Capítulo 83: Cherry's First Bounty
Bollywood Kingdom.
"Princess Sandwich, please have a look at this." The head maid of the Ham family, Darleen said, handing over a newspaper with a stack of bounty posters.
Princess Ham Sandwich took the newspaper and read the headline story.
"Pfft, hahahahaha!" Her laughter echoed in the halls of the palace. "Do you have my list, Darleen?"
"Naturally, Princess." Darleen took out a small book and handed it to her.
Princess Sandwich opened it and found an entry labeled "Infamous Pirate" between "Mermaid" and "Admiral", and put a check in the empty box next to it. She snapped it shut and handed it back to Darleen, who tucked it into her coat pocket.
...
Red Delta.
Hina had been in the area of her hometown so she stopped by to visit.
Whilst she had lunch with her family, the newspaper arrived.
Hina's sister Marlene started to go pale (paler than she usually is anyhow) as she read the headline story.
Hina had a bad feeling and took the newspaper from her and read it aloud for her parents to hear as well. As she went on she started to grip the newspaper and eventually ripped it apart without even finishing the story.
The bounty posters flew out of it and landed scatter on the table, the top of which belonged to Cherry.
"Hina is infuriated!" She shouted.
"Calm down, sweetie. Maybe it's not so bad, you know how they like to exaggerate in the news." Maximillian tried to calm her down.
Hina did calmed down, but only from boiling to simmering. She was taking this too personally, she should just do her duty and that's all.
But she couldn't help feeling a bit betrayed.
...
Gloom Island.
Hawkeye looked into the eyes staring back at him from the bounty poster that seemed to peer directly into his soul and judge all his sins.
When Red Hair had told him he had a daughter during their duel, he had ignored it as a poor attempt to disrupt his focus.
When Aokiji called him to tell him a young woman had claimed to be his daughter by the name of Harpin D. Cherry, he couldn't so easily dismiss it.
It could still have been a lie, a fraud. The events that occurred on that island when he had his duel with West Blue's strongest swordsman, Harpin D. Mortis, were not exactly a secret.
However, now that he was looking at her photograph he could not deny it. He could see both himself and that woman in her face.
He sighed. That woman had been the closest he ever came to giving up his ambitions, and by a long shot. Ultimately, he never would have abandoned his path in life, even if he'd known about this daughter of his.
He furrowed his brows further than usual. While he couldn't deny his blood connection, he also didn't want to accept something else.
"Why is your epithet 'Cheapshot'?! What kind of nickname is that for a swordsman?!" He stood up and uncharacteristically roared.
He knew it wasn't unwarranted either, since Aokiji had told him that all 5 Vice Admirals that went to Enies Lobby were laid up in the hospital with "injured groins".
He debated whether or not to go set her straight, but decided against it. It wasn't his right to 'parent' her.
He wouldn't go to her. They would only meet if she came to him.
...
Boulder Island.
"I'm going right now! She's going to wish it was the marines who got a hold of her when I catch her!" Grandma Angela raged.
It was Commander Frowe who had delivered the news to her personally. He had somewhat anticipated this situation and brought a large number of marines with him to attempt to prevent her from rashly setting sail.
"Now now, calm down Angela. The Grand Line is a dangerous place, a woman at your age shouldn't- OOF!" Commander Frowe clutched his now aching gut. The marines tried to dogpile the old woman, but to no avail as she flung them around like dolls.
"Slenk, Borke, you're coming with me!" Grandma Angela called out to the hiding men who could only curse their luck.
They went down to the harbor and purchased a ship, setting sail for the Grand Line as soon as they were able.
...
The Red Hair Pirates' Flagship Red Force.
Soon they would be breaking through a marine blockade to meet with Whitebeard in regards to Blackbeard and Ace.
The newspaper and the attached bounty posters arrived via news coo (the sea birds that deliver the newspapers).
"Check it out captain! My boy got a bounty! Also it seems like both Usopp and Cherry are in Luffy's crew! How crazy is that!" Yasopp laughed with delight.
"It's strange how small the world can be at times. I never thought that tattle-tale little girl would become a pirate herself! Dahaha!" Shanks said with a smile. "It's good that Luffy has a strong crew. Maybe we'll see him sooner than expected."
...
Water 7.
The Franky Family just finished pleading with the Straw Hats to bring Franky with them, even if they had to use force. They brought the new bounty posters with them to show Franky's bounty to them as their reasoning.
With the exception of Serene, who had hidden her face in anticipation of the notoriety that would be inflicted upon them, they all had new bounties.
Harpin D. "Cheapshot" Cherry - 350 Million Beri
"Blood Wine" Cabernet - 275 Million Beri
Cherry thought her own bounty was pretty low, but figured it must be because it was her first one.
Robin's bounty perplexed her as it only went up by a measly one million Beri. What was even the point of that?
"Pfft, why didn't they just take of a picture of you while they were here, Sanji? This sketch is terrible. Did you beat of the photographer or something to make them hate you this much? Hehehehe!" Cherry teased him mercilessly.
Sanji wasn't the only one who was upset. Nami wasn't fond of having a bounty on her head now, whilst Chopper was upset that his bounty was a measly 50 Beri.
Luffy, on the other hand, was conflicted. He was satisfied with his new bounty of 300 Million, but that was still less than Cherry's bounty. As the captain he naturally wanted to have the biggest bounty.
"You'll just have to try harder, Luffy. The future king of the pirates can't lag behind his crew can he?" Cherry said, which caused him to get fired up.
They went down to check out the new ship and were pretty amazed with the results. Even Cherry was somewhat impressed with its luxury.
Eventually Franky was lured back to the ship from his hideout, unclothed. After a brief back and forth, Franky eventually gave up and accepted the invitation.
They soon set sail for their next destination, the route to which passed through the infamous Florian Triangle that Kokoro warned them about.
Before that, though, it seemed Garp was scolded by the Fleet Admiral and sent back to catch them.
He started hurling cannon balls at their ship whilst Franky started charging some sort of escape mechanism up.
"Start handing me cannon balls, Usopp. This looks like fun." Cherry said.
She reared back with the first and launched it towards the marine ship, slamming right into the bow. "Two can play at that game, you old coot! Hehehe!"
Garp's ship ended up being the only one that took damage as the Thousand Sunny had a higher quality crew. Then they flew into the air a whole kilometer away.
"This consumes three whole barrels of cola, but it's great in a pinch!" Franky explained proudly.
"Cola?" Cherry asked, perplexed.
"Right! Both the Thousand Sunny and myself are powered by cola!" Franky said.
Cherry could only stare at his slack jawed. It was an absurd thing to claim. But sure enough, there were bottles of cola in his chest cavity. Cherry thought nonsense like this would be confined to the work of a devil fruit, but apparently the whole world was just insane.
They enjoyed the sunlight while they could. There would be none where they were headed.
Capítulo 84: Sea of Darkness
Luffy, Chopper, and Usopp were fishing as they often do.
Cherry was laying on a massage table set up on the lawn deck as Serene seemed to be putting all her strength into her elbow on Cherry's back.
"You use a little more pressure, Serene. You won't hurt me." Cherry said.
Serene redoubled her efforts. If an outside observer didn't know better, they'd think she was TRYING to hurt Cherry.
Robin looked up from her book and set it down on the coffee table next to her. She walked over and had Serene step aside, then pressed her knuckles into the same spot.
"Atatatata! That's hurts!" Cherry squirmed.
Robin walked away with a satisfied smile. She and Serene had been getting along better since she started learning massage arts from her. So it had started to annoy her when Cherry would bully Serene.
In fact pretty much everyone had at least somewhat warmed up to Serene, except for Cherry who insisted she still owed "community service".
Lately Serene has been worming her way passed even her defenses, though. Cherry thought it must be the atmosphere of the crew that was changing her tune.
Still, Cherry wouldn't trust her no matter what. Trusting her meant removing the seal on her devil fruit, and that wasn't going to happen.
"Hey, what's that!" Luffy pointed out.
"Looks like a barrel." Usopp spied with his keen eyes. "It says 'Offering for the Gods'?"
They brought the barrel on board. It seemed to have remained intact.
"Some sailors use these to pray for safe passage. They usually contain alcohol." Robin explained. "It's customary to place a new offering inside if you take from it."
"What if it's cursed?!" Usopp exclaimed.
"""Let's drink it!""" Cheered the drunkards.
Cherry activated her Life Sense on a hunch, but didn't pick up anything. Still her instincts told her something was up with the barrel.
*ZIP*
A sound similar to a kazoo was created as something small flew up and out of the barrel. It exploded high in the air in an extremely bright red flash that persisted for several moments.
"What happened, the alcohol disappeared?!" Chopper said, surprised.
"Perhaps it was cursed? Hahaha!" Zoro joked.
"That was a flare, perhaps it has alerted someone to our position?" Robin wondered aloud.
Suddenly Nami sensed a changed in the atmospheric pressure. She ordered the crew to change course at full speed, a storm was brewing.
Cherry couldn't shake that feeling she had before, only now it wasn't coming from the barrel, but from the ship itself.
The storm overtook them quickly. They raised the sails and brought out the paddles Franky had installed to navigate instead.
Several minutes of fighting the weather passed before they finally escaped the storm. Only now they found themselves in a dark place. A dense fog surrounded them and the only light they could see came from their own ship.
"No doubt about it, we're inside the Florian Triangle." Franky observed.
"I can feel... something. Like a subtle urging to go somewhere..." Cabernet said.
"Baaah!" Merry agreed.
Nobody else could feel what they were talking about, not even Cherry.
"Perhaps there's something in here that draws ships to their doom?" Robin hypothesized darkly. "That might explain how so many ships never come back out. The ships are pulled somewhere, unbeknownst to the crews aboard them."
Cabernet and Merry shivered at the idea.
"D-don't worry, guys! I made all sorts of preparation against all manner of evil spirit!" Usopp said, coming back up from below deck, covered in many different kinds of talismans and superstitious junk.
"Evil spirit, huh? Maybe that's what's hiding on the ship?" Cherry spoke nonchalantly, rubbing her chin in thought.
"""Whaaaat?!""" Nami, Usopp, and Chopper shouted.
"Yeah, I felt like there was something inside that barrel we picked up, but I couldn't sense anything from it. Now I have the same feeling about the ship." Cherry explained calmly.
"Shishishi! Let's find the ghost!" Luffy was excited. He raced below decks.
The crew searched every nook and cranny of the ship for about an hour, but turned up nothing.
"There's no ghost..." Luffy said sadly.
"That's a good thing!" Nami yelled at him.
"Well, if you really want to find a ghost, we could follow Cabernet and Merry's guidance to where ever that leads to. If there's ghosts anywhere, it in the place all those missing ships are, right?" Cherry said. "Also there's probably tons of treasure there..."
Nami had been silently motioning for Cherry to shut up right up until she mentioned the possibility of treasure, when she started to day dream about all the lost riches that must have accumulated there.
She quickly shook herself out of it, though. "No! Absolutely not! We're not going to sail straight into some unknown death trap!"
An eerie voiced echoed across the pitch black sea. "Yohohoho~"
"D-did you hear that?" Usopp asked.
"Yo-hoho-ho~" The mysterious voice sang.
The creaking of a large ship could be heard coming up behind the Thousand Sunny. Upon shining their lights in the direction they caught sight of it.
The ship was old and battered. Like it was in a battle half a century ago and set adrift in this dark stretch of sea.
As it passed they shone the light upwards at the edge of the deck and illuminated the place where the singing was coming from. There they beheld the pale face of a skeleton. Not an unusual sight on a ghost ship to be fair, except that the skeleton lifted a tea cup to its teeth before passing outside their range of sight.
"It's time to ship out Binks's brew~" It sang softly.
The crew had fear etched onto their faces. Except for Cherry and Serene; the former had an amused smile, whilst the latter looked like she had just seen the most adorable kitten she'd ever laid eyes upon.
There was a moment of stunned silence as the ship left their sight.
"Shishishi! After it!" Luffy ordered.
The crew moved and brought the ship into motion to chase after the ship. They caught up easily as the large ship was only drifting along.
They made a boarding party consisting of Luffy, Nami, Sanji, Cherry, and Serene (who was even more enthusiastic than Luffy).
They took a dinghy to board the ship and climbed up the side via some fallen rigging.
The skeleton they saw previously peeked over the edge at them, earning a squeal of fear from Nami, and a squeal of delight from Serene.
When they climbed to the top, they were met with surprisingly warm greetings.
"How do you do? Yohoho!" He said. "Apologies, it's been some time since I last laid eyes upon another living soul. Though, I don't have eyes, Yohohoho!"
"He talks..." Nami muttered, not taking her eyes off of him.
""He talks!"" Luffy and Serene shouted in excitement.
"You can call me Brook. I am pleased to make your acquaintance." Brook introduced himself.
"By the way miss?" He leaned over slightly in Serene's direction. "May I see your panties?"
"Huh? W-well, if you show me your bones, maybe..." She looked genuinely conflicted.
Nami answered the question for her, though, with a strong right hook into Brook's skull.
"Don't ask a lady something so perverted! And Serene, don't actually consider it!" She scolded them both.
"Do you poop?" Luffy asked childishly.
"There's better questions to ask before that, idiot!" Sanji shouted.
"Indeed, I do." Brook answered.
"Don't answer it!" Sanji shouted.
Before Sanji could start his own line of questioning, Cherry spoke up. "Sanji, it's obviously a devil fruit. That answers most of your questions, right?"
"Well... yes..." Sanji awkwardly scratched the back of his head.
"Can you play your ribs like a xylophone?" Serene asked, staring intently at his ribs.
"Oh! I've never tried that before!" Brook said, enlightened.
"Before that, will you join my crew?" Luffy asked with a big smile.
"Okay." Brook said simply, without hesitation.
""What?!"" Nami and Sanji exclaimed. They didn't have an opportunity to stop him.
Serene clapped her hands and bounced on the balls of her feet with barely contained happiness.
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