12 Freakonomics

Sorry for the delay in chapters. Here's another one!

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"Ah, Lawrence, thank you for meeting me"!

"It's a pleasure to meet you sir! I've always wanted to see the great man who helped us get the Navy contract! We can finally earn enough money and support the great marines! And your ideas about unionizing the small-time fisherman so we can negotiate together are brilliant, it's been of so much help to us!"

"Breathe, Lawrence. I didn't do it for thanks, I did it because it was the right thing to do. I look forward to having a cooperative working relationship in the future"!

"Me too, sir!"

"Please, no need for formalities. Just call me Aizen".

Walking out of the little "headquarters" of the fisherman's union on Myrtle Island, I look back at the progress of the past six months. Aside from my progress in Haki training and Law's training, the biggest gain has been founding my company, Augenblick.

It works on the franchisee system. Basically, I kicked out Marine branch #80's supplier for seafood by bringing some bogus quality charges. Not that they could defend themselves. The matter of the substitute supplier was left to the person in charge of food supplies, a job I had coincidentally strong-armed into as "Marines Rising Star" .

I chose a small and newly made trade organization with a "stellar track record" named Augenblick. After "looking into" the organization I found it's founder, "Aizen" was a "sad soul that had lost his wife and children in a pirate attack and was eager to support the marines" and could very likely be willing to give a discount. Base commander Jergens agreed with me.

At the same time, I just gave the idea to the fisherman in each cluster of islands across West Blue to form "unions" that could sell produce to the marines under the name of Augenblick since we were formed to "uplift the common man". We would only take a cut of the profits in exchange for obtaining the supplier contract and facilitating the delivery of seafood to the marines. Pretty profitable, since 89% of all food-based expenditure in the marines was on seafood, and after a certain level of strength, sea kings were an essential ingredient to maintain energy (which is probably why appetite seems to scale with strength in One Piece).

Sure, they would eventually realize we were a middleman and try to cut us out by going straight to the other unions and forming a "fisherman's company" but I'd already paid off a couple of people in each "union" to be my inside men. I ensured their loyalty by using a very interesting power of my fruit - 'deathly image', an advancement over my derivative power 'parasitic illusion'. I could "trigger" a pre-activated illusion in response to a set of ideas. The moment my yes-men decided to take actions to betray, I would become aware. Problem is, beyond a certain distance I could feel the existence of my parasitic illusions but not the individual identities. Basically, distance made me unable to distinguish between which of my tools had died, it would only tell me one had gone kaput. Another reason to recruit a worthy number two, which I am hoping Lafitte will be. Before I leave to go back to Marineford, finalizing his recruitment has to be put on the cards so he can take care of some of my interests outside the Grandline and enact my will so that it isn't connected to me. 

Problem is, Lafitte will be a good enforcer but he doesn't have the acumen to run a business without me, which is why I look forward to having a good secretary very, very soon.

"Pero Pero Pero Pero" - ah, the snail just rang, just in time. Must be the Marines' good friends, the Cipher Pol. 

"Sosuke speaking"

"Nicole Robin's whereabouts have been reported on Rickette Island. You are roughly two days worth of sailing away from the area. You are being ordered to rendezvous with CP-9 and CP-3 agents as soon as possible"

"Yes, of course. I will head there with all haste". 

The line went dead. Of course I knew Rickette Island didn't have Nicole Robin, or anything to do with her for the matter, considering I started the rumor. It just so happened that at the same time, there had been another rumor, that an indestructible stone block had been found on Sipis Island, in the other direction from Rickette. Since very trustworthy underworld sources had been informed of this information, the "rumor" was spreading fast. Considering that the Marines were distracted, maybe a certain 19-year old Devil Child would feel confident enough to try to come to Sipis before the marines realizd she wasn't on Rickette. 

Of course, I had a wonderful welcome party waiting for her in Sipis. Even if that didn't work, she would fall into my hands eventually. After all, things would only head in a direction that I had decided. I would make sure of it.