Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was your average day in a not so average hidden rock villa. Wait, no— scratch that— it was definitely better than average!

For once the heavens must’ve been smiling upon the poor abused man, for this day marked a month since Cale could actually reap the benefits of his peaceful slacker life! Granted, they were still in the midst of an ongoing war— but that was neither here nor there.

All that mattered, was that his pain in the ass crown prince had been blessedly tied up with completely unrelated matters on his end (totally not related to Cale maybe or maybe not destroying an entire city) and everyone else was similarly occupied with their own training. With no one left to bother him, of course Cale more than took the opportunity to roll around his large comfy bed till late in the afternoon.

Even the kids had gone to find their own entertainment earlier in the morning. The little black dragon yelling something about a mana disturbance, before taking off with the kittens hot on his heels. While Cale could’ve done without the lip pursing sour drink, courtesy Ron, with his lunch; he could hardly complain with everything else going so well. He’d just enjoy the rare down time to the fullest. Knowing his luck, a new disaster was waiting to strike just around the corner—

“HUMAN! LOOK WHAT WE FOUND!”

Speak of the devil.

Rolling to the side, he cracked an eye open as Raon came zooming back into his bedroom. The overexcited trio of dragon and kittens averaging 9 years old came in with… something… floating between them. It was a cubed object, whatever it was, it’s surface tiled in a familiar 3x3 cut pattern. However, unlike the iconicly colorful Rubik’s cubes of his past this was so clearly similar to; all the tiles on this object were the same flat shade of dark metal grey. The only puzzle like aspect to it were the fact that some of the tiles had tightly scribbled ruins etched into the surface. Other than those few oddities, the tiles were smooth and unimaginative.

Seeing as the kids didn’t look like they’d allow him ignore their new discovery anytime soon, he sighed before pulling himself into a seated position and giving them his full attention.

“Cale Cale! Look, our youngest found something very cool indeed! We’ve never seen anything like it before nya!”

“Yes human! I, a great and mighty dragon, will admit that I’ve never seen anything quite like this before! Do you think it’s worthy to add to our hoard?”

Cale chose not to point out the fact the little dragon was only 6 years old and there was bound to be plenty of things he’d never seen before. Making his claim a moot point.

Instead, he focused again on the object that was brought eye level to him. However, even upon closer inspection he had to admit, aside from the strange characters carved into some of the tiles, it appeared no more remarkable than a shiny polished rock. Aesthetically pleasing but useless otherwise. Sure, the puzzle of arranging the etched tiles together could serve as a form of entertainment for a short while— but even scattered like so Cale could tell the final picture wouldn’t make any more sense. the characters sketched out weren’t written in any discernible language, it just looked like nonsense. The only other interesting thing about it was it’s purely metallic composition with unnaturally smooth surfaces— clearly man made— but there was no indication it could be useful in any way other than as a fidget toy.

Not one to crush a child’s enthusiasm, he took the diplomatic approach to answering. “Hmm, no I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this before. Where’d you even find this… thing.”

The little dragon puffed up with pride at his human’s perceived validation, sparing no detail in the arduous task of finding the object he claimed to be leaking a mana like disturbance of energy. Now that was interesting, “Mana? Could it be a storage device or something?” Cale tried to recall if there was ever a mention of something like this in the books; but after confirming with his own records, he couldn’t find any similar references.

His brief moment of interest dashed quickly. If it wasn’t mentioned, chances were it wasn’t very useful or important— but just to be safe, it wouldn’t hurt to get a second opinion. With a shrug, he tossed the responsibility like one would a hot potato “Ah, whatever, call Eruhaben or Rosalyn to look it over when they get a chance. For now, just leave it with the others.” Cale gestured in the vague direction of their trinket corner, meticulously collected and maintained by the black dragon, before going through the motions of laying down again.

On, always the most responsible of the three, quickly chirped her agreement before darting off in search of either senior mage. Meanwhile, her two younger siblings went to go put the object with their other playthings. Cale kept an ear on them as he went back to staring into empty space, already half way back to his happy place. Of course, he should’ve known it wouldn’t end so simply. Not with his kids involved at least. Without their elder sister there to act as the voice of reason, it all fell down to one curious cat goading on an overconfident dragon who was set on solving the puzzle of their new object with the use of magic and— well, does it even need to be said?

All Cale felt was a spark in warning, before he was leaping off the bed, his silver shield’s wings already already forming around him as he lunged for the frozen dragon and kitten– then, white. A burst of blinding white light burned his vision, forcing him to shut his eyes before it burned into his corneas and curl his body protectively around the kids. All he could remember was feeling hot, hot, excruciatingly hot! Then a nauseating dizziness overtook him, before it all fell away like sinkhole opening up beneath him. His grip never loosened from the kitten and dragon in respective arms throughout the ordeal.

The next thing he knew, he was being assaulted by the squawk of seagulls above and roaring waves slapping against a decidedly too close for comfort shore. The gritty feeling of sand pressing against his cheek was just the unpleasant cherry on top to get him to stir from his blacked out state.

‘Huh, we never did start the construction on the villa in section 8 of the jungle yet did we…’

Blinking an eye open, he was met with the sight of deep ocean blue staring right back at him. Was it just him, or were they starting to get watery?

“HUMAN! YOU IDIOT, WHY DID YOU TRY TO SHIELD US WHEN YOU’RE SO WEAK! If anything happened to you I-I… I’D BLOW UP EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE THEN ERASE MYSELF!”

Oookay, terrifying statement from toddler aside, it sounded like Raon was doing just fine to Cale.

Pushing himself up into a kneeling position, he winced as he felt more loose sand fall off him. He was already dreading trying to get it all out of his hair and clothes later. A quick glance around confirmed his sneaking suspicions that they were in an unfamiliar area, definitely nowhere within the Henituse territory at least. Last he checked, they weren’t exactly well known for their white sandy beaches and tropical foliage. In fact, based on the flora and fauna alone, they didn’t seem to be near Queen Litana’s jungle either. But figuring out where they were exactly could come later.

Rather, Cale busied himself with the more immediate problem of checking over pair of children who’d ended up stranded here with him. While Raon was already a blubbering mess of self-blame and promises of violence, Hong was faring no better with his own kitten-like sobs and apologies. He could already feel a headache forming from the rising volume of the children’s wails. With a sigh, and an early farewell to those peaceful slacker days, he calmed the two children while checking them over for injuries.

Thankfully, they all seemed to be alright more or less. Cale’s sores likely gained from being passed out for however long it’d been in a less than ideal position, on a sandy beach no less. With the two in a calmer state, Raon sniffled a bit before looking towards Cale with confusion. “Human, did you get weaker? You only feel as strong as a speck of dirt on the very very tip of my claw!”

Cale blinked dumbfoundedly at the black dragon. He was used to the rude remarks by now, though he’d never quite been compared to dirt before. He only started taking Raon’s comment seriously when Hong decided to put in his own two cents. “Our youngest is right, you smell a lot weaker than before… less earthy and watery and… all of that other stuff nya!”

Now that they mentioned it, his head was much quieter than usual.

A feeling of dread was building up the longer the silence stretched, before he wrenched the neck of his shirt open and stared at the overly simple tattoo of a heart on his chest. “What the…” He tried calling out to them, even summoning a few– but, nothing. They weren’t there. A dry chuckle left his lips as he slumped further onto the beach, his mind racing through possible explanations to just how he could’ve lost 6 of his ancient powers in the time between passing out and waking up here, or how they could’ve even gotten into this mess.

Of course, Raon remained completely ignorant of his silent panic attack as he went on to say how this place was strange, how he couldn’t get the magic communication device to connect to anyone, how even teleporting wasn’t working as all the coordinates just kept coming back as jumbled messes– which was decidedly not helping at the moment.

‘Well, at least I still have the vitality of the heart…’

As depressed as the red head was with the mountain of developing issues, at least he didn’t have to add his imminent death to that list. That’s when he heard it.

“Shh, Raon, be quiet for a minute.”

Just under the sound of splashing waves and the murmur of wild animals, there was the barest hint of a voice. A familiar one. He didn’t have to tell Raon and Hong to follow, the two falling into eager step behind him the moment he took off at an unsteady gait towards the direction the voice was coming from. Seeing as their guardian was clearly looking for something, the little dragon was quick to offer his services.

“Human, did you find something? This great and mighty dragon will help you get whatever you’re looking for!”

Unwilling to be beaten by his younger brother, Hong also chipped in with an eager nod, quickening his pace so he trotted along beside Cale with eager steps.

“Is it something we can help with? We’re ready for anything!”

Cale just shook his head as he pressed a finger to his lips to indicate quiet, his eyebrows furrowing in his effort to pick out the voice and continue on his trek. If his sense of hearing wasn’t deceiving him, the voice should be coming from just past the next set of trees– there! Nestled at the foot of a tall tree, was a very strange looking fruit. It was a gunmetal gray in colour, with swirling intricate designs that looked achingly familiar yet completely foreign in the same breath.

But that voice, he could never forget that voice that’d been by his side since nearly the start of his new life as Cale.

“Oh ewww, I’d rather be eating the black goop out of dirt all over again! At least that was palatable, this place tastes like ass! Get me out of here! Ah, I swear I’ll never complain about a meal again so please please please save me!”

Cale couldn’t help but snort at the ramblings of the glutton, feeling it oddly comforting to hear her babbling again after the shock of silence the ancient power’s disappearances left him with. He muttered “Yeah yeah, I’m coming” under breath as he took quick steps towards the fallen fruit.

The priestess obviously heard him and perked up in response. “Cale? Is that you? Oh thank the heavens, I don’t think I’d be able to stick out another minute in this hellish prison!”  The redhead pondered for a moment, wondering just how he’d get her out when an Idea struck.

Raon and Hong, unable to hear her voice, could only look on in weary curiosity as their guardian leisurely picked up the fruit. Though they immediately voiced their concerns when it looked like Cale was about to take a bite out of it.

“Wait, human! Are you sure it’s safe to eat that? If you’re so hungry I still have a few apple pies...”

“Yes, at least let me try it first! If it’s poisonous I’ll be able to tell right away nya!”

Of course the redhead forgot how his actions would look to anyone else but him. The idea of trying to explain his telepathic link to his ancient powers was too troublesome, so he settled for the next best thing.

“It’s ok, the fruit told me it was safe to eat it.”

…

…

…

“Human… Did you hit your head? I think you hit your head. Goldie gramps always told me that the brains of humans are particularly weak and must be treated very carefully-”

Between the anatomy lesson he was receiving from the 6 year old dragon, the lecture on poisonous plants from the red kitten, and the continued wailing of the priestess begging him to eat her already, Cale’s headache was on a bullet train to migraine territory.

He’d blame the impulsiveness of his next actions on that.

With barely a flicker of hesitation, he took a big bite of the meaty flesh of the fruit, before chewing fast and swallowing. The whole process took no more than 3 seconds in total.

Sadly, the taste lingered far longer and boy, that priestess wasn’t kidding about it being ass. The taste was some ungodly combination of all his most despised flavors somehow. He didn’t realize the taste of sour could be any worse! His face was already taking on a green hue as it screwed into a pained wince, stirring the two children with him into a fretting mess as Cale tried to keep himself from heaving what remained of his lunch.

“I knew I should’ve tried the fruit first! What do we do, what do we do?!? It must’ve been poisonous after all!”

“Hurry and spit it out human! I-I, I’ll DESTROY this whole forest if you don’t!”

In his haste to reassure them, the partially eaten fruit fell from his grasp, only to be immediately incinerated by an incensed baby dragon who was still adamant on him spitting out what he ate.

He hardly had a chance to worry about the loss of the rest of the fruit though, as no sooner had he began to panic, did the glutton choose to make her presence in his head known once more.

“FREE AT LAST! I’ll never complain about having to eat dirt again! Oh, and it’s good to be back too, Cale, where’s everyone else?”

As much as he was glad to have her voice back, that didn’t stop him from immediately falling back to tuning out her words and effectively ignoring her comments. Habits die hard and all. Still, he took a peak beneath the collar of his shirt for good measure, relieved to see the mark on his tattoo had been updated as well and looked no different from what he expected. While the lingering taste was an annoying after effect, he was glad to know he only had to take at least 1 bite to regain the lost powers… assuming the others were in a similar state that is.

“I’m fine Raon, Hong, it just tasted bad that’s all.”

The children leveled flatly disbelieving looks his way, which he frankly couldn’t be bothered to give a damn about at the moment. He was still thankful to be saved from having to explain himself by one very well timed call though. The little black dragon perking up in surprise as the magic communication device flickered in the usual pattern when receiving a call.

Curious, as the device had remained dead to the world till now, he turned questioning eyes upon his trusted human before asking.

“Should I answer this, human?”

For lack of better plans at the moment, Cale just nodded. Not like their situation could get much worse at the moment–

“Ah, is this a bad time?”

It got worse.

Of course, who else would be calling him other than the one annoying god who has seemed to make it his life’s mission to throw Cale into every possible troublesome scenario, without even the decency of feigning to ask his permission first.

The god of death himself.

“…Why am I not even surprised.”

Cale just barely bit back another strangled sigh as he turned to face the black cloudy mass on the other side of the communication device, indicating to the black dragon to create a noise canceling barrier (better safe than sorry).

He almost thought the god looked flustered, at least as flustered as a barely corporeal black smog could be.

“Ahem, yes, it is I, the God of Death– and before you go jumping to conclusions- I did not plan to send you there! It was… an accident?”

“Your confidence in your own statement astounds me.” Cale deadpanned.

“Well excuse you, that device was never meant to fall into your world! If your little dragon hadn’t been poking around where he shouldn’t have–” Raon and Hong both flinched at the offhand remark, though were easily grounded by soft reassuring pats as the god continued “none of this would’ve happened yet! The destination is all wrong too but we digress.”

“We?”

The black cloud seemed to shuffle with a totally innocuous whistle on the other end, keeping mum about whatever the plural may have implied. Luckily for him, Cale wasn’t much in the mood to wheedle out oncoming headaches for the time being.

That was future Cale’s problem.

“Fine, doesn’t matter, can you just send us back already?”

This time the flicker of wispy movement on the other end seemed almost embarrassed in the heavy pause he took before answering.

“About that… uh, I can’t?”

Now, Cale prided himself on his ability to keep his temper under control. He’d long learned that acting rashly driven solely on emotion did more harm than good in most cases, but dammit, if this god wasn’t pushing all his buttons.

“What. Did. You. Do.”

“N-now Cale, that’s not to say I can’t indefinitely! I-It’s just, a bit… difficult… at this moment at least?”

Cale pinched the bridge of his nose between two exasperated fingers as he willed himself to remain patient. Dealing with gods was always troublesome. Unfortunately, the only way home kind of depended on this sorry excuse of a higher being at the moment.

Reading between the lines, like a properly trained noble, he fixed a firm gaze on the black cloud before getting to the point.

“What do you need us to do to get back?”

“See, I just knew you were the perfect guy for the task! All those other brats would’ve never been able to catch on so quick–“

“Get to the point”

“Right… I’m sure you’ve already noticed what you’re lacking. And seeing as you have two now, you probably have an idea of what you’re looking for already.”

Cale nodded, now certain that the rest of his powers were likely stuck in similar states of oddly shaped fruits around this place.

“It’s simple, all you need to do is collect the rest of your missing powers and I’ll have enough of a target to be able to pull the three of you back here. Easy as that!”

Simple. It did sound simple, too simple for that bastard to be telling the full story.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

The godly mass let out a, dare he say, squawk in protest. Claiming “Have you no faith? Our world needs you back just as much as-”

“Nothing’s ever simple with you though, and you haven’t exactly told us where this is yet.”

The god stumbled off into a flustered cough with the interruption. Knowing his own track record wasn’t the best, he couldn’t find any fault with Cale’s statement, as much as it irked him to admit.

“Yes well, I was going to say the rest but you cut me off too early!” He sniffed with a holier than thou attitude.

Cale just rolled his eyes, knowing full well the god probably would’ve forgotten this oh so important information had he not brought it up in the first place.

“I’m sure you can already guess what world you're in based on that devil fruit you just ate. The rest of them are also hidden in other devil fruits that have some visual similarities with each respective power. Though, even I am not too sure where the other fruits are, you’ll just have to rely on that creepy natural bond you formed between the ancient powers and listen for their voices– like you just did with miss glutton over there.”

Cale carefully mulled over the new tidbits of information, before focusing back on the repeated anomaly.

“Devil fruit? Is that the name of the fruit I ate?”

Don’t ask him how, but he swore the god just did a double take on the other side of the glass ball.

“Yeah, you know, those power-granting fruits from the world of One Piece…” a blank stare met his words “pirates, nakama, adventure of a lifetime…?” More blank stares “one of the most famous serialized manga series written by one Eiichiro Oda, come on, is anything I’m saying ringing a bell here?”

Cale just fixed him with a dull look, crossing his arms as he arched a finely carved brow.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but based on the name of the author, I’m going to guess this was a Japanese shonen series…“ the cloud seemed to bob in agreement “… you do realize I was Korean right?”

The God of Death straight up face faulted at the statement, before appearing to pull his own communication device near flush to his face as he screeched his next words.

“HAVE YOU BEEN LIVING UNDER A ROCK OR SOMETHING? One Piece was a world wide HIT! A classic even! How could you not possibly–“

He cut himself off with Cale’s persistently bemused look, seeing that his current endeavor was akin to beating a dead horse, he moved on.

“Alright, so you just happen to be the 1 out of a million people to never have seen any adaptation of this series. Ugh, figures, you know you owe me big time for this!”

Before Cale could even get an affronted word in edgewise, a stack of 23 books materialized along the shore next to him. Their spines bent out of shape, and more than a few pages dog-eared here and there, but they were still legible… to an extent.

What can he say, he always did prefer light novels over mangas, easier to store and review the text at later dates.

“Hurry up then! Those texts can only maintain a physical form in that world for so long, you can’t fathom just how taxing this is on me!”

Rolling his eyes at the hissy fit the damned bastard of a god was throwing, he flicked open the first few buttons of his shirt before picking out book after book in order and speeding through the information present.

3 minutes later and with flushed cheeks to match the exertion, Cale put the final book down and sat back with a tired huff. The whole stack flickering before vanishing from the shore all together.

“Phew, glad that’s over. So, did you like it?”

Cale threw an annoyed look the god’s way, though its effect was halved with his current flushed appearance.

“That wasn’t the complete story was it?”

“Eh, just be glad I had any of those lying around at all! I was more of a anime watcher myself— regardless, from my experience when this happened before-“ “this happened before?” “-The missing ancient powers are likely to be hidden in locations mentioned in the story. So long as you follow the plot, or at least the main characters, you’re bound to run into them eventually.”

Alright, ignoring the fact that gods apparently watch anime and that the bastard steam rolled past his question, at least he was finally getting some straightforward answers.

“So just find some near-suicidal rubber idiot and follow his crew around a massive sea in search of my missing ancient powers. Got it. I’m guessing no one else will be able to find them in the meantime then?”

…

…

…

“No one else can eat them, right?”

“Well, it’s not likely that your ancient powers would let themselves get eaten that easily but…”

“And in the scenario that someone does…?”

“… the concept shouldn’t be all that different from our own world…”

Cale was this close, this close, to grabbing the communication device and straight up yeeting it into the sea. God or not, he would be wringing the things neck if it had one at the moment!

“So if I’m understanding it all correctly, I can either get the fruit first and regain the ancient power, or track down and kill its new user in cold blood. Anything else I should know then? Before I go on this godforsaken Easter egg hunt?”

The way the god hummed on the other end gave the distinct impression that he’d be scratching the back of his head about now.

“Is it a bad time to mention that those books only covered less than a quarter of the full story?”

Yeah, ok, no, Cale was officially done with this conversation. He was in the process of telling Raon to hang up when the god cut in with a last statement of “by the way, does something smell fishy-“ before the call officially dropped.

If he never had to deal with another god again, it’d be too soon. With a wave of his hand, he got Raon to drop the noise canceling barrier and the sounds of the new world rushed to greet him.

“Human! Does this mean we’re in another world now? Are we going to have to do something bad to get back?”

“I don’t like this world, I miss Noona…”

The two kids looked on the verge of tearing up again, thinking fast, Cale looked around desperately for a distraction and found it in the swaying forest ahead of him.

“Raon, I take it that a powerful dragon like yourself wouldn’t be afraid of a little sight seeing would you be?”

Snapped back to the present, the black dragon fluttered his wings at the praise as he boasted “Of course not! No sights could scare this mighty 6 year old dragon!”

Cale nodded, affirming “good, then you can help me figure out where we are by getting an aerial view of whatever island we’re on and describing it to me. The more detailed the better— But make sure to cloak yourself while you’re in the air and don’t travel too far, we don’t want to attract any unnecessary attention yet.”

He could’ve sworn he heard Raon mumble a petulant “I’m not an idiot”, before turning invisible, a gust of wind and fluttering sand indicating when he left. Then, he turned to the kitten, who similarly stood tall with anticipation as Cale assigned him his own task.

“Seeing as we’re in a different world, chances are there might be different poisons here too. Why don’t you try sampling some of those brightly coloured plants over there to see if there’s anything interesting.”

Hong’s eyes practically sparkled by the end of it. His whole body moved up and down with the force of his agreement as he eagerly dashed off to get familiar with the local plant life.

On Cale’s end, he just shook his head in amusement at how quickly the two seemed to forget their worries the moment they felt they were being useful. Though it only served to make him angrier when he thought about how that bastard's mess dragged in the naive pair.

He supposed it was for the better though, based on the events depicted in the series so far, the two would be very useful to keep around if he had the misfortune of getting caught up in it. Especially seeing as he was now back to the proverbial square one in terms of power.

It didn’t matter how many times he was dragged into another world's story, he wasn’t about to get tricked into working hard for another life!

In the time it took the little dragon and kitten to scout the area, Cale had a new appreciation growing for the place. The beach here was rather peaceful, not a sign of apocalypse or ongoing continental war in sight!

He wouldn’t mind building a vacation villa here if he had a chance.

“Human! Human! It looks like there’s a village about a 5 minute flight that way! It’s strange though, all the houses seem to be built upside down, the people in this world must be very strange. There’s also this large tower about an 8 minute flight in the opposite direction, but there were weird people there that kind of smelled like the whales– not as powerful though.”

“Cale nya! I found some very yummy spicy plants here! Also sweet ones! There was even this melon that kinda tasted like meat!”

The red headed noble frowned, already forming an idea of where they were based on the little information they’d gathered.

‘Aigoo, what a troublesome place to start at.’

As much as it was important to find his scattered powers as soon as possible, Cale wasn’t all that eager to throw himself into a conflict if he could help it. What were the chances there would be two of his missing powers on the same island anyways? With his luck, and knowing which god started this whole shindig, yeah, there was a higher chance Cale would spontaneously turn into a girl just for shits and giggles.

But just in case “Hey glutton, coward, can either of you sense any of the others?” 

“Nope” “I wish…”

Damn, it was worth a try at least.

Though he could’ve gotten Raon to fly them there, what was the rush? Their pace was already predetermined by the story of another protagonist, and unlike the birth of a hero that could wax hundreds of pages of poetics describing a single plant; this author seemed far more focused on fights, friends, and a weirdly perverted sense of humor.

So sue him, while some might call it dragging his feet, he saw it as a tactical advantage of scoping out the foreign landscape and a world that wasn’t all that well described while they had the chance. 

They’d only been walking for maybe 20 minutes, taking breaks to allow Hong and Raon to marvel at plants and point out little dissimilarities between this forest and their home, when the younger two stilled. Hongs’ ears and nose twitching as the little dragon let out a soft growl.

“Human, someone’s running towards us, I don’t know how I didn’t sense them earlier, it’s like they just appeared there all of a sudden!”

“Smells like a human, but so much blood! They must be a bad person nya!”

Cale had already been scanning his surroundings with a critical eye the moment he sensed the unease in his companions, though his posture never lost its lazy stance.

“Tsk, how long.”

“About 2 minutes ahead of us and still approaching. They’ll be within hearing distance in less, human.”

Cale gave the barest perceptible nod before mumbling “Raon, use your cloak on both yourself and Hong, stay close and wait for my signal.”

The two disappeared from sight, but based on the brush of fur at his leg and the hint of disturbed air by his ear, the two were taking his word to stick close rather literally.

He didn’t know who was approaching yet, but he’d like to steer clear from a conflict if he could. If it was an enemy, his face wasn’t known yet, so he could probably talk his way out of the situation.

Who knows, if he played his cards right, they could even exercise some of those “special skills” Raon was always boasting about learning from him. He must’ve unconsciously been smiling at the thought, as Raon spoke into his head.

-Human, you’re smiling like you’re about to scam someone again. Are we going to be getting rich in this world too?

The sound of fast plodding steps and the rustle of leaves drew all their attention to the brush ahead, as out popped a head of shockingly green hair followed by the soft clink of gold earrings.

“Stupid bush getting in my way! I don’t have time for this! I’m starting to think those people gave me the wrong directions-“

The green haired swordsman paused as he took note of the other person in the clearing. He took one judging look up and down Cale’s admittedly unimpressive form, before scoffing and pulling the rest of his body from the leaves.

-How, how DARE that stupid swordsman just check out our human! I’ll kill him!

As if the little dragon’s rage wasn’t already palpable in the air, it tripled with the green haired man’s next words.

“Oi, noble, you lost or something?”

Cale did his best to inconspicuously lay a calming hand on the invisible dragon fluttering up a breeze behind him, wincing a bit when a wayward wing practically smacked his hand in the process.

“No, I was just taking a stroll. Are you?”

The swordsman, who Cale was now 90% sure to be the first mate of the fabled crew he planned to follow, waved a dismissive hand at his comment. Said man already turning in a seemingly random direction to continue his journey.

“Che, of course not. I know exactly where I am. It’s Everyone else who seem to keep getting lost on me.”

Cale didn’t have time to think of a response to that as a fast approaching rumble broke though the clearing.

Was that just him, or was a sight straight from the manga hurtling their way? The indestructible shield didn’t wait for him to process it, popping out on instinct as he grabbed for Hong and Raon.

Twin thuds, one distinctly more metallic than the other, landed against the hull of the flying ship as it crashed towards the nearest island cliff. One of its occupants laughing up a storm to the accompaniment of screams from everyone else.

Cale probably should’ve just flown to that village instead.

Chapter Text

-Luffy’s POV-

They made it! While the dumb sea cow hippo thing might’ve missed Arlong Park by a long shot, they were still pretty close- and they even found Zoro! At least, he thought that was Zoro… Sounded a bit more metal-ly than usual, but he wouldn’t mistake that green hair anywhere!

“Remind me to never let you steer again, captain…” Sanji groaned between the shifting rubble.

Luffy whipped his head back to an unnatural degree, giving his newly acquired cook an upside down cheek splitting smile.

“Oi, Sanji! Look! We made it and I think we even found Zoro too!”

Another head popped out of the rubble of splintered wood planks and crumbling rocks, gasping for breath as they coughed up gravelly dust.

“Uh, I don’t think that was all we hit Luffy aniki…”

“Hmm?”

The red vest clad teen tilted his head in confusion, before peering down past what remained of the bow of their ship.

There, between larger fragments of rock, was something shiny. That shiny something then began to move, another white and soft and twitching thing unfurling to reveal a set of ruffled but cool looking wings!

“Oooooh!” Luffy’s eyes sparkled as he leaned further forward to get a better view. The more it shifted, the more the debris fell away, until they all got an unobstructed view of a shiny metal shield with holy looking wings sprouting from it and rising further into view.

“A FLYING SHIELD?!? THAT’S SO COOL!”

The shield seemed to jerk a bit at the volume of his yelling, before a disembodied grumble came from its general direction followed by a low hiss of “noisy.”

That definitely wasn’t Zoro’s voice… Luffy was pretty sure he’d never heard it before actually. His thoughts were confirmed when a distinctly zoro shaped head emerged on the opposite side of the crash site.

This could only mean one thing.

“A TALKING FLYING SHIELD?!? THAT’s even COOLER! Hey, wanna join my pirate crew?”

A pause followed his declaration. The two existing and present members of his crew both whipped horrified looks towards their captain. They were on the verge of voicing their usual annoyed disapproval whenever he first invites anyone aboard that they just met— when a heavy, almost irritated, sigh cut through the clearing.

“I’m not a talking flying shield-“ said item gradually shrunk with the words, revealing the person reluctantly speaking as it went “-and would it kill you to speak any quieter?”

Stood before them, was a kinda sickly pale young man with shoulder length red hair half tied up out of his face. His clothes, though crumpled, looked very fancy. A lot like the things he remembered people back in Goa wearing. But unlike those snobby baddies he and his brothers used to steal from, this guy, while still dressed and acting fancy in a way only nobles did, had a much less uptight air around him. Luffy could just sense the comfort radiating from him, a feeling so similar to-

To him.

“Ehhh, why’d you put the awesome shield away! And who are you anyways? Where’d you come from?” Luffy abruptly interrupted, not wanting to let melancholic memories ruin the present. So of course, he did what he did best. Shove a pinky up his nose and let his instincts judge a person's character by annoying the shit outta them.

However, this man didn’t rise to the bait. He continued acting just as aloof as before, none of the typical swelling and huffing any other noble Luffy met would usually respond with. At most, he simply looked tired and maybe a bit annoyed.

“I don’t need a shield anymore now do I? And I only pulled it out because your ship was going to crush me and the swordsman otherwise.” The man snipped with just a speck of irritation that massively underplayed the danger.

“Ah, my bad, my bad! Thanks for breaking our fall then shishishishi!” Luffy’s smile was genuine as he laughed, he had a good feeling about this guy. you could just tell they’d get along like a house on fire! 

Buuuut, speaking of swordsmen, he best do a bit of damage control before his crewmate really blows a fuse. With that in mind, he turned his best shit eating grin on Zoro as he addressed his very pissed off looking first mate.

“Zoro! Glad we ran into you, where’s Nami? Usopp? Johnny?”

Zoro, though still clearly miffed, seemed to jerk at the mentions of the other names. His eyes were wide as he pulled himself the rest of the way out of the rubble like the heavy stones and planks were nothing to him as he spoke rather urgently “That’s right! We don’t have time to mess around here with some noble captain, Usopp’s been taken to Arlong Park!”

Luffy was suddenly reminded of the entire reason why they were here in the first place. The big mean fish person, Ardoung, must’ve been up to no good again!

“Aardvark Park?”

Bad fish guy or not, no one was stealing his nakama and getting away with it. If this Aldong guy really did kidnap Usopp, there'd be hell to pay.

“Yosh, lead the way then Zoro-!”

“It’s too late!” The loud voice of Johnny cut in. The bounty hunter emerged from the trees, taking deep and panting breaths as his voice wobbled with tears.

“B-big bro Usopp… he’s been… he’s been killed! He died at that witch’s hand!”

Everyone flinched at that, even the usually happy-go-lucky Luffy. It was Zoro who was first to find his voice though.

“Oi, what are you talking about Johnny? What witch?”

“Nami! That witch, she was working for Arlong all along! She made a deal with him for some treasure hidden in Coccoyashi village and tricked us all!”

-Cale’s POV-

“WHAT DID YOU SAY ABOUT NAMI!?!” “How DARE you say that about Nami-swan!” The twin screams overlapped each other. 

This really was playing out similarly to the manga. Both the blonde cook and raven haired captain tag teaming to quickly chew out the bounty hunter; the former as a result of his obsession with women, and the latter out of a blind faith in his ‘nakama’.

It wasn’t word for word, and his own presence slightly altered the order of events, but the gist of it was all the same. If he had any doubts about the questionably thin source material the god provided before, it mostly disappeared now.

That didn’t mean Cale was jumping to join them though. Knowing the captain, Luffy's character, the younger wasn’t likely to deny him if he asked to ride aboard his ship even if Cale didn’t actively participate in the battle this time around.

From what he gathered, the young man valued each of his crew members dreams and expected anyone who joined to have the grit to pursue it no matter what. Even if it was something stupid like wanting to eat a hundred bowls of some rare dish only found in the grand line, or something equally benign; he had no doubt the captain would take it to heart and value it just as seriously as his own crazily impossible dream.

Actually, considering the boy’s worshipful attitude toward food, he’d probably be extra supportive of any food related dream— but that was besides the point. The main idea here, was that it would be stupidly easy to come up with some random excuse to use as an entry ticket. Hell, the captain may even accept his actual dream of being a slacker as a legitimate one!

However, the captain’s overly simple character was also what caused him to hesitate. Within those 23 books, he saw the numerous battles and ridiculous situations Luffy dragged his crew into. Most of which could’ve been easily avoided had the younger man just known when to mind his own business, not been as trusting or been smart enough to shut up. While they always came out the winners in the end, at what cost was Cale willing to expend?

He always hated pain, he hated working hard, and every one of his instincts was telling him that joining the crew of the self proclaimed ‘future pirate king’ would bring bucket loads of both his way. Besides he’d already made this mistake once in his life as Cale Henituse by getting more involved with the plot than he should’ve— and now he’s found himself at that same crossroad.

Should he join the crew and become entangled with the plot, or should he stay an outside observer? In theory, he could technically follow behind the crew in another ship, keep watch from a distance, but that brought about its own list of hardships. Namely, securing enough food and supplies while navigating treacherous and, in some cases, monster infested seas. 

Not only that, but he also had the lives of two children to take into account. Would he be able to live with himself for knowingly putting those kids in harms way by joining a reckless idiot on his insane adventure? Or would not joining this crew only delay their return even further by missing opportunities to find the fruits holding his power by lagging behind them?

It was quite the dilemma.

Cale was so caught up in his own thoughts going through the pros and cons of the prospective paths he could take, that the itching sensation starting in his throat actually took him by surprise. Only for a moment though, he was unfortunately rather used to it.

“Cough, cough, dammit!” He just managed to catch most of the blood in his fist, smearing the last of it off his chin and glaring at the red stain on his palm like that would make it go away. If there was one thing Cale really didn’t miss about gaining his powers, it was the terrible after shock of using them when his plate was unbalanced.

Already he was coughing up a tea cup's worth of blood, and this was after collecting only 2 of the 7 powers. Sure, he did get hit by a ship traveling at unprecedented speeds when he pulled out the shield— but that was practically a sneeze in comparison to the explosion he weathered in the royal plaza attack!

–Human! Y-you’ve been hurt! I… am not so great and mighty, I didn’t put a shield up in time…

And there Raon goes, blaming himself again even though none of this was his fault. How was he supposed to expect a ship to come flying at them? Cale should’ve expected it earlier if anything, seeing as he was the only one who had any foresight into the future curtesy the books; but he was used to always getting the short end of the stick anyways. In the end, he was just glad the indestructible shield came out in time to protect the three of them.

The supposed ‘injury’ always looked worse than it was anyways. With the vitality of the heart at his disposal, any lingering discomfort would’ve been expelled with the blood. Though he could do without the coppery taste in his mouth.

Somehow, Cale found himself sitting down again, his lap full of concerned kitten. He felt more than saw the little paws of Hong working at his chest, the dismay clear in his frantic effort to locate any wounds. As silly as it was to have a kitten fretting over him, he couldn’t help the warmth he felt in his chest knowing just how much both Raon and Hong cared for him.

“Oi, you alright there buddy?”

Cale startled at the close proximity of the voice questioning him. He was surprised it was the cook of all people that had actually expressed his concern first. The blonde already crouched at his side with a hand hovering close to his shoulder. He’d be a lot more amused at the awkward attempt to help, were it not currently triggering two homicidal children.

–These bastards! It’s their fault our human was even hurt in the first place! I’ll get rid of them right no-

As soon as he felt the brush of scales by his hand, he twisted his palm up and discretely tugged on the tail of the baby dragon before it could leave his range. He knew he caught Raon’s attention when the words cut off in a stunned “huh!” In his head, before adjusting his hold to gently guide the baby dragon back comfortably into his lap alongside Hong.

To everyone else it may have seemed like his hand just had a spasm in the dirt beside him, but he could care less about making a good first impression. To sell his nonchalant attitude, he simply waved off their odd looks and dismissed their concerns. “I’m fine, this just happens sometimes.”

They all seemed to look around at each, skepticism and confusion passed between flickering eyes and head shakes before the first mate spoke up again.

“Devil fruit?”

“Something like that.”

And following a series of shrugs, the matter was settled.

“Shishishi, I like this guy, he’s weird!”

Cale could feel his temple twitch in irritation at the comment, but he knew the boy meant no offense. That was just the protagonist's character, as infuriatingly dumb and simple as it was.

He just had to remind himself of the ridiculous strength the boy was hiding, a shadow of his own puppy-like protagonist hiding in him, and he felt his composure resettle.

–What are you doing, human? Why did you stop me- wait, are these the people from the story?!?

He tapped the baby dragon twice in response, knowing Raon was smart enough to catch on. Though the dragon shifted a bit in discontent, he eventually settled, obviously coming to the same conclusion.

–Hmph, these people are idiots, but if our human is trusting them then I guess I will trust our human.

Cale was relieved to hear that.

“Ah I got distracted, but Johnny you’re wrong about Nami. She would never hurt Usopp!”

And as though he wasn’t even there, the story continued to play out. The straw-hatted captain’s anger building to a crescendo before bellowing out in a convictive tone how Nami was their ship’s navigator no matter how much the bounty hunter questioned her loyalty.

That is, until the double crossing navigator herself came onto the scene.

After getting Luffy’s attention with a single comment, her dead eyes roamed over everyone there, her mask briefly cracking, perplexed as she saw Cale, before quickly renewing tenfold as a guarded look took over.

“I don’t remember seeing you at the Baratie, and I don’t know what that idiot-“ her words were met with a delighted shishishi “-told you to get you to follow me here, but you’re all wasting your time. I’m a member of Arlong’s crew and I only sided with you guys while you had money! Now that you’re broke…” She shrugged, her expression taking on a mean smirk as she quipped “I have nothing more to do with you.”

Cale could appreciate her acting skills, she was at about Ron’s level of convincing. Aside from the fact she automatically assumed and included him as a member of Luffy’s crew, everything she said was accounted for.

“Ah, that guy? He wasn’t on the Baratie and he’s not part of our crew, Nami-swan! Luffy just hit him with our ship by accident when we were landing so he ended up here too.”

With Sanji’s correction, Nami’s eyes snapped back to him with a laser sharp focus. And when he refused to meet her eyes, they narrowed judgingly, appearing to be trying to make sense of him.

“Then who are you and what are you doing on this island?” Her disapproving and exasperated tone at being caught somewhere he wasn’t meant to be was so eerily similar to a certain dark elf prince, he found himself answering “Sightseeing” reflexively before he could even think up a proper response.

Obviously, she didn’t believe him. But rather than call him out for the lie right away, Nami clapped her hands together once with clear over emphasis. Her voice sickly sweet and sarcastic as she sounded out each word slowly “Well then! Might I suggest taking this little sight seeing trip of yours some place else? Believe me when I say there’s abso-fuckin-lutely nothing great to see here!” Her tone shifted lower, practically snarling through a sharp cheshire smile “So why don’t you pack up those fancy clothes of yours and get the hell outta here- before someone accidentally dyes them redder than those pretty locks of hair you’ve got!”

–That evil-

Raon was left grumbling the rest as Cale continued to pat him soothingly. It would make sense eventually, and the Cale didn’t want Raon regretting his words later.

Luffy took over from there, his idealistic and straightforward attitude ultimately breaking through the mask their navigator attempted to wear. Completely disarmed and with a crumbling resolve, she could only run off after spewing some hateful words. Though, judging by the looks of the remaining crews face, no one took them to heart. It was almost scary how easily the rubber man could sway people into exposed their inner personalities with such little effort. He’d ask for tips, if he wasn’t already 99% sure the rubber man didn’t even realize he was doing it.

With the spitfire woman leaving the scene, it didn’t take Usopp long to emerge from the woodwork. Right on cue, his entrance was just as grand and painful as it looked in the books, if not more so. His face was caught with a loud and toe curling crunch between the hilt of a sword and sole of a dress shoe. Cale was pretty sure he even saw a tooth fall out… It was a wonder how the fabled liar even had any teeth remaining by the end of those 23 books with him taking so many similar beatings and harsher throughout the series.

Somehow Usopp managed to bounce back from the painful reintroduction to the crew only a few moments later. He spoke with hardly a lisp as he immediately tried to clear up the air of their navigator’s supposed betrayal. “Nami saved me! She might be on his crew, but she’s definitely plotting against him! We should help- who’s that guy?” Usopp’s line of thought ended up derailed as the two made awkward eye contact.

More than a few heads were turning back in his direction following the sudden break in conversation. Cale was honestly more surprised they’d let him stick around for this long without question. Sanji, the one who’d been introducing him up to this point, continued to take on the role of his own personal emcee “Hmm, oh the red haired guy? That’s just– wait… he never did tell us a name, did he… why are you still here anyways?”

Cale leaned back, a much more difficult feat when balancing an invisible chubby dragon and kitten on your stomach, before assuming a relaxed and lazy pose as he responded “I’m still considering the offer, but I haven't decided yet.”

Zoro and Sanji both wore matching puzzled looks. Though he doubted either would be too happy to hear that.

“Offer? What offe-“ “Goddammit Luffy!”

The two’s chagrin was met with peels of unrepentant laughter from the rubber boy still laying on his back in the middle of the path he’d taken up silent protest on earlier. Though he didn’t get up, he did tilt his head back to look at them all while clarifying “He did have a cool shield!” As if that was reason enough to invite a whole ass person aboard your crew. 

Neither Zoro or Sanji got the chance to chew out their captain for his childish nonsense reasons though as Nojiko quickly took center stage. The annoyance of the other straw hats belayed as they focused on the story being told by Nami’s sister, acting as yet another convenient distraction from Cale casually sitting amongst them. It wasn’t long before Luffy got up and left on his walk, unwilling to hear a crewmate's past from someone other than the person themself. The others on the other hand, were much more open to hearing the story. Even Johnny and Yosaku, who claimed to take their leave earlier, had stuck around for the story while hidden (poorly) in the treeline.

Cale debated leaving too seeing as he already knew about Nami’s tragic past, but figured he’d stay if only for Raon and Hong’s sake. It wasn’t like there was a way to leave inconspicuously now that the story had started anyways; and he didn’t mind taking the time to sort through his knowledge of future events to plan accordingly. He was alerted to the story ending when he felt fat wet tears soaking into his sandy shirt, followed by subtle trembling coming from the children curled in his lap.

–Human, I changed my mind. That woman is a good child, like Mary. We should help the good child!

Raon’s darkly furious voice in his head was followed by a soft kittens growl as Hong made his own opinion very clear. Even his claws were starting to sink through Cale’s pants in an unconscious kneading rhythm to vent out the anger he felt just hearing about Nami’s situation.

Cale had already known what the outcome would be when he chose to stay for the story with these two. Raon was a given, the young dragon would side with anyone who’s freedom was compromised. And Hong, well, Hong was empathetic. The kitten knew what it was like to be seen as nothing more than a tool to be used, so it came as no surprise that both now wanted to help. Cale was already planning how best to work their way into the upcoming scenario without interfering with the plot too much.

When Nojiko specifically told the others not to get involved, that it wasn’t their fight and implied Arlong would be too strong for them to handle, Raon was left bristling.

–That blue haired lady doesn’t know how great and mighty I am! I could take care of a puny fish like him in seconds!

Cale didn’t doubt that, but that’s not what this island needed to be saved. There was already a straw hatted saviour in their presence after all- but that didn’t mean they couldn’t help pave the way there. While the other three members of Luffy’s crew remained seated in introspective silence, he took his first steps to involve himself in this world properly.

These people in front of him were living, breathing and dreaming the same as him. They were just as real as those he wanted to return to– and if he could speed up their pace here, perhaps he could return to them sooner. With that in mind, Cale whispered a soft “low grade healing potion” to the dragon still in his lap as he locked his sights on the most critically wounded member here.

“You, swordsman, you’re still planning to fight aren’t you.” He didn’t phrase it as a question. Zoro didn’t disappoint. He caught onto Cale’s implication and met him with a feigned quirked brow and tilted head. The man’s smile a wry line lifting in one corner as he responded just as knowingly “Well, that depends on our captain, doesn't it?”

Cale snorted at the wordy way of saying yes. A small vial had already materialized in his palm by now, one he was quick to toss the three sword wielder. Zoro caught it with a grunt, rolling the glass tube in his hand curiously as he inspected its pale red contents with measured interest.

“I don’t know what battle you plan to fight in that half dead state, but if you insist, might as well take that first. You clearly need it more than me.” He casually exclaimed, treating the potion as some run of the mill medicine you could pick up anywhere. While Cale had quite a few high grade healing potions still stored at his disposal, he wasn’t about to try healing the man fully. That would raise too many questions. However, even if this particular tonic was the weakest of it’s kind, it should still restore enough energy that he wouldn’t be at risk of passing out in the midst of the fight.

Besides, Cale read enough to know that magic wasn’t a concept that existed here. Even something as simple as a recovery potion would be a novel experience to the people of this world. Rather than magic, devil fruits— with their insane and much more unscientific origins— were considered the norm here. Well, at least as normal as say… elves and dragons in his world. With devil fruits as a trade off, there weren’t likely to be anything so convenient as healing potions, or the ingredients to make them should they run out; and he’d rather keep what supplies they had for more emergent situations.

“It’s a medical tonic from my homeland, which should help some.” He explained when it looked like Zoro was still iffy about the contents. The best lies contain some elements of truth after all.

“O-oi Zoro, y-you sure you should trust that guy?” Usopp’s wobbly suspicion carried over from his hiding spot behind a boulder. The logic defying long nosed one was wary of him still. Not that Cale ever gave them any reason to trust him. In fact, the curly haired young man was the only one to react sensibly to a stranger sitting amongst them for so long for seemingly no reason.

“He could be working for Arlong too!”

Then again, only an idiot would come to that conclusion.

“Do I look part fish to you?”

The heat in his voice must’ve been discernible as the cowardly sniper let out an ‘eep’, before diving from his boulder to hide behind the cook— which, ironically, brought him closer to Cale— while still warily looking his way.

Zoro didn’t seem to care for Usopp’s theatrics, barely even paying mind to the very valid concerns as he seemed to arrive at his own conclusion. “Well, only one way to find out.” With those words, the swordsman uncorked the vial and downed the contents in one go. His brow scrunching as he wiped his lips with the back of his hand, a grimace forming in it’s wake.

Cale smirked. He never said the concoction would taste pleasant.

Usopp was already panicking when he saw the face their first mate was making, jumping to the extreme conclusion of poison, while their cook, Sanji, was already calling the ‘Marimo’ an idiot and moving towards him. Then, Zoro’s eyes widened as he looked towards his bandaged chest and patted the area with a look of wonder. He hopped to his feet, already grabbing a sword and practicing a set of forms, before smiling in a way that would probably get Raon calling him a scammer.

“Ohoh, not bad. Hey, you got more of this stuff?” He drawled as he side eyed Cale. In response, he just scoffed at the man already trying to extort him, throwing back one of his own wicked smiles as he chirped back “not for free” with zero inflection.

Zoro hummed, an amused smirk taking over as he shook his head and sheathed his blades. “You’ll fit right in with her alright.”

Cale’s finger twitched at the knowing tone, both annoyed that he knew exactly what sort of comparison Zoro was drawing with that barb and for treating it as though he already agreed to become a member of their crew. He was still debating that last part dammit!

“Not confirmed, still deciding.” He quickly denied, only to be met with pitying and almost consolatory looks for the remaining crew. “Oh, you poor poor thing, still thinking you have a choice?” Sanji purred, throwing in his own small self depreciating smirk as he lit a new cigarette. Even Zoro seemed willing to agree with the cook for once, his voice erring more of the side of morbidly amused as he clamped a hand on Cale’s shoulder with a cocksure grin flashing all of his teeth in a feral smile. “You lost the chance to slip away the moment cap’n thought your shield was cool.”

Cale was beginning to rethink helping them in this fight…

His regret didn’t have long to simmer though as a crowd of angry civilians charged past them followed by heart breaking sobs.

“Luffy… help me!”

He shut his eyes, resigned as the answer to her plea came from both outside and within.

“Of course we will!”

–Of course we will!

Chapter Text

-Cale’s POV-

The battle of Arlong park was something unavoidable. Had the transmigration taken place earlier in the timeline, perhaps this wouldn’t be the case, but as it stood, there was no way to get out of this without further stirring the pot between fishmen and humans. Cale could only do so much in terms of damage control. As the crew of bold and courageous (if only in words in the case of one, for now) pirates plus out of place nobleman approached, they were greeted to the site of two bloodied bounty hunters and a gathering of impatient townspeople.

As noble as their pursuit was, to free themselves of the tyranny, it was a fool hardy plan no matter which way you looked. Cale had always despised those who tried too hard to be something they weren’t, who pushed themselves past a limit they knew they shouldn’t. What was the point in throwing away your life for a cause? Wasn’t it better to live? That was the mantra he found himself internalizing from a lifetime’s memories he’d rather repress. Stay alive, if not for oneself, then for those who’d inevitably be left behind. Maybe that’s why he didn’t find himself all that upset at having his choice in being involved commandeered from him in this matter.

No one else could better understand his sentiment than the woman they were about to help now.

Luffy took the lead in the battle, taking down the ‘grunts’ just as quickly as described with a whip of his stretchy leg; much to the shock and amazement of Roan and Hong. Cale was already in the process of tuning out the loud awed chatter of the black dragon as he watched the rest of the scene fall into place. Sanji, Zoro and Usopp moved in, taking on predestined opponents as Cale quickly found himself backed into his own problem. He’d been so busy trying to decide whether or not he should involve himself with the group that he completely neglected thinking about what to do now that he was here.

There was no room for him in this fight. Figuratively at least. While Usopp may appreciate the help in taking down his own opponent, none of the others would take kindly to him stepping into their fights. They could all handle themselves perfectly fine, even Usopp, in a way, needed this battle to overcome his own insecurities for the paths that lay ahead. Therefore, Cale’s presence here was redundant. He was no better than a rubbernecker approaching a car crash, unable to tear his gaze away in a slow approach regardless of the blaring horns of impatient people behind him. In this case, the blaring horns being an invisible kitten and baby dragon perched on either shoulder.

He just thanked the fact the little dragon was still using some form of flight magic, it would be pretty difficult keeping a straight posture with one side so disproportionately heavy.

–Human, why are we just standing here? What did you have in mind? Should we go after the one that chased the long nosed person? He seemed pretty weak compared to the others.

“Should I use my poison? It’ll be harder without noona’s fog… and these fishmen seem strong, but even the whales had trouble against the poisons I’ve eaten before!”

As much as he knew both were just trying to help, it was at times like this he almost wished On had come as well. She may not have been much older than her poisonous brother, but she understood him on a level that even the crown prince hadn’t. Plus, she was always better at explaining and keeping her younger two siblings at bay. After thinking it over, Cale didn’t have any intention of getting involved unless there was a reason to. From what he knew, this fight was already quite tame, and none of them would sustain any irreparable injury that would greatly affect the rest of their journey. In his opinion, the outcome was as good as it could get, so why change it?

Unfortunately, he’d overlooked one little detail, one slight environmental change that hadn’t been a problem in the books. There was never supposed to be a nosy kitten or dragon anywhere near this battle. When Luffy was thrown into the sea with the sinking weight of a rock trapping his ankles in place, they had initially remained calm. Though Hong flinched, it was more due to his own distaste of the salty body of water. By this point, the two of them had come to admire how powerful the cheerful boy was. Raon had even drawn comparisons with him and Choi Han, though he amended that their Choi Han was better because he was smart.

However, when the shark man started boasting about exploiting the devil fruit users weakness and they came to fully understand how helpless Luffy was in the ocean, neither were too keen on remaining on the sidelines. Cale had to physically hold Raon and Hong down from leaping into the battle. As much as he agreed with their sentiment and wished to avoid a drowning situation, freeing him too early could spell disaster in itself. What if Arlong and Luffy’s fight disrupted the pace of Zoro and Sanji’s fights? Luffy wasn’t exactly known for his situational awareness of others on the battlefield; and some of his long range attacks (like the pinwheel one he’d just pulled off) would hit anyone who got in the way.

Sure, Cale knew Raon was powerful enough to compensate and could easily have ended this fight at any moment with a mere lift of his paw; but that wasn’t how this story was supposed to play out. Call him selfish, but Cale already had very limited knowledge on future events and what’s to come. Just him simply being here was bound to change things, there was no way around that— but he could still control his actions and how much he got involved. If he could, he’d like to avoid muddying the timeline as much as possible while he could still rely on his future knowledge. And if that meant holding back in a fight or being called a coward for not stepping forward when he could’ve, that was a burden he was willing to bare.

His and his children’s safety were Cale’s top priority. Unless his presence caused a serious deviation or he could prevent a death, he planned to take no part in this. At least until Sanji and Zoro ended their fights, which shouldn’t take long now. With the healing potion in place, Zoro was closer to full strength. It didn’t take much time at all to conclude his fight with Hachi seeing as he wasn’t held back by pain and constant blood loss. The fishman barely had a chance to even take their fight seriously, before the three sword wielder pulled out finishing moves he’d likely avoided previously due to the toll it took on his body.

With Sanji’s competitiveness, he wasn’t far behind either. Already the cook dove into the sea with a snide remark of him being the only one capable of freeing their captain, taking his opponent Kuroobi underwater foolishly. While Zoro was in starkly better condition at the end of his fight than he’d been in the story, the pale pink blooming through the bandages on his chest proved he was still far from completely healed. Even still, the man seemed to ignore the sluggish protest of his shaking legs and reopened wounds, attacking Arlong directly with a determined glint in his eyes before the fishman could even provoke him. All this, while Cale endured his own battle of keeping children from running amok.

–These fish are getting on my nerves! I know you keep telling us not to get involved, but they’re almost as annoying as that white bastard! That big shark toothed one is the worst!

“Please let us fight Cale nya! I swear they won’t even see me, it’ll be quick-“

His grip on them was loosening, his own worries rising as he watched Zoro push himself further and further while only managing to rile up the fishman in the process. Zoro was in no condition to actually take Arlong on. Maybe if he’d been less injured or hadn’t just fought with Hachi, reopening the wounds in the process, but— even then… that wasn’t right? This fight. It shouldn’t be happening! Zoro did face off against Arlong in the books, but it hadn’t been a fight he’d purposely provoked! He’d only been trying to keep the man from diving into the water after Sanji— so what changed? Why was he suddenly attacking so wildly, what could have made him push himself to this extent to fight and obviously losing battle? Why wasn’t he- oh. Wait. It wasn’t that Zoro changed, it was that he changed it!

Zoro had been too exhausted and wounded after his fight with Hachi in the books to have been able to entertain this bloodlust driven battle. It wasn’t that Zoro wouldn’t have tried to fight Arlong first originally, rather the swordsman had no choice but back down then! He wasn’t the only one to note his behavior either, Arlong’s anger rising as he perceived the continuous weak attacks an insult and slapped the swordsman away with barely any effort. Cale spotted the shift before the first mate had a chance to note the change .

It was in this moment of distraction that Hong took the chance to wriggle free and lunge towards the hulking shark-man. Raon made his own exclamation at the unexpected move, before he too was lurching after the slightly older kitten. Cale only had himself to blame, he cursed as he ran blindly after the pair, relying on the fact he knew their general intended destination, seeing as they were still invisible.

Zoro had sensed the change in the air by this point, already turning in place with his swords drawn in a defensive position as Arlong prepared a water slicer attack in his palm, but the shark man’s aim seemed off. At least, it would’ve been had he been aiming for Zoro at all.

“Shahahaha such pathetic creatures you humans are! You’re really trying my patience with these cheap tricks.” His face looked downright wild, a bloodthirsty sharp smile putting all his teeth on display as he flicked a hand with a tornado of water spinning atop towards an unseen opponent.

“Didn’t you know? Sneak attacks don’t work on our superior senses!” He all but maniacally laughed.

Hong obviously wasn’t expecting that, and neither was Raon for that matter. Though the kitten managed to dodge the strike by a hair seeing as no splash of blood followed the strike, he’d stumbled over himself in his haste, knocking up some dust and revealing his position far too close to the water for comfort. Cale bit down his worry, altering his path so he ran towards where the kitten was last seen.

–B-but, how? How could he sense us!

Cale didn’t respond, couldn’t, Arlong was already in the process of throwing his next attack. Zoro seemed to realize there was something else going on, his eyes meeting with Cale’s for a moment, before widening in comprehension as they darted around searching for whatever unseen opponents were there with them. The former noble didn’t have time to think or worry about what this would cost him. He was still too far, he wouldn’t make it, and the panicked whimper he heard was all he needed to know Hong also realized he wasn’t going to be able to avoid it.

In an instant, he was there, he felt Hong’s fur under his hand and could only yell one word “Raon!” Before tossing the kitten up high and out of the line of fire. The indestructible shield had formed a small barrier just in time as the water attack burst like a mini explosion against it, the force of the strike enough to push him off balance, sending him tipping over the lip of the ledge.

He didn’t need to feel the pain to know he was already sporting several new unexplainable cuts on his person. He could hear the anguished cries of a terrified baby dragon in his head as the water rushed up to meet him. Cale was half expecting himself to feel drowsy the instant he touched it, to lose all fight and feeling due to the devil fruit he consumed– but all he felt was the stinging of his cuts.

He peeked an eye open, grimacing at the further stinging sensation of opening them in salty water, but was quickly distracted when he noticed his hands moving up to cover them unconsciously. He turned his head, marveling at the range of movement he still had. He didn’t feel tired at all, not even the slightest pull of discomfort outside the norm. This was… strange. Hadn’t he eaten a devil fruit? Even if it was his power to begin with, this world had taken it and transformed it into something compatible with their laws and structure.

He could worry about this discovery later though, as he had more pressing matters to attend to now. He felt a flurry of bubbles rush past him, a hand grabbing his collar in its wake before they broke the surface. Sanji was gasping for air, kicking towards the platform all while tugging him along and calling him an idiot, assuming he’d be deadweight. Cale wasn’t that bad off all things considering, though his head was ringing all the while with loud lectures making him compliant in his rescuers hold anyways.

–Ca- Human! Don’t EVER do that AGAIN! You have to promise you won’t use that unless it’s to protect yourself!

He went back to ignoring the words of the dramatic dragon in favor of muttering out a weary thanks as he felt himself getting pulled from the water. His clothes were absolutely drenched, and he felt the annoying tingles of fresh cuts and lacerations all along his body. Still, it was worth it in his opinion. That water attack was not a light blow by any means, and he had no doubt it’d leave a nasty wound if it made contact with flesh.

Seeing as Luffy wasn’t rocketing out of the water yet, Cale knew he’d unintentionally interrupted another scene. Sanji for his part didn’t seem all that annoyed, he was already back in his fight with Kuroobi, leaving Zoro to awkwardly handle the aftermath of pulling his sorry looking butt from the water while back to ignoring an extremely pissed off sharkman.

Zoro looked perplexed, all things considered, and more than a bit confused at the seemingly random appearance of cuts. Cale had all of a second to himself to breathe, before all the air was smacked back out with an “oomph” as simultaneous weights lunged to his stomach and another wrapped around his neck. Though he was already covered in water, he could feel the extra warm tears of crying eyes buried into his collar as the baby dragon continued to berate him, a slice of soggy apple pie materializing in the air before getting shoved down his throat. Zoro could only look on in mild horror.

“What the hell was that?”

Cale gave him a flat look in response, before shaking his head and mumbling “you don’t want to know” as another half of the soggy pie was pushed into his mouth.

When Kuroobi finally fell, Sanji burst to the surface in worse shape than Cale remembered. The cook was completely out of breath and sporting a shiny black eye he definitely didn’t have in the books. Cale winced, figuring the changes this time were likely a direct result of his earlier interruption. “Oi what the fuck do you think you’re doing here? Where the hell is Luffy?” Zoro snapped at the blonde cook, though under the heat of his words Cale could sense an undercurrent of concern. Sanji also seemed to read into the man’s worry as he didn’t rise to the provocation.

Sanji grabbed at the ledge near them still panting and struggling to get his breathing under control. Every tremor in his body screamed exhaustion, but his eyes were still alive with the fire of someone unwilling to accept defeat. “Shut it Marimo, just give me a second, that idiot ‘ll be fine either way.” Sanji gasped between breaths. He was right after all, Both Nojiko and the town’s mayor had been missing from the crowd of onlookers since way before Sanji even entered the water. Seeing as the cook wasn’t more panicked, Cale knew exactly where the two ought to be by now.

Still, he did promise himself he’d step in if his presence caused any deviations… perhaps it was finally time to make his move. He patted the sobbing baby dragon around his neck to get Raon’s attention, before whispering a quiet “I think it’s about time we end this fight, don’t you?” Zoro and Sanji were back to giving him odd looks, Zoro’s mouth opening as if to question his odd mumbling, though Cale just held up a hand to let him know it wasn’t him he was addressing.

Cale waited, once he got a small sniffle and an “mn!” In confirmation, he pointed to the water.

“Think you can free the rubber idiot?”

–Do you even need to ask?

With the proud huff, the little dragon’s weight lifted from his shoulders as a small splash was seen on the surface. Zoro and Sanji looked back and forth between him, each other and the rippling water a few times, before both sighing with the cook slumping his head on his arms while the swordsman threw his hands up in surrender. Being the only one present still fit to battle, Zoro was soon too busy to worry about figuring out what Cale was up to anyways. Arlong’s attention focused on them and fired up to the point of being murderous. After having defeated two– no, three, Usopp was back– of his closest and trusted warriors; he was acting downright rabid.

“I’m sorry, Cale… I didn’t mean for you to get hurt…” Came the trembling voice of Hong over the fight between cook (who wasn’t about to take a backseat in a fight), swordsman and shark ahead of them. Cale shifted himself into a standing position, dusting himself off with a free hand while the other remained occupied with invisible fur.

“The shark was annoying anyways.” He scoffed, fighting back a wince as his nonchalant actions pulled at a salt stung wound. Cale was never the best at comforting people, but he took pride in the fact his words managed to draw out a small giggle from the kitten.

The sound of a large splash followed by a “YAHOOO!” From behind them grabbed everyone’s focus next. Cale was already expecting this. He closed his eyes and sighed in relief, hardly sparing the commotion a glance at first… he was forced to pay it mind when he felt a solid and sudden grip on his shoulder though. “ZOROOOO- wait, you’re not Zoro?” Cale grit his teeth, one of the rubber hands digging into a still healing cut, the tension in the limb pulled taut dragging him back a bit as he growled out a response. “If you noticed you grabbed the wrong person, then let go!”

Luffy laughed, laughed at his plight and rather than let go, he just changed the script all together! “Oh well then, not-Zoro, LET’S SWITCH!”

Cale did not ‘yelp’ as he was sent flying, but it was a close thing. He was saved the same fate Zoro had simply because Raon had followed Luffy to the surface in time to cast flight magic on him so he stayed suspended some hundred feet above the water.

–Human, I know these people are probably new friends, but are you sure I can’t just toss them around a little bit?

And he had half a mind to just let him this time. The little dragon seemed murderous, no doubt angered that Luffy would toss his guardian towards water which the dragon had every reason to believe was just as deadly to Cale as it was for the rubber user. He’d have to fill in both Hong and Raon about what he learned of this world. For now, he was content to float and let the baby dragon guide him down to a safe location with Hong in his arms. The poor kitten was still fluffed up in shock from the sudden trip to the sky.

With Luffy taking care of the rest and both Zoro and Sanji wise enough to stay out of their captains match, he could finally relax. His sore body had been pushed more than usual in its weakened state and– while the vitality of the heart was well on its way to restoring him to optimal– he was still exhausted from the ordeal. Cale ran a hand along the little black dragon’s back, his eyes already closing as he leaned back against the soft grass beneath him.

“Raon, Hong, I need to tell you both some things about this world.”

The two of them immediately settled at his words, curling up close at either side of him as Raon put up a protective barrier, unwilling to get caught off guard again. In this quiet place, a distance from the rest, he told them the details he learned. He told them of devil fruits, of a world ruled by pirates and marines and where magic didn’t exist in the way they knew it. He explained how they fit in and even about his lack of weakness to water. He explained everything he thought was necessary, but he omitted main plot points that could affect their journey.

Cale trusted the two would never reveal their secrets, but he didn’t want to burden them with knowledge of the future. Knowing the two’s strong but childishly naive sense of justice, it would only weigh them down. He didn’t mind shouldering that weight for them. His hands were already stained with blood, their innocence didn’t need to be compromised too.

In the time it took him to get them up to speed, the fight was over. A rumbling in the ground was indication enough, and so Cale stood up. By now Raon had already cast drying magic on him and, true to its nature, the vitality of the heart had fixed him up. “Sounds like it’s just about over.”

He fixed both the visible kitten and dragon with searching looks as he continued. “So what say you two? Want to join a pirate crew?”

Raon and Hong shared one look, before turning determined eyes back to Cale. There was even a hint of eagerness there, their youthful hunger for adventure no doubt.

“Yeah!” “Of course, human!”

-Luffy’s POV-

Arlong had been the toughest opponent yet, but that only excited him more. The grand line was said to be full of strong people like him, and they would definitely run into more people just as strong, if not stronger! He felt pumped, adrenaline singing in his veins even as he bled from a few close calls with those steel sharp teeth. With Nami secured as their crew’s navigator, he vowed to only get stronger from here. And if his instincts were right, which they almost always were, there might just be another strong person waiting to be recruited from this island too.

While he hadn’t seen that starkly red hair again since tossing the guy into the sky in order to get at Arlong, he was sure the man wasn’t far off. He had a feeling they’d run into him again before they left. The Cocoyashi village doctor made quick work of patching them up. He was a nice man, even through his cussing and crass words. 

While Zoro’s wounds took longer to treat than the rest of them, the doctor still seemed stunned when he looked over the rate of healing. In his words, “Zoro must’ve been a monster if he managed to heal so fast and well with the shitty excuse of patch work, and they were lucky he got to it when he did or it would’ve scarred ugly”

Not that any of them cared how a scar looked like when it healed.

Luffy was in the process of rocking back and forth with a zoned out expression in front of the clinic when he spotted a familiar head of red hair in the crowd. A grin was already growing on his face as he leapt to his feet with a wave.

He bellowed at the top of his lungs “Oiiiiii, fancy pale ossan! Over here!” That seemed to get his attention, the man turning to walk their way. This time however, he had his arms full with something similarly red to his hair… and fluffy. As the man got closer, a pair of eyes and cat-like ears appeared from the fluff, before a head extended to take them all in.

Huh, he didn’t know cat’s could be that color too.

“Looks like you‘ve been through a shredder.” Cale remarked in the same bored tone he always seemed to carry. The blunt voice of their new companion was met with a laugh from himself. Luffy knew he liked this guy from the moment he saw him. He felt too kind to be anything but a good person! With renewed determination he happily extended another invitation.

“I like you! Join my crew!”

There was a second of pause before the red haired man grunted and held up a hand. “I have some conditions.” 

Luffy rocked back on his heels, still smiling assuredly as he waited for the man to explain. The red head immediately held up three fingers as he began listing off his requests.

“First, I hate pain, and I don’t want to work hard. If I sail with you, you have to promise you won’t go out of your way to put me or my companions in danger.” The man seemed very serious as he said this, putting emphasis on the pain aspect of his request as he made a point of looking at each other their banged up states. Luffy could only scratch the back of his head sheepishly as he thought back on the most recent fight. “Ah, my bad?” 

The man snorted, his arms crossed with a wholly unamused look as he grumbled “just… don’t do it again.” Luffy easily agreed making an ok symbol with his fingers. He would never actively put his Nakama in harms way after all, and the man never said anything about being against exploring or fun.

“Second, I have no interest in hurting or pillaging from innocent people. I know most pirates have a reputation for that, so if that’s something that can’t be avoided I want no part in this.” 

Luffy’s smile only grew wider at the genuine confirmation that this guy was good. His instincts had never been wrong before, but it was always great to see the evidence. It wasn’t hard to agree to that condition, especially when the man followed up with “If pillaging and money gathering is really necessary, I suppose I can make an exception if it’s from bad people though.” 

Now where had he heard that before? A certain orange haired navigator definitely didn’t come to mind.

”Lastly, this arrangement” the man gestured between them “will only be temporary. I… well, we will be parting ways eventually. Once we can find our way home that is.” 

Luffy was far less happy to hear this condition, but he had a feeling there was more story behind it than the man was letting on. He debated this term, crossing his own arms as he let out a loud “hmm” while tilting his head with a over dramatic pout as he thought it over. He already knew his answer, but it was no fun to just say yes. After another suspenseful moment, he finally couldn’t hold back the crackling smile, grinning from ear to ear as he agreed. “Sounds good to me!”

With all of his requests met, the man just shrugged and responded “Okay.” The matter of him joining the crew settled.

Sanji’s jaw almost dropped in his shock along with Usopp, his cigarette falling from his mouth as he quickly stood up and conked the captain right atop the head with a foot.

“Shitty captain, we don’t even know his name-“ his tirade was cut off when all Luffy did was continue to laugh at the abuse while the kitten in the man’s arms gave him that wide eyed look only small animals were capable of, before he lost all will to fight “ agh, whatever.” Pulling a new soggy cigarette from his pocket, the cook attempted to light it as he addressed their new crewmate.

“The name’s Sanji, cook for the straw hat pirates, welcome aboard I guess…”

Usopp looked between Luffy and Sanji for a moment before deciding to introduce himself too. “I’m the great and mighty warrior of the sea CAP- I mean, strong man USOPP! I’m the sniper and most courageous person on the crew!”

Luffy watched with fond eyes as his cook and sniper fumbled through a greeting. He already knew their new crew member had a hand in helping them win earlier. While he wasn’t sure what exactly the redhead had done, he knew his legs weren’t freed by coincidence. To the man’s credit, he didn't seem at all phased by their interaction. He simply waited for the two to quiet down before introducing himself.

“Pleasure to meet you Sanji, Usopp, Captain Monkey D. Luffy, my name’s Cale Henituse and this is Hong” he gestured to the kitten in his arms “we have one other companion, but you’ll meet him later. Thank you for inviting us aboard your ship.” He rounded off with a nod, not once acknowledging how cryptic his words really sounded. While the rubber boy could feel the concerned gazes of both Sanji and Usopp thrown his way, he wasn’t worried about Cale’s unknown companion. Call it a hunch, but he had a feeling he already met this mysterious other companion.

Reading his unconcerned body language, Sanji went along with the flow and carried on some small talk. “So, Cale, any dietary restrictions I should know about for you and your companions?” Cale looked thoughtful for a minute, before his lips pursed into a scowl as he replied “no sour.” Followed by a new voice exclaiming in an exuberant childish pitch “lot’s of meat and sweet too!”

Sanji dropped another cigarette.

The little kitten in Cale’s arms sat with his tail held high as he boasted his food preferences. Even Luffy was caught off guard, his own eyes popping a bit as he looked on in awe. “Your cat can TALK!?! THAT’S SO COOL!!!”

“W-what… a t-talking cat, that’s REALLY COOL!” Usopp had stars in his eyes as he crowded closer to their new crew mates. The little kitten seemed to flinch at the volume, backing away for a moment, before seeming to work up some courage and straighten even further as he continued on self-confidently. “I’m strong too!”

Cale nodded along to Hong’s words, repeating “Yes, Hong is very strong.”

That probably would’ve sounded patronizing from anyone else. Hong purred in happiness at the attention, before suddenly perking an ear, nodding along to something unheard before speaking up again. “Yes, our youngest is the strongest though! He told me to tell you all that our cale is very weak so you have to take care of him properly” a glare was sent Luffy’s way “no throwing our cale around, he is very fragile!” The whole group went quiet at those words, before Cale’s face crumpled in annoyance as he muttered “am not.”

They couldn’t help it, they all burst out laughing at that. Even Usopp who hadn’t seen the man fight or any of his abilities so far, was laughing at the silliness of a talking kitten telling them that its guardian was weaker than it and more fragile! “Y-you’re weaker than a kitten! Pfft, I- I can’t!” Usopp doubled over in his laughter, a step away from rolling on the floor even with all the bandages wrapped around him.

Luffy was glad he picked this guy, he was hilarious!

“I’m not that weak, but I don’t like fighting either. I also probably will die if you throw me like that again, so please refrain.” Their laughter died down a bit at that, Sanji speaking up between half-muffled chuckles. “Wait, you’re… you’re serious?” Cale nodded, a casual gesture though completely sincere, as though he was stating a simple fact like meat was the best food.

The laughter came to an abrupt end, at least everyone else did. Luffy didn’t see why he needed to stop.

Sanji put a hand to his chin, observing Cale with a thoughtful look. “Huh, no wonder you said you hated pain… if you’re serious about that then you probably really are weaker than a cat. I guess it’s a good thing you have a shield based devil fruit ability then.”

“Shishishi, it’s a really cool ability too!” Luffy chimed in, thinking back on the cool wings that sprouted from the flying shield. The man continued to stand aloof even in the face of two of their mounting horror as they realized just how fragile their new crewmate was. This, leading Sanji to remember something. “Hold on, weren’t you injured earlier in the fight? Should I call the doctor or…”

Cale shook his head, waving off their concern as he said he was fine. While his clothes looked cut up and red tinged in some places, the skin beneath was smooth and unhurt. Luffy wasn’t there to see if the man really got hurt or not, but he could tell he was being honest right now. At most, he just seemed tired.

“Could’ve sworn I saw blood earlier…” Sanji muttered on, his eyes roving up and down their new nakama as if trying to solve a really hard puzzle, before his eyes widened again in realization. “Medicine from your hometown! That’s it isn’t it? The stuff you used on the Marimo earlier?”

Cale stared back cooly, his face giving nothing away as he responded in a deadpan “something like that.” Their new nakama was guarded, but it wasn’t like he was hiding anything bad. They had time to open him up, Luffy was sure of it. Following the quick recovery of the rest of the crew and a party in celebration for the island's newfound freedom; they were all set to sail out. Cale and Hong stood aboard the ship, the former with a calm look while the excited latter stood on his shoulder.

“Ah, should we wait for your other friend?”

Luffy was a bit curious who this third “younger” friend could be. Cale just waved a noncommittal hand as he responded though. “He’s already here, you’ll meet him soon.”

The mystery guy sounded even more exciting now! Luffy couldn’t wait!

When Nami told them to set off before she boarded, he trusted her judgment and went along with it. They should each get a chance to choose how they set sail after all and like the master thief she was trained to be, she hopped aboard with the wallets of almost all the townsfolk sending her off at the dock.

Of course, gaining the wrath and anger of many people as they left.

He wouldn’t have had it any other way.

It wasn’t until later that day, with Cocoyashi village far behind, that they would meet their third new addition. Raon was far past anything any of them would have expected. The little black dragon with vibrant blue eyes was simultaneously the most adorable and hostile little reptile any of them have ever seen! He was pretty small, only standing as high as the captain’s knee caps when on all fours; but his personality was big enough to make up for it.

Though he acted all big and mighty, Luffy could see through it to the little dragon that loves and respects Cale the most. In fact, most of the hostility the dragon possessed was geared towards anyone who was a threat to the redhead (read: Luffy). The straw hatted captain only had one question for the little dragon before he could really accept him.

“Hey Raon, can you poop?”

His question was met with roaring complaints, a sigh thrown in there somewhere, while the little dragon himself only sputtered then turned his head this way and that before asking almost naively “d-doesn’t everyone?” Before being yelled at by Nami for even responding at all. His crew was lively and fun! It didn’t take long for the rest to accept they now had a talking kitten and dragon among them; not that he was worried about that. It was only as the crew was winding down for the night around the dinner table that any other questions came up.

With the table already beginning to get crowded with the new people sized crew members, both Hong and Raon were given their own little private table made by Usopp in the corner of the kitchen. Nami was the first to breach the subject. “So Cale, what were you doing on my island anyways? I asked around and no one’s seen you around before.”

Following her question, was Zoro surprisingly. “Are you from an island of doctors or something? That medicine you gave me earlier was better than anything I’ve taken.”

Cale was caught mid chew having not expected any further questions seeing as the chatter before was completely unrelated. He paused, thought about it, before continuing to chew thoroughly and swallowing. He had what Luffy would describe as a ‘thinking face’ on as he answered slowly. “No, my home is not one unusually abundant with doctors. They’re just home remedies really.” His voice was smooth and serene as he talked about it, an almost wistful look as he spoke.

“And to answer your question, Miss Nami, I was… looking for something on your island. Something to help me get back to my home.” Cale’s words trailed off then, adding no further comment. Seeing as the man seemed content to leave it there, Sanji asked another before the conversation could be entirely derailed. “Excuse me for probing, but based on your mannerisms, I’m guessing you were or are still a noble, right?”

Their new crewmate hesitated once, before nodding, his fingers still moving to cut his meal into small manageable bites as they talked.

“Aren’t you worried then? If you join a pirate crew, won’t you lose your noble status?” Sanji voiced curiously, his only visible eye full of bewilderment as if he couldn’t understand why Cale would want to be pirate. At this, the young man’s hands paused again, before setting down his fork and knife all together. Sensing the seriousness of whatever was to come, the table fell into a hush. Even Luffy slightly slowed his pace, still reaching to snag more food off unsuspecting plates, but more conscious of the noise he was making.

“I don’t really have a choice. My home cannot be reached by simple means and I doubt my family would care what method I used to get back so long as I did so in one piece.” Cale never broke eye contact with the cook as he answered, steel behind his words. A couple looks were shared by the others, before Nami softly continued. “But the world government-“

“Doesn’t matter to me. Frankly, I doubt our crown prince would even pretend to bow to their rules if he ever had the displeasure of meeting them.” He interrupted, his voice brooking no argument as he spoke almost hatefully in regard to them. Luffy wasn’t sure why everyone was acting so shocked over Cale’s words. He’d grown up with a grandfather constantly trying to turn him into a marine and that never stopped him from being a pirate.

“What’s so weird about a noble being a pirate? Pirates are cool!” His declaration was met with an unusually painful smack to the back of the head from Nami. He swore, her fist was almost as deadly as his gramps!

“Shut up Luffy! What Cale’s implying is basically declaring war on the world government!” She hissed in a rush, her eyes darting around the room as if worried someone could be listening in at the moment.

“Wouldn’t your island be in trouble? The world nobles wouldn’t sit back if they caught wind of this.” Zoro added while casually picking at his teeth with a splintered stick, his body language the most relaxed of the rest but still obviously clued into whatever was causing them all to act so jumpy.

Hong chose now to join the fray, his mouth still greasy from the meaty sausage he was digging into and speaking muffled around a full mouth. “We’ve n’ber herf ‘fa world guvrnmen back home!” Raon piled on, his eyes narrowed at the possible threat. “If they ever try to take our home away, I’ll DESTROY THEM ALL!”

Both of them were spoken over by Cale though, his expression still calm and unmoved and he said matter of factly “Our kingdom isn’t easy to get to anyways, I doubt they’d ever find their way there even if they wanted to.”

Nami hummed as she tried to imagine it, before asking something else. “You said you were trying to find a way back, is that still the case?”

Their noble crewmate nodded, his hands folded in his lap that respectful way Makino always tried to get him to use.

“As I said to the captain earlier, us travelling with you is only temporary. Our main goal is to get back to our kingdom- though being as difficult to get to as it is, even we cannot return so easily. Eventually, the three of us will go back, but we’re stuck here for the time being.” The reminder that their new companions were only staying temporarily was depressing, but Luffy understood. He wouldn’t keep anyone here against their will and he’d always help his nakama even if that meant having to part ways with them eventually.

Still the thought brought a damper on the mood around the table, Cale and his party returning to their meal in the meantime, apparently unaware of the change. Then, their navigator thought of something else to ask. “Hey, Cale, you’re a noble right? Does that mean you have lots of money?”

For the first time in this entire conversation, Cale showed an expression aside from blankness. He looked almost amused! With a slight quirk to his lip, he tilted his head as he responded “yes, but it probably wouldn’t be as valuable to you. Our kingdom has it’s own currency that isn’t quite the same as the universal belli you use out here.” The belli signs in Nami’s eyes died as he mentioned that. Her mouth fell into a deep frown as she groaned. “Of course the first noble we picked up would just have to be penniless too! Can’t have anything nice on this ship…”

Though her words were muttered, everyone still heard it anyway with the room so quiet. The loud dragon in the corner puffed up angrily at the comment, his wings spread wide as he glared at her. “Our human isn’t penniless! We have lots of houses and he even gives us an allowance! Behold, my piggy bank!” He then pulled one out of empty air, the rattling sound showing it was only half full at best. That finally broke the sad spell on the room, everyone save for Cale and the two children bent over laughing at the dragon showing off his “wealth”. 

The noble could only sigh and keep eating, ignoring everyone else.

“Yes, yes, Raon is very wealthy!” Nami huffed between amused laughs, her eyes crinkled indulgently. The black dragon stomped a small foot down, his piggy bank forgotten as he yelled that Cale was too! He even went so far as telling a story about how the man once threw millions of silver coins into a volcano just to form a path to walk on or something.

They humored the baby dragon, placating smiles on everyone’s faces as they finished their meal merrily. Thoughts of the future separation pushed aside. It didn’t matter if they needed to leave eventually because they were here now! So why be sad over the future when they were living in the present?

Luffy raised a toast, his mug of juice lifted high above as he grinned an impossibly wide smile.

“Shishishi! To new crewmates!”

He was happy to see everyone raise a cup as well, even Cale!

“Let our journey begin!”

Chapter Text

-Nami’s POV-

It took surprisingly little time to get used to having a noble aboard their ship.

Granted, that might’ve had something to do with the literal children he brought along with him. Seriously, the dragon and kitten were only 6 and 8 years old respectively, which, wtf Cale, in what way was it a good idea to bring children into a life of piracy?

Any shred of dignity the man’s apathetic appearance might’ve afforded him flew out the window the instant he was caught being used as a resigned jungle gym for his kids.

The pair of them were always found nearby, entertaining themselves by climbing onto his shoulders, lap, head, or even his stomach when lying down.

Seeing the fancily dressed man with proper speech be reduced to no more than a convenient seat, really did wonders to humanize that resting bitch face he had going for him.

Nami wasn’t sure what to make of him at first.

All things considered, he was still an incredibly suspicious individual regardless of if he “helped” them take down Arlong Park. “Help” being in quotations since she really didn’t see how he contributed to that whole ordeal.

Still, Nami was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, if only to avoid being a hypocrite.

Nami wanted to avoid him at first, she really did. After all, knowing that he and his wards were destined to leave, she might as well save herself some heartache. It wasn’t like Cale was even trying to get to know any of them either.

More often than not, she would spot him lazing in one of her free lounge chairs on deck, usually in the shade of her parasol too. Weirdest of all, he’d almost always be staring into empty space, as though he was deaf and blind to the world around him.

He only seemed to respond to the questions and movements of the children playing nearby– and even then, he mostly responded with variations of “hmm”, “that so?” Or “that’s nice [insert child’s name here]”.

He was so detached and irresponsible in his role as a parent that Nami couldn’t understand just how he tricked those two adorable kids into worshiping him.

‘Why would Luffy invite such a lazy jerk to join us?’

It wasn’t until day three of sailing together and him hogging her spot all morning again, that she finally snapped.

“What’s your problem?”

His eyes blinked once, twice, the haze in them clearing as he focused still half lidded eyes on her.

He was seated in a slouched position today, an elbow propped on the arm of the chair so he could rest his chin on his palm. While the rest of his facial muscles remained stoic, his eyes, she found, were alive with expression.

He seemed to be curious, a look she was all too familiar with flashed somewhere in the depth of reddish brown, before being masked behind careful apathy.

“Hmm?”

Again with the damn repetitive response!

“What, you think just because you were some big shot noble you can sit around and do nothing all day? Well tough luck your highness, but this is no luxury cruise ship!”

At this, she shoved forward the bucket and mop she’d brought over from storage. Luffy, Usopp and Zoro were already off to clean with their other sets somewhere around the poop deck.

“If you plan to stay, you’ll have to do your fair share of chores too!”

Cale looked between her and the mop/ bucket combo she held out to him, before sighing and getting ready to stand.

She was just about to smirk at the accomplishment of getting him off his ass for something other than food or a bathroom break, when two voices cut in.

“Human! Why are you getting up? Where are you going?”

“Cale’s going somewhere? Where to? You have to bring us too, just in case!”

The children who had been in the middle of a game of stacking some colorful and glittering rocks– which look suspiciously transparent and valuable and definitely weren’t items they had on the ship before– instantly focused their attention on them at the first hint of a chair leg scraping the deck.

As soon as Raon noticed the bucket and mop in her hand, an affronted look took over as she found herself on the receiving end of a (cute) heated glare.

“What are you doing to our human!”

The kitten, while obviously not quite on the same page, was quick to side with his friend (brother?). He nodded his little head, adopting his own angry scowl that looked more like a pout on that small round face.

“Yeah, what are you doing to Cale nya!”

Nami felt trapped, tricked even, how was she suddenly turned into the bad guy in this scenario?

Cale was the one who’d been lazing around doing nothing for the past 3 days– and she’d also snuck the two of them sweets just the night before!

Ungrateful, stupidly cute, brats!

The noble just raised his hands to get them to settle down, his voice as aloof as ever while he explained the situation.

“Raon, Hong, Miss Nami is right. We aren’t in the Roan Kingdom or our estates anymore. We have to do our fair share of work while we’re aboard too, such as helping clean up.”

The navigator swore he was doing this on purpose, he had to be! The kids were instantly calmed by a few words from him when only a second ago they were practically rearing to take her head off from even suggesting he do work!

The little dragon fluttered his wings in a way she was beginning to suspect was a preening behaviour.

“Why didn’t you say so earlier, human! Cleaning a puny ship like this is a piece of cake for a dragon like me!”

In the blink of an eye the surface of the ship was virtually sparkling. Even the mop and bucket in her hand looked practically brand new!

Distant exclamations of “whaa-“, “what the fuck?” And “Wow! your three broom style really is fast!” Indicated the cleaning job wasn’t limited to what they could see.

Raon’s own words were reason enough to conclude he’d probably done… whatever he did… to the entire ship.

Even though Cale’s lips remained flat the entire time, the way he settled back into the chair and just continued to stare at her exuded something cocky. It was basically his version of a “fuck you” to her face!

Barely holding back her desire to pummel him, she put on her best friendly smile as she first appeased the baby dragon’s ego.

“Wow, that was amazing Raon! You really did a great job cleaning even though that was supposed to be Cale’s job!”

Her jab at his guardian went entirely over the kids’ head. The black dragon unable to hold back a huff of pride “It wasn’t anything special. Our human is very weak after all, it would’ve taken him hours to do even a quarter of what I can do in seconds!”

She grit her teeth, her smiling taking on a strained edge as she tried to ignore the way Cale had these two wrapped around his fingers.

“Hahaha, yes of course! Raon is just too awesome for us lowly humans to compare with! But Cale still has to do some work around the ship too, you can’t do everything for him.”

The 6 year old’s face scrunched up at that, his mouth opening as though ready to refute, before she cut him off.

“And, I could really use a big strong someone to help me with something none of us are powerful enough to do! Do you think you know anyone who could give me a hand with that?”

Raon seemed torn, obviously struggling between wanting to stay by Cale, but also unwilling to say he wasn’t powerful enough to help her.

She knew pride was his weakness.

Cale also seemed to know what she was doing, but surprisingly he did nothing to stop her. He even gave her a helping hand!

“It sounds like Miss Nami could use both of your help then.”

This time Raon only put up a token fight, repeatedly telling Cale to be careful while they were gone and to yell for him if he ever got in trouble.

Nami was starting to wonder who the real parent was in this relationship.

Before she left with the kids to teach them how to tend to her tangerine grove, she assigned their guardian the task of fishing.

He seemed to take that in stride, not one word of complaint as he moved to attend to the poles.

He was an odd and frustrating character, but overall, she couldn’t bring herself to dislike him.

It wasn’t until a couple nights later, docked at a small uninhabited island, that she’d have her next real conversation with him again.

She was just finishing up another entry in her log book for the day when she heard the soft tap of footsteps outside her door. Curious as it was Zoro’s watch tonight and she knew he would be asleep in the crows nest by now.

Leaving the ink to dry, she tiptoed to the door and pressed an ear against it, straining to hear what was going on outside.

It probably wasn’t Luffy, she was pretty sure Sanji had taken to tying the rubber man to his hammock after the last nighttime snack escapade.

After standing by the door for a solid minute with nothing else happening, she was just about to give up and dismiss it– when she picked up another sound.

Past the creaking of the wood and soft slap of mini waves caressing the hull of their ship, she could swear she heard someone crying.

She couldn’t ignore it this time, not in good conscience anyways. She peeked her head out first, trying to get a read on the situation. But when a quick scope of the deck showed nothing amiss, she began a quiet search in earnest.

Following the soft sounds, she found herself looking towards the islands and further across the shore.

Someone was sitting in the grass, head tilted towards the sky along with a couple extra blob-like shapes huddled close. She could already guess who it was.

Nami wasn’t trying to eavesdrop. No! She was just concerned for the children, and maybe she was a bit suspicious still… but she was mostly concerned!

She found herself inching closer and closer, able to pick up more of the quiet conversation held between soft sobs.

“I-I miss them! I miss Noona and Choi Han and Mary and- and big brother Lock! I miss everyone back home… I just want to go home!”

Cale made a soft noise of acknowledgment, his hand carding gentle patterns into the back of the trembling red kitten. On the other side of the kitten, the slightly bigger black dragon seemed to be mimicking him.

He patted a chubby paw atop his siblings head as he appeared to try his best to sound brave.

“I… I miss them too. But at least we still have our human here! Human will get us back, I’m sure of it!”

Hong, though still sniffling, seemed to find some comfort in Raon’s words. His head turned towards Cale as he snuffled out a question.

“Cale, do you think we’ll be able to go home soon? This place is icky, there’s too much water and staying on the ship always makes me feel dizzy! The people here are nice but… I like home much better…”

The redheaded noble was quiet for a moment, his eyes still looking up at the stars, before he turned his attention to the two children beside him.

“I don’t know.”

Even though his voice was the same as it always was, the way he said those words held something vulnerable, tender. Nami felt like she was seeing the real him for the first time.

“I don’t know how long we’ll be staying here, I don’t know where the things we’re searching for are, I don’t even know what’s happening outside of this world, back home, with everyone else…”

Nami could feel her heart break a bit with every admittance, part of her wanting to yell at the noble for being so blunt to children who were seeking a bit of comfort.

“All I know is that you two are here with me now and they’re waiting for us there. That’s all I need to know.”

His tactics were… strange, to say the least, but even Nami found herself oddly consoled at his words.

“Besides, not everything is so different here. There’s still a moon in the sky and some of the constellations are similar too-“

This seemed to catch the two children’s interest, distracting them from their sorrow as they immediately asked him to point out the constellations.

Nami found herself getting caught in the trance of his steady voice, the low timbre melding with the notes of the nearby shore and night breeze. Before she knew it, the children were asleep and he was looking her way.

She knew he’d probably always known she was nearby, why he didn’t shoo her off during such a private moment, a mystery. 

Taking his silence as permission to stay, she came up and sat beside him. He was back to looking at the sky now, his eyes always searching.

They remained in a bubble of companionable silence. Neither speaking a word and just enjoying the calm warm night. Until her curiosity got the better of her.

“Was what you said to them true?”

Cale hummed. “About the stars? No, I don’t know anything about astronomy.”

She pulled her legs up to her chest to hug them, her cheek resting atop her knee so she could look at his profile.

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

He seemed to slump a bit at her knowing tone, a mask slowly slipping.

“What I told them is true, I don’t know anything. I might be an incompetent person, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to give up.”

Though he spoke with a straightforward attitude, Nami could pick out a sliver of uncertainty in it.

“You know, you might be a lazy slug of a new crewmate-“ he flinched at her words, a frown already settling over his features as she continued “-but you’ve obviously done something right by those kids.”

She leaned back, looking up into the starry night herself.

“The way they look at you, the fact they’re always so happy just staying near you. I can tell you mean a lot to them. What about you?”

Nami could see him tense out of the corner of her eye. Any doubt she had around him settling as she heard the conviction in his voice next.

“They mean everything to me.”

So there the two sat, enjoying the quiet of each other’s company. And if Nami saw the silhouette of Bellemere sitting with her that night, no one else had to know.

-Usopp’s POV-

When Usopp first learned of Cale’s noble background, he was expecting someone more… charming.

The closest people to nobles he’d ever known were part of Kaya’s family, and everyone always talked about how charismatic her father had been. So meeting a real noble, one who was apparently high up enough to talk casually about a “crown prince”, shattered any image he’d built up before.

Cale was not charming.

Cale wasn’t even trying to be nice!

He was handsome, Usopp would give him that, but even then he was weak!

The guy had noodlier arms than even himself, and he barely lifted a finger to do anything about it.

Having someone finally weaker than him on the crew should’ve been nice… but the man’s attitude towards his own weakness made it a double edged sword.

How could he be so calm all the time? Was he really so fearless? Is there some inherent difference between nobles and regular people, that gives them the confidence to have zero life preserving skills and still act better than everyone else?

Usopp felt ashamed at his own cowardice when a guy who straight up admitted to being weaker than a kitten, treated his own potential death as a mild inconvenience.

The man was the king of poker faces, he could count the number of expressions he’d seen Cale wear with one hand; and fear didn’t even make the list.

Usopp couldn’t let the status quo stand!

He wouldn’t take this insult sitting down!

Usopp will finally prove himself better once and for all with… with, uh… with a duel! Yeah, a proud and manly duel!

He was still patting himself on the back for the awesome idea as he sought out his red haired crew member.

Cale wasn’t all that hard to find, what with the guy basically living in the one chair on deck when he wasn’t eating meals with everyone else.

“Cale! I challenge you to a–”

Usopp cut himself off in surprise at the sight before him.

Cale was indeed sitting on the chair, but for some reason he was now covered in stray leaves with a tangerine peel flower crown in his hair. He wasn’t even under the shade of the parasol like he usually was. Instead he was just lying there, in the sun, eyes closed and hands folded in his lap.

“…what’re you doing?”

“Photosynthesizing.”

…

Usopp stared at him.

Cale stared at the back of his eyelids.

Usopp wanted to smack him.

“Well, when you’re done doing… that, I challenge you to a duel!”

Cale finally opened his eyes. He fixed Usopp with a neutral look, the man himself puffing up and ready to prove his manliness when-

“No.”

“No?”

“Yes.”

“Really?!”

“No.”

“…”

He wasn’t supposed to do that!

Cale didn’t even bother trying to get up, his face still perfectly serene as he elaborated. “A duel’s too troublesome. You’ll win. The end.”

Ok, even if Cale was admitting he was weaker, this didn’t count as a win! It would be a blight on Usopp’s honor to accept victory this way!

“Yosh, I see you know your place!”

Oi, that wasn’t what he was trying to say!

Usopp couldn’t help it though, his legs were already shivering as he made to turn around and retreat from the wave of killing intent blasting his way.

“What. Did. You. Say.”

Who allowed such a tiny dragon to be so disproportionately terrifying? It wasn’t just for show either. Based on the few tricks he and Luffy had teased out of him over the past few days of travel, he was strong too!

And all this natural talent was given to a 6 year old sentient reptile. A 6 year old! Why is life so unfair?

“I-I was just t-telling Cale how… how this chair is his spot now! Yes! He sits here so often he might as well just own the chair and parasol and everything!”

Usopp ignored the distant screech of a banshee when he said that.

“Hmph, our human doesn’t need these things. Our home has much more comfortable chairs and tables!”

“Raon.”

“But it’s true!”

Cale fixed a firm stare on the black dragon, before the little guy all but deflated and grumbled out what might’ve been an apology.

“Why don’t you go find Hong, I think he was fishing with Luffy somewhere.”

Raon left, though he didn’t look happy about it.

Besides the fact that a more comfortable table didn’t make much sense, Usopp wasn’t shocked by anything the kid said. He was more bewildered that those words only came from the dragon and not the noble himself because… wasn’t that kind of their thing?

Usopp would know, he looked it up once, being all vain, snooty and looking down on commoners was pretty much the dictionary definition of em.

With the little terror gone, a bit of the runaway confidence was back.

“Heh, don’t think I’ll fall for your tough guy act! You’re only acting confident like that because you tricked strong people into being your lackeys!”

Cale looked up sharply at his words, the first real sign of anger in his eyes. Usopp cursed his big mouth!

“Are you crazy? Who’d want to be surrounded by stupidly strong and scary people all the time?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean that I take back what I- wait… huh?”

Cale looked at him like he was growing a second head, his voice dead serious as he clarified.

“If I had a choice, I’d stay far away from strong people like that.”

“Hold on, you don’t like lording your strength over people? Your connections? Isn’t that what nobles are all about?”

Cale let out a self-depreciating breath.

“Maybe stupid nobles do. Why would I want to live in constant fear of subordinates who could snuff out my life at any moment? That just sounds tiring.”

…

‘You know, he does have a point there…’

“So, you’re actually afraid of strong people too?”

Cale didn’t respond, but Usopp understood him. How could he be so foolish before?

It was all clear now! He must’ve been blinded by the label of Nobel, but deep deep down, past the whole cold expressionless facade, his red haired companion was just some cowardly regular guy!

He could feel a kinship forming between them already!

Cale in the meantime, continued to think of all the new strong people he was getting involved in and couldn’t help but cringe inside.

“Why does being a slacker it have to be so hard…”

-Sanji’s POV-

Sanji had served his fair share of more noble guests during his time on the Baratie. Of course, most of the ones he remembered were beautiful women– but even then, he was confident that Cale was unusual for a noble.

The man kept to himself and while he was every bit as lazy as expected, he didn’t have that conceited air around him that most noble men did.

Even during meals, Cale always thanked him and polished off every morsel on his plate. And this wasn’t a result of Luffy finishing any leftovers for him.

Sanji had tested him once, making a dessert that was a bit more on the tart side when serving. Cale hardly did more than wince once at first taste, before continuing to eat the rest.

He could tell the man hadn’t been lying about his dislike for sour things, and yet he didn’t complain once. He didn’t waste any of it. All of this was pointing to one thing, and for once, Sanji hoped he wasn’t right about it.

All things considering, Cale had already gained a decent amount of respect from Sanji based on his eating practices alone. But it was when he caught the man cooking that really sealed it for him.

Personally, Sanji hated when people entered his kitchen.

It’s a sacred place for a chef, the one place he knew inside out and he’d be damned if he let anyone mess with his setup.

However, he’d made an exception just once.

Sanji had stumbled across them by accident. Dinner had long been served and cleaned up for the day and almost everyone had returned to the resting quarters for the night. Cale was still out and about, but that wasn’t unusual for the noble. He tended to spend long hours out on the deck with his children, waiting for the pair to tire out and turn in.

Sanji didn’t envy the man in that respect.

The kitten already seemed like a handful, add in a baby dragon with more pride than a world noble to the mix and you had a recipe for disaster on your hands.

He was about to turn in for the night himself, but he paused. Call it a chef’s intuition, but he felt like something was off. Something in his kitchen.

He shot a suspicious look towards his captain's bunk, verifying the rubber boy was still there, before trying to shake off the feeling.

Sanji meant to ignore it, trying his best to convince himself he was overthinking things, but it just wouldn’t stop nagging at the back of his head. He figured it couldn’t hurt to run a quick check, just to put his mind at ease.

With that thought, he turned away from his cot and headed back up the ladder and towards his galley.

It wasn’t until he was a few steps away from the door that he heard the first clatter of pots. His hackles instantly rose, mentally cursing up a storm towards the idiot Marimo who was meant to be on watch.

Before he could kick the door down and chew out whoever was messing around in there though, he heard the cheerful sound of young voices coming from the other side.

There were only two people on board that could currently pass with that voice. His anger reduced to a simmering annoyance, his foot dropping back down as he reached a hand to slowly push the door instead.

“Human! I want more of the tasty sticky red sauce sticks!”

“Me too, me too! It makes my mouth all prickly when I eat it nya!”

As much as it shouldn’t surprise him with these two as culprits at the table, Sanji almost couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw who was behind the counter serving them.

The noble, while not quite in his element, didn’t stick like a sore thumb either. His hands moved swiftly as he stirred, his sleeves rolled up and out of the way as he adjusted the heat.

Cale wasn’t a professional chef, Sanji doubted he’d even trained a day in a kitchen– but the man’s ability to memorize steps and mimic techniques was on another level.

Sanji was pretty sure the way the man flipped the contents of the pan he was holding was a move he’d used to show off infront of Nami-swan once or twice.

When he was done cooking, he neatly plated the contents and served it to the table of two eager customers. Whatever he’d cooked must not have been with ingredients from the kitchen as Sanji couldn’t recognize any of the aromas currently in the air.

It smelt spicy, yet sweet, and by the sounds of it, the end result was even a bit crispy too. Sanji had never seen a dish like this before!

“This still tastes amazing, nya!”

“I missed this only a little bit, human. I’m sure Choi Han must miss it even more! We should make more of it when we get back!”

Cale just hummed as he turned back to the kitchen to clean up. He rinsed out the pans and utensils with ease, towel drying them down before returning them to the exact place Sanji knew they’d been before.

If the kids hadn’t just said what they did, he’d think this wasn’t their first time sneaking a midnight snack like this.

Sanji must’ve opened the door a bit too much, as soon he found himself caught by a pair of sharp reddish brown eyes.

“Did you need something, cook-nim?”

Sanji almost felt like he was the one intruding here.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you three that? This is my kitchen after all.”

A light of understanding coloured those usually dull eyes, before the man blinked and tipped his head slightly down.

“Thank you for letting me borrow it then.”

The cheeky bastard.

While Sanji had every right to be mad about his blatantly dismissive and unrepentant attitude, he found he didn’t have the heart for it. If anything, he was more amused.

Sanji found himself drifting towards the table, snagging a piece of whatever the redhead just cooked– much to the dismay of the children– and sampling it himself.

He was right, these definitely weren’t spices he’d tried before. It was an interesting dish, one he wanted to learn more about.

“I didn’t know we had another cook amongst the crew.”

Cale shrugged, nonchalant about possessing skills no other noble would be caught dead with.

“Picked up some tricks here and there, I don’t do it often.”

A humble noble too, even more of a rarity.

“Not bad, these ingredients don’t seem to be from our supplies though…” Cale obviously heard the implied question behind it, answering with little prompt. “Brought from home, Raon was carrying them.”

Ah, that made sense. Though Sanji had to wonder just how much that little dragon had squirreled away. He was pretty sure Raon was also carrying the noble's entire wardrobe and an absurd amount of other random items just based on what he saw the idiot duo playing with during the day.

“You know, most nobles would never even dream of holding a kitchen knife. Yet you handle it with ease, almost like you’re experienced or something.”

Sanji didn’t mean for it to come across as accusing, he only meant to lightly probe into it. It was pretty strange to see a person of status perform tasks that were usually seen as lesser people's work.

“Heh, our human is way better than those other stuck up nobodies! There isn’t even a comparison!”

“Cale is better than other nobles, he’s much cooler! He’s still a bit weak though…”

The two children who’d been happily eating before stepped up to defend their guardians honor. There even seemed to be a bit of contempt in the dragon’s voice as he talked about possible other nobles.

Cale himself only sighed, grabbing a napkin to wipe the edge of the dragon’s mouth as he prompted them to finish their food while it was still hot.

Though they looked like they had more to say, neither seemed to want to pass up the snack time. With the two children successfully redirected, Cale looked back towards Sanji.

“I can’t wield a sword.”

Sanji blinked. He almost felt like he was suffering whiplash from how quickly the topic of their conversation seemed to change.

“I can’t fly.”

Well that was obvious. Also random but-

“I can’t make poison.”

What was even going on right now?

“I’m not a good fighter and I’m not strong.”

There was another pause at this, Cale still just looking at him with that gravely serious stare that felt completely out of place after spewing random statements.

“If I can’t do any of those things, shouldn't I at least be able to cook to keep the people who can do those things fed?”

Well damn, call him crazy but Sanji really was starting to believe Cale really was a noble.

Sanji felt his own blood pumping from those words, a challenge calling to him that as a chef, he couldn’t ignore. He grabbed a cigarette from his pocket, and put it between his teeth as he walked towards the stove.

“I’ll let you off this time, but next time, come to me if you want a midnight snack.”

The two children he was addressing looked up at him with confusion, a hint of hesitation there.

“But… Only Cale knows how to make this…”

Sanji smirked, already rolling his own sleeves back as he bumped the noble on his way to the counter.

“Then I guess he’ll just have to show me how.”

His answer was another drawn out sigh.

-Zoro’s POV-

Zoro was the first mate.

It was never said aloud, or really decided by any of them, but that was just how it was on this ship.

Zoro was the first to join. He was the single voice of reason when there was only a cheery cotton filled head that might’ve been dropped one too many times as a baby to lead them.

So of course, he was the one who had to be more stern where others could be carefree.

He wasn’t an idiot, and despite what their navigator may say, he had more in his head than just swords. While Luffy recruited Cale with little suspicion, Zoro wasn’t so quick to let his guard down.

And if a decent tonic wasn’t enough to buy his respect, neither would two innocent looking children make him change his mind so quickly.

He watched over the man’s interactions with the rest of the crew during the week’s travel overseas. Like many of the others, he agreed the man was quiet. However, unlike the others, he could see there was more to the guy than his lazy inanimate persona seemed to let on.

He knew from experience.

Cale had sharp eyes, calculative in a way that showed there was always something going on beneath the stony exterior. The noble was probably the most dangerous individual among them, simply because he had both brains and accessible brawn at his fingertips.

It was always the quiet ones…

With how smart Zoro figured the man to be, it came as no surprise that the man quickly caught on to his own distrust of him. He found himself constantly thumbing the sheath of Kuina’s inherited sword during the days leading up to their confrontation, the blade near vibrating beneath impatient finger tips.

It was a quiet night up in the crows nest when Cale made his move. Zoro was already half crouched, an inch of his blade unsheathed as the redhead crested the ledge.

They stared at each other, a silent battle of wills, before the redhead ended the contest early with a bemused eye roll.

“I’m not trying to kill you.”

Zoro sheathed his sword, though still kept a thumb on the hilt.

“Could’ve fooled me.”

Cale pulled himself up further, swinging an arm over the edge so he was stable enough to pull something else up.

“I was going to ask if you cared for alcohol other than sake and grog but-“

“Why didn’t you start with that then?”

Zoro practically dropped his sword as he reached over to haul the man the rest of the way up.

Cale looked a bit disheveled after the fact, but true to his character, he maintained a carefully neutral face.

“Ever tried spiced ale?”

Zoro raised a brow at the fancy language, the noble taking cues from his body language and answering himself.

“Probably not then-“ he cut the redhead off “You said it was alcohol right?”

Cale looked startled for all of a second, before schooling his expression back to near apathy.

“Yes.”

“Good enough for me.”

Zoro took the offered bottle, uncorked it, and took a swig. It burned a bit going down, and the taste was unlike any drink he’d had before, but it was good!

Cale settled himself in a bit before opening his own bottle and taking a drink. The two continued nursing their drinks, a truce between them. Maybe there was more alcohol content in the drink than he thought, but Zoro felt his lips loosen a bit with a belly burning with rum.

“You’re a real piece of work.”

When Cale only quirked a brow in response, he found himself continuing before he could think better of it.

“You’re smarter than you let on, and that makes you dangerous. For all I know you could be a ticking time bomb.”

Cale shifted, a strand of silky red hair falling in front of the man's eye.

“Why haven’t you done anything then?”

He snorted, throwing back another swig before responding.

“I could’ve. Thought about cutting you down a couple times too.” The way Cale stilled didn’t escape his eye. “But our captain wouldn’t have liked that.”

Zoro shrugged, adorning one of his more playful smirks as he noted Cale’s sudden disinterest in looking his way.

“Besides, I’m confident I can still cut you down if you ever prove to be a problem down the line.”

The noble continued to face away, looking off into the surrounding sea as he made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat.

“Then I guess I better not give you a reason to do so.”

What a fearless guy! Zoro liked his spirit. Though he couldn’t say he completely trusted their newest nakama 100% yet, the man had more than earned a bit more respect from him tonight.

Little did Zoro know, Cale was actually shitting bricks from the encounter.

Chapter Text

-Nami’s POV-

If there was one thing Nami wished she could change about her crew, it would probably be everyone’s flippant attitude towards money.

Sure, maybe she was a bit biased– but she was pretty sure she had a solid case here. Luffy and Zoro had exactly zero berri to their names when she first met them. This already wasn’t a good look for people claiming to be pirates– but even after explaining this and getting whining responses of “we know!” or “yeah yeah, we’re working on it”, they still proceed to do the exact opposite by leaving half her fortune at the dock of the town they just escaped!

She wasn’t even technically part of their crew at the time!

Nami never pegged herself as a particularly selfish person, but that was her money and at the time she desperately needed it! So it came as no surprise to anyone that when she joined the crew for realizies this time, she immediately self elected herself treasurer.

As such, she saddled herself with the burden of managing their finances while delegating a budget that could keep them afloat without making them look poor. Lord only knows she was in for a challenge.

When the day’s news coo arrived, her pessimism over her increasingly impossible goal of NOT being penniless pirates only grew.

“Damn governments and their inflation! I swear if you hike these prices any further I’ll have our cook pluck you featherless, roast you and send you back to headquarters on a steaming spit!”

The intelligent gull looked rightfully terrified, but accepted her payment before flying off. Her annoyance only rose as she spotted Cale, once again hogging her comfy lounge chair and parasol combo spot.

Sure, she probably could’ve gotten Sanji to vacate the spot forcefully at any point, but she had a feeling that wouldn’t leave a great impression on the kids– And, well, even she wasn’t immune to those mischievous brats doe eyes.

Grumbling underbreath, she relocated herself to her second best option of a slightly less comfortable folding chair she dug out of her luggage. Nami was just glad Nojiko had the foresight to pack it for her before she left.

As much as the red haired noble seemed to delight in pissing her off, she did find his company marginally more acceptable these past few days… for no reason in particular.

No, a certain star filled night had nothing to do with it!

Anyways, she was now settled, paper in hand, beside said noble. Cale hardly did more than shift in place to indicate he realized she joined him. She ignored him right back, focusing on the freshly printed papers in hand to get news on the happenings in the blues.

The crinkling of the papers must’ve disturbed Cale’s rest as he finally opened his eyes. He cast one look her way, narrowed his eyes, before refolding his hands over his stomach.

“I assume that’s today’s paper then?”

“Hmm, oh, yeah, damn news coo raised the prices on these again.”

Cale’s finger twitched.

“That so… must be time.” the last part was muttered under-breath.

Before Nami could look too deep into Cale’s peculiar behaviour, she heard a loud yell as their captain went flying past and knocked into Usopp in the process. The sniper spilled his newly developed “tobasco star filling” onto his face, a majority making its way into his eyes, promptly drawing forth pained caterwauls.

“Nami swaaan~ Your handsome and loyal guard will make sure no one– besides permitted children– come anywhere near your beautiful tangerine grove in the name of love!”

Two younger voices accompanied him, both yelling some variation of dutiful promises to protect her trees.

Nami really envied Zoro and Cale in this moment. How the both of them could be relaxed enough to sleep through this chaotic mess disguised as a pirate ship was a mystery to her.

Usopp was still grabbing at his eyes– with hot sauce covered hands so yeah, not helping– while prancing around and screeching about the burn. Luffy, oblivious to the plight he’d caused, was still complaining about only wanting 1 tangerine, which was complete bullshit and they all knew it.

The boisterousness of the two was enough to even draw forth a rare irked look on the noble’s face. He was even giving them an incredulous side eye, as though he was unable to understand the stupidity of the two.

As much as Nami has grown to tolerate their ridiculousness, there came a point where it was just too much.

Gritting her teeth, she stood from her seat and marched over to the pair before smacking them both upside the head to get them to quiet down.

Luffy was quick to cowe, he always seemed weirdly conditioned to behave after a quick punch to the head. Usopp also quieted down some, though he was still whimpering and rubbing at his eyes.

Smack!

“Ow! What was that for Nami?!”

“Stop rubbing your eyes, you’re just shoving more hot sauce in them. Sanji, can you get some water and a towel over here?”

“Right away my lovely!”

Nami placed her hands on her hips, sighing as she looked over the bunch of idiots that made up her crew. She wasn’t even the oldest person here and yet she was still the only one with a lick of common sense!

Or, at least the only one who wasn’t too lazy to do anything about it.

She waved the rolled up newspaper she was using to swat at Usopp’s hands every time they inched towards his face.

“Do I have to do everything around here? God, you should all be old enough to deal with things like-“

She was mid tirade as a paper slipped away from the rest of the newspaper. It fluttered down in a graceful arc, before landing face up between the trio.

Nami’s breath caught, even Usopp stopped sniveling.

An impossibly wide smile was mirrored back on the paper, their captain donning a near identical expression (with his eyes open) as they realized what it was. He peeled the paper off the deck, lining it up beside his face with the proudest set to his lanky figure she’d ever seen.

“Shishishi! We’re real wanted pirates now! Dead or alive!”

Nami fell to her knees as she saw the price, all too quickly realizing just what it meant to be worth so much as a starting bounty.

“Oi Zoro! Look look, we have a wanted poster now! They’re saying we’re worth 30 million!”

Luffy, ever the uninformed optimist, immediately went bounding over to the sleeping swordsman to probably suffocate him with their new wanted poster.

She meant that literally too. Their captain was far too excited to think of trivial concepts like obstructing people's airway with paper leads to said person suffocating. Not even counting the fact that pressing a paper so close to a person’s face didn’t help at all with actually reading it.

Leaving their first mate to suffer his fate, she could only muse over the days when she was only chased by the occasional incompetent pirate. At 30 million berri… she was sure there would be far worse people coming after their heads.

Well, at least it was only Luffy’s head they really wanted! For now…

-Cale’s POV-

Having read far enough to cover this particular event in the books, Cale wasn’t at all surprised by the bounty. If anything, he was glad it still remained the same.

He wanted to leave as little impact on this world as he could, if possible. Unlike with the case of “The Birth of a Hero”, Cale didn’t plan to stay here. Even if he’d decided against viewing these people as characters in a book, that didn’t mean he was ready to get overly entangled with them either.

That would just be plain irresponsible.

When Nami reopened the newspaper to erratically search for any other bounty posters, he was relieved to see no others had come from their last plight.

It was a low probability his presence would have impacted the storyline so much in such a short span of time, but then again, he’d been hailed as a hero in the Roan kingdom without doing anything noteworthy there either…

At any rate, he knew better than to let his guard down this time.

Their captain was still high on the endorphins from discovering he was a wanted man. Why the young man would derive so much happiness from the world basically deeming him a threat worthy of extermination, he’d never understand. But if it was related to his dream… then Cale wasn’t one to judge.

He was distracted from his musing as a voice spoke into his head.

–Human, there’s a ship heading our way from in front of us! It seems like a scrap ship!

Cale had long assigned both Hong and Raon their own private tasks while they stayed aboard the ship. Both kids had a hard time adjusting to the new world, especially in Hong’s case as he’d almost never been separated from his sister for so long.

Raon, honouring his duty of keeping a lookout for potential danger, was quick to chirp out more descriptions of the ship and how many people appeared to be aboard it.

This wasn’t an encounter that had been recorded in the books, so it probably wasn’t something of major impact. However, hearing the ship was flying a white sail with a bird like insignia was reason enough to practice some caution.

Sitting up from his relaxed lounging pose, he turned towards the direction they were sailing, squinting until he could just barely make out a slowly growing shape in the distance.

“Looks like we have company approaching.”

The cheering and clamour of the crew settled a bit at Cale’s words. Usopp being the first to look around to find the “company” he was referring to.

When he finally spotted the ship, he dashed towards the railing closest to the incoming figure. The rubber arm of their straw hatted captain reached out to quickly swing Luffy over too.

The marine ship… if it could be called one… was really in a poor state as it passed them by, before turning around to sail alongside them.

Cale idly thought the man who stood on the deck opposite them looked vaguely familiar.

“You’re the new rookie Straw Hat Monkey D. Luffy aren’t you? Well tough luck brat, but your days of tyranny are over! I, former lieutenant Fullbody, will be taking your head today!”

That arrogant manner of speech… Cale remembered where he saw the man before– but… weren’t they supposed to have met him earlier?

Said former marine lieutenant put up even less of a fight during this encounter than he had in the first encounter depicted in the books. His reaction towards their chef and his crewmates reactions to him were proof enough to show the initial encounter had happened in this timeline too. Then, why was this meeting never recorded in the comics? Was this always meant to happen, or had something already changed in the span of time he’d existed here?

If a character that was important enough to be named and act as a minor villain was meant to be seen again so soon, shouldn’t he have gotten an extra panel or two to show it?

The more he thought about it, the more complicated things got. Cale sighed as he pushed it all to the back of his mind.

Even if he was the cause of the change, there wasn’t much he could do about it now. He’d worry about any further changes as they happen. For now, he may as well enjoy any remaining days of peaceful sailing they’d be having for a while.

If the grand line was anything like it had been depicted in those few books he read, he had a feeling his days of leisure were quickly coming to an end.

Their arrival in loguetown was so far, uneventful. Not that Cale was complaining, he was just dreading what he knew was coming soon.

The rest of the crew were gathered around Nami, waiting to receive their allowances for the island. Cale had no intention of borrowing money from the navigator if he could help it.

He wasn’t about to spend the rest of his stay in their world in debt to the former thief. Besides, Cale already had a few ideas of how to fatten his wallet during their stay.

Even when Nami offered him a share of money at a discounted interest rate, he respectfully declined before heading off his own way. As much as he’d managed to curry some good favour with the crew during their travel, he was still a stranger to them.

He wasn’t ready to reveal all his cards yet.

Raon and Hong went with him. The kitten rode upon his shoulder through the crowded streets, while the baby dragon flew in an invisible state above him.

His first stop was a jeweler. While the currency between their two words may be different, gold was gold. He may as well get an appraisal to see how much his current inventory could be worth while they’re here.

He pulled out 1 gold coin first, the equivalent of 1 million gallons back home, and placed it before the appraiser.

“How much would this be worth?”

The clerk gulped, seated on a couch across from him with a platter of tea and biscuits between them. The man had treated him respectfully from the moment he stepped into the store, likely mistaking him for a noble of this world.

Cale wasn’t about to correct him, it was less likely the man would pull anything funny under the false impression.

“Ah, of course esteemed sir, if I may…”

He waited for Cale’s permission, before daring to touch the coin set upon the table. It was telling of just how ruthless and strict the division between classes were if a worker was hesitant to do his job in fear of irking a noble.

After a minute spent carefully looking over the coin with a glass lense and trained eyes, the man set it back down with a thoughtful hum.

“It’s my first time seeing such an ornate design on a gold coin, I can tell it was crafted with much care. The coin itself is solid gold and thick too. I’d say you could get at least 200,000 berri for it, your grace!”

“Least?”

The man across from him flinched, his eyes quivering with a hint of fear as he stumbled over his next words.

“W-well, we could offer you 4-550,000 berri’s– at least! Please understand your nobleness, we truly value your patronage but this amount of gold is…”

The too little went unsaid.

Hong, who’d been seated in Cale’s lap thus far, chose now to yawn and stretch. The kitten got up, turned around in a tight circle, before resettling into a curled up position with his tail swaying lazily two and fro.

Cale ran an idle hand through Hong’s red fur, already more pleased with the current offer. He didn’t let it show of course.

–Human, do these people think we’re idiots? A single gold coin is worth so much more back home! How dare they try offering such a low number to start!

“Hmm, I suppose it is a small thing. Very well, 600,000 berri’s will have to do.”

The man across from them looked like he was about to turn green with despair, before Cale pulled out something else from the bag he’d especially prepared before heading out.

“What about this?”

He pulled out a single large precious gemstone this time. It had been a useless pretty thing lying around the super rock villa at the time he found it, but Cale was aware of its worth.

He’d never sold it during their time at home simply because he hadn’t needed to. He’d had Raon carry it around as emergency funds though, and now seemed like a good enough time to use it.

The jewelers' jaw nearly dropped this time, his eyes almost sparkling at the sight. It was rare to find a refined gemstone of this size after all; and if Cale’s memory wasn’t failing him, he was certain a blood diamond of this size was nearly unheard of.

This time when the man took hold of the gem, his hands were trembling for an entirely different reason. He took no more than a few seconds to look it over before gazing back at Cale with awe.

“You’re truly willing to part with such a precious thing? A blood diamond of this size, this purity, it’s definitely worthy of being a family heirloom piece!”

Cale just shrugged, indifferent to the matter.

That wasn’t even the largest gemstone they had lying around at the villa. Besides, mana crystals were far more valuable and practical; regular stones like these were only nice to look at.

“This gemstone alone would’ve been worth 5 million berri unrefined at this size, but with how masterfully it’s been cut and polished… I’d say its value is at least 12 million berri minimum!”

…

Looks like there was some disparity between what was considered valuable between their worlds.

He ended up selling both the stone and 3 gold coins at the price he declared. Seeing as selling coins was a net loss for him, he’d hold off trading in any more if he could help it.

With his bag full with 13.8 million berri, he quickly ducked into an alley and transferred the majority of their newly acquired funds into Raon’s spatial dimension.

He kept about 500,000 on his person, just in case they came across something interesting while wandering the street stalls. The kids were instantly drawn towards the sweets, nudging, and in the case of Raon, nagging telepathically to take a look.

Cale for his part, indulged their curiosity and allowed the two to decide their course. While they busied themselves familiarizing themselves with this world's sweet cuisines, he was surveying the people in their surroundings.

According to his future knowledge, this town was crawling with marines and old enemies. Neither of which should bother the three of them seeing as he was as of yet, unknown to them.

That wasn’t all he was looking out for though. Based on the way he was treated in the jewelry store, he had a feeling there would be another opportunity to make easy money–

And speak of the devil.

The crowd of people browsing the market stalls parted wordlessly to allow a group of 10 men surrounding a couple to walk by. The couple in the middle were dressed to the nines, gaudy shiny jewels bedazzling the neck, ears, fingers and wrists of the woman, as the man wore a snobby suit with a filly collar that would put a lion's mane to shame.

A few of the surrounding men, guards from the looks of them, were carrying bags of shopping. Another was even carrying a sun umbrella over the couple!

Cale sneered at the spectacle the pair were making of themselves. He was eternally thankful that his own family back home didn’t have nearly as excessive taste.

He only had to observe them for all of a few minutes before making a decision of who his next money scheming targets would be.

Who purposely kicked over an excited child with an ice cream cone for simply walking in their path? That was just petty!

With his fists carefully hidden in the crook of his elbows, he finished paying for the sweets Raon had been asking for before walking into the next nearest alley.

“Raon, mask our presence please.”

And with a few more steps into the shadow of the building, it was as though the redheaded noble disappeared into thin air. When Cale could no longer hear the sound of the bustling streets, he leaned against the wall and fixed his two companions with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Raon, do you still have my arm uniform?”

Once his words registered in their minds, the little dragon's eyes took on a sadistic gleam.

“Oh oh! Are we finally going to scam someone again human!?!”

“Ah, who are we scamming here? Did you see some bad people, nya?”

Cale nodded, his voice taking on a serious note as he repeated “Very bad indeed.” Before elaborating “We’re just going to teach them a bit of a lesson.”

The kitten and dragon didn’t need any more convincing than that.

Raon quickly pulled out Cale’s old self made uniform. The clothes worn and the star just as crookedly sewn as he remembered, but it’d work in a pinch.

No one knew what the original uniform looked like anyways. This did a fine job of hiding his identity in the meantime.

Hong had also coated himself in black sooty charcoal that Raon had stored away at some point, the dragon himself creating an invisibility cloak around the three of them. Cale pointed out their target and before long, they’d tracked the pair all the way back to their home.

They’d lucked out in the fact they’d caught the nobles towards the tail end of their shopping. The woman had already been complaining about the heat and stuffiness of the street as they made their way back– despite the huge berth everyone else gave them.

Their mansion was predictably gaudy and a good bit away from the commoners' streets. A tall fence was erected around the whole estate, with guards posted at the front.

Sadly, that did nothing to stop Cale’s group from simply floating over it.

They made it all the way inside without being detected, then, with Raon’s help, they found their way to the room most likely to contain their valuables.

The guards for the room were knocked out with some good old fashioned paralysis poison. Without On it was a bit more of a hassle to use, but Hong had been training on the small islands they docked at throughout the trip. The kitten was now able to accurately shoot his poison at least 2 meters away. Though he could still only target one thing at a time.

The little dragon reported there seemed to be a large safe in the wall behind a painting. With Cale’s attuned ear, he made quick work of the lock mechanism and opened the safe.

To his pleasant surprise, these nobles he’d picked had been quite the cash cow. Based on the vain and overly redundant portraits hung around the halls, this noble family was only made up with the two of them right now too.

They were likely old money, recently inherited if the remaining volume was anything to go by based on their spending habits.

They cleared out the vault of everything but a single stack of bills amounting to 1,000 berri. He wasn’t heartless.

“Hehehe! This was the easiest place to break into yet! The noble people in this world are really very stupid!”

“They are lucky our human is so nice! if it was up to me, I would take everything of value and burn their house down for how rude they were being out there.”

Having no desire to haul heavy furniture around, Cale was about to get the three of them to leave when he felt a twinge in his chest.

“Cale! Cale! I think I can feel one of our friends nearby!”

He froze, all of his attention immediately focusing on straining to pick out any hint of a familiar voice.

“Can you tell which direction?”

“Mm, I think… above? And maybe a bit to the left-ish?”

It was a vague description at best, but he could work with it.

“Raon, can you sense anything strange in the upper floors of this building?”

The little dragon was silent for a moment, if Cale could see him, he imagined the dragon was probably scrunching his nose in thought.

“Oh, it’s very weak, but I feel something vaguely like mana… coming from a small room 2 floors above us.”

“Can you get us there?”

The dragon was quicker to respond this time, his voice carrying the littlest bit of annoyance as he muttered “There’s too many people, it’d be difficult to get in unnoticed.”

Cale figured as much. If it really was one of his ancient powers, then it would probably be in devil fruit form. Those were considered rare treasures in this world, of course there would be people guarding the room it was stored in.

He thought about it for a moment, before an idea struck.

“Is there another room on the same floor that’s empty, preferably small like a storage room.”

The dragon took another few moments, before making an agreeing noise, his wings creating a draft as they excitedly fluttered.

“Yes, there’s a room exactly like you described about 2 doors down! No people are currently in there, but it seems to be filled with old furniture and cloth.”

Cale nodded to himself, glad the nobles of this world still fell into some of the stereotypical tropes.

They had Raon teleport them into the room while maintaining their invisibility. Then, under Cale’s instructions, Raon started a small fire in the center of the room with cloth.

Cale had no intention of actually hurting anyone in the fire, so he placed slow burning furniture around the more volatile and flammable products. Raon even pitched a barrier to reinforce the floor it was burning above just in case anyone was in the room below.

With the distraction in place, they opened the door a jar to allow the smoke to float into the hall more easily. It didn’t take long for servants to catch a hint of the smell.

Soon the room they started the fire was attracting swaths of people from the various rooms on and below the level. Cale, Raon and Hong avoided the mass of frantic bodies as they gradually slipped their way towards the now nearly unguarded room.

With the assistance of Hong once more, the remaining people on watch were knocked out easily. Now all that remained was a glass case with a certainly noisy creamy white devil fruit on display.

“Fucking bastards! I was once a master thief that stole valuable objects from vile people like this! How humiliating to be treated like some sick trophy! If only I had my top’s whip, I’d tear this whole place to pieces with the help of my friends!”

‘Well, at least she’s still in high spirits.’

With quick steps, he walked over to the glass case and opened it. There was a lock at some point, but Raon had long since taken care of it.

Cale reached inside and picked up the fruit he now knew to be the sound of the wind.

“What the hell, how am I floating? Hello? Did… did the wind elementals follow me…?”

Cale let out a huff, “it’s me.”

Raon dropped the invisibility around Cale at his words… not that it’d have helped the blind priestess.

“Cale! That’s you isn’t it? Oh thank the elements! I thought I’d never see you again! Quick, get me out of here! Being stuck in an enclosed space like this again sucks!”

This was the part he hated the most.

With a firm set to his lips, he pulled down the mask over his face and brought the fruit closer.

He hesitated for a second, mentally preparing himself, then took a solid bite and did his best to swallow with the least chewing possible.

It didn’t really help, the fruit still tasted like shit. At least he was expecting it this time though, enough to be able to hold himself from openly gagging as the chunk of fruit slid down the back of his throat.

He didn’t remember his heart racing like this the first time, the sound of it pounding away in his ears taking over his senses as he doubled over from the feeling of something coursing through his veins.

Distantly, he thought he could hear Raon and Hong’s voice calling out to him over it all; but he could hardly focus with the mass of over stimulation he was currently experiencing.

He didn’t know how long he was stuck in that state for, but the next thing he knew his vision was clearing to the view of worn wooden floor boards. Hong's golden eyes were peering worriedly up at him. The kitten had been uncloaked at some point and was now actively nudging against the arm bracing Cale from falling fast first on the floor.

He reached a shaking hand up to Hong’s head, patting the kitten twice to settle him as he tried to calm his still racing pulse.

That was… unexpected… to say the least.

He couldn’t remember there ever being a time that gaining power resulted in such a jarring event; but at least it didn’t hurt.

It was just… overwhelming.

He pulled himself up into a kneeling position, his hand still holding the fruit with a bite taken out of it.

“I’m fine, everything’s alright now.”

“You can say that again! Man, I hate getting stuck like that…”

While Raon was the only one still invisible, he made his presence known by practically wrapping himself around Cale’s neck as he fretted.

Cale hated worrying the children, but this was out of his control. If every power up after this would be similar, he’d have to be more careful about where he ate the devil fruits.

Loud thudding footsteps was the only warning they got before the door to the room burst open. The previously occupied guards returned, and they looked none too pleased at the site they were greeted with.

“I don’t know about you Cale, but in my professional opinion as a thief, I’d say this is about time to start running. Don’t you think so?”

She didn’t need to say it twice.

He quickly scooped up Hong and made a sprint for the window, pulling his mask up while chucking the partially eaten fruit at the dumbstruck guards.

His departure was serenaded by screams of death threats and enraged promises of retribution. Not his smoothest exit, but hey, he got more than he came here for.

-Luffy’s POV-

Luffy had been searching for the execution platform for ages and aside from one nice but mean looking guy, no one else had been all that helpful in trying to locate it.

He was starting to think the buildings were purposely moving around to confuse him when he ran past the same fountain for the 3rd time in a row.

Maybe he should’ve asked one of his crewmates to help him find it… Nah, he was sure they were all probably having their own fun adventures.

As he was rounding the 3rd left corner in a row, he heard the sound of many loud voices yelling as they seemed to angrily chase after someone. Based on the amount of swear words thrown in here and there along with the name calling, it sounded like someone had pulled a little heist.

He giggled a bit to himself, a feeling of nostalgia rushing over him as memories of his youth in the gray terminal came back to him.

It made him curious though, just who was gutsy enough to go pissing off that many people smack dab in the middle of the day in such a crowded town? Whoever it was, they sounded like a fun person!

With his lips pulling up into an impossibly wide smile, he began to unconsciously head towards the sound of the commotion, his pace quickening as the voices grew louder.

He had a feeling the person who caused this mess wasn’t a bad person at all.

It was as he was pushing his way through the crowds that he saw a flash of a shadowy figure darting down an unassuming path; the group of enraged people running past a bit later and missing the turn off in their blind chase.

Luffy would bet 3 pork drumsticks that the shadowy figure he saw earlier was the one they were looking for.

Without a second thought, he followed the person onto the unassuming path, walking with his hands behind his head as his excitement rose with every step.

The person hadn’t gone far, the cloaked figure at the end of the path leaned up against the wall as they patted a hand over their heart. If it weren’t for the lack of panting, he’d think the person was trying to catch their breath after a mad dash like that.

Strangely enough though, the person didn’t look at all put out or tired after sprinting faster than Luffy had ever seen. They just seemed cranky, and maybe a bit annoyed they were even caught in the first place.

“That could’ve gone better.”

That voice, Luffy knew that voice!

Accompanying the statement, the person pulled down their hood as a black kitten that had been camouflaged against their chest jumped down and shook itself out.

“Ah! Cale! So it was you who was getting in trouble shishishi!”

Said redhead froze in his movements, before sighing and straightening out his posture to address him.

“Captain.”

“What were you doing to get all those people mad at you?”

“Nothing really, just went on a walk.”

The noble was still guarded around them, much to Luffy’s disappointment. However, he shrugged it off. He’d give his crew as much time as they needed to adjust.

In the meantime, there were no rules against teasing them!

“Oh, so it wasn’t you who was stealing from the nobles then?”

“How did you-“

”It’s my Institution!”

“…”

“I think you mean intuition.”

“Yeah that! Anyways, do you know where the execution platform is?”

Luffy waved off the correction and seeing how on edge his new crewmate was, drove the conversation in a safer direction. He was happy to see the once noble’s shoulders relaxing a bit with the shift in topic.

“Not at the moment, but it can’t be that hard to find.”

Luffy swung himself around in a wide arc as he let out his own over exaggerated sigh.

“Ah, but I’ve been looking for hours and I haven’t found it at all!”

That seemed to draw an amused huff from the man behind him, Cale’s form relaxing ever further as he shook his head.

“I’m sure Raon can help.“

At the mention of his name, the little dragon appeared in the air next to Cale. That was a really cool trick, one Luffy had to remember to ask the black dragon about later!

“Finding something like that is as easy as breathing for a dragon like me!”

The baby dragon was puffed up like a pigeon again, always so excited to show off.

Before they left, Cale changed out of the weird black robes, while the red kitten’s fur was poofed clean by the dragon. Luffy was pretty sure that the dragon was using mystery magic by now.

Along the way, they ran into Zoro who was busy staring at a new sword.

When Zoro brought up food, of course Luffy had to agree to get some too. It had been hours since their last meal, which was breakfast! He’d missed at least 2 meals in that time!

While Cale seemed reluctant to join at first, Luffy somehow managed to convince him. It might’ve had something to do with Luffy’s hand grabbing onto the collar of the man’s shirt and refusing to let go- but he’d like to think Cale was warming up to them!

The noble neither ate as much or as fast as them, but he seemed content to watch. Raon and Hong ate with much more gusto, though the dragon often broke into rambles of how the food wasn’t as good as some Beacrox guy’s cooking.

When they finished, it quickly came to both Luffy and Zoro’s attention that neither of them had nearly enough funds to cover the meal.

They both turned eyes on Cale, who only let out a long, suffering sigh before pulling out a pouch of money and paying.

Some person at the table behind them was in the process of banging their fist and making a small scene as they left; though they hardly paid it any mind.

They were about to set off towards the platform again, when he spotted another familiar head of orange hair in the distance.

Nami looked mildly surprised to see them, before her eyes settled on Cale with a growing frown.

“Please tell me you’re planning on buying new clothes while we’re here.”

The redhead stayed quiet.

“Really? You see nothing wrong with what you’re wearing now?”

Cale at least looked at himself once, before continuing to blankly stare at her in response.

She groaned before shoving the rest of her shopping on Usopp and Sanji who’d been following her. “Hold these, I’m going to take our oblivious noble for a makeover.”

If Cale had looked pained before, he looked absolutely soulless as he was dragged off by their navigator. Luffy wasn’t worried though, he was sure Cale was starting to grow on everyone and them on him.

He looked forward to the day he could see Cale smiling in earnest like everyone else.

But with his guide gone, it looked like he was back to square one in the search for the ever elusive execution platform. At least this time he has more of his crew with him to ask for direction!

Update, Luffy found the platform.

He also found that buggy guy! And the not so wide, wide lady who was bullying Coby before!

He was also about to be executed on the platform he just found– but that wasn’t really his fault.

Well… ok so it might’ve been his fault… but in his defense! Yeah, he didn’t really have one of those either.

Even if his journey was being cut short, he couldn’t help but smile. How could he be sad when his crew was still alive and trying so hard to save him?

He wouldn’t have to worry about that though, as a strike of blinding white light came down from the sky.

Up-update, Luffy ran into the mean Smokey looking guy that gave him directions before!

He was actually being mean this time, and he was really hard to grab too. Is there actually a way to grab smoke? Maybe if he breathed in really hard– no, the Smokey guy was too fast.

For the second time today, Luffy was at the mercy of someone else. This had to be a record.

As infuriating as it was to admit, Luffy knew he still had a long way to go training wise. He still never beat Ace at a one-on-one fight, so of course he knew he had lots of room to grow; but he hadn’t thought he was this weak.

He was saved again, this time in the form of a tall mystery man in a dark green cloak.

A weirdly strong gust of wind picked him up and blew him out of the clearing and towards his ship. When Luffy saw a Zoro and Sanji flying nearby, he reached out his stretchy arms to grab them before turning to get a clear shot of their ship.

They all made it back aboard, a bit banged up and bruised, but alive!

He couldn’t ask for more than that!

Somehow, in between the commotion of escaping the marines and weathering out the storm Sanji had dragged out a big barrel of alcohol on deck. His eyes were wild with excitement as he called the crew to launch the ship with a bang!

Luffy couldn’t have done it better himself.

“To find the all blue!”

“To become the king of pirates!”

“To become the world’s greatest swordsman”

“To draw a map of the world!”

“To become a brave warrior of the sea!”

They waited then, all eyes turned to their newest somewhat reluctant member and his companions.

Cale not so subtly flinched under their combined gazes, the man’s own eyes darting around, before locking onto Luffy.

He could see a mixture of hesitance, confusion, and even a bit of regret, before it vanished behind a steeled resolve.

The former noble moved to add his foot atop the barrel, mumbling half hearted complaints even though his next words were said clearly with just as much honest conviction as the rest.

“To find our way home.”

A pair of inhuman paws joined the rest on the barrel as they raised their feet up and brought it slamming back down; their promises to themselves sealed with the burst of liquor staining the deck.

With renewed determination and laughter in his lungs, he roared out their next destination.

“Full speed ahead! Next stop, the grand line!”

Chapter Text

-Cale’s POV-

One could argue that having read into a part of their future and faced even more challenging scenarios in his past, Cale shouldn’t be surprised by anything that was coming at them. And sure, the world of one piece was even considered tame compared to his origins– but at least things he experienced in his first two lives made sense!

There was no rhyme or reason as to why a section of ocean could just leave you dead in the water like the calm belt, just like there was no way you could explain water traveling against gravity up a mountain at that sharp an angle!

It just didn’t make sense!

At least in the birth of a hero they explained most of the unrealistic events away with the existence of mana and magic. Here? Well, let’s just say Cale doubted there was any sort of higher entity governing the rules of this world.

They’d only just entered the grand line, and already they’d been swallowed by a whale rivaling the size of a small island, been saved and let out by the old man living on an island inside it’s stomach, and sent on their merry way with two stowaways who only moments before, had been considered deplorable enough to receive twin concussions courtesy their captain.

Did he mention they were now completely reliant on using the magnetic fields of each island along the grand line to navigate the sea from this point forward?

So what if Cale already knew this was going to happen? Was that a justifiable reason to not still be shocked as each event played out or try warning anyone before it happened?

Absolutely not!

Like with the matter of Cocoyashi village, he knew they’d get out of everything well enough in the end; and the conditions present were arguably still favorable for all of them. Besides, the less he messed with the plot, the more accurate his predictions would be when they ran into something really dangerous.

It was also all around less work to let things play out as they should.

So like the good background character he always strived to be, Cale ignored everything going on around him and only moved enough to keep the quick to snap navigator off his back.

He didn’t put up much of a fuss when the stowaways were discovered, mostly because he already knew they were there and what their identities were.

Cale didn’t even feel bad about hiding this fact from the others. Zoro knew too, maybe to a lesser degree, but he wasn’t saying anything either.

It was only as they arrived at their first island in the grand line that Cale started to pay attention.

Whiskey peak was… anything but discrete.

Seriously, did anyone in this organization know the meaning of subtlety? Even his honest to a fault Choi Han was a better actor than them– and that was saying something.

It should be extremely obvious to anyone with mental maturity above that of a child, that there was something wrong with people who celebrated the appearance of any random pirate that happened to dock on their shores. Especially with the reputation of most pirates.

Of course Raon disappeared the moment he sensed the stowaways on board. Hong, quick to take cues from his sibling, followed suit by acting the part of a regular cat too. To make sure neither of their efforts were wasted while watchful eyes were around; Cale kept his distance from the rest of the crew.

He knew Zoro had caught on to his tactics, Nami too, but neither seemed that concerned with pointing out his antisocial behavior. The others either didn’t notice or were too distracted by the party being thrown in their honor to care.

Just like that, Cale found himself forgettable enough to blend in with the crowd and fade from people’s immediate interest.

He was almost thankful for the impromptu shopping trip Nami had dragged him on back at lougetown. Not only were these clothes easier to wear and relatively comfortable, had it not been for her pestering, he doubted he’d have been able to fit in with this rowdy crowd in his previous overly decadent getup.

If there was one thing he disliked about being a Henituse, it would be the minimum requirement for fanciness when it came to his wardrobe.

While the party raged on in the bar, Cale had already donned a familiar black uniform and sped off with children in tow.

–Human, are we scamming these people too? That’s good, they didn’t seem all that nice anyways… and we don’t have enough in our horde yet!

“Maybe this place isn’t so bad, we go outside a lot more than back home! I’m sure Noona will be jealous of how good I am at scamming now!”

He continued to ignore the increasing inappropriateness of these childrens’ comments. It wasn’t like their behavior was all that unsuited to their current pirate statuses. Instead, he focused on finding the loot a town full of bounty hunters no doubt kept hidden.

Thinking aloud, he called out to the hidden dragon flying above “Raon, are any of the people in town alone, preferably somewhere isolated?”

His response was in the form of directions, leading them down a narrow passage and towards a building far enough that the party was a muted hum behind them.

The sound of shuffling beyond the door was enough indication to get a general idea of where the person was inside. Once they moved far enough from the door, he ventured a peek inside, before swiftly shutting the door.

This… maybe he should have been more specific when asking Raon to locate someone alone.

Of course, he forgot about his horrible luck in a moment like this because who else could be alone on the other side of the door, than the disguised princesses’ guard Igaram.

–What’s wrong human? Are we not going to steal from them?

What’s wrong? Why of all people did you have to lead me to this walking death flag? Cale could only bemoan silently in his heart.

It wasn’t Raon’s fault though, he wasn’t the one to read the story and Cale hadn’t thought it important to fill his companions in on everything he knew.

That was fine though, he could still work with this! He just needed to make a few minor adjustments to his plan…

Steeling his resolve, he slipped his way into the room while the other man was still occupied with his searching. He probably only had a short window of opportunity to pull this off, if it was going to work at all.

He placed himself behind Igaram before clearing his throat, acting casual as though it were perfectly natural for him to be standing in this room at the moment.

Igaram whirled around, the tips of cannons already peeking out of his heavy curls as he threw a cautious look around the room. When his eyes landed on Cale, they paused, confusion lingering for a moment before returning to a guarded stare.

“Who, ahem, mah mah mah, the hell are you? What are you doing here?”

His hand was already reaching for the weapon disguised as an instrument that sat not far from him. Cale wasn’t about to give him an opportunity to use it though.

“That’s a pretty rude way to refer to your superior, Mr. 8.”

The man stuttered, halted in his movements as his eyes widened.

“That’s, that’s impossible. There are only so many number agents above me that I don’t know unless…”

Cale continued to act the part, overconfidence brimming in his voice as he pulled on his best Venion Stan impression.

“Heh, took you long enough to figure it out. No wonder you stagnated at the measly number 8 position.”

To better sell his act, he wandered over to a nearby comfortable looking chair and took a seat, crossing a leg as he slouched into his usual lazy stance.

“No, number agents always travel in pair! There’s no way you could be one without a partner!”

Cale raised a brow at the shouted accusation, before leaning back with both hands folded leisurely in his lap.

“And who says I’m alone?”

A chair moved not far from him, the distinct sound of creaking as someone sat in it echoing in the quiet room even as it remained unoccupied from an external view. No one else but Cale needed to know it was a dragon sitting in the chair though.

“I’ve never heard of an agent with an invisibility-“

“What you’ve heard, Mr.8, doesn’t matter now does it? I’m sure you should already know how our company works.”

The older man now kneeled before him, gulping around a nervous lump in his throat as he backtracked.

“My apologies for the offense sir, but we were unaware that an officer agent was coming to our humble base.”

Cale just tilted his head in a dismissive gesture. He focused his attention on checking out his own gloved hand as though it was more important than the groveling person below him.

“Hmm, and I was even going to be generous enough to give you a warning about orders from up the chain, but I suppose you don’t want to hear it.”

Igaram’s attention was instantly caught by his words, his head snapping up.

“Warning, what ever could you mean?”

The bead of sweat that trickled from the corner of the other man’s brow didn’t escape Cale’s eye. His own composure was close to wavering as he read the panic behind the other’s body language.

“Ah, I really shouldn’t say. Our boss would be quite cross if I let words slip.”

Igaram looked contemplative for all of a minute, before he suddenly moved to a rug in the corner of a room and pushed it aside. A trap door was revealed beneath, one which revealed a small room full of loose berri and the occasional lumps of golden treasure.

A stash these bounty hunters no doubt stole from previous unsuspecting pirate victims.

“Please sir, if you don’t mind…”

–Wow! That’s… not a lot… but with this much money, I think our new horde is about 10% the size of the one we left back home!

Leave it to the Raon to make Cale feel like he was bullying little kids out of their candy.

The dragon was right though, there wasn’t all that much in the room. Still, despite the guilt, he would take the offering.

It wasn’t like he was directly stealing from this man’s pocket anyways. This was the collected loot from a nest of bounty hunters! Most of them were scum anyways, and they’d be using the money to care for the guards’ princess sooner or later.

Without dropping character, he strolled over to the edge of the hole as he snarked.

“How pathetic, no wonder your outpost has been garnering more attention from the unluckies lately.”

Igaram flinched at his harsh words, but it wasn’t long before Cale continued.

“Well, that and the fact you’re hiding the alabastian princess beneath Mr.0’s nose.”

This received a full on gasp from the older man. His whole body freezing as he absorbed the new information.

“You’d do well as the princess's guard to be prepared to receive more officer agent visitors in the near future. They won’t be as nice as me, unfortunately.”

Cale accompanied his words with a conceited pat on the man’s shoulder, before heading to the ladder to drop himself into the treasure room. He didn’t have to see to know Raon was following closely with Hong not far behind.

It was during the process of stuffing the remainder of the stolen goods into burlap sacks they’d acquired to transport things without revealing Raon’s special dimension, that Igaram snapped out of his daze.

“You– why did you warn us? If you’re working for Mr.0 then…”

Cale paused in his stuffing, turning a lazy glance over his shoulder as he shrugged noncommittally.

“The only thing I’m loyal to is money.” He said as he tapped the round sack he was halfway done filling with a foot.

Igaram looked perplexed, still apparently unsure whether to trust this wayward man who claimed to be an agent of their company. They didn’t have much time to judge each other though, three pairs of heavy hurried footsteps interrupting them, the door to the little house slamming open.

“Mr.8! Two of the original people seem to have gone missing! The swordsman and– huh, why're you opening the vault?”

Princess Vivi, her partner and another woman known as Miss Monday entered the room in quick succession. Cale sent a quiet command in his head to the little dragon who quickly packed up the rest of their bribe.

Igaram didn’t get the position of princess’ guard for nothing, he quickly connected the dots, then rounded on the man who he was now close to certain wasn’t a number agent.

“You sneaky bastard! You tricked me didn’t you?!? Everything you said was a lie!”

Cale graced him with a wry chuckle, his face and hair still hidden, though his eyes gleamed in amusement.

“My warning wasn’t.”

After saying his peace, and before anyone else could get a good look at him, he vanished from the room. Raon had long been ready with a teleportation spell. All he had to do was step back into the dragon’s range and his whole person, bags included, were transported well out of danger.

He only had a moment to breathe a sigh of relief from getting out of that situation relatively Scott free, before a new headache came his way.

–The swordsman suddenly started cutting people down! He moves faster than grandpa Ron!

Looks like that was Cale’s cue to move.

Gathering the sound of the wind at his feet, he shouldered their bag of valuables that was decently heavy, before making his way back through the town. Raon kept pace in the air, ferrying around Hong in their little invisible pocket of space.

Cale was mentally going through the next series of events that played out from here, when the sharp whistle of rounded metal moving through air alerted him to the approaching danger.

Thinking quickly, he jumped back, putting up his shield seconds before one of those distinct peacock slashers managed to slice through his chest.

He noted the worried voices of the children in the peripheral of his senses, but he could hardly pay it much mind aside from telling the little dragon to back down before he could try blowing up their future ally.

This was new, she wasn’t supposed to be here according to the timeline. Then again, he already threw it off a while ago by holding Igaram back before Zoro went on his cutting spree.

Right now, he was caught in a stalemate. Brown eyes met with burnt umber. The flash of anger and suspicion did little to faze Cale though.

He had to weather far more deadly looks daily from a terrifying pair of assassins in the form of chef and butler. This didn’t even come close to being intimidating.

“How do you know so much about us, who do you work for?”

Looks like that guard managed to warn the princess then. Not that he hadn’t expected it. It wasn’t every day your undercover mission was exposed by some random nobody who should have no knowledge of their existence.

Cale debated throwing out the God of Death’s name just to spite him, but in the end he fell back on what he knew best. Even if the man didn’t exist in this world, Cale would never hold back on an opportunity to drag the man’s organization through the mud with him.

“A group that operates in the shadows and darkness of people’s countries. We see corruption and exploit it for our own betterment.”

“… the revolutionaries?”

So this world already had their own underground group. Well, he didn’t know much about them; but on the odd chance they weren’t terrible people, he’d rather not misuse their name.

“Those small fries? You think too little of us. Our arm reaches far deeper than anyone can see.”

Nailed it.

Even Cale was amazed at his ability to fall into character so easily.

Somewhere in another world, there was a white bastard writhing from the sudden skin crawling sensation of someone misusing his title.

The princess was cut off from further questioning when the voice of one of her comrades burst into the clearing.

“Miss Wednesday, watch out!”

A broken ladder was falling in their direction, the sharp snapped end heading straight for the distracted princess. She wouldn’t have time to move out of the way.

Gritting a curse under breath, Cale dashed forward with a boost from his wind powers and body slammed her out of the way.

The ditzy blue haired princess being too busy gawking at the impending doom to even attempt to protect herself.

With the help of the invisible dragon, a transparent barrier protected them from flying shards and splinters in the aftermath. Though, Cale would still be sporting a wicked friction burn on his side had he not had his regenerative ability.

“Are you stupid? Who just stares as a ladder falls towards them?”

Still high on the adrenaline from the near miss, he didn’t even think before chewing her out even though she was technically supposed to be an enemy at this point.

“I- but, why did you”

She was cut off again as more explosions came out from the direction the ladder fell from. The distinct form of a three sword wielding shadow flying over them as extras from the baroque work agency gave chase.

Igaram was looking worse for wear with Mr.9 and Miss Monday not looking much better. They ran over quickly when they spotted the downed princess not far from him, though Igaram’s hostility slightly decreased when he saw her uninsured state.

Tch, this is really starting to get out of hand.

Cale had intended to evacuate the scene well before Zoro had the chance to notice him; but he’d gotten too caught up in the matters of the princess to escape.

Those small fry didn’t hold Zoro back for long, and after confirming their friend was ok, the three who originally came after him now turned their attention back to the more immediate threat.

Igaram seemed hesitant to continue the fight though, his eyes constantly shifting back to Vivi.

“You damn rats just never know when to quit!”

Wow, from this angle, Cale could really see how villainous Zoro looked when wielding all those blades. He looked even more demonic than Beacrox when he was wielding his greatsword, or Ron with his twin daggers.

He was suddenly glad he was on Zoro’s side.

The man made quick work of Mr.9 and Miss Monday, knocking them out for the count. Igaram fell victim next, making the mistake of reaching for his shotgun saxophone.

It was only when the man turned his silver glare on them that Cale felt the blood chill in his veins.

Right, he was wearing a disguise now wasn’t he?

In the blink of an eye Zoro was hurtling their way, the princess behind him scrambling to grab her cutters as Cale regretted the fact he somehow ended up caught in between.

He was forced to draw his shield, or risk becoming minced meat by proxy. The recognition in the other man’s eyes as his swords made contact, followed by suspicion, only furthering the dread Cale felt as he lamented the fact he hadn’t worked harder to gain trust with the crew.

Throwing his hands up in surrender, Cale pulled the mask of his getup down just enough to reveal his face as he tried to appeal his case.

“It’s me.”

“…”

“…I can explain?”

“Oh really now.” The swordsman growled around a mouth full of hilt.

Zoro remained tense, two of his three swords still poised and ready to strike should Cale make one wrong move.

He’d have to tread carefully if he didn’t want to end up sliced, diced and then probably burnt to a crisp in the aftermath of a series of explosions caused by a rampaging dragon.

He wouldn’t die, probably, but it would definitely hurt. Cale hated pain more than anything else.

“…I don’t suppose you’d be willing to turn a blind eye if I said I was on a walk?”

Zoro gave him a look that screamed “did you really just ask me that?” Before shaking his head and lowering his blades slightly.

“Sounds like you’re not going to give me a straight answer either way so just answer me this, do you have any connection with these people?”

Cale barely gave it a second thought before responding with a resounding “No.”

The princess sputtered incoherently behind him, though to his relief, Zoro seemed to ignore her.

Their ship’s first mate fixed him with another heavy look, searching, before finally sheathing his two swords and pulling the third from his mouth.

“Well, at least you were honest about that.”

The breath he let out in relief was short lived, as a follow up nearly blindsided him.

“You knew this was going to happen then.”

Cale felt himself flinch under those passively spoken words. A statement that left no room for argument.

“I have to admit, never would’ve thought I’d see a noble sneaking around at night to rob from bounty hunters. Not really their style.”

This whole situation was really bad for Cale’s blood pressure. He’d already lost count of the number of times his heart skipped a beat from the fear of what else this unfairly perceptive swordsman had caught onto.

“If you already knew what I was doing then why-“

“Oh don’t get me wrong, I knew from the start who they were and figured out what you were doing. But here’s the thing, I knew who they were because I was a bounty hunter before all this. So why do you know who they are?”

Cale cursed the god of death a million times over in his head. Why’d he have to cut him off with just 23 books? If he knew Zoro was such an observant character, he’d never have acted so overtly!

Luckily, or unluckily, he never had to answer Zoro’s question.

The arrival of Mr.5 and Miss Valentine served as enough of a distraction as the former baroque agents now came begging for their help. Their princess carried away on an oversized duck with two stronger opponents giving chase.

Igaram forwent asking Zoro all together and directly clung to Cale’s leg, his eyes pleading as he spoke through bloodied coughs.

“I beg of you, I know you were already merciful enough to warn us and we were foolish not to listen but please! Help us, she cannot die here! She must live!”

Cale felt uncomfortable at the extra attention the man’s sorry display was getting him. Zoro was back to eyeing him with a new look he couldn’t decipher. In an effort to get out of the situation, and feeling a bit petty, he shoved the responsibility off himself.

“I’m too weak to do anything, you should ask that guy. He beat all of your people with barely a scratch left on him.”

“And don’t think you’ll get our help for free either! How does, let’s say, 1 billion berri sound as a compromise? Quite a steal for a princess rescue mission isn’t it?”

The new feminine voice entering the fray brought a stream of relief with it. Cale had never been more glad to hear Nami’s nectar sweet tone as she robbed people blind with words.

With her here, Zoro quickly lost the upper hand in the situation and was forced to bend to her will. Once she’d struck a deal she found acceptable with the dejected Igaram, she sent him off to do her bidding.

Though Zoro complained the whole time, he didn’t try all that hard to fight back against her. He did still toss a disgruntled look his way before leaving, the meaning in it clear enough.

Nami seated herself on a barrel nearby, her hand idly twirling a stray lock as she happily hummed a tune to herself.

“Don’t think I forgot about you Mr. I-am-part-of-an-organization-more-important-than-the-revolutionaries. You’re not out of the hot seat just because I sent that muscle head off.”

Cale winced as his own nonsense was thrown back in his face. He wouldn’t be living that one down for a while huh… unless-

“Did I mention I got all this gold and money while snooping around their base?”

She was at his side in seconds, already digging through the bag and rubbing their newly acquired gold against her face. An action that probably wasn’t all that sanitary.

“What were we talking about before? Nothing? Yeah I think it was nothing!”

He didn’t think that would actually work. Still, while she was willing to drop the previous subject, it looks like it wasn’t nearly enough gold to completely free him from her judgment.

Nami looked him up and down with a side-eye glance, before snorting.

“I know for damn sure that wasn’t part of the new wardrobe I got you. What charity bin did you dig that thing out of?”

He was mildly offended at her words, his hand unconsciously grabbing at the sewn star at his chest while he glowered back at her.

A disembodied voice came from somewhere beside Cale in his defense.

“How dare you! These shabby rags just so happen to be the uniform for the most notorious criminal organization we’ve had to face back home! Our human made this replica himself!”

The fact the subtle diss to the clothing was entirely unintended by the baby dragon made it all the more difficult to take seriously.

Cale could see Nami visibly struggling to keep a straight face, though their conversation was soon cut off by the ramblings of a seemingly half delirious Igaram.

“Her highness… she must live… our country will fall apart! She's, she’s our only hope! Please live… princess Vivi.”

Cale found himself pursing his lips slightly as he listened to the ramblings of the old guard. No offense to their princess, but from what he recalled, she wasn’t exactly all that useful in preventing the disaster soon to befall them.

Perhaps he was biased, but he always hated the crybaby type the most. While she did appear to have a spine and a genuine love for her country, she also seemed to invest her efforts in the most useless places.

Alberu was a much better example of a royal in his opinion, as much as he loathed to admit it. At least his crown prince utilized all of his resources in the most practical manner.

Igaram’s mumbling caught more than Cale’s interest though, soon Nami began questioning him about the baroque works organization.

He tuned most of their drivel out when he realized it was almost word for word what he already knew. He spoke to Raon in his mind instead, leaving the other two to progress the plot without him.

“Raon, has Luffy woken up yet?”

–Now that you mention it, he is! He’s fighting with the swordsman right now though…

They moved fast.

Turning his attention back to Nami and the guard, their conversation seemed about ready to wrap up. He could just fill her in on the other details later.

With a soft cough, he got both of them to focus back on him.

“Hate to interrupt, but it sounds like our captain woke up and he doesn’t seem to be taking too kindly to the mess we made.”

As if to emphasize his words, a large explosion came from the direction Zoro disappeared in, followed by multiple buildings collapsing.

The amount of destruction was almost impressive, considering it most mostly done by a single rubber bodied boy.

“Those idiots! Do I have to do everything around here?”

She grumbled irritably to herself as she stalked towards the commotion. He watched her leave, happy to finally get things back on track without including himself this time.

Unbenounced to him, his soft satisfied smile was caught by the old guard who remained behind. Igaram’s eyes flickering wildly as he tried to make sense of the enigma Cale presented himself as.

The man soon gave up thinking about it, choosing not to make the same mistake of spitting on the helping hand offered to them. The old man struggled to stand, a determined set to his brows as he limped back towards the house he’d first met Cale in.

There was still fight in the Alabastian guard yet!

Cale watched on in silence, his respect only increasing for their once enemy in the face of perseverance.

Thankfully the rest of the Whiskey Peak situation remained the same. Luffy and Zoro might’ve had the sense knocked back into them a bit earlier, but they still got a princess recruited into the crew out of it.

The unluckies also paid them a visit, according to Nami that is. He was already back at the ship and getting them ready to sail by the time they had that pleasant encounter.

Once everyone returned, they began sailing out to their next stop. It was a good thing their log pose didn’t need all that much time to set for their next island.

The somber atmosphere around the crew only lasted for a short while, before a new voice broke the tension. He almost forgot she was on the ship too.

Miss All Day Sunday, the partner to the warlord Crocodile, code name Mr.0, and head of Baroque Works.

Cale was still on the fence about her himself. She was an odd case in the series so far, considering she ends up helping Luffy on various occasions, while also still managing to betray them at the same time.

Although, perhaps betray was a bit much to describe what she did. She had her own agenda she followed, in pursuit of knowledge as far as he could tell. The raven probably had her reasons as to why was willing to do what she did.

He couldn’t blame her for associating with shady people either, not while knowing she had been declared a wanted criminal dead or alive at the age of 8. The government was really to blame for backing her into a corner like this.

Cale gauged the reactions of the rest of the crew to adopt something marginally appropriate for the moment. Though he still ended up coming across more on the apathetic side.

When Vivi struggled to make a decision on whether to use the log pose gifted to them by the dubious agent, Luffy stepped in to make the decision for them– but just before he could crush the device, Cale whispered a quick request to Raon, snatching it out of their captain's hand with his aid.

Luffy fixed him with an incredulous look, one he found himself quickly defending against.

“I think you made your point clear captain, but just in case, it doesn’t hurt to hang onto this.”

The furrowed brow he got in return was indication enough that their straw hatted idiot wasn’t really satisfied with the response. Though he was easily shut up by a bonk to the head from Nami.

“Thank god Cale’s reflexes are so good! Don’t go destroying our backup plans Luffy!”

Their captain pouted petulantly at the scolding, crossing his arms as he grumbled out “we don’t need help from bad people…”

A light giggle met his words, Miss Sunday raising a hand to hide a modest smile as her eyes narrowed into amused crescents.

“What an interesting crew, I look forward to seeing how you face the challenges coming your way then.”

With those departing words, she hopped off the railing in a graceful arc as she landed back on her turtle steed waiting nearby. She was out of sight before they knew it.

“Do- do you think Little Garden is all that scary? She did make it sound kind of… frightening.”

Usopp warbled his concerns to the others, his eyes drifting to the log pose still in Cale’s hand. Cale for his part, ignored the man’s unspoken hints and had Raon store the device for safe keeping.

“Captain's orders, we’ll only use this pose in the case of an emergency.”

Usopp groaned, but the rest of the crew seemed fine with the decision.

“I hope you know what you’re getting us into Luffy.”