NOVEL NEXT Chapter 29: Cue Travel Music
Note: Formatting may me slightly different than usual. I normally post to Fanfiction.net first, because they have the twitchiest formatting bullshit of everywhere this get's posted. As of now, their site is down though, so I'm putting it up here first. Formatting may not be 100% consistent with previous chapters as a result.
Summary: Onward! Death to Hippos!
Chapter 29: Cue Travel Music
Vivi’s plan hadn’t been overly complicated, but it did require a few steps and a little bit of forgery. Thankfully, Igaram was the highest-ranking frontier agent currently on the island, hence his position as ‘Mayor’ of the town. The disguised Guard Captain had used that position to forge new orders from higher up the chain of command. The orders directed ‘Miss Wednesday’ to use her ‘new connection’ to attempt to recruit the powerful bounty hunters that had stopped at Whisky Peak. Since that supposed ‘connection’ was the idea that she had seduced Luffy, the leader of the group, it gave a legitimate sounding excuse to split her away from her usual partner, Mr.9. Mr.9, meanwhile, was put in charge of a decent number of the ‘millions’ to continue attempting to solve the food issue. While they were better off than they had been, that issue still needed resolving.
Luffy and Nami had carefully spread the real story, of course, to prevent any blow ups from the crew. Particularly Sanji, who likely would have been upset, to say the least, that Luffy had so casually cheated on Nami. Unless they’d pitched it as the threesome Nami had teased Vivi with the idea of. Then he might have fist-bumped Luffy instead. It would have given Nojiko too much ammo instead, though. Luffy had kept that particular thought to himself, as he wasn’t sure how aware Nami was of her sister’s…enthusiasm…for non-traditional relationships.
Regardless, the ruse had worked, and Vivi had boarded the Discovery in full vamp persona, hanging off Luffy’s arm. A fact the younger woman immediately regretted the moment they set sail, as Nami’s teasing had been merciless. She’d driven the princess an interesting tomato-red color before Luffy took pity on her and called the crew together to explain the plan. They’d only been able to give the bare bones idea that they were being hired for a job to the crew before leaving the island, lest they risk something important being overheard.
“Alright, everyone! First, let me reintroduce our guest!”
Luffy waved at Vivi, who did that amazing body language switch again, turning from mortified teenager to regal ruler, getting blinks of surprise from the crew as she did.
“This is Princess Nefertari Vivi, of the Alabasta Kingdom. She’s engaged our services to capture or kill one of the seven Warlords, who is currently staging a revolution of their island.”
There was two or three heartbeats of silence. Then all the implications of that processed.
“Yes! Finally, a good fight!
“W-wait, a WARLORD?!”
“Is that legal?”
“How dare someone rebel against such beauty!”
“Sweet! You and Nami are seducing a Princess! Good job, baby sister!”
Other than Nami, who had already known, only Kuina refrained from commenting. His calm First-Mate simply waited for more explanation as the others all devolved into chaos. Luffy let them all yammer for a few moments, before whistling sharply to regather their attention.
“The Warlord Crocodile is going to be easily our most dangerous opponent yet. Particularly as he will be surrounded by Baroque Works agents. The Princess, along with one of her royal guard, infiltrated that organization in order to discover who it’s leader was. As Baroque Works is the cause of a rebellion that has been building, they need to actually deal with him now that his identity has been uncovered. There is some chance that this will cause issues for us with the World Government, even if his bounty can technically still be collected. Hopefully, it will not. But be prepared if it does.”
Kuina was the one to nod and insert herself in the conversation at that.
“You warned us all from the start, Captain. We know that there’s always a chance the World Government will end up framing us for crimes and labeling us as pirates. For our own reasons, none of us have a problem with that. And it sounds like these people need help.”
Nojiko and Kaya nodded, Zoro looked indifferent but happy for a strong opponent, Sanji was busy daydreaming about helping a princess. Only Usopp looked a bit unhappy. But he was also the one that spoke up next. Not to question the idea, but to address practical concerns.
“What do we know about him? And about Baroque Works?”
Luffy smiled, happy to see Usopp jumping straight to strategy rather than completely freaking out.
“We’ll go over that in a bit, Usopp. I’m sure Princess Vivi had quite a bit more information than we do. First, though…”
Luffy reached into the bag he carried to hide his inventory use and came out holding something none of the others had seen just yet. A fancily carved wooden frame held a bubble and needle like a log pose in it. But the tri-pillared wooden framework that protected the bubble had a name carved into the top. It read ‘Drum Island,’ and the sight of it caused Vivi to gasp in surprise.
“I’m sure you all remember Crocus warning us that the second island on this route was both medically dangerous and has a year-long reset for the log pose. I told him I had a way around that. This is that way. An Eternal Pose for Drum Island, which happens to be on one of the two Routes that pass through Alabasta. Though it’s less commonly locked onto than another on the same route. I spent a fair amount of effort locating this specific Eternal Pose because of what the island is best known for.”
Partly a lie, of course. He’d simply purchased the Eternal Pose from his System Store. Though, technically the points he used for that store were earned through various deeds, he supposed. He actually still didn’t know exactly what the criteria for earning points was, but things like saving lives or eliminating enemies virtually always gave points. His points had skyrocketed just two days into the Grand Line, which he suspected meant that the Revolutionary Army had successfully freed the slaves of Tequila Wolf. Still, no one needed to know exactly how he’d gotten his hands on the Eternal Pose. And Vivi unintentionally helped divert any questions about that by blurting out her own realization.
“Doctors! Oh, that makes sense!”
She blushed a little as the entire crew turned their gazes to her, but powered on through the momentary embarrassment.
“Drum Island is known for having some of the best doctors in the world. Though I think their current ruler did something that might have changed that? I haven’t had much information on world affairs since going undercover. But I’ve heard rumors that their new king had upset a lot of people and the doctors were at the center of why?”
Luffy shrugged, pretending he didn’t have a clue.
“We’ll find out when we get there, I guess. Since we’re skipping an island, we’ll likely be at least a week out from touching land again, maybe a bit more. Time which we can use to start training for dealing with Croc and his minions. It also might throw off attempts to track us, if we’re lucky, and it will technically save us some time. Even stopping to try and recruit a doctor, skipping an island and log pose reset will shorten our total time to Alabasta. Nami, if you’ll get us on course? We can discuss what we know and what training we’ll need after we’re properly underway.”
Nami accepted the Eternal Pose with clear curiosity. He’d told her about them, but not shown her one, despite having acquired a few from the System Store, each for a specific reason. Nami took it with a nod regardless, and moved to lay in a new heading.
“Of course, Captain. Zoro, Sanji, you two get on the sails! Looks like we’ve got a 60-degree course shift, and we’ll want more sail out to pick up some real speed!”
The two men didn’t question her, and the crew broke up for the moment. They’d have plenty of time to go over their plans later…
-----
“What the fuck!”
Luffy did a double take at the shocked expletive from Vivi. It took him long moments to get over the unexpectedly coarse language to figure out just what had caused her to use it. When he finally realized what it was, he couldn’t help but grin.
“What, never seen high-level fighters practice? And here I thought a native of the Grand Line would be used to it.”
Vivi seemed too shocked to respond for a moment, still starting out over the deck of the ship where Zoro and Kuina were sparring…in mid-air using Geppo. She finally managed to get ahold of herself with a little shake, her gaze shifting to him, though her eyes kept darting to the fight every few seconds.
“I’ve…heard of Marines that could do that. But I’ve never seen it. I don’t think it’s very common on this half of the Grand Line.”
Luffy hummed. He actually wasn’t sure about that. From what he knew, the people that the original crew ran into were often beyond the norm. From what he remembered, they hadn’t run into any Rokushiki users until Water 7, and then it had been effectively a deep cover special operations team. All of the others he knew that had shown off portions of the set of six powers were all high-level Marines. Vice-Admirals and the like for the most part. His crew was probably unusual in how many of them could use Soru and Geppo. Though only himself, Kuina, and Zoro could use Rankyaku, and none of them had bothered trying to figure out the other three.
“I suspect if you went deeper into Paradise, closer to Marineford and the Sabaody Archipelago, you’d see it in use by higher level Marines. But those sorts of Marines don’t just randomly patrol this part of the Grand Line. That would be overkill for the majority of rookie Grand Line pirates. Might be that some of the fleet commanders and such can use at least Soru and Geppo, though.”
Vivi frowned at the names.
“Soru and Geppo?”
Luffy pointed to where the duel was still ongoing, though Zoro was on the backfoot and about to lose…again.
“The ability they are using to kick off the air is called Geppo. A similar but easier move that allows high-speed movement on land is called Soru. Technically, they are part of a set of six. But I only know three of them. Since I’m the one that taught the others, none of them know more than those three either.”
Vivi was openly curious now, no longer looking at the fight.
“You taught them? I mean, it’s something that can just be…taught?”
Luffy nodded, considered for a moment, then grinned.
“Yep! Want to learn? I can’t promise you’ll get there before Alabasta. But I can teach you the training methods for Soru. If you keep at it, you’ll at least be able to do that much eventually. And Geppo is really just a more advanced version of the same thing that ups the bullshit factor a bit.”
Vivi’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times, with her pointing at herself but saying nothing. Finally, she managed to get out an incredulous question.
“Me? You’d just…teach me?”
Luffy shrugged.
“Sure? Why not. I mean, you risked yourself going undercover for your country. That says a lot about you. I don’t see any harm in giving you the tools to better protect it once this is all over. Do you?”
Vivi mutely shook her head. Then, after a moment, determination filled her eyes and she bowed to him.
“Teach me please, Captain! I want to be strong enough to protect my people, even against someone like Crocodile, someday!”
Luffy grinned.
“You’ll regret that a bit while you go through the training. But sure thing, Princess…”
-----
“I regret everything.”
Nami laughed at the collapsed form of Vivi. Then she nudged the Princess with a foot. The younger girl groaned from where she’d failed to make it to one of the loungers inside the pilot house.
“Get up and move to the lounger, silly. You’ll be even more miserable if someone doesn’t take care of your legs.”
The Princess stirred, managing to barely lift her head to make eye-contact with Nami.
“Take care of my legs?”
Nami nodded and, realizing that the younger girl might not be able to move, reached down and scooped her up. Vivi squeaked adorably, causing Nami to grin. This was going to be fun!
“Yep. Kaya and Luffy make a cream that speeds muscle healing. So long as someone rubs it in for you, you’ll only be a little sore tomorrow. If no one does that, you’ll be down for days instead. Come on, Luffy warned me, so I grabbed some of the stuff for you.”
Dropping Vivi onto the lounger, Nami retrieved the bottle of ointment. It was something Kaya and Luffy called ‘Spirit Infused Recovery Balm’ and Nami definitely didn’t understand how it worked. What she did understand is that it felt like the best thing in the world when you applied it right after Soru or Geppo training. With mischief in her eyes, she wondered what kinds of embarrassing sounds she could eke out of miss royalty…
-----
Five days into their voyage to Drum, Luffy had to admit he was seriously impressed by Vivi. She had apparently used a lot of kicks and an agility-based style as a member of Baroque Works, which had given her a much more solid foundation for Soru than Luffy had expected. He actually suspected she would be able to use extremely brief bursts, at the risk of some pain, by the time they reached Alabasta. She couldn’t have progressed that fast without the enhanced healing of the balm he and Kaya had cooked up, of course. But with it and a lot of raw determination, he thought she might get it down before they parted ways.
Even more than that, however, he’d been extremely startled to discover she seemed to be on the cusp of unlocking Observation Haki. She was already instinctively moving before hits landed, and she did so with an agility that both impressed him and had inspired entirely too many impure thoughts. Though he firmly blamed Nami for those, as she seemed to delight in teasing the younger girl while massaging the recovery balm into her legs. Usually where Luffy could see and hear the results.
It had only taken a couple of days for him to realize what he was seeing, and he’d made the snap decision to teach her about Haki as well. She was so close that he was virtually certain she’d unlock it before Alabasta with his help. But it was likely to be uncontrolled and unrefined at that point, much like Nami’s had been at first. Given her obvious talent for it, though, Vivi would likely be able to refine it on her own once it was unlocked. Which was all to the good. He genuinely liked the fiery-yet-gentle young royal, and he’d feel better about inevitably having to leave her behind if she had the tools to take care of herself. He was actually outright tempted to try recruiting her…but getting her involved with Robin would likely spell all sorts of trouble for Alabasta. Best not put her in that position, even if he could convince her to do it. For now, he'd just settle for making her stronger.
“Ahahhaha! Luffffyyy…mercy!”
Withdrawing the feather he’d taken to using for Haki training, Luffy waited for the blindfolded Vivi to stop laughing…then nodded a Nojiko to her left. The bluette grinned sadistically and struck out with her own feather, aiming for a previously identified weak point just under Vivi’s ear. In a fantastic sign that this was getting somewhere, Vivi almost managed to jerk out of the way. But only almost, as she fell into helpless laughter again a moment later.
Luffy grinned at the sight. Tomorrow, they’d be back to throwing high-speed pebbles for her to dodge. But something that his Perks for Haki training had helped him understand was that variety of training actually helped someone learn faster. Pebbles one day, random spurts of water the next, the ticklish-feather exercise a third, a mix of all three on a fourth. All randomly chosen so there was no pattern. And if one or two of them were more entertaining than others? Well, the trainers should get something out of their time too…right?
-----
Luffy lay in bed, Nami tucked under his arm, and considered his options. Nami was thoroughly passed out from a combination of hard training and a little bit of fun once they returned to their now-shared cabin. Which, as Luffy’s stamina was far greater, gave him plenty of time to look through his System Store. Specifically, the Spirt Fruit tab. Someone in the Kreig fleet, Luffy didn’t have a clue who since whoever it was had died during his initial storm bombardment, had possessed a Paramecia fruit. It meant he’d had a single Spirit Fruit coupon to spend for some time, but hadn’t seen the need to spend it just yet.
A part of him had wanted to, but he’d held off on the idea for a few reasons. The first was simply a matter of not wanting his crew to become overly reliant on them. Another was the idea of saving the points up for a more valuable fruit. The third, however, was what he was currently contemplating. He hadn’t been sure he would be able to encounter Vivi, nor that she would click with his crew as well as she had the originals. The companionship starved young woman had done just that, however. She’d fallen into a quick friendship with Nami, seemed to practically idolize a bemused Kuina as a ‘big sister’ figure, and had taken to the rest of the crew with enthusiasm. Something only doubled down on when they’d offer her training and followed through on it.
He liked Vivi. His crew liked Vivi. But that meant that Vivi was likely to face the same choice that she had in the version of events he’d witnessed. The choice between continuing to travel with a crew she was rapidly coming to fit in with, an idea that appealed to the adventurer in her soul. Or to instead remain behind and take care of her Kingdom. Her people, all of whom were precious to her.
There was, of course, only one choice she was likely to make. But Luffy had a possible solution that would let her have things at least a little bit both ways. And, honestly, he’d really prefer to have the specific Devil Fruit in question in the hands of an ally, rather than an enemy. It wasn’t combat-oriented enough for him to really want it on his crew, save for maybe with Kaya. But for an ally who would be willing to use it on his behalf from time to time?
Luffy nodded, making his decision and spending the Spirit Fruit coupon. The fruit fell into his hand, but he quickly added it to his inventory. He’d need to come up with an excuse for why he had it. He suspected he could manage that by the time they left Alabasta easily enough. Assuming they didn’t just all die horribly, of course…
-----
Distances on the Grand Line, even just in Paradise, were hard to estimate. Sailing times were even more so on account of the wild swings of weather. The maps and charts that existed were, as Nami could rant to you for hours about, horribly limited and pretty blatantly wrong in places. Then, just for good measure, the unpredictable weather could easily make a difference of days in either direction of an already very questionable estimate. It was therefore not that surprising to Luffy that his estimate had been a little off, and it took a full eleven days of sailing before they hit the Winter Climate zone that told them Drum Island was near. Without an Eternal Pose, or at least a Log Pose locked to an island, someone could still spend days or weeks inside that climate zone trying to find the actual island.
Which perhaps explained an encounter Luffy had been expecting.
That did not mean he appreciated some asshole taking a bite out of his precious ship!
Which…actually did completely explain why the smoking corpse of Wapol, supposed King of Drum Kingdom, was lying at his feet. The smoke, of course, came from a brutal lighting bolt he’d slammed down the man’s throat. But the actual cause of death was the three high-caliber seastone bullet wounds that had pretty much erased the top half of Wapol’s head. His two lieutenants were staring in horror, even as Luffy’s own crew were wide-eyed at their Captain’s uncharacteristically brutal rage.
“Kill the pirates. Leave the doctors.”
The order was so icy cold that only Kuina and Zoro were able to move immediately. But they did move, with nearly the same brutal precision of their Captain. Neither of the former-king’s lieutenants lived through their first strikes. Heads slid off shoulders as Kuina and Zoro didn’t bother playing with their opponents, overwhelming them in an instant. The rest of Wapol’s crew didn’t last much longer, as Nojiko finally reacted and bombarded the deck of the man’s submarine with a Rain of Crystal. She and the two swordsmen jumped onto the enemy vessel a moment later, disappearing inside to follow through on their Captain’s orders.
“C-Captain L-Luffy, that man…h-he wasn’t a pirate…”
Luffy’s gaze shifted as he looked at Vivi, only noticing he was leaking a mild amount of Conqueror’s Haki as he saw her pale face. Shaking himself, he tamped the Haki down, took a deep breath, and forced the anger at someone eating part of his beautiful ship away. Vivi and the rest of the crew still present relaxed marginally as the small leak of Haoshoku faded.
“I don’t care who he was. He ate part of my ship!” Luffy pointed at the Jolly Roger flying over the submarine. “Besides, whoever he may have been once, he was flying a pirate flag now. So he was fair game, yes?”
Vivi winced, staring at the flag, then down at the mangled corpse.
“Maybe? That man was King Wapol, of the Drum Kingdom. It sort of matters why he was flying a Pirate Flag, I guess? Maybe? And if the World Government knew he was doing it…”
Vivi trailed off, looking like she genuinely didn’t know. Which…fair. It couldn’t be all that often that Royalty of an island decided to fuck off and fly a pirate flag. Particularly within the waters of his own supposed kingdom. Still, he had eaten part of Luffy’s ship. Luffy would not waste worry on if he should have killed the man. His only regret was that he’d spent good bullets killing a worthless pile of garbage that had eaten part of his ship. He would have to apologize to the spirits of those bullets for not finding them something more worthy to give their efforts to.
Face twitching in disgust, he permanently soiled perfectly good boots a moment later by kicking the smoking corpse off the deck of his ship. The lieutenants he left for now. If he was remembering right, the Island hated their former King and would probably want proof he was dead. Since he would not soil his beautiful Discovery with a second more of that vile ship-eater’s presence, the bodies of his top officials and the submarine itself would have to do.
“King or pirate, he’s dead now and I won’t apologize. Now, let’s deal with the civilians I sensed on his ship. Nami, please try to figure out how to sail that rather interesting vessel. We’ll take it to Drum and see what they have to say.”
Eyes abruptly gleaming with interest, Nami nodded and lept over to the submarine, even as the previous trio of Kuina, Zoro and Nojiko chivvied a group of twenty scrub-clad doctors onto the deck. Luffy took a deep breath, remembering that this group wasn’t at fault for anything Wapol did, and pitched his voice to reach them.
“None of you are in danger. This pirate crew was killed for damaging my ship, but I do not believe you are willingly part of his crew. Will one of you please explain to us what happened?”
The doctors looked nervously between each other, before one was pushed forward. That man took a deep breath and raised his voice to be heard over the thankfully-small gap between the ships.
“U-um, hello! Errr, the Bliking Pirates were recently formed under former-King Wapol. Another pirate group, just five men but all of them monsters, attacked Drum Kingdom and King Wapol fled. The pirates were engaged by a Marine Fleet that responded to the island’s distress call, but the fleet was wiped out too! K-…that is Captain Wapol stayed in the island climate zone, picking off survivor Marine ships as a pirate, until the other crew left! He’s had the crew trying to find the island again with a search pattern since then.”
Luffy’s eyebrows rose. This…did not sound quite right.
“How long has it been since the first attack?”
The nervous doctor thought for a moment, then nodded.
“Two weeks, I think? And only one since the Marine Fleet responded!”
Luffy frowned. Was this just a difference in when they had arrived? Between their early arrival to the Grand Line and skipping Little Garden, they were likely a few weeks early. But he didn’t remember any mention of Marines having responded to Blackbeard attacking Drum. Only Ace…who they had been close enough behind to meet the crew in Alabasta. Damn. Everything must have happened on a much more compressed timetable than he’d originally assumed. He perked up. Wait, does that mean Ace was still here?!
“Well then, Doctors, we are headed to Drum anyway. So long as your story matches the other locals, I’ll simply release you to help them. If the attacks were so recent, I imagine they still have a lot of wounded to look after. Assuming the pirates didn’t just kill everyone.”
All of the doctors snapped to attention at that, and there was much greater strength in their leader’s voice as he spoke again.
“Thank you, Captain…”
“Monkey D. Luffy. Captain Luffy is fine.”
The man nodded.
“Captain Luffy, then. Thank you. We would very much like to help our countrymen. There are a lot of supplies aboard the Bliking, can we...?”
Luffy nodded.
“Assume we can get it moving, we’ll bring it with us. We have a decent stock of medical supplies as well, if they are needed.”
Nami sauntered back on deck before the Doctor could respond.
“It has a steam engine, Captain! We can use that to get her to shore! I’ll need Zoro and Usopp, I think. Usopp to run the engine, Zoro to handle the coal. Wouldn’t want to take her far without a lot more crew, but with the Eternal Pose we should reach the island pretty quick!”
Luffy nodded, gesturing to both crewmembers. Zoro grumbled a bit but didn’t fight it, and Usopp looked positively cheerful at the chance to see a steam engine of this size working. Luffy directed Nojiko to stay with her sister, just in case, then started barking orders to the remaining crew to get the Discovery moving again…
A/N 1: So...Little Garden is a risk I just can't see someone with knowledge of it actually taking. Too much luck involved in not losing a crewmember, even if you head straight to Drum right after. Given a choice, Luffy was always going to avoid it. Particularly as the only real purpose it served was to introduce giants and Mr.3.
A/N 2: Anti-climactic Wapol. Frankly, the crew has grown too strong for Wapol to really threaten. I also couldn't see Luffy taking someone eating part of the Discovery at all well. His death rather than just defeat will play into something important later, anyway.
A/N 3: No actual Hippos were harmed in the making of this chapter. While they may be violent man killers, my sources tell me even they would be disgusted by Wapol and wouldn't allow him to join their species.