During the meeting my crew had to stay on the ship, so they all peppered me with questions about the meeting as I returned.
"Everyone calm down, it wasn't that interesting. We need to focus and get back to our plan." I said as we set sail.
Our plan was to train ourselves to get stronger. We mostly did basic strength and conditioning training and sparring. That was the extent that we could do without any experienced instructors. Jack also tried to teach Haki to the others, but he wasn't an expert enough himself so it wasn't very effective. It was clear we needed someone to help us train or we'd never make any significant progress.
So we set out with the intent of finding someone who could train us, although we didn't have any leads so we were basically just traveling like normal.
We went on several adventures, we went to Sky Island, Little Garden, Drum Island, and many other exciting places. I wanted to get stronger, but I still wanted to have fun exploring the Grand Line like me and Yuma dreamed of.
The biggest problem we had right now was finding someone who could teach us to use Haki. It's not like there were a lot of people who were skilled enough in Haki to teach us, and even leach who'd be willing to teach pirates. I thought it'd be nice if I could learn Haki from Rayleigh like Luffy did but I couldn't do that because…. Wait I totally could do that!
"Change course to Sabaody Archipelago! You know the way there don't you, Tramp?" I asked Rei.
"Yes, but why are we going there?" She asked.
"I don't need to answer your questions." I responded sternly.
"Hey Captain Leo, I just heard that we're headed to Sabaody Archipelago. What's the occasion?" Isabella asked me.
"I'm looking for Silvers Rayleigh, he's supposed to be there." I replied.
"You mean the Dark King? As in the Vice Captain of Gold Rodger's crew? What are you going to him for? Are you going to challenge him to a dual like Whitebeard?" Jack asked.
"No, although that's not a bad idea. I was hoping that he'd be willing to help us learn Haki."
"But why would a high profile guy like him be interested in helping us?" Sig asked.
"Hmm, that's a good question. He probably wouldn't be, but I'll figure it out when we get there. I'm sure it'll work out eventually. It always does." I said.
We ended up traveling to Sabaody Archipelago. We were there to find Rayleigh, but we had to explore the place and have some fun first. We spent the day at the amusement park and trying all the local restaurants. By the time the sun was starting to set, I remembered what we came there for in the first place.
"Oh yeah we were supposed to be looking for Rayleigh." I said through a yawn. "I'm getting kinda tired. I better find him quick so I can get some sleep. No more messing around."
"Captain Leo! Let's ride the Ferris Wheel just one more time. Since it's getting dark you can see all the pretty lights from up there." Isabella suggested.
"Bell, we need to get our priorities straight. We can't waste anymore time messing around." I said as we made our way back on to the Ferris Wheel. "Like I was saying, we're going to ride the Ferris Wheel one more time so we can see pretty lights, then call it a day and look for Rayleigh tomorrow." I said with my priorities perfectly in place.
The next day we went to Shakky's bar to look for Rayleigh but he wasn't in at the moment so I asked Shakky when he might be back.
"I don't know, it's hard to say. When he leaves like that there's no way of knowing when he will come back. It's too bad you weren't here yesterday when he was still in." She said.
"See Captain? I told you we shouldn't have wasted time playing around yesterday." Jack said scolding me.
"Well it couldn't be helped." I said.
"No it definitely could have." He replied.
"Anyway that's fine we can just wait for him to come back." I said.
"Ah you sure? It could be months before be comes back."
"Yeah I don't have anything better to do. Let's go back out to the amusement park!" I said about to leave.
"You know you actually came to Sabaody at an interesting time. I heard that there's a bunch of high profile rookies here at Sabaody right now. People are calling them the 11 Supernova. 11 rookies with bounties over 100 million." Shakky said.
"Huh? They're here already? Man time really does fly I was hoping I had more time." I said "On second thought, I won't have time to stick around and wait for him. I'm going to be summoned to Marineford soon."
"Oh that's right. I heard that they're preparing an execution for one of Whitebeard's commanders."
"One of Whitebeard's crew is getting executed? Who?" Yuma asked.
"It's Ace." I replied much to my crew's dismay. We had met Ace back in Alabasta and the crew had taken a real liking to him.
"Captain this isn't right. You always say that you only do what you think is right, so how are you going to stand by and let them execute one of your friends?" Jack asked me.
"It's complicated. It's Ace's fate to die, there's nothing I could do about it even if I tried."
"Even if that's the case, you don't have to go there and help the Navy. If you can't do anything to help you might as well not even go." Celeste said. Her and Jack's words were like a knife through my heart because they were both completely right.
"But if he doesn't answer the summons, they'll kick him out of the Warlords. Then we'll be hunted by the Navy again." Rei interjected.
"So what? The Captain knew something like this would end up happening eventually. It's worth it to lose that title if it means doing the right thing." Jack said and I agreed with him.
"Wait, she has a point. There's all the people on Baima Island that are protected by being in his territory. If his status as a Warlord is rescinded then they would be in danger." Celeste said. "The Captain is right, this situation is complicated for us."
This was the most important moment of my life in this world so far. I was faced with an impossible decision. Should I refuse the call and leave the Warlords, or should I do my duty and go to Ace's execution on the side of the Navy? Both options were filled with their own hardships, I wasn't sure what to do. The decision I ended up making, would lead to tragedy.