Chapter 53 - Little East Blue Pt 1 1/4

Chapter 53

Cross-Brain AN: The following arc shall be a unique one: As the Straw Hats enjoy themselves a blissful little bit of shore leave in this mini-saga, so too shall you readers enjoy a break… from Cross! Hit it!

"Hammer."

Tool pressed into his hand, Usopp slipped his goggles down, kneeled in the grass of the Thousand Sunny's pavilion, and carefully maneuvered the hammer to just the right spot. He hoped. Sea prism stone, for all its hardness and the fact that it was a metal, was very brittle fresh from cooling down from forge temperatures. He and Franky, who was watching closely behind him, had found that out the hard way, and neither was very eager to wait for another island where they could heat a forge hot enough to melt the stuff.

Finally locating the spot, he raised the hammer and brought it down, the clay covering the hook cracking and flaking off. Underneath, the stone was pristine, and Usopp breathed a sigh of relief.

"Well, looks good," he reported, straightening up as he wiped his forehead. "Even if the heating function doesn't work, Boss'll be able to brain people just fine."

"It'll super work," Franky stated with all the certainty of most conspiracy theorists. Taking the hook, he slotted a Dial into an open crevice, clicked a panel into place, and tapped it on the anvil, a telltale heat haze rising seconds later. "See?"

Usopp whooped victoriously and pumped his fist. "Finally! Man, this was taking forever!" The tinker-sniper grinned eagerly as he wrung his hands. "The next ones should be super easy now!"

"Don't steal my line, long nose," Franky chuckled in warning, absentmindedly reaching for their cache of weapons. His hands closed on air and sackcloth, and he glanced over at the limp, sad, empty sack. "Hey, Usopp, where are the next ones?"

"Huh?" Usopp glanced over at the bag before snapping his fingers. "Oh, yeah, I decided to wait on getting those because of how tricky I thought it would be to make the materials cooperate."

"Well, you were right, but we've got it now. So, where's—aha!" Franky exclaimed, leaning out of the pavilion and pointing upward.

Usopp followed his finger to the sleeping form of Cross, lying on a few ropes tied between two of Sunny's lines. He frowned. "Hey, Franky, did you consider putting some hammocks on Sunny's masts during the design process?"

"Nope," Franky replied. "But I'm not surprised Cross improvised one anyway. Honestly, I'm amazed that the whole thing hasn't come undone yet."

"And… for curiosity's sake, where's the control panel for those lines?"

A grin slowly came over Franky's face as he jabbed a thumb at a nearby section of paneling. "From what I've managed to get out of Merry's modifications? Third panel from the right, right over there," he said, voice brimming with anticipation.

Usopp nodded, and then eyed Cross snoozing contentedly in his makeshift hammock. He looked back at the hidden controls for the Sunny's lines, and then at the tactician again, an evil grin growing on his face, joined by an equally evil glint in his eyes and a silent thumbs-up from Franky. Creeping up to the controls, he took a few seconds to examine them and then rapped his knuckles against the panel.

To Usopp's alarm—and a little amusement—Cross was not flipped onto the deck by the lines suddenly unraveling as he'd planned. What did happen was arguably even better: a pulley came falling out of the sky and did verily smack him right on the forehead. Letting out a cry of pain, Cross clutched his forehead and immediately flailed himself out of his resting place and onto the deck with a meaty thump.

"Sonnuva—what the hell, Merry!?" he yelped, clutching his forehead.

"NOT IT!" Merry called out from the helm, more amusement than offense in her voice.

"Sorry, Cross!" Usopp called back as he vaulted out of the pavilion, hiding the urge to snicker. "That was me! I was just trying to get the ropes to flip you onto the lawn!"

"Same question!"

"Fastest way to wake you up, and it would have been a soft landing, plus it was going to be, and still was, funny," was the shameless answer. "And now that you're up, I just finished confirming that sea prism stone doesn't interfere with Dials, so I need to borrow your hat and armor so I can upgrade them."

Cross blinked, and then he flipped himself into a sitting position, his annoyance and frustration visibly gone. "Sea prism stone upgrades? That's what you were working on?" he asked.

"What the heck did you expect after that fiasco on Thriller Bark?" Franky replied, slipping his fist's skin off and displaying his new (literal) brass knuckles. "If we had some of this on hand when Moria woke up, it wouldn't have been half the nightmare it was. I doubt that's the last time we'll get blindsided, but thanks to the Accinos and Enies, it is the last time we'll be completely unprepared. Any Ability-user that messes with us in the future is gonna be in for a nasty surprise."

"And so will you unless you can explain why you didn't think to consult anyone else about this."

The trio turned to Zoro, who was climbing down the mast, his usual scowl even more pronounced than normal. "I was willing to go with the salt paste because it was a one-time thing and easy to get off. But I'm not going to lace my swords with—"

"Oh, give it a rest, Zoro, we all know how much of a purist you are," Cross stated flatly, waving away the objections.

"And we took that into account," Usopp added, tossing some bottle cap-like objects at the swordsman, who caught them reflexively. "We designed caps to go on the bottom of your hilts. They're not touching the blades, so no problem there, right?"

Zoro looked from the caps to his swords and then to Usopp. Eventually, he nodded in acceptance.

"I'll need to think about practicing pommel strikes…" he muttered. "Haven't done those in ages…" With that, he stalked off, probably to start training. With his back turned towards them, Usopp visibly relaxed.

"Whew… thank goodness that worked, I saw my life flash before my eyes…" Usopp sighed in relief, before turning his eyes to the third mate. "So, Cross?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll get them to you in a second," he groused, knocking on the mast to bring down a rope. "And for the record? Watch your head."

Usopp swallowed nervously as the tactician shot up and out of sight before glancing around. "A-Alright, now, where's Nami?"

"Right here," Nami called, emerging from the back of the ship and walking towards him. "What do you need?"

"I need to borrow your Clima-Tact to refit it with sea prism stone."

Nami blinked, glancing at her staff, then back at Usopp. "Not gonna question it, I'll just roll with the good fortune. How long will it take?"

"Two hours to fit the entire staff, or one if I just do the orbs or the rods."

"Just go for the orbs, then," Nami said, handing over the staff. "I'd rather not have it out of reach for longer than I need to, and we're better off leaving some space so that if someone other than me needs to grab it, they don't get conked out."

"Ditto there!"

CLANG!

"GAH!" Usopp yelped, his heart rate spiking as a mass of armor sailed inches above his head. He immediately turned on Cross as the third mate rode a line back down to the deck, his limbs wrapped in bandages. "What was that for!?"

"Oh, lighten up, it was funny!" the transdimensional traveler said in a god-awful imitation of Usopp's own voice. "But, ah, in all seriousness, I'm with Nami. I'd prefer it if Chopper could actually touch me while he put me back together."

"And if we didn't conk right out whenever he grabbed us, that'd be great," Lassoo added from where he was snoozing in the sun.

"Don't worry, I'll just give him Sea-Stone knuckles along with a few traces on the inside for reinforcement," Usopp assured them. "They won't be anywhere near you."

"Then in that case, do your best!" Funkfreed chimed in.

Light glinted off of Franky's teeth as he flashed them all a thumbs-up. "You can super! count on us!"

"Well, while we're counting on them…" Cross mused thoughtfully, shooting an eager grin at his larger partners. "You guys wanna touch up on me dual-wielding you? It'd be nice to get some input on how to coordinate using the two of you at the same time!… Y'know, outside of pitched combat."

"Wha—Seriously!?" Lassoo barked eagerly, scrambling to his paws and loping up to his wielder with an eager whoof, nearly bowling Cross over in his slobbering enthusiasm. "Hells yes! Let's see some action!"

"WATCH IT, ODIE!" Soundbite gagged as he snapped into his shell. "I CAN TAKE SOME FOREIGN SLIME, NOT A FLOOD!"

"Gah! Alright, alright, down boy!" Cross laughed, holding the dog away by his chest. Once he had some breathing room, he eyed the dog with an appreciative whistle. "Eesh, boy, watch it, you almost flattened me! Seriously, have you put on weight or something?"

"The better to blast them with!" Lassoo crowed, fangs flashing.

"He's got a point there!" Funkfreed said as he used his trunk to haul his fellow weapon off. "But, ah, first, before we get into it, maybe we should talk a little first so that we can hash things out?"

"Ah… eheh, right…" Lassoo smiled sheepishly, one hind leg going up to scratch at his ear. "Fair 'nuff…"

"LET'S GET TO IT!" Soundbite commanded.

And with that, the quartet moved to a corner of the deck and started to talk.

Franky, meanwhile, had gone back into the pavilion, and as Cross and his partners went to work he'd hauled a large bag out and dropped it on the lawn. "Alright, that's all the Dial-based weapons except for Conis's—"

"And I've already got enough non-Dial weapons of hers outfitted, along with some ammo that I'll be splitting with her," Usopp finished, digging through the bag and handing out the appropriate equipment to everyone as they passed by. "For everyone else, we've got a new pipe for Luffy with the ends reinforced—!"

"WOOHOO!" Luffy whooped as he swung by and snatched the pipe out of Usopp's hand. The marksman, to his credit, didn't miss a beat.

"—two pairs of detachable soles for Sanji, four scalpels for Chopper, a butterfly knife for Robin—and I still say it's freaky how good she is with those things, former assassin or not."

"Well, I am from the West Blue," Robin chuckled, spinning the blade through her fingers with terrifying expertise. "And… 'former,' hmm? Cute."

Usopp gulped audibly, tugging at his collar. "R-Right… anyway, the blades for Vivi and Carue's weapons have been tempered, along with Raphey's shuriken and sai, and we've reinforced Mikey's nunchucks and Donny's staff. With all that, we don't have a lot of sea prism stone left unless we wanna cut into the half-dozen pairs of cuffs we have left—"

"Hell to pay if you do!" Cross called over.

"Noted!" Franky shouted back before cocking an eyebrow at his partner-in-forge. "So what else do we need and can we pull it off with what we have left?"

"Uh, let's see…" Usopp muttered. "A few of Donny's Kunai if we can manage it… and we still need something for Brook and Merry. Brook is easy enough, we can just reinforce his sheath, but what about Merry?"

"Easy enough! But first!"

CLONK!

"OW!" Usopp yelped as the ship's helmsgirl dropped out of the rigging and bounced off his head.

"Leggo my Big Bro! Got it?!" she ordered, puffing out her cheeks with an adorable scowl on her face. "It was funny that time, but you could have done something really dangerous! Or stupid! Or stupidly dangerous or dangerously stupid!"

"Noted…" Usopp groaned as he poked at the growing lump rising from his scalp. "Anyway… you were saying?"

"Oh, right!" Merry brightened up. "Yeah, it's easy: just make some sheaths or casings or something for some hooks and pulleys. One or two oughta do, and then I can let Big Bro do the rest!"

Usopp and Franky exchanged looks, then turned back at her. "And what about if you're not on the ship?" the marksman asked.

Merry's expression fell flat, and she cast a pointed glance to the side. "Then someone screwed up, and someone is going to get their ass kicked."

"Love you too, Merry," Cross called back, rolling his eyes at the not-so-subtle warning. "And fair warning, you two? Brook should be indisposed right now, so you'll have to fetch his blade yourselves."

"Indisposed? Doing wha—? OK, stupid question, not like anyone's doing much else today," Franky said. "What kind of training is he doing, then?"

"Eh… well, you already know that Brook was in the Florian Triangle for fifty years before we met him," Cross began, grimacing. "But in all that time, he never tried exploring the limits of the Revive-Revive Fruit. Coming back from the dead granted him a few powers that he hasn't explored, and once he unlocks them he's going to get a major boost in abilities. But it all depends on him getting back to the basics of his power first."

"Aaaand… he's doing that how, exactly?" Merry slowly queried.

Cross's grimace deepened, and he glanced to the side and scratched his cheek. "Weeeell…"

-o-

"I am experiencing many conflicted feelings at the moment…"

Brook shivered, shaking the bag he was trussed up in as he uneasily eye-socketed the barrel of water sitting under him.

"Trust me, this isn't my idea of fun either," Chopper groused, furiously scribbling his stream of thoughts into a notebook. "But, as uncomfortable as this idea might be, I can't fault Cross's logic. So unless you'd rather go for meditation or something like that—?"

"Grk!" Brook's jaw set uncomfortably, teeth clicking. "My, ah, m-my mind is not exactly the kind of place I would like to willingly delve into, no thank you."

"Then this is the best option we have to get the best results in the shortest amount of time… no matter how much I might not like it…" Chopper sighed in conclusion.

"Not exactly having a fun time here either, ya know!" Donny piped up, gritting his teeth as he shifted his grip on the rope that was keeping Brook suspended above the barrel of seawater. "And why is it that you picked me for this, anyway? Half the crew, including all of my bros outrank me in muscle, and Merry, Robin, and even Luffy outrank me on Devil Fruit knowledge on top of that, and none of them were busy last time I checked!"

"Simple, Donny," Chopper stated, locking eyes with the dugong. "Effective five minutes ago, you're my assistant."

Donny's brain froze up, unable to process the reindeer's statement. He just managed to catch himself before he let Brook's rope slip, but he was still left staring blankly at Chopper with his mouth slightly open until the doctor elaborated.

"The crew is taking too many and too serious injuries for me to handle on my own anymore, and while Merry has the skills to help me, she's got muscle memory but not much else," Chopper answered, not looking up from his note-taking. "She'll do for first aid, and nursing with a little training, but I need someone else for a more permanent position, and until further notice that's going to be you, unless you're going to tell me that you don't want it."

Donny blinked several times as he thought it over. He was always the smart one among his siblings, and often was the one who told them how to patch up their injuries with the local remedies back in Alabasta. All things considered, he wasn't really opposed to the idea of standing by Chopper, and he was reasonably sure that Boss would allow it (however grudgingly) It was still a big a decision to make, though, and he frowned in contemplation as he weighed the pros and cons.

"And before you ask if you can have more time to think it over, know that I very nearly defaulted to pinning you with a needle of paralytics before dragging you up here; you do not want to live with me if I need to spend a week in sedated sleep again," Chopper added.