128 Chapter 128

128

"Come on old man, tell us the story. I wanna know the big guy."

Crocus nodded, he recognized Luffy now. Mainly because of his straw hat. The redhead had called him a few weeks ago on how someone with their former captain's straw hat might come. And so he was quite surprised to see that it was Luffy.

He almost found it funny how Garp's grandkid was wearing that hat. But he didn't say anything. He on the other hand guided the straw hats out of the whale. Many of the crewmates were glad to get out, while Luffy whined wanting to explore the whale's insides.

Crocus shook his head, almost pitying the crew, it seemed that Luffy was similar to Roger in some ways.

"That's a hatch," Usopp gaped as the Merry sailed the short distance between Laboon and a little plateau connected to the Red Line where Crocus had another small house. "Is that… Does that hurt the whale?"

As Usopp questioned the morality of hollowing out a living whale, Crocus told the crew of his bond with Laboon and how he came to be the whale's caretaker.

That was over 50 years ago and Laboon had been hitting his head on the Red Line for all that time, convinced that his friends, the Rumbar Pirates, were still alive and traveling.

"I keep telling him they're gone," Crocus sighed, Laboon wailing in the distance, "but he won't listen to me. I only heard rumors that they fled into the Calm Belt."

"Hm… they might have also been killed at the sea." Luffy suggested, making the old man and the rest of them blink.

"That was quite dark, Luffy." Nami said, while Luffy just shrugged.

"Yes, that's also a possibility, the sea shows no mercy for the weak." Crocus said, "But it would be better if Laboon understood that."

"I know!" Luffy putting his right fist on his left palm. "I'll cheer him up! And beat some sense in him." With that he jumped out of the ship, sky walking to the crying whale. Seeing Luffy use a marine's technique he was a bit surprised, but more so when he punched the whale out of crying.

"Now, why is he fighting a whale?!" Nami cried again.

Crocus didn't say anything, the punch was quite strong, but it wasn't aimed to hurt the whale, more to shock it.

"The boy is well trained… so his muscles aren't just for show," He said, rubbing his beard. As a physician, he could appreciate how well-developed Luffy's muscles were. All of them looked solid and dense, having power in them.

He then looked at his overgrown gut, it wasn't a lot. But he should start exercising a bit, Rayleigh or even Roger would make fun of him if they saw him now. The old man was in his own head while Luffy struggled with the whale trying to talk to it, while punching some sense in.

The old man's thoughts were broken when something else came out of the water.

It was a cow sea king with a fishman on the top of it's head.

"Oh, you guys made it out alive… I thought me and Momoo would need to get in through the back entrance." Hatchan said, shivering a bit, "Good thing we didn't."

Momoo internally sighed. The sea king didn't want to get into a whale, and definitely not through its poop hole.

The sea king wasn't part of the journey with the straw hats for very long. But he quite liked being with them. Not the same with Arlong and his crew, but still enjoyable.

Especially Sanji and Sparky. Sparky 'cause of being friendly to him and understanding him. And Sanji because of his cooking and while he was scared of Sanji, initially, he grew to love the cook, mainly his cooking. So he was willing to go through a few hassles for them.

Luffy was also nice, like Hatchan he could also understand him. And that was the first time he saw a human understand him. So he liked him as well. Still, it wasn't like he was their friend or anything.

"Wait… is he flying?" Mr. 9 who had woken up, and was now tied with his partner, blinked seeing Luffy. "He can fly?"

"That's the question you ask? He's fighting a freaking Island whale!" Vivi shrieked. She could see the young pirate punching the whale out, and even pushing it back. That kind of strength was just illogical.

"The beautiful lady is awake…" Sanji said noodling about.

"I don't know why… but Sparky, go to Luffy before he does something stupid." Nami said, but then saw him fighting the whale. "Well, something stupider…"

The monkey gave a thumbs up. Saying "Uk," before jumping off and skywalking as well.

"Wait, even the monkey can fly?" Vivi asked, now even more surprised. "How many of you can fly actually?"

"Oh, I can as well," Sanji said, his eyes turning to hearts as he also did skywalk. "Kuina-chwan there can do it as well."

"Well, it's nothing special," Zoro grumbled, for his lack of ability to use the technique, he was just on soru, but it won't be long until he can do that as well. After getting his three swords his combat abilities improved a lot.

Mainly because of his three-named blade costing more energy to use than a regular sword. Especially his Nozarashi, the devil fruit ability inside the sword drained quite a lot of Zoro's stamina, when in use. So he was gaining quite a bit of strength, and even though he didn't know it, he wasn't that far from Kuina anymore.

"Sure thing Marimo." Sanji mused with a smug look on his face, doing skywalk tricks to jump in the air at odd angles.

"You wanna go, curly brows?" Zoro asked, with his sword on fire.

Sanji's legs also caught fire. "Bring it, Moosehead."

Vivi and Mr 9 unconsciously crawled back a little seeing fire suddenly appear on them.

Bammm!

Both the cook and the swordsman were now on the deck, with lumps on their heads and Nami dusting her hands. "No using flames on the ship."

"Yes ma'am." Both of the men groaned from the ground.

Mr 9 gulped, what was with this crew? Just how outwardly strong were they?

Vivi was thinking the same. 'So the rumors of him standing against a warlord like Mihawk wasn't false… so that's the power of a man with a Seventy million bounty. Maybe just maybe…'

Crocodile's bounty was eighty million not that far from Luffy… so maybe, he could help her.

But now she wasn't on good terms with the crew. So she had to get on their good side first.