Chapter 47 - Thriller Bark Pt 1

Though our adventure in the Accino's icy hell was well behind us and everyone was preparing themselves for the future, that did not mean that our next destination lay immediately before us. It still took us a while to reach the staging grounds for our next adventure, and of course, that travel time left plenty of opportunities for the day-to-day going-ons of the Grand Blue. From learning more about the culture of Oda's wonderful world…

~o~

"Morning, Cross," Sanji nodded at me as he flipped the contents of his frying pan in the air.

"Mmmrgh…" I moaned in response, pawing miserably at my eyes as I shambled into the kitchen.

"Looking for this?" Robin hummed into her coffee mug, another hand of hers offering me my own cup of dark liquid.

"Mmph…" I groaned gratefully, accepting the glass and taking a deep swig from it. I then sank into the seat next to her with a pained groan, the caffeine chasing the last remnants of sleep again. "Mmm… how the hell did I ever wake up before we had Cola?"

"With less stomach cramps from drinking it on an empty stomach, I imagine," Robin observed dryly.

I winced as I took another swig from my cup, shooting her a thumbs-up. "Hurts so good."

The door to the room opened with more force than strictly necessary, and an annoyed-looking Nami stalked inside, tossing the day's newspaper on the table. "I'm getting sick and tired of them raising the price every other week. This is the first time that I'm genuinely missing Terry and Isaiah; next time we recruit a bird who can fly worth a damn, we find a way to get them to mug those thieving bastards en route."

"HELLS YES!" Soundbite cackled in agreement.

"Hells no," I shot back with a flat glare. "You touch Coo or any of his flock, you'll suddenly find yourself a dozen maps short, witch."

Nami snorted derisively, flashing me her own bird before snatching up the plate of food Sanji offered her and stomping right back out.

I shook my head as I picked up the newspaper and started scanning the front page. I then did a double-take. "Well well well! 'New Poneglyph excavated in Galridon Archipelago, South Blue'?! Now, this I gotta—!"

"I'll take that," Robin chirped, snatching the paper from my hands.

"Wha—!? HEY!" I tried to grab the papers back, but a half-dozen hands held me off as she unfolded the newspaper, not to mention the page that was suddenly dropped on my face.

"You can have the funnies," she smiled innocently, entirely ignoring me in favor of the news.

I snorted derisively, making to ball up and toss said funnies away, but something on the page caught my attention. "Hm?" I righted the comic page and regarded it curiously. "What's this? 'Sora, Warrior of the Sea'?"

"It's a comic strip the Marines publish in the papers," Sanji explained over his shoulder, shifting over from the stove so that he could start chopping something up. "The tales of the Marine Hero Sora as he travels the seas, fighting crime and evil with the help of his pet seagull and a transforming robot."

"Blech, I CAN TASTE THE propaganda from here," Soundbite spat.

"Not as much as you'd expect, actually…" Robin mused as she turned the page. "Apparently the exploits of young Sora have basis in fact, specifically the exploits of real Marines."

"Really, now?" I said before looking closer at the strip. "Then… the enemy he's fighting… Germa… what is that, an 88?"

"66," Sanji responded, the chopping making his voice sound oddly tight. "Sora's enemy is Germa 66."

"Right, them. They're always who he fights?"

"Not always, but certainly more often than not," Robin shrugged before glancing over. "Why do you ask?"

"Huh…" I held the paper out. "Well, it's just that when I consider the World Government's standard propaganda, and the consistency in using them, plus the fact that apparently these comics are actually real… I dunno, maybe these Germa guys have some basis in reality? And if so…" I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. "I'll need to see about looking into them. With the way the World Government is laying into them, I bet they're pretty strong, but the flanderization means they might not actually be that bad."

SLAM!

All three of us at the table jumped, and we turned to see that Sanji had driven his knife into… no, clean through his cutting board. Damn clean cut too.

The chef exhaled explosively as he eyed the bisected board. "Damn," he muttered.

"Are you alright, Sanji?" Robin asked.

"Yes, Robin-chwan, perfectly fine!" Sanji replied, shooting us a smile. "Sorry, my heart acted up for a second there. I should have known better than to test new peppers while I'm working."

"Eesh. Well, be more careful," I warned him even as I settled back in and got back to reading. "Your hands are your greatest tools, remember? The last thing any of us want is to see you hurt."

"I'll… keep that in mind Cross," Sanji nodded, going back to work.

"…his heart rate's up…" Soundbite muttered.

I responded with a flat look. "The man just ate an ultra-hot pepper and almost lost a finger for it. Would you be calm?"

"Yeah… yeah, fair enough…" the snail muttered, returning his eyes to the paper.

"And either way, come on," I scoffed. "It's Sanji. What could he be hiding?"

As I read on, I made a mental note to have Merry or Franky check the woodwork of the kitchen. It sounded like some stray piece of metal was hammering into the wood like a jackhammer.

~o~

…To learning even more about our home…

~o~

"…so, the next thing to cover is the third best idea Franky had for Sunny, the Soldier Dock System," Merry explained to several of the crew. She glanced towards me. "How many of them do you know about, Cross?"

I did a mental review of the ones I knew pre-time skip, and glanced back at Merry. "Well, the first one in the story was Nami's modified Waver, so that's out. The second was a shopping boat with your ghost in it, so unless you've got a twin I don't know about, that's out, too… But I'm guessing the Shark Submarine is still number three?"

Merry grinned. "Sure is, but now that means I can save the other two for a surprise!"

I cocked my eyebrow at her in surprise. "'Two'? Wait, I checked out the helm a while back. Don't the numbers go up to 6? Shouldn't there still be a few more slots open?"

"Yeah, but only 1 through 4 are for vehicular usage," she answered. "5 and 6 are occupied. 5 is the TDWS' bunk, and 6 is Boss'."

"And for the record, I love it!" Boss laughed, pumping his arms. "My own space where I can meditate and develop the Full Shell Style? I couldn't ask for much more!"

"Ahhh, but Boss!" Merry spread her arms wide with a laugh of her own. "'Much more' is exactly what Sunny has to offer!"

"Mm, yeah?" Luffy got out around the chunk of meat he was chewing on, looking over the side.

"Yep! Like over here," she elaborated, stamping her foot in the grass. The result was a sliding panel hidden in the lawn sliding open, revealing a chunk of the Sunny's inner workings. From out of the panel rose and unfolded a machine that looked a lot like one of the cranes from back home.

"This is the contribution I made in case we ever need to run salvage again!" she explained eagerly. "It's not quite as impressive as Masira's monkey, but it and the others I've also hidden will do the job for anything smaller than Big Bro. Oh!" She snapped her fingers in realization. "And they also serve a secondary purpose."

"That being?" I asked, looking over the crane.

Merry grinned as she rapped her knuckles on the railing, causing the crane to snap back and forth with more flexibility than it had any right to have. "Inspired by Franky's older inventions: a fishing rod fit for a king!" She hid a snicker behind her hand. "Sea King, that is!"

"WOO!" Luffy shot his arms up gleefully.

"Ohohohohhhh, this will be fun," Boss chuckled, rubbing his fins together.

"Niiiice…" I nodded with an impressed whistle. "No more starving, eh?"

"And no more running out of room to store stuff either~!" Merry sang. "Observe!"

She proceeded to fit her fingers in a seam in the railing and pry it open, revealing… nothing? Wait…

"It's hollow?" I asked, sticking my head into the void in the wood and looking around.

"Not all of Big Bro, but a lot of his insides, yeah!" Merry nodded in confirmation. "It's so that he'll always have room to grow, see! No more squeezing together when we go over capacity, be it in gold, food, or new friends!"

"You guys really thought of everything," Nami praised, most likely having flashed over at the mere word 'gold'.

"Eeeyes we did, yes we did!" Merry preened before reaching her arm into the void. "Though for nooow, seeing as we're not actually using the space yet…" She withdrew a metal box with a grin. "It's a great place for stashing snacks!"

"ACK!"

Merry blinked in confusion at the sudden gagging sound that arose, before giving the empty box she was holding a flat look. "Snacks that Luffy just ate."

"For crying out loud, Luffy, we've been over this a hundred times," Chopper moaned in a long-suffering tone, morphing into his Heavy Point, grabbing our gagging captain around his midsection, and dragging him over to the nearest non-grassy part of the deck. "I'm getting way too much practice at the Heimlich maneuver…"

"I'll get the kerosene," Zoro sighed.

"And I'll grab the camera for the scrapbook!" I laughed.

~o~

And finally, to learning that the thoughts I had back in that church were ones that I really, really did need to act upon.

And it was on the eve prior to our next grand endeavor that I found myself doing just that.

~o~

"…Aaaanyway, let's move on! In light of our most recent major fiasco—which will not be elaborated on for both our collective sanity and the safety of those involved—having been only the most recent example in a long line of similar incidents, it has come to my attention that too often do people—myself included, I'm afraid—have a tendency of incurring devastating results by saying exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time. As such, I have resolved to take this time to spread some invaluable knowledge to the world: how to watch what you damn say so that a certain bastard named Murphy doesn't bite you in the ass," Cross's clipped voice dryly informed the world. "I suggest taking notes; I guarantee that life will test you on this later."

"You heard him, Drake," came a cool female voice from one corner of the room.

The Lieutenant Commander scoffed dismissively. "Captain Ain, I'll admit that it's good to keep most of Cross's advice in mind, sure, but why do you feel the need to—"

"Because according to the base's scuttlebutt, you have a disturbing tendency of, to quote the pirate, 'saying the wrong thing at the wrong time'," the black-haired user of the Return-Return Fruit observed dryly. "Now start taking notes. Life might not test you immediately, but I damn well will."

Lieutenant Commander Drake shook his head with a snort as he turned and started to walk away.

"39 last month, correct?" Ain casually asked, raising her hand and illuminating it with a menacing pink glow. "Meaning that there are currently 24 years between you and puberty?"

"Never enough time to spare for note-taking!" Drake said as he immediately pivoted on his heel, cold sweat cascading down his forehead.

"Alright, lesson number one, and this is the most important one. Take this to heart, and you will avoid most fate-tempting situations. And it's this: it can always, always get worse. No matter how bad it is. And one of fate's favorite activities is proving that. A common way of doing so is that it starts raining, but ultimately it's—"

"Context-sensitive?" Soundbite grinned.

"NOT ONE WORD ABOUT THE TALKING SQUIRRELS!… but yes, context-sensitive."

"…you heard that, right? He really just said 'talking squirrels'?" Drake deadpanned.

"I gave up attempting to make any sense of their comments months ago, and besides that, talking animals are the norm for them. Now write," Ain replied just as flatly.

"Damn it…"

-o-

"Moving on, lesson number two: the universe is always listening. I cannot stress this enough. If you think you're safe to tempt fate? You aren't. Even thinking it is a bad idea, and I'm speaking from experience here."

"See the following entries in our logs, which by this point read like the ramblings of a madman: THE CASE OF THE MISSING BRUNCH, the Sandbank Inferno Incident, AND OF COURSE, THE GREAT LOBSTER BLOWOUT!"

"I swear, these waters have more noodles in them than an Olive Gar—!"

"AHE-HE-HEM!"

"Ah… aheh, never mind that. Hm… ah, pardon, viewers, I was planning to go over some other common temptations, but this was rather spur of the moment, so… Soundbite, how about a music corner while I get a list going?"

"Ladies and gentlemen—!"

"NO CONWAY TWITTY!"

"TUNE NAZI! SUCK OFFSPRING AND DIE!"

Vice Admiral Monkey D. Garp winced as he pushed open the door to his old friend and current superior's office and was greeted by a riff of hard metal. "Eesh. I swear, that damn snail's taste in music just never seems to get any better, does it?"

"No, it does not," Sengoku sighed, flexing his hand as a slightly oversized blood pressure cuff was wound around his upper arm. "But nothing he could—" Sengoku choked off his response, cleared his throat, and spoke again. "But it is my personal opinion that whatever ungodly noise he peddles is certainly better than his owner's personal brand of drek. Though…" Sengoku grinned and chuckled, prompting his attending physician to smack his clipboard over his head. "Ow!"

"Sit still, damn you," Sentomaru ordered testily, his gaze never leaving the cuff's gauge. "Otherwise, we will finish this physical on Doctor Vegapunk's operating table, under his supervision. And trust me, his bedside manners are nowhere near as generous as mine are… sir." The last word was tacked on almost as an afterthought.

"Tsk," Sengoku scoffed even as he stilled himself. "I thought you were a bodyguard."

"Bodyguard to the best mind in the world, sir," the sumo-esque man grunted as he jotted something down on his clipboard. "I'm pretty sure that if I didn't pick up a thing or two, then I'd be the one on the slab."

Sengoku harrumphed, conceding the point before changing the subject, his attention back on Garp. "As I was saying, I actually don't mind this latest broadcast; hopefully it'll help keep our own men from saying or doing anything that could potentially trigger any… compromising experiences."

"Pseudoscience," Sentomaru stated dismissively.

"Pseudo-whatsits that's bitten me and my men in the ass more times than I can count," the Vice Admiral countered.

"Oh, yeah, speaking of which," Sentomaru grunted, holding up a pill bottle. "Delivery from Vega—!"

"GAH!" Garp snatched and pocketed the bottle, eyeing his superior sidelong. "Anyway… just wanna check real quick whether or not Buddha-boy here realizes that this is going to be helping the pirates just as much as us, right?"

There was a brief moment of silence, and then a crunching sound filled the room as the armrests of Sengoku's chair splintered under his fingers. Sentomaru's eyes widened as the readings on his device suddenly spiked, and then he turned a murderous glare on Garp. "Take the snail and get out," he spat.

Given the fact that the Vice Admiral obeyed immediately, it seemed that Garp actually had some self-preservation instincts.

Or not, considering that he immediately poked his head back in. "Oh, yeah, now I remember: I came in here because I finally fixed the pagoda you broke. Can I have my snacks now?" he asked.

Sentomaru heaved a mental groan as the pressure cuff exploded off of his patient. 'They don't pay me nearly enough for this job…'

-o-

The sound of shuffling paper echoed through the bar. "Alright, some common examples: 'I'll be right back'—"

"IT TOOK US FIVE HOURS TO find Zoro, and he didn't even start on THE ISLAND WE FOUND HIM ON."

"'Nothing exciting ever happens around here'—"

"GIVE IT TIME…"

"And Soundbite's favorite, 'It's quiet… too quiet…'."

"IT SHOULD never be quiet when I'M AROUND!"

"And I'd like to remind you all that this is by no means an exhaustive list. Not even of the common temptations. Good rule of thumb: if you're wondering if something is tempting fate, don't think that it is, run."

"Words to live by," Bartolomeo nodded sagely before knocking his mug back.

"Ah, c'mon, boss!" one of the Barto Club's newer members scoffed, leaning his chair back on its rear legs with his feet on the table. "Ya don't really believe this load'a hoo-hah, do ya? I mean sure, there's a lot of weird shit on the seas, but this can't possibly be—!"

SNAP!

"—GWAGH!" said mook squawked in shock when his chair suddenly buckled beneath him, sending him tumbling.

Miss Valentine and Mr. 5 eyed him silently before glancing at one another.

"500 says he's stupid enough," Valentine blandly stated.

"Bet he ain't," 5 shrugged back just as blandly.

The mook lay groaning for a moment before shakily raising a finger. "…That doesn't prove anyth—!"

CRASH!

"ARGH!" That scream was the last thing the occupants of the bar heard as the floorboards beneath him buckled and dumped him into the basement. "…Fine, so he may have a point…"

"Damn," 5 grunted, snapping his fingers in frustration as he held up a bill to his partner.

"Never bet against the stupid," Goldenweek droned as the older assassin snatched her prize triumphantly. She then shot a surprised look at a yet-unaffected Bartolomeo and Gin. "I'm surprised that none of you East Blue-rs are surprised, though. What happened to being the weakest of the Blues?"

"Lived at the mouth of the Grand Line," Barto raised his hand. "We might have been weak, but we still saw enough to get smart. Not to mention you don't run a criminal gang anywhere and expect to live long by being that stupid."

"Krieg declared that 'Nothing can stop us now!' once we reached the peak of Reverse Mountain," Gin drawled. "Then we ran headfirst into a damn Warlord out for a walk at Reverse Mountain. What Cross is saying isn't stupid, it's fact."

"Straw Hats for us," Valentine toasted with a sigh. "One second we're saying we're in for an easy mission, the next we're picking ourselves up and out of the damn rubble."

"You know, it's not too late for me to give you a tune-up," Goldenweek hummed, her spinning brush causing her fellow ex-Agents to scoot away.

"No emotional castration, Goldenweek," Gin flatly ordered.

"Fine…" the artist sighed in an almost wistful tone.

Suddenly, the SBS' broadcast was interrupted by the "Dot dot dot dot!" of a caller, accompanied soon after by the KA-LICK of the dynamic duo answering.

"Hello and welcome to the SBS! You're live!"

"Uh, h-hello, Mr. Cross. Um, I wanted to share something I said, see if it's tempting fate?"

"Of course, of course, I'm not going to discourage more awareness. So, what was the situation and what did you say?"

"W-Well, I might have, uh, swapped my dad's hair gel for my mom's hair dye, and when I saw the result I might have, uh, said that they'd never figure out it was me."

The silence from the SBS was positively deafening.

"… Well, let me put it like this," Cross finally said. "There's a difference between tempting fate and running up to fate, punching him in the nose, and yelling 'Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough!' You get three guesses which category that falls into, and the first two don't count."

"Also? PUTTING THAT OUT here, on the SUPER PUBLIC SBS, WITHOUT blurring your voice? NOT SMART."

Barto let himself snicker a bit at both his crew's interactions and the sound of the poor kid suddenly freaking out before sobering up. "Ahright, enough fun and games, let's get to it." He withdrew a notepad and pen from his jacket and held them at the ready. "Whatcha managed to pick up?" He then scowled as he noticed his crewmates staring blankly at the pen and paper. "Hey, I might be a bastard, but that sure as shit don't make me stupid. Now c'mon! Local intel, whatcha got?"

The rest of the officers coughed abashedly before Gin raised his hand. "I've gotten word of three different pirate crews working in the local waters: the White Foam Pirates, led by 'Breaker' Bronson, ฿50 Million; the Meat Shop Pirates, led by Delgado 'The Fridge', ฿22 Million; and, uh, Hyper Force Go, led by 'Prism Champion' Seven Force, worth ฿77 million, natch. That's his actual name, by the way, apparently he got it changed or something."

"So what'd these guys do to earn their ink?" Bartolomeo questioned.

"Well for starters," Gin started counting down on his fingers. "The White Foams and the Meat Shops aren't actually that bad, in spite of the latter's name. The White Foams are surfers, you see, always looking for the next big wave or whatever. They got that big of a bounty slapped on them because they're kind of reckless about it, and they've capsized a few ships by using their own ship as a surfboard or something. The Meat Shops, meanwhile, are poachers who essentially run themselves as an exotic butcher… though from what I hear, they've discovered quite a few new species in their travels."

"Hm…" Barto nodded thoughtfully as he jotted his notes down. "And I take it from the way you put it, the Hyper Force mooks are…?

"Total bastards," Gin deadpanned. "An example would be how once, Laysan Island had a thriving mining industry based around silver, iron, and copper. Now they don't, because Hyper Force Go showed up one day, looted the mines, the warehouses, and the homes, and then just to be dicks, collapsed the mines behind them. Think a… Super Sentai team, I think it's called? Only bloodthirsty and evil."

"Tch," Barto bit out darkly. "Right… we'll swing around and kick the shit out of them while we're in the area. What about the white hats?"

"The people in the markets are loose-lipped around kids," Miss Goldenweek hummed around her frothing mug. "The bases in the local waters are G-77-Alpha and G-77-Omega. The similar identifications have put the Marines stationed at them at odds with one another in a feud, always trying to prove who's better. They never deliberately hurt civilians, they're actually decent in that regard from what I gather, but their feuding has caused them to drop the ball. A lot"

"I'll leave them up to Capricorn, then…" Barto shifted his attention to the last of his officers. "And what did you two manage to dig up?"

"Eh, not a lot, to be honest," Valentine waved her hand dismissively. "The usual black-market stuff, though the smuggling's been amped to hell and back thanks to the Marines being more concerned with each other than their jobs." She frowned darkly. "The bad news, however, is that there's a lot of people buying 'Tulip Bulbs.'"

The captain glanced up in confusion. "And why the heck would I care about that?"

"You'd care," 5 grunted as he drew a baggie of powder from his coat and dropped it on the table. "When 'Tulip Bulbs' are the newest drug to hit the waters. And with the rate they're coming in, I'd bet money we're looking at the start of a whole new drug ring in this very city. And from the size of the shipments… I'd bet it'll be a damn vicious one too."

"Mmrgh…" Barto tapped his pen on the notepad a few times before shrugging. "Well, I knew a few pushers back in Loguetown, so before we start smashing heads in a righteous indignation, let's find out if it's actually vicious, okay?"

"Going by how another name for this stuff is 'Grave Bouquet', on account of how it's always a gamble between a hell of a high and death?" Valentine deadpanned. "It's a pretty easy read."

Bartolomeo's pencil promptly snapped between his fingers. "Head-smashing it is!" he cheerfully stated through his shark-toothed grin.

"Alright, then," Mr. 5 grunted, starting to shift his shoulders back and forth. "You wanna get going now, or…?"

"Eh…" The Barto Club's captain actually cooled down at that. "Maybe. I want Lindy on this just in case, so that we can sniff out their stashes. Is Apis still raking in the dough?"

SPLOOSH!

The unmistakable sound of something displacing a few hundred gallons of water and a round of cheers and applause sounded from outside. Bartolomeo blinked, then sat back in his chair.

"We'll give 'er a few more minutes," he decided.

"Who'd have thought that putting on a Sea King water show would rake in that much cash?" Gin mused.

"Mohmoo's cuteness is a major factor in the draw," Goldenweek deadpanned. "Trust me, I know."

"But didn't she say he's not actually a Sea King?" Gin grunted.

"Kyahaha! So he can only swallow fishing boats rather than entire battleships? Not much of a difference there!" Valentine chortled. "Especially not to people who've never seen an actual Sea King!"

"Fair 'nuff…"

"Aaanyways…" Barto leered viciously. "Seeing as we've got time… HEY, BARKEEP!" he hollered at the, well, barkeep. "We're gonna be cracking a few heads in a few minutes! You got anything for the job?"

The bartender scratched his chin thoughtfully for a moment before drawing out and dropping a baseball bat onto the countertop. "Might I suggest a Winders softball bat? Mostly oak, but the ash twist offers a most admirable stability!"

Barto's turned his ear-to-ear grin on his crewmates, and he spread his arms wide. "Ya just gotta love bars with homey atmospheres!"

-o-

"And that is why you should never wear concentric circles on your shirt, ever," I concluded, nodding my head sagely as I leaned back in my seat, my arms crossed behind my head. "Aaanyway, that brings my seminar on why not to tempt fate to a close. Here's hoping that if nothing else, it serves to remind my crew and I why we should think before opening our mouths. Aside from Luffy, of course, because he's as hopeless as his grandfather that way."

"I AM NOT!" the rubber man yelled through out of one of my desk's pipes with unnecessary volume. "ANYWAY, GET DOWN HERE, CROSS! WE FOUND A—uh… SOMETHING COOL FLOATING BY THE SHIP!"

I froze, and then found myself appreciating that Luffy had actually had the sense to not identify what they found, if it was what I think it was, while I still had the SBS running. Maybe he didn't want to be compared to Garp enough to overcome his stupidity? Meh, either way, it was time to go.

"Alright, viewers, that's my cue to call it a day. So, until next time, this is Soundbite—"

"And Jeremiah Cro—WAIT, WHAT?"

"—Of the SBS, signing off," I continued without missing a beat, hanging up the transceiver in its cradle. That done, I shot a grin at a reluctantly smirking Soundbite before punching the key in my desk that connected to the deck. "Lemme take a flying guess: you morons just put a shark in the fishtank and you also found a barrel with a black sail on it?"

"Yeah, we've got it here now," Usopp responded. "Offerings to the sea god, apparently."

"Sea devil, more like," I scoffed darkly. "Tell Luffy and Zoro that there's no food or booze in there for them and then stash it somewhere safe. That being said…" I pushed down the keys I needed so that my voice carried everywhere on the ship. "Nami, if you'd check the air pressure…?"

"…sonnuva bitch ALL HANDS ON DECK! WE'VE GOT AN AIRBORNE MAELSTROM COMING DOWN ON OUR HEADS!"

"On my way, over and out," I saluted, closing my desk up and re-donning my bag and snail.

"GO TIME?" Soundbite queried.

"Big time," I nodded in solemn confirmation. With that, I exited through the trapdoor and roped down to the deck. Merry was already at the helm and running her hands over the controls, and subsequently preparing the entire Sunny about as fast as the rest of us could working together.

I was still looking around when my attention was snagged…

"Um, Cross?"

By none other than our resident gunner, prompting me to look at Conis. She was currently wearing a dark brown duster jacket over a light gray shirt with a silhouette of a double-headed eagle emblazoned on it, as a pair of rust-colored combat shorts.

"Yeah, what's up?" I asked.

"Well… I'm sorry, I don't mean to doubt you and Nami, but, well…" Conis glanced upward, one hand scratching underneath her beret.

"What my good partner is trying to ask," Su piped up, leaping onto Conis' shoulder and absentmindedly scratching at her orange-bandanna-tied neck with her hind leg. "Is if you're really sure that a storm's coming. I mean, come on!" She waved her paw up at the sky. "There isn't a cloud in the—what are you doing?"

The cloud-fox asked that question in response to my sliding my hood on. Just for the record, I myself was clad in a dark-gray hoodie with a skeleton design spread across my back, the hood itself looking like the top half of a skull. I also had on a pair of black cargo pants, and my equally-black shirt had the same cross-moline/cross-bones design that I had on my cap.

I smiled at the fox through the shadow of my hood and hat. "Oooh, I'm just relishing in the fact that you seem to have utterly ignored the lecture I just gave the world."

The world was kind enough to vindicate me via a bolt of lightning suddenly CRACKing down from the sky next to our ship, and the heavens disgorging all they could on us before the flash had even ended.

My smile widened as I regarded the drowned rat currently shivering on our gunner's shoulder. "See?"

"S-S-Sometimes, I really love this ocean," a shivering and murderous Su snarled. "O-Other times, I f-f-find myself wishing I h-had enough dexterity in my paws to flip it off like you humans can."

"If you really wanna piss off the ocean, I suggest you do it the same way that every other pirate, Marine or otherwise does it!" Funkfreed offered as he basked in the gale force winds.

Su blinked at the elephant-sword in confusion. "And that would be…?"

"YO," Soundbite drawled.

Su stared flatly at my partner for a second before snapping her attention to me. "I'll settle for mauling Cross."

I blinked in confusion at that. "Wait, wha—?"

Su leapt off Conis' shoulder at me, snarling the whole…

CLENCH!

"ACK!"

And promptly yelped in shock when I snagged her out of the air by her epithet, holding her flailing soggy form a niiiice foot away from my face.

"Nice try, but I've been training almost since the first day I arrived to survive this crazy journey. See what that's gotten me, eh?" I said with a triumphant grin.

"Yooooou…" Su snarled darkly.

"Yes, Cross, you can keep a pint-sized fox from mauling you, very admirable," Nami called down from her usual position of command on the quarterdeck.

"Now, if you don't mind?" Merry piped up from the helm she was all but bodily wrestling with to make it cooperate.

"GET BACK TO WORK!" the pair yelled in unison.

A particularly vicious swell and angling of the deck prompted me to toss Su back to Conis, and the both of us set to work, grappling with what lines Merry offered us in an effort to help stabilize Sunny and keep the Grand Line from sending us all for an impromptu swim. Despite Merry and Sunny being capable of handling most Grand Line weather on their own, we had all learned our places in case of bigger storms.

Granted, for all the spontaneity, it wasn't really that bad for Grand Line standards, especially since the new Sunny seemed equipped to handle everything. Waves taller than the Sunny itself? Yep, rode 'em like a veteran cowboy. Lightning striking all around us and nearly hitting us in the process? Absolutely, with only the rubber coverings on the mast tops saving us. Currents hard enough that Merry had to spin out the Soldier Dock System's paddles? You damn well betcha.

An iceberg just as tall and twice as wide as our roaring steed?

That… actually got us to pause in shock and no small amount of fear.

"Uhhh, Merry?" I called up hesitantly, eyeing the wall of ice that was fast bearing down on us. "I think that now might be a really good time to show that trick off!"

"Cross, there's no way we're going to squander the first time we use Sunny's SUPER! secret weapon on something like an Ice-For-Br—uh, I mean, an iceberg," Franky cut in, then grinned. "We dipped into the Dial arsenal to plan for that. Show off the Leo Fangs, Merry!"

"WAY AHEAD OF YOU!" Merry called back with a grin, pulling a lever beside her.

I heard a sound of shifting wood, but nothing seemed to happen, and we just kept growing closer to the iceberg… and closer… and closer!—

KRA-KRACK-KSSSH!

And then everyone aside from Merry and Franky dropped their jaws. Why, you ask? Because as soon as we made contact with the iceberg, it split in half. Clean in half, by the way. I caught my reflection in the ice as we passed

"…I completely approve," Leo breathed, stars twinkling in his eyes alongside his fellow apprentices, Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper.

"I don't!" Boss snorted, his chest puffed out indignantly. "I coulda easily totalled that 'berg with a single punch!"

"Cough-compensating-cough," Merry coughed into her fist over the wind.

"BITE ME! NOT YOU!" Boss barked at our helmsgirl before snapping his flipper at an open-mouthed Soundbite.

"What… just happened?" Zoro managed, completely failing to hide his shock.

"I'd say that we've just witnessed what happened to those Axe Dials I stripped off of that obese bastard Eneru had acting as his general…" Robin mused.

"Yep! Franky fit them into Big Bro Sunny's bow!" Merry cackled. "Anything that tries attacking us from the front'll be split clean in two!"

"BOW-CHICKA-BOW-WOW!"

"Nothing but good taste, eh, Soundbite?" Lassoo snickered as he yanked at a rope clenched in his teeth.

"HEY!" Nami barked at us. "If you're not scared of the storm that's still raging around us, I seriously recommend you be scared of me! SO GET TO IT!"

"GETTING TO IT!" we all chorused, rushing back to work.

But that icebreaker was the only really notable occurrence as we rushed to and fro, fighting against mother nature, until finally…

I was standing on Sunny's foredeck when it happened. The storm, it… it didn't so much let up or anything as it just seemed to stop entirely. And the clouds… rather than dissipating, it was as though we suddenly ran headfirst into them. One second we were all clear, the next the fog was suddenly just there, hanging all around us, twisting and coiling and shifting and…

Ladies and gentlemen… the illustrious Florian Triangle.

Nodding to myself as I confirmed that we had entered the ghostly stretch of seas, I looked back down at the lawn-deck, where the rest of the crew was talking amongst themselves with varying degrees of nervousness… including Usopp? Wait, shouldn't Sanji have been busting his—?

…Of course. He never left the crew. He heard about it from Kokoro the same as the rest of us did. He had no reason to be any more negative than—

'…frack,' I winced as the thought ran through my head, but I did my best to keep my cool. So, with as much casualness as I could muster, I leaned on the foredeck's railing and leered down at our sniper. "Oh, Usopp?" I sang.

He stiffened slightly before glaring up at me. "Cross, I am making every attempt to not start freaking out by focusing on how far I've come at this point. I would appreciate if you didn't try to get me freaking out."

Aaand that was the confirmation that I needed to break out my contingency plan. Before that, though… I nodded wordlessly to Usopp, who I think might have been even more shaken by the way I just turned away and started looking out into the fog.

"Soundbite, listen everywhere in your range," I muttered. "Can you hear anything? A ship, larger than the Sunny? Someone singing, a lone someone who by all rights shouldn't be singing? Anything, anything at all?"

The snail shrank in on himself at my tight tone, but nonetheless closed his eyes and focused. After a scant few seconds however, he opened his eyes and shook his head. "Nada. Silent as THE GRAVE." A small trail of sweat appeared on his shell. "THAT'S… ACTUALLY A BIT TOO literal. This ocean, it's… I KNOW WHAT I SAID BEFORE, BUT IT'S LITERALLY TOO QUIET. THIS PLACE… it's not right."

"My thoughts exactly," I sighed, shaking my head as I looked back at the crew, just in time for Nami to question me.

"So, Cross," she grit out uncertainly, spinning the lightning section of her Clima-Tact in her hand her Eisen Tempo coiled protectively around her. "This place is a ghost ocean, right? So… how do we get out of here?"

I shut my eyes as I considered, my thoughts drifting to the damned barrel resting in our hold, but there was only one response I could give.

"Just… we keep going," I muttered, my eyes sweeping the horizon—or lack thereof—all the while. "We keep on keeping on. We'll get where we need to… eventually."

"What's wrong, Cross?" Luffy piped up from where he was hanging from a line, his head tilted to the side.

I hesitated slightly at the question before shaking my head and turning away. "It's… it's nothing. We just have to keep sailing and get to where we need to, that's… that's all." I started gnawing on my metal-encased thumb as I stared into the more-grey-than-expected abyss. "Just… need to get there. Need to get—"

"Cross."

My heart felt like it was about to burst from my chest when a hand suddenly landed on my shoulder. I spun around and grabbed the limb, ready to blast it clean off with an Impa—!

"Calm down!"

And then, out of the blue, my blood pressure flatlined and I was standing in front of a visibly concerned Robin, my hand tightly clasped around her wrist.

A quick glance to the side revealed that Vivi was there too, watching me just as anxiously. She was currently wearing a light green hooded vest with a white trim over an emerald-scaled tank top, a pair of white jeans along with a green half-skirt, and on her exposed arms she had hung a pair of sashes that were white and bore green snake-like patterns, running from bracelets on her wrists to armlets on her upper arms, just below her shoulders.

I was panting as I stared at Robin, sweat collecting on the back of my neck, and finally I wrenched my grip open and let her go in favor of my own wrist, refusing to meet her gaze. "I…" I only just managed to get the words out thanks to my already waning calm. "I'm fine. It's just… nerves is all."

Robin tested her fingers before slowly raising her hand to clasp my shoulder again, which once again got a flinch out of me. "I think we both know that's a lie, Cross."

"Robin's right," Vivi nodded, her expression one of pure concern. "You deal with your nerves by laughing it off and making off color jokes that make me want to wring your—!" She trailed off when Robin shot a look at her. "…right, sorry. But still, Cross, this…" She waved her hand at me. "This is out of character."

I sighed, and shook my head. "It's… It's nothing. Nothing you can do about it. We just…" I shook my head firmly. "We just need to get out of here, alright? Just have to do what we need to do and… and get—!" My teeth clamped down on the inside of my cheek, and I shot my crewmates a pleading look. "I…I'll be fine. I-I will be fine."

Vivi and Robin exchanged uncertain looks, but ultimately Robin gave my shoulder a final reassuring squeeze before they both walked away, leaving me alone on the foredeck with Soundbite and Merry, who was too engrossed with her work to pay much attention to me as I started pacing.

In all honesty… Brook not showing up straight out of the gate wasn't my biggest concern. Time was a relative thing, after all, the travel time had shown me that, as had the filler arcs. It didn't mean much that it was taking a little more time for him to show up. Other people might have been worried, but I wasn't. I had complete and total faith that sooner or later that ship would come looming from the fog, bearing our (current) final crewmate, I just… I knew it.

No… no, the reason for my fear was… well, it was the Florian Triangle itself.

Just as he had done so many times before, Oda had failed to fully capture the truth of this location, but for once I wish I didn't have to learn that first hand. Why? Simple: Because the mists of the Triangle were just wrong. Not even evil, which would have somehow been better, just wrong.

You see, sailing on the waters of the Grand Line, I'd come to expect certain standards from the sea; I'd come to expect ever-present motion from the waves and currents and winds tugging at our ship, I'd come to expect cloud banks both big and small and innumerable sizes in between drifting and twisting through the skies, free as only clouds could be, I'd come to expect… life. Pure life.

And the Florian Triangle? The Triangle was as dead as dead could be. The water rose and sank, yes, but it was all a single smooth plane, without any breakage or energy. The air pushed and prodded at us, but it was too devoid of energy to even be a breeze. And the sky… well, the fog choked that out well enough.

The fog, that damn fog… that was the worst of it, let me tell you. That fog was everything wrong with this place, distilled into an ever-present, semi-physical aura. Hanging around us, on us, threading through us, that damn off-color air just seemed to scream the pure sentiment of wrong-wrong-WRONG.

On our way to this place, I had braced myself for the horrors and terrors of Thriller Bark. But now that I was here, in this place, experiencing it firsthand? Now I knew the truth: Thriller Bark wasn't what made the Florian Triangle scary. Thriller Bark was made terrifying by the Triangle itself.

And so it went: for interminable minutes that felt like hours, I paced to and fro on our beloved ship, trying to keep myself from freaking the hell out on account of this… this alien place we were sailing in (not an ocean, never an ocean) wanting to swallow us all.

The worst of it all, the part that really sold how devoid of life this area was, was the sheer silence. Sure, my crew and the Sunny were both making noise, but… but it just wasn't enough. Not in the face of the world seeming to cease to exist beyond the fog, not in the face of the absence of life all around us.

The silence was just so deafening, I swear that I could hear my heart jackhammering in my chest, pounding in my own damn head, louder and louder and louder…

Looking back on it, I don't know what prompted me to do it. Temporary insanity, maybe? Some deeper nerves or instinct I wasn't even aware of? Hell… maybe even my friend on high deciding to be nice with its intervention for once.

In the end, it doesn't really matter why I did it, just that I did.

One second I was suffering in silence, and the next…

"Yo-hohoho, Yo-ho-ho-hoooo…"

I suddenly opened my mouth and sang. It was just for a second, a split-second even, but the sound of my own voice was as loud as cannonfire in face of the fog's oppressive silence, and it shocked me deep enough that I fell silent for a moment. But that noise, in air of all the un-life I was drowning in, I clung to it like it was driftwood in a storm. And when the shock of it started to fade, I did the only thing I could do.

I sucked in a desperate breath and sang out anew.

"Yo-hohoho, Yo-ho-ho-hoooo… Yo-hohoho, Yo-ho-ho-hoooo…"

I started slightly when a second voice echoed alongside mine in the refrain, but a slight nudge at my shoulder got me to catch sight of Soundbite, who was grinning shakily at me. It was a scared smile, filled with terror and unease, but his presence alone gave me a dash of courage, and helped me forge on.

"Yo-hohoho, Yo-ho-ho-hoooo…" he and I repeated as loud as we dared, our voices ringing clear in the mists. "Yo-hohoho, Yo-ho-ho-hoooo…"

"Gather up all of the crew…"

Soundbite and I snapped our heads around at the third voice that suddenly joined our chorus.

Merry donned a hesitant grin even as she maintained her death grip on the helm. "It's time to ship out Binks' brew…"

My partner and I exchanged a look for before grinning. I then walked over to her, dropped my hand on her shoulder, and joined her in singing.

"Sea-wind blows, To where? Who knows?" we sang together, defying the Triangle the only way we could. "The waves will be our guide!"

"O'er across the ocean's tide…"

This time, I didn't jump when Robin grasped my shoulder. Rather, I smiled at her and clutched her hand reassuringly as we continued. "Rays of sunshine far and wide—"

"Birds they sing, Of cheerful things, In circles passing by!" Luffy's eager voice laughed up from the deck.

All four of us started in shock at the sudden interjection, and we turned to look over the railing at the lawn.

Luffy was simply hanging upside down from the rigging, swaying to and fro as he obliviously sang his joy to the world at large. "Bid farewell to weaver's town, Say so long to port renowned—"

He suddenly dropped down to the lawn and slung his arms around Chopper and Usopp's shellshocked shoulders, swaying them back and forth to the tune. "Sing a song, It won't be long!"

The other two corners of the Kiddy Trio exchanged bemused looks for a second before grinning widely and grasping Luffy's shoulders in turn. "Before we're casting off!" they cried out.

I only had to watch the trio for a second before re-donning my grin and picking up alongside them. "Cross the gold and silver seas, A salty spray puts us at ease!"

Robin joined in on the "Day and night," Merry picked up on "To our delight," and Soundbite tied us all together with a nigh-euphoric "THE VOYAGE NEVER ENDS!"

We were about to forge on, oblivious of the bemused looks the rest of the crew were giving all of us, but then…

"Gather up all of the crew," an absolutely angelic voice resonated across the deck, and we all turned to regard Vivi in awe as she swayed back and forth on her feet, her eyes closed in concentration and her hands clasped over her chest as she vocalized. "It's time to ship out Binks' brew! Pirates we, Eternally, Are challenging… the… ah… sea?" Vivi trailed off with a squeak as she suddenly realized that all eyes were on her. "I… ah…"

Vivi started when Nami suddenly rested her arm on her shoulder, and outright gaped when she started singing. "With the waves to rest our heads," Nami recited wistfully, staring into the aether with a dreamy look in her eyes. "Ship beneath us as our beds… Hoisted high, Upon the mast, Our Jolly Roger flies…"

And that, quite simply, was the final straw.

"Somewhere in the endless sky, Stormy winds are blowing wide,"

It was gradual and hesitant at first, with people piping in one after another.

"Waves are dancing, Evening comes—"

Heck, some of our crewmates didn't even know the words to the song, though Soundbite was swift to remedy that with some audio subtitles.

But in the end, no matter how clunky or off-tune we sounded, the end result was utterly unmistakable.

"It's time to sound the druuuums!" This line was sung in unison by everyone.

And that was the whole point: we were singing as a crew, every one of us, all having come to stand together on the lawn, our voices pushing against the silence and fighting back against the Triangle.

"But steady men, and never fear, Tomorrow's skies are always clear!" we sang with a single voice, our words echoing out into and throughout the void. "So pound your feet, And clap your hands 'Til sunny days retuuuuurn!"

I grinned euphorically as I cast my gaze about the deck, taking in everyone's expressions of exhiliration, of… of unity! This was just… it was incredible! Just moments ago, I'd felt like the Grim Reaper himself had had his bony fingers clenched around my throat, but now…

But now…!

My brain suddenly shifted into overdrive as an idea blazed to life, and I dashed past everyone so that I could get into the guy's quarters and wrench open and jump down the hatch to the storage room. Once inside, I started rummaging through the crates we had stocked up. I knew we'd bought one on an island we'd passed awhile back, I just knew it, now where—?

There! I beamed eagerly before wrenching the crate open, scooping up a few of the contents and running back up and out onto the deck. In response to everyone's confused looks, I tossed one of the items I was holding at Sanji.

The second the cook caught the paper lantern, his and everyone else's faces lit up with unrestrained joy.

From there… there were no words exchanged, no orders or instructions. Everyone just… just moved! Maybe we were acting on pure instinct, maybe we were so in synch with one another that we didn't need them, I don't know.

All I know is that the next five minutes were filled with motion and mounting excitement. We hung and lit lines of paper lanterns, crate after barrel of provisions and cola and booze were hauled out, Sanji fired up the grill, and someone had the bright idea to haul the piano out of the Aquarium Lounge.

After that, in what felt like no time at all, the Thousand Sunny was as radiant as its name implied, glowing from dozens of paper lanterns fighting back against the oppressive fog around us. Food and drink flowed freely, good times and cheer were held in even the dourest of our crewmates, and above all else?

"YO-HOHOHO, YO-HO-HO-HOOOOO!"

The singular song, nay, the anthem that we were all belting out, that we were displaying as prominently as any army would carry a banner into war.

"YO-HOHOHO, YO-HO-HO-HOOOOO!"

Because that's what what we were doing really boiled down to: we were fighting for our very lives. The Florian Triangle, it wanted to choke us out with its WRONG, with its un-life, so we were fighting back the only way we had, the only way we could: with life. With so much light and and noise and pure life that we could never be snuffed out, a life burning so bright that the mists and all the terror they carried with them couldn't even touch us.

And as I stood by Robin, my hand on her shoulder as she let her fingers fly across the ivory keys in a display of more energy and enthusiasm than I'd ever seen her show, I had a perfect view of that life in its entirety.

"YO-HOHOHO, YO-HO-HO-HOOOOO!"

I could see Conis and Franky plucking and strumming their respective string instruments with glee, matching the song as best they could. I could see Boss, Zoro and Nami knocking back shot after shot from a barrel they'd cracked open, all three of them looking utterly sauced from the way their cheeks were glowing and they were howling with laughter. I could see Vivi giggling as Sanji heaped dish after handmade dish on her, even as she passed off half to a slowly-swelling but still gorging Carue. I could see Merry moving her hands about like a conductor, directing the slightly off-key backing vocals of Su, Lassoo and Funkfreed. I could see the Teenage Dugong Warrior Squad staggering around completely off-balance, having somehow formed an impromptu totem pole on each other's shoulders that had a wildly flailing Leo on top and a struggling Donny on the bottom. I could even see the Kiddy Quartet kicking their legs up in drunken synch, Brook's afro bobbing to the—!

…waaaait a second.

"YO-HOHOHO, YO-HO-HO-HOOOOO!"

My eyes all but popped out of my skull when, yes, the damn walking skeleton actually joined in with the chorus we were belting out, and a quick glance around confirmed that yes, at some point or another a positively titanic vessel had docked alongside our Sunny!

Holy hell, we must have been so caught up in our festivities that he slipped right in.

I was just contemplating how I should handle this development when Brook suddenly split away from the Kiddies and loped over to a nearby barrel, springing onto it with a single bound. It was when he drew a violin and bow from his coat that I had a burst of inspiration.

Moving fast, I signalled at Soundbite and picked up the mic from my transceiver, and a moment later all noise on deck died save for that from two sources: Robin's playing on the piano, which I encouraged with a hasty squeeze of her shoulder, and Brook himself. Hence, everyone's attention was immediately snagged when the skeleton put his bow to the strings, and started to play the most beautiful music I'd ever heard from an instrument.

I'm not kidding here, Brook's playing was… it was transcendent. Soundbite had played a few violin pieces before, sure, but they all paled when compared to this. The sheer crispness of the notes, the resonance I felt in my chest, the utter emotion so obviously packed into each and every chord…

And then… he began to sing.

-One minute earlier-

"Don don don don!"

"Heh, Cross seems to be making a habit of starting a new SBS within a couple of hours of the last one," Crocus mused as he dislodged his snail's mic, Laboon having breached as close to the lighthouse as close as he could, as he always did whenever he heard the siren call of his new friends' broadcast.

This broadcast, however, was made different. Instead of an introduction, they were met by the sounds of a piano coming across, no vocals.

Then, all at once, a violin joined in with the piano. Crocus smiled wistfully as he identified the tune, and reached for a bottle of rum. Laboon, meanwhile, was swaying in the waves with just as melancholy of an expression.

"So, that's how you've elected to conquer the ghosts of Florian, is it?" Crocus sighed wistfully as he toasted the bottle. "Good. Good for them. To your good health, my friends…" And with that, he knocked the bottle back.

"Gather up all of the crew, It's time to ship out Binks' brew."

"PFFFT!" CRASH!

The retired doctor then proceeded to sputter out his drink in shock, the bottle slipping from his suddenly lax grasp and smashing to the ground. But Crocus paid it no mind, too occupied with gaping at his snail with wide, shock-filled eyes. Even Laboon, rambunctious as he usually was, fell deathly silent, for fear of accidentally drowning out even so much as a single syllable.

"Wave goodbye, But don't you cry, Our memories remain," the familiar voice crooned, a tone of longing and sadness to it, but sheer joy and euphoria ringing true like clarion. "Our days are but a passing dream, Everlasting though they seem. Beneath the moon we'll meet again, The wind's our lullaby…"

"…The Revive-Revive Fruit," Crocus breathed in realization, raising a shaking hand to his mouth as tears welled up in his eyes. "The Triangle… This whole time, you've been in the Triangle…"

A few tears slipped down Crocus' face at first, but then…

"HAHAHAHA!" the wizened keeper threw his head back and howled with laughter, slapping his knee uproariously as he wept with glee. "THEY FOUND HIM, LABOON! THOSE KIDS, THOSE ABSOLUTELY INSANE, WONDERFUL KIDS FOUND HIM! HAHAHAHAAAAAA!"

Laboon remained frozen for another few seconds, still trying to properly process just what he was hearing. Then, rearing his head back—

"BWOOOOOOOOOOOOH!"

He threw his head back and all but blasted the glass out of the lighthouse's windows with his titanic bellow. But unlike so many times before, this wasn't a cry of sorrow, of heartrending misery, but one of joy. It was a cry of love and joy, filled with ecstasy and punctuated by the fountains of tears that cascaded down the relatively young whale's mass, matching his age-old caretaker exactly.

-o-

"So gather up… all of… the…"

The sound of the party on the other side faltered for a few seconds following the solo, an air of uncertainty and hesitation coming across the connection…

"SO GATHER UP ALL OF THE CREW, IT'S TIME TO SHIP OUT BINKS' BREW!" Until Monkey D. Luffy and Jeremiah Cross suddenly chorused as one, pumping as much pure and unmitigated energy into our voices as possible. "SEA-WIND BLOWS, TO WHERE? WHO KNOWS? THE WAVES WILL BE OUR GUIDE!"

And just like that, the rest of the Straw Hats joined in and took the song from the very top as though nothing had happened, the newest addition to the voices joining in with glee.

"O'er across the ocean's tide, Rays of sunshine far and wide, Birds they sing, Of cheerful things, In circles passing by!"

A few miles away from the infamous Triangle, on an island relatively safe for pirates to land upon, one of the most infamous buccaneers of his generation scowled down at his hand, which was trembling at the very thought of that infernal patch of the sea.

"Those damn Straw Hats… they're just more pirates…" X. Drake growled to himself. He then snapped his shivering hand into a tight fist and rammed it into a nearby wall, glaring at nothing as the wood splintered around the point of impact.

"So why do they have to make it so hard to not respect them?!"

-o-

"It's been far too long since we last heard this song," Shanks declared, his crew already moving to set up a party.

"Took him some time, but it looks like Luffy finally managed to snag that musician he was always going on about!" Lucky Roo laughed around the chunk out of meat he was chewing.

"And as usual," Beckman sighed contentedly as he waved his fingers in tune with the, well, tune. "He couldn't have been satisfied with anything short of the best."

"A ROUND FOR OUR UP-AND-COMING RIVALS!" Shanks finally burst out, coercing a round of cheers from his crewmates.

"Bid farewell to weaver's town, Say so long to port renowned! Sing a song, It won't be long, Before we're casting off! Cross the gold and silver seas, A salty spray puts us at ease, Day and night, To our delight, The voyage never ends!"

-o-

"Gather up all of the crew, It' s time to ship out Binks' brew—"

"Pirates, we eternally are challenging the sea," Whitebeard rumbled with a wide grin.

"With the waves to rest our heads," Marco intoned.

"Ship beneath us as our beds," Haruta continued.

"Hoisted high upon the mast, our Jolly Roger flies!" sang the whole Moby Dick, at the same time making a massive toast towards their own flag, which they all would later swear grinned all the wider that night.

-o-

"That does it, now it's official," Rayleigh chuckled, pouring a bottle of rum. "Everything for them is on the house when they finally make it here."

"Hell, I just might pay them to leave some physical proof that they did us the honor of staying here," Shakky sighed with a smile. "This melody is so nostalgic… Somewhere in the endless sky, Stormy winds are blowing by," she sang along with the SBS.

"Waves are dancing, Evening comes," Raleigh hummed, slinging his arm around her shoulders and swaying with her to the music. "It's time to sound the drums…"

"But steady, men, and never fear, Tomorrow's skies are always clear. So pound your feet, And clap your hands, 'Til sunny days return," the two sang together.

-o-

"Yo-hohoho, Yo-ho-ho-hoooo!"

"Yo-hohoho, Yo-ho-ho-hoooo!" Buggy sang right back, chorusing along with his most hated enemies on the six seas as he swung his pickaxe with more vigor than he'd had moments before.

The rest of the work that had been going on in the tunnel halted, the Buggy Pirates staring at their captain in shock.

"C-Captain Buggy, you're actually singing with them?!" Cabaji sputtered in shock.

"HAHAHAHA! But of course!" Buggy cackled exuberantly, working with an almost religious fervor and a more honest grin than most of his men had ever seen. "I may hate that damn Straw Hat with a flashy passion, but not even that can start to get in the way of my enjoying a hearty round of Binks' Brew! The finest of pirate songs, and filled with memories of the best, worst…" Buggy's grin twitched viciously. "And absolute craziest years of my life, and the best parties of my life!

"So, yes, Cabaji!" The clown-themed pirate suddenly swung around and pointed his pickaxe at his crewmate. "I could give a flashy flip about the singers! So long as it's that song being sung, then I can't help but sing sing sing!"

And with that, the captain returned to work with renewed energy.

The rest of the crew exchanged looks for a moment before rejoining him, both in working…

"Yo-hohoho, Yo-ho-ho-hoooo!"

"Yo-hohoho, Yo-ho-ho-hoooo!"

And in singing their hearts out.

-o-

In a small camp not far from the beach where a battleship was anchored, three figures knelt beside a campfire, listening to the sound of the snail.

"Yo-hohoho, Yo-ho-ho-hoooo!"

"You know, this song isn't half-bad," Tashigi mused to herself, smiling and humming to herself as she held a sausage over the fire.

"Mrph…" Smoker grunted dismissively, wholly ignoring the way his cigar smoke appeared to be waving to and fro in time with the music.

The white-furred rabbit-wolf hybrid that was sitting on the other side of the fire across from the pair chuffed blandly, paying neither the Marines nor the song any heed in favor of the marshmallow roasting on the spike at the end of his hammer.

-o-

"Gather up all of the crew, It's time to ship out Binks' brew. Wave goodbye, But don't you cry, Our memories remain," sang out the undersea kingdom's twin princes in synch with the Strawhats, much to the delight of their big little sister, who was spending the SBS in one of her visits to the throne room rather than her Hard Shell Tower.

"Our days are but a passing dream, Everlasting though they seem, Beneath the moon we'll meet again, The wind's our lullaby," Neptune sighed happily. "Ah, it's moments like this that make me grateful that the Straw Hats provided such an inestimable opportunity, jamon."

Indeed, not long after Enies Lobby, the Ryugu King had elected to spread an ultimatum to all corners of his kingdom in an effort to guarantee that it would reach its recipient. The message was thus: if Vander Decken tried throwing anything at his daughter during the SBS, even a pebble… then he would see to it that all of the seas surrounding Fishman Island burned, and the Flying Dutchman and every thrice-damned soul onboard along with them.

Since then, there had been grace periods punctuating the ever-present onslaught of 'gifts' and advances. None long enough to get to the Sea Forest and back, but it was a major improvement, and he'd take it.

"I wasn't sure the Straw Hats actually knew this song, Father. I mean, the only reason we know it is because of Whitebeard," Fukaboshi remarked as he floated alongside his father.

"Hoh hoh hoh hoh!" the Lord of Ryugu Kingdom chortled joyously. "That particular miracle, I believe we can attribute to the new voice whom I can only assume is their newly acquired musician! But! Even so, the Straw Hats remain the epitome of the unexpected, my son, jamon. And their actions right now are all the more proof of that, jamon."

Fukaboshi blinked in confusion, and Neptune lay back in his throne with a look upward that was equal parts wistful and haunted.

"If I remember the geography surrounding Water 7 correctly, the Straw Hat Pirates are currently sailing through an accursed stretch of ocean known as the Florian Triangle. It's a frightening place even for hardened sailors, jamon. I myself dread the mere thought of swimming under it, much less sailing in the ever-present fog that has doubtless driven so many sailors insane in the past, jamon. And rather than succumbing, what do we have the Straw Hats doing?" He spread his arms out wide with a hearty chuckle. "Why, they're fending off all the dread, gloom and doom with a song and a party, jamon! Truly as admirable as Roger and Whitebeard themselves!"

The prince processed that before shaking his head in awe. "They are incredible."

The king nodded, and as he went back to enjoying the music, Fukaboshi subtly snatched up a bottle of sake and swam near the outside of the room. He held it out behind his back, and smiled lightly as he felt it leave. "You're always welcome, you know," the prince whispered before swimming back.

The recipient of the drink only responded with with a wistful sigh and a smile as he opened the bottle and poured himself a cup.

"Gather up all of the crew, It's time to ship out Binks' brew. Sing a song, and play along for all the oceans wide," the old former guard of the palace sang along beneath his breath, sipping down the brew as he sat so close to his old patrol.

-o-

And around the world, in the handful of cemeteries where the undertakers had taken to setting up Transponder Snails both to listen to the SBS themselves and to provide whatever comfort they could to those that rested—for there were many stranger things that they had learned of—it did happen that as some of them looked out among the tombstones…

Perhaps it was merely a trick of the light or dark. But those watchers would swear until the day they died that beside certain markers—markers in the North, West and East Blue, along with several in Paradise—there appeared translucent figures who danced jovially to the sound of the song.

"After all is said and done, You'll end up a skeleton, So spread your tale from dawn 'til dusk upon these foamy seas!"

-o-

And so the party went, on and on for who knows how long, until we ran out of energy and quite simply couldn't carry on any longer. Sure, we were sore as hell and tired once it was over, and the hangovers would be apocalyptic, but damn it all, it was worth it.

"Yo-hohoho, Yo-ho-ho-hoooo!"

But you know, for all that the end of the party was a blank-ass blur, I do remember one thing: the mist. As the party dragged on, the mist came back aboard the Sunny, weaving around us. But… it wasn't a sickly purple, it wasn't not-alive. Rather… it was yellow. A healthy, vibrant yellow that couldn't be anything other than life. And as the party ran on and on, I swear to you, that mist, it looked like people, dozens at once, all partying alongside us. And as we sang, I swear that their voices all joined us in chorus, celebrating our victory over the Florian Triangle.

"Yo-hohoho, Yo-ho-ho-hoooo! Yo-hohoho, Yo-ho-ho-hoooo! Yo-hohoho, Yo-ho-ho-hoooo! Yo-hohoho, Yo-ho-ho-hooooooo…"

-o-

"Yohohohohoho! My goodness! I do apologize for so rudely intruding upon your ship, but I couldn't quite help myself! I haven't had so much fun in decades!"

Yeeeaaah… fun as the party was, once it came to an end, and the SBS along with it, we still had to address the elephant on the deck, and we'd already handled Funkfreed.

Granted, while everyone was still a little disturbed, they weren't completely freaked out anymore, as evidenced by Usopp not yet wearing his exorcist garb. Kind of understandable, really. I mean, it's not like you can really be that scared of someone after you've celebrated with them like we just had. That was good. Well, for now, best to play things nice and subtle, just to be sure that things didn't—

"Question!" Luffy piped up from where he was sitting cross-legged on the railing, sticking his hand in the air. "Are you a real skeleton?"

I promptly slapped a hand to my face. Really, what had I expected? "Damn it, Luffy."

There was a ripple of shock throughout the crew, but Vivi was swift to plaster a shaky grin on her face and wave her hand dismissively. "N-N-Now Luffy, I-I-I'm certain that's not the case! I-In spite of the utter bullshit Cross spewed awhile back, t-t-the dead can't really walk the earth!"

"Y-Y-Yeah, yeah!" Donny nodded frantically, his eyes spinning with panic. "I-I-It's obviously just a costume! A really really good costume! Right?" The poor dugong snapped his frantic grin on the subject of the conversation. "R-R-Right!?"

"No, I'm a real live skeleton," Brook responded casually, as though he were discussing the weather. "See?" Aaand with that he opened his skull up…

TH-THWUMP!

Aaaand down went Donny and Vivi, foaming at the mouth.

"Although…" Brook mused as he clicked his skull shut again. "I suppose I'm not actually a live skeleton, seeing as I'm currently dead! YOHOHOHOHO!" He nearly busted a rib as he suddenly doubled over with laughter. "SKULL JOKE!"

"HEEHEEHEEhohohoHAHAHA!" Soundbite joined him in his laughing. "HILARIOUS!"

There was a brief moment of discussion as everyone huddled…

"Question!" Aaaand then of course Luffy stuck his hand up like a dumbass again. "Do you poop?"

"DON'T ASK HIM THAT!" Nami roared, her exasperation with the situation apparently hitting an all-time high.

"Yes, I do poop," Brook answered with the utmost sincerity.

"AND DON'T ANSWER IT EITHER!"

"I'm guessing they hurt like hell…" Mikey bowed his head solemnly, before snapping his flippers up so that he was pointing at Brook with a shit-eating grin. "Because they're always bone-dry!"

"YOHOHOHOHO!" Brook laughed as he pointed right back. "SKULL JOKE!"

SLA-SLAM!

"THAT'S WORSE THAN THE LAST ONE!" Raphey roared as she towered above the pair's insensate and smoking forms, then turned towards our captain. "AND YOU—!"

"Oh, please, Raphey, allow me," I deadpanned. "Hey, Luffy, remember how I told you how being stupid was gonna start to hurt?"

"Eh?" Luffy tilted his head to the side in confusion. "Yeah. Why?"

By way of response, I raised my right hand and snapped my fingers.

SLAM! "MMMPH!"

I was then rewarded by the sight of Luffy stumbling around with his head stuck in his chest thanks to a certain elephant slamming his trunk on his head. "Now, that feels good," I sighed contentedly.

"Wow. I like this even more than my usual punches," Nami remarked.

"I'll keep that in mind," I nodded right back.

"Yeah, yeah, it's all fun and games to see Luffy get his just desserts!" Franky bit out nervously as he kept a wary eye on Brook. "But c'mon, can we please focus on the undead guy on the deck?"

"Oh, certainly," Conis said calmly. She then… walked over to Brook, who'd recovered from Raphey's 'disciplining' with admirable swiftness, and gave him a politely shallow bow. "Welcome to the Thousand Sunny, Mister Skeleton, ship and home of the Straw Hat Pirates. My name is Conis, the crew's gunner, and this is my partner Su. Say hello to the nice skeleton, Su."

"Ooooh honey…" Su moaned, dragging her paw down her muzzle.

"Yohohoho! What a polite talking white fox!" Brook laughed as he doffed his hat in greeting. "I am Brook, gentleman skeleton! Truly, it is a pleasure to meet you all!"

"And it's a pleasure to meet you as well, Mister Brook!" Conis smiled beatifically, clasping his hand and shaking it enthusiastically. She was then broken out of her politeness by a tug on her leg, prompting her to glance down. "Yes, Merry?"

"Conis," the ship-girl started uncertainly. "You… are aware that the living dead aren't normal or common down here… right?"

Conis stared down at Merry a second longer before slooowly returning her gaze to Brook… who'd leant forwards so that his fleshless face was right in hers.

"Pardon me, young lady," he said with the utmost seriousness. "But may I please see your panties?"

Intriguingly enough, though Conis' expression remained petrified in a polite smile, her antenna-hairstyle actually twitched. Once, twice…

FWUMP!

Aaaand she'd just keeled forward and was out for the count, pushing up the bubbly alongside our princess and intellectual Dugong.

Lassoo cocked his eyebrow as he poked at the angel with his paw. "You'd think she'd be used to the weirdness after living with talking animals on a daily basis."

"Oh, of course!" Brook laughed lightheartedly as he slapped a hand to his forehead. "I knew I was forgetting something! If you'll excuse me… GOOD GOD YOUR ANIMALS ARE TALKING!" the 'gentleman' skeleton shrieked as he leapt several feet in the air.

"LIKE YOU HAVE ANY ROOM TO FREAK OUT OVER SOMETHING THAT NORMAL!" pretty much… everyone really, roared at him in response.

"Alright, that's it," I groaned, walking over and yanking the skeleton out of the tree he'd inadvertently leapt into and subsequently drawing everyone's attention. "Yes, everyone, skeletons aren't supposed to be alive. On the other hand, animals aren't supposed to talk, either. Also, reindeer shouldn't be part human, guns shouldn't turn into dachshunds, swords shouldn't turn into elephants, ships shouldn't turn into girls, people shouldn't be able to stretch or grow limbs anywhere and everywhere and WHY DO I STILL HAVE TO SPELL THIS OUT WHEN WE'VE TRAVELED ALMOST HALF OF THE FREAKING GRAND LINE?!" I capped off by roaring my exasperation to the high heavens because holy hell how were they still all this thick, especially the two living thanks to damn Devil—oh right, one was halfway senile… now I just made myself sad…

On the other hand, everyone else on the crew was looking very suitably chastised, especially the erstwhile fainted whom I had apparently woken up, and the other Fruit Users.

…well, most of the other Fruit Users, at any rate, Luffy's head was still—

POP! "GAH! AIR!"

Oh, no, never mind, he'd just reached in and pulled his head out. Kinda freaky.

"Whoo, I almost died…" Luffy panted with relief before looking around in confusion. "What'd I miss?"

"Devil Fruit," Zoro deadpanned, pointing at Brook.

"Everyone else on this ship being as dimwitted as you," I deadpanned at the same time.

"Awww…" Luffy sagged for a second, at the news about Brook if I had to guess, before perking up with his usual smile. "Still pretty cool, though! Hey, I've been trying to find a musician since the start! Wanna join my crew?"

"WHAT?!" most of the crew yelled.

"Why, I'd love to!" Brook responded pleasantly.

"WHAAAAAT!?"

"Funkfreed," Nami snarled murderously.

"No no," I waved the elephant down. "I'm actually gonna let this one slide."

"Are you—?"

"THE TDWS FORMALLY PROTESTS THE INCLUSION OF A LIVING SKELETON ON OUR CREW!" Leo barked suddenly, drawing everyone's attention to where the aforementioned quartet of dugongs were all looking with varying degrees of nervousness at Brook. Well, that wouldn't do.

"Did I mention he's a swordsman?" I posed innocently.

"LIKE I WAS SAYING, WELCOME TO THE CREW, BROOK!" Leo exclaimed, shaking the musician's bony hand while two of his fellow apprentices sagged in defeat, and Mikey seemed to perk up.

"Wait!"

The humor of the situation cut off when, of all people, Merry spoke up, her gaze focused on the galleon beside us and… filled with sadness? "The old man, he… he's really sad, but… he says that Brook can't join because…" She slowly turned her sorrowful gaze to Brook. "Because he's already a captain. Captain Brook… of the Rumbar Pirates."

…So, that's how a skeleton can look simultaneously poleaxed and sorrowful. "I… ah, I… y-yes, I suppose that's… I-I-I'm sorry, it's just that for a moment…"

"Rumbar… Rumbar… where have I heard that before?" Soundbite muttered on my shoulder.

I opened my mouth to tell Soundbite to clam it, but then I actually thought.

And then instead, I spoke thusly: "Yohoho and an afro, my friend."

Soundbite's ashen complexion went straight-up white, and he slowly rotated his eyestalks to stare at me with naked, gaping astonishment. "Not possible…"

"A saying from my old world, my friend," I whispered back reverentially. "Oda, the great creator of this world? He never. Ever. Forgets."

Soundbite stared at me a moment longer before slowly looking back at a still babbling Brook. "Cross… C-Can I…? Should I—?"

"Soundbite."

The snail snapped his teeth shut.

"What you see before you is still relatively canon. The words you are thinking of are canonballs."

I grinned viciously.

"Fire at will."

And just like that, Soundbite's grin was back and more savage than ever. "YES, SIR! HEY!" he then proceeded to bark at full volume, capturing everyone's attention. "HOLD EVERYTHING! I JUST FIGURED SOMETHING OUT ABOUT OUR GUEST!"

"Took this long to realize he's a skeleton? Who makes the obligatory 'snails are slow' joke this time?" Su snarked.

"CAN IT, COTTONTAIL!" my partner snapped, glaring at Su with enough force that she actually recoiled. "I realized WHAT he was IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PARTY, but the LAST TIME I SAW anyone THAT HAPPY WAS when my partner here saved Merry. I WASN'T GONNA RUIN THAT."

"Ah… ahem…" Su coughed into her paw abashedly.

He looked back at Brook a second later, his eyes wide in shock. "No… I just realized exactly WHO he is. FIFTY YEARS AGO, A CREW LEFT AN ISLAND WHALE AT THE TWIN CAPES, at the start of the Grand Line… before disappearing into oblivion. THE NAME OF THOSE PIRATES?" Soundbite snapped his gaze to the massive galleon beside us. "THE RUMBAR PIRATES!"

The words sent a ripple of shock through the original six East Blue dwellers of our crew.

"Wait… Island Whale?" Nami breathed, shock written over her face.

"You… You can't be serious!" Usopp managed to get out.

But compared to Brook, these reactions were tame.

"Whale…" he gasped in shock, staggering back as though he'd been physically struck. "You—? Y-You can't mean—!"

"I DAMN WELL DO!" Soundbite nodded firmly, his gaze never leaving the skeleton. "Fifty years but still going strong. A TRAGIC TALE, BUT ONE I'LL NEVER FORGET! AND ONE THAT CAN ONLY MEAN ONE THING! This man, this Brook… is the last surviving member of the Rumbar Pirates!"

Soundbite then threw his head back and shouted the most shocking truth that the Florian Triangle had ever hid away for all to hear.

"HE'S THE LAST OF LABOON'S FRIEEEEENDS!"

Brook staggered back, as though physically struck. "You… you know Laboon…?" he stammered out weakly, apparently incapable of believing his own ears. Or lack thereof, anyways.

…hey, this was actually pretty fun! For now, though…

"Merry," I spoke up, drawing the ship-girl's attention. "Would you mind filling in the rest of the crew about our first adventure in the Grand Line real quick? I'll just need a second."

Merry snapped up a salute with a grin, and while she was holding everyone's attention, I stepped up close to Brook and captured his. And Luffy's, though the rubber-man was only half-listening.

"In case you're still thinking about saying no," I muttered sotto voce, so as to avoid distracting anyone from our helmsgirl. "Let me give you a little background on our crew: we've managed to garner something of a reputation for ironclad loyalty. Anytime anyone hurts one of ours in any way, they pay for it but good. To date, our scorecard has a grand total of the top four names on the East Blue's Most Wanted list, one Warlord of the Seas and the Blue-spanning criminal organization he created, one lightning-Logia bastard with a god-complex, and most recently, the entire Judicial Island of Enies Lobby and the ten battleships that tried to stop us… along with Cipher Pol No. 9, if that means anything to you."

Going by how Brook sucked in a breath he didn't need, I'd say it damn well did.

"Even besides that, most all of us also have a damn decent moral compass that doesn't take much bullshit. Now, we scooped up an 'offering to the sea gods' right before we entered this hell ocean and we still have it in our hold. Tell me, Mister Skeleton…" I shot a grin up at the old man's bony (HA!) visage. "What the hell do you think this crew is going to do when they find out just how naughty the overgrown shadow-lizard's been, hm?"

"NAAAAUGHTYYY…" Soundbite drawled with a distinctly sadistic overtone.

"…Before I say anything about that… Laboon. He's still—?"

"Waiting at the Twin Capes with Crocus. And you wanna know something else?" I grinned as I patted the bag beside me, drawing his attention to it. "The device in this bag can transmit Soundbite's broadcast to Transponder Snails all around the world simultaneously. And I had it running from the second you started to sing."

Brook started to tremble. "So… So, so long as Crocus has a snail—!"

"My friend," I breathed kindly as I clapped my hand on his shoulder. "Not only is Laboon still waiting for you… but now, for the first time in decades, he and Crocus both know that you're still alive. They know you're coming back."

That tore it. Brook sank to his knees, overcome with emotion, and impossibly, tears started streaming out of his eye sockets.

For a few seconds, he shuddered and gasped breathlessly (though he had no lungs to breathe with, so much damn fun!), garnering our whole crew's attention. After those seconds, however…

"Uh… Uhh… UWAAAAAAAAAAH!"

The skeleton let loose a howl of pure emotion, his voice echoing out across the placid waters of the Triangle and all but rending the air itself apart.

William Friedkin could go and suck it. This? This right here was a real exorcism. Right here, right now, we were witnessing fifty years' worth of ghosts and demons and nightmares and the wrong of the Florian Triangle vacating the mind and soul of this… well, poor soul, in a singular wail of pure, undaunted emotion.

It drew everyone's attention, and even once it drew to a close Brook still sobbed for a few more minutes, though these sobs were distinctly joyful rather than agonized. I… honestly don't think that I could imagine how he was feeling, to learn that the entire reason he'd gone through fifty years of purgatorial torture was still there, still waiting for him, justifying the fact that he'd stayed alive.

Finally, he straightened, and despite the lack of clarity in his distinctly inflexible face, it was clear that he was smiling. He made to speak, but then glanced down at Merry, who was looking back at the galleon with a bittersweet grin.

"The old man had a change of heart. 'Popular vote', apparently," she said softly.

Brook looked back at the galleon, a sad fondness evident in his eye sockets. "…You've helped me stay alive for so long. But our struggle is over; you can rest now."

The galleon seemed to literally sag with relief in the water, a tremulous groan shivering its aged timbers.

His task complete, Brook straightened what little of his suit was intact before digging his hand into his jacket and withdrawing a yellowed piece of paper, which he held up before himself with his fingertips, his other hand proudly gripping his collar. "Allow me to introduce myself in a proper manner befitting a gentleman. I stand before you now and as I am as a result of the Revive-Revive Fruit. But in my previous life, I was known as acting captain of the Rumbar Pirates, 'Humming' Brook, worth a bounty of ฿33 million. The greatest bond shared among the Rumbar Pirates, one and all, was a love, a passion, for music in all its beautiful and wondrous forms. And, not to toot my own horn here—!"

BRAP!

He chose that exact moment to let a blast of gas somehow escape his fleshless cheeks, eliciting eager smiles from half our crew and looks of dread and revulsion from the rest.

"—Excuse me, I snagged some beans during that party. But as I was saying, I do not believe it an exaggeration to claim that I was amongst the most, if not the most talented musician amidst my many beloved friends. Now then, that all being said…"

While Luffy practically vibrated with ill-concealed glee, Brook tilted his head to the side in a look of honest curiosity.

"I believe I heard some mention of an opening for a musician on your fine crew?"

"FINALLY!" Luffy whooped, throwing his arms up with a gleeful cackle.

"We got a skeleton~, We got a skeleton~!" Chopper, Usopp and Mikey sang as they spun 'round and round, hand in hand.

"A delicious-looking skeleton…" Lassoo panted eagerly, slobber all but fountaining from his slack maw. The suddenly terrified skeleton shuddered and inched away from the mutt before freezing in confusion when he suddenly found a dugong latched around his leg.

"So, Cross said you're a swordsman, huh?" Leo asked, staring up at the skeleton with eyes full of desperation.

"Hmm? Oh, yes, of course," Brook said, adjusting the grip on his cane and pulling the blade within out by a few inches. "I believe the blade could benefit from a good sharpening, but my skills with it have not faded at all."

"THANK GOODNESS! I was going crazy being that—" He jabbed his flipper at a bored but somehow still-attentive Zoro. "DEMON'S sole living whetstone! Welcome to the grind, bub!"

Brook blinked in surprise before raising his cane in a salute. "I look forward to the chance to refine my skills, good sir!"

"Good for you, really… but still, while I have you, Brook?"

Brook turned his attention towards Nami, and promptly locked up on account of the sheer contrast between her beatific smile and the roiling thunderclouds that framed her.

"I just want you to know," she simpered very politely. "That I remember that little 'see your panties' comment earlier, and that every night I will be counting my underwear. If I find that so much as a frill of my tighty-laceys has been disturbed—!"

"'Zap'?" Brook guessed weakly.

The Eisen Tempo promptly reverted to an angelic, complimentary white that only served to accent the falseness of her smile. "Now you get it!" Her eyes flicked slightly upward, and she frowned. "Also, the afro is bringing up some unpleasant memories for me, of a…" She shot a glare at an unapologetically whistling Boss. "Manly nature. Any chance you could cut it down a—"

"ABSOLUTELY NOT!" Brook exclaimed, startling Nami and everyone else. The skeleton gingerly ran a hand across his hair. "You see what I've become after dying; it took a year to find my way back to my body, and by that time everything that I once was had withered away. All except for my hair, thanks to the strong roots I have. It's the last evidence of my former life, my former appearance, and if I were to lose it as well…"

The skeleton clenched his fists. "If I lost my hair, Laboon would never recognize me. Until we meet again, I will not allow any harm to come to this afro!"

Nami lowered her staff with a soft sigh. "Alright, I'm sorry. No touching the hair."

Brook nodded gratefully, then rubbed the back of his skull. "Ah, but I believe I should mention… Cross, I believe? He seems to be aware, but I'm currently missing one other part of me that I need before we leave this cursed sea."

"And on that note!" I stated. "If you'll excuse me for a minute, I need to go and grab something real quick." With that, I rapped my fist on the mast and rode up to my radio room. I then moved to the desk, withdrew a piece of tightly-rolled paper that I had compiled before we met the Accinos, and returned to the deck before showing it to them.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this scroll contains the strategy I came up with for dealing with the antagonists of our next adventure. And now, in light of recent events…"

I tossed the scroll over my shoulder to where I knew Lassoo and Funkfreed were standing. And going by the FWOOSH and SHINK sounds that erupted a moment later, the plans had been disposed of as the trash they now were.

"Those plans," I chuckled. "Are now completely and utterly obsolete."

Luffy was grinning eagerly, Brook was looking on in confusion, and everyone else was watching with varying degrees of eagerness and apprehension.

"So, now that that strategy is toast, here's the new one. Our first order of business is to go through introductions for our newest crew member, and of course, for me to tell him my secret. Once we've done that, so as to avoid me going against captain's orders, Brook is going to tell us everything he knows about our next destination. After all, it's not really spoilers if he's just elaborating on incomplete intel, hmm?"

Luffy tilted his head to the side, then shrugged in acceptance.

"Right. After he's done, I'm going to fill in the few crucial blanks remaining. And then, using all of that knowledge, we're going to make a plan for doing something that, up until now, not even I was bold enough to try."

I raised my head and showed off a grin that made several members of the crew swallow.

"We're gonna flip the script. Completely. Utterly. And when all is said and done…"

I widened my grin to sadistic levels.

"Vivi, I give you my solemn word: I will proudly take responsibility for the Wandering Undead Island of Thriller Bark, or at least a goodly chunk of it, being on fire."

Cross-Brain AN: Whatever you thought we were planning for Thriller Bark? Rethink it; up until now, we've messed with canon but kept to the main lines. But this time? This time, we're changing everything.