Just as they were speeding away, Buggy suddenly stopped his ship.
Luffy looked over, puzzled.
"Buggy! Aren't you coming to the Grand Line? It's dangerous to leave now!"
Buggy took a long look at Ray, Luffy, and the others.
"I have my own plans," he said grandly. "You guys go ahead. We've got some business nearby."
Hearing that, Ray thought for a second and figured it out.
'He probably knows about some treasure around here and wants to grab it while we're not looking. Gotta fund that big crew of his.'
"Luffy," Ray said, "don't worry about him."
Luffy was quiet for a moment, then shouted back towards Buggy's ship.
"Buggy! This was fun! Thanks! Let's have a banquet together sometime!"
Buggy just laughed. "Kahahaha! Then you'd better prepare tons of food! My Buggy Pirates are gonna be huge in the future!"
Finally, after warning Buggy to watch out for the Marines, the two pirate crews went their separate ways.
…
Back in the woods near Loguetown's west coast...
Garp and Dragon were sitting on rocks.
"Father," Dragon asked, "do you think that Ray guy is trustworthy?"
Garp was silent for a moment.
"For now," he finally said, "he seems sincere towards Luffy."
Dragon sighed. "I can see that too, but I'm still uneasy. His strength is way beyond Luffy's."
Garp just laughed. "So you do worry about your son! Relax, I'm a good judge of character."
"I hope so."
Then, Garp leaped down to the shore and started untying the captured Marines with his subordinates.
As for silencing them? Garp just laughed it off.
"Just pretend you never heard that my son is Dragon! Bwahahaha!"
The Marines were dumbfounded.
'How absurd!' they muttered.
(The statues of Roger and Buggy had already been destroyed during Garp and Dragon's earlier clash anyway.)
…
Reverse Mountain
This crazy mountain was the only way into the Grand Line from the four Blues.
The ocean currents literally flowed up it.
Right now, the Going Merry was riding one of those currents.
The massive red mountain range loomed ahead.
Everyone on the crew, except Ray, was practically vibrating with excitement.
Beyond this mountain lay the Grand Line, the place where all their dreams waited.
As they got closer, the current got faster, tossing the little ship around.
But thanks to Nami's incredible navigation skills, they managed to ride the wild current safely up the mountain.
Everyone was thrilled, thinking about their dreams. Luffy gathered Zoro, Nami, Sanji, and Usopp around a wooden barrel.
They each put a foot up, ready to declare their ambitions once more.
Luffy invited Ray to join, but all he got was a cold snort and a flat 'Play by yourselves'.
They were used to him by now, so they just did the ceremony themselves.
Luffy: "I'm gonna become the Pirate King!"
Zoro: "The world's greatest swordsman!"
Sanji: "All Blue!"
Nami: "To chart a map of the entire world!"
Usopp: "To become a brave warrior of the sea!"
Chouchou: "Woof woof!"
Ray watched the bunch of chuunibyou kids as a small warmth spreading in his chest.
Their passion was infectious.
But there were two people on board who definitely weren't feeling the warmth.
Gion and Hina were tied up in the cold storage room, feeling physically and mentally chilled.
Gion glared daggers, unable to speak around her gag.
'Mmhmm~ (That bastard Ray! Not a gentleman at all! Leaving two weak women locked in here! I'm still hurt! Heartless man, destined to be alone forever!)'
Hina was also miserable, her limbs completely numb.
'Mmhmm~ (Damn that orange-haired woman! If I ever catch you, I'll tie you up even tighter! And what kind of crappy ship floods its storage room?! Someone save us!)'
Ray, with his sharp hearing, could hear their muffled whimpers.
But whether out of guilt or just annoyance, he pretended he heard nothing and started checking his system rewards, thinking about what came next.
…
Meanwhile, back in Loguetown...
The townspeople were finally coming out of the underground shelters.
They'd heard explosions all morning, but the Marines hadn't let them see anything.
Now, the Marines were tight-lipped, just saying the pirates who tried to cause trouble had been defeated and the statue was gone.
To most people, it was just another story of dumb pirates getting beaten by the Marines.
As for the Mad Dog Pirates, the only witnesses... they were all arrested, every last dog included.
The Marines breathed a sigh of relief; their reputation was safe.
…
In a nearby village...
Bartolomeo, the guy with the green rooster-comb hair, was cackling as he looked at the photos he'd developed.
"The Straw Hat Pirates are so cool! Ray-senpai and Luffy-senpai—one's powerful, the other's determined! True role models!"
He had several photos: Ray fighting Gion, Luffy fighting Smoker, Luffy in Gear Second, Ray in his partial demon form, and other action shots of the Straw Hats.
Not a single picture of Buggy.
For some reason, Bartolomeo just couldn't stand the clown.
He tossed all the photos of Buggy fighting Gion on the ground and carefully put the Straw Hat ones away.
He decided to dedicate an entire room in his gang's hideout just to display them.
Shortly after he left, a random merchant happened to walk by and picked up the discarded photos.
Examining them closely, he started trembling.
When arranged in order, they told a very different story: Buggy single-handedly taking down a female Vice Admiral, Buggy stepping triumphantly on Smoker, Buggy capturing all the Marines.
The Marines hadn't won at all; they'd been utterly defeated by Buggy the Clown!
Feeling like he'd stumbled onto an earth-shattering secret, the merchant immediately called a newspaper, hoping to make a fortune.
(Since Bartolomeo had taken all the photos of Ray and the Straw Hats, the story the merchant pieced together was wildly inaccurate.)
At this moment, neither Ray nor Buggy had any idea how the story of their battle was about to spread across the world.