He had tried. He had genuinely, honestly tried to do the shopping with them. But already in the first store, Luffy had proven to be absolutely impossible to shop with. The moment they walked in, he had grabbed a barrel of meat and tried to eat it raw, then got distracted by a shiny anchor on display, then somehow managed to knock over an entire shelf of preserved fruits while reaching for something on the top rack.
And Zorro? For Gods sake, Mario had no idea how real the direction issue was. The man would take one wrong turn and disappear completely. They had searched for him every ten minutes—finding him in an alley, then in a completely different store, then somehow on a rooftop. How did he even get on a rooftop?
So Mario just sent them away. With Nami to keep them in check. She was the only one who could manage those two, and honestly, she deserved a medal for it.
That left Mario alone with the cart.
He moved through the market with the practiced efficiency of a man who had spent years managing logistics. He haggled. He compared prices. He inspected goods with a critical eye, rejecting anything that looked spoiled or overpriced.
"600? 600 beri for pepper and a couple of spices?" Mario stared at the shopkeeper in disbelief. "You must be joking. I'll give you 300. Even that is generous."
The shopkeeper—a wiry man with a face like a dried prune—scoffed. "What? Do you have a screw loose? Do you know that these days black pepper has a weight worth in gold? Stuff is rare!"
"Don't give me that bullshit!" Mario pointed at the sack behind the counter, where a small trail of peppercorns had spilled onto the floor. "I can see the peppercorns falling out of the sack behind you! 300, no more, no less!"
The shopkeeper's eye twitched. "Tch! Stingy bastard! 350!"
"350, but you'll throw in another liter of oil!" Mario countered immediately.
The shopkeeper glared at him for a long moment. Then he spat on the ground. "FINE! I'm tired of broke ass pirates these days."
He grumbled as he packed everything—the pepper, the spices, the oil, a dozen other essentials—into a crate and shoved it toward Mario. Mario didn't react to the comments. He simply paid the man, took his supplies, and loaded them onto the cart.
Shopping was done.
Mock Town was a lot more expensive than most places. Probably because it was so dangerous to own a shop here. Protection money, bribes, the constant threat of robbery—all of it got passed on to the customer. Mario had expected it, but the prices still stung.
He pushed the cart toward the bar where he had told the others to meet him, weaving through the crowded streets. The sun was high now, casting harsh shadows between the buildings. Pirates lounged everywhere—on barrels, on stoops, on the roofs of low buildings. They watched him pass with calculating eyes, but no one moved to stop him. A man pushing a cart of supplies wasn't worth the trouble. Not yet.
Mario kept his expression neutral, but his mind was racing. Mock Town was a nest of vipers. Blackbeard's crew was here. Doflamingo's people would pass through eventually. The entire town was a powder keg waiting for a spark.
Just get to the bar, he told himself. Get the crew, get back to Cricket's, and get off this island.
He rounded a corner and saw the bar up ahead. The sign above the door read "The Drunken Sailor" in faded letters, and even from here he could hear the noise spilling out—laughter, shouting.
Mario pushed the cart faster.
***
As he approached the bar, he stopped in his tracks.
Out of the bar stepped no one other than the man he hated most in the entire One Piece universe.
Marshall D. Teach. Blackbeard.
In the manga, to Mario, he had looked somehow silly. A caricature of a villain—laughing too loud, grinning too wide, posing like a Saturday morning cartoon antagonist. But now. In real life. He looked utterly dangerous.
It wasn't just his size—though he was massive, heavyset and muscular, with a broad torso that seemed to block out the sun. It wasn't just his dark, thick, messy black hair and beard, wild and unkempt. It wasn't even the way he moved, with a predator's casual confidence.
It was his eyes.
His eyes looked dangerous. Something in them made Mario shiver in a way he couldn't explain. Something ancient. Something hungry. Something that had no bottom, no limit, no conscience.
His grin was plastered across his face as he looked at Mario.
Inside Mario's chest, something stirred. A heat. A pressure. His aura almost leaked, cracking against the edges of his control. His eyes grew dark.
Should I kill him?
The thought came first, sharp and cold.
Right here. Right now.
Mario's hand twitched at his side.
If I do it now, maybe I could stop all the worst things from happening in the future…
His mind spun faster. Images flashed—Marineford. Ace. Whitebeard. The war that would tear the world apart. All of it caused, or at least enabled, by the monster standing before him. If Blackbeard died here, in this dirty street, in this lawless town, how many lives would be saved? How much suffering prevented?
I could save so many people.
"ZEHAHAHAHAHA!!"
Blackbeard laughed—silently, his shoulders shaking, his mouth wide open—as he looked at Mario intensely, not moving, still standing at the entrance to the bar.
But… can I do it?
Mario relaxed his hand. Killing Blackbeard here? Maybe. Maybe not. He didn't have the confidence. Because of his devil fruit. The Yami Yami no Mi. The Dark-Dark Fruit. The most dangerous power in the world, and Blackbeard already had it.
A tiny bit of aura did leak—just a sliver, just a whisper of killing intent—and Mario already felt at least three different gazes directed at him. One was far away, likely one of his crewmates sensing the disturbance. The others were closer. Much closer.
Could he take them all on? With Luffy and Zoro at his side? Maybe.
But not only that—he could hear Bellamy and his crewmates laughing from inside the bar, their voices loud and obnoxious. The entire town was a powder keg. Lighting it here, in this lawless place, with enemies on all sides and civilians in the crossfire… it would be suicide. Not just for him, but for his crew.
Mario pushed his feelings down and sighed.
"I'm sorry, could you move? You're blocking the entrance." His voice was calm. Cold. Completely controlled.
"ZEHAHAHAHAHA!!" Blackbeard's laugh echoed again, though his mouth barely moved. "I'm soooo sorry! You were staring at me so intently that I thought you needed something from me."
Blackbeard was still looking at Mario without blinking. Those eyes. Those terrible, bottomless eyes.
"You reminded me of someone," Mario said smoothly. "I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable."
"Zehehe…" Blackbeard's grin widened. "It is fine. You need to be careful in a town like this. Bad things can happen!"
He brushed past Mario, still keeping his intense gaze fixed on him, and calmly walked down the street. There, he joined two of his crewmates—Laffitte, the demonic-looking former sheriff, and Jesus Burgess, the massive wrestler—both of whom looked at Mario with knowing grins, as if waiting for something to happen.
Then they turned and walked away.
Mario squeezed his fists until his knuckles went white.
"I'll see you at Marineford again," he whispered to himself, a vow carved into the air.
He would not let Blackbeard's plan go smoothly. Not this time. Not while he was here. Not while he had a chance to change things.
But for now—for now, he had a crew to collect.
Mario took a deep breath, steadying himself, and pushed open the door to the bar.
He opened the bar doors and what greeted him was the scene he hated the most.
Luffy and Zorro were bruised but not seriously hurt, sitting on the floor while the whole bar laughed at them. Nami was in a panic, her eyes darting between her crewmates and the jeering pirates surrounding them.
Mario hated it.
These stupid pirates had no idea they were messing with a man who had a 100 million beri bounty. They had no idea that the "rubber freak" they were mocking was going to be the Pirate King. And that stupid pirate Luffy—he allowed himself to be hurt by Bellamy because he believed the fight was unnecessary. He didn't want to waste his time on someone with no ambition.
He and Zorro recognized that Bellamy was just venting his own insecurities about the death of dreams, and fighting him would not change that.
It gave Mario a headache.
As soon as he stepped inside, he was greeted with silence. All eyes turned to him—dozens of pirates, hardened criminals, killers and thieves, all watching the stranger who had just walked into their midst.
"Nami?"
"Mario!" She rushed toward him, her voice high with panic. "You need to stop these two blockheads! They'll get hurt!"
"Another of your useless crew?" Bellamy sneered from across the room, his spring-loaded arms crossed over his chest.
"Is he also a 'dreamer idiot' like those two guys?" Sarquiss asked mockingly, suppressing a laugh while his bimbo girlfriend cackled loudly beside him.
Mario just sighed. He had a hunch this would happen. It seemed like he was destined to be involved in most incidents.
He calmly walked past Bellamy's pirates and the others, reaching the bar right beside Zorro and Luffy. He took up a jug of drink and sipped it slowly, savoring the burn.
"You two," he said, his voice calm. "Why didn't you fight back?"
Luffy looked at him from the floor. He wasn't hurt in the slightest.
"Fighting for trivial insults is pointless."
"They're just clowns," Zorro said, patting dust from his trousers.
Bellamy narrowed his eyes. He could feel something was wrong. The other pirates in the bar didn't move either—probably waiting for Bellamy to make the first move, gathering courage from his lead.
Mario set down the jug.
"Truly, sometimes fights are pointless," he said. "But Luffy… it's like you forgot why we're doing this."
Luffy looked at him in confusion.
"Each of us has a dream we pursue," Mario continued, his voice carrying through the silent bar. "But fulfilling our dreams aside, there is one dream that we as your crew collectively want to make true. And that is to make you the Pirate King."
Luffy's eyes shook. Even Zorro nodded, his expression serious.
Mario knew Zorro listened to the orders Luffy gave. He didn't fight because Luffy didn't want him to. That was loyalty. That was trust. But there was a line.
"These pirates are not mocking just your dream," Mario said coldly. "They are mocking the very dream of the whole crew."
He paused, letting the words sink in.
"So tell me, Luffy. Is our dream that insignificant? That you would let it be mocked and tarnished?"
Luffy shook. He squeezed his hands into fists, his knuckles whitening, almost drawing blood.
"Mario… Zorro… Nami…" His voice was low. "I'm sorry."
His gaze sharpened.
Mario smiled. He felt it—a ripple of Haki, invisible but unmistakable, washing out from Luffy like a wave. The resolve of a pirate king, growing stronger in that very moment.
The pirates in the bar felt the change in atmosphere. Their laughter died. Their sneers faded. Hands moved toward weapons. Bodies tensed. They were readying for a fight.
Mario cracked his knuckles.
"Get ready, you blockheads. If I can't make you understand with words…"
Luffy cracked his neck.
"…I'll make you understand with fists."
Luffy rose to his feet, his expression no longer blank. No longer passive. His eyes burned with something ancient and wild.
Zorro stood beside him, his hand on the sword's hilt, a predator's grin spreading across his face.
Nami sighed, but she was smiling too. "You three are impossible."
And then all hell broke loose.