Seeing Blue

Larc and Xed gripped their weapons tight before dashing forward toward each other in a flash of steel. A clinch was created but then was soon broken while a dagger stabs forward but was rejected by Xed who saw it beforehand.

"Whoops, looks like ya missed again, bitch." Xed snarked. His single cutlass gets raised as he parries another strike.

It was clear from every time how Xed fought whether online or offline, he would make use of trash-talking to get more advantage as much as possible. Too bad it was his friends he was trying to talk down to.

"Nope, but I do have this."

Larc suddenly gets something from his back, not letting an enemy get a chance to have an advantage, Xed presses onward, pulling out his pistol while in the middle of a sword lunge.

Without warning a bright light and an ear-piercing noise fills Xed's ears and eyes, disorientating him and making his eyes blur and get hazy.

"Argh! What the hell was that-" A blade gets pressed to his neck but it was blunted by a piece of cork, Xed felt the thump which made him choke up a little from the hit. "You fucker…"

"Yep. Flashbang in the pirate age invented, a few reactive chemicals inside of normal fireworks are good enough for a big bang and a light so bright it could blind someone. Especially when that someone has enhanced senses."

Xed tried recovering from it but his ears were still ringing, usually, he braces for each cannon shot or broadside but he was exposed to such a loud and sudden sound with bare ears, not only that but he had two sets of ears so it was even worse. His eyes were still practically seeing white.

"Erghh… when did you even learn to make this?"

"We have fireworks but didn't think much of it. You know… the ones in Sea of Thieves? Some were there but we didn't think much of it and hadn't even noted it down as cargo until Justine asked us what we should do with it."

"Justine?"

Larc looked Xed dead in the eye, wondering how after almost close to a month they'd been sailing in One Piece. "Dude, don't you remember the marines we forced to join us?"

"...No?"

"Can you even name anyone on the ship?"

"..."

Taking the silence as confirmation, Larc helped Xed up after their spar and looked at him with sorry eyes. "You should start to take note of their names, we have trained gun crews and squad leads but you don't even give them attention despite being a rank above them."

"Squad leads?"

Larc dragged his palm over his face. "Ok, so I'm talking to a broken record. Just get to know them before our next naval battle, we have over 70 people by now and yet you don't know a single one."

Xed considered the request, he hadn't been paying attention to much of the organization of the ship.

He did see people cooking and repairing holes back then as well as a few people who cleaned the ship. Xed convinced himself it'd be a better way to spend time while they sailed to the Goa Kingdom.

He walked outside and saw everyone busying themselves by either sharpening their swords or cleaning the different recently replaced cannons. From the Galleon they boarded, the Eviction had upgraded by directions of Flameheart Jr. since he'd be the one who recommended the changes and was the only person with a lot of naval experience aside from the marines who varied from 2 to 3 years experience, not including their training.

The Eviction had been sewn and rigged with staysails in between the masts, lateen sails added on the front and back, extended the yards and more sails added to the square sails, all of them were dyed black so as to fit the rest of the ship.

Their cannons started from small 6-pounder cannons to a serious armament of 32-pounder cannons. Instead of constantly doing 30 minutes of circling an enemy, they could shoot 2 or 3 broadsides against a smaller ship and they could shred anyone in a shroud of iron.

All-in-all, their total cannon count now had reached 44. There were 20 on each side but they could add more holes to add more cannons if they needed to - that and the additional chaser cannons mounted on the front which remained at 4.

Speaking of the marines, they were suspiciously more docile than the pirates thought. Xed had always wanted to know how it came to this. He tried searching for Justine but didn't know who it was.

"Hey, do you know where Justine is?" Xed asked a nearby crewmate who was carrying buckets of water.

The man stood up straight as a sign of respect. "Ah, Xed. Justine is sleeping right now. We have recently changed watch during the mornings."

"So who's the squad leads actively in the first and second watch?"

"There's Stan, the person who actively helped Karma with duties like logging and checking the ship's condition every day with Meli, she's the cook and at the start of the battle she also brings up gunpowder from the magazine. Justine, who was given command so that the marines could be slowly get integrated and is joined by Fly who handled the organization of the lower deck during our fights, so he was promoted."

"I assume Stan and Meli are the first watch and the second is Justine and Fly?"

"Other way around, ma'am- er… sir."

Xed walked by, letting the crewmate do whatever he needs. Everyone else was busy, he didn't even ask for the name of the crew member. It was going to take a long time for him to even remember the faces of the squad leaders.

A week has passed since their little escapade in the marine base and a lot of commotion was caused after the commodore's death. No one even knew who did it, making the situation a lot worse considering Karma and Larc had that riddle carved into the wall.

The four met back up with Flameheart Jr. and set sail for the Goa Kingdom, it was a distance away and they had a lot of downtimes. Keeping track of world events has its benefits as they often stopped to get some newspapers that were still not available to them for whatever reason.

Time was actually flowing normally within the world, no longer did a few episodes look like they took place one after the other day. Larc expected the Straw Hats to be already done with Alabasta but there wasn't any news on Crocodile, one of the seven warlords of the sea, being 'arrested' by Smoker and Tashigi, both being marines that would be credited for the defeat of Crocodile despite the Straw Hats being responsible for it.

Still, they couldn't rest easy, finding an island for Flameheart Jr. to create an East Blue base was a task that had difficulty in working toward.

Though it was certainly a depressing fact that they could've stolen one of the ships from the Commodore but Flameheart Jr. was told of the class of ships and told them it wouldn't have mattered if they stole it since Flameheart Jr. didn't see the ships as suitable.

"There it is, Larc. A giant wall with an island covered in hills and greenery, this island would make for a great country just based on its position if not for its nobility being the absolute dumbasses that they are."

With rolling hills and ridges that encased the main part of the country, the Goa Kingdom had a natural barrier in case of a land invasion, the surrounding land is full of arable land and was rich with species of animals where the mountains raised.

It was good enough by itself but what made the country so bad looking was the obnoxious shit in the middle that was called a giant wall that offered nothing but disappointment to Karma.

He voices this complaint out loud. "They had the natural defences yet they wasted both material and space in building a wall… outside the mountains! Wouldn't it make more sense to build a wall ON the mountain? There's already limited space on an island but they chose to waste it by throwing trash outside of their city and refuse to make a functional economy by supporting its people."

"Well, they are idiots," Larc explained. "They burnt the home of an entire population of vengeful and angry 'poor' citizens which made them join the Revolutionaries just because a world noble visited."

"I understand looking good but why build a big fuck-off wall with no other reason other than to keep their own citizens out? Couldn't they just have built actual homes with what they used? This stupidity is the reason why the French Revolution happened more times than once. Anyways, we'll still have to land and rest after a week at sea. I'll anchor at the top of the island. Stan!"

After Karma called out his name, Stan reaches their position and listens attentively. "Yes, Captain?"

"Take precautions after we anchor, make some decent homes to sleep in instead of the ship. We're staying here for a while, tell Meli to join us as we head to Foosha Village ."

"Aye."

The ship soon anchored toward the north of the island. It was far from any civilization which made it best for hiding their ship. There's a reason why they went from the north, it was the direct opposite of civilization which lessens the chance of getting spotted.

Everyone gets ready to leave and sets foot on land. Krys enjoyed the time they had peace while going to an island. "I'm surprised no one is here. Do they not have patrols or anything?"

Larc answered with his usual understanding of the One Piece world. "I doubt royalty would care about anything apart from themselves in One Piece. I wouldn't be surprised if someone is looking at us and ignoring what we could do since they're so embroiled in feeling better than the rest of the world."

The island itself was huge by One Piece standards, it was still going to take a while to drive toward Foosha Village, where Luffy and most of his closest family began or were born. It was like a Disney ride for one of them.

"Foosha… I can't believe I'm actually going there."

The cart they were on moved by itself, Karma was at the back relaxing his head while more carts surrounded them filled with crew members who were going to help resupply the ship.

"Shh… keep your voice down, Larc. The crew is at least enjoying themselves with side talk but you should know that not everyone would find you normal for talking about a fictional world."

"Ah, sorry but it's just so cool. I mean, everything beforehand still was but we're meeting characters from One Piece and not just some non-existing characters that I don't see in the show."

"Just exercise restraint. We still need to gather as much about the political situation inside the Kingdom before we do anything drastic. We may have a general idea on what to do but we lack critical information on everyone inside since there's no wiki to tell us anything more than what you know."

"Yeah… yeah… can't you make this cart go faster?"

"I will start throwing you out just for your obsession with this. I thought you and Krys were the reasonable ones." Karma sighed but he did make the carts go faster, it's not like being quicker would hurt.

Hours passed filled with greenery and the occasional attack by some wildlife predators. The crew had made it relatively safe as they exited forest lands and reached plains that stretched towards the sea.

No longer were trees keeping their sight at a mere forward pace because of foliage. Now they could see the windmills the village was named after. They spun at a steady pace, the multitudes of farms were growing their yield and the town lay active.

"There it is…" Karma then took note of the reddening sky and the way the sun was giving way to the multitude of moons that dotted the sky. Learning this fact through Larc made Karma always wonder how tides would work, maybe that's why One Piece has such dangerous waters.

Approaching the town without getting attacked or shunned was pretty great, their faces had not been widely published. The streets were quaint with people, almost like a homey feel to them. It made sense that Luffy had such good memories here… and bad.

They left their carts uncontrolled by Karma's Devil Fruit and switch to carrying them themselves so that no one would think anything odd about them, they were a sizeable group, so Karma had to split them.

"Meli, since Krys is going to be out all night looking around the way to the kingdom, you'll be responsible for taking supplies back. Make sure to get them some food that isn't just salt. I wish I could get them here for their drinks but a large crew would just make it suspect."

The squad lead nods, taking out parchment already filled with texts that detailed what they need and how much of anything the Eviction already had. They headed separate ways soon after, with four of the friends going for the first thing Larc recommended to go.

Partys Bar, where the events of Shanks and Luffy first met was set in.

"So they really like that Luffy is a pirate now," Karma said, numerous amounts of Luffy's bounty was stuck to practically every store and location. There were no other bounties aside from that, so they really were just proud of Luffy for following his dreams.

The town was quite colourful, many of the walls had basic shades of white, beige and neutral colours but the roofs range from blue to even green. All of the walls were made of wood, perhaps local to the area.

East Blue has most of its architecture set like this, wood is a plentiful resource that helps in that case and the somewhat more peaceful area of this sea warranted less use of stone aside from the nobles in the capital of the Goa Kingdom.

They led toward the bar and each prepared themselves for a much leisure time. They were Reapers but they were still human… aside from one of them.

"Eek!" Xed suddenly yelps out. "Oi! Damn brats!"

A pair of children tugged on his tail, realizing that it was not a toy and an actual part of a person, the children laughed and ran away while apologizing half-heartedly.

"You sure you don't want to try hiding that?" Larc asked.

"Dude, you told us that Foosha is pretty down to earth, unlike the last towns we visited, they are to be trusted much more because you've seen the show."

"Sorry, just worried someone from the capital would be watching."

"Ain't that the point of the plan though? C'mon, I want to drink something more than alcohol and water, I wonder if they have any juice." Xed pushed the door open as the others entered.

Larc immediately set his eyes on the bar lady behind the counter who smiles and greets the newly arrived patron.

"Hello! Are you people new here?"

The barkeeper was a young adult woman with brown eyes and green hair tied up with a yellow bandana with some pineapple prints on it. She had a tan blouse on and over the counter they saw her wearing a plain light pink skirt that reached to her ankles.

Karma answered first since Larc had been staring at her and not responding. "Yeah, we're new. We just need a drink and some actual food for once other than salty meat."

"Hmm… oh! There's some dessert I can make if you'd like."

"You can make desserts in a bar? No offence, it's just that I find it weird for a bar to serve desserts fresh out of the oven."

"The children in this village like sweets, they often come around this time just to ask me for their favourites. I end up making extra all the time because of it and offer it to customers."

"How much?"

"Oh, don't bother paying. It's free since you've been keeping some of the children happy."

"Happy?" Karma asked, then a loud wail and hiss came from behind him. Xed hadn't followed inside because he was not currently getting harassed by a bunch of 6-year-olds. "Ah. Can you get them off him- …I mean her." Karma decided not to pursue the explanation of how Xed is a man and all that.

"Captain! Please make these little goblins stop touching me!" Xed had standards, he may yell racial slurs or trash talk or have killed people but he draws the line at trying to even hurt children. "Argh! Hey! Stop touching my ears!"

"Look, look, it flickers and you can hear her purring!" One of the children yells, making the other four start intensifying their blatant disregard for private space.

"I'm not purring!"

Even the patrons started to look at the creature that was Xed.

"Children." The barkeeper reprimands the children. "What did I tell you all about minding people's wishes? If you want to touch the girl's ears, then ask nicely… or else I'll take away your cookies."

"Okaaayyy…" The children all echoed. "Can we touch your ears and tail?"

"Hell no-"

"I'm his captain, you may touch whatever you want." Karma interrupts, leaving Xed to try and complain but was then swarmed by children as he drowned in tears and… a purr? He was slowly losing his sanity at every second.

"Ok, so just to clarify… what do you want?" The barkeeper asked.

"We'll get some food, honestly anything that fills our stomachs that isn't just salt is fine by us, we'll pay the price. As for dessert… surprise us."

Larc raised his voice. "Umm… I'd like a pumpkin pie. If that is possible, I don't know if you have any of those."

"We do have ingredients for that. There's no need to pay for it, take it as thanks for letting the kids have fun."

"Oh, trust me. We are feeling the same." Larc glanced a look at the currently suffering Xed.

"Alright, I'll have it ready in half an hour but the rest will be ready in 10 minutes, is that all right with you?"

As the girl left to the back, probably heading to get their food and cook. Larc thanked her in response. "Thanks, Makino."

"Oi." Karma nudges him while speaking low. "Zip your mouth on anything, we shouldn't know her name yet. It's not hard to have the excuse that we heard it from someone but you better watch out for what you say."

"Whoops…"