Training the Crew

Jack woke up bright and early the next morning and walked downstairs. When he walked into the dining area he saw Smoker eating some breakfast. "Where's everyone else?" Jack asked already suspecting the answer.

"Sleeping" Smoker answered, then went back to eating. A smile spread across Jack's face as an idea occurred to him. Walking back upstairs he walked into Luke's room and saw him sprawled out on the bed sleeping without a care in the world.

'This will fix ya!' Jack thought as darkness wrapped itself around Luke, taking him to the dark space. While Luke was in the darkness, Jack crept into Nojiko's and Nami's room and silently made his way over to Nojiko's bed.

He crouched down until he was only a few inches away from her face, then reached over and tapped her on the nose as he said, "Wakey wakey sleeping beauty." Nojiko barely had a chance to open her eyes and take in the sight of Jack staring at her, when out of nowhere he moved forward and gave her a small kiss on the lips.

"What a way to start the morning, am I right?" Jack said with a big smile on his face. The next moment Nojiko managed to process everything that happened and she let out a *SCREAM!!*

Nami was jolted from her sleep at the sound of Nojiko screaming, and when she looked to see what was wrong she saw Jack running out of the room with Nojiko hot on his heels.

Jack jumped down the stairs and ran towards the exit of the bar as he shouted, "Come on Smokey!! Go get Tashigi and meet me in the field!"

Smoker was a curious why Jack was running out of the bar without eating, but the sight of a half naked Nojiko barreling down the stairs and running out after him answered his question for him.

'What the hell have I signed up for?' Smoker thought as he walked outside to the back of the bar where Tashigi was training. Jack ran for a little bit until he was far enough from the village so as not to cause any damage.

Looking behind him he saw Nojiko heading towards him at a fast pace, but he still had a few minutes before she caught up. Taking this moment, he pulled a very confused and puzzled Luke out from the darkspace.

When Luke saw him he shouted, "Don't ever do that again, it's creepy as hell!!" Jack was chuckling darkly as he replied, "Maybe if you would wake up on time, I wouldn't need to go to such extreme lengths."

Their attention was diverted to a pissed off looking Nojiko as she finally arrived in front of them in nothing but her underwear.

"YOU BASTARD!! I'M GONNA MAKE YOU PAY!" Nojiko shouted angrily to Jack. "If this is what I can expect every time I wake you with a kiss then you should sleep in more often." Jack said as he looked her up and down, not even trying to hide his staring.

When Nojiko registered his words she looked down at herself and finally noticed her state of dress, which caused her to crouch down covering herself with her arms. "Turn around and give me some clothes!!" She shouted at the two perverts.

Jack tossed a blanket to her so she could cover up, then grabbed her in a princess carry then jumped back to the bar in seconds.

Jack put her down in her room, but before he left he said, "Even though I loved the way you look, it would be best if you dressed more appropriate for training." As soon as he said that he bolted from the room and appeared back by Luke.

"Alright, I've had my fun for the day now it's really time for training." Jack said causing Luke to groan. Smoker and Tashigi showed up a few minutes later looking like they were ready to start their training in earnest.

"Alright Luke, you need to focus on your Observation Haki today, while practicing your swordplay. I'll be attacking you randomly throughout the day, so you will need to stay alert. I got the drop on you while you slept too easily, and we need to fix that." Jack said to Luke who nodded his head and walked over to a secluded area and began going through sword forms.

Looking over to Smoker and Tashigi, Jack said, "You two will be focusing on your Observation Haki as well, but before that I wanna see how strong you are and what areas you are lacking in, so I will be testing you first."

Tashigi stepped forward with her sword at the ready and got into a fighting stance. Jack was focusing on her stance, how she held her sword, where she was focusing her attention, and other little things.

Jack brought out his own sword and signaled for her to attack him, and an instant later she was running towards him. Before she even started running Jack used his Darkness to create a pocket space in front of her, but she didn't notice and tripped.

He calmly walked over and placed the tip of his sword against her throat. "You're too focused on your opponent that you didn't take in your surroundings. The smallest thing can be the key to victory or defeat, so watch out for anything." Jack said as he stepped a few feet away from her.

Tashigi got to her feet and prepared to attack again, but this time she was more focused on her surroundings than before. Jack nodded and signaled for her to attack once more, only this time he blocked her sword with one hand and with the other hand he brought a pistol right in front of her face.

"You cheated!!" Tashigi shouted angrily at having lost so easily again. "How so?" Jack asked with a mocking smile on his face. In response she shouted, "This was a sword fight, so there are no guns!"

Jack smirked as he said, "And who said this was a sword fight? You assumed this was a sword fight because I drew my sword, but in battle people use anything they can to get the upper hand. Using a pistol while in a sword fight is definitely possible so you need to be able to counter that should the need arise."

Tashigi looked thoughtful as Jack waved her to the side as Smoker came forward. Smoker drew his jitte as he turned his lower body into smoke and shot forward.

With a Haki coated fist Jack blocked a swing from Smoker, and before Smoker could bring the weapon back, Jack grabbed hold of it and pulled in from Smoker's grasp. Smoker tried to attack after, but without his weapon he couldn't cause any damage to Jack's intangible body.

"I think you need to learn Haki bad. We can go over that later though, for now I wanted to ask why you fight with this thing and not a sword?" Jack stated plainly.

"The sea stone tip allows me to fight against other logia users, but I guess without the weapon I'm pretty useless without Haki. I never used a sword because there were lots of people I had to deal with that didn't need to die, and this thing just seemed appropriate." Smoker answered honestly.

"If it suites your fancy I guess just stick with it. You can just train the sword forms with Luke and Tashigi to better handle it, but we will discuss that after the other two get here." Jack said as he pulled out a few dozen wooden training swords.

"These are a little heavier than an actual sword, so they will be perfect for practicing." Jack said as he picked up two of them, then proceeded to go through a set of forms that was unfamiliar to Smoker. Jack stopped what he was doing when Nami and Nojiko came walking up to them from the bar.

"Glad you could join us ladies, but in the future you need to wake up quite a bit earlier than today, otherwise we might have the same problem that happened earlier." Jack said with a big grin plastered on his face. Nojiko went crimson, but Jack couldn't tell if it was out of anger or embarrassment.

Jack did the same testing on the two of them as he had done for Smoker and Tashigi. Nami preferred the staff, while Nojiko said she would prefer to use the gun. After they were tested Jack called Luke over and told him that he would be taking these four back to the bar so they could read all of the manuals that they would require.

There was some complaining about reading books for training from Tashigi, but when Smoker saw the Rokushiki manual and explained what was in it, that got everyone's attention.

Jack explained that today would be a reading day for them and that they should read the Haki manuals, the Rokushiki manuals, and the manual for whatever weapon it was they preferred.

As they were walking back to the bar Jack spun as fast as he could and threw a small rock right at Luke's head dropping him to the ground. "You gotta keep a better eye on your surroundings!" Jack shouted as he continued walking. "You sadistic fuck!! I'll get you for that!!" Luke shouted back at him as he held his throbbing head.

After lecturing everyone that no food or drink was allowed near the books, Jack made his way to where all the former slaves were camped out. He gathered them all and talked about his organization and how he would be training those that were interested.

Out of the almost 500 former slaves, only 42 wanted to join the Adventurers Association. The first thing Jack had to do with them was get them all to be able to read and write before they could start the physical training.

Jack went and found Makino to see if she would be interested in taking a teaching job, while getting someone else to run the bar. After giving him a long speech on how to treat women, she agreed to teach 4 days a week for 8 hours a day.

She would be teaching people how to read, write, mathematics and economics, which was all Jack needed them to know for now. After everyone else was busy, Jack went into his shop and searched out ships again.

He went through until he found what he was looking for, The Ship Building page. He realized that if he could create wanted posters, why couldn't he build his own ship. After selecting it, he made sure that the material used to build the ship was Adam's wood.

Jack played with the ship building for hours, designing rooms, the deck, the figure head, the kitchen, and a bunch of other rooms. There were 10 individual bed rooms not counting the Captains chambers, and two big rooms that could each house 8 people comfortably.

Jack didn't want a big group of people with him at all times, so this was more than enough for his crew. Jack made so that the sails were all black, and had the the name of the ship on the back.

"The Black Pearl will sail the world of One Piece and make it her bitch!!" Jack declared proudly to no one in particular as he confirmed everything in the ship building. The cost for the pearl was a whopping $666,000,000 berries, but Jack accepted the purchase and felt the fuzzy feeling of something being sent to his inventory.

'Lets get you over to the water so that we can check you out!' Jack thought as he was already running towards the docks.