We'd just left Conomi Island a few hours ago, after beating up the merman pirate captain, Arlong, and partying for three straight days. That day would've been peaceful if it hadn't been for the screaming.
"Ow! It burns! It burns!" Usopp shrieked as he ran around the Going Merry, tears pouring out of his eyes and hands covering his face.
Lucy was trying to take a tangerine from the grove of fruit trees Nami had brought aboard the ship. Sanji, however, was on the case, and he wouldn't let our captain have any even though she was a girl, which was a bit surprising.
"This is Nami-san's tangerine orchard!" he informed her. "I won't allow you to take even a single one." His eyes lit up into creepy hearts. "NAMI-SWAN! THE SECURITY GUARD OF LOVE IS ON DUTY!"
Nami, who was reading the paper, snorted and said sweetly, "Thanks, Sanji-kun."
Zoro, who was on the back side of the ship whereas they were at the figurehead, scoffed. "She's using him like a tool, that dork Sanji."
Up in the lookout post, otherwise known as the crow's nest, I shrugged. "It's not too bad of a business," I said. "I'd probably play him, too, just so I could get free stuff. What the hell is up with Usopp, anyway?"
"Oh, that idiot? He accidentally spilled some of his own Tabasco star in his eyes."
I looked at the upper deck, where Usopp was trying to find some water. "Ah. That would explain why a giant flume of fire is coming out of his face." I summoned some water from the sea and splashed it over the liar. He was thrown off-balance, but when he had finally stopped stumbling around, his face looked a lot better... though still slightly charred.
"T-thanks, Yuril," he panted, lying on the deck of the Merry.
"Don't mention it."
"The world's in such chaos right now..." I heard Nami mutter as she flipped a page of the paper. "There was another coup-de-tat in Villa."
"What's a coup-de-tat?" I asked.
"A sudden overthrowing of a government."
"Oh."
That was when a piece of tan-colored paper slipped out of the newspaper and fluttered down to the deck of the Going Merry. There was some kind of image on the side that was facing us, but I couldn't make out what it was due to my current distance. I lowered myself out of the crow's nest and scrambled down the main mast (it used to be kinda scary to do, but over the week and a half I've been in this world, I've gotten over it) so I could get a better look.
There was a pregnant pause as everybody except Zoro, who was sleeping, examined the picture on the paper. Then we all yelled in surprise. "EHHHH?!"
Lucy giggled. "Check it out, we're WANTED! " Sure enough, the poster was an image of her grinning widely in front of the wreckage at Arlong Park, waving to the camera. The caption underneath read, Wanted Dead or Alive: Monkey D. 'Straw Hat' Lucy. 30,000,000 belli.
"Hey, look there!" Usopp pointed to a spot just below and to the right of Lucy's ear in the pic. "Even my back is famous now! Damn, I've got it goin' on!"
I pouted. "Eh? Why don't I get a poster?"
"The Marines that came to the island to take all of the money from Arlong Park never saw you," Sanji pointed out. Then he moaned, "BUT HOW COME THEY HAVE LONG NOSE'S PICTURE AND NOT MINE?! Oi, where, where? I don't see ya, Usopp!"
The sniper pointed again. "Seeee?"
Sanji sat down and folded his arms, pouting and tic-pulsing. Usopp sneered at him. "It's just the back of your head," our cook muttered. "It doesn't count."
"Hey, now, don't be jealous! Someday you could get one, too, and be famous like me—even if you aren't the captain!"
This brought Sanji out of his funk. "EH?! Really?"
"Well, if you work hard..."
As Lucy's giggles continued and so did my depressed state (why did I have to be injured so badly that I missed out on seeing the Marines, and thus getting a bounty poster? WHY!?), Usopp and Sanji struck up an incredibly retarded dance routine.
"ALRIGHT, CREW!" Lucy roared. "WE'RE GOING TO THE GRAND LINE!"
"YOSHA!"
"You guys..." Nami cut in, sighing and shaking her head, "once again, you don't understand the seriousness of the situation!" She had exchanged the white shirt she'd been wearing a few hours ago for a teal one. She facepalmed. "Don't you see this means the Marines will be coming for our heads?"
The three morons ignored her and just continued dancing and laughing and cheering.
"I want a bounty poster..." I sniffed.
"I don't think we'll be able to lounge about in the East Blue anymore," the navigator mused.
"Let's go, let's go, let's go to the Grand Line~!" Sanji, Lucy, and Usopp sang. "Let's go! Go! Go! Go! To the Grand Line!"
"CAN YOU IDIOTS PLEASE SHUT UP AND LET ME MOURN MY FAME IN PEACE!?" I bellowed, tic-pulsing and clenching my fist as I cried anime tears.
𖦹𖦹𖦹
A few hours later, we were still in our mixed emotions and we didn't even notice the banged-up Marine ship sailing a little ways in front of us. Well, we didn't notice it until it turned around and pulled up beside the Going Merry, our ship. When we saw it, Lucy and Usopp stopped cheering and I perked up a little. Sanji was cooking lunch in the kitchen.
"Are those pirates?" Lucy wondered, peering at the ship. "Using a scrapped military boat?"
Usopp sighed and shook his head. "How wasteful the Marines are. Just throwing ships away as scrap."
"That thing looks like it's been through a war," I muttered. It had been smashed up pretty badly and someone had done a hasty repair job. The Marine ship looked as though it wouldn't last through the next storm, much less to the next island.
Someone in a faded yellow suit stomped angrily on the side of the other ship, glaring at us. His face was vaguely familiar but I couldn't place it until I noticed the color of his hair. "WE ARE NOT SCRAP!" he bellowed. "ARE YOU IDIOTS BLIND?! HOW COULD YOU FORGET THE LEGENDARY MARINE CAPTAIN, IRON-FIST FULLBODY!"
I gagged, my eye twitching. "Ah! Pink hair! It's that moron Marine captain from the Baratie!"
Lucy grinned and pounded her palm in recognition. "Oh, that Marine ossan! Are you in trouble? Do you need us to save you or something?"
"I AM NOT A MORON! STOP KIDDING AROUND! Destiny has placed you in my hands," he proclaimed, his face twitching as badly as my eye. He held up Lucy's new bounty poster. "Monkey D. Lucy! You are under arrest!"
Lucy grinned and giggled. "Cool! My picture looks good!"
"And the back of my head looks good, too!" Usopp added quickly.
I sunk to the deck of the Merry, a depressed aura around me again. "I didn't get a bounty..."
"You're wanted dead or alive," Fullbody remarked, smirking. "LOAD THE CANNON!"
Usopp turned blue and Lucy tilted her head. "What're they doing? Attacking us?"
The liar cowered and his behind the main mast. "They're gonna shoot right at us! This is not goood."
I wiped my tears and looked up, still sniffling. "E-Eh?"
"Yosha!" Lucy cheered, stretching her hands out to grab on to different parts of the Merry. "Let me at 'em! I'll just bounce the ball right back!"
"And last time you said that, you were stuck working as a waiter in a restaurant for a year," I muttered.
"Lucy, I'll handle it," Zoro offered, motioning to his sword, Wado Ichimonji. His other two had been shattered during his fight with the strongest swordsman in the world, Hawk-Eyes Mihawk.
"Yeah," Usopp agreed. "Just step back and let Zoro have this one." He pulled Lucy away. "Don't get involved. This way, this way..."
"Sink 'em," Fullbody ordered.
BOOM! The cannon fired and a cannonball flew right at Zoro, who was now the only one on the upper deck, but the swordsman simply unsheathed his sword and sliced downward. The iron ball was cut cleanly in two, and the separated parts flew over the Merry and out to sea, where they exploded with enough force to disturb the water and make my neck tingle.
"Whoa, cool!" Lucy approved.
The Marines gasped and backed away in fright, and I sweatdropped at the amount of them. Did they really think they could take us on with twelve men?
"No way!" Fullbody said. "That's just crazy!"
Zoro sheathed his sword again and walked back to the lower deck. "You shouldn't wake people who are napping."
"HOW MANY SHOTS CAN YOU STAND!? FIRE AGAIN!"
The cannon started shaking as the fuse was lit, and even someone like me who knew absolutely nothing about weaponry could tell that wasn't a good sign. On closer examination, one could see that the last attack had caused cracks to open up in the cannon.
"That ain't good," Lucy noted, rubbing her head.
"Not good?" Usopp snorted.
I frowned. "Hey, Marine dude manning the cannon! Ya might wanna step back."
KA-BOOM! The cannon exploded and nothing else happened. No cannonball was shot at us; all we could see was a huge cloud of stinky, black smoke. When it cleared, there were twelve very surprised and charred Marines, one comically shocked 'captain,' and another hole in the other ship.
"Told ya you might wanna step back," I muttered.
"Yeah, see?" Lucy spoke up, a blank look on her face. "The cannon had a crack in it."
Usopp sighed and shook his head. "That's never a good sign. Never fire a cannon with cracks."
The Marin ship changed course and collided lightly with the Going Merry, making us shake a little. Fullbody leapt onto the railing again and roared, "Listen, you brats! Do not look down upon an Ex-Captain of the Marines! We'll defeat you in close combat!" He jumped onto our ship while the rest of his strange-looking men shivered.
"Y-Yes captain!"
"Well, you gotta give it to him," I conceded. "If there was a prize for stupidity, he'd win it."
"I'll have your head, Monkey D. Lucy!" Fullbody spat, punching our captain with his iron knuckles. Lucy's head was flung back, stretching far off of the Merry. As she snapped back, her hat was blown off with the force of the wind, and she grabbed it with a stretch of her arm.
"Gum-Gum Bell!"
BONG. The two's heads connected with a resounding ring of a giant bell and Ex-Captain Fullbody was thrown back into the railing of the Merry. Meanwhile, one small wave from me and a few kicks from Sanji, who had just come out of the kitchen and was wearing a pink apron with a panda on it, took care of the underlings. They were tossed unceremoniously back onto their scrappy ship.
Fullbody watched them go in confusion. Then he took one look at the new addition to the small fight and freaked out.
"How dare you interrupt a cook in the middle of his work!" Sanji growled darkly, brandishing a frying pan. "You freakin' jerk." He narrowed his eyes. "We're not serving soup today. You wanna lick the deck?"
The Ex-Captain backed away, stuttering in fear. "W-W-Why is that w-w-waiter here?!" Behind him, his men were jumping ship, and he glanced from them to Sanji. He paused, then leaped back onto his own ship and dived off the other side, screaming like a chimpanzee.
Lucy pouted and adjusted her straw hat. "Eh? It's over already?"
"Ha! He's all talk." Usopp snorted, holding his nose up in the air importantly.
"You didn't even do anything," I deadpanned.
"That guy's still a jackass," Sanji grumbled.
"You guys are so noisy!" Nami complained from her lawn chair, still reading the newspaper. "Can't I get some peace and quiet to read?"
"NAMI-SWAN! LUCY-CHWAN! YURIL-CHAN THE FOOD IS READY!"
"Idiot," I sighed, but I grinned and headed for the kitchen.
"Really?!" Lucy cheered. "I'm starving! Food! Food! Foo-ood, food!"
𖦹𖦹𖦹
After lunch, which was as delicious as every other meal Sanji cooked, we discussed our game plan for entering the Grand Line. Everyone had gathered on the upper deck and we were staring at a map Nami had brought out—to be specific, the map she'd stolen from Buggy before I'd fallen into this world.
I shuddered. Buggy the Clown... I was glad I hadn't been here to see him. I simply hated clowns. Clowns are creepy!
"We're getting very close to the Grand Line," Nami announced as we examined the map. "The only way to get there is by going through Reverse Mountain." She tapped an area in the middle of her map right at the crossing of the Red Line and the Grand Line. The small area of land was divided by five different blue lines, connecting at the center of the mountain and coming from the North Blue, the East Blue, the South Blue, the West Blue, and the Grand Line.
"That's a pain in the ass," Zoro complained. "Can't we just go straight there from the sea?"
"According to my old man's stories," Sanji said, "it's the only way in."
Usopp hummed. "Eh? Why's that?"
"It's extremely dangerous."
"That's what I asked! Why?"
The cook tic-pulsed. "I don't know any more than that!"
"Your old man was right," I put in. "See, the Grand Line is surrounded on either side by two stretches of sea called the Calm Belts. They're called that because in those two seas, no wind ever blows and there are never any sea currents, making it impossible to sail. If someone did try to sail through the Calm Belts, their ship would just get stuck and they'd never be able to go anywhere. They'd just stay there until they ran out of food and died."
"Scary!" Usopp shivered.
"That's not the only reason," Nami added. "The other is—"
Lucy giggled. "Yosha! I got it! Let's go head-on through the front!"
I facepalmed and Nami's eye twitched like mine. She hissed, "Are you even listening to us!?"
"But won't it be more interesting?" Lucy grinned and rubbed her hands together excitedly. "It'll definitely be more exciting that way!"
Nami sighed and shook her head. "Trying to explain something to you is impossible. It's driving me insane!"
"Agreed," I moaned.
"But the most important thing," Lucy continued, "is that we stop at another island to stock up on more meat! Meat, meat!"
"We just set sail this morning!" I pointed out. "We've got plenty of meat!"
Nami shushed me and quickly pointed to an island a little ways away from Reverse Island. "On this island," she announced, "there is a famous city. It's called Loguetown."
Lucy blinked. "Loguetown? Are they famous for their meat?"
I sweatdropped. "Your mind is permanently fixed on meat, isn't it." It wasn't a question really, it was a statement.
Zoro decided to speak up. "It's also called 'The Town of the Beginning and the End.' Or so I've heard."
"It's the place where the pirate king, Gol D. Roger, better known as Gold Roger, was born. And it's also the place where he was executed." Nami explained.
"The city where the pirate king died..." Lucy muttered.
"Wanna go?'
Our captain nodded, her expression serious for once. "Yeah, I wanna go. I want to see it. The man who owned the One Piece... the man who had everything the world has to offer... the place where he was born and where he died."
We looked at each other and nodded. Our next destination was set. We were going to Loguetown.