"You guys are going?" Vivi's voice had a hint of shaking as she asked the Strawhats.
After their small party, the Strawhats decided to leave without visiting the King.
Bon Clay also left to see his crew and leave this kingdom to go on a adventure. Before leaving, he made an alliance with the Strawhats through a brotherly promise.
"We gotta get moving. You should know the gravity of our crime by now. We defeated a Marine Admiral. We cannot be seen associating with you and your father or there will be consequences to befall on your kingdom." Luke explained things to Vivi.
The Strawhats also silently agreed.
Defeating a corrupt Warlord is fine since the King can cover for their existence. However, they humiliated a Marine Admiral.
This will become a very sensitive matter for that Admiral if he suddenly seek for revenge when he knows that the Strawhats are associated with the King of Alabasta.
Marine Admiral aren't some nobodies. They represents the pride and face of all the marines in the world.
Wherever an Admiral point a finger, the marines will follow it unconditionally. Even if it's to destroy a whole kingdom.
"But..." Vivi shoulders slumped. She wanted to say something, but she hesitated.
"Vivi, you are our friend and a part of this crew. However, you should stay here to help your kingdom." Luke said which surprised everyone.
"Noo!" The rest of the Strawhats protested, especially Sanji who reluctant to part with a beautiful lady.
Vivi felt complicated inside. The Strawhats actually accepted her to be the Strawhat crew. However, she still hesitated if she should follow Luke's suggestion.
The people of the kingdom really needs her at this time of crisis. She love the people of her kingdom more than anything. If she really were to choose, she will stay without a doubt.
"Mm. I decided to stay." Vivi nodded with resolution.
"If you settle things here in the future, come find us. We'll be glad to go on a adventure with you." Luke smiled as he expected her answer.
The Strawhats smiled at Vivi.
"I surely will." Vivi's eyes lit up as if she couldn't wait to go on a adventure with the Strawhats.
"One more thing. Nami, fetch me a piece of blank paper." Luke turned to Nami which puzzled the group.
"Here."
"Luffy, give me a hand." Luke approached Luffy carrying the piece of paper.
"You want me to draw something on this paper?" Luffy's face had full of question marks. He then raised his hand.
Luke only chuckled as he pinched the hand of Luffy and a tiny white gooey ball got extracted. He then dropped that tiny white gooey ball on the paper until it merged as one. The whole paper then shone for a second before returning to it's normal state.
Everyone watched this scene as they felt that this move of Luke looks familiar.
"Take it. This is called a Vivre Card of Luffy." Luke passed the paper to Vivi.
Everyone got intrigued by this paper.
"This paper is waterproof and fireproof. If you tear a tiny piece of it and place it in your open palm or any flat surface, it will move to the person this Vivre Card belongs to. In this case, this paper will slowly move towards the direction of Luffy." Luke explained as he actually tore a piece of the paper and placed it on his open palm.
The miracle unfold when that piece of paper slowly move towards the direction of Luffy.
"WOAH!!" "WHAT!?" "SUGEE!!"
Everyone have mix reaction while the fanboys have sparkles on their eyes.
"And it can heal on it's own too like merging again if you put the pieces of torn paper back together." Luke did the thing and the paper became whole again after a few seconds. There are some versions of Vivre Card and his version is same as Big Mom's that have soul energy signatures which very few individuals can decipher.
He looked like a street performer doing a magic trick.
"Thank you, Luke! This way, I will easily find you guys while riding the cloud." Vivi's eyes lit up as she got what she wanted, an assurance.
Nami recalled her bargain from Igaram back at Whisky Peak. It was said that if her crew is able to save the Alabasta Kingdom, she'd get a one billion berries reward. Now that the Kingdom is safe, she felt her bargain was unreasonable and silly.
Karoo also bade farewell to his best buddy, Billy. Both duck brothers promised to meet in the future.
...
The Stawhats went back to Nanohana and bought lots of food supply since the people of the kingdom wanted to celebrate all night. The people are still awake and streets are bustling with people even though it's freezing cold.
Somehow the people seems to ignore the cold and continued their party while drinking booze on the streets.
Nami was generous this time as she bought lots of things. She hauled more than 50 million berries at the casino earlier.
She even gifted Zoro one free sword and some booze, but she still reminded the latter's debt that now reached 3 million berries because of the interest rate.
She said that if they find every land to venture, the curse of ten percent interest rate will start.
Zoro could only curse this black hearted witch. Still, he's on the good mood after stealing a fine sword from Kamikaze. The Sun Sword was even more rarer than his Wado Ichimonji sword.
The only problem was that, the Sun Sword refused to be drawn. It's as if it has a life of it's own.
Zoro took this as a challenge as he will start to uncover the secret of this mysterious sword.
Meanwhile, Luke finally placed the Going Merry to the sea. He didn't plan on sailing the seas while flying. Everything will going to be fucked up if he did that.
The seastone cage is still peacefully laying on a cloud beside Going Merry. He will ask for Zoro and Sanji to disassemble this cage later since these two aren't Devil Fruit Holders.
"Hm?" Luke and the Strawhats noticed a familiar silhouette of a woman heading towards Going Merry.
Ms. All Sunday.
Everyone didn't react too much when they saw her since Luke mentioned her name back at Yuba Town.
Ms. All Sunday now wore an all-white stylish cowgirl set of dress.
"Can I hitch a ride?" Miss All Sunday smiled and focused at Luke. Of all the things she noticed about this crew, they seem to look for opinion of this crimson eyed man named Luke.
Luke raised his eyebrows while looked a bit surprised before he turned to Luffy.
Luffy was grinning from ear to ear as he shouted, "Join my crew instead!"
"..."
Everyone slackjawed from the rash action of Luffy.
In fact, Luke only revealed that Ms. All Sunday is a good natured woman and still needed to take a test before letting her join the group since both started as enemies.
Ms. All Sunday also got surprised by the offer of Luffy. With one glance, she could tell something seems fishy or maybe she's just overthinking things.
"Sure." She smiled as the lovestruck Sanji helped her go on board.
...
At Dawn...
The Strawhats continues their sail to the Grand Line...
"..."
Everyone wanted to sleep. However, Luffy recruited a new member, so there will be another overtime.
Ms. All Sunday was placed on a hot seat while being stared at the Strawhats.
She will surely face a lot of interrogation from them.
She got puzzled when a powerful team are sailing with a rundown ship. The crew probably on a low profile as she thought. What caught her attention the most is the familiar cage in a floating cloud beside Going Merry.
If she recalled correctly, this cage is made out of pure seastone material from the casino of Crocodile.
As for the cloud, someone in the Strawhats should be able to control it with certain means.
"..."
Since no one were asking questions, it turned into a staring contest for quite a while now.
Luke also joined in. Billy, Nami, Zoro and Liz are in line with him at the top rail while staring down at Ms. All Sunday.
Luffy, Usopp, Chopper, Yosaku, Johnny and Sanji were at the main bottom floor.
The crew have little interactions with Ms. All Sunday before. In fact, this is the second time they met again. They don't even know if she has a power like Devil Fruit ability.
Cough!
Usopp couldn't take it anymore as he bravely initiated the interrogation.
"M-My Name is Usopp. Nice to meet you. What's your name?"
"Nice to meet you too. My real name is Nico Robin. You should probably know my alias of Baroque Works." Ms. All Sunday revealed her real name.
"Y-Yeah." Usopp felt uncomfortable having a crewmate from the organization they just destroyed. It's fine if it's Bon Clay since the guy made a good connection with them before.
But this woman was a real enemy with mysterious motive against Vivi.
"Although Luffy hired you, I know for a fact that you intentionally approach us with the same purpose. You just want to join this crew, right?" Usopp closed his eyes and he assumed a noble scholar pose.
"OH!! Go Usopp!"
"Nice one, Usopp!"
"Big Bro Usopp is the best!"
The fanboys cheered in excitement including Luffy.
"Oyy Luffy, weren't you the one who hired her in the first place? Why are you cheering at Usopp too?" Zoro facepalmed.
Nico Robin smiled as she observed the characters of every Strawhats. She turned to Usopp and replied, "Maybe? Since your captain hired me, wouldn't that mean I'm officially a crewmember now?"
"Yeah.. Wait- I didn't accept you yet! What's your occupation?" Usopp asked.
"An archeologist."
"I came from a long line of archeologists."
"I became a criminal when I was 8 and..."
Robin explained vaguely her life story on how she became a criminal which made the Strawhats went silent.
A story of an 8 years old girl trying to survive the harsh world alone for twenty years.
"My greatest goal is to uncover the secrets of the world through Rio Poneglyphs."
Luffy's eyes shone as this is the moment he waited. He said, "Nami, Nami! Bring out the copy of that square thing!"
Nami rolled her eyes at the excited Luffy. They wanted to at least give Robin some pressure but this guy always make everything light.
She then brought back a folded paper and threw it to Luffy.
"Here, Robin! Do you know what this is?!" Luffy unfolded the paper and revealed the lines of symbols printed in it.
"This! This are ancient scripts of a Poneglyph!" Robin got surprised when she saw the writings of the paper. She didn't know where the Strawhats got this but it's a great feat to have one.
"Can you read this? Will it lead us to-" Luffy's mouth got covered by others. He really don't pause on his words.
Robin was too focused on deciphering the ancient scripts that she basically ignored everyone's noise.
A few minutes later, she closed her eyes and said,
"The information here only stated the history of a separate Sand Kingdom. It's said that there's a desert country with two kingdoms and merged as one in the end and now called Alabasta Kingdom. The information here is closely related to Alabasta Kingdom. Nothing more, nothing less." Her eyes shone for a second before returning to normal.
However, Luke caught this slight change of her expression but he stayed silent.
"Wow! You can really read these weird letters! Let's find more Poneglyphs on the next island!" Luffy became excited. Luke mentioned that one of these things can lead them to the whereabouts of One Piece.
"It doesn't work that way." Robin shook her head as she continued, "I've spend my whole entire life searching for the location of the Poneglyphs, but they are very hard to find and prohibited by the World Government. If it's easy to find these-"
"I have another one here."
A calm voice interrupted Robin.
Robin focused her eyes on another folded paper as she got surprised. She didn't expect to find another copy of Poneglyph in this crew.
Luke was certain that Robin somehow found a clue about that first Poneglyph from an ancient kingdom. However, he couldn't read a Poneglyph scripts nor the information got revealed in his previous world.
However, he knew this second Poneglyph. He got it inside a hidden underground in the mortuary temple of Alabasta Kingdom where he used careful means in order not to trigger the hidden mechanisms within and copied the texts.
"Woah!! Nice one Luke! Robin! What's this record says?!" Luffy got hyped again.
The fanatics also cheered when knowing another record appeared.
Although the other Strawhats felt weird how Luke got another one, they didn't pry further. That's because they were expecting a good news for this second Poneglyph.
Luke stared at Robin as he smiled.
Robin took a deep breath. She felt like this crimson eyed man knows what's on her mind.
She then started to decipher the ancient script.
"This... is a guide to locate a certain... thing. An ancient weapon named Pluton."
Robin's eyes flickered as this is the information that Crocodile wanted the most.
"Pluton?"
"Ancient weapon?"
The Strawhats got puzzled from the revelation of Robin. Their eyes turned to Luke like a routine.
Luke rolled his eyes at the group as he folded his chair to move at the back of Going Merry which is his favorite spot.
Before he left,
"Learning the origin of the three ancient weapons is a serious matter. Let the Poneglyphs do their work."
He then turned to Nico Robin as he smiled,
"I am Luke, Vice Captain of the Strawhats. Welcome to the crew."
He then left scene in silence.
*****
A/N : I'm on a long vacation for now. I'll be back soon.
Cheers!