When I came to, I had been propped up against a wall beside a crate, which Zoro was sitting against. Nami was talking to a desperate-looking Vivi and Lucy was laughing about how we should've told her about the bounty hunters before. The sun was just poking its crown over the horizon, throwing a strange glow of light and dark around the cacti of Whiskey Peak. My head was throbbing again, but this time because of Nami's angry fist. That redheaded navigator could be scary sometimes.
"We did tell you about them," I muttered. "You just didn't listen, as usual."
"Eh?" She blinked and looked at me. "Oh, you're awake!"
"I knew that, dumbass."
Zoro snorted. "You're just weak. Why else would you have let that sea witch knock you out so easily?"
"YOU THREE, SHUT UP!" Nami barked, effectively making all of us quieter than... than... well, something really quiet. She turned to Vivi sweetly. "Now, then. That's our offer. We want 1,000,000,000 belli to escort you there safely. You saw how strong these guys are, right? Quite a bargain, don't ya think?"
I choked. "One... one billion belli!? How the hell do you expect her to pay that!? To pay much of anything!? Her country's in turmoil, here!"
"If you don't zip it I'm gonna hit you..." the navigator hissed, glaring at me hard enough to make me cow from continuing.
Vivi nodded, looking a little shocked that I knew about her kingdom, but also worried for said kingdom. "She's right. That sum is impossible for me to pay. Have the rest of you heard of a country named Alabasta?"
The rest of the Straw Hats present blinked.
"No," Nami admitted.
Vivi looked down at the hay bale she was sitting on and clenched her fists, her body shaking under her green fur coat. She took a deep breath. "It was a great pillar of civilization," she began. "A land of peace. Long ago, that is."
"Long ago?" the local ginger repeated, her voice suddenly much smaller. "... And now?"
I furrowed my brow in concern. Vivi looked so sad, and even though she'd been acting like a bitch these past few days I'd known her, I knew that she was really a nice, caring, thoughtful woman. It hurt me to see a friend, even a future friend, looking so down in the dumps.
"It's a desert kingdom on the verge of civil war. In recent years, a call for revolution has emerged. The citizens began committing acts of insurrection, causing the land to fall into utter chaos. But one day, I heard the name of a secret organization: Baroque Works." The bluenette looked up at us, suddenly fuming in anger at the mere thought of the crime syndicate's name. "I discovered that they were responsible for inciting the rebellion. Aside from this, however, I was unable to procure any further information."
She went on to explain how she managed to find out the leader of Baroque Works, Mr. 0's, real name and cause for inciting the revolution: To seize the Alabastan throne. She wasn't telling us Mr. 0's name because she was worried that he'd come after us if we knew it, which he would, of course.
"I must return to my country and tell my people the truth!" Princess Vivi told us. "I must stop them from joining the insurrection! Otherwise... otherwise..." she trailed off.
I nodded grimly. "Otherwise your country will be his for the taking."
Nami frowned. "I see... so that's what's going on." She sighed in disappointment. "It finally makes sense now. If you're on the verge of a civil war, you can't pay the 1,000,000,000 belli, can you? Money must be scarce."
My eye twitched. "THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE WORRIED ABOUT!?"
"This Nami the sea witch we're talking about here," Zoro pointed out. "Of course it is."
"Good point."
Lucy blinked. "Oi, so who's the mastermind?"
I sighed. "We already explained this, Lucy-chan..."
Vivi absolutely freaked out. "The b-boss's true identity!? No way! I can't tell you that!" she protested quickly, hardly taking a breath. Nami's expression slowly went from disappointment to slightly worried to mini-panic mode. "He would hunt you down if you found out his name!"
"Oh, well, we wouldn't want that!" Nami laughed weakly. "And of course, trying to take over a whole nation... he must be an incredibly strong guy, right?"
Lucy was pouting, clearly upset that she wouldn't be allowed to battle such an opponent.
"Yes, he is," the double crossing Baroque Works agent agreed. "No matter how strong you may be, there's no way you could even hope to touch him! One of the Shichibukai, the Seven Warlords... CROCODILE!"
There was an awkward pause.
Suddenly Nami and Vivi gasped in horror, the redheaded navigator screeching, "YOU JUST TOLD US HIS FREAKING NAME!"
There was a strange, somewhat comical, drum-like sound and then a wail like, "AAAAOOOOO." All of us blinked and looked around before the wail came again, and we were able to pinpoint it. We looked at the top of the building, above Nami and Lucy. Sitting there casually was a giant vulture and a weird type of rodent I couldn't place.
They flew off.
Nami cried anime tears and started shaking the hell out of a helpless Vivi, who just croaked apologies the entire time. "WHAT'S WITH THE OTTER AND VULTURE?!" she moaned, face shark like. "ONE OF THE SHICHIBUKAI IS GONNA BE AFTER US NOW!"
Lucy grinned in excitement and looked at us, eyes sparkling. "She said 'Shichibukai!'"
Zoro smirked. "Not bad!"
"WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN TO US!?"
"I wonder what desert food tastes like..." I mused.
"I bet it's yummy," my captain commented dreamily.
"SORRY WON'T DO US ANY GOOD!" Nami was screeching, still shaking the poor princess. "NOW YOU'VE GOTTEN US MIXED UP IN ALL OF THIS!"
I raised my eyebrow. "But we would've been mixed up in it whether she told us his name or not. After all, we're escorting her, and she knows his name, so he would've automatically put us on his hit list, too."
"SHUT UP, YOU!"
I froze, my lips suddenly glued together. "Yes, ma'am."
Nami released Vivi, collapsing to the street in tears and stuffing her face in her hands. "We just made it to the Grand Line and now I'm marked for death by one of the Shichibukai... Why me?"
"We're pretty lucky to get to fight one so soon," Zoro put in.
I grinned and pounded my fists together. "Crocodile won't stand a freakin' chance! You know, it's not surprising Crocodile is trying to take over a kingdom. If I had a name like that, I would be trying to make people loyal to me anyway I could, too."
"Wonder what he's like!" Lucy said.
Nami face-faulted. "WILL YOU THREE SHUT THE HELL UP!?" She stomped off down the street next to the river running through town. "Though it wasn't for long, it was nice knowing you all!"
"Where are you going?"
"They don't know my face yet, so I'm outta here!"
Suddenly the otter from before appeared, scratching something out on a pad of paper with a pencil. It flipped the pad over and showed it to us, bringing out a picture of Nami, me, Lucy, and Zoro. The swordsman in his picture had a kinda stupid look on his face, I looked like I was sleeping in it, and Lucy just kinda looked bored, while the art-Nami was smiling and happy.
Our real-life navigator clapped. "Wow, you're good!"
The vulture and otter flew away again.
"WAIT, NO! NOW I CAN'T EVEN RUN AWAY!?"
I sweatdropped. "And she says I'm bipolar."
"Where were you gonna run to, anyway?" Zoro deadpanned.
"I'm so sorry!" Vivi repeated. Was that like her new personal mantra or something?
"That guy's pretty good!" Lucy approved.
The swordsman smirked. "In any case, the four of us have been added to the Baroque Works Death List."
Our captain giggled. "This is so exciting!"
"Let's beat some alligator-reject ass!" I cheered.
Nami collapsed to the ground miserably, a blackish purple aura of depression around her. Vivi tried to make her feel better. "I... I have savings... about 500,000 belli! ...Uh..."
"Do not worry!" said the voice of Igarappoi. No, wait, it was Igaram. Vivi had told us all about how he'd helped her infiltrate Baroque Works and uncover Crocodile's secrets. We all turned. Sure enough, the curly-haired old man was standing a little ways down the street in an oversized version of the light green fur coat and blue swimsuit-thing Vivi was carrying four dummies under his arms. He also had smeared on some red lipstick. My eye twitched. He looked butt ugly. "Fear—" he began, but coughed. "Mah ~ Mah ~ Maaaah! Ahem. Fear not, for I have a plan!"
"What are those clothes for?" Vivi asked, mystified, as she got up with Lucy and examined Igaram's new attire. Lucy was more awed than confused, though, and seemed to know what he was thinking.
"Nice, ossan!" she laughed, feeling his coat. "You'll fool anyone with that!"
"And just who will he be fooling...?" Zoro asked, his own expression fixed in disgust.
"My God..." Nami swore, still in her depressed mode. "I'm surrounded by idiots."
I hit her over the head. "Don't use the Lord's name in vain!"
"Vivi-sama," Igaram said solemnly, "Baroque Works' information network will soon receive that report. Once they learn that we are the ones who found out the Boss' true identity... you understand what will happen, don't you?"
The princess nodded. "As many as a thousand hunters could soon be coming after us."
Nami face-faulted and turned around, her face horrified. I wouldn't be surprised if she would either start crying or punch one of us in the face.
"That's why I have dressed in the manner of the Princess," the old man agreed. Lucy started poking the dummies childishly. "I will depart with these dummies and travel on a straight course for Alabasta."
My straw hatted idiot—er, sorry, captain—blinked. "These are US?"
"Decoys," Zoro corrected helpfully.
I shook my head. "Ya know, if you wanted to disguise yourself as Vivi, you could've actually dyed your hair blue? And you might want to give one of those dummies a straw hat, and give another three swords and a green head."
"Oi," the Marimo complained. "You wanna go!?"
Igaram nodded, ignoring us. "Once they have begun pursuing me, Vivi-sama and yourselves can depart safely for Alabasta. They do not yet know that there are others in your crew, so they will be looking for four people, not seven."
"NOW WAIT JUST A MINUTE!" Nami roared. "Who said we would take the princess anywhere!? We still don't have a contract!"
"She's a friend," I said through gritted teeth. "A contract isn't necessary."
Lucy raised her eyebrows. "Take the princess? What's that about?"
I facepalmed. "We've just been talking about it for the past five or ten or whatever minutes, idiot!"
"Weren't you listening to them?" Zoro asked.
"This is Lucy we're talking about. Clearly she wasn't."
"True, true." The swordsman got to his feet and stretched. "This ossan here wants us to take her—" he pointed to Vivi "home."
She nodded sagely. "Ah, so that's what they're on about! Okay."
… And cue the demoness. "CROCODILE'S GONNA TRY AND KILL US, YA KNOW!"
"He'll try to kill us whether we take Vivi or not," I pointed out.
Lucy looked at Igaram. "This Crocodile, is he really that strong?"
"He is currently one of the Shichibukai," he reminded her. "Though as a government-sanctioned pirate, he is no longer on their wanted list, his old bounty was 80,000,000 belli."
I whistled appreciatively. "I knew that already, but... not bad!"
"80 MILLION!?" our navigator cried. "That's FOUR times Arlong's! TURN HIM DOWN!"
"Will you accept?"
"Sure. Sounds like fun."
Nami looked like she would never be able to relax again.
Igaram sighed in relief and grinned. "You have my utmost gratitude."