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“Engine’s all set,” Ikkaku announces, stepping onto the deck. “Would still recommend taking her for a test drive before you sail to the next island, but she shouldn’t have any serious issues. Only repairs left are the deck railings and reinforcing the main mast, but those could get done by tonight, depending on the weather and if you provide dinner for your humble worker here.”
The captain —Trafalgar Law, a scrawny guy full of awkward bones and edges puberty has yet to fill with anything more substantial than coffee— approaches her. His companion, the polar bear, is scrubbing and sanding the hull fervently; perfecting the spots where the outer hull was damaged by explosions and where she’d subsequently filled with molten metal to repair the weakened layer.
Pirates aren’t Ikkaku’s go-to customers, in all honesty. They bring too much trouble, she’s found, and it’s old wisdom not to draw attention to yourself lest you invite danger as well. Normally, she’d have chased these boys off without guilt, but one look at their submarine changed her mind.
Beautiful is too small a word to describe her.
Ikkaku has never seen a noble lady in person, but she imagines it must feel like meeting the Polar Tang. A vessel so gorgeous and refined, so unquestionably magnificent, she knows, ever since that first glance, she will never be able to forget her. The engines of the craft —a complex web of systems that keep her not only afloat and running above the seas, but also carve her passage into the depths of the oceans— are nothing short of a work of art, haunting her dreams and daylight musings alike, and evoking longing sighs from the human woman.
If the boys hadn’t already begged Ikkaku to step aboard and fix her, she would have outright stolen her. Not that she has given up on the idea— She’s just reworking her plans until a proper opportunity arises.
“You’re welcome to the pantry if food’s all you need,” the scrawny captain tells her, and she notes he doesn’t give her a limit to how much she can take. He will regret that. “Are the ballast tanks stable, then? Will she be able to submerge again?”
“The main ballast tanks were actually pretty okay, all things considered. You wouldn’t have made it to the surface otherwise. It was the trimming tank who took the worst of the damage; poor girl mustn't have known up from down,” Ikkaku explains, patting the bulkhead fondly. “But she’s all good now. Can dive as deep as a sea king and come back up again just like a bubble, no problem.”
“That’s good to hear,” he answers, and she watches him physically relax at her words, tense shoulders lowering as if he’d just put down a hefty load.
Then, as if willed into existence, a thumping, heavy noise really does sound just outside the sub. Craning her neck from the deck, she catches a glimpse of the captain's two minions setting down wooden crates onto the ground and waving in her direction.
“Capt’n!” one of them shouts. “Mind a bit of help?”
Sighing, the scrawny boy lifts a hand in lazy motion, a blue dome steadily growing from his palm to encompass the shore of the island. He mutters something under his breath, and then the crates appear on deck, blue glow quickly dissipating into nothing.
Ikkaku notes the boxes are full of paint buckets of various colors; mustard yellow by far the most predominant. It’s a good color for the lady in question, she thinks. Cheerful.
The two approach their captain and the talking polar bear, but she’s already moved away to the deck’s edge to continue her job. Placing down her equipment, she sits down on the wooden floor. She shoves on her gloves and face shield, and allows herself to focus on welding the railing back into its proper place. Whenever she takes a pause to inspect her work, the boys’ conversation and the crashing of the waves serve as background noise, filling the silence left behind by her machine.
“...going to rain tomorrow, they said. Better to get started now,” she hears the tallest one say. He wears a ridiculous hat, with his name —Penguin— printed on front, but somehow he gives her the impression of being the most mature in their crew.
“The outer hull might be tricky,” the captain says, thoughtful. “I could shamble one of you beside the hull, controlling the height with tact. Then we won’t need to bring out the pulleys.”
The ginger boy nods immediately and volunteers, though the other one seems more apprehensive. Ikkaku focuses back on her task, grabbing her toolbox and moving to the left, settling down to repair a different section of the railing.
She’s barely finished welding a single bar of metal before the Penguin guy walks over to her, friendly grin on his obscured face. “Hey there!” he greets her. “How’s our girl doing, then?”
“Whole lot better,” Ikkaku says, as the ginger boy and the polar bear bring out a large wooden plank from inside the sub. “Pretty much all that’s left to do is superficial compared to how she was when you brought her over.”
Penguin gives a nervous laugh, hand slipping under the back of his hat to muss his hair. Behind him, the ginger boy stands on the plank before the young captain lifts his palm again, and within the blue air of his dome the wooden plank, the ginger and a bucket of paint disappear in a blink. “Ha… yeah, she was in pretty bad shape then, wasn’t she? The crew that attacked us, they were just— complete lunatics. To think they’d throw torpedoes at us…” he trails off with a sigh. “We were really lucky.”
Sparks fly from the metal of the railings to meet her welding mask before she takes another pause. “That you were. Credit still goes to the lady, though,” she tells him. From within her visor, she sees the captain boy settle down on the opposite side of the deck, keeping watch on the ginger outside. “Most vessels would’ve just sunk. She’s a very strong girl.”
“Say, you’ve become pretty fond of our Tang, haven’t you?” Penguin giggles, leaning on the railing. The metal makes a small creaking noise, instantly setting her on edge. “You could just come along with us, y’know. I’m surprised Law hasn’t invited you yet.”
“He’s mentioned it,” she dismisses before slapping his thigh away from the railing. “Stop ruining my work or I’ll gut you like a fish.” He giggles more at this, raising hands in surrender and obediently stepping away.
A sharp scream makes her drop her tools, by the time she turns around already replaced with a loud splashing noise. Penguin leans over the railing, not quite touching it this time, visibly worried but not particularly surprised.
Only once the ginger one reemerges from the water does he say anything, raising his voice to be heard despite the strong wind, “Shachi! Is the paint okay?”
“It’s here,” the captain answers instead, looking almost flustered. “I shambled the bucket to the deck before it could fall.”
“And not me?!” the soaked boy protests from below, splashing more water in his attempt to swim back aboard. The polar bear throws him a rope, and it smacks him on the face.
“The paint is more expensive.”
“Captain!” he whines, loudly drawing out each syllable.
Ikkaku snorts with amusement as Shachi is hoisted up and onto the deck, seemingly smuggling half of the ocean aboard within his sodden clothes. He shamelessly drips a trail onto the wood as he goes, curses leaving his mouth in an endless and almost unintelligible babble.
“...Bunch of jerks, this is all their fault— ugh!” he grunts, wringing out the corner of his tank top. It used to be black, but now the acquired yellow stains have spread out unevenly with his little swimming break. Ikkaku pities whichever one of them has laundry duty. “Next time I see them, I’ll blow holes in their ship, see how they like it.”
“Why is it their fault Law dropped you into the ocean?” Penguin asks, amused, as he covers the other’s shoulders with a towel.
“Because they attacked the Tangy! It’s all their fault! Everything!”
“Yes, yes,” the polar bear appeases him, closing the ginger’s hands around a paint bucket’s handle. “Back to painting, now. It’ll rain tomorrow.”
Ikkaku shakes her head as she focuses back on the deck railings. There’s a lot to be said about this crew, but at least they’re entertaining.
Painting resumes. Ikkaku stays with the railings, of course, but the boys flutter around deck carrying buckets and brushes— and the pulleys, too. It’s relaxing, in a weird kind of way, to hear their laughs and jokes yelled across the submarine. The captain sits on the deck’s corner, book in hand, close enough to participate in conversations but clearly not with the intention of doing any painting himself.
And, despite everything, she’s able to focus better than expected; by the time the pale pink and orange afternoon hues make their way onto the deck’s wood, all the railings have been repaired.
“Hey,” she greets, bending over the newly-fixed railing to get a better look of the boys. “How’s the lady lookin‘ so far?”
“Pretty good, if I may say so myself,” Shachi brags. “Look! The new coat of paint looks so nice and shiny on her! She’s beautiful.”
“She is,” Ikkaku readily agrees, nodding, before gesturing to the side with her chin. “Though your friend over there looks like he could be her sibling.”
“Huh?” The polar bear looks up at her with clueless eyes, as if unaware of the red and black streaks staining his previously white fur, losing the fight for dominance to the large yellow splotches covering most of his body.
She almost flinches when she hears the crew’s captain sigh beside her, not having registered his presence. Must be the lack of meat on his bones that makes him so sneaky. “That’ll take weeks to wash out. Bepo, try not to get so much paint on you.”
“Aye, aye, Captain!” the bear replies, saluting, and the brush he holds in his hand grazes his forehead, leaving yet another black streak. She hears the other two boys burst out laughing as the bear innocently reaches up a paw to touch the new wet spot.
“Penguin, Penguin, d’ya see? Bepo’s not a polar bear anymore!” the ginger says between wheezes.
“Right, right, though I’m not sure what kind of bear he is, now!” the other laughs back, as their captain retreats to his corner. Ikkaku even spots a slight smile on his face at his subordinates’ antics, before she looks back at the boys in question.
Somehow, in the span of just a few moments, the ginger has taken hold of the bucket of black paint along with its brush, and now holds it carefully against the eyes of the polar bear— almost as if drawing his eyeliner.
“Bepo, stop moving— I’m almost done!” he says.
“I’m sorry,” the bear replies, bowing down his head and catching the brush in his eye.
A few more deliberate strokes later, Ikkaku sees the ginger boy bounce with self-satisfaction. “Penguin, look! He’s a panda now!”
“...That’s not a panda. Pandas don’t look like that,” the other boy tells him, crossing his arms as he examines the bear.
“You’ve never seen a panda in your life, what would you know?” Shachi accuses, narrowing his eyes.
“You’ve never seen a panda, either,” Penguin notes, eyebrow raised.
“Uh…” says the not-panda in question, as Shachi swats his brush onto the taller boy’s face, leaving a black stroke of paint in its wake. For his troubles, Penguin dabs his bare hand into a bucket and smacks it against the other. Soon, they move onto full-on brawling, a yellow paint bucket colliding onto both their clothes, before hitting the hull and tumbling into the sea.
Ikkaku watches the display, amused, before turning her attention towards the deck with a grin. “Not going to do anything about it? You said the paint was expensive.”
The scrawny captain looks at her through tired eyes as he lifts his left hand, the same dome bursting to life around them, and throws two small rocks over the railings with his right hand.
With barely a chance to question the glowing air, both boys are blinked from their place and instead a loud pair of twin splashes come to life where the rocks should have landed.
“Captain!” they complain in unison.
With a laugh on her lips, Ikkaku once again reconsiders the benefits of setting sail with the Polar Tang’s boys instead of simply stealing the craft from them.
A crew like this, after all, wouldn’t be so bad.