The Clown's Anguish and Proposal

_________ POV Narration_________

Enel flew far into the clouds, stopping only whenever he found an island.

He decided to first start looking for Buggy D. Clown. The man that was currently supplying Kaido with devil fruits, and that was likely knowingly, or unknowingly, working with the world government.

The actual problem came in when he looked for the said clown.

After all, communication was made a lot more difficult with the World Government restricting it worldwide.

Thankfully, Enel had some basic ideas about their location, and he had some basic knowledge.

For example, he knew that Buggy had a lot of people under him as a Warlord.

He had also set up a bounty-collecting business, so all that Enel needed to do was to go to the part of the Grand Line that they were active on, and look for one of their ships.

That in itself only took a few hours, and then the Sky King decided to track the route that the ship had taken, as it was somewhat unlikely for the ship to return to its headquarters soon.

It only took a few more hours for Enel to float around an island with a large circus on it. His observation haki immediately senses Buggy's body parts manoeuvring into a large coat.

It made him look much larger than he actually was, and he seemed to be on a constant high, as he ordered his subordinates around with authority in his voice.

Enel found it rather ironic that the majority of his subordinates were actually stronger than him, but he wasn't there to judge.

He could feel quite a few people of interest on the island. He studied them for a bit and had already judged who belonged to the World Government.

Instead, he made his entrance, landing on the ground in front of the largest tent, the ground cracking heavily underneath him and burning from the heat.

The shockwave shook the tents around in the circus.

Enel made no effort to even bother hiding his presence, instead, he stared at the largest tent with a relaxed smile on his face.

Some of the pirates underneath Buggy were strong, sure, but overall they weren't going to ever be able to go against someone like Enel.

"W-who are you!?!" People immediately surrounded him in both confusion and panic.

The confusion did clear up quickly when they finally saw his face though...

"S-Sky King Enel?!" The pirates that were now under Buggy had all been present during the Marineford war.

"I'm glad that some of you remember me..." Enel spoke out with a smile waving his gauntleted arm at them, his attitude appearing cheerful.

They had decided to follow Buggy after seeing him stand his ground against Whitebeard and even Mihawk.

Even if Buggy himself was not strong, he managed to make people think that he was strong, which was a rather impressive feat in itself.

Well, it would've been an impressive feat had Buggy actually done something specifically aiming to gain the respect of the prisoners.

But he was mostly just going along with them as he was somewhat scared that they would just kill him if they found out he had no real right to sail the grand line at all, let alone that he wasn't a legendary pirate.

It was a rather strange misunderstanding that was only exacerbated by Buggy's now fanatical following.

They constantly hyped him up, and thanks to that Buggy's fame kept snowballing as his large crew collected bounties from pirates in the Grand Line.

However, even Buggy's fanatical following didn't think their captain was above the man that had just crash-landed in the middle of their island.

Even though Enel looked slightly different, his figure had still left a very large impression on everyone that had been present at Marineford.

To them, Enel was an Emperor through and through. A man with the power to make the world bend to his will.

After all, seeing a devil fruit user control the sea was beyond bizarre.

"S-Sky King, are you here to meet our captain?" Many of the pirates present sheathed their weapons, mostly out of fear, but also because they knew that there was no stopping Enel if he truly wished to kill them all.

"Yep! I want to meet up with Warlord Buggy for a bit, not here to cause any trouble though, you all can rest assured, we're all pirates here."

Enel patted himself on the chest as he turned one of his white earrings into a walking stick and grabbed it in midair, tapping it on the ground twice in quick succession.

The pirates around him seemed to relax a bit.

No one wanted to bring up the fact that they were technically a Warlord's crew working for the World Government and had specific orders to hunt pirates down, as they didn't want their island to be suddenly flooded.

"We'll let him know of your arrival sir!" Some of the pirates scrambled and ran towards the largest tent, letting their captain know that an Emperor was visiting.

Enel decided to give the Clown Pirate some time to compose himself, as he didn't want Buggy to piss his pants in front of his subordinates.

The Sky King was well aware that his presence and respectful attitude were likely going to raise Buggy's status in the eyes of his subordinates.

He actually found it a bit funny that he was able to contribute to the misunderstanding a bit more.

Enel was also really curious how Buggy would manage to juggle all of the misguided pirates under him.

He was even more curious about how Mihawk and Crocodile would end up with him in two years, but he assumed things were unlikely to go the same way due to his interference.

The pirates around him were still quite wary and scared of him, but they had all sheathed their weapons and were waiting patiently for Buggy's response.

Enel chuckled a bit internally as he felt Buggy scrambling and panicking inside the tent.

'If I remember his personality correctly... He's likely contemplating escaping right now...'

The wait didn't take much longer though, as Buggy likely realised that leaving Enel, an Emperor, to wait outside his tent, was extremely disrespectful.

He was urged to enter by a few bowing subordinates. The one-armed emperor sighed and leisurely walked to the tent.

Inside, he found himself in a rather large room, with a stadium on the other side of the entrance.

The stadium was also where Buggy was standing, trembling and rubbing his hands together with a nervous smile.

To the side, a few more people were seated on a couch. Enel could recognize them as members of his former crew, including Alvida.

All of them were staring at Enel with pure horror in their eyes.

'I guess all of them stuck around Buggy for benefits? Well, I guess they have some good blackmail on him since they know he's a weakling...'

Everyone in the room thought that the game was finally up. That they were doomed.

Buggy himself was sweating heavily.

'No way in fucking hell I'm acting all high and mighty with this guy! He'll burn me alive!'

The Clown had no knowledge of why Enel wanted to meet him, but he knew that there was no way for him to keep up the same facade he did with his subordinates.

The people on the couch also thought of the same thing. Contemplating if they would be able to escape in time before the New World Faring pirates in their crew crucified everyone for fooling them.

"Buggy D. Clown... It's been a while, I haven't seen you since the war at Marineford..." Enel smiled as he spoke, trying to ease some of the tension in the room.

"I-It's been a while indeed! W-what do you want?!" Buggy panicked as he spoke out, greeting the emperor before him while trembling a bit.

"I believe this conversation is better carried in private. Send your men away, besides the ones you know you can trust, of course." Enel smiled as he gave Buggy a way out of embarrassing himself in front of his crew.

Buggy immediately sent everyone away, only the people that had been sitting on the couch remained seated, as they were a bit too afraid to move... Or at least some of them were.

"Now then, come down from that stupid stage, let's talk face to face..." Enel gestured for Buggy to follow him and sat down on one of the couches, right next to the one Alvida and the rest were sitting on.

Specifically, Enel sat down beside a woman with short blonde hair wearing a veil that covered her face entirely. She was the only one that didn't seem completely petrified by his presence.

He didn't speak to her at all though, instead, he gestured for Buggy to take a seat in front of him.

"Y-yes!" Buggy scrambled and sat down in front of the lightning emperor, not wasting a second.

"Now then, I'm sure you're confused. I'll be honest, this is more of a friendly visit than anything." Enel smiled as he tapped his finger on his cane.

"I am here because I've learnt that you are now supplying the Beast Pirates with Smile Fruits... Basically taking over where Doflamingo had left off a while back."

Enel got straight to the point, the woman beside him only reacted slightly at the mention of Smile Fruits, but otherwise kept her composure.

"Y-yeah! We got contacted by some mad researcher looking for funds to continue his work... The deal with the Beast Pirates kind of just dropped on our table right afterwards..."

Buggy didn't hold back on any details. More specifically, he didn't dare to.

'M-maybe Kaido will protect me since I do business with him now... Maybe I can use that as a bargaining chip to keep my life...'

Alas, Buggy couldn't quite bring himself to speak out about Kaido protecting him. Not like he was sure of it either.

"I see... So it was more of a happy coincidence than anything, right?"

"Yep! I'd say I got lucky... The deal with the Smile Fruits is making us even more money than the bounty hunting..." Buggy scratched the back of his head with a subdued smile on his face.

'... This guy really is just a clueless puppet...' Enel stared blankly at the clown before finally turning his head to the woman by his side.

"Now then, who would this be?" He asked with that same ever-present smile on his face.

"S-she's one of my newer associates! She's pretty strong so I made her my retainer..." Buggy coughed in his fist as he looked at the woman with a worried gaze.

"Did she happen to come along around the time that scientist contacted you?" Enel could feel the woman shifting uncomfortably under his gaze, but Buggy didn't seem to notice/care.

"A-a bit earlier than that..." The clown was happy to answer as many questions as he could if it meant not angering Enel.

The fact that he was a coward certainly helped their interaction/interrogation go quite smoothly.

'So they scouted him out first... Then they decided to use him. Pretty smart...'

"I see... Thank you, I just wanted to confirm a few things with you. I do have a proposition for you..." Enel nodded as

"Y-yep! What can I help with?" Buggy was very glad that Enel was done with his questioning so quickly.

"Would you be interested in an alliance?" Enel pointed his finger at the Warlord with a sly smile on his face.

At that point, everyone stared at him with wide eyes, even the Government agent by his side was too flabbergasted to keep her composure.

"A-an alliance? What would it consist of?" Buggy was basically wiping the sweat off his forehead as he sighed in relief and calmed down a bit.

"Well, it would mostly consist of the two of us joining forces to fight a much larger foe in the future..." Enel smiled as he tapped his staff on the ground and gave the government agent by his side a sly sideways glance.

'Let's see how she reacts now...'

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Hope you liked the chapter! Sorry about yesterday, bit of a lack of inspiration. It's weird really, you know what you want to write and what you want to happen, but things just don't flow well.

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