…
By my best estimate, Luffy was still a little over two years away from leaving Foosha Village. Thought it had absolutely nothing to do with my current crisis.
"You need a name." I hummed, flicking the pencil around my fingers. The News Coo stared at me from the opposite side of the table.
We'd been doing this for twenty minutes.
I leaned forward, forearms resting on my knees, while he stayed perched beside my breakfast plate like some tiny feathered landlord waiting for rent. Months ago, he'd been a bird I occasionally bribed into helping me find islands.
Then he started recognising my ship. Then he started sticking around between deliveries. Somewhere along the way, the little bastard had learned where I kept the crackers, developed opinions about my decisions and become better at reading my moods than several human beings I'd met.
I feel like we'd reached the point where the News Coo was sorta rude, I looked down at my notebook and went through my list so far.
"Feathers."
Nothing.
"Newsbert."
His head turned away.
"Okay, yeah, that one was shit…" I crossed it out. "Morgans Junior?"
The News Coo immediately bit my finger.
"Ow! Alright!" I pulled my hand back while he ruffled his feathers aggressively. Touchy subject, apparently. I actually had a theory Morgans was a terrible employer; I mean, he ran a newspaper empire using birds as unpaid international delivery workers.
Something definitely fishy was going on there.
I looked down at the list again; we'd already eliminated several options. There was Birdtholomew, which had lasted about three seconds. Wingston sounded like a butler. Coo D. Bird was the first I tried with no reception. Then one name caught my attention.
I slowly looked up.
"Murdoch."
The bird stopped eating.
I pointed my pen at him.
"Murdoch."
He stared.
"Yeah."
He gave me another long stare; I then grinned, waving the pencil at him
"It's perfect! You're an aggressive little news parasite with questionable ethics and an unhealthy interest in other people's business."
Murdoch pecked the table.
"Exactly. It's perfect." I then heard a laugh behind me, sounding… feminine.
"He seems quite happy."
I turned just as she stepped onto the deck, though calling what she was doing "carrying luggage" would have been generous. A trail of arms grew along the railing behind her, passing several books and a folded coat between themselves as she walked completely unburdened.
I gestured toward them. "You know you have regular arms."
"I'm aware." She walked towards me, almost swaying her hips.
"It just seems…excessive. Don't you think?" I smirked placing the notebook down as I stood out of respect.
"It's convenient." One of the hands carrying the books gave me a small wave as it passed.
I narrowed my eyes at it as Robin's mouth curved.
Over the past few months, she had grown increasingly comfortable using the Hana Hana no Mi aboard my ship. At first it had been practical things: opening a door from across the deck, retrieving a book she'd left somewhere or catching something before it fell. Now I occasionally discovered eyes on the walls, ears growing near whatever I was muttering to myself about, and hands performing tasks she absolutely could have done normally.
Terrifying woman. Very attractive woman, though unfortunately, both could be true simultaneously.
She walked past me toward the cabin; I didn't move, and I chose to follow with my eyes as they drifted down toward her…bountiful asset, before I could look away though, an eye opened in the mast beside my head.
I froze. The eye blinked once.
My gaze slowly moved toward Robin's back.
She kept walking.
Then a mouth appeared beneath the eye.
"Enjoying the view?"
Heat hit my face immediately as Robin laughed quietly without turning around.
Murdoch screamed.
"Mind your fucking business," I whispered, yelling at the bird.
The eye disappeared into petals while I stood up and adjusted my white singlet for no reason whatsoever. Robin had already reached the small table inside the cabin by the time I followed, several arms placing her books down in neat piles before disappearing one after another.
She sat.
I sat opposite her.
Murdoch landed between us, taking a seat. Robin reached into one of her bags and slid a folded page across the table.
Rainbase was written across the top; I recognised the name before fully opening it. "Ah."
"The response you wanted," she said.
I looked up.
No need to ask who.
A few days had passed since Robin informed me that Crocodile had begun personally reviewing the reports Baroque Works had collected on me. Apparently, months of being a pain in his ass had finally crossed whatever line separated annoying stranger from Warlord's personal problem.
It was a great feeling. I skimmed the letter
"Today." I glanced toward the window, then back at the paper. "Bit short notice, no?"
Robin scoffed, "You spent months forcing him to notice you."
"Yeah, but you'd at least let me prepare for it somehow" I shrugged.
"You sank, then stole several Baroque shipments and then told separate agents that you were negotiating with Whitebeard, travelling to Drum Island and searching beneath Reverse Mountain."
Robin stared at me for a moment, the slightest amusement sitting behind her eyes.
I folded the paper and sighed.
…
We'd arrived at Rainbase by the end of the day. Music and voices bled through the walls of Rain Dinners while Robin led me through a side corridor away from the casino floor. Workers moved around us without getting in the way, though more than a few recognised me. Their attention tended to travel from my face toward the nearest security desk, where my wanted poster sat among several others.
One hundred and twenty-five million berries.
A respectable number.
The guards certainly cared. Their hands stayed comfortably away from their weapons while I passed, which I considered excellent workplace training.
Robin stopped outside a large door.
I adjusted my black suit sleeve. She glanced at the movement. "Nervous?"
"No," I mumbled.
She gave me a questioning brow raise. "You adjusted that sleeve three times since entering."
I looked down at my hands…fuck.
The door opened before I could defend myself, though.
Sir Crocodile sat behind a wide desk on the other side of the office, cigar smoke hanging lazily above him. He was broader than I remembered, though perhaps a TV screen had simply failed to communicate the sheer amount of man attached to that golden hook.
Robin walked in first, sat at the table, and I sat in the chair opposite him.
Crocodile continued reading the report in his hand leaving us in silence. I glanced around the office; it had nice carpet and a huge window of the sea.
And a very evil-chair-oriented interior design.
Crocodile turned one page.
Robin sat perfectly still beside me.
I crossed one leg over the other.
Another page.
Okay. So we were doing this, huh.
The silence stretched long enough that it became clear Crocodile expected me to fill it. Maybe that usually worked. People got dragged into a Warlord's office, stared at by one of the Seven and started babbling because they couldn't handle the silence.
Unfortunately, I'd survived Captain Vale.
Nobody weaponised uncomfortable rooms like that woman.
I settled farther into the chair.
Eventually Crocodile put the report down.
"Branchbreaker" His eyes lifted from the page. "You've made a remarkable amount of noise for somebody your age."
"Thanks." I smiled.
He frowned, placing the papers down. "It wasn't praise."
I shrugged. "I can still appreciate the recognition."
Robin lowered her gaze toward her lap. I imagined she was enjoying this considerably more than she intended to admit. Crocodile slid a file. "Your bounty doesn't interest me."
Keep the glaze coming, Croc ƪ(˘⌣˘)ʃ
"You've cost my organisation more than that already."
"Really?" I said sarcastically.
"That pleased you." He spat
His hook shifted against the desk.
"You destroyed one operation outside Tamarisk, stole another shipment near Nanohana, compromised safehouses on three separate occasions and repeatedly gave false information to agents you knew would report it."
I shifted forward, laying my elbows on his desk. "Some of that information may eventually become true one day."
Crocodile stared at me.
Robin's lips pressed together.
"He also believes you're searching beneath Reverse Mountain," she added.
I turned toward her. "Et tu, Robin?"
Crocodile's fingers stopped against the desk.
"Why?"
I looked back at him. He didn't clarify, and that made the question better.
Why Baroque Works? Why Alabasta? Why him? Why spend months poking at an organisation with enough reach to have me killed in places I'd never even heard of?
I shrugged. "You were interesting."
His eyes narrowed slightly. "Interesting?"
"You've got agents across Paradise, bounty hunters embedded in ports, businesses moving money with layers of people who don't know who they work for." I gestured around the office. "Very organised."
"You expect me to believe professional curiosity brought you here?"
I laughed. "No. Of course not" That seemed to irritate him more than a lie would have. He leaned back and took another drag from his cigar.
"You knew my name before Miss All Sunday gave it to you."
I glanced toward Robin.
She remained neutral.
"You knew hers as well," Crocodile continued.
Robin's eyes moved toward him.
Crocodile ignored it.
"The World Government does not advertise those subjects, yet a criminal from the East Blue arrives in Alabasta carrying pieces of information he cannot explain."
I smiled faintly. "Good summary."
"Where did you learn it?" He leaned forward and placed his golden hook on the table; it shone slightly.
"Different places," I replied, leaning forward too.
His cigar paused near his mouth.
Crocodile shifted tactics without acknowledging the previous question. He pulled a map from beneath the reports and opened it across the desk. Alabasta filled most of the page, marked with routes, cities and several notes I couldn't read upside down.
"Then perhaps you'll recognise something else."
I leaned forward slightly.
His finger tapped the map once.
"An ancient weapon."
No name yet. He watched me.
I kept my face curious instead of stupidly reacting.
"That narrows it down."
"Does it?"
"There aren't many things people call ancient weapons."
Robin remained silent beside me.
Crocodile's attention shifted toward her for half a second before returning to me.
"Pluton."
I scratched my jaw. "That's an interesting name/"
Crocodile's gaze stayed on mine. "You've heard it before."
I wagged my finger. "That wasn't a question."
"You didn't ask what it was."
"Yeah, and you already called it an ancient weapon."
"What kind?"
I smiled. "No idea."
That part, technically, was even mostly true. Crocodile drummed his fingers once against the map.
"Yet you knew I wanted it."
Crocodile waited.
I gave him my best harmless smile.
"You're a powerful man running a secret criminal organisation inside one of the oldest kingdoms in the world while employing the only woman alive who can read Poneglyphs. It felt like a reasonable guess."
Robin looked at me while Crocodile didn't. He slowly removed the cigar from his mouth and crushed the ash into the tray.
"That was considerably more information than you've offered until now."
Motherfucker. I leaned back. "Happy to help."
Crocodile's mouth twitched, though it was nowhere near a smile.
Then, unexpectedly, he changed direction again. "If that's the case, I'd like you to join me. Become a part of Baroque Works"
I blinked.
Crocodile folded the map and pushed it aside as though the decision was already halfway made on my behalf. "You want information. I have more of it than you'll collect wandering between the Grand Line for the next ten years. I also know you're strong enough to be useful to me and irritating enough that killing you would waste an asset, so whatever you know is clearly more valuable than your bounty suggests."
I lifted my arms off the table and gave him a small clap. "That's one hell of a recruitment pitch." I placed them down again, and my smirk dropped as I grew serious.
" But I'm good."
His brow lowered.
Robin turned her face slightly away.
Crocodile waited for me to continue.
I didn't.
"You spent months forcing this meeting; you interfered with my organisation specifically to reach me."
"Pretty much."
"And now I offer you access to it, and your answer is 'I'm good.'" His voice was starting to raise.
I laughed slightly. "When you repeat it like that, it sounds silly."
Crocodile stood. He wasn't especially hurried, so I stayed seated. Crocodile came around the desk until he stood beside me.
Sand moved faintly across his fingers.
"Your confidence is misplaced."
I stood up, meeting his eyes face to face. "Wouldn't be the first time."
His hand immediately closed around my forearm and the moisture vanished almost immediately. Skin tightened around bone as my fingers curled, and everything from my wrist downward dried with ugly speed. The effect travelled upward, pulling at the flesh of my forearm while my mouth dried in sympathy.
It kinda hurt, but not enough to panic because my first thought wasn't what the fuck is happening?
It was:
Oh.
Dehydration.
I knew dehydration.
Two weeks after leaving Shellstown, my water barrel had run dry. By the seventh day I'd been dizzy whenever I stood, my mouth felt cooked and my body had eventually adapted just enough to keep functioning. After that, because I was a responsible young man with excellent judgment, I had deliberately tested how far that adaptation could be pushed.
Not constantly.
I wasn't insane.
Probably.
Crocodile's ability was far more violent than anything I'd done to myself, but the problem underneath it was familiar enough that my body seemed to recognise what was being demanded before I properly did.
The wheel on my hand shifted.
Clink.
The dehydration stopped at my elbow.
Crocodile's grip remained exactly where it was, but nothing else happened. He tried pressing harder, but still nothing.
Then the damage started reversing beneath his fingers. Wrinkled skin slowly filled back out, the veins sinking beneath healthy flesh while movement returned properly to my hand. I opened my fingers once, closed them again and watched the last traces of dryness disappear.
Robin moved aside, assuming the fight was over as it had been with Crocodile, but her expression was confusion.
Crocodile was the same as his eyes dropped to my arm. I turned my wrist inside his grip and wrapped my fingers around his.
For a few seconds we stayed like that, his hand around my forearm and mine around his wrist.
His hand had stopped moving.
I gave his wrist a small squeeze.
"You done?" I said, then raised my fist and decked him in the face.
…
End of Chapter!
Word Count - 2468
a/n -
First off, sorry for the long ass wait. Uni, work and life generally decided to jump me at the same time, but we're back.
Going forward, chapters are probably going to be a little shorter as well. I'm a stats man, and after looking through both Wattpad and Webnovel, the numbers pretty consistently suggest people prefer shorter chapters rather than the 4–5k+ monsters I sometimes drop. So I'm aiming more around this chapter's length when it makes sense. More frequent, tighter chapters should hopefully be better for everyone.
As for the chapter itself, Crocodile has FINALLY entered the story properly, and we're officially getting into the meat of this part of Arc II. That last scene should also make it pretty obvious where the next chapter is starting.
Small update on my other stories too: the Narancia fic is officially dropped. Reception just wasn't really there, and I'd rather spend that time on stories people are actually enjoying.
On that note, PLEASE check out the Tarnished/Runeterra story if you haven't already. I've been having a lot of fun with that one.
Anyway, thanks for reading as always.
(￣y▽,￣)╭