Smooth Sailing Chapter 7: East Blue 3 / Frauce 1

Smooth Sailing Chapter 7: East Blue 3 / Frauce 1

Chapter 7: East Blue 3 / Frauce 1

“So, uh, Mr. Buggy, what exactly happened to you?” Jodie asked, unable to contain her curiosity.

We were sitting out on the deck, enjoying a tasty dinner of steamed crab legs. We’d gotten a lot of tender meat from the giant crustacean, enough to last us a couple of days if we weren’t going to bother with rationing.

Naturally, we all wanted to hear the story, but didn’t want to be rude, and so avoided saying anything as we ate. Everybody was glad that the gardener had asked the question first, as she was easily the nicest and politest of the crew, someone Buggy would hopefully not be too upset with answering.

“It was a brat with a straw hat,” Buggy claimed. “Him, an orange-haired cat burglar, and the damned Pirate Hunter himself!”

“A kid with a straw hat, you say?” I asked, raising an eyebrow as I lowered the crab leg I’d been feasting on earlier, pausing only to wipe some garlic butter off my lips. “He wouldn’t happen to be wearing a red vest and have a scar under his left eye, would he?”

“Eh? Yes, yes! That’s him, alright!” Buggy declared. “How’d you know?!”

“Ran into the punk a while back,” I replied. “He’d been hiding in a barrel my crew fished out of the drink. Immediately started throwing hands and punching everyone. Not even a ‘thank you’ for saving him! And then he punched me so hard, I was sent flying off my ship onto a deserted island! It even knocked my freckles off my face! Can you believe it?!”

I huffed in partially feigned anger before tearing a large chunk out of my crab leg.

“Argh! Yes, exactly! That happened to me as well!” Buggy growled. “My men and I were enjoying a well-deserved break after raiding a town, and all of a sudden he and his friends come swooping down, fists flying for no reason! I mean, sure, I locked him in a cage for a bit, but he only started punching us because of something about an abandoned store and a dog!”

He paused, thinking it over. “Can’t really remember the exact reason it all went down, but still! He’s a damned menace! And that hat!”

Buggy’s grip tightened, and the shell of the crab leg he was holding cracked ominously. “He had the gall to wear that hat and proclaim he’d be King of the Pirates!”

As the red-nosed pirate gnashed his teeth in anger, I watched him closely. He was angry, but not murderously so. I got the feeling Buggy was more affronted by Shanks giving away his hat to Luffy than anything else.

‘Seems like his drive for revenge sorta spiraled out of control on Loguetown,’ I mused to myself. ‘Perhaps being on the island where Roger was killed triggered something in Buggy, and that’s why he went with the execution route?’

I wasn’t sure, but it sounded plausible. Still, I merely nodded along with Buggy.

“He’s a punk kid, alright,” I agreed. “I was planning to track him down and challenge him to a proper fight, show him he’s not all that. Care to join forces?”

“An alliance to put that rookie in his place? Sounds like fun!” Buggy declared. “I’ll need my crew for that, though. He had that swordsman on his side that was able to defeat two of my top men. And that brat himself has a damn annoying Devil Fruit.”

“Yeah, rubber powers,” I said with a nod. “Stretchy little bastard.”

“Hmph! Nowhere near as cool and flashy as my own!” Buggy said, his insecurities shining through.

“I wonder if he can stretch every part of his body?” Jodie wondered innocently, causing Eliza to snort so hard some crab shot out of her nose.

Hep, Pep, and Pop all had wide eyes at that, before whistling.

“No wonder he was so cocky,” Hep huffed.

“Lucky bastard,” Pep muttered.

“Yeah. Can’t believe he gets to have an extra-long hog whenever he wants!” Pop grumbled.

“EH?! Jodie exclaimed, blushing furiously, having only just realized the innuendo she’d created with her words.

Buggy looked disgusted and a little green at that thought, and decided to change the subject.

“So! What happened to your old crew?” he asked. “How’d you end up on this dinky little boat?”

“After Straw Hat sent me flying with a punch, the Marines showed up,” I explained with a scowl. “They chased my crew down and sunk the Miss Love Duck.”

“Ah,” Buggy said with a wince, before clearing his throat. “Well, in the spirit of cooperation, I, as captain of the Buggy Pirate, offer you all berths aboard the Big Top when we find it.”

“I appreciate the generous offer. But if our crews are going to be working together, there are some ground rules I want to lay down,” I told Buggy, and he gestured at me to go on.

“First, we are equals,” I stated. “We can give orders to each other’s crews in the event one of us in incapacitated or unavailable, but for the most part we’re two separate groups working together. This means I punish my crew for any infractions they commit, and you do the same to yours.”

“Acceptable,” Buggy agreed. “Go on.”

“Next, any treasure is split fifty-fifty between us,” I said. “Even if one group does most or all of the work to get it.”

“Grrr… fine,” he spat out, clearly unhappy with it but willing to compromise.

“Third, I will help you obtain your revenge against Straw Hat Luffy, so far as it does not endanger my ship or crew,” I added. “In exchange, you have to help me with my mission to mess with the Straw Hats.”

That made him happier, and he nodded, accepting the deal.

“And finally, there is to be no murder and rape,” I told him firmly. “We can plunder, steal, and destroy, and killing in self-defense is acceptable, but we do not violate the inhabitants of the towns we visit and attack.”

To my surprise, he did not dismiss this request and instead nodded solemnly. “My crew already follows that rule. We’re pirates, not monsters. Besides, my captain would come back from the dead and kill me himself if I ever did anything like that.”

I tilted my head to the side at that. ‘Good to know Roger was a man of honor and didn’t allow certain things amongst his crew,’ I thought.

“Glad to hear it,” I said aloud.

“Yeah. Or one of my old crew would do it themselves,” he said, muttering, ‘damn Red-hair!’ under his breath.

“In that case, I’m pleased to form the BATTLE with you, Co-captain Buggy!” I declared, spitting in my hand before sticking it out for him to shake.

He spat as well and took my hand. The handshake was a bit weak, as my palm was a bit too slippery for him, but it worked all the same and we shared nods.

“So, what’s this ‘battle’ thing exactly?” Buggy asked when he let go of my hand.

“Ah, BATTLE stands for ‘Buggy and Alvida Tag Team League of Evil,’” I explained, causing the red-nosed man to snort.

“That was terrible. You’ll fit right in,” he smirked, which I returned with a saucy grin.

“Oh, and before I forget… I’m not into guys. Just throwing that out there.”

“Good thing for me I prefer my women with meat on their bones,” he shot back and I chuckled.

“Alrighty, then. Pleasure doing business with ya!” I declared. We had entered into an alliance, and our fates were now entwined.

‘And I couldn’t be more excited!’ I thought as I took my hand back from him. ‘To think I get to actually sail with a future Warlord and Emperor and the Pirate King’s former cabin boy!’

As I thought that, something tickled the back of my mind, and I looked at Buggy a bit more closely.

‘Hang on a second… cowardly, brilliant jack of all trades, with a wacky nose?’ I thought to myself, slowly coming to a realization. ‘Holy shit! Buggy was the Usopp of the Roger Pirates!’

The thought caused me to stare at him in disbelief, and the red-nosed pirate glared at me when he noticed.

“What the hell are you looking at?! You staring at my nose?!”

“No, just… had a revelation, is all,” I said, shaking my head.

He squinted at me suspiciously before grunting and settling down. “Hmph! Better have been all.”

Buggy then frowned. “Where are we headed anyways?”

“The Frauce Kingdom,” I replied. “Or at least, that was the original goal.”

“Why there?” he asked.

“Because we could,” I said with a shrug. “Kinda want to see it. Never been before.”

“That so?” Buggy hummed. “Not a bad place. Good wine. We once stopped there, and my crew stole a bunch of barrels from the queen’s personal reserve.”

“Speaking of your crew, do you think they’ll still be around? And willing to have you keep leading them despite your defeat?” I wondered. I knew they would, but I was curious how Buggy felt.

“They better be,” Buggy huffed. “I might have been beaten but I’m not out of the game!”

He then shook his fists at the sky. “Damn you, Straw Hat! You’re gonna pay!”

“Well, if payback is what you want, we better find them before they die or do something stupid, like get caught by the Marines,” I suggested. “Any idea where they could be?”

“Not sure,” he admitted. “We were at Orange Town on Organ Island before Straw Hat and his crew showed up.”

“Well, there aren’t that many islands around that they could have gone to in order to rest and restock,” I claimed, pulling out a map of the East Blue. I’d had Pep fetch it after clearing away the plates from the table.

It wasn’t a perfectly accurate map, and it only showed some of the major kingdoms and islands, but it would do.

Racking my brain, I seemed to recall that in the series, Buggy’s moronic crew got stranded on some island full of cannibals called Kumate or something. Checking the map, there were no islands by that name, but it couldn’t be too far off from Orange Town.

“Damn, this map is terrible,” Buggy muttered.

“Well excuse me!” I huffed. “But this was all I have left after the Marines sank the Miss Love Duck!”

He waved a hand apologetically but kept looking at the chart closely. “There are a couple islands I can think of that might be the place they’d go,” he said after a moment. “They are all small islands, and should be uninhabited, but with wild game and fresh water to recover our supplies.”

Taking a pen that was offered to him, he scribbled down several new coordinates onto the map, revealing the identity of several new locations, including, to my carefully concealed delight, one called Kumate Island!

“Then let’s get searching,” I said, trying not to sound too excited. “Can you sense your body parts?”

“Eh, sorta,” Buggy replied, making a ‘so-so’ gesture with one hand. “I can feel what happens to them but can’t control them if they’re too far away, and even my sense of touch gets weaker. There’s definitely a sort of ‘pull’ I can sense as well that lets me know where they are but the distance is a bit much right now. Works best when they’re within sight of me. Then it’s pretty much instinctive to snap back together.”

“Something to work on, I suppose,” I mused. “If you could control your separated body parts from a distance it would make you the best damn spy in the world.”

“Indeed, I should knock a bit of the rust off of my skills,” Buggy agreed. “Been in the East Blue for too long, and knowing what I do about that Straw Hat wearing buffoon, he’ll be headed towards the Grand Line for his stupid dream. Which means we’ll have to follow him.”

“Think you crew is good enough to survive it?” Alvida wondered. “Because I know for a fact my old crew was not. And my current one… well, I’m working on it.”

“Oh, no, they’d die horribly if they tried to go on their own,” he scoffed. “But I have experience with that mad ocean. I’ll be able to get us through no sweat!”

He posed dramatically, fist pointed to the sky, but the whole scene was ruined by the fact he was one foot tall and made of just a head, hands, and feet.

“That would be a lot more inspiring if you weren’t so short,” I commented idly, eyeing his current tiny body. He grumbled at that but couldn’t deny my words.

Buggy then let out a loud yawn. “Ugh, been running on adrenaline for a while, now. Got a place for me to crash?”

“Ask one of the brothers,” I said. “They’ll get you squared away.”

“Is this a good idea, captain?” Jodie wondered softly as the clown-nosed pirate waddled off to talk to Hep, Pep, and Pop.

“What? Partnering up with Buggy?” I inquired, and she nodded.

“It’s just… he’s a pirate. A big name, too! He has a bounty of fifteen million!” Jodie stressed. “And the things he’s done…”

“Buggy is definitely a pirate,” I agreed. “But we are too, lest you forget. And he’s honorable. He won’t go back on his deal. He’s more interested in treasure than acting like a monster.”

“Well, you haven’t steered us wrong so far, captain,” Eliza said, deciding to go with the flow.

“I suppose you do seem to know what you’re doing,” Jodie admitted before nodding. “Okay. We’ll trust you.”

I gave the twins a thumbs up before heading back to my quarters. I wanted to grab a few things. Seeing Buggy had given me some ideas for building new items. They might even be useful in the future!

111 &&& 111

The next day, we reached Frauce shortly after dawn, a bit earlier than we'd predicted thanks to a nice bit of wind carrying us along. The kingdom’s island was a hilly Summer Island, with a mild climate perfect for growing grapes.

Unlike Nagagutsu, Frauce had a proper military of its own, and several Man-o-War ships patrolled the waters. They ignored the Lovey Dovey, such a tiny boat being of no concern to them, and we made it to a port without issue.

“The plan is to get in and then get out as quickly as possible,” I said, looking over the group who’d be heading off to grab supplies at Port Nice, a modest port city of Frauce that should have everything we needed supply wise. “Jodie, Eliza, you’re in charge of perishables. Hep, Pep, and Pop, you are going to be grabbing the rope, canvas, nails and the like. Buggy… probably not a good idea to show your face around her, at least for a bit. Can you stick around the ship and guard it?”

“Not gonna be much use like this, but alright,” Buggy shrugged. “Nobody will board us with me around.”

“Great! Okay, folks, let’s go!” I said, pumping a fist into the air. Buoyed by my enthusiasm, the crew all let out their own exclamations, and then hurried off into town.

As for my job? I was going to be gathering intel. If anybody had heard word of Buggy’s crew, then I’d find out.

Entering the nearest tavern, I ignored the ways people began to drool and stare at me. Instead, I went up to the bar, and put a hundred beri onto the counter.

“What’ll this get me?” I asked.

“This,” the bartender grunted, shoving a foaming mug at me. I took it and sipped at it. Not great. Very cheap and watered down, but I wasn’t here for drinks. I wanted information, and began to listen in to the people.

Most of them were discussing me, wondering who the ‘hot piece of ass’ was. Those conversations were gross and I did my best to pay no attention to them. But after a while, I finally began to hear some patrons talking about something other than me.

“…fields are dry. Weather needs to get wetter, soon, or we’re going to have dead vines come spring.”

“Kingdom says the water problem will be solved soon, though.”

“Can’t trust ‘em to do it right, though. They promised the Aqueducts would be done years ago, but they’ve barely finished half of it!”

“Yeah, probably because the queen is pocketing the funds, and her court is skimming off of what’s left!”

I held in a sigh. ‘Not exactly what I wanted to hear. What else is there?’

Straining my ears, I listened in on a table of sailors. Perhaps they’d know something useful?

“Storms are acting up near the Red Line,” a weathered old man grumbled. “Damn near got blown into the Calm Belt!”

“Winter storms are always harsh. It’s the whirlpools that worry me. There’s been more of ‘em in recent years! What the hell is causing ‘em?”

‘Alright, that’s a bit more interesting, but it doesn’t seem like there is anything here for me.’ I downed the rest of the drink and then Slipped out.

The next two taverns were much the same. No word of Buggy’s crew. No rumors abounded about pirates near the Nagagutsu Kingdom, nor was there any news about myself surviving.

‘I suppose no news is good news in this case,’ I mused as I walked through the streets of Port Nice.

It was too bright and my bladder hurt a little after drinking so much cheap beer, but before I could find a place to take care of that problem, I heard something that attracted my attention.

“…got out of there as fast as I could!”

“Damn, you were lucky!”

Two men, merchants from the looks of them, were standing near a fountain speaking in hushed tones. One had a fearful look, the other sympathetic.

“What in God’s name is Buggy the Clown doing over there?” the second merchant wondered. I froze, and then Slipped over to listen in.

“Don’t know! I didn’t stick around to find out!” the first merchant replied, wiping his brow. He was sweating nervously, still shaken from nearly running into pirates.

“Didn’t they destroy Orange Town?”

“Aye, sure did. I suppose that might explain why they’re near the Bund Span.”

“Odd though. Not many inhabited islands in that area. And I’ve heard that some other big name pirates have been seen around there. Could it be there’s a hidden treasure there?”

“They can have whatever accursed treasure is there! Just hope they don’t hurt anybody. But I’ll be staying far away from the Span for a while until it all settles down!”

‘Now, that’s interesting,’ I thought. Where exactly was the Bund Span? Was it nearby?

I headed back to the Lovey Dovey, eager to inform Buggy of what I’d heard. Hopping back onto the deck, I spotted the red-nosed man sitting up by the helm.

“Eh? You’re back early,” he commented, he then perked up. “Any news?”

“Possibly. Your crew was spotted near the Bund Span,” I told him, and he frowned.

“Not a lot of islands there for resupplying on. Might be trying to lay low.” Buggy hopped to his feet and fetched the map. Laying it out, his finger traced the images.

“Lemme see… hmm… yeah, if we sail down here, we should reach the Span in a day or two,” Buggy announced.

Looking down at the path he was making, I saw that Kumate Island was one of the islands within the region marked as the Bund Span. That was good to know.

“Let’s hit the road as soon as we’re ready,” Buggy requested, and I nodded.

Once we had restocked the ship, we’d head on out. This would hopefully let us reach Buggy’s band of morons before they got eaten, but I had no idea if we could stick to canon anymore.

‘What will happen next?’ I wondered to myself.

111 &&& 111

Author's Note: Happy Fourth of July! Enjoy a special bonus chapter for the occasion!