In the dim half-light filling the office, a deep, drawn-out inhale came from the large chair behind the massive desk. The tip of a barely smoldering cigar suddenly flared scarlet, followed by a slow exhale. A thick stream of smoke struck the surface of the desk and instantly 'spread' across it in every direction, after which a man's hand holding a cigar between its fingers emerged from the darkness of the deep chair. Massive rings set with various gemstones adorned every finger except the little one. After tapping ash into the ashtray on the desk, a deep, relaxed voice rolled through the spacious office:
"...So no one has appeared yet?"
"Mr. Zero, Boss, just as I suspected, they probably never intended to fight our forces," the large Den Den Mushi that had crawled to the edge of the desk, a receiver fixed to its side, immediately relayed the answer. "I think you should strengthen surveillance along the coastline. Judging by the distance between Whiskey Peak and Alabasta, they have either already reached the island or are somewhere on the approach to it."
"..."
"Boss?"
"...Remain where you are," the answer finally came after another deep drag. "No exact deadline was specified, so they may still appear."
"As you say, Boss!"
"And if they deceived me and decided to head straight for Alabasta, then I will personally give them the warmest possible welcome."
"Understood."
"If nothing happens, our next communication session will be in three days."
"Understood, Boss."
"We cannot allow the Marines to intercept our signal and learn anything valuable, so during our contacts I do not want to hear any unnecessary details. And do not contact anyone unless absolutely necessary."
"Understood."
"That is all."
"...He disconnected."
With a quiet 'ka-cha,' Mr. Three placed the receiver in his hands into the special groove on the back of the large Den Den Mushi, thereby cutting off communication with Crocodile in Alabasta.
"You handled that perfectly!" Luffy immediately praised him, setting aside the sheets with the prepared lines. "Looks like there's a very good chance Crocodile didn't suspect anything."
"And what if he did suspect something?" Johnny asked from where he was propping up the wall beside the entrance. "What do we do then?"
"Nothing," the boy sprawled in his throne-chair replied carelessly. "It'd be a shame to lose the element of surprise. With things like that, we probably wouldn't get to have as much fun. But otherwise? It makes absolutely no difference. He's just some not particularly famous Shichibukai. Why should we worry about him? Against the World's Strongest Swordsman, who's also one of the Shichibukai, I wouldn't risk acting like this. But Crocodile? Who even is he? If it weren't for his impressive title, I wouldn't know the first thing about him. Just another loser from Roger's era, and there are thousands upon thousands of those all over the world. If he doesn't run away from us in terror, that'll already be good enough."
Luffy had always had serious problems showing respect to his opponents, and Crocodile, despite his status as a Shichibukai, had not become one of the rare exceptions. Underestimating an opponent of that level was foolish, but no one present opened their mouths, having already learned their lesson the hard way more than once. Especially since, as that same experience suggested, Luffy always came out smelling like roses, while anyone but Luffy himself had to deal with all the problems that arose thanks to him.
"I doubt he'll just up and run away like that," Sanji said, blowing a stream of smoke toward the ceiling. "He should have at least some pride."
"Good if that's true, otherwise it'll be complete crap," Luffy replied. "How is Zoro supposed to keep increasing the bounty on his head if Crocodile just runs off? Defeating a Shichibukai would be an excellent chance to add another hundred or two hundred million berries to the bounty he already has. Who knows when another opportunity this convenient will come along? There are only seven people with the title of Shichibukai, after all, and they're considered a force necessary for maintaining the existing balance throughout the world. At that point it's not just about money anymore; it's about some very serious reputation. It'd be a shame to miss such an opportunity... assuming, of course, we even manage to find our topographical idiot by the time we meet Crocodile," the boy finished darkly.
Judging by that last statement, replacing the first mate had been postponed indefinitely for now. At the very least, Luffy had cooled down enough to abandon the idea of outright murder. Still, it was too early to relax. Luffy's desire to sic Zoro on Crocodile could easily be interpreted as an indirect attempt to get rid of him. Famous or not, a Shichibukai was still a Shichibukai. Until they met him in person, there was no way to say for certain how strong he truly was or whether Zoro could handle him alone. Crocodile was the man at the top of Baroque Works, the infamous Mr. Zero, and Johnny, Yosaku, and Sanji had already managed to get their asses handed to them rather spectacularly by his subordinates. Who could guarantee that the swordsman wouldn't meet the same fate?
"...Still, what a convenient fruit," Yosaku said from his place at the table, staring intently at Mr. Three sitting opposite him. "Same face, same build, same voice. Other than the idiotic clothes, I can't find a single difference... makes me want to kill him right now... again... bastard... I'd tear him apart with my bare hands, the piece of shit! Damn bastard! Fuck!"
The boy's eyes rapidly filled with blood, his fingers clenched into fists, the muscles in his arms bulged, and he involuntarily started rising to his feet. Without taking his increasingly insane gaze off Mr. Three, he leaned forward as though he were about to pounce on his victim. Though why 'as though'? He absolutely was about to pounce on the man sitting in front of him!
"Hey, hey! Easy, easy!" Sanji's hands, the blond prudently positioned behind Yosaku, dropped onto the boy's tense shoulders and forced him back onto the bench. "What's the point of killing him? He's not even the real one!"
"...Yeah. Right. Sorry. Again."
As was easy to guess, this outburst of rage was far from the first, which was exactly why Sanji was staying nearby. Mr. Three's appearance affected Yosaku like a red rag waved in front of a bull. Usually a rather restrained boy, especially in everyday life, he was now losing control very easily.
"Hey, Rooster, change back to your normal face already. I'm afraid sooner or later we'll miss the moment and he'll actually kill you," Luffy said.
The Mr. Three sitting nearby obediently raised his left hand and touched his own face. At that exact moment there came a strange sound vaguely resembling something sharp slicing through the air, followed by what looked almost like a sudden shift in reality. One instant Mr. Three sat before them, only dressed in some ridiculous pink coat and old-fashioned blue aristocratic clothing, and the next Mr. Two had taken his place, making everything fall into place—including the idiotic outfit. With a face that stupid, those were exactly the clothes he ought to wear.
"Mugi-chan, don't call me Rooster!" The moment Mr. Two returned to his original appearance, not only his body but his behavior transformed immediately. "I am the noble swan, Bon Clay!" Leaping into the middle of the galley, Bentham tried to start his usual one-legged spin.
WHAM!
"Goddammit, Rooster!" Sanji roared. "Stop breaking the ceiling in my kitchen!"
He was not angry without reason. There were already two patches on the ceiling, and now a third one would have to be added.
"My soul demands dance! Do you hear me? I want to dance, dance!"
"Get outside and dance as much as you want!"
"Do you think I'm an idiot?!" Bentham jabbed a finger at the small window in the entrance door.
"You go dance outside in weather like that!"
A genuine blizzard was raging beyond the window.
"You're the one who wants to dance in here, not me!" Sanji shot back. "So go dance!"
"Will all of you shut up already!!!" Nami finally exploded. "You're keeping my Robin from sleeping!!!"
Considering that the girl was sitting on the bed right beside the aforementioned woman, she was probably disturbing Robin more than everyone else put together. On the other hand, despite all the fever reducers and the wet towel folded several times across her forehead, Robin was burning with fever so badly that she barely reacted to anything happening around her. You could not even really say she was sleeping; she was more like slipping in and out of delirious unconsciousness. In other words, her condition was frankly awful.
"Damn, that fruit really is insanely cool," Luffy sighed heavily, looking at Bentham. "The amount of stuff I could do if I had a power like that," he said, dropping his chin onto the table. "So much missed fun."
Mr. Two possessed the Mane Mane no Mi, the Clone-Clone Fruit. By touching another person's face, he could completely copy their appearance, build, and voice, becoming an exact duplicate down to the last mole. Other than behavior, nothing could reveal the substitution. Everyone found it terrifying even to imagine what Luffy might have done if such a power had fallen into his hands. With his personal strength, acting skill, unreal cunning, and complete lack of 'brakes,' he could easily infiltrate the highest levels of the World Government, the Marines, or the Revolutionaries and unleash chaos across the entire world. And that was only the first thing that came to everyone's mind. In reality, the list could be continued almost indefinitely.
As for how Mr. Two had ended up aboard the ship, that had happened by accident. Luffy intended to deceive Crocodile, but he had not bothered too much with the little details. The most important thing for him had been cutting off communication, and that had required almost no effort at all. He merely had to locate all the large Den Den Mushi with Observation Haki and then set them free. Which was exactly what he had done while he and Nami were rummaging through the Baroque Works ships. Naturally, he kept a few Den Den Mushi that had belonged to Officer Agents. If possible, he intended to use them to confuse Crocodile even further. For that purpose, the boy had 'fished out' Miss Goldenweek on the island, where she had managed during the night to find a deep cave and crawl into its farthest corner. She had not hidden there alone, however, but with Mr. Two, who had lost consciousness after Johnny's blow. The terrified girl had gone to the trouble of picking him up and carrying him on her own back all the way to the cave she had found.
That was where Luffy found them.
At first he put seastone handcuffs on Marianne, only to discover immediately that she possessed no Devil Fruit power at all. As it turned out, all her tricks with paints and symbols that influenced people's minds had absolutely nothing to do with a Devil Fruit. Luffy was very impressed by that development, so he tied the girl up with rope and hung her from a hook in the money storage room aboard the Going Merry. Naturally, before dragging his victim back to the ship and suspending her from the ceiling, he prudently made sure Nami was not paying attention. There could be no doubt that she would not approve of such methods, especially now that she had developed an increased interest in her own sex, and here was a little girl on top of everything else. But that was precisely the best part! Luffy had found himself not merely a 'little girl' in the sense Robin was one, but an actual little girl! One already thoroughly frightened by Johnny! How could he possibly pass up such an opportunity? Besides, he needed some way to improve his mood after Zoro's stunt, and here such a convenient chance had presented itself.
Originally Luffy had intended to stop with Marianne alone, while the incomprehensible something lying nearby, dressed in some bizarre clothes besides, had not interested him in the slightest. In other words, he had planned to leave Mr. Two lying right there in the cave without even bothering to finish him off. What the hell did he need him for? But the girl, having no idea whatsoever what Luffy was thinking or planning, blurted everything out herself. One word led to another, and within a couple of minutes the boy had to wipe cold sweat from his forehead. A little more and, through his own stupidity, he would have let such a treasure slip through his fingers! A person capable of taking on the appearance of absolutely anyone! Even if he himself looked like a gaudily dressed rooster. It was like a bank vault stuffed to the ceiling with gold bars disguised as a public toilet. In the end, Marianne went to hang from a hook in the storeroom, while Bentham was taken away for treatment. Treatment that, as it quickly turned out, he barely needed. He proved to be quite a tough nut. A little bandaging on his arms and head, and he was already ready to dance.
"Listen, if you can become absolutely any person, that means you can become Nami too, right?" Johnny asked Bentham with interest after he had sat back down at the table.
His eyes practically shone with curiosity. Despite the fact that only yesterday he had nearly killed Mr. Two with his own hands and had wanted absolutely nothing to do with him, today Johnny was paying him more attention than anyone else. And it was not so much about the fruit as about Bentham's behavior. The self-proclaimed okama—read: transvestite—turned out to be completely, utterly, thoroughly insane. Insane enough that Luffy himself almost immediately became 'Mugi-chan' to him, meaning 'Hat-chan' or 'Little Hat.' Ordinary balls of steel were not enough for that. For something like this, you needed some special high-strength alloy capable of enduring colossal loads for a very long time.
Luffy himself was far from overjoyed at being addressed that way, which resulted in Mr. Two promptly 'meeting' Conqueror's Haki. It helped. For about five minutes. Then Luffy once again became 'Mugi-chan.' The dose of Conqueror's Haki was immediately increased. It helped. For about ten minutes. The next dose was raised almost by an order of magnitude, nearly sending Bentham into a long faint, but another ten minutes later 'Mugi-chan' returned as though nothing had happened. After that it became obvious to everyone that the next step was either killing him or accepting it. Bentham's fruit promised far too much entertaining potential for Luffy to dispose of him on the spot over something so minor. And then, at some point, Luffy unexpectedly decided that 'Mugi-chan' actually sounded kind of fun. It also fit perfectly with the harmless weakling persona he had chosen for himself. In short, the stars aligned.
"All I have to do is touch another person's face with my right hand, and for the rest of my life I can transform into that person. Sex doesn't matter," Bentham calmly answered Johnny's question, taking a sip of tea and smacking his lips.
"Cool!" Johnny was impressed. "So you could touch the face of the Most Beautiful Woman in the World and then take her form for the rest of your life?" That question was the harmless one. Then, as usual, he got carried away. "And how far does your fruit's power go? I mean, can you become a woman and get pregnant? And if you get pregnant but then turn back into a man, where does the baby go? Would it become a male pregnancy? Then how would you give birth? Surgery? Or does the baby disappear when you change sex? Or die? Or do you die too? And what if... why are all of you staring at me like that? I'm just curious! Don't tell me you're not curious too! I won't believe you anyway!"
Everyone in the galley was indeed looking at Johnny in a very eloquent way.
"...Goddammit, I hadn't even thought about any of that until you said it out loud," Sanji said hollowly after taking several deep drags.
Not only had he never thought about it, he had not wanted to think about it! And he was not alone.
"Listen, you two grew up together, right?" Luffy asked Yosaku. "How did this idiot happen? This is just completely fucked up!"
It was a frequently repeated question, yet one that had still not lost its relevance.
"He wasn't this bad before," the boy answered miserably, as though he genuinely felt responsible for what his old friend had grown into. "We used to be too weak for him to afford showing this much curiosity. We definitely wouldn't have survived long enough to join the family if he'd always been this much of an idiot."
"Wouldn't surprise me if in the future we have to sew his mouth shut every time before we go ashore," Nami offered her opinion. "Otherwise we'll never see the end of the trouble afterward."
"Oh, fuck all of you!" the main subject of the discussion snorted contemptuously.