Chapter 5
NAMI
It took Luffy and the rest half a day to wake up. Nami had sealed her fate the day she had joined Arlong Pirates, but Luffy was different. Unlike Arlong who radiated pain, and suffering being near Luffy gave her a sense of freedom, joy and security that she had never felt before.
He, alongside the rest of these idiots, was the first person apart from her family to believe in her and protect her. They planned to go against Arlong just for her, and would have done so if not for that Marine.
And the scenes from that night still affected her, as both she and Usopp carried those three idiots to the ship and escaped from Coccoyashi Village in a hurry. A thousand questions whirled in her head, but she had done as the Marine Captain had commanded her to do, and she still wondered why he had let Luffy and the rest of them go.
"What the hell was that?" Zoro woke up rubbing his face, and she smiled seeing him awake.
"My body feels as if it has been put through a pasta maker," and Sanji followed soon after, as she felt tears well up in her eyes.
"Zoro. Sanji," she called out, and the two buffoons turned towards her.
"What made you cry Nami-chan!" and seeing those perverted eyed from that damned blonde cook made her lose her temper.
"Shut up and rest!" She hit him on the head, and he began to weep as she looked towards Zoro, remembering that he was the oldest member of the crew.
"Zoro, do you remember what happened?" she asked, and his expression turned somber as he rubbed his head.
"Yeah, I do. I remember," and that was good for their crew lacked a doctor, and she had heard that often blows to the head could result in memory loss.
"I remember fighting against that monster and losing consciousness," and then he looked towards her.
"Then how are we on the ship?" he asked her, before turning towards their captain, who was still awake.
"Did he?" and she shook her head.
"No. Luffy was defeated sometime after you as well," she answered, as Zoro's eyes widened.
"Luffy was defeated!" and even that perverted cook was surprised.
"Then why aren't we in prison?" Zoro asked, and she had hoped that he would have an answer.
"I was hoping that you would have an answer," she said, looking towards Zoro.
"That Marine Captain, he let us all go. He had somehow moved our ship to a small bay at the South of the Island, and he told me of a deficiency in the Marine patrol, so that we could escape," she said, and she had been trembling in fear. Yet, he had smiled at her and told her and Usopp to run.
"Perhaps you know him?" Zoro shook his head.
"No. This was my first time seeing him as well," he answered as they all turned towards their captain, who had taken the brunt of the attacks.
"So that means he is related to Luffy somehow," added Sanji, having already lit a cigarette.
"Maybe, they were talking and laughing during the celebration before he suddenly attacked us," she pointed out, and now only he could answer their questions, and so they had to wait for a few more hours until their captain finally woke up.
The injuries while severe, were not life threatening and so as Sanji prepared them a small meal from the leftovers the villagers had put in the ship, they all sat around Luffy as she asked him about the Marine.
"Luffy, who was that?" she asked, and he paused his eating.
"Who?" he asked, and she threw her spoon at him as she shouted.
"That Marine, you idiot! WHO ELSE!" and he rubbed his forehead, where the spoon hit as he replied sulkily.
"You could ask nicely, you know?" he complained as he rubbed his head.
"And you could be a little more tactful!" she retorted angrily, as Zoro cut in.
"Still, who was that guy?" he had asked, and he had been rather serious ever since the fight. Luffy's smile vanished as well as he answered.
"Well, he is...." and Luffy was rubbing his chin, hmming, and a whole minute passed, and her patience ran out.
"ANSWER US! DAMN IT!" she threw her fork now, and it hit him in the forehead again.
"I am trying, I just don't know what to call him!" he complained, rubbing his forehead.
"A friend. Yeah, you can say that he is a friend," and all of them shook their head at his answer.
"Why the hell did you make us wait a minute for that?" Luffy rubbed his head as he chuckled.
"Still, how did you befriend a marine?" Sanji questioned.
"Well, he came to visit me with my grandpa once and offered me food," and she sighed.
What else should she have expected from this simpleton!
"What was a marine doing with your grandfather? And why would he let us go?" asked Sanji.
"Speaking of that, I heard him mention Zeff's name as well. How the hell did he know that as well?" Sanji continued rubbing his chin as Luffy laughed.
"Well, he let us go because we are not famous enough yet." Luffy's words shook them all, and he had stopped laughing.
"Barto only hunts two kinds of pirates. The evil ones and the famous ones," and that made some sense, for he had hunted Arlong and his crew, yet he had spared them, for Luffy was many things, but he was not evil.
"That is why I will become the King of Pirates so that he will have no choice but to hunt me," and she slapped him in the head.
"WHO THE HELL WANTS TO BE HUNTED BY THE MARINES!" Yet he continued laughing and busied his mouth with meat and the rest of the food, making it impossible to get any new answer from him.
"If he wasn't going to capture us, then why the hell would he attack us like that?" she whispered, and it was Zoro who answered her question.
"He was testing our resolve," he answered, and he still had not taken a sip of his wine until now.
"Resolve?"
"Yeah, he was warning us about the dangers that await us in the Grand Line...." and he was grinning as he looked up into the sky.
"And if we are going to be facing people like that there...."
"...then I am very excited to go to this Grand Line!"
0000
MONKEY D GARP
There was a reason that he had always turned down the promotion to becoming an Admiral, for that damned title came with a lot of chains and restrictions, and a Marine he may be, Garp still loved his freedom or better yet what little remained of it.
Being a Hero and the friend of the Fleet Admiral also gave him some cover, so when he had first heard the rumor that a up-jumped Pirate named Monkey D Luffy had come to East Blue, and brought down a Marine Captain called 'Axe-Hand-Morgan', he knew that his idiot grandson had made his choice.
And twice now, his own blood had turned on him, refusing to continue his legacy of being Marines as they turned their backs on the World Government, turning them into enemies.
And enemies they may be, he was still his idiot grandson, and so he took his crew and rushed towards Shells Town to take in the disgraced Marine and meet up with his grandson, only to find him gone.
The disgraced captain had tried to run away and had even involved one of the recruits in his little scheme, but the boy had shown his mettle in coming back to the ship, abandoning even his own father.
Koby and Helmeppo, huh. Brats as they were, they reminded him of his own youth and that bastard Sengoku, and so he decided to take them both under his wing after all his two previous apprentices were all grown up now.
Or so he had thought.
"What did you just say?" he screamed into the Den-Den Mushi as Sengoku told him about the actions of his second apprentice.
"The boy walked into my office and handed in his resignation and told me that he wants to be a part of SWORD," Sengoku replied as Garp felt his head burst in rage.
"That idiot! What the hell was he thinking?" and he began to wonder why it was that all his apprentices turned out to be crazy one way or another. Even his damned family was no different.
"You know better than most that there is nothing I can do but delay this. I have sent him your way so that you talk to him and knock some sense into his head," and there was no need to ask.
He was going to do more than that. He was going to kill that bastard and make sure that he never mentions that name again. And he had met the kid during one of his missions to this very sea, as he was coming back from meeting with his children.
A young, naive boy protecting a town against a Pirate Crew. The boy was strong and young, and he saw the pirates try to bribe him, offer him gold and riches, and so forth.
They even offered him a position in their crew, yet the boy held strong. He held strong for days, as he continued to use his Devil Fruit to erect a shield around the Town Hall so that he could protect all the people inside.
The boy had recognised him when he took down the pirates, and those up-starts had needed but one single attack from him. Then, later on, that green-haired boy had come chasing after him and had begged him to take him on as an apprentice.
And now that boy had become one of the youngest Marine Captains, and would have had an even higher rank if not for his shenanigans, for that idiot was not just a marine. He also ran a damned business on the side, based out of this very sea.
"And one more thing," Sengoku added, as Garp was imagining a hundred different ways of knocking some sense into that idiot.
"What?" he asked.
"He left him back at the base again," and his brows twitched as soon as he heard that, and the floor of his ship cracked because of his rage.
"His navigator!" and it seemed that fool was in need of quite a beating.
"Don't worry," he said to Sengoku as he cracked his knuckles, for he knew that boy better than most.
"If he is here in East Blue, I know just the place where I will find him," after all, he knew that he could not resist coming to that place.
"Good! Find him and knock some sense into that boy. He is to be the future of the Marines," and he nodded as he put down the Den Den Mushi.
"I will. I sure as hell will," he whispered as he tried to control himself, and then people wondered why his blood pressure was so out of control. With a family like this, who could blame him?
He stepped out of his room, onto the deck, and his crew stood ready, nervous, for they must have been able to sense his rage.
"Turn the ship around," he barked out gruffly.
"What about Axe-Hand Morgan? Are we going to let him go?" and he had forgotten about that.
"Leave him be. He is nothing but a small fry. We can deal with him later," he replied, turning towards his Rear Admiral.
"Set the course for Baratie," and he did not need to say a word more, for he already understood his intentions and moved towards the control room.
"Baratie? What is that?" he heard a few murmurs, and he smiled wildly as he cracked his knuckles.
"The favourite place of my damned apprentice?"
"What about the two new recruits? Are we going to bring them with us?" and after a second, he replied.
"Yeah. Bring them along. It would be good for them to see what becomes of idiots who do not listen to me...."
0000
Read ahead and support me on Patre 0n. Help me out in this journey by becoming a Patr 0n. Your support is the only thing that makes it possible for me to do this, so it would mean a lot to me if you could pinch in. 😊
www.Patre 0n.com/Drkest
Have a nice day!