After that, we all did different stuff for a while. Lucy drew a remarkably terrible copy of our Jolly Roger on Laboon's head, claiming that it was a reminder of their promise. I laughed so hard that I actually got a cramp when I saw it. It was almost completely unrecognizable. Sanji was making something in the kitchen that smelled good enough to die for. Nami counted all the belli I gave her greedily. Usopp started fixing the main mast, growling in anger and muttering about idiot captains. Zoro tried to sleep but was forced to work by our sniper. I started watching a few of the newest One Piece episodes, but Usopp roped me into fixing the mast, too, but not before Crocus gave me his autograph! (Much to my pleasure.)
So naturally I pounded my thumb with my hammer the moment I went to work.
"Say, what happened to those two guys?" Usopp mused as he hammered another few boards into place.
Nami looked up from her belli-counting in momentary confusion. "What two guys? ...Oh, you mean those weirdos? I don't know. I haven't seen them for a while now. I wonder who they were, anyway?"
"They probably attempted to go back to their home island," I said.
"Attempted?"
"Their ship got sunk."
Usopp snickered. "Serves 'em right for trying to hurt such a loyal creature." Then he went back to angry muttering. "That idiot... she breaks it and I fix it!... I'm not the ship's carpenter!..."
An hour later, Nami had gone back to the lighthouse place to plan our course, and suddenly let out a piercing yell. I pounded my thumb again as a result. I cursed the ginger head to a painful death, then sighed and decided to see what was up. When everyone got to the table she was working at (Sanji somehow balanced a large stack of food on his hands, head, and even leg!), we saw her staring at her compass in a mixture of shock, confusion, and horror.
"You need to calm down, Nami," Lucy complained, pouting. "You're so loud."
Our cook swooned. "What is it, Nami-san? If it's food you want, never fear!"
Usopp scrambled up the ladder next. "Did you say food?"
"You made me hammer myself, Nami," I muttered.
Her face was so worried I thought she was gonna cry. "The compass is broken!" she moaned miserably. We all peered at the compass, which was going crazy. The needle was spinning about and making me even dizzier than when I looked at Sanji's visible eyebrow. "It won't point in a single direction..."
"Hey, she's right," Sanji said.
"Round and round and round it goes..." Usopp remarked.
I grinned. "Where it stops, nobody knows!"
Lucy giggled. "Heh, fun!"
"So, does anyone have a Log Pose?" I asked.
There was a pause where everyone looked at me in confusion. "What?" they all asked in unison.
"At least the psychic kid there seems to know something about Grand Line navigation," Crocus huffed, crossing his hands over his chest and walking toward us. "You other five, however, have no idea what you're doing. What brazen stupidity. Did you come here to die?"
Nami tilted her head. "Eh?"
"Food?" Lucy gasped hungrily, staring down the blue-fin elephant tuna like a predator hunting its prey, which was a very accurate simile.
"Food," Usopp agreed, licking his lips.
Sanji frowned. "It's FEED, for you, bastard."
Usopp, Lucy and I ignored him and started chowing down. "Itadakimasu!" We cheered, meaning let's eat , also the Japanese version of saying grace. Grinning, Usopp, Lucy and I dug in while Crocus explained things. When the tuna hit my taste buds, I couldn't believe it. It was even better than stuffed peppers with sea king meat! My eyes started watering with the amazing taste!
"This is delicious," Lucy said through a mouthful of tuna.
"Thank you, LUCY-CHWAN!" cooed the love cook.
"Oi, Lucy, have you tried it with some of this sauce on it?" I asked. "Cuz that makes it even better, if that's possible."
"Oo, really?!"
"WOULD YOU THREE BE QUIET?" And cue the demoness. I shivered under Nami's gaze a little. She could be scary. "I CAN'T CONCENTRATE HERE!"
Finally, I'd had my fill. Crocus mentioned the Log Pose and Lucy asked if it looked strange.
"Why, yes, it does have a strange look," he admitted.
She held up a strange-looking compass with two straps. It had a see-through casing tinged in blue, a half-red and half-white needle held up by a single piece of thin metal, and no dial face. I had never seen anything like it... in real life, of course.
"Yes, exactly like that. Without this Log Pose, sailing the Grand Line will be impossible."
Nami's face twitched and she smiled with false sweetness. "I see. But, hold on a second. Lucy..." she said. Lucy paused in her meal to look up at the navigator, but was rewarded with a fist in her rubbery cheek. "WHY THE HELL DO YOU HAVE ONE!?"
"Why the hell are you beating her up for it?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
Lucy fell backwards and sat up, clutching the Log Pose in her hand. "I dunno! Those two weirdos dropped it on the boat. I picked it up. Why did you punch me?"
"Felt like it." Nami said simply.
"Oh."
She examined it carefully. "So this a Log Pose... weird! It doesn't even have any markings!"
Crocus nodded. "You see, the islands dotting the Grand Line all obey the rules created by their strong magnetic fields. So in order to travel from island to island, the Log Pose must read and record the magnetic field at each island. Only then will it point you in the right direction." He shrugged. "The truth is that there's no way to determine your exact position on this ocean. You are utterly dependent on the magnetic field memorized by your Log Pose. You must first choose one of the seven magnetic paths emanating from Reverse Mountain. But regardless of which island you choose to start from, your route will eventually merge with all the others into one final route. And the name of the island at the end of that route is Laughtale. The final island of the Grand Line. In all of history, the only person ever to confirm its existence was the pirate king and my former captain, Gol D. Roger. The island is legendary."
"And yet, you've been there..." I murmured, staring at him in awe.
"Laughtale." said Nami.
Usopp grinned. "So the One Piece must be there! Is it, Crocus? Yuril?"
"Don't tell me!" Lucy interjected stubbornly. "I want it to be an adventure!"
I smiled. That was Lucy for ya. She never wanted to take the easy path. She knew that the easy path didn't do anything; the hard path was the way you take to reap the real rewards. I turned to the sniper. "To be honest, not even I know that. The... vision I got didn't go that far."
Crocus shrugged, also grinning. "Who can tell? That is the most prominent theory, but no other soul has reached that island alive since."
Lucy bit down on a bone, making my eyes just about pop out of my head. "We'll find out when we get there!" she proclaimed. She sighed happily. "Alright, I'm full! Let's set sail!"
"That was a good meal," Usopp burped.
"BASTARD!" Sanji freaked. "WHY DID YOU HOG ALL OF THE MEAL I MADE FOR LUCY-CHWAN AND NAMI-SWAN! AND YURI-CHWAN?"
Usopp stared at him in disbelief. "Sh-She ate more than me!"
"Whoa." I said in a small voice. "Even ate the bones."
The love cook's fist shook. "You... you asshole! I wanted Nami-san to... I wanted Nami-san to... I wanted HER TO BE THE ONE TO EAT IT!" He twisted around and threw a powerful kick and the long nose was thrown into the air past Nami's outstretched hand, retching from the powerful blow. He crashed to the ground hard.
"You... You asshole blonde!" Usopp growled, jumping to his feet and charging past Nami. He was about to grab the love cook, but a sudden killing aura from behind him made him freeze.
"Sanji-kun... Usopp..." said Nami calmly. Usop gulped and slowly turned around. When Nami was calm, that was not a good thing. Sanji just looked at her lovingly and swooned. Her fist shook. "YOU TWO CAN GO SOAK YOUR HEADS!"
—BAM! POW!
Sanji and Usopp were thrown into the air, twisting and screaming in agony, or at least on Usopp's part. Sanji still had hearts in his eyes. Both of them sank through the sea.
A few moments later, Laboon washed Sanji and Usopp onshore along with Vivi and Mr. 9, more commonly known among this crew as "those two weirdos". The local Blondie got up and started sweet-talking the desert princess, while the wanna-be king spoke up.
"Oi," said Mr. 9. "We have a request to make."
"Eh?" Sanji asked, narrowing his eyes while the rest of us looked at him in confusion—except me, 'cuz I'm awesome.
The two weirdos, as Lucy called them, introduced themselves using their code names and bent down on... well, bent knee. They formally pleaded us to take them back to Whiskey Peak since they had no way to get there by themselves.
Lucy tilted her head. "Whiskey Peak? What a weird name."
"What is it?" asked Usopp in confusion.
Mr. 9 bowed low. "It's the town where we live! Erm... sir," he added as an afterthought.
Nami sidled up to the fake king, an evil-looking grin on her face that made me sweatdrop. "Wouldn't that be too kind of us, Mr. 9?" she asked in a falsely sweet tone. "Considering you tried to kill that poor whale."
Usopp, too, was unmoved. "That's right! Just who are you two anyway?"
"I am a king!" announced Mr. 9 seriously.
Nami pulled his cheek, making him squirm in pain. "Uso (liar)."
Our long-nosed sniper tilted his head. "What?"
"NOT YOU!"
Vivi grunted. "We cannot say!"
"But all we want is to return to our hometown!" Mr. 9 agreed, once again bowing low while rubbing his cheek. "We didn't really want to do this kind of underhanded work..."
"... But please understand that secrecy is our company's motto!"
"We truly cannot say anything!"
"We are begging you kind people to help us!"
"We will surely repay your kindness!"
"Don't listen to them," Crocus advised, giving a mighty harrumph. "No matter what they might say, they're a couple of underhanded sleazebags."
Nami waved her wrist, which had the twos' now-shattered Log Pose still strapped to it. "The thing is," she said, smiling, "we kinda broke this Log Pose and we don't have another." She looked at them pointedly. "You sure you still wanna come with us?"
Vivi and Mr. 9 became shark-like. "WHAT? YOU BROKE IT!? THAT WAS OURS, YA KNOW! YOU MADE US THROW OURSELVES AT YOUR FEET WHEN YOU CAN'T EVEN GO ANYWHERE!?"
Nami smirked, turned away, and put a finger to her chin. "Ah, but I remember now! Crocus-san is giving us another one!"
… And they once more threw themselves on the ground, begging us to be kind enough to take them with us. I sighed and shook my head, smiling fondly at our navigator's antics. She stuck out her tongue childishly.
Lucy shrugged. "Sure. You can come. Your island's called Whiskey Peak, right? Let's go there."
Everyone stared at her. I grinned.
"O-Oi, are you serious?" Usopp protested. "We just met these guys when they were trying to kill an innocent whale, and you're gonna bring 'em along just like that?"
"It's fine," our captain said simply. "Don't sweat the small stuff."
Crocus frowned and said, "But the only place you can decide your path from is here at Reverse Mountain, the starting point."
She giggled. "If we don't like it, we'll just try again!"
The old man grinned. "I see."
"Okay, gang, let's get going!" Lucy ordered, scrambling across the rocks, stretching her arm muscles. "I've made my promise to the whale, so it's time to get ready to leave!"
Vivi raised her eyebrow. "Who are you?"
"Me? Oh, I'm just the girl who's gonna become the pirate queen."
The "two weirdos" blinked, looked at each other, and chuckled, making my eye twitch. But I ignored them for now and went back to the Merry, gathering all my stuff back up the fixed mast and in the crow's nest. Zoro had been sleeping on the ship this whole time. It was kind of impressive, actually, how much that Marimo could nap...
When the sun was setting and Sanji had cooked dinner for everyone we finally set sail. I smiled and put my hands in my pockets. Today had been one crazy day, what with that storm in the East Blue, riding the current up and down Reverse Mountain, being eaten by a whale, meeting a princess, and also meeting a man who'd visited the last island on the Grand Line, and I was tired. It was time for a rest. Something in the back of my mind told me I'd need it.