captain just nodded sagely, and somehow I knew he understood.

Quartermaster’s Journal Entry 02: The Liquor Thing

“So…why liquor?”

I turned to Usopp with a flat look, resting bitch face at full power as I looked away from the jar that was steadily filling with clear liquid.

“Because I don’t have the equipment nor voice for pirate radio, and you couldn’t pay me to steal a friend’s gimmick so pirate publishing’s out the window, so I’m sticking with what I know.” I said as I swapped out the jars, handing the filled one to Usopp.

“And what you know is…” He drew it out, waiting for me to fill in the answer.

“Alcohol.” I said as I looked briefly from the steadily filling jar to the small pellet burner under the still. Still running just fine, no need for more fuel yet.

“I know alcohol, and I also know a lot of powerful pirates are heavy drinkers. Kaido, Whitebeard, Red-Hair, I know those three like their drink, and they’re Yonko, Emperors of the Sea.” I said as I passed the next jar to Usopp and placed another one under the stream of clear fluid.

“That and it’s a good way to pad our coffers.”

“So that’s how you got Nami to sign off on it.” Usopp said as he dumped the jar into the whiskey barrel we were using for storage.

“I mentioned that since all our equipment and ingredients are stolen the first couple runs are pure profit and I swear she started sparkling with joy. And drooling.” I said as I took back the jar and passed him a full one.

“That is…” Usopp started, lips drawn back in an uncomfortable expression.

“Speaking candidly it was kinda cute. The sparkling part, not the drool.” I appended my statement, locking eyes with the sniper as silence (aside from the rhythm of the thump keg and the trickle of whiskey) reigned in the hold.

“I was going to say uncomfortable, but I’m not going to judge.” The marksman said with a nod, directing his attention to the nearly filled status of our barrel.

“You’d better not. Bad form to judge a different turd floating in the same sewer.” I remarked as I reached over and turned off the fire as the last drops of liquor fell into the jar.

Usopp to began to stammer as I stood, and I cut him off with a look.

“Walls are thin, Usopp. I dunno who this Kaya gal is, but…well, I hope she misses you as much as you miss her.” I said as I dumped the last of the whiskey into the barrel.

“Now help me seal this fucker, we can’t lose another barrel to Zoro looking for a nightcap.”

Quartermaster’s Journal - Supplementary Entry 01: “Son of the Beast” Lee

Personal Information

- Height: 6’ / 182 cm

- Weight: 350 Lbs. / 159 Kg.

- Chest Size: 58” / 147 cm.

- Birthday: September 9th

Preferences

- Favorite Food: Boiled sweet corn with butter and black pepper

- Least Favorite Food: Side bacon (too crispy) and beans (too mushy)

- Favorite Dish to Cook: Bar snacks

- Island/Season: Summer on a Winter Island

Other Information

- Flower Resemblance: Yucca

- Animal Resemblance: Water Buffalo

- Bathing Schedule: every night before bed

- Specific Number: 150

Chapter Text

“There is no fool like a careless gambler who starts taking victory for granted.”

We were about half a days walk outside of Nanohana when the heat began to take its toll on us.

We had three barrels of pure corn liquor, a twenty-four count case of tangerine liqueur, three dozen sampler jars of both, and a wad of beris the size of a newborn stuffed at the bottom of my bag. We also had more than a few souvenirs picked out with spare profit, gifts for the crew and ourselves to prove our liquor venture had merit to it as more than a hobby. 

Salt shakers full of a coterie of spices for Sanji, a sack of dried peppers for Usopp, a weatherbeaten book of pirate tales for Chopper, an assortment of dried exotic fruits and their seeds for Nami, for Zoro we’d acquired a plain bottle of alcohol so potent the smell of it killed insects, and for Luffy we’d simply bought a necklace with a lacquered wooden skull hanging from it. And of course we’d purchased a simple leather collar for Princess Murdermittens, who sat at the top of my pack shaded by the cloth lid, curled up and keeping guard as well as a blind saber-toothed tiger cub could. As an aside, the cat had proven remarkably intelligent, able to navigate the ship with ease after only a few short hours of residency. She kept out from underfoot and showed up precisely at mealtime for her portion, and always seemed to know when someone needed something furry to cheer them up when Chopper was otherwise occupied.

Perhaps if I’d paid more attention to her rustling in my backpack we could have avoided what was coming.

The heat had been bogging us down significantly, unused to the beating sun and cloudless sky of Alabasta and its dry air. We’d purchased light clothes for the day and heavy cloaks for at night, when the cold would be liable to frostbite us if we weren’t careful, and as the sun hit what I’d approximate to be about half past six, I called it time for a stop. The sun was still beating down on us so we postponed it until we were in the shadow of a rock outcropping, a mesa of some sort that cast a long shadow cool enough I began to shiver ever so slightly.

Bartolomeo was grateful for it, his constitution unsuited to the dryness of the air. His septum piercing had come out around hour five, after the second nosebleed from the lack of humidity.

He’d groaned out some apology for slowing us down but I didn’t catch it at the time, too concerned with surviving this blasted heat.

I realized as we pulled our sled full of booze to a stop that we weren’t alone in the shade of mesa. Another traveler, heavily cloaked and hooded, sat further in in the darker shadows. I couldn’t tell from afar but as we drew closer I realized it must have been a child, with their height and the way their skinny legs kicked as they sat atop a small boulder..

Eventually we reached the base of the mesa in the deepest shadow, cold enough I could feel the prickle of goosebumps on my skin. Princess was nearly writhing now in my bag, and as I sat down on our wooden sled of liquor I pulled my bag to the front at almost the same time the stranger stood up.

I unbuttoned the bag and she shot out, bounding across the sand with claws out lunging for the stranger only to be punted a good fifteen feet into the air.

With the motion her hood came down, revealing the bedraggled head of someone I’d never wanted to see again, a snarl on her childish face as her companion continued to stumble forward.

Goldenweek threw off her cloak as Bartolomeo and I scrambled. We were addled by the heat, and slower to react than we should have been. My club was only half out of its sling when a familiar white blob came flying at me, caught on the opposite side of a hastily erected barrier.

My eyes darted around, searching for Galdino, but when I couldn’t spot him I just asked her plain.

“Where’s that partner of yours? Taking shots from a distance?” I asked her, eyes trained on the palette and brush held in one hand.

Her answer came with another glob of wax, this one I dodged and finally saw where it had come from.

The sand shifted as the lanky and haggard figure of Mr. Three arose, looking all the world like a jigsaw with a few pieces missing.

His eyes were bloodshot and his jaw misaligned, bloody bandages covering his body and fat blobs of liquid wax dripping from his stomach and arms.

“I’m right here…” He gurgled, like his throat was full of fluid he couldn’t hack up, and another three globs of wax came hurtling at us from his torso.

“I’m going to kill you for what you did to me…yes,” he said, voice bubbling with fluid and venom both, “your head should be enough to please Sir Crocodile!”

With a roar he moved, flowing like a human wave of wax and crashing against Barto’s barrier only to surge over it, manic grin on his disfigured face as a waxy hand stretched towards me.

I made to leap away only for the sand to slip beneath my boots, sending me sprawling on the ground as the hand made contact.

As the wax hardened around me I let out the only cry I could.

“Bart! Run! ” I bellowed, the wax slowing only a moment before it wrapped around my throat and I clamped my mouth shut. I heard his hasty retreat and prayed my suffocation was quick, sending up one last wish to whoever was listening as the world went dark in my candle tomb.

‘Don’t die…please don’t die.’

On the other side of the Sandora river, as he threw another shovelful of sand out of the hole, one young man looked up with confusion.

“Hey old man, did you hear something?” He asked, a flicker of worry crossing his features.

“Not a thing but my own shoveling. Why?” Toto responded, curiosity plain in his voice.

“Aah, it’s probably nothing then.” Luffy said as he went back to shoveling, but a single thought lodged itself in his head.

Why had he just heard Lee talking?

Elsewhere in Yuba Nami sat up with a start, looking around frantically.

“Lee..?” She whispered, replaying the dream that had jolted her awake.

She shook her head and looked up at the night sky and the twinkling stars.

The day’s heat was just making her have weird dreams, that was all it could have been.

Right?

I looked around in confusion when I came back to consciousness, breathing greedily and trying to suck down all the air I could as my lungs burned.

“Calm down now,” a voice said from close by, “you’ll have all the air you could ever want in a little bit.”

I looked over toward the voice and saw a figure, one I’d only seen in person once in my life but would recognize by presence alone.

He sat at a campfire, perched on half a log and swigging from a jar of clear liquid as he looked at me over his shoulder.

“Well? Sit a spell, you’ve got some time. Been a while since I seen you anyhow.” He said as he waved me over, and not wanting to be disrespectful to one of the people I admired I obliged.

“So,” I said as I settled down on the other side of the campfire, “how’ve you been?”

The man across from me was dark-haired, with an easy smile on his face and a kindness in his eyes unlike any other. He was a worn man, the lines and wrinkles of a life of hard work plain on his face, but he carried it like a badge of honor.

“Laughing myself sick at you and your friends. You guys are more fun than a barrel of monkeys, tell you what.” He said with a chuckle.

“Ain’t been able to watch you lately though. Every time I or Emma-Jean go to take a look some feller with no face and a big grin tells us to back off, and I’d hate to get her in any mess, y’know? I do know, however, that you’ve been making some fantastic whiskey. No burn in the back, no scorch, just good clean corn liquor.” He smiled as he spoke, looking at the jar in his hand with pride.

“So grandson…what’ve you been up to?”

I laughed and settled in, accepting that this was it for me. My adventure had run its course.

“Well grandpa, it all started when I woke up after a night out not knowing where I was…”

Bartolomeo hated himself.

He could feel the self loathing bubbling up in the back of his throat like bile as he limped through the shadowy dunes. His leg felt - wrong, like something had been torn or knocked out of socket, and it was slowing him down something fierce, and he wanted to vomit he hated himself so much.

When Lee had bellowed at him to run, he had fled like a coward. He should have stayed, should have fought with his nakama and then maybe they would have survived but-

Bartolomeo retched dry, vomit splattering on his shoes and the sand

-he had ran like a coward.

Dawn was beginning to break then, and in the distance he could see the Sandora river glittering. Just a bit farther. Just a bit farther and he’d be able to make it to his crew and beg their forgiveness.

The lowest circle of Hell belongs to betrayers and mutineers, and as Bartolomeo dragged himself down the dunes, his leg throbbing with pain and his throat burning with acid, he wondered which circle cowards who leave their friends to die go to.

Princess Murdermittens, as her two-legs had named her and her two-legs’s two-legs had called her, was not an average animal.

Little Garden was such a place that one of her coloration, white as clouds and baby bird down, did not often survive long, often used as food by their littermates.

She was the last of her litter, and had survived her mother too, and had spent her time until the vicious two-legs had stolen her sight steadily climbing up the food chain.

Then, her two-legs had saved her. It had picked her up and carried away and battered the Vicious One and taken her into its nest with its littermates.

The kindness she had been shown was immeasurable, but for one born of prehistory such a thing could not go unrepaid.

So she struggled, toddling unsteadily to the scent of her two legs, something like and unlike sight guiding her to the shape of it. It was dampened by the Vicious One’s gross liquid, but she would save her two-legs.

A life for a life. It had saved hers, and she would pay her debt in full.

For hours she bit and scratched at it, but it was not until the sun had risen once and fallen twice that she succeeded.

As the sun slid below the horizon, the shell cracked.

My vision blurred for a moment, the world tilting on its axis, and my grandfather chuckled.

“Looks like our time’s about up don’t it?” He said with a smile as he sat down the jar and stood up.

I stood with him, unsteady, and tried to speak to no avail.

“Now, don’t worry. I’ll say hi to Emma-Jean and Chester and all of ‘em for you, but you better come back with me when your adventure’s really over. Tell ‘em all about it yourself.”

I reached out a hand, grasping for my grandfather as the ground beneath me began to fall away, and all I could hear was his farewell.

In the Alabastan desert about half a days walk from Nanohana in the darkest shadow of a mesa, as the sands burned with the sunrise, a figure stood from a waxen tomb.

-30 Hours Have Passed-

-Time Until Alabasta Is Consumed By War: 6 hours-

Chapter Text

“No more shall man have wings to bear him to paradise. Henceforth, he shall walk.”

On the prehistoric island of Little Garden, far in the future, it would be recorded by a certain doctor that in times of great stress or exertion, the fauna of the island experience a dramatic increase in their growth rate. This explosion in growth would previously only be observed once, in a specific subject belonging to a certain pirate crew.

At the steps of one of Alubarna’s gates sat a sled, and atop that sled sat a person.

Smoke curled in the air above their bowed head, long dark hair matted with blood and sweat hanging in front of their face. Ash fell from the tip of the cigarette they held and a growl sounded from nearby, prompting a sputtering laugh from the figure.

“No no, not yet princess.” The person chuckled, the sound like broken glass dragging across cobblestone.

“Soon, though. I can feel them.” They said, head raised just enough to stare out across the burning sands of the desert with bloodshot yellow eyes.

Galdino felt uneasy.

Perhaps that understated it. Disquieted might have been more accurate, a constant chill crawling up and down his spine, as if someone were standing on his grave.

Goldenweek, ever the professional and skeptic, brushed it off as his Devil Fruit’s recent change settling in, but he wasn’t inclined to agree.

It only grew stronger as they trekked to Alubarna from Rainbase, their tentative marching orders from Sir Crocodile sending them to reinforce the other Officer Agents and sow havoc in the battle between the rebel and royal armies.

And it was as the walls came into view that it stopped.

Perhaps stopped is the wrong way to say it.

Because, you see, Galdino never was and would be a superstitious man.

But he knew an omen when the chill up his spine was replaced with a bone deep terror.

“Goldenweek,” he said, a quiver in his voice, “we need to turn back.”

His companion scoffed, derision such as that the only emotion he could rely on her to show.

“And why would that be? Are you scared?” She asked, the question punctuated by a dry chuckle.

Galdino’s silence spoke louder than any words could.

“You are scared.” She said, jaw dropping slightly as her partner stepped back.

“I should have left you to die in that godforsaken jungle,” she started as she rounded on him fully, prepared to lambast Galdino for his cowardice when a shadow fell over her.

“Like you left us for dead?” A voice said behind her, and Galdino shrieked.

She began to turn to face the speaker and all color drained from her face as a pair of hands landed on top of her head.

“Oh no no,” the person behind her spoke in a voice like cracking stone as they gripped her skull, “don’t look, it’s all the more fun to guess.”

“Am I the merchant family you so callously killed for the robes you’re wearing? Am I your dear, sweet mother, who died trying to keep you away from the life you fell into? Or maybe,” the person said, voice echoing within itself as their grip tightened to the point of pain and tilted her head up to meet their eyes, “I’m the poor pirate you murdered on a pointless grudge over one lost fight, someone who on the whole didn’t care about either of you.”

Goldenweek stared into unblinking bloodshot yellow eyes, the shattered lenses of the glasses the person looking down at her wore splitting them into mismatched fractals, puzzle pieces out of place and out of sequence.

She began to stammer, the words there but not coming to her mouth as her eyes grew wide.

“Y-you-you’re…!”

“As far as you’re concerned,” the thing in human skin said as its grip grew tighter, black sparks flickering in the air on either side of her head, “I’m the Grim fucking Reaper.”

Galdino watched in horror, frozen with the kind of primal fear that kills deer on busy highways, as the thing’s fingers sank in through warm blood that steamed against the monster’s sparking hands and into his partner’s cranium.

Her eyes began to bulge, blood vessels bursting as a sick cracking noise filled the air and more blood spilled over the digits digging into her skull.

She made a sickening noise as its fingers flexed inside her head, something between a deathrattle and the creak of stressed bone before it stopped. Like the calm before the storm the silence was brief, only the bloodshed of the war behind them filling the air like some form of brutal white noise before it resumed.

And Miss Goldenweek’s head exploded, gray matter splattering the ground and blood soaking into the sand.

“Calm down, calm down,” the thing said as it let the young woman’s body drop, “her suffering was brief, her death fleeting. She should be thankful her death was so quick.”

“You, however, your suffering will be far longer. You will go through much more excruciating things than her, but not at my hands. No no, my time here is nearly over, so I will leave you to others more suited for you.” It said as it turned away, the invisible pressure that had weighed on Galdino’s shoulders slipping away as it disappeared.

“Mr. Zero killed your boss hours ago! And another one of your bunch got snuffed out by that wretch Three!” Ms. Merry Christmas cackled as her grip tightened on Usopp’s ankle, thin rivulets of blood spilling into his shoes as her claws dug into the skin.

“Luffy and Lee aren’t dead! Lee said they were going to survive the Grand Line! Luffy’s going to be King of the Pirates! Neither of them can die!” He yelled, the conviction in his voice unwavering.

“Don’t make me laugh! Making claims like that on the Grand Line, those upstarts deserved to die!” The mole woman shouted, and she began to burrow, draggin Usopp along as he began to yell.

“There’s a time in every man’s life where even if he’s scared to death of his enemy, even if there’s no chance of winning,” he screamed, words slurring as he was dragged through several walls and sent flying by Mr. Four’s bat, “there comes a time when a man’s gotta fight!”

“You took a hit from a four ton bat! You shouldn’t be alive, let alone standing!” Ms. Merry Christmas shrieked as Usopp faced her down, blood trailing from his wounds.

“That time is when somebody makes fun of his friends’ dreams! That’s the one thing I can’t let you laugh at!”

“Your captain and crewmate are both already dead,” Ms. Doublefinger said as she stared down the alley at Nami, “so just die like a good girl and go join them, hm?”

Nami grit her teeth and raised her staff to guard, expression thunderous.

“If you think those two morons are smart enough to die then you’re all boobs and no brains.” She spat as she began to release heat and cool balls one after the other, a fat thunderhead forming above the thin stretch of street they stood in.

Mr. One wheezed as he fell, barely supporting himself on his knees as Zoro stumbled away behind him.

“You actually improved…what’s next, cutting through diamond?” He chuckled through the blood welling up in his mouth, red liquid spilling onto the ground beneath him.

“Are you kidding me? Our navigator and quartermaster would skin me if I wasted a jewel like that.” The swordsman chuckled as he untied his bandanna, a grin on his face as he collapsed to the ground himself.

Gunshots rang out in the palace square, and the chaos that had so briefly paused sprang into motion once more.

A young woman was dropped, dreams disappearing like sand in the wind.

And from the sun came a war cry of freedom.

“CROCODILE!!”

When I woke up, it was all over.

“How long-” I croaked out before my lungs seized and I began to cough, Nami rushing to my side with a glass of water.

“You’ve been out for three days. Luffy just woke up a couple hours ago and he’s already eating Vivi out of house and home with the others.” She said once the glass was empty.

I barked out a laugh before I pushed myself upright.

“So what did I miss? What happened to Princess? Last I remember one of the Baroque Works stooges from Little Garden was bearing down on me and she’d been kicked like a damned football.”

“Princess is…fine,” Nami said with an odd look on her face, “and we…”

She choked back a sob, tears welling at the corners of her eyes.

“Lee, we thought you were dead . Bartolomeo met us at the Sandora River saying you’d been killed by that Three guy, and Luffy was fighting Crocodile, and…”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” I said, gently resting my hand on Nami’s back, “Luffy won, didn’t he? And I’m alive, so it all worked out okay!”

“No, it’s not okay.”

I looked up as the door clicked shut and Chopper stood there in front of it in his Heavy Point, face drawn up in an uncharacteristic grimace.

“We found you laying on top of the sled covered in blood. I ran tests and it was yours and someone else’s. Bartolomeo’s only injury was a broken leg from falling down a dune, Princess was virtually unharmed, and I doubt you got any fights in the state you were in.” He said, teeth audibly grinding.

Images flashed in my head, the desert horizon, Mr. Three, Goldenweek, the feeling of another person’s gray matter collapsing under my touch.

With a wet splatter the contents of my stomach landed on the stone floor, my eyes wide and my heart racing.

“I…I think I did get into a fight.” I whispered, my stomach twisting as I looked down at my hands.

“Not to compound bad on bad,” Nami said, and I heard a piece of paper unfolding, “but we found this in the newspaper.”

Held in front of my face was a bounty poster.

My bounty poster.

“Son of the Beast” Lee, worth 24 million beris. Wanted only alive, with charges of assault, theft, destruction of government property, and evading arrest. Thought to be…

I felt bile climb my throat and swallowed it down.

Thought to be the son of the World’s Strongest Creature, Kaido of the Beasts.

“Well,” I said, a shaky smile on my face as I took the poster from Nami, “I guess the cat’s out of the bag, huh? Though I guess it ought to be ‘Second Son’ considering my brother…”

“I promise I’ll tell you guys everything, just…not tonight. When we leave, once we’re out of Alabastan waters I’ll give you the full story. Okay?”

Nami and Chopper both nodded, and I smiled, genuinely this time.

The rest of the evening went by in a blur, until we were convened in the room we’d been lent.

“So we’re leaving immediately…” I said from where I was leaned against Princess’s bulk.

Her growth spurt was a marvel to me, our little ship cat grown up in a flash.

“It’s the best course of action. We can’t keep hanging around with the Navy on our tails.” Nami said, and I nodded along.

“We’ll haul ass to the ship, get it back from Bon, and then get on to whatever’s next. Simple enough for a bunch of idiots like we’ve got.” Sanji said, grinning around his cigarette as he gave a pointed look at certain members of the crew.

The answering roar from Luffy, Zoro, Bartolomeo and I was deafening.

But we were in agreement.

It was when we were finally out of Alabastan waters, no Navy on our tail, that it really started.

“Come on, you said you’d tell us so tell us!” Luffy whined, a childish pout on his face.

“Not yet, not yet. I’m waiting for one last person to show up.” I said as my hands meandered across Princess’s back, fingers sliding through her thick fur.

“Huh? Me, Luffy, Nami, Sanji, Chopper, Zoro, Bartolomeo, and Princess are all here! Who could you be waiting on?” Usopp asked, counting the crew off on his fingers before a feminine chuckle answered him.

“Could you perhaps mean me, Mr. Quartermaster?” Ms. All Sunday said as she climbed out of the hold, one of my shirts hanging off her like a dress.

I held in my laughter as the rest of the crew (bar Princess, who was purring in her sleep as a handful of hands began to pet her) had their freakout

“Just so happens I did mean you. Now before I start, are you going to answer my question from before, or not?” I asked, an easy smile on my face.

“What question was that?”

“Read anything good lately? I picked myself up a compilation book of Sora, Warrior of the Sea. Pure propaganda, but it makes for decent fiction.” I said with a dopey smile.

“Ah. In that case, yes, but I feel like I’m about to hear a much better story.” She said with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Right, then I’d best get everyone to settle down.” I said before letting out a sharp whistle.

As the crew settled down, I began to spin my story.

“Now, I’ll be honest, I never lied to you guys. I just omitted some details. My parents, or at least my mother and the man I considered my father, owned a shipping company. They worked for Kaido, one of the Four Emperors in the New World, shipping the weapons he would manufacture all over the world. Kaido and my mother had…a relationship, at one point, and I was what came of it. He never knew I was his. I never intended for him to know I was his, especially after my folks passed, but with my bounty poster out there he definitely knows now. Hell, after what happened in Alabasta we’ve probably all got bounties.”

That last tidbit made certain members pale and others whoop with joy, and I laughed along with them.

I had told the truth, I had given them some answers, and as the day carried on we went about our business, one crewmate richer and free of any pursuers.

Some days later…

Nami let out a noise of concern as she opened the newspaper.

“What’s up? Something the matter?” I asked as I stepped out of the galley, the empty frames of my glasses holding my hair back.

“New bounties are out.” She said, and I nodded before heading over to the railing.

“NEW BOUNTIES ARE POSTED! COME AND GET ‘EM!” I bellowed, voice carrying over the ship.

“Usopp, Chopper, and I came out clean, no bounties for us,” Nami said as she began to spread the posters out on the table once everyone was assembled, “and Princess doesn’t have a bounty either, thank goodness.”

“Luffy, looks like you’re up to a hundred million. That’s pretty damn good. Zoro, you’re bountied at 60 million, good start, and Sanji you’re wanted at 35 million. Bart, 34 million. And I’m…” I sighed as I looked at my poster, the picture unchanged but the number…

“And my bounty went up to an even 40 million. Great, now more idiots are going to be after me.” I sighed, the heels of my palms rubbing at my eyes.

“Can’t we take a vacation? No fighting shady organizations or saving countries, please.” I begged, almost pleaded.

“Well, we’re on course for where this Dead End Race thing is being held. The prize is 300 million beris!”

I lowered my hands and looked at Usopp, and then pointedly looked at Nami, whose eyes had become beri signs.

“Well, we know how this is going to end.” Zoro said as he leaned against the wall, his head hitting it with a thunk.

“Yeah. Stupidly.” Sanji sighed as he lit up his cigarette.

Things couldn’t get that bad with a simple race.

Could they?

Chapter Text

Quartermaster’s Journal - Supplementary Entry 01: Princess Murdermittens

Personal Information

• Height: 3’ at the shoulder, 3’ 10” at the top of her head, 5’ 10” standing on her back paws
• Weight: 468 Lbs./
• Eyes: Blinded and scarred shut, but previously they were red.
• Fur Color: White
• Birthday: December 5th

Preferences

• Favorite Food: Dinosaur meat, but she’s coming to like sea king meat too
• Least Favorite Food: Anything leafy (can’t chew it well)
• Favorite Dish to Cook: Wild animal, freshly killed
• Island/Season: Winter on a Summer Island

Other Information

• Flower Resemblance: Snapdragon
• Bathing Schedule: Intermittently throughout the day
• Specific Number: 29
• Favorite People (in order): Lee, Nami, Sanji, Zoro, Bartolomeo, Luffy, Usopp, Chopper

Devil Fruit Research Files - Rev-Rev Fruit

Appearance - Roughly shaped like a pear and puce in color, the fruit transitions from its dusty pink complexion to five different colors as it nears the stem, which is shaped similarly to a ripcord. First it transitions to a dark blue, then a brighter shade of blue, then dark green, a fluorescent shade of pink, pitch black, and then a small circle of white around the stem. Like most devil fruits, it is covered in swirls and near the bottom it has small protrusions like the teeth of a saw.

Abilities - So far, this particular Devil Fruit has demonstrated the ability to increase the user’s abilities by a certain percentage, illustrated by a cloud of colored sparks that surround them similar in appearance to weak fireworks. At the lowest percent increases these sparks are a dark blue, and at the highest recorded they were a black the same color as the space between stars, as if they were sucking in light. Curiously, the user can also increase the attributes of objects they hold, such as the cutting power of a sword, the firing power of a rifle, or the hardness of a shield. Due to the percentile increase nature of this power, I have elected to name it the Rev-Rev Fruit, as its power resembles an engine “revving up”.

Speculations - I suspect the five colors on the fruit itself correlate to the five brackets of power the user can access, though that ignores the white ring near the stem. This leads me to believe that perhaps under the correct circumstances one could go beyond 100%. Could this be the so-called “Awakening” of this Devil Fruit?

• Excerpt from the journal of Dr. Vegapunk, date unknown.

Expanded Character Profile - “Son of the Beast” Lee

Originally the son of a factory worker and freight hauler, Lee grew up enamored with fiction and literature. Reading voraciously throughout their school years, Lee fell in love with manga as a form of storytelling, particularly One Piece. Throughout their life Lee wanted to be an author and tell the kind of story that grabs people and makes them pay attention, but with both parents chronically busy the young hopeful storyteller was left with a desperate need for attention, which led the way it does for most children; lying.

This is evident even today in several remarks, such as their saying to Usopp “from one bullshit artist to another”, as Lee, even as an adult, has a habit of stretching the truth or outright forgoing it if it better suits them to lie. After nearly two decades of such behavior, fabricating a story is almost effortless for them, as displayed with their off-the-cuff and totally false story about being Kaido’s bastard with a woman who shipped weapons for him…which was made retroactively true by the God of Assholes.

Lee came into liquor making by way of their maternal grandfather and uncles, who kept an eye on the child while their parents were busy. As Lee grew, in addition to literature they came to enjoy the science of making alcohol, and kept it up even after their grandfather’s death.

The reader might perhaps wonder why Lee didn’t tell the actual truth to the crew, and the answer is simple. Insecurity. Although they projected relaxation outwardly, internally they were quaking in fear. The predominant thought in their mind was “I’m not charismatic enough for them to believe me, so I need to lie.”. If they had told the truth, perhaps they wouldn’t meet so much trouble down the road…

Chapter Text

"One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die."

Bartolomeo had realized, way back in Loguetown when he’d first seen Lee blow away a blockade of Marines in one hit, that they weren’t quite fit for plain old street fighting.

But a bar brawl? Oh, they were hell on wheels. Any combination of a hundred plus kilos of pirate and strong alcohol is a terminal threat to anything within arm’s length - but when that pirate is in fact the profoundly angry quartermaster of a ship full of madmen, with no fear at all of anything that walks, swims, crawls or flies in this world after three shots of liquor so potent the vapors kill plant life - you have a serious piece of work on your hands. Especially when the bastard has five hundred pounds of hungry tiger at their elbow and facing down a similarly drunk and belligerent redhead who’s shoulder to shoulder with a masked stab-jockey ready to leap into action.

Bartolomeo took a sip from his mug, the tingle of the carbonation in his beer making his nose twitch, before he looked at one person at his table specifically.

“So has your taste in romantic interests always been this unhinged, or is Lee a one-off for you?” He said, taking another sip as Nami flushed bright red and began to fumble her words.

“I believe what Ms. Navigator is trying to say,” Robin butted in, not looking at the others at the table but instead at the slowly increasing tension over yonder, “is that this is in fact par for the course.”

-24 Hours Earlier-

I jerked awake with a gasp, only narrowly avoiding a concussion as I leaned around a support beam.

In the days since we’d left Alabasta my dreams had been dreadful. Expanses of black space echoing with laughter, the roar of a dragon and the rush of a waterfall, and worst of all the roaring boom of drums.

But those weren’t the worst dreams. Those were the ones of people I was slowly forgetting, faces faded like etchings lost to erosion and the unceasing passage of time.

I shook the last of sleep from my mind and sat up on the side of my makeshift bed. It seemed tonight, at the very least, a scant handful of hours unconscious was all I would get.

I pulled on my boots, lacing them tight and tucking the lace ends into my socks before I headed for the trapdoor and hauled myself up the ladder.

The moon illuminated the deck of the Merry in the blue-white of silver and indigo shadows, the only sounds the creak of the ship on the waves, my own labored breathing and the quiet turn of a page.

“Good evening Quartermaster,” Nico Robin said from where she sat in a moonbeam, olive skin dyed a shade paler in its light, “having trouble sleeping?”

“Of a sort.” I said, answering her question in a low and rough voice. Low, so as to not wake up the rest of the crew. Rough, from the bruising grip of sleep that still lingered.

There was silence then, and I leaned against the mast and stared at her for a few minutes, eyes studying her profile as best I could without my glasses. Her hair was bruise-purple in the light, the whole of the moon’s otherworldly gaze casting her as something fae, something not of this world.

“Enjoying the view?” She asked, and I presumed the curve of her mouth to be an impish grin at this distance.

“As well as I can considering I’m half blind.” I said, the rawness of my voice lessening as my vocal cords warmed up.

“Ah, I recall you wearing eyeglasses in Whiskey Peak.” The crinkle of paper, another page turned.

“A casualty of my misadventure in Alabasta.” I cracked my knuckles, more out of habit than anything, nerves crawling with a tense kind of anxiety.

Anxiety that did not stop me from noticing, even with my vision impaired, the way Robin flinched at the noise.

“My apologies,” I said as I shook out my hands, “I know the noise can be unsettling for others. Nervous habit, nasty one at that.”

“You’re at no fault, really, and for what reason might you be nervous? Even unarmed you know I pose no threat to you, not that I would attack a crewmate.” Robin gave a giggle at her own questionable humor. I didn’t see much to laugh about.

“I tend to get nervous around beautiful women, is all.” I said, voice dry as the desert island we left behind as I stated the reason for that particular tic rearing its head.

“...you find me attractive?” She sounded surprised, almost, which I found odd.

“You’re tall, intelligent, and well-groomed. I’ve found far worse people attractive.” I was honest, spoke plainly, and something tightened in the air.

“If you’re trying to proposition me, Quartermaster…” She started, only for me to cut her off with a barking laugh that had me clamping a hand over my mouth to dampen the sound of my laughter.

“Sorry,” I said once I regained my composure, “but no, I’m not even remotely propositioning you. I’ve found that in groups like our crew, small and close-knit, romance is a fine way to ruin things.”

“I’ve experienced the same,” Robin said with a hint of something like sadness in her voice, “but I thank you for your discretion either way.”

“I’d say the same to you. Besides, I’m not planning on any entanglements period . Just heartbreak waiting to happen anyhow.”

“Terribly fatalistic of you. Do you think that because you believe yourself unlovable, or because you find it impossible to love others?” Robin asked as she closed her book , marking her page before she met my gaze head on.

“Chopper said upon finding me I was drenched in the blood of myself and one other person, and my fingernails had brain matter under them. Further examination once I was awake revealed that in my arms and legs I had sustained and healed roughly seventy microfractures, and I listened to Chopper actively curse God after he told me I had strained the muscles in my limbs badly enough that the shock of it should have killed me twice over and not only had I survived, the strain was healed .” I said, fingers popping up as I listed off the various medical oddities Chopper had been confounded by in regards to my miraculous survival of whatever had happened to me.

“So you are a freak of nature. Our captain stretches like rubber and his first mate uses three swords at the same time, not to mention I can do this,” she said as a hand bloomed from my chest to tug at a lock of my hair before it disappeared, “so in terms of freaks we’re well acquainted with the weirdest of the world.”

“My Devil Fruit increases certain things like crushing force, speed, and power by what I would presume to be a percent amount. The side effects I’ve experienced so far have been paresthesia, muscle bruising, dizzy spells, and a fever comparable to Kestia. Things are only going to get more difficult, and at some point or another the side effect of my Devil Fruit is going to be my death . So spare me the psychoanalysis, Freud, I’m doing this because I don’t want my inevitable death to be any more painful than it has to be.”

Perhaps I’d put more venom in that than I’d thought into my words than intended, judging by how Robin flinched again, but the way she looked at me after hurt more than any cutting retort she could have inflicted on me.

“I know how you feel, at the very least, when it comes to attachments.”

“My condolences, by the way.” Robin said as she took a sip of her wine. Not her favorite red, but perhaps her tastes had grown a touch lavish in Crocodile’s company.

“Oh not you too,” Nami whined as she slumped in her seat, “that makes three people who thought I was crazy because of this dumb crush…”

“Me, Robin, who else?” Bartolomeo asked as he ticked off fingers, the third one waggling quizzically.

“Vivi. I showed her Lee’s bounty poster and said ‘Thoughts?’ and that traitor looks at me all sympathetic saying ‘and prayers.’ like I didn’t just listen to her gushing about Kohza…”

“If it’s any consolation, I don’t think you’re crazy for having a crush on Lee.” Usopp said sympathetically, reaching over to lay a caring hand on his crewmate’s shoulder.

“I can always count on you, huh Usopp?” Nami smiled, laying her hand on top of Usopp’s-

“I think you’re absolutely bugfuck insane for wanting that in your bed.” The sniper finished, pulling his hand away to gesture at the brawl ensuing behind Nami’s back.

Robin shifted her gaze from where Nami was folding in on herself like an imploding building with particularly poor taste in romantic partners, looking to where there had formerly only been mounting tensions.

Now it was a full blown bar brawl, bodies piled atop one another in an orgy of low grade violence, and at its center was their quartermaster.

And Princess, who seemed to be taking to her newfound size very well with how she was flinging no-name thugs and crooks around like so much refuse in a windstorm.

At the center kneeled Lee, one arm tight around the neck of the redheaded man they’d been eyeing since the crew had arrived and the other wrapped around the redhead’s own arm in a crude version of a hold meant to dislocate the elbow. They seemed to be screaming at each other, though over the general din of the brawl she couldn’t make out the words.

Idly, Robin sprouted an ear on the shoulder of Lee’s vest to listen in.

“-and I do NOT want your brain juices on my bootheel you knuckle-dragging ass-scratching clatterfart of a human being!”

‘That was a poor decision.’ Robin thought as she rubbed at her poor sore ear, waving off the concern Bartolomeo looked at her with.

“Should someone go and break that up? I’m a little worried…” Usopp said as he leaned back in his seat, mug of cheap beer forgotten on the table.

“Lee and Princess can handle themselves,” Robin said as she refocused on her wine and quietly wished she had elected to remain on the Merry, “and if they can’t…well, we can certainly mourn them.”

Usopp grimaced at that, and in the same instant Nami unwound from her cocoon of lament to go charging directly into the fray.

Men upwards of twice her size parted like waves being split by the bow of a ship as she made for the heart of the fracas, where a burst of violence rang out before the whole of the fight seemed to just dissipate.

When Nami returned, it was dragging a pair of thoroughly concussed pirates and followed by a mollified Princess and a masked man in an ungodly polka dotted shirt.

Perhaps she was deeper in her cups than she had realized if she was mentally critiquing other peoples fashion.

“Can’t you idiots save your bloodlust for the race? Seriously, tomorrow we’ll be free and clear to murder each other all we want and you’re acting like you want to get us disqualified or something!” Nami shrieked as Lee and the redhead pulled themselves together.

“Nami-swan is right, shit-gorilla. You’re not usually the kind to start fights like that.” Sanji said as he walked over and leaned against the railing next to the table.

“Wasn’t me that started it,” Lee said as they stood up, “carrottop over there tripped over Princess and tried to kick her. I kicked back on her behalf.”

“Well if your dumb animal hadn’t been in the way-”

“If you’d been looking where you were fucking going -”

“ Boys. ”

At that single word from Nami both Lee and the red-haired stranger shut their mouths, turning away from each other like a pair of pouting children.

For a moment Robin wished she had popcorn.

“Can we all just calm down, please?” Bartolomeo sighed, slumping in his seat as the rest of the tables occupants looked at him queerly.

“What? Just because I’m a shit-stirrer doesn’t mean I always want things to be a bloodbath!” He yelped as he sat straight up, idly tucking a strand of hair behind his head as he relaxed again.

“Fine. Temporary truce.” Lee said as they turned and offered the redhead their hand.

After a moment (and a none-too-gentle thump from the masked man), he took it and shook.

“Eustass Kid,” he introduced himself, and with a nod to the masked man he said “this one’s Killer. You lousy fucks got names, or am I gonna be saying ‘hey you’ a lot tonight?”

The morning after meeting Kid and his crew, I woke up on the wrong ship. I remembered the lot of us heading back to the Merry when the bar got too tense, but anything beyond that was fuzzy to say the least.

“Welcome to the crew, mate.” Someone said, and I was promptly hauled to my feet and put to work.

“...did I get fucking Shanghaied?” I asked myself, only for a tall man covered in barbed wire tattoos to laugh where he was tying off lines next to me.

“Nah, you’re basically our guest,” he said as he started on another line, “we decided on a trade for the race, show of good faith we don’t start killing each other ‘til the home stretch. Your crew got Killer, we got you. And a barrel of that whiskey your friends had.”

“Isn’t your captain the most brutal motherfucker to come out of South Blue in…ever? Didn’t figure good faith’d be in his vocabulary.” I pulled another line taut and tied it off. I could feel the wind starting to pick up, we’d be on our way up to the top of the mountain soon.

“Kid may be a cannonball with emotions but he’s still a pirate. Still got a code.” My conversation partner finished his line at the same time I did before he clapped me on the shoulder in what I hoped was comradery.

“I’ll take your word on that,” I said with a sigh, “but your captain’s still a piece of work.”

“So’s yours.” A new voice said, and I turned to see Kid himself come sauntering over.

And he did saunter. The man moved like he was in no hurry to get anywhere, with the kind of cool purpose and confidence in his every step that made me want to respect him.

At least until I saw the shiner he was sporting.

“Nice eye.” I remarked as I settled my stance. My club was missing, likely left on the Merry, but if I’d left it there then I probably thought I’d be fine without it.

“Seriously, how do you sail with that idiot? If I were you I’d mutiny.” Kid said as he shoved past me to inspect my work, giving it a nod before he turned to go back to the upper deck of the ship.

“Hey now,” my hand drifted to the knife sheathed at the back of my belt, “you’d best watch how you talk about the future Pirate King.”

“Aa? You think that little runt’s going to beat me to the title?” Kid said before he rounded on me and stomped over, uncaring grip of magnetism wrenching my knife from its sheathe as he came within arm’s reach.

“I think he’s gonna beat you, period . End of story. No happy ending for you.” I said as I glared up at him. He was big, certainly, but big didn’t mean much to me.

He smirked at that, a little lopsided thing that curved like a scimitar.

“Heat,” he addressed our closest spectator, “keep an eye on our guest. Hate to have them fall overboard.”

With that he handed me back my knife and marched off, barking orders as he went.

“Who shit in ol’ Jaggy’s oatmeal?” I grumbled as I walked off, Heat close behind hiding sniggers behind his hand.

“Y’know your captain called him that too,” he said as we found ourselves places to sit on the deck, “Jaggy that is.”

“Yeah I figured. Cap’n must like him quite a bit to give him a nickname like that.”

We watched as the rest of the crew finished their work for the time being and settled in as the wind picked up…

And a voice began to sound from loudspeakers all over the town.

“Ladies, gentlemen, and other scum of the seas! I am your humble Master of Ceremonies Buena Festa, and I would like to thank you for your participation in this auspicious event!”

Now that was a name I didn’t expect to hear…

“As you know, our grand prize for this momentous race is a whopping three hundred million beris! In addition to this, a very generous benefactor has placed a bounty on one of the sailors on a certain crew!”

“Oh hell’s bells…” I groaned as the wind began to pick up, filling the Victoria Punk’s sales and beginning to carry the skull-headed boat up the canal.

“For the live capture of ‘Son of the Beast’ Lee, Kaido of the Beasts offers a boon! I will allow his representative to speak more on the matter. Master Page One, if you would?”

As the ship raced up the mountain I bolted to my feet.

I was not going to let these sons of bitches put my friends in danger. Not on my watch.

Heat only caught on to what I was doing when I was half way up the main mast, a snarl on my face as I climbed.

Nobody stopped me though, so I presumed that was permission.

I listened as I climbed, listened as Page One explained the lengths Kaido would go to retrieve his so-called “wayward son”.

Anger, I found, is an excellent motivational tool.

Sparks crackled across my body when I finally reached the crow’s nest, and I began to bellow .

“PAGE ONE YOU SCALY WHORESON, IF YOU WANT ME YOU CAN COME AND FUCKING GET ME!”

Nami winced as the words echoed across Hannabal, the town’s piratical population falling silent at their utterance.

“Your friend sure has a set of pipes, huh.” Killer remarked in the moment of intervening silence before the loudspeakers crackled to life again.

“Consider your wish granted.”

“Hell of a death wish too.”

In that moment more than ever, Nami wished she had better taste.

I jumped the last little bit down from the mast, landing with a thud and turning to meet a snarling Kid head on.

“Do you have any idea what you just brought down on our fucking heads you goddamn fool!?” He growled as he seized me by the front of my shirt and slammed me against the mast.

“An opportunity for a bigger bounty, that’s what.” I spat back, a look on my face like psycho-murder made manifest.

After a moment of gawping Kid’s expression matched my own.

“Why yes,” he almost purred as he sat me down and pulled me tight to his side, “yes you did.”

It wasn’t until several hours had passed after the falls when we saw any real action. Sure no small amount of wannabe bounty hunters had attacked us, but when you’re on a ship captained by a man who makes magnetism his bitch you don’t find cannonballs very threatening, and the fools that had thought a boarding action was a wise decision quickly learned how bad their decisionmaking skills were.

But as night fell, we spotted it.

It was no small craft, a carrack with all sails but one bearing the Jolly Roger of the Beast Pirates and the foremost sail bearing a simple “PAGE 1” in bright red lettering.

“He’s a zoan like the rest of Kaido’s crew, so don’t expect him to go down easy, and I expect he’s brought no small amount of his crew’s shock troops. If you’re fighting someone who can’t stop smiling, dunk ‘em. If you’re fighting someone that looks like they’re half animal, team up and dunk ‘em . That sums it up.” I said, relaying what I knew about Page One and his likely crew.

“Oh, and if you see a girl with a mask over her mouth that’s his sister, and if she’s here we’re royally screwed.” I added once we were closer. And once it was harder to flee.

Within moments though, boarding commenced, and as Kid’s crew scrambled up rope ladders and in through portholes, I squatted down, let my body burn with blue sparks, and launched myself onto the deck of the enemy ship.

I had been right about the Pleasures, hordes of grinning pirates charged me as I landed only to be blown through like a red light at three in the morning, but the Gifters were less populous than expected. Perhaps there weren’t as many as I thought at this time…

“Bring me that little bastard’s head! Fifty million to the one who brings me his head!” A young voice shrieked above the din of combat and my head swiveled towards the source.

Standing on the upper deck of the ship was a young man, his long purple hair pulled into tight braids around his horns before flowing into the same sort of braid behind his head. He wore far more casual clothing than I remembered, his cape and suit-like ensemble replaced with a green and white two-toned fur coat with his tattooed chest exposed beneath and a pair of pants split evenly into black and white.

And he was wearing geta sandals.

I saw my in.

“Wow!” I yelled over the noise, “And I thought I had no fashion sense!”

I felt his eyes on me almost instantaneously.

“You!”

“Me!”

With an incoherent roar Page One lunged from the upper deck, transforming into his hybrid form as he collided with me.

I had braced as well I could, but ten foot of Spinosaurus-man hitting you at Mach Ouch isn’t something most people can overcome.

I stood up from where I’d been launched to, the collision having sent me flying, and grinned like a madman.

I took a running leap towards him, still grinning mad as I collided with him crooked arm first in some deranged form of lariat, my inertia slamming him to the deck as I rebounded, jumping up with both fists surrounded in pink sparks as I laughed.

“100% Over-Crush! Desperado! ” I yelled, fists crashing into Page One’s chest in two resounding blows.

“Maybe you are the Governor-General’s bastard after all…” He wheezed as he stood, and I watched as he fully transformed.

It was a little sickening, watching something vaguely humanoid transform into a lizard that should be a couple million years extinct, but that sickening feeling was just zoans to me. Even in his usual form, Chopper laid in that uncanny valley for me, but seeing him shift between forms wasn’t nearly as gut wrenching as watching Page One transform and lunge at me with his jaws wide.

“Kid! Little help over here!” I bellowed as I caught his upper and lower jaws in my still sparking hands, receiving an affirmative sounding yell as the ship began to rattle.

The vessel lurched as the cannons were wrenched from where they sat above and below deck, and with a clattering clanking noise I watched as a scrap metal golem formed behind the Tobi Roppo’s youngest member.

“ Punk Rotten! ” He yelled, and I watched as the arms levitated up before crashing into the Ancient Zoan’s spine.

The pain of the attack must have been enough to stun him by the pained look in Page One’s reptilian eye, and I seized my opportunity.

“Now!” I yelled, and Kid’s pseudo-limbs gripped the Spinosaurus-man around his torso and hefted him into the air upside down as I wrapped both arms around his throat.

“ Ultimate Crossover- ”

“ -Punk Vise- ”

“ -Buster! ”

In one smooth movement of pure violence, Page One and I were slammed to the deck of the ship, executing a perfect muscle buster on top of the monumental bodyslam.

I shook as I stood, feeling every nerve ending in my body light up like a wildfire as sweat and rain both began to soak through my clothes.

Still, I had one last thing to do.

I kneeled down in front of Page One, and I began to speak.

“Quit this pirate shit. You’re a kid, go learn a trade, become a farmer, start a happy family, just don’t waste your fuckin’ life with this, okay? Not unless you’ve got a dream you’re willing to risk it on. Bein’ a pirate because, what, you feel like you owe Kaido something? He’ll burn you the moment he thinks you aren’t useful anymore.” I said, wheezing as I stood up.

“Oh and one last thing; if you’re gonna be a pirate, learn that your fancy lizard fruit doesn’t make you invincible. Otherwise you’ll just be another corpse at the bottom of the ocean.”

With that I hobbled over to Kid, and the two of us hobbled our way back to the Victoria Punk as the storm that had engulfed us began to dissipate.

When I woke up again I was on the Merry.

And there was a reindeer on my chest.

A very angry reindeer.

“...not the face?” I rasped, throat dry as I tried to smile sheepishly at Chopper’s dour expression.

I got bopped between the eyes. Hooves hurt .

“You idiot! Do you have any idea how close you were to dying!? Do you have any idea at all? I expect this kind of suicidal recklessness from Zoro or Luffy, not you!” The diminutive doctor shrieked as he began to pace across my torso, lambasting me for my idiocy.

“So’re we loaded or what?” I groaned as I clamped my eyes shut and dropped my head to the pillow.

“No, because after Luffy trashed that Gasparde guy and you apparently, and I quote, ‘wopped the shit out of that lizard guy’, the Marines showed up. Kid’s words on that quote by the way, he was very impressed.” Nami snarked from where she sat at my bedside, the crew’s logbook in her lap and a pair of reading glasses sliding low on her nose.

I snorted at that, wincing as a twinge of pain touched my ribs.

“So what, just you and Chopper keeping watch over poor me? The others too busy or something?” I asked as the good doctor hopped off of me and shifted to his heavy point to start taking my vitals.

“Or something,” Nami said with a snort as she closed the logbook, “Luffy made a friend .”

“...is this friend a people friend, or is it another enormous sea mammal friend like with Laboon?”

“You tell me.” Nami said before letting out a shrill whistle and calling for what she called our “newest crewmate”.

“Please tell me we didn’t kidnap Killer, that might send our little truce with Kid tits up.” I groaned as I turned my head to the side.

The person that walked in was not, in fact, Killer.

He was taller than Nami by about a head, clad in what looked like a pair of Zoro’s cargo shorts and one of my stained and splattered cutoff shirts, dusty pink wavy hair framing his face and a red sickle tattooed under his left eye.

“I don’t think you two got a chance to meet before but Shuraiya, this is Lee, our Quartermaster. Lee, this is our new crewman, Shuraiya Bascud.”

I blinked.

I blinked again.

“Uh…hi?” He said, pulling one hand from the pocket of his shorts to wave awkwardly.

“...well, that breaks my streak of recruiting people.” I sighed, and then I rolled over and went back to sleep.

-One Piece: Dead End Adventure [END]-

Chapter Text

“Bigger idiots than me have done it.”

When Page One woke up, his mouth was dry and his eyes were crusted with salt.

He reflected on some of the last words Kaido’s bastard said before he fell unconscious.

“He’ll burn you the moment he thinks you aren’t useful anymore.”

And he realized that the bastard was right . It hurt to admit even silently in his own mind, but he knew it for truth because he’s seen it happen.

He’d seen what failure earns you in Kaido’s books.

After all, he’s not the youngest member of the Flying Six on his own merit. He was just the strongest Headliner that wasn’t already a member.

Farobank hadn’t even failed his mission. Just been too smug about his success while Kaido was in his cups, and it had sent him into a drunken rage.

So Page One made a decision, then and there among his still insensate or dead or dying crew of Waiters and Pleasures that Kaido’s bastard is right.

He doesn’t owe the old man anything, not his life, not his death, and damn sure not his sister.

“Yama-taaaan~,” Ulti sing-songed as she stalked down the hallway, her mace dragging noisily across the wood in sick contrast to her saccharine tone, “come out and play~”

From where he hid in the ceiling Yamato barely breathed, his haki suppressed and presence nearly erased as he pressed all eight feet of his frame into the farthest corner of the tiny crawlspace.

With Page One’s disappearance things had become strained, the tension on Onigashima ratcheting up and up with every day he didn’t call to check in. The other members of the Flying Six were unaffected by it beyond morbid jokes, but Ulti had been…like this. More sadistic than usual without her brother to bully and scrap with, seeking out Yamato on the daily to either harass him or pick an actual physical fight. It had begun to be troubling on the third day, when her way of coping began to cut into his reading time. That was when he had started hiding.

Yamato watched as she came to a stop, shoulders shuddering as she took a deep breath and her facade dropped.

From where he watched, Ulti looked broken .

Ace had mentioned once during their brief meeting how desperately he missed his younger brother at times, and with knowledge of his own brother out there on the sea…

All Yamato could think as he climbed down from the ceiling was ‘damn my bleeding heart’ .

He could hear her sniffling quietly, the closest to despondent he’d ever seen her, and in a moment of what was either kindness or foolishness he gently turned Ulti to face him and pulled her into a hug.

“Yama-tan…” Ulti said, tears soaking into Yamato’s top and voice shaky, “I’m scared .”

“I know you are Ulti,” Yamato said as he ran one hand up and down the young woman’s back, “but Page One is strong. Even if he did lose to Lee, I don’t think my brother would kill yours.”

“You don’t?” Ulti looked hopeful now, neck craning to meeting Yamato’s gaze.

“No,” Yamato said, a small smile on his face as he placed one hand between Ulti’s horns in a gesture Kaido had done for him long, long ago, “in fact, I think they’d wind up friends.”

With a guttural roar Page One sneezed before recoiling in a full body cringe at the sensation of snot in his mask.

The young Zoan grumbled as he tugged off his mask and stuffed in his pocket before picking up his oars again and moving the small vessel along.

“If he gave me a cold and a concussion I’ll kill him on the principle of it.” He groused, arms burning as he rowed.

I had been on light duty for a few weeks after the Dead End Race, and it was starting to get boring . Oh it’d been smooth sailing, just a few small islands in between to liven things up and resupply, but I hadn’t been allowed to do anything besides order around Bartolomeo and Usopp, and even then most of that was making them mash in two new batches of liquor.

I was sitting in the galley, hunched over with a bodice ripper Robin had picked up in port a few days ago shoved close to my face for my damned nearsighted eyes to read it, when Nami came in and I heard something soft thump on the table just out of my sightline.

“Paper’s here,” she said as she sat, “that section has something in it you’ll like.”

“New chapter of Sora?” I asked as I marked my spot and sat the book aside, picking up the part Nami had apparently handpicked, “I’ve been so antsy about that last cliffhanger my teeth are itching.”

“Better than that, go on, look.” Nami said, smiling slyly as I rolled my eyes.

Obediently I opened up the paper, holding it a little further out than I had the book on account of the larger print, and promptly rolled my eyes again.

At this rate they’d be stuck, just like they were on one of Kid’s crewmates. He could see fine but it was…unnerving.

“Nami this is the classifieds,” I deadpanned as I looked over the paper at her, “I’m not so desperate for companionship I’d go trawling for newspaper strange.”

The glare she leveled back almost made me flinch, and I could tell that while I had been inside the crew’s idiots had been up to worse antics than usual.

“Past the lonely housewives trying to cheat on their husbands, smartmouth.” She muttered before going back to her own part of the paper. Likely the financial section by how she was glaring at it and her fingertip was doing arithmetic on the tabletop.

I nodded to one side and complied, scanning past a dozen and change “missed connections” before I found what she’d been talking about.

“Seeking,” I started, eyes wide as a grin bloomed on my face, “more of a certain specialty small-batch sea-aged whiskey. Offering…”

I trailed off as I reread the number once. Twice. Three times.

“ Sixteen thousand beri a gallon!? ”

Outside the dull commotion I’d been hearing for hours silenced, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Heedless to the tension that had suddenly pulled taut outside I leaped to my feet and swept Nami out of her chair, into a tight hug, and out the door onto the deck.

“We’re loaded! We’re fuckin’ loaded!” I cackled as I swung the navigator around joyfully, at one point lifting her up by the waist like a fuming iceskater before settling her on my shoulder like a red-faced parrot, one thick arm wrapped around her legs to keep her stable as she beat on my head like a drum.

By the time I was done celebrating the members of the crew who weren’t loudly berating me from my shoulder were looking at me like I’d grown a second head, a range of reactions from goofy smiles (Luffy and Chopper) to horror (Usopp and Bartolomeo) to bemusement (Robin, Zoro, and Shuraiya), to the quiet gnashing of teeth on a cigarette butt (Sanji).

Princess, ignorant to our two-legged shenanigans, continued to nap undisturbed by Nami’s tangerines.

“Usopp, Bart, get the stills set up on deck! There’s money to be made!” I yelled, and my two most faithful helpers hopped straight to it, a dangerous looking set of jacks left between Chopper and Luffy near Merry’s bow.

“Stills?” Shuraiya asked to nobody in particular, “This crew makes its own liquor?”

“I think the more surprising part is that it’s good ,” Zoro said as he sheathed his cursed blade with a smirk, “which you don’t really expect from an ape like Lee.”

“Fuck you sideways Zoro, apes are majestic creatures.” I said cheerfully as I sat Nami down.

Quickly the two stills were set up on deck, Shuraiya closely watching as I fiddled with the arms and valves while Bartolomeo and Usopp hauled the mash barrels out of the hold, and quickly we had one pot cooking pure corn whiskey and the other a fruit liquor of prickly pear and dates.

In the time we’d taken to set up Zoro had repositioned himself between the two stills, eyes locked on the one cooking corn whiskey, and Robin had done similar with the other pot.

I cocked an eyebrow at her and got a sheepish shrug.

“I’m not much for harder spirits,” she said when I came closer, “but I tried a few cactus wines while in Crocodile’s employ and found the flavor to my liking.”

I just nodded and went back to checking the stills, following the steam as it heated through the copper pipes, and before long I heard the telltale sound of the thump keg beginning to cadillac.

Almost absentmindedly I began to move to the beat of it, one heel hitting the lacquered wood of Merry’s deck after the other and slowly picking up speed as I kept following the steam with one hand. Eventually I drifted back from the stills as realized I wasn’t dancing alone, Luffy having dragged Usopp and Bartolomeo into a mimicry of what I was doing and Chopper, bless him, having joined of his own free will.

A chorus of clapping hands courtesy of a smiling Robin kept us in time even as the kegs quit their namesake thumping and I cut the fire to the pots as the last drops of liquor fell into the jars.

I looked to Zoro, who’d swiped the first jars that weren’t loaded with heads, and got a satisfied nod as he settled back against the mast.

As I danced with the quartet of goofballs a light party had broken out, Sanji having set up a small grill and started cooking while his main annoyance was distracted.

I wiped the sweat from my forehead and stepped over four worn out bodies to slouch against the wall next to Nami.

“Hey,” I said, catching her attention with a light bump on the shoulder, “thanks for that.”

“Hm? What do you mean?” Nami said, smiling like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth as she met Lee’s eyes.

“Don’t be coy with me gingersnap,” the big quartermaster said as they leaned a little closer, “you thought I was looking down so you took the opportunity when it came. I’m just as keen as you, remember?”

For a moment Nami worried if the heat on her face was from the nearby heat of Sanji’s grill or Lee’s proximity and how they looked, eyes narrowed and a sly smile on their face.

“I’m sure I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.” She lied, breaking eye contact to gaze at where the sun was beginning to sink below the horizon.

“Sure you don’t,” they said, nodding before changing track, getting caught up in a conversation with Sanji while Nami tried her level best to quiet her internally racing thoughts.

The night was normal from there in her opinion, and just as she’d hoped that ad had broken Lee out of the malaise they’d been in since the Dead End Race. The party had helped too in that it ingratiated Shuraiya to the crew a bit more, being someone with an appetite like Luffy’s and not willing to steal off someone else’s plate.

Ever since Lee had told them about being Kaido’s son that air of disquiet she’d noticed ever since their joining the crew had grown. She’d thought long and hard about the implications and what it meant for her crewmate (Friend? Could she call Lee her friend?) to be hunted like they now were…but she was weak. She could do nothing to protect them, but she could support them. She could support Lee just like they supported everyone else.

And maybe, she thought as she snuggled closer into the warmth of the quartermaster’s side with the rest of the crew surrounding her and Princess Murdermittens purring contentedly behind her back, it was just a little self-serving of her.

But being self-serving is what being a pirate is all about, right?

Chapter Text

“Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes.”

Between the galleon falling out of the sky and the crew of salvaging monkeys the day was already pretty weird, but being halfway through a meal at a surprisingly nice restaurant only to have a luchador elbow drop himself through the roof and the table before standing up unscathed and picking a fight with me really took the whole bakery.

“That,” I drawled, looking at the remains of my meal on the wooden floor, “was a thirty-two ounce T-bone steak, two lobster tails, and a pile of fries that I just got the right amount of balsamic on.”

I met the gaze of the big grinning moron who’d trashed my meal.

“So how can I help you? ” I asked, my tone implying that help was the very last thing I was going to do to this idiot.

The big palooka took a deep breath before he spoke, and by spoke I mean bellowed directly into my face .

“I just said I wanna fight you! I’m four hundred eighty-three and zero, and you’re gonna be four hundred eighty-four!” The big fucking john screamed, spittle spraying with every word.

I leaned back in my chair, scratching my chin as if I was deep in thought, uncrossing my legs and planting both feet on the floor.

“I suppose I don’t have a choice in this?” I asked, the likely answer already lodged in my head.

“None whatsoever!”

“Well,” I hummed as I stood, cracking my knuckles in a chorus of pops on my way up, “when in Dressrosa do as the Dressri do.”

With that I swung, one leg sliding back as I threw my whole body into a haymaker punch that crackled with forest green sparks and sent my surprise opponent through the wall thirty feet behind him and a few more past that.

I shook out my stinging knuckles and let the sparks envelop the rest of my body as I crouched down like a track star and flung myself forward, ducking as I saw the big bastard charging me for a clothesline.

I dropped and slid under, drawing my club in one smooth motion as I avoided an elbow drop that most certainly would have ended me. I let the green wrap around the wood and increase to a vicious pink before swinging for his head.

To my great surprise his head didn’t make a career change to meat sauce and bone chips.

“Wiihahahahaha! You’re fun!” My opponent guffawed as he spun on his hands and proceeded to kick me hard enough I felt all the air I ever thought I had swiftly evacuate my lungs, eyes bulging as I collided with the bar of some tavern and stopped.

“Want some help there?” A familiar voice asked, and I looked up to see Shuraiya with a face full of pasta and a leg of what looked like roast turkey in his hand.

In lieu of an answer I took several deep gulps of air before spitting out a cloud of positively venomous words that if any woman over a certain age heard would get my mouth washed out with soap.

“That bad, huh?” The crews newest oddjobber said around his turkey leg, and I gestured to the brand new hole in the front of the building where my opponent was approaching.

“How in the fuck,” I wheezed as I hauled myself to my feet and gestured for the barman to hand me a beer, “do you kick like a god damn mule when you’ve got those skinny ass chicken legs?”

“Wiihahaha, it’s all about momentum!” He laughed as he took a lean against the splintered all and the barman handed me my beer.

I took it gratefully and began to drink, the cold and crisp carbonation washing the taste of the bile out of my mouth.

I lowered the empty mug, looked at my opponent, and quirked a thick eyebrow.

“Round two?” I offered, and his grin grew as he nodded in agreement.

“Great. Shuraiya?”

Without a word the mug was out of my hand and flying like a cannonball at the wrestler’s head, the Straw Hat’s own personal Jackie Chan dashing low just behind it. The glass shattered harmlessly against his skull at almost the same time Shuraiya’s pair of hard toe shoes met his solar plexus in a spring loaded kick that saw me following up with both hands on my club in a familiar stance as I dashed forward with a scream of-

“Thunder Bagua!”

-as the edge of my club met his split chin.

He went flying like a rocket, dorito-shaped torso lodging itself in the bell tower of some building in the distance

I rolled as I hit the ground, standing and slowly working my enhancement down to barely visible blue sparks.

Shuraiya let out a low whistle as he came to stand next to me and gaze at where we had landed the idiot.

“That’s your old man’s trick, right?” He asked as I slid my club back into its holster.

“Unfortunately,” I said as I dusted myself off and checked myself over for any less than obvious injuries, “yeah it is. I kinda bullshit my version of it, him and my brother both use Haki.”

Shuraiya blinked at me once. Twice.

“...what the fuck is Haki?”

“Something to be explained with the whole crew present because I’m a goddamn bonobo.” I muttered, dragging one hand down my face because I forgot to explain Haki .

Even if I had wanted to explain it then and there I couldn’t have considering the big bastard was getting up .

“Shuraiya, do you remember how long Chopper said I could be powered up?” I asked apprehensively as I watched Jesus Fucking Burgess drop down across from us and start flexing triumphantly while he brayed about how strong he was.

“I think he said five minutes on blue, two and a half on green, and if you start glowing pink someone needs to knock your lights out.” He said, head tilted to the side and a look of worry stretching his sickle tattoo into a shepherd’s crook.

“Hey Shuraiya?” I asked as the sparks wreathing my body began to shift to a green that was swiftly lightening to a color on the warmer end of the spectrum.

“Yeah?” Apprehension filled his voice, but the martial artist didn’t move to knock me out.

“Don’t knock my lights out. If you do that big motherfucker’s gonna kill both of us.”

“Teamwork?” The oddjobber offered with one hand out, an uneasy smile on his face as Burgess started towards us.

“Teamwork.” I said, grabbing his hand and flinging him like a martial arts missile at someone strong enough the likes of Blackbeard considered him worth keeping around.

Not to say I didn’t fling my glowing pink self at him either, all my stats cranked up by what I estimated to be around sixty-five percent and my club wreathed in the same pink sparks as it and Shuraiya’s heels met the wrestler’s chest and sent him back into the building with the belltower.

As the rubble fell on top of him I idly wondered if he was dead or not, only to cuss a blue streak as the debris shifted and Burgess climbed free of the wreckage.

I could feel my body temperature spiking already, sweat dripping off my brow as I debated what I was about to do.

“Shuraiya,” I said as I began to drop the majority of my body’s enhancements and holster my club, “if this goes cockeyed and I don’t survive this stupid, stupid fucking idea, you’re gonna be the new quartermaster.”

“Hey, hey what the fuck are you-” I missed the rest of his words as I bolted ahead, black sparks surrounding my fists and feet as I amped my durability, jumping power, strength, and grip all the way to ninety percent.

I hit Burgess like a freight train, both hands wrapping around his throat as I forced us skyward in a single bound, smashing through the bell tower again as cold air ripped and bit at my fevered skin. Quickly we hit the apex, gravity taking hold, and as we began to fall the G-force stretched my vicious smile wider.

“You like a good show motherfucker!? Well here’s-”

“-the fucking Showstopper!” a familiar voice bellowed as it descended, a large shape hurtling to the ground bare feet from colliding with Luffy and Zoro.

Standing there crouched like a predator was Lee, hair windblown behind them and body flushed red with obvious overuse of their Devil Fruit, but what scared Nami the most were the sparks wreathing their hands and feet.

Black. Not dark gray like the tattoos on their hands, but a jet void black like obsidian.

“L-Lee? Are you okay?” She asked, hesitantly stepping forward as the quartermaster’s head jerked up at the sound.

Those were not Lee’s eyes.

A sickly yellow bled into the brown like creeping jaundice, and the look on their face was a twisted, snarling grin, all teeth and no joy. It was like looking at a wild animal, not a person.

They lunged with sparking hands outstretched and a look like murder on their face as Luffy and Zoro, both still bloodied from the beating at the bar, collided with them.

Ruthlessly, Zoro slammed the end of a sword’s sheathe into the back of their head as Luffy slammed them to the ground.

“What the fuck was that?” Zoro growled as Lee went limp, sparks dissipating in a single.

“I don’t know,” Luffy said, uncharacteristically serious as he threw his quartermaster over one shoulder, “but it wasn’t Lee.”

I was never a lucid dreamer. My dreams were either ones I didn’t want to remember but did anyway or ones I wanted to remember but didn’t, and recalling them was like watching a movie from the main character’s point of view. Absolutely zero control over any actions taken, and all the decisions were bad ones.

This one was new though.

Something sat across from me wearing my skin, kicked back in a wingback armchair like the one I’d spent so many hours reading in back home. It looked like me but not, all the features just a little bit off and the eyes a burning sickly yellow.

“Finally, we meet!” It said, gesturing grandiosely as another wingback chair manifested across from it.

“Have a seat, have a seat, let’s discuss terms, shall we?” It was overly formal in a way that set my teeth on edge and made the hairs on the back of my neck rise, like getting the goosebumps and having someone step over my grave at the same time.

“What terms?” I scoffed as I sat, ankles crossed and hands in the pockets of my vest as I stared down my copy. “So far as I’m concerned this is a fever dream from overclocking myself too far and I’ll wake up to Chopper bitching me out shortly.”

“Oh my dear host, this is very real.” The thing said as it stared right back at me with its unsettlingly yellow eyes. “You see, you came oh so close to ruining our body. It’s in my best interest to keep you, or your body at least, around for the foreseeable future considering the lack of acceptable hosts, so I’m offering a deal.”

It leaned forward, a look of hunger on its face as it came within arm’s reach of me.

“Give me control. Let me take the wheel, as you would put it, and drive this party bus straight to the finish line. You can sleep, relax, watch from right here and experience the adventure you’ve craved so desperately since childhood.” It said, offering one hand to shake like Mephistopheles sealing Faust’s fate.

I punched it in my face. It reeled back, blood spilling from its nose as it glared at me.

“Y’know I wondered why I didn’t die in Alabasta,” I said as I stood, cracking my knuckles one hand at a time as I stretched, “I thought it was a miracle but no, it was a meddling fucking Devil Fruit trying to soften me up to take over later on. That’s what happened to the Jailer Beasts, isn’t it? The devils in their Devil Fruits offered power, and they took it ignorant of the consequences, forcing a bastardized Awakening.”

“You are smarter than the average bear, aren’t you?” It hissed, no longer using my voice but instead a sibilant one that leaned towards posh instead of my rough hill-folk accent.

“You’re halfway right, which means you’re still halfway wrong, and I have no intention of letting you keep control or find out the other half of the answer!” It spat, and lunged towards me like a starved carnivore after wounded prey.

It met my club head on and soared through its wingback, teeth scattering and blood spraying as it arced through the air.

“This is my fuckin’ head you dumb asshole! You think you can get the drop on me in my own fuckin’ territory? I’ve spent more time in here than you have! I know my own mental faults and defects better than anyone, and half of them are patched up and paved over better than the Department of Transportation ever could!” I cackled as I walked over to the downed entity, chunks of flesh-colored porcelain falling off of its body as I approached.

“By the way, you’re near three years too late to prey on my decision paralysis. That got replaced with a fuck it we ball mentality around age twenty-one and I haven’t looked back since.”

“So here’s your terms,” I said as I planted one boot on its chest and tipped its fractured chin up to look at me, “I’m driving this bus. You are not a co-pilot, you are not a passenger, you are the luggage slung on top next to the banjos, drum kits, and sousaphone, and I will use you as I see fit. If I do Awaken…well, it won’t be some hackneyed thing like you were offering. Deal?”

Its yellow eyes burned with hatred, pools of toxic waste glaring up at me amid an ocean of eigengrau.

“Fuck you!” It spat, any more venom yet to come stopped en route as I wound my club back and swung.

“Rhetorical question, asshole.”

I awoke to people shouting.

I stepped out of the Merry’s medical bay how did I get there? and onto the deck to see my crewmates tending to a trio of bleeding men. The front of Merry was broken off almost entirely, and I felt my blood begin to boil.

“Cap’n,” I piped up from where I leaned my bandaged bulk on the deck’s railing, “if you plan to go after that Bellamy guy…”

I trailed off, weighing the next words on my tongue before blinking hard and finishing my sentence.

“...then you oughta know he works for another Warlord like Crocodile.”

Luffy only nodded before he began to march for the coast and eventually Mock Town, and the rest of us began to repair the Merry.

“Oy, Burgess,” Teach said as he shoved his way through the crowd, “are you even supposed to be up and moving? That was an Emperor’s son you fought y’know.”

“Oh I know! And when we catch his crew I want to fight him again!” The wrestler chortled as he followed behind, if a half step slower than normal due to the bandages nearly mummifying him.

“After all,” the masked wrestler said with a bloodcurdling grin, “we’re still tied one to one!”

With Luffy’s arrival we set sail, Masira and Shojo following us south as the waters got choppier and rougher by the minute.

The usual suspects and Bartolomeo were blubbering with fear as we sailed into the whirlpool and I chuckled at their reactions.

Not to say I wasn’t scared shitless myself. I wasn’t a strong swimmer even before the Devil Fruit, and with my general bulkiness I made for the heaviest anchor on a crew that had five of them, unless Luffy had recently eaten in which case I came in a distant second in that regard.

The mirth I felt was short to last though as the whirlpool disappeared and the waters calmed marginally, and a bullet zinged by my ear.

I made to yell only for Robin to yell, the loudest I had ever heard her, “Sniper! Everyone hit the deck!”

“Straw Hat Luffy!” A voice I didn’t know but could guess at its owner bellowed across the waves, every word greasier than the last, “I’ve come for that hundred million beri head of yours!”

I lifted my head to look past the railing and grimaced at the sight of Teach and his crew.

“Wiihahahaha, and Kaido’s bastard too! I want my tiebreaker!” Burgess guffawed as his captain monologued, I presume. I didn’t exactly give Teach’s blathering much mind. I almost feared he’d try and make the leap from the giant log raft he stood on to the Merry, but as the ocean began to bulge I grinned and hauled myself to stand.

“Hey Burgess,” I bellowed across the waves, the blue sparks across my throat drawing a baleful eye from Chopper as I boosted my volume, “if you want a rematch, you’ll have to get it in the New World! I don’t deal with small fry like you!”

Before he could retort the ocean bulged like a water balloon under too much pressure, and finally it burst.

To describe the feeling of sailing the Knock-Up Stream is impossible, but the feeling of flight? The feeling of really being in a life or death battle not against other people, but against nature and the world itself? There’s only one word for it.

Exhilarating.

As Nami barked orders and he rode the bomb thermal the Knock-Up Stream had created into the sea in the sky, I laughed right along with Luffy. How could I not?

We were going to a Sky Island!