Chapter 17: From The Perspective Of A Mad Man

[POV: Camus]

The people whose crew I joined weren't the smartest bunch. Who in their right mind would let just any random person jump on their ship without knowing anything about them? The guy asking me must've had no sense of self-preservation. It didn't matter anyways; I got all the booze and nice food I could ask for.

I had been in a bit of a slump back at Alabasta. My friends and I made our living mooching of some mayor by pretending to be part of the rebellion army. They would give us everything we asked for in exchange for the city's protection, be it women, money, or alcohol. Not that we were able to protect anything in the first place.

Then, some dumb fuck had the audacity to put an end to the civil war and, thereby, the rebellion army. Nevertheless, when that happened, the act my gang and I put on was seen through, and the city came after us.

I was the only one who managed to escape. All of my friends were killed by the people we tricked. I didn't get it; it was the citizen's fault they were stupid enough to get scammed in the first place.

Then I was all alone. I didn't have anywhere to stay or anyone to rely on – really unfair if you asked me.

A couple of days later, my saviors came. And they were just what I had hoped for, a real golden goose. Albert and Robin were the same as the mayor of that city, trusting me blindly, and they didn't suspect a thing. Hah!

"Anyways, where to go?" I looked around at the busy streets of Jaya.

I had taken the liberty of going on a stroll in this new and exciting place. It was my first trip outside Alabasta, after all. While walking, I turned my head down, trying to open the lid of the spare bottle of rum I had brought along.

At that moment, I bumped into the back of someone and dropped the glass bottle. To my absolute dread, I saw the bottle shatter on impact with the ground and the heavenly liquid spill all over, never to be savored ever again.

"Hey you, big oaf! Watch where you're going! Idiot." I immediately shouted at the man before me and gave him a big shove.

The man slowly turned around, looking at me with a fierce scowl.

He stood over three meters tall and had a massive round body with relatively thin limbs. He had several broken or missing teeth, a pronounced crooked nose, and a very hairy chest and torso. Long, thick, woolly black hair fell down the back of his neck underneath a black bandanna. On his chin was a small scruffy black beard.

Without saying a word, the man picked me up by my collar and threw me into the distance with all his force.

"Shit" was the only thing I could mutter before the vertigo numbed my entire body.

It had not been an ordinary throw, not at all. Not only did I have enough airtime to clear the city, but almost the entire island. Luckily I landed in some bushes, mostly unharmed. There I lay for quite a while, just gazing into the sky dumbfoundedly.

I quickly pulled myself together, however. That was just unlucky. People that strong shouldn't be picking on people as weak as me anyways; where was the honor in that?

Looking around at my surroundings, nothing stood out to me. All I saw about me was trees and more trees. I was lost.

"Mhmm… I'm hungry. I hope Robin will make me something good once I return to the ship," I said aloud. "In the meantime, I should probably look for some fruits and berries".

I immediately noticed a rather strange fruit hanging from one of the trees not too far from me. It was much larger and a different color than all the others on the same tree, which was weird. Nevertheless, it looked delicious, so I promptly picked it from the branch and put it in my mouth.

"Bleaadrh!" Disgusting, absolutely disgusting. It was all I could think about the moment I swallowed the first bite.

The next moment, however, I forgot all about the taste. Something much more significant was happening to me. It felt incredible, power surged through my veins, and I felt more in control of my body than ever before.

Unable to hold myself back, I started laughing maniacally into the sky.

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[POV: Albert]

I had been in heaven in my couple of hours away from Camus. While Jaya wasn't a dreamy place in itself, it was paradise compared to living under the same roof as that stain of a human.

As the Log Pose reset almost immediately after reaching the island, our initial plan had just been to dump off Camus and then skedaddle. Robin, however, changed her mind. She wanted to look around for a bit, and as she was the one in charge, who was I to dissuade her? My job was to keep her safe and happy, not caged.

On our tour of the town, I picked out a large piece of black cloth and some white paint from a vendor. As per Robin's wishes, I painted a four-leaf clover on the fabric, which would act as our pirate flag.

This was another of Robin's ideas; we would act as pirates while sailing the seas. It was really a no-brainer. She was already wanted by the World Government, having a bounty of 79 million beri on her head, and given her aspirations of finding the truth of the void century, we wouldn't be doing many lawful actions in the future anyways.

Being a pirate also had many other benefits, not the least of which was that no one but the Marines and other pirates dared engage us. Furthermore, many places gave pirates special treatment and privileges, mostly as a means to discourage plunder and violence.

I didn't mind being a pirate. A pirate in this world was different from a pirate in my old world. The only two necessary criteria to be considered as such in this world were that one needed to travel the seas and not follow the sometimes utterly prohibitive government-determined laws. Not a big deal at all

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Back on the Lucky Clover, in an almost giddy mood at not having had the displeasure of interacting with Camus for an extended period of time, I was readying for sailaway.

As Robin was lying on the deck, maintaining her impressive tan, and I was loosening the moorings, allowing the Clover movement, a loud shout was heard from the docking platform.

"You're leaving without me!?" Camus was running toward the ship, dirty all over and with leaves sticking out from his clothes.

Robin stood up, looking down at the winded Camus, and answered coldly.

"Yes. We've decided you're not needed on the crew. We hope you understand". There was no room for negotiation in her words.

The man stood still for a moment before he began shaking. He was obviously furious at us.

Well, it was his own fault for being that annoying. I smiled amiably and waved in his direction. The ship had already begun moving slowly out of the harbor; there was nothing he could do anyways.

"You! You guys think you're so much better than me!" Camus yelled in fury, hurriedly following us down the pier in a full sprint.

However, to my astonishment, he didn't stop running when he reached the end. He continued, his feet pushing off the water's surface as if it was solid ground.

Before long, he began running faster, seemingly propelled forward by the water with each step. Soon, his body began to change, his arms fluidly stretching towards the ship, grabbing onto the railing. At this point, he was water skiing behind us.

"That's my ship! It has my name on it!" Camus kept shouting nonsense all throughout. "You'll never escape on the sea! I control the water – I'm a water man!"

Having had enough of this and not wanting to spend another second with that maniac, I resolved myself to straighten out this mess.

I clenched the muscles in my back, feeling an insurmountable amount of power at my fingertips, and calmly walked to the point Camus had grasped the railing. I tried manually removing his hands, but I was unable to grasp him firmly. His flesh was made out of water, and as I attempted to grab it, it reformed around my touch.

Seeing no other way to solve the situation, I asked Robin to take distance from me and brought my arms out vertically from my body in a wide arch. I then violently clapped my hands together with such speed and force that a strong shockwave expanded from the nexus point of my palms.

Instantly, the water that had held the shape of a human's hands dispersed into the air, and Camus fell behind, unable to keep up. I could hear him cursing loudly at us as his figure disappeared in the distance.

Letting out a sigh of relief at getting rid of him, I turned to Robin, who was smiling wearily back at me. All we could do for now was to hope never to meet Camus again.