Solutions

"It's been a while, King Neptune."

Stussy and I were now standing in front of the Fishman Island Royal Family. There were three children who happened to be sitting close to the Queen.

"To what do I owe the Whitebeard Pirates the pleasure, Jamon?" King Neptune asked.

"We're heading to East Blue for an execution. We stopped by just to check on you," I replied.

"I appreciate the kind gesture, jamon, but I think you already know the kind of situation that we're in at the moment," King Neptune buzzed, "keeping you pirates away from my people has grown more and more tedious as the days pass." 

"It's only going to get worse in the future, you know," I remarked.

"What makes you so sure?" King Neptune asked.

"The execution that I'm going to is for the King of the Pirates.....it's going to shake the entire world. I advise that you prepare yourself for it."

"I have contacted the World Government countless times to ask for their assistance, but they've never bothered responding to my calls. It almost makes me doubt the usefulness of our alliance with the World Government; jamon," King Neptune growled.

"Dear, you shouldn't be thinking like that. That mindset will only lead to further division between us and the humans, that won't be good for either of us," the Queen spoke for the first time.

"In order to ensure prosperity for the Fishmen and mermaids. We need to establish friendly relations, we can't do that if we sever ties with the leading authority for the humans," Queen Otohime remarked.

Though her size was tiny compared to King Neptune, it was more than obvious that her presence and words spoke volumes in regards to her prestige within the Kingdom.

King Neptune sighed before leaning back on his throne.

"I already know that, jamon," King Neptune responded, "but as a King, how else am I supposed to instill order here?"

"You don't have to worry about the pirates, for now at least," I interrupted before Queen Otohime could reply.

King Neptune looked at me surprised.

"What do you mean, jamon?" King Neptune asked.

"My crew is doing a bit of clean up for you, consider it a favor because of your affiliation to Whitebeard," I responded.

King Neptune sighed with relief as a small smile appeared in his bushy bearded face.

"As the King of Fishman Island, I thank you for your efforts. It gets complicated and tiresome whenever some pirates make it down here," King Neptune got up from his throne before bowing.

Queen Otohime and the other children immediately followed suit. 

"Don't worry too much about it," I replied.

"Speaking of Whitebeard, how is he? It's been quite some time since we last spoke," King Neptune scratched his beard while asking.

The idea of claiming Fishman island as Whitebeard's territory popped up on my mind almost immediately after King Neptune asked about him.

"You can ask him yourself, I'm going to call him right now," I responded.

I immediately began dialing Whitebeard's number on my transponder snail. The snail rang for a bit before Whitebeard finally picked up the call.

"What is it, brat?" Whitebeard asked.

"I'm on Fishman Island, and I have a proposition for you," I replied almost immediately.

"This better be good, I was in the middle of drinking," Whitebeard grumbled.

"It's been a while, Newgate, jamon," King Neptune greeted.

"Hm? Neptune? It's been a while!" Whitebeard pleasantly greeted.

"Anyway, I want you two to listen to my proposal," I interrupted the two of them.

"Old man, Fishman Island is the only way that we can get to the New World," I started.

"Everyone knows that you brat!" Whitebeard snapped.

"So what if we just claim Fishman Island as our territory?" I proposed.

"Why would I ever offer my territory to pirates, jamon ?" Neptune asked.

"Whitebeard's name will ward off the pirates, meanwhile; whenever we pass by here we can get free supplies," I explained, "and you don't even have to relinquish your throne, because we're only claiming Fishman Island by name."

"Hmm....I heard that you had been getting into trouble with some of the pirates that were traversing into the New World. This could be a good idea to use so that you don't have to keep going through all of that," Whitebeard said, it looked like he was agreeing with this idea already.

"Are you sure that I won't have to relinquish my throne, or the island?" King Neptune asked. He didn't seem to be too comfortable with the idea.

"You won't, after all, you're only using our name to ward them off. Moreover, even if they do raid us, we'll retaliate for you. So you won't have to do anything," I explained.

"Hmm....it doesn't sound too bad, jamon," King Neptune remarked.

Queen Otohime, who had been quiet throughout the entire ordeal, suddenly decided to speak up.

"I think that this can work. This way, we can use pirates to fight off other pirates without direct interference," Queen Otohime commented.

"What about the Celestial Dragons, they've been sending pirates to enslave our people for quite some time now. How will we handle that situation?" King Neptune asked.

"Though the Celestial Dragons are a problem, they won't be when your island is under my banner," Whitebeard interjected, "we've clashed with the World Government before, they'll have to think twice before they decide to trespass over there."

"In other words, you don't have to worry much about the World Government either," I summarized.

King Neptune continued scratching his beard for a while. The proposition wasn't a bad one to begin with because of all the benefits that we had to offer to Fishman Island. Eventually, King Neptune closed his eyes before nodding.

"Fine, I don't see any negatives of this from our end. We'll raise the Whitebeard flag! Jamon," King Neptune declared.

"Gurararararara!!! Then it's done! Fishman Island is officially under my protection!" Whitebeard declared.

After a bit of more talking over the specifics, we eventually sorted things out; and were soon on our way out of the castle. Stussy, who had been relatively quiet during the negotiations, finally opened her mouth and started speaking.

"I'm glad everything worked out," Stussy commented.

"Well, it just made things a bit easier than they should be for the future," I replied.

"What are you talking about?" Stussy asked.

"You'll figure it out soon," I replied.

We finally came to a stop where we had docked our ship. We could see some of the crew moving about and sorting supplies for the trip. 

"Commander! We're done with the clean up!" Ken announced as he led the group that he had taken to the city finally stopped close to us. Pato and Carla had been following Ken close to him.

"That's good, we just finished wrapping things up with the Royal Family. From here on out, we're officially protecting Fishman Island," I announced.

"What brought this on?" Carla asked Stussy curiously.

"Whitebeard has been close friends with King Neptune for a while now. We simply offered protection in exchange for free services whenever we get here," Stussy replied.

"Do you think this will be enough though? When we were cleaning the city up, some of those pirates that we killed claimed that they were direct subordinates of World Nobles.....doesn't that mean we're going to start another fight with the World Government?" Ken asked anxiously.

"I don't think the World Government would take such a risk," Stussy replied, "they are already aware of how much they neglect Fishman Island. The fact that they are only getting protection from Whitebeard shouldn't be a big deal in itself. Also, they still have to execute Roger, so I doubt that they are going to take on more than they can already handle."

"The rest of the Whitebeard Pirates will be notified soon. So whenever you hear distress calls from Fishman Island, make sure to notify me," I instructed.

We all soon got back onto the ship and departed from Fishman Island. Leaving the cleanup of the dead bodies to the Fishman soldiers.