Though our adventure in the Accino's icy hell was well behind us and everyone was preparing for the future, that did not mean our next destination lay immediately before us. It still took us a while to reach the staging grounds for our next adventure, and of course, that travel time left plenty of opportunities for the day-to-day goings-on of the Grand Blue. From learning more about the culture of Oda's wonderful world…
~o~
"Morning, Cross," Sanji nodded at me as he flipped the contents of his frying pan in the air.
"Mmmrgh…" I moaned in response, pawing miserably at my eyes as I shambled into the kitchen.
"Looking for this?" Robin hummed into her coffee mug, another hand of hers offering me my own cup of dark liquid.
"Mmph…" I groaned gratefully, accepting the glass and taking a deep swig from it. I then sank into the seat next to her with a pained groan, the caffeine chasing the last remnants of sleep again. "Mmm… how the hell did I ever wake up before we had Cola?"
"With fewer stomach cramps from drinking it on an empty stomach, I imagine," Robin observed dryly.
I winced as I took another swig from my cup, shooting her a thumbs-up. "Hurts so good."
The door to the room opened with more force than strictly necessary, and an annoyed-looking Nami stalked inside, tossing the day's newspaper on the table. "I'm getting sick and tired of them raising the price every other week. This is the first time that I'm genuinely missing Terry and Isaiah; next time we recruit a bird who can fly worth a damn, we find a way to get them to mug those thieving bastards en route."
"HELLS YES!" Soundbite cackled in agreement.
"Hell no," I shot back with a flat glare. "You touch Coo or any of his flock, you'll suddenly find yourself a dozen maps short, witch."
Nami snorted derisively, flashing me her own bird before snatching up the plate of food Sanji offered her and stomping right back out.
I shook my head as I picked up the newspaper and started scanning the front page. I then did a double-take. "Well, well, well! 'New Poneglyph excavated in Galridon Archipelago, South Blue'?! Now, this I gotta—!"
"I'll take that," Robin chirped, snatching the paper from my hands.
"Wha—!? HEY!" I tried to grab the papers back, but a half-dozen hands held me off as she unfolded the newspaper, not to mention the page that was suddenly dropped on my face.
"You can have the funnies," she smiled innocently, entirely ignoring me in favour of the news.
I snorted derisively, making to ball up and toss said funnies away, but something on the page caught my attention. "Hm?" I read the comic page and regarded it curiously. "What's this? 'Sora, Warrior of the Sea'?"
"It's a comic strip the Marines publish in the papers," Sanji explained over his shoulder, shifting over from the stove so that he could start chopping something up. "The tales of the Marine Hero Sora as he travels the seas, fighting crime and evil with the help of his pet seagull and a transforming robot."
"Blech, I CAN TASTE THE propaganda from here," Soundbite spat.
"Not as much as you'd expect, actually…" Robin mused as she turned the page. "Apparently, the exploits of young Sora have a basis in fact, specifically the exploits of real Marines."
"Really, now?" I said before, looking closer at the strip. "Then… the enemy he's fighting… Germa… what is that, an 88?"
"66," Sanji responded, the chopping making his voice sound oddly tight. "Sora's enemy is Germa 66."
"Right, them. They're always the ones he fights?"
"Not always, but certainly more often than not," Robin shrugged before glancing over. "Why do you ask?"
"Huh…" I held the paper out. "Well, it's just that when I consider the World Government's standard propaganda, and the consistency in using them, plus the fact that apparently these comics are actually real… I dunno, maybe these Germa guys have some basis in reality? And if so…" I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. "I'll need to see about looking into them. With the way the World Government is laying into them, I bet they're pretty strong, but the flanderization means they might not actually be that bad."
SLAM!
All three of us at the table jumped, and we turned to see that Sanji had driven his knife into… no, clean through his cutting board. Damn, clean cut too.
The chef exhaled explosively as he eyed the bisected board. "Damn," he muttered.
"Are you alright, Sanji?" Robin asked.
"Yes, Robin-chwan, perfectly fine!" Sanji replied, shooting us a smile. "Sorry, my heart acted up for a second there. I should have known better than to test new peppers while I'm working."
"Eesh. Well, be more careful," I warned him even as I settled back in and got back to reading. "Your hands are your greatest tools, remember? The last thing any of us wants is to see you hurt."
"I'll… keep that in mind, Cross," Sanji nodded, going back to work.
"…his heart rate's up…" Soundbite muttered.
I responded with a flat look. "The man just ate an ultra-hot pepper and almost lost a finger for it. Would you be calm?"
"Yeah… yeah, fair enough…" the snail muttered, returning his eyes to the paper.
"And either way, come on," I scoffed. "It's Sanji. What could he be hiding?"
As I read on, I made a mental note to have Merry or Franky check the kitchen's woodwork. It sounded like some stray piece of metal was hammering into the wood like a jackhammer.
~o~
…To learning even more about our home…
~o~
"…so, the next thing to cover is the third best idea Franky had for Sunny, the Soldier Dock System," Merry explained to several of the crew. She glanced towards me. "How many of them do you know about, Cross?"
I did a mental review of the ones I knew pre-time skip, and glanced back at Merry. "Well, the first one in the story was Nami's modified Waver, so that's out. The second was a shopping boat with your ghost in it, so unless you've got a twin I don't know about, that's out, too… But I'm guessing the Shark Submarine is still number three?"
Merry grinned. "Sure is, but now that means I can save the other two for a surprise!"
I cocked my eyebrow at her in surprise. "'Two'? Wait, I checked out the helm a while back. Don't the numbers go up to 6? Shouldn't there still be a few more slots open?"
"Yeah, but only 1 through 4 are for vehicular usage," she answered. "5 and 6 are occupied. 5 is the TDWS' bunk, and 6 is Boss'."
"And for the record, I love it!" Boss laughed, pumping his arms. "My own space where I can meditate and develop the Full Shell Style? I couldn't ask for much more!"
"Ahhh, but Boss!" Merry spread her arms wide with a laugh of her own. "'Much more' is exactly what Sunny has to offer!"
"Mm, yeah?" Luffy got out around the chunk of meat he was chewing on, looking over the side.
"Yep! Like over here," she elaborated, stamping her foot in the grass. The result was a sliding panel hidden in the lawn sliding open, revealing a chunk of Sunny's inner workings. From out of the panel rose and unfolded a machine that looked a lot like one of the cranes from back home.
"This is the contribution I made in case we ever need to run salvage again!" she explained eagerly. "It's not quite as impressive as Masira's monkey, but it and the others I've also hidden will do the job for anything smaller than Big Bro. Oh!" She snapped her fingers in realization. "And they also serve a secondary purpose."
"That being?" I asked, looking over the crane.
Merry grinned as she rapped her knuckles on the railing, causing the crane to snap back and forth with more flexibility than it had any right to have. "Inspired by Franky's older inventions: a fishing rod fit for a king!" She hid a snicker behind her hand. "Sea King, that is!"
"WOO!" Luffy shot his arms up gleefully.
"Ohohohohhhh, this will be fun," Boss chuckled, rubbing his fins together.
"Niiiice…" I nodded with an impressed whistle. "No more starving, eh?"
"And no more running out of room to store stuff either~!" Merry sang. "Observe!"
She proceeded to fit her fingers in a seam in the railing and pry it open, revealing… nothing? Wait…
"It's hollow?" I asked, sticking my head into the void in the wood and looking around.
"Not all of Big Bro, but a lot of his insides, yeah!" Merry nodded in confirmation. "It's so that he'll always have room to grow, see! No more squeezing together when we go over capacity, be it in gold, food, or new friends!"
"You guys really thought of everything," Nami praised, most likely having flashed over at the mere word 'gold'.
"Eeeyes we did, yes we did!" Merry preened before reaching her arm into the void. "Though for nooow, seeing as we're not actually using the space yet…" She withdrew a metal box with a grin. "It's a great place for stashing snacks!"
"ACK!"
Merry blinked in confusion at the sudden gagging sound that arose, before giving the empty box she was holding a flat look. "Snacks that Luffy just ate."
"For crying out loud, Luffy, we've been over this a hundred times," Chopper moaned in a long-suffering tone, morphing into his Heavy Point, grabbing our gagging captain around his midsection, and dragging him over to the nearest non-grassy part of the deck. "I'm getting way too much practice at the Heimlich maneuver…"
"I'll get the kerosene," Zoro sighed.
"And I'll grab the camera for the scrapbook!" I laughed.
~o~
And finally, to learning that the thoughts I had back in that church were ones that I really, really did need to act upon.
And it was on the eve prior to our next grand endeavour that I found myself doing just that.
~o~
"…Aaaanyway, let's move on! In light of our most recent major fiasco—which will not be elaborated on for both our collective sanity and the safety of those involved—having been only the most recent example in a long line of similar incidents, it has come to my attention that too often do people—myself included, I'm afraid—have a tendency of incurring devastating results by saying exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time. As such, I have resolved to take this time to spread some invaluable knowledge to the world: how to watch what you damn say so that a certain bastard named Murphy doesn't bite you in the ass," Cross's clipped voice dryly informed the world. "I suggest taking notes; I guarantee that life will test you on this later."
"You heard him, Drake," came a cool female voice from one corner of the room.
The Lieutenant Commander scoffed dismissively. "Captain Ain, I'll admit that it's good to keep most of Cross's advice in mind, sure, but why do you feel the need to—"
"Because, according to the base's scuttlebutt, you have a disturbing tendency to, to quote the pirate, 'say the wrong thing at the wrong time," the black-haired user of the Return-Return Fruit observed dryly. "Now start taking notes. Life might not test you immediately, but I damn well will."
Lieutenant Commander Drake shook his head with a snort as he turned and started to walk away.
"39 last month, correct?" Ain casually asked, raising her hand and illuminating it with a menacing pink glow. "Meaning that there are currently 24 years between you and puberty?"
"Never enough time to spare for note-taking!" Drake said as he immediately pivoted on his heel, cold sweat cascading down his forehead.
"Alright, lesson number one, and this is the most important one. Take this to heart, and you will avoid most fate-tempting situations. And it's this: it can always, always get worse. No matter how bad it is. And one of fate's favourite activities is proving that. A common way of doing so is that it starts raining, but ultimately it's—"
"Context-sensitive?" Soundbite grinned.
"NOT ONE WORD ABOUT THE TALKING SQUIRRELS!… but yes, context-sensitive."
"…you heard that, right? He really just said 'talking squirrels'?" Drake deadpanned.
"I gave up attempting to make any sense of their comments months ago, and besides that, talking animals are the norm for them. Now write," Ain replied just as flatly.
"Damn it…"
-o-
"Moving on, lesson number two: the universe is always listening. I cannot stress this enough. If you think you're safe to tempt fate? You aren't. Even thinking it is a bad idea, and I'm speaking from experience here."
"See the following entries in our logs, which by this point read like the ramblings of a madman: THE CASE OF THE MISSING BRUNCH, the Sandbank Inferno Incident, AND OF COURSE, THE GREAT LOBSTER BLOWOUT!"
"I swear, these waters have more noodles in them than an Olive Gar—!"
"AHE-HE-HEM!"
"Ah… aheh, never mind that. Hm… ah, pardon, viewers, I was planning to go over some other common temptations, but this was rather spur of the moment, so… Soundbite, how about a music corner while I get a list going?"
"Ladies and gentlemen—!"
"NO CONWAY TWITTY!"
"TUNE NAZI! SUCK OFFSPRING AND DIE!"
Vice Admiral Monkey D. Garp winced as he pushed open the door to his old friend and current superior's office and was greeted by a riff of hard metal. "Eesh. I swear, that damn snail's taste in music just never seems to get any better, does it?"
"No, it does not," Sengoku sighed, flexing his hand as a slightly oversized blood pressure cuff was wound around his upper arm. "But nothing he could—" Sengoku choked off his response, cleared his throat, and spoke again. "But it is my personal opinion that whatever ungodly noise he peddles is certainly better than his owner's personal brand of drek. Though…" Sengoku grinned and chuckled, prompting his attending physician to smack his clipboard over his head. "Ow!"
"Sit still, damn you," Sentomaru ordered testily, his gaze never leaving the cuff's gauge. "Otherwise, we will finish this procedure on Doctor Vegapunk's operating table, under his supervision. And trust me, his bedside manners are nowhere near as generous as mine are… sir." The last word was tacked on almost as an afterthought.
"Tsk," Sengoku scoffed even as he stilled himself. "I thought you were a bodyguard."
"Bodyguard to the best mind in the world, sir," the sumo-esque man grunted as he jotted something down on his clipboard. "I'm pretty sure that if I didn't pick up a thing or two, then I'd be the one on the slab."
Sengoku harrumphed, conceding the point before changing the subject, his attention back on Garp. "As I was saying, I actually don't mind this latest broadcast; hopefully it'll help keep our own men from saying or doing anything that could potentially trigger any… compromising experiences."
"Pseudoscience," Sentomaru stated dismissively.
"Pseudo-whatsits that's bitten my men and me in the ass more times than I can count," the Vice Admiral countered.
"Oh, yeah, speaking of which," Sentomaru grunted, holding up a pill bottle. "Delivery from Vega—!"
"GAH!" Garp snatched and pocketed the bottle, eyeing his superior sidelong. "Anyway… just wanna check real quick whether or not Buddha-boy here realizes that this is going to be helping the pirates just as much as us, right?"
There was a brief moment of silence, and then a crunching sound filled the room as the armrests of Sengoku's chair splintered under his fingers. Sentomaru's eyes widened as the readings on his device suddenly spiked, and then he turned a murderous glare on Garp. "Take the snail and get out," he spat.
Given the fact that the Vice Admiral obeyed immediately, it seemed that Garp actually had some self-preservation instincts.
Or not, considering that he immediately poked his head back in. "Oh, yeah, now I remember: I came in here because I finally fixed the pagoda you broke. Can I have my snacks now?" he asked.
Sentomaru heaved a mental groan as the pressure cuff exploded off his patient. 'They don't pay me nearly enough for this job…'
-o-
The sound of shuffling paper echoed through the bar. "Alright, some common examples: 'I'll be right back'—"
"IT TOOK US FIVE HOURS TO find Zoro, and he didn't even start on THE ISLAND WE FOUND HIM ON."
"'Nothing exciting ever happens around here'—"
"GIVE IT TIME…"
"And Soundbite's favourite, 'It's quiet… too quiet…'."
"IT SHOULD never be quiet when I'M AROUND!"
"And I'd like to remind you all that this is by no means an exhaustive list. Not even of the common temptations. Good rule of thumb: if you're wondering if something is tempting fate, don't think that it is, run."
"Words to live by," Bartolomeo nodded sagely before knocking his mug back.
"Ah, c'mon, boss!" one of the Barto Club's newer members scoffed, leaning his chair back on its rear legs with his feet on the table. "Ya don't really believe this load'a hoo-hah, do ya? I mean, sure, there's a lot of weird shit on the seas, but this can't possibly be—!"
SNAP!
"—GWAGH!" said mook squawked in shock when his chair suddenly buckled beneath him, sending him tumbling.
Miss Valentine and Mr. 5 eyed him silently before glancing at one another.
"500 says he's stupid enough," Valentine blandly stated.
"Bet he ain't," 5 shrugged back just as blandly.
The mook lay groaning for a moment before shakily raising a finger. "…That doesn't prove anyth—!"
CRASH!
"ARGH!" That scream was the last thing the occupants of the bar heard as the floorboards beneath him buckled and dumped him into the basement. "…Fine, so he may have a point…"
"Damn," 5 grunted, snapping his fingers in frustration as he held up a bill to his partner.
"Never bet against the stupid," Goldenweek droned as the older assassin snatched her prize triumphantly. She then shot a surprised look at a yet-unaffected Bartolomeo and Gin. "I'm surprised that none of you East Blue-rs are surprised, though. What happened to being the weakest of the Blues?"
"Lived at the mouth of the Grand Line," Barto raised his hand. "We might have been weak, but we still saw enough to get smart. Not to mention you don't run a criminal gang anywhere and expect to live long by being that stupid."
"Krieg declared that 'Nothing can stop us now!' once we reached the peak of Reverse Mountain," Gin drawled. "Then we ran headfirst into a damn Warlord out for a walk at Reverse Mountain. What Cross is saying isn't stupid, it's a fact."
"Straw Hats for us," Valentine toasted with a sigh. "One second we're saying we're in for an easy mission, the next we're picking ourselves up and out of the damn rubble."
"You know, it's not too late for me to give you a tune-up," Goldenweek hummed, her spinning brush causing her fellow ex-Agents to scoot away.
"No emotional castration, Goldenweek," Gin flatly ordered.
"Fine…" the artist sighed in an almost wistful tone.
Suddenly, the SBS's broadcast was interrupted by the "Dot dot dot dot!" of a caller, accompanied soon after by the KA-LICK of the dynamic duo answering.
"Hello and welcome to the SBS! You're live!"
"Uh, h-hello, Mr. Cross. Um, I wanted to share something I said, see if it's tempting fate?"
"Of course, of course, I'm not going to discourage more awareness. So, what was the situation and what did you say?"
"W-Well, I might have, uh, swapped my dad's hair gel for my mom's hair dye, and when I saw the result, I might have, uh, said that they'd never figure out it was me."
The silence from the SBS was positively deafening.
"… Well, let me put it like this," Cross finally said. "There's a difference between tempting fate and running up to fate, punching him in the nose, and yelling 'Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough!' You get three guesses which category that falls into, and the first two don't count."
"Also? PUTTING THAT OUT here, on the SUPER PUBLIC SBS, WITHOUT blurring your voice? NOT SMART."
Barto let himself snicker a bit at both his crew's interactions and the sound of the poor kid suddenly freaking out before sobering up. "Alright, enough fun and games, let's get to it." He withdrew a notepad and pen from his jacket and held them at the ready. "Whatcha managed to pick up?" He then scowled as he noticed his crewmates staring blankly at the pen and paper. "Hey, I might be a bastard, but that sure as shit doesn't make me stupid. Now c'mon! Local intel, whatcha got?"
The rest of the officers coughed abashedly before Gin raised his hand. "I've gotten word of three different pirate crews working in the local waters: the White Foam Pirates, led by 'Breaker' Bronson, ฿50 Million; the Meat Shop Pirates, led by Delgado 'The Fridge', ฿22 Million; and, uh, Hyper Force Go, led by 'Prism Champion' Seven Force, worth ฿77 million, natch. That's his actual name, by the way, apparently he got it changed or something."
"So what'd these guys do to earn their ink?" Bartolomeo questioned.
"Well, for starters," Gin started counting on his fingers. "The White Foams and the Meat Shops aren't actually that bad, in spite of the latter's name. The White Foams are surfers, you see, always looking for the next big wave or whatever. They got that big of a bounty slapped on them because they're kind of reckless about it, and they've capsized a few ships by using their own ship as a surfboard or something. The Meat Shops, meanwhile, are poachers who essentially run themselves as an exotic butcher… though from what I hear, they've discovered quite a few new species in their travels."
"Hm…" Barto nodded thoughtfully as he jotted his notes down. "And I take it from the way you put it, the Hyper Force mooks are…?
"Total bastards," Gin deadpanned. "An example would be how, once, Laysan Island had a thriving mining industry based around silver, iron, and copper. Now they don't, because Hyper Force Go showed up one day, looted the mines, the warehouses, and the homes, and then just to be dicks, collapsed the mines behind them. Think a… Super Sentai team, I think? Only bloodthirsty and evil."
"Tch," Barto bit out darkly. "Right… We'll swing around and kick the shit out of them while we're in the area. What about the white hats?"
"The people in the markets are loose-lipped around kids," Miss Goldenweek hummed around her frothing mug. "The bases in the local waters are G-77-Alpha and G-77-Omega. The similar identifications have put the Marines stationed at them at odds with one another in a feud, always trying to prove who's better. They never deliberately hurt civilians; they're actually decent in that regard, from what I gather, but their feuding has caused them to drop the ball. A lot"
"I'll leave them up to Capricorn, then…" Barto shifted his attention to the last of his officers. "And what did you two manage to dig up?"
"Eh, not a lot, to be honest," Valentine waved her hand dismissively. "The usual black-market stuff, though the smuggling's been amped to hell and back thanks to the Marines being more concerned with each other than their jobs." She frowned darkly. "The bad news, however, is that there are a lot of people buying 'Tulip Bulbs.'"
The captain glanced up in confusion. "And why the heck would I care about that?"
"You'd care," 5 grunted as he drew a baggie of powder from his coat and dropped it on the table. "When 'Tulip Bulbs' are the newest drug to hit the waters. And with the rate they're coming in, I'd bet money we're looking at the start of a whole new drug ring in this very city. And from the size of the shipments… I'd bet it'll be a damn vicious one too."
"Mmrgh…" Barto tapped his pen on the notepad a few times before shrugging. "Well, I knew a few pushers back in Loguetown, so before we start smashing heads in a righteous indignation, let's find out if it's actually vicious, okay?"
"Going by how another name for this stuff is 'Grave Bouquet', on account of how it's always a gamble between a hell of a high and death?" Valentine deadpanned. "It's a pretty easy read."
Bartolomeo's pencil promptly snapped between his fingers. "Head-smashing it is!" he cheerfully stated through his shark-toothed grin.
"Alright, then," Mr. 5 grunted, starting to shift his shoulders back and forth. "You wanna get going now, or…?"
"Eh…" The Barto Club's captain actually cooled down at that. "Maybe. I want Lindy on this just in case, so that we can sniff out their stashes. Is Apis still raking in the dough?"
SPLOOSH!
The unmistakable sound of something displacing a few hundred gallons of water and a round of cheers and applause sounded from outside. Bartolomeo blinked, then sat back in his chair.
"We'll give 'er a few more minutes," he decided.
"Who'd have thought that putting on a Sea King water show would rake in that much cash?" Gin mused.
"Mohmoo's cuteness is a major factor in the draw," Goldenweek deadpanned. "Trust me, I know."
"But didn't she say he's not actually a Sea King?" Gin grunted.
"Kyahaha! So he can only swallow fishing boats rather than entire battleships? Not much of a difference there!" Valentine chortled. "Especially not to people who've never seen an actual Sea King!"
"Fair 'nuff…"
"Aaanyways…" Barto leered viciously. "Seeing as we've got time… HEY, BARKEEP!" he hollered at the, well, barkeep. "We're gonna be cracking a few heads in a few minutes! You got anything for the job?"
The bartender scratched his chin thoughtfully for a moment before drawing out and dropping a baseball bat onto the countertop. "Might I suggest a Winders softball bat? Mostly oak, but the ash twist offers a most admirable stability!"
Barto turned his ear-to-ear grin on his crewmates, and he spread his arms wide. "Ya just gotta love bars with homey atmospheres!"
-o-
"And that is why you should never wear concentric circles on your shirt, ever," I concluded, nodding my head sagely as I leaned back in my seat, my arms crossed behind my head. "Aaanyway, that brings my seminar on why not to tempt fate to a close. Here's hoping that if nothing else, it serves to remind my crew and I why we should think before opening our mouths. Aside from Luffy, of course, because he's as hopeless as his grandfather that way."
"I AM NOT!" the rubber man yelled through one of my desk's pipes with unnecessary volume. "ANYWAY, GET DOWN HERE, CROSS! WE FOUND A—uh… SOMETHING COOL FLOATING BY THE SHIP!"
I froze, and then found myself appreciating that Luffy had actually had the sense to not identify what they found, if it was what I think it was, while I still had the SBS running. Maybe he didn't want to be compared to Garp enough to overcome his stupidity? Meh, either way, it was time to go.
"Alright, viewers, that's my cue to call it a day. So, until next time, this is Soundbite—"
"And Jeremiah Cro—WAIT, WHAT?"
"—Of the SBS, signing off," I continued without missing a beat, hanging up the transceiver in its cradle. That done, I shot a grin at a reluctantly smirking Soundbite before punching the key in my desk that connected to the deck. "Lemme take a flying guess: you morons just put a shark in the fishtank, and you also found a barrel with a black sail on it?"
"Yeah, we've got it here now," Usopp responded. "Offerings to the sea god, apparently."
"Sea devil, more like," I scoffed darkly. "Tell Luffy and Zoro that there's no food or booze in there for them and then stash it somewhere safe. That being said…" I pushed down the keys I needed so that my voice carried everywhere on the ship. "Nami, if you'd check the air pressure…?"
"…sonnuva bitch ALL HANDS ON DECK! WE'VE GOT AN AIRBORNE MAELSTROM COMING DOWN ON OUR HEADS!"
"On my way, over and out," I saluted, closing my desk up and re-donning my bag and snail.
"GO TIME?" Soundbite queried.
"Big time," I nodded in solemn confirmation. With that, I exited through the trapdoor and rappelled down to the deck. Merry was already at the helm and running her hands over the controls, and subsequently preparing the entire Sunny about as fast as the rest of us could, working together.
I was still looking around when my attention was snagged…
"Um, Cross?"
By none other than our resident gunner, prompting me to look at Conis. She was currently wearing a dark brown duster jacket over a light gray shirt with a silhouette of a double-headed eagle emblazoned on it, as a pair of rust-colored combat shorts.
"Yeah, what's up?" I asked.
"Well… I'm sorry, I don't mean to doubt you and Nami, but, well…" Conis glanced upward, one hand scratching underneath her beret.
"What my good partner is trying to ask," Su piped up, leaping onto Conis's shoulder and absentmindedly scratching at her orange-bandanna-tied neck with her hind leg. "Is if you're really sure that a storm's coming. I mean, come on!" She waved her paw up at the sky. "There isn't a cloud in the—what are you doing?"
The cloud-fox asked that question in response to my sliding my hood on. Just for the record, I myself was clad in a dark-gray hoodie with a skeleton design spread across my back, the hood itself looking like the top half of a skull. I also had on a pair of black cargo pants, and my equally black shirt had the same cross-moline/cross-bones design as my cap.
I smiled at the fox through the shadow of my hood and hat. "Oooh, I'm just relishing in the fact that you seem to have utterly ignored the lecture I just gave the world."
The world was kind enough to vindicate me via a bolt of lightning suddenly CRACKing down from the sky next to our ship, and the heavens disgorging all they could on us before the flash had even ended.
My smile widened as I regarded the drowned rat currently shivering on our gunner's shoulder. "See?"
"S-S-Sometimes, I really love this ocean," a shivering and murderous Su snarled. "O-Other times, I f-f-find myself wishing I h-had enough dexterity in my paws to flip it off as you humans can."
"If you really wanna piss off the ocean, I suggest you do it the same way that every other pirate, Marine or otherwise does it!" Funkfreed offered as he basked in the gale-force winds.
Su blinked at the elephant-sword in confusion. "And that would be…?"
"YO," Soundbite drawled.
Su stared flatly at my partner for a second before snapping her attention to me. "I'll settle for mauling Cross."
I blinked in confusion at that. "Wait, wha—?"
Su leapt off Conis' shoulder at me, snarling the whole…
CLENCH!
"ACK!"
And promptly yelped in shock when I snagged her out of the air by her epithet, holding her flailing, soggy form a nice foot away from my face.
"Nice try, but I've been training almost since the first day I arrived to survive this crazy journey. See what that's gotten me, eh?" I said with a triumphant grin.
"Yooooou…" Su snarled darkly.
"Yes, Cross, you can keep a pint-sized fox from mauling you, very admirable," Nami called down from her usual position of command on the quarterdeck.
"Now, if you don't mind?" Merry piped up from the helm, she was all but bodily wrestling with it to make it cooperate.
"GET BACK TO WORK!" the pair yelled in unison.
A particularly vicious swell and angling of the deck prompted me to toss Su back to Conis, and both of us set to work, grappling with what lines Merry offered us in an effort to help stabilize Sunny and keep the Grand Line from sending us all for an impromptu swim. Despite Merry and Sunny being capable of handling most Grand Line weather on their own, we had all learned our places in case of bigger storms.
Granted, for all the spontaneity, it wasn't really that bad for Grand Line standards, especially since the new Sunny seemed equipped to handle everything. Waves taller than the Sunny itself? Yep, rode 'em like a veteran cowboy. Lightning striking all around us and nearly hitting us in the process? Absolutely, with only the rubber coverings on the mast tops saving us. Currents are hard enough that Merry had to spin out the Soldier Dock System's paddles? You damn well betcha.
An iceberg just as tall and twice as wide as our roaring steed?
That… actually got us to pause in shock and no small amount of fear.
"Uhhh, Merry?" I called up hesitantly, eyeing the wall of ice that was fast bearing down on us. "I think that now might be a really good time to show that trick off!"
"Cross, there's no way we're going to squander the first time we use Sunny's SUPER! secret weapon on something like an Ice-For-Br—uh, I mean, an iceberg," Franky cut in, then grinned. "We dipped into the Dial arsenal to plan for that. Show off the Leo Fangs, Merry!"
"WAY AHEAD OF YOU!" Merry called back with a grin, pulling a lever beside her.
I heard a sound of shifting wood, but nothing seemed to happen, and we just kept growing closer to the iceberg… and closer… and closer!—
KRA-KRACK-KSSSH!
And then everyone, aside from Merry and Franky, dropped their jaws. Why, you ask? Because as soon as we made contact with the iceberg, it split in half. Clean in half, by the way. I caught my reflection in the ice as we passed
"…I completely approve," Leo breathed, stars twinkling in his eyes alongside his fellow apprentices, Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper.
"I don't!" Boss snorted, his chest puffed out indignantly. "I coulda easily totalled that 'berg with a single punch!"
"Cough-compensating-cough," Merry coughed into her fist over the wind.
"BITE ME! NOT YOU!" Boss barked at our helmsgirl before snapping his flipper at an open-mouthed Soundbite.
"What… just happened?" Zoro managed, completely failing to hide his shock.
"I'd say that we've just witnessed what happened to those Axe Dials I stripped off of that obese bastard Eneru had acting as his general…" Robin mused.
"Yep! Franky fit them into Big Bro Sunny's bow!" Merry cackled. "Anything that tries attacking us from the front'll be split clean in two!"
"BOW-CHICKA-BOW-WOW!"
"Nothing but good taste, eh, Soundbite?" Lassoo snickered as he yanked at a rope clenched in his teeth.
"HEY!" Nami barked at us. "If you're not scared of the storm that's still raging around us, I seriously recommend you be scared of me! SO GET TO IT!"
"GETTING TO IT!" we all chorused, rushing back to work.
But that icebreaker was the only really notable occurrence as we rushed to and fro, fighting against Mother Nature, until finally…
I was standing on Sunny's foredeck when it happened. The storm, it… It didn't so much let up, or anything, as it just seemed to stop entirely. And the clouds… rather than dissipating, it was as though we suddenly ran headfirst into them. One second we were all clear, the next the fog was suddenly just there, hanging all around us, twisting and coiling and shifting and…
Ladies and gentlemen… the illustrious Florian Triangle.
Nodding to myself as I confirmed that we had entered the ghostly stretch of seas, I looked back down at the lawn-deck, where the rest of the crew was talking amongst themselves with varying degrees of nervousness… including Usopp? Wait, shouldn't Sanji have been busting his—?
…Of course. He never left the crew. He heard about it from Kokoro, just as the rest of us did. He had no reason to be any more negative than—
'…frack,' I winced as the thought ran through my head, but I did my best to keep my cool. So, with as much casualness as I could muster, I leaned on the foredeck's railing and leered down at our sniper. "Oh, Usopp?" I sang.
He stiffened slightly before glaring up at me. "Cross, I am making every attempt not to start freaking out by focusing on how far I've come at this point. I would appreciate it if you didn't try to get me freaking out."
Aaand that was the confirmation that I needed to break out my contingency plan. Before that, though… I nodded wordlessly to Usopp, who I think might have been even more shaken by the way I just turned away and started looking out into the fog.
"Soundbite, listen everywhere in your range," I muttered. "Can you hear anything? A ship, larger than the Sunny? Someone singing, a lone someone who by all rights shouldn't be singing? Anything, anything at all?"
The snail shrank in on himself at my tight tone, but nonetheless closed his eyes and focused. After a scant few seconds, however, he opened his eyes and shook his head. "Nada. Silent as THE GRAVE." A small trail of sweat appeared on his shell. "THAT'S… ACTUALLY A BIT TOO literal. This ocean, it's… I KNOW WHAT I SAID BEFORE, BUT IT'S LITERALLY TOO QUIET. THIS PLACE… It's not right."
"My thoughts exactly," I sighed, shaking my head as I looked back at the crew, just in time for Nami to question me.
"So, Cross," she grit out uncertainly, spinning the lightning section of her Clima-Tact in her hand, her Eisen Tempo coiled protectively around her. "This place is a ghost ocean, right? So… how do we get out of here?"
I shut my eyes as I considered, my thoughts drifting to the damned barrel resting in our hold, but there was only one response I could give.
"Just… we keep going," I muttered, my eyes sweeping the horizon—or lack thereof—all the while. "We keep on keeping on. We'll get where we need to… eventually."
"What's wrong, Cross?" Luffy piped up from where he was hanging from a line, his head tilted to the side.
I hesitated slightly at the question before shaking my head and turning away. "It's… It's nothing. We just have to keep sailing and get to where we need to, that's… that's all." I started gnawing on my metal-encased thumb as I stared into the more-grey-than-expected abyss. "Just… need to get there. Need to get—"
"Cross."
My heart felt like it was about to burst from my chest when a hand suddenly landed on my shoulder. I spun around and grabbed the limb, ready to blast it clean off with an Impa—!
"Calm down!"
And then, out of the blue, my blood pressure flatlined, and I was standing in front of a visibly concerned Robin, my hand tightly clasped around her wrist.
A quick glance to the side revealed that Vivi was there too, watching me just as anxiously. She was currently wearing a light green hooded vest with a white trim over an emerald-scaled tank top, a pair of white jeans along with a green half-skirt, and on her exposed arms she had hung a pair of sashes that were white and bore green snake-like patterns, running from bracelets on her wrists to armlets on her upper arms, just below her shoulders.
I was panting as I stared at Robin, sweat collecting on the back of my neck, and finally I wrenched my grip open and let her go in favour of my own wrist, refusing to meet her gaze. "I…" I only just managed to get the words out, thanks to my already waning calm. "I'm fine. It's just… nerves are all."
Robin tested her fingers before slowly raising her hand to clasp my shoulder again, which once again got a flinch out of me. "I think we both know that's a lie, Cross."
"Robin's right," Vivi nodded, her expression one of pure concern. "You deal with your nerves by laughing it off and making off-colour jokes that make me want to wring your—!" She trailed off when Robin shot a look at her. "…right, sorry. But still, Cross, this…" She waved her hand at me. "This is out of character."
I sighed and shook my head. "It's… It's nothing. Nothing you can do about it. We just…" I shook my head firmly. "We just need to get out of here, alright? Just have to do what we need to do and… and get—!" My teeth clamped down on the inside of my cheek, and I shot my crewmates a pleading look. "I…I'll be fine. I-I will be fine."
Vivi and Robin exchanged uncertain looks, but ultimately Robin gave my shoulder a final reassuring squeeze before they both walked away, leaving me alone on the foredeck with Soundbite and Merry, who was too engrossed with her work to pay much attention to me as I started pacing.
In all honesty… Brook not showing up straight out of the gate wasn't my biggest concern. Time was a relative thing, after all; the travel time had shown me that, as had the filler arcs. It didn't mean much that it was taking him a little longer to show up. Other people might have been worried, but I wasn't. I had complete and total faith that, sooner or later, that ship would come looming out of the fog, bearing our (current) final crewmate. I just… I knew it.
No… no, the reason for my fear was… well, it was the Florian Triangle itself.
Just as he had done so many times before, Oda had failed to fully capture the truth of this location, but for once, I wish I didn't have to learn that firsthand. Why? Simple: Because the mists of the Triangle were just wrong. Not even evil, which would have somehow been better, just wrong.
You see, sailing on the waters of the Grand Line, I'd come to expect certain standards from the sea; I'd come to expect ever-present motion from the waves and currents and winds tugging at our ship, I'd come to expect cloud banks both big and small and innumerable sizes in between drifting and twisting through the skies, free as only clouds could be, I'd come to expect… life. Pure life.
And the Florian Triangle? The Triangle was as dead as dead could be. The water rose and sank, yes, but it was all a single smooth plane, without any breakage or energy. The air pushed and prodded at us, but it was too devoid of energy to even be a breeze. And the sky… well, the fog choked that out well enough.
The fog, that damn fog… that was the worst of it, let me tell you. That fog was everything wrong with this place, distilled into an ever-present, semi-physical aura. Hanging around us, on us, threading through us, that damn off-colour air just seemed to scream the pure sentiment of wrong-wrong-WRONG.
On our way to this place, I had braced myself for the horrors and terrors of Thriller Bark. But now that I was here, in this place, experiencing it firsthand? Now I knew the truth: Thriller Bark wasn't what made the Florian Triangle scary. Thriller Bark was made terrifying by the Triangle itself.
And so it went: for interminable minutes that felt like hours, I paced to and fro on our beloved ship, trying to keep myself from freaking the hell out on account of this… this alien place we were sailing in (not an ocean, never an ocean) wanting to swallow us all.
The worst of it all, the part that really sold how devoid of life this area was, was the sheer silence. Sure, my crew and the Sunny were both making noise, but… but it just wasn't enough. Not in the face of the world seeming to cease to exist beyond the fog, not in the face of the absence of life all around us.
The silence was just so deafening, I swear that I could hear my heart jackhammering in my chest, pounding in my own damn head, louder and louder and louder…
Looking back on it, I don't know what prompted me to do it. Temporary insanity, maybe? Some deeper nerves or instinct I wasn't even aware of? Hell… maybe even my friend on high deciding to be nice with its intervention for once.
In the end, it doesn't really matter why I did it, just that I did.
One second I was suffering in silence, and the next…
"Yo-hohoho, Yo-ho-ho-hoooo…"
I suddenly opened my mouth and sang. It was just for a second, a split-second even, but the sound of my own voice was as loud as cannonfire in the face of the fog's oppressive silence, and it shocked me deep enough that I fell silent for a moment. But that noise, in the air of all the un-life I was drowning in, I clung to it like it was driftwood in a storm. And when the shock of it started to fade, I did the only thing I could do.
I sucked in a desperate breath and sang out anew.
"Yo-hohoho, Yo-ho-ho-hoooo… Yo-hohoho, Yo-ho-ho-hoooo…"
I started slightly when a second voice echoed alongside mine in the refrain, but a slight nudge at my shoulder got me to catch sight of Soundbite, who was grinning shakily at me. It was a scared smile, filled with terror and unease, but his presence alone gave me a dash of courage and helped me forge on.
"Yo-hohoho, Yo-ho-ho-hoooo…" he and I repeated as loud as we dared, our voices ringing clear in the mists. "Yo-hohoho, Yo-ho-ho-hoooo…"
"Gather up all of the crew…"
Soundbite and I snapped our heads around at the third voice that suddenly joined our chorus.
Merry donned a hesitant grin even as she maintained her death grip on the helm. "It's time to ship out Binks' brew…"
My partner and I exchanged a look before grinning. I then walked over to her, dropped my hand on her shoulder, and joined her in singing.
"Sea-wind blows, To where? Who knows?" we sang together, defying the Triangle the only way we could. "The waves will be our guide!"
"O'er across the ocean's tide…"
This time, I didn't jump when Robin grasped my shoulder. Rather, I smiled at her and clutched her hand reassuringly as we continued. "Rays of sunshine far and wide—"
"Birds they sing, Of cheerful things, In circles passing by!" Luffy's eager voice laughed up from the deck.
All four of us started in shock at the sudden interjection, and we turned to look over the railing at the lawn.
Luffy was simply hanging upside down from the rigging, swaying to and fro as he obliviously sang his joy to the world at large. "Bid farewell to weaver's town, Say so long to port renowned—"
He suddenly dropped down to the lawn and slung his arms around Chopper and Usopp's shellshocked shoulders, swaying them back and forth to the tune. "Sing a song, it won't be long!"
The other two corners of the Kiddy Trio exchanged bemused looks for a second before grinning widely and grasping Luffy's shoulders in turn. "Before we're casting off!" they cried out.
I only had to watch the trio for a second before re-donning my grin and picking up alongside them. "Cross the gold and silver seas, A salty spray puts us at ease!"
Robin joined in on the "Day and night," Merry picked up on "To our delight," and Soundbite tied us all together with a nigh-euphoric "THE VOYAGE NEVER ENDS!"
We were about to forge on, oblivious of the bemused looks the rest of the crew were giving all of us, but then…
"Gather up all of the crew," an absolutely angelic voice resonated across the deck, and we all turned to regard Vivi in awe as she swayed back and forth on her feet, her eyes closed in concentration, and her hands clasped over her chest as she vocalized. "It's time to ship out Binks' brew! Pirates we, Eternally, Are challenging… the… ah… sea?" Vivi trailed off with a squeak as she suddenly realized that all eyes were on her. "I… ah…"
Vivi started when Nami suddenly rested her arm on her shoulder, and outright gaped when she started singing. "With the waves to rest our heads," Nami recited wistfully, staring into the aether with a dreamy look in her eyes. "Ship beneath us as our beds… Hoisted high, Upon the mast, Our Jolly Roger flies…"
And that, quite simply, was the final straw.
"Somewhere in the endless sky, Stormy winds are blowing wide,"
It was gradual and hesitant at first, with people piping in one after another.
"Waves are dancing, Evening comes—"
Heck, some of our crewmates didn't even know the words to the song, though Soundbite was swift to remedy that with some audio subtitles.
But in the end, no matter how clunky or off-tune we sounded, the end result was utterly unmistakable.
"It's time to sound the druuuums!" This line was sung in unison by everyone.
And that was the whole point: we were singing as a crew, every one of us, all having come to stand together on the lawn, our voices pushing against the silence and fighting back against the Triangle.
"But steady men, and never fear, Tomorrow's skies are always clear!" we sang with a single voice, our words echoing out into and throughout the void. "So pound your feet, And clap your hands 'Til sunny days retuuuuurn!"
I grinned euphorically as I cast my gaze about the deck, taking in everyone's expressions of exhilaration, of… of unity! This was just… it was incredible! Just moments ago, I'd felt like the Grim Reaper himself had had his bony fingers clenched around my throat, but now…
But now…!
My brain suddenly shifted into overdrive as an idea blazed to life, and I dashed past everyone so that I could get into the guy's quarters and wrench open and jump down the hatch to the storage room. Once inside, I started rummaging through the crates we had stocked up. I knew we'd bought one on an island we'd passed a while back, I just knew it, now where—?
There! I beamed eagerly before wrenching the crate open, scooping up a few of the contents and running back up and out onto the deck. In response to everyone's confused looks, I tossed one of the items I was holding at Sanji.
The second the cook caught the paper lantern, his and everyone else's faces lit up with unrestrained joy.
From there… There were no words exchanged, no orders or instructions. Everyone just… just moved! Maybe we were acting on pure instinct, maybe we were so in synch with one another that we didn't need them, I don't know.
All I know is that the next five minutes were filled with motion and mounting excitement. We hung, and lit lines of paper lanterns, crate after barrel of provisions and cola and booze were hauled out, Sanji fired up the grill, and someone had the bright idea to haul the piano out of the Aquarium Lounge.
After that, in what felt like no time at all, the Thousand Sunny was as radiant as its name implied, glowing from dozens of paper lanterns fighting back against the oppressive fog around us. Food and drink flowed freely, good times and cheer were held in even the most dour of our crewmates, and above all else?
"YO-HOHOHO, YO-HO-HO-HOOOOO!"
The singular song, nay, the anthem that we were all belting out, that we were displaying as prominently as any army would carry a banner into war.
"YO-HOHOHO, YO-HO-HO-HOOOOO!"
Because that's what what we were doing really boiled down to: we were fighting for our very lives. The Florian Triangle wanted to choke us out with its WRONG, with its un-life, so we were fighting back the only way we had, the only way we could: with life. With so much light and noise and pure life that we could never be snuffed out, a life burning so bright that the mists and all the terror they carried with them couldn't even touch us.
And as I stood by Robin, my hand on her shoulder as she let her fingers fly across the ivory keys in a display of more energy and enthusiasm than I'd ever seen her show, I had a perfect view of that life in its entirety.
"YO-HOHOHO, YO-HO-HO-HOOOOO!"
I could see Conis and Franky plucking and strumming their respective string instruments with glee, matching the song as best they could. I could see Boss, Zoro and Nami knocking back shot after shot from a barrel they'd cracked open, all three of them looking utterly sauced from the way their cheeks were glowing and they were howling with laughter. I could see Vivi giggling as Sanji heaped dish after handmade dish on her, even as she passed off half to a slowly swelling but still gorging Carue. I could see Merry moving her hands about like a conductor, directing the slightly off-key backing vocals of Su, Lassoo and Funkfreed. I could see the Teenage Dugong Warrior Squad staggering around completely off-balance, having somehow formed an impromptu totem pole on each other's shoulders that had a wildly flailing Leo on top and a struggling Donny on the bottom. I could even see the Kiddy Quartet kicking their legs up in drunken synch, Brook's afro bobbing to the—!
…waaaait a second.
"YO-HOHOHO, YO-HO-HO-HOOOOO!"
My eyes all but popped out of my skull when, yes, the damn walking skeleton actually joined in with the chorus we were belting out, and a quick glance around confirmed that yes, at some point or another, a positively titanic vessel had docked alongside our Sunny!
Holy hell, we must have been so caught up in our festivities that he slipped right in.
I was just contemplating how I should handle this development when Brook suddenly split away from the Kiddies and loped over to a nearby barrel, springing onto it with a single bound. It was when he drew a violin and bow from his coat that I had a burst of inspiration.
Moving fast, I signalled at Soundbite and picked up the mic from my transceiver, and a moment later all noise on deck died save for that from two sources: Robin's playing on the piano, which I encouraged with a hasty squeeze of her shoulder, and Brook himself. Hence, everyone's attention was immediately snagged when the skeleton put his bow to the strings and started to play the most beautiful music I'd ever heard from an instrument.
I'm not kidding here, Brook's playing was… it was transcendent. Soundbite had played a few violin pieces before, sure, but they all paled when compared to this. The sheer crispness of the notes, the resonance I felt in my chest, the utter emotion so obviously packed into each and every chord…
And then… he began to sing.