Alabasta

Alabasta was… sandy.

That was just about the highest compliment Rex could pay the desert island. It somehow baffled him that explorers thousands of years ago came to this island and were like 'yeah, this is where I want to live for the rest of my life'.

The architecture was obviously India-influenced, but Rex felt that it gave the Desert Island a nice, more ancient feel. Compared to Momoiro Island that was all pink and fluffy, Rex felt that this island had some character. Rugged but homey.

Other than that, Rex found the island to be rather plain. Sure, the port looked to be thriving in some ways, but Rex had seen better. Besides, it seemed like the merchants were afraid of someth-

Boom!

A large ship swings through the port of Alabasta, firing cannonballs into the merchant ships. The ship is rather large, flying a Jolly Roger of a shark with sharp teeth, biting into a human skull.

"They're BACK!" One merchant roared. "The pirates are back!"

The people in the streets seemed to scatter like mice upon hearing this news. They all rush into their residences as cannonballs are fired into the city.

Rex is astonished. Since when were pirates brave enough to just sail openly into the waters of one of the 20 Kingdoms that founded the World Government. Why was there no navy presence on the island to stop them?

"Somebody call Crocodile-sama, he has to save us!"

That comment seems to immediately ignite a frenzy of people begging for Crocodile's help which causes Rex's eyebrow to perk up. Crocodile was still in Alabasta? Rex assumed that without his Shichibukai status he would have left the island.

Thatch tenses up, wanting to rush to stop the ship, but Rex raises his hand. Suddenly, at the beach of the port, a large amount of sand rushes up, condensing to form a humanoid figure.

Crocodile grins as he sees the pirates attacking with such confidence. It seems they were unaware that, he, Crocodile was here.

"Pirate invaders, it is I, the famous Crocodile, Pirate Hunter of Alabasta! If you do not retreat from this port in the next five seconds, prepare to be exterminated!" Crocodile's voice booms out. He wanted nothing more than to kill the pirates out right, but he had to play the role of benevolent pirate hunter.

After all, Crocodile had been trying for the better part of a decade to get his Shichibukai license restored. Ever since that debacle where he was defeated by Whitebeard in a single punch, the Marines rescinded his license for being too weak.

Fortunately for Crocodile, the Marines never bothered to reinstate his bounty as they figured he had died after Whitebeard attacked him. With that, Crocodile had dragged himself back to his home country of Alabasta and turned into a pirate hunter to get his license reinstated.

Crocodile had tried to recruit some more bounty hunters to join his cause, but for some reason, no bounty hunters of notable strength came his way. He was convinced that the god of luck despised him for some reason, as all his efforts to locate Nico Robin had similarly failed.

"Ha!" A large shark fishman roars. "Do you think I Arlong of the Arlong Pirates would be afraid of some pathetic little crocodile!? I am a shark, and sharks eat crocodiles for breakfast!"

Rex smiles, he was surprised to see that Arlong was already starting on his way back to the East Blue. He was worried at first that Arlong might have slipped past him and gone to Cocoyasi village to persecute Nami.

It was good that Rex caught him, because even if Crocodile spared him, Rex intended to show no mercy.

"I see!" Crocodile says with a grin. "If that is your final answer, I will give you what you seek… DEATH!"

A massive fist made out of sand rushes out of the beach rushing towards Arlong's ship. Arlong frowns seeing this attack.

"A devil fruit user?" Arlong shouts. "No matter, my crew, show this loser the power of the fish-man race!"

Whoosh!

A massive wave of water rises up from beneath the ship to combat the immense sand fist, causing it to collapse into the sea. Out from the waters in front of the ship, a dozen fish-men spring out, each in a fish man karate stance.

Crocodile grimaces hating his fruits weakness against water before taking in a deep breath. "Sand Bullet Barrage!"

A massive stream of ultra-condensed sand bullets which then fly out towards the ship. Arlong's fish-men try to block the attacks with water blasts, but there are too many of them and most of them slam into the ship.

Rex is surprised seeing this. It seemed that unlike in canon, where Shichibukai status had caused Crocodile to get weak and lazy, he was still training in this world. After all, Arlong was also in his prime right now, never having gone to impel down or gotten lazy in the East Blue. For Crocodile to beat him so easily…

"Scuttle the ship!" Arlong growls. "Move in for naval combat! Let's show this land boy what a fish-man's real strength is!"

Arlong and his fish-men then leap into the sea swimming doggedly towards Crocodile. As they do, a massive wave forms behind them, powered by their fish-man karate.

Crocodile grins as he watches the wave. It had been a while since someone gave him a real fight.

Cupping his hands together, a miniature tornado starts to form in Crocodiles hands, slowly growing in size.

The wave and the tornado rapidly approach each other, with the civilians feeling an immense panic in their chests. What would happen if Crocodile failed?

"SABLES: ULTIMA!"

"10,000 Tile, SUPER WAVE!"

BOOM!

The two fronts collide with each other sending wet sand flying in all directions. A small cloud of sand rises up, obscuring the entire beach as the Alabastans feel their heartbeats coming to a crescendo.

Then, the sand cloud falls to reveal several dehydrated fish-men lying on the beach. In the center of the fray, Crocodile is holding Arlong up by his throat with a grin.

"Any last words, Mr. Big and Mighty Shark!?" Crocodile says mockingly.

Arlong struggles and writhes as he tries to escape. Then, out of the corner of his eyes, Arlong sees a beaming Rex waving him off and walking away.

"V-v-vesta, R-rex!" Arlong croaks out in anger, blaming all of his failings on Rex as his body dries out.

In Arlong's dying thoughts, he imagines the life where Rex had never intervened. Where Fisher Tiger had acted like a true fish-man and massacred the humans like the scum they were. Where all humans bowed before fish-men. A world that would never be.

Then, Arlong died.

Crocodile frowned as he heard the last words of the dying fish-man, feeling like he had heard that name before. He looks back at the direction Arlong was glaring at only to see a few civilians.

Crocodile just shrugs, feeling that Arlong might have had some end-of-life delusions. Crocodile then sends a few subordinates to salvage what they could from Arlong's ship.

Meanwhile, Rex skips happily away, gleeful at the sight of Arlong's death. While Rex felt that racism towards fish-men was a despicable thing, what Arlong did in canon was equally, if not more despicable.

Arlong took a group of humans, who he knew to be harmless and basically tortured them because another group of humans on the other side of the world were being jerks. That was the most twisted justice Rex could think of other than turning the humans into slaves themselves which he kind of did to Nami.

It was almost fitting that Arlong died completely dehydrated, inches away from the sea that he believed made fish-men more powerful than humans.

"Should I call in to inform Tiger of Arlong's death?" Killer asks, recalling Arlong and Tiger's relationship.

"No." Rex says shaking his head. "Tiger had already made his peace with Arlong when he left the Sun Pirates, calling him now… Arlong doesn't deserve to have a man as good as Tiger shed even a single tear for him."

With that, Rex headed off to the capital.

(Two Days Later)

"Jakekeket!" Rex roared in laughter as he got the latest newspaper. It seemed that after such a long time, Tiger-2 and Smoothie finally made it to Totto Land.

As for why Rex was so sure, it all lay in the newspaper.

'Big Mom Pirates Clash With Vice Admiral Borsalina in the New World.'

'Borsalina who is the younger sister of deceased Vice Admiral Borsalino, obtained his devil fruit after he gave his life to defeat a New World pirate group. In this battle, the female Vice Admiral showed she was in no way inferior to her deceased brother, pushing back Katakuri of the Big Mom Pirates.

Unfortunately, before Borsalina's arrival, the Big Mom pirates had engaged in a ruthless search for a Commodore Tokikake, who they alleged had kidnapped a member of their crew. Tokikake is currently under investigation, as this arrest was neither logged nor reported.

In greater news, it appears that the criminal Fisher Tiger, charged with high treason against the World Government has also joined the Big Mom pirates. The marriage between Big Mom and the famous Sea Bream fish-man is already under way and will give birth to Big Mom's 81st Child. Will the Big Mom pirates see the rise of another legend in a few years?

Still, with the arrival of Borsalina, civilians everywhere are reassured of a marine younger generation that is ready to take up the reins of Justice and eliminate the pirate scourge.'

"Jakekeket! Jakekeket! Jakekeket!" Rex cannot stop laughing as he reads the paper.

Rex already knew from Ivankov that Borsalino had been turned into a woman in his fight with the Queen Okama but seeing the lengths that the marines had gone to. After all, it couldn't be revealed that Borsalino was beaten by a rookie and turned into a woman. Still, this story…

Tears were coming out of Rex's eyes as he laughed, imagining how Borsalino, no, Borsalina, had reacted when the marines gave 'her' the new identity. Imagining all her famous catchphrases with her new voice.

This was just too precious. Rex wished that all those Borsalino wankers from his past life could read this and watch as their precious light speed Admiral was a girl now.

"Captain… aren't you worried that this 'Borsalina' will take out her revenge on us after we enter the New World?" Killer asks, slightly concerned about the power of the Pika Pika no Mi.

Rex stops laughing immediately, paling instead. Killer was right, the angrier 'Borsalina' was, the more she would take it out on Rex and the King Pirates later on. He would have to figure out which Marine base 'Borsalina' was in and avoid it like the plague.

"Has Monet returned?" Rex asked Sugar, to which he received a shake of the head. "Ugh, what's taking her so long?"

Unlike Crocodile, Rex had no need to concoct an elaborate plan spanning years to find the poneglyph in Alabasta. Instead, he knew where it was, and had a crew member capable of reading it. All he needed was to have someone look at it.

To do this, Rex had sent Monet to use her fruit to sneak into the Tomb of Kings and look at the poneglyph. Once that was done, Rex could use the Memo Memo no Mi to have Robin read it for him.

In fact, Rex was astonished that Cobra didn't have a single person guarding the tomb given the valuable information inside. Then again, to Cobra's knowledge no one knew that the poneglyph was in there and only one person in the whole world could read it. Rex was simply an anomaly that conformed to neither limitation.

Of course, Rex knew what it said, this was more of a loyalty test for Robin than anything else.

If Robin refused to reveal the information about Pluto, it proved that her loyalty didn't truly lie with him. If she revealed it… well, Pluto's location didn't really concern Rex. If he wanted to blow up an island, he would do it himself, like a man.

A few minutes later, Monet returns, and Rex has Faust ensure that he could read the Poneglyph in her memories clearly. After all, this would all be for naught if Monet's memories didn't capture it accurately.

Confirming that the text was legible, Rex leaves Alabasta, not even spending a single day more on the sandy Island. He had more important matters to deal with. Namely, the recruitment of his doctor.

Meanwhile, in Crocodile's lair.

"What!?" Crocodile shouts out, reading the journal he had recovered from Arlong.

In the journal, Arlong had revealed that he had found a member of the King pirates that seemed to be able to grow arms and legs out of any surface in the brief scuffle between the Sun pirates and the King pirates. While Arlong had only noted it as an afterthought, those words were of extreme importance to Crocodile, who associated it with the Hana Hana no Mi, Nico Robin's Devil Fruit.

"Zala, Babe, come with me! We're going to track down the King Pirates!" Crocodile shouted out, rushing out of his lair at once to prepare his ship. Now that he had found Nico Robin, Crocodile had no intention of letting her slip out of his fingers.