Nami whistled in appreciation. "You really hit him from this far away? I can barely even see the building you pointed out."
"Bah, Usopp could have done the same with the right tools and information. Both of which he would have in spades if he applied himself properly," Cherry waved her hand, dismissing the compliment. "It's you who did the hard part."
"Damn right I did the hard part," Nami grumbled and rolled her shoulders in discomfort. "I'm going to be feeling this in the morning, I'm sure."
All that staff waving was tough work!
"You'll forget all about it when you decide it's time to collect," Cherry shook her head. "I'll draw a nice bath for you when we get back, how about that? I stole some fancy soaps and bath bombs from Mary Geoise that you might like. Did you know that those creeps never reuse a bar of soap? They had a veritable mountain of brand new bars just sitting there in a storage building. Had."
Nami snorted. "Oh, whatever will they do? Use the mountain of used soaps to clean their ugly hides?"
"No, I dumped those into the ocean," Cherry admitted.
Nami laughed.
…
"How long do you reckon this storm will keep up?" Cherry asked as she set Nami down on the deck of the Thousand Sunny.
"An hour longer at most. It isn't natural weather, so there's nothing keeping it going now that I've stopped fueling it," Nami answered. "How have things been while we were gone, Zoro?"
"Just a whole lot of nothing. The usual," Zoro yawned.
"Aside from the guy that snuck onto the ship, that is," Cherry added.
Zoro blinked. Then he sat up in alarm.
"Doesn't seem to be moving around any more though," Cherry observed. "Somebody knocked him out, I guess."
Zoro relaxed slightly, then looked a bit embarrassed for not having noticed somebody skulking around their ship while he was on watch. He grumbled, "Why didn't anyone say anything to me?"
"That's between you and them," Cherry gave him an exaggerated shrug. "Good luck with that. I've got a bath to fill."
…
"I've got everything ready to go in there. Have fun," Cherry made to leave.
"Oh no you don't," Nami hooked an arm around Cherry's neck. "Maybe you can magic away all the sweat and dirt, but the rest of us have to put in effort to get clean. Since it's your fault that I've been exercising for hours, you're at least going to wash my back!"
Cherry gave her a put upon expression, but Nami wasn't having it. "Robin's waiting for me!"
"Robin said she'd be busy meditating. She doesn't need you bothering her," Nami shot down.
"I'm not a bother! I taught her how to meditate in even the most violent storm!" Cherry claimed.
"You're worse than the most violent storm," Nami countered.
"Touché," Cherry couldn't, and wouldn't, argue against that. "Maybe she likes that about me though, eh?"
"Don't be so crass," Nami chided, dragging her back into the bathroom.
"Mayhaps you should get thine mind out of ye olde gutter," Cherry grabbed the door frame just to be extra annoying.
"My mind isn't in the gutter, I'm just pointing out that you're rolling around in it," Nami pried her fingers loose from the wood.
"You should try it sometime. The gutter is a lot nicer than it looks," Cherry relented and allowed herself to be shepherded into the bathroom.
"No thanks," Nami rejected.
…
Morning came to Port Royal, the shining light of dawn chasing away the last shadows of the night. The sky was clear and cloudless, the storm from the night before vanished like a mirage.
The local printing press ran nonstop in the early hours before dawn to churn out copies of the Port Royal Inquiry, each one bearing the same headline: Lord Beckett Cutler killed by hail!
The man had barely been in the city a few days, and yet just this headline was enough to sell the newspaper out within half an hour. Needless to say, he was not a popular fellow.
In fact, in spite of the headline, the newspaper didn't even bother to print an obituary for him since nobody paid for it.
It was one of these newspapers that Mercer was gawking at, as he sat at the breakfast table of a band of pirates who, for some unknown reason, hadn't tossed him overboard after he tried to kill one of them in her sleep.
He was smart enough not to ask. Better not to rock the boat when you're already hanging over the railing.
"Did you know that prick?" the blond cook asked him, seeing the way he was zoned out as he stared at the headline.
"Huh? Oh," Mercer said. "I suppose I did. It seems I'm out of a job."
Damn, he must still be reeling from last night. That was far too much information he just gave out.
"Some kind of spy, rather than a thief, eh?" the cook hummed. "That's preferable, depending on who you ask around here."
What?
"I suppose there's no use in denying it," Mercer spoke carefully. How did they not know he was an assassin? Are they stupid?
"Oh, he's a spy!" the large woman he tried to murder chimed in with a mouthful of scrambled egg. "That explains the knife!"
"""...""" Many pairs of eyes landed on him.
"Knife?" the swordsman grunted, leveling a look at the long nosed man.
"We searched him! He didn't have a knife," long nose defended.
"He must have dropped it when I knocked him through the wall," the large woman said with unwarranted cheer.
"Well," the frightening woman with hawk-like red eyes seemed to delight in the way he squirmed. "Go look for it after breakfast. If you find it, we'll return it to him, before sending him on his way."
Mercer caught the implication. He was about to get stabbed with his own dagger. That… wasn't so bad actually, especially since he was apparently going to walk away afterwards. Could have been worse.
He tried not to show any relief at the prospect though.
…
Beckett's ex-minion limped off the ship, his own dagger stuck dangerously close to a kidney in his side. Probably off to find a doctor.
"Why didn't you say he tried to stab you?!" Chopper cried out when he was gone. "I wouldn't have bothered to treat him! Why did you even ask me to treat him?!"
"It wasn't that big of a deal, was it? Cherry ambushes me all the time," Cabernet said, not looking remotely guilty.
"What if it hadn't been you, Cabernet?" Robin asked, serious but not without warmth.
"Um… oh," Cabernet squirmed a bit, realizing that not everyone on the ship was as durable as she was.
"Enough life lessons. We gotta get out of here before we get roped into another adventure!" Cherry declared.
"I like adventures, though," Luffy said.
"And you're already on an adventure. The One Piece almost certainly isn't all the way up here," Cherry argued.
"Damn," Luffy snapped his fingers. "I guess we can come back after. Set sail, before somebody tries to say goodbye!"