A month had passed since Buggy the Clown made a deal with Paradise Enterprise and secured his shiny new Eternal Pose to Alabasta.
The Grand Line, for all its chaos, had been unusually kind to the Buggy Pirates during that time. No Sea Kings, no Marine ships, only a few massive whirlpools trying to eat their hull alive.
It was mostly just long stretches of wind, sun, and training.
Lots of training.
The Buggy Pirates' once rowdy, half-starved crew now looked like a squad of brawny circus gladiators.
Bare torsos glistened in the sun, ropes of muscle replacing soft bellies, their laughter echoing across the deck as they trained, lifted, and occasionally screamed when a cannonball fell on someone's foot.
At the center of it all, Buggy looked nothing like the clown who'd once stumbled into Lougetown wearing a ridiculous striped hat.
That hat was gone, probably left behind on some island after being used as target practice.
His long blue hair, once a messy mane, was now slicked straight back with oil and attitude.
His coat remained the same regal pirate red with gold epaulets, but now it hung open, revealing a surprisingly cut torso.
The Great Captain Buggy had abs. Visible abs.
Not painted-on ones either.
"Alright, you lazy barnacles!" Buggy's voice roared across the deck as he floated above them, arms crossed, the sun glinting off his shiny nose like a divine spotlight. "Today's the final day of training! And if I don't see progress, I'll make you run laps around the ship until you puke!"
Below him, Mohji grunted as he performed push-ups with a crate on his back the size of a small cow. "C-Captain, I think… I think I can see my ribs again!"
"You mean pecs, you moron! Those are pecs! Keep going, they're almost symmetrical!" Buggy barked, though there was the faintest hint of pride in his voice.
Cabaji balanced upside down on a single finger atop the mast, sweat dripping from his brow, juggling knives with his feet. "Hard to believe you managed to make Mohji look like a man, Captain."
Mohji shot him a glare between push-ups. "I'll show you who's a man once I'm done with these!"
Buggy grinned. "Now that's the spirit! It sounded somewhat gay, but see, Cabaji? Positive competition! Builds character!"
"More like internal bleeding," Cabaji muttered, flipping upright effortlessly.
The Buggy Pirates had changed. Maybe not in brains or basic sanity, but in strength and focus.
The training had been grueling, chaotic, and occasionally stupid, but it had worked. Even Richie, Mohji's lion, had grown leaner and meaner, his mane shorter and wilder.
Of course, part of that new-found strength didn't just come from sweat and push-ups. It came from… slightly more experimental methods.
The mysterious Devil Fruit they'd picked up on that strange, shifting island had caused more shouting matches than any treasure before it.
The thing practically hummed with weird energy, its surface glowing faintly violet in the moonlight, the patterns swirling like smoke trapped in glass.
Buggy had thought about eating it himself. For about ten seconds.
Then, common sense kicked in.
He already had the Chop-Chop Fruit, which made him a floating, uncuttable masterpiece. Eating another Devil Fruit was a one-way ticket to the afterlife via explosive digestive failure.
He would rather not risk his life for a random devil fruit he knew nothing about.
So, that left the rest of the crew.
"Not it," Cabaji had said immediately, arms crossed, expression unreadable. "I like swimming. And not dying."
That narrowed the options down to Mohji. Loyal, sturdy, and, let's be honest, always looking for a chance to prove himself.
Mohji stared at the fruit like it was about to sprout fangs and bite him instead. "You sure about this, Captain?"
Buggy gave him a wide grin. "Of course! Worst case scenario, you explode! …But hey, that's how we make progress!"
Mohji swallowed hard, muttered something that sounded like a prayer, and took a bite.
The next minute was chaos.
He gagged, screamed, glowed, screamed again, and then spent an entire day alternating between dry heaving and twitching in ways that made the rest of the crew back away slowly.
Buggy had to tie him to the mast at one point just to stop him from flailing overboard.
When it was over, Mohji was still alive, which was a good start, but something about him was… off.
Buggy was the first to notice it. The air around Mohji seemed to shimmer slightly, like heat over sand. Once, when Mohji stubbed his toe, a barrel across the deck also cracked open, and spilled its contents as if sharing his pain.
Another time, Richie yawned, and Mohji did too- at the exact same instant. Though that might've been just a coincidence, since the two were quite like-minded.
The crew grew wary. Richie, traumatized, started sleeping in the crow's nest to avoid any more "linked" naps.
Eventually, Buggy had enough data to put it together.
The fruit was quite peculiar, but at least he had the basics down.
It was a Paramecia from what he could tell, something that reminded him of the island they'd found it on, the one that disappeared when you stopped looking.
He called it the Entangle-Entangle Fruit-Renkei Renkei no Mi, a Paramecia-type that linked the user to things they touched through what Buggy proudly dubbed "quantum voodoo nonsense."
Whatever happened to one happened to the other. Pain, movement, sensation, it all mirrored back and forth instantly.
During one unfortunate test, Mohji accidentally entangled himself with a cannonball. The moment it was fired, he flew backward screaming, arms flailing through the air like a human slingshot before crashing into the water.
The crew learned two things that day:
1. The fruit had the potential to be very useful;
2. Mohji could never be trusted near artillery again.
Buggy, however, was thrilled.
"This is genius!" he declared, pacing excitedly around the deck while gesturing wildly. "Do you realize what this means?! He can share damage, maybe even link separate things togheter! What if he links ships together? The possibilities are endless!"
Cabaji frowned. "It's still pretty early to tell though, let's just hope he doesn't link himself to a mirror by mistake, and dies after shattering it."
"Bah, details!" Buggy waved him off. "Think of it! What if he could sink an enemy ship by entangling it to an anchor?! Or heal an ally from a distance by linking to them and having him bandage himself!"
"Or, you know, he could just fall into the sea and drown after connecting himself to the anchor..." Cabaji muttered.
But Buggy didn't care. The discovery had potential. Real, world-shaking potential.
It was difficult ot acertain its actual limits now, Mohji was still bumbling bout to finding it's limits, but still, it was a start. A terrifying, hilarious start.
And for Buggy, that was enough.
Whatever that fruit was, it was powerful. And Buggy wasn't about to waste a power-up like that.
The time came when their Eternal Pose started shifting, pointing unwaveringly toward the southwest; Buggy knew they were close. Alabasta, the kingdom of sand, rebellions... And a really smug warlord.
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Their warship cut through the last stretch of sea before the desert kingdom. The sun hung high overhead, hot enough to melt paint, but Buggy stood proudly on the bow, cape flapping behind him as he stared at the endless dunes that loomed in the distance.
"So that's Alabasta, huh?" Cabaji said, stepping beside him. "Looks… dry."
"Of course it's dry, genius, it's a desert!" Buggy snapped, though there was no real heat in his tone. His eyes were fixed on the horizon, on the faint mirage of a city gleaming like gold in the heat haze. "Crocodile's playground…"
Mohji leaned on the railing, sweat dripping down his temple. "Are we really walking in there, Captain? I heard Marines have been sniffing around lately."
"That's exactly why we're not sailing straight in," Buggy said, tapping his temple with a floating hand. "Big ship means big attention. And big attention means some cigar-chomping idiot with a fancy coat comes to arrest me."
"Smoker?" Cabaji guessed.
Buggy's grin faltered slightly. "…Yeah, let's not give him another rematch. Not yet anyway..."
They docked far from the main port, on a lonely stretch of coast where the dunes met the sea. The crew began unloading supplies, setting up small tents, and preparing to guard the ship while their captain took care of "business."
Buggy called everyone together before leaving.
"Alright, clowns! Here's the plan. You stay here, keep the ship safe, and don't do anything stupid. No looting, no lighting fires, and no challenging Marines to arm-wrestling matches. Cabaji's in charge while I'm gone."
Cabaji nodded. "Understood."
Mohji frowned. "Wait, you're going alone? And why am I not in charge?!?"
"Figure out how to use your devil fruit properly first. And of course I am going alone!" Buggy said, floating off the ground with a flourish. "The fewer people there are, the less suspicious it looks. Besides, I've got to meet some new acquaintances. Miss All Sunday, for one."
Cabaji crossed his arms. "You really think she'll talk to you? "
"She will if she knows what's good for her," Buggy said with a smirk. "I've got something she's interested in."
He patted his coat pocket, the transcribed text from the Poneglyph they'd found. Buggy had no idea what it said, but he knew it was important.
There was no such thing as an unimportant poneglyph, they all told stories that previous civilizations deemed as important enough to be passed on eternally.
If anyone could read that language, it was Nico Robin. It wasn't like he was going to find somoene from Wano's royalty anytime soon...
"I'm gonna find her, get this thing translated, and maybe steal Crocodile's golden claw while I'm at it," he said, half to himself, half to his crew.
Mohji tilted his head. "You really think you can take on a Warlord, Captain?"
Buggy's grin widened. "Of course I can. Besides, I'm not planning on fighting him, yet. First, I'll poke the bear a bit, see what makes him tick. Then we can negotiate porperly, I happen to have information he'd see as useful too~"
Cabaji sighed. "So, we're provoking one of the most dangerous men in the world. Great plan."
Buggy winked. "It's called diplomacy, Cabaji. Look it up."
After that, the clown simply waved his men goodbye, and took off, flying through the skies with relative ease.
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The sun blazed overhead as Buggy soared above the desert, his body floating lazily like a balloon on a mission.
Below him, endless dunes rippled in every direction, the heat shimmering so strongly it felt like the entire world was melting.
He didn't mind it. The view was beautiful, in a deadly sort of way. He could see caravans of merchants far below, glinting like ants dragging gold.
Occasionally, he'd spot a ruined town half-swallowed by sand, reminders of the desert's indifference to time.
His thoughts, though, were already on his destination.
Rainbase. The city of dreams, greed, and Crocodile's base of operations. The place where the warlord's casino shined like a beacon of false hope in the endless desert.
"That bastard's probably sitting there, pretending to be a hero while planning how to stab everyone in the back," Buggy muttered to himself. "Well. that can be fun in its own way... But, the way I see it, he's just a dog without a leash~"
He chuckled softly, then caught sight of movement below.
At first, he thought it was another caravan, but as he descended slightly, he saw them, tiny figures dragging themselves across the sand. A group, small but determined, half-dead from exhaustion.
Buggy squinted, adjusting his trajectory as he hovered lower.
A straw hat glinted under the sun.
Buggy blinked once. Then twice.
"…No way," he muttered. "Are those… the Straw Hats?"
Sure enough, there was Luffy, trudging forward like a corpse, Nami following behind him with murder in her eyes, and the rest of the gang barely staying upright.
Buggy floated there for a long moment, jaw slightly open, before he burst out laughing. "Hahahaha! You've got to be kidding me! Out of the entire desert, I run into these idiots again!"
He leaned forward in midair, grin widening until it was pure mischief.
"Guess fate's got a sense of humor after all," he said, turning toward the horizon where Rainbase shimmered in the distance. "Let's see where this comedy act goes…"
The desert wind howled beneath him as he soared onward, blue hair whipping behind him.
Alabasta had no idea what kind of circus was about to arrive.