Chapter 37

37

As the journey, she became comfortable enough to ask some simple questions. "Um, Luffy?" He turned to her.

"Hmm?" he looked at her.

"Why are you heading to Shells town? What business do you have there?"

Luffy smiled brightly at the question. "I have heard there was a strong swordsman there… so I'm going to ask him to join me. His name is Zoro."

Two sets of eyes widened at this new information. "As in…?" Coby started to ask but trailed off. Nami recognized the name too. It wasn't exactly common.

"Roronoa Zoro. He's known as the Pirate Hunter," Luffy confirmed.

Coby broke into a cold sweat. "He's a friend of yours, Luffy?" Luffy nodded to him. The thought of the Pirate Hunter having friends sounded very far-fetched to him. But then again, Luffy did hunt a big-time pirate but a year ago… so maybe. But didn't he want to be pirate king.

"Not yet." Luffy said, grining, "I was wanting him to join my crew…"

Coby silently wondered how someone who was aiming to be Pirate King wanted to recruit most infamous bounty hunter in East Blue. That just sounded like a betrayal waiting to happen.

Thet didn't speak much, but that's all he would get. Coby found the six-armed Monkey, Sparky was his name quite cautious of new people. But he wasn't any different.

At least the monkey had the strength to protect himself. Coby might be a coward sometimes, but he was not stupid. He had seen the monkey break Alvida's mace just by blocking with one of its little hands. And had seen the monkey perform the same air walking technique that Luffy used.

By his observation even if Luffy didn't do anything, the monkey would have been enough to take the whole of Alvida's crew himself. And that was saying something.

Were all six-armed monkeys that strong… he had seen and heard of some weird creatures. So maybe they were just born strong this way.

Coby didn't think of it anymore. As he tried to focus on the journey, at least by the day was over —if things didn't happen— he would be able to join the Marines.

When they finally arrived on the island, Luffy locked onto Zoro's aura. It was easily the most profound presence on the island, towering above the others.

That was pretty cool. But what made Luffy curious was another aura that was just as profound near Zoro. Now that was interesting… Luffy was already ready for things to be not according to cannon. The time-line would be similar, but not identical to the canon.

So he was curious.

The boat docked and Luffy was the first one to go off. Funnily enough, all of them followed Luffy like a mother duck. Including Nami, he didn't know why though. Maybe he made her interested… if so that was good.

On the way to the bar, he listened in on some conversations as he walked down the street, gathering information on recent events, one of which seemed to be the topic of almost every conversation he eavesdropped on.

'This is interesting, someone already broke Zoro out and took out the giant Captain… and here I thought I would be able to show off.' Luffy mused.

Someone had managed to break Zoro out from the marines and raise hell in the base, plowing through unfortunate marine soldiers with his sword sheath and finally knocking an enraged Marine Captain Morgan out cold.

And what's, even more, interesting was it wasn't a swordsman, but a swordswoman. 'Hmm… real interesting.'

The entire town had been stunned by the news. This marked the end of Morgan's reign of tyranny, and it had happened so fast. While the Marines were grateful, they were also slightly disconcerted at the level of strength the unknown female blade user had so casually displayed, as if it was a walk in the park.

"It seems someone caused quite the ruckus here," Luffy said.

Sparky got down from his shoulder, jumping onto a nearby housetop.

"Well, someone's eager?" Luffy said, with a raised eyebrow. "But I don't think you will find any good guns here."

The monkey made some sounds which Luffy translated as, 'Yeah, but I'm getting bored.' the monkey said, before going off.

"Impatient," Luffy said as he walked slowly toward where the monkey was going.

Sparky picked up the gun recently after learning about Observation Haki. And he was eager to see if there were any guns around the marine base.

Coby and Nami had taken to following Luffy silently, and now looked at him with confused expressions. And so Coby asked, "Uh… where's your friend going?"

"To find some new toys…" Luffy said amusingly.

Coby didn't enjoy the vague answer, but didn't comment on that. But he was curious about how people were interacting with one another. Of course, after seeing the large weapons strapped to Luffy's back, they made themselves move sideways. They weren't afraid but were cautious. Saying something along the lines of 'another Bounty hunter…' but they seemed happy almost glad.

"The people around seem cheerful today…" Coby said. "It's almost weird… is today a festival or something?"

"Oh, you didn't know?" Luffy said, "Apparently Marine Captain Morgan, who was in charge of the marine base here, was abusing his rank to oppress the townspeople."

Coby looked baffled and somewhat angry while Nami just narrowed her eyes, not really surprised.

"His idiot son, Helmeppo or something like that, also used his influence to gain special privileges, and when Zoro put him in his place for harassing the townspeople, he threatened to start executing them. Zoro agreed to be locked up for a month in the marine base without food to avoid having civilian deaths on his conscience, but Helmeppo never intended to let him go. And it just seemed to happen that one of Zoro's friends was near the town, and helped him break out. Beating the crap out of Captain Morgan in the process. The Marines decided to apprehend Morgan right then and there."

Coby looked outraged now. How could a marine let that happen? Luffy didn't really care either way. Coby seemed to be a good candidate for the crew. And he won't shy away from manipulating him to join his crew. What he was a pirate, a greedy one no less and he would get what he wants.

Coby went from being a scrawny rat to someone that could patiently be a Marine Admiral in the future. When he last read the One Piece manga, he was already considered a hero of the Rocky Port incident. He didn't know what he did there, but anyhow he made a name for himself, and that was the kind of people Luffy wanted in his crew.