"Giant bioluminescent jellyfish, weird." Cherry said, feeling up one of the jellyfish's tentacles that had poked into the bubble. "I'd say that they're beautiful, if they weren't so deathly poisonous."
"Eh?!" Chopper backed away swiftly from a tentacle that he was about to touch.
A sea king came out of the darkness and chomped onto the jellyfish, before it itself got caught by Takako who took a big bite out of it in turn.
"You're so sweet, Takako~! You show that big mean sea king who it's stealing from~!" Cherry gushed over the adorable monstrosity's brutality.
The others looked at her strangely, with the exception of Robin, Cabernet, and Franky. Robin and Cabernet were just used to her antics with the kraken by now, and Franky was just a pervert who had a high bar for what he considered to be odd behavior.
The sea king thrashed about trying to escape only to go very still a few moments later.
"Wow, the poison really paralyzed a sea king of that size, and so quickly too?" Cherry pondered aloud, tasting the poisonous ooze left on her hand.
Caribou looked at her in silent horror and thought, 'What kind of monster are you?!'
Cherry turned her gaze to him. "What are you looking at, huh? You want to have a taste too or something?"
Caribou shook his head vigorously from side to side. "No no no no no! I was just admiring your, uh… courageousness…"
"Damn straight." Cherry responded, turning her attention away from him to his infinite relief.
*BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM*
They felt vibrations through the water coming from ahead as they entered into an underwater volcanic region.
"I hope that's Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji rather than some other unrelated sea monster fight…" Nami said.
"Maybe we're sailing straight into a volcanic eruption." Robin posited darkly.
"Shush you!" Usopp didn't want to jinx it.
They were surprised to find that the fight they were hearing wasn't the three buffoons fighting the yellow kraken, but actually the kraken fighting what looked like an enormous pudgy man.
The fight was over by the time they reached it, ending with the male kraken's victory. Nearby they saw a tiny bubble with three fools all stuffed into it swimming over to the ship.
"PUHAAAA! Fresh air, I thought I would die, bahahahaha!" Luffy laughed.
"It's good to have so much space to breathe in." Sanji said, lighting up a cigarette.
"Mm, I'm glad I won't have to die smelling your awful perfume." Zoro said.
"It's not perfume, it's cologne! COLOGNE!" Sanji was unusually bent out of shape about that one. Actually it was about the same as any other time he talked to Zoro, but he seemed to take it a lot more personally this time..
*sniff sniff*
Cabernet sniffed at Sanji which drew his attention away from zoro.
"Oh, do you like my cologne Cabernet-chan?" Sanji asked with a pleased look.
"Yeah. It kind of smells like Ivankov's, it's nice." Cabernet nodded with an innocent smile.
Sanji experienced a mixed bag of extreme emotions that few men ever had the displeasure of feeling.
"T-thank you…" Sanji muttered after a tremendous internal battle with himself.
"Ah, Sanji?! Why are you bleeding from your eyes?!" Chopper panicked.
"I can't believe you actually managed to tame that kraken just by beating it up…" Nami said, looking at the octopus' nervous smile.
Takako didn't look amused at all.
"That's pretty much how I met Takako, though. It's not that strange, is it?" Cherry said.
Another ship appeared then. It dwarfed the Sunny in size and had no bubble around its ruined form. Its sail bore the name "FLYING DUTCHMAN".
Someone started to sing a dreadful song in an equally dreadful singing voice, coming from the ghost ship. Strangely the voice carried through the water quite well.
"A fishman huh?" Cherry commented.
She didn't even need to scan with Life Sense to make that guess, though she still did for good measure. Only a fishman or mermaid's voice would carry so well underwater.
'A fishman with a devil fruit? How odd.' Cherry thought.
The fishman masquerading as some kind of ancient pirate who drowned his whole crew was caught off in his singing as a new rumbling passed over them. This one was much larger and wider in scale.
The red glow in the distance gave away the cause.
"The volcanoes are going to erupt! We have to get out of here!" Nami shouted.
"Surume! Get us out of here!" Luffy ordered.
"You gave it a squid's name…?" Usopp paused in his panicked screaming to say.
Surume picked up the Sunny as Takako gave him a gesture with two tentacles that meant "I'm watching you."
*BOOOOOOOOOOOM*
"It's so hot!" Chopper suffered the most from this event.
Nami led the way with the log pose, until they reached a dark trench.
"Go down!" Nami shouted.
Their resident cowards screamed in doubt whilst Luffy shouted at Surume to dive inside the horrible trench filled with a darkness deeper than death itself.
Enormous rocks larger than the Thousand Sunny began to rain down upon them as they dived. Takako managed to divert some of them from crashing into the ship, then Usopp stepped in with his odd plants to grow a massive seaweed structure out of the cliff face to catch the rocks.
Finally they reached the bottom of the trench and the sea opened up with space and light. Above them there was a massive coral reef inside a double layered bubble, nestled amongst the massive roots of the mangrove trees whose tops were on the surface ten kilometers above them.
A final boulder fell down from above, luckily it wasn't going to hit anything. At least until Takako nudged it to the size so that it slammed into Surume's head. Takako grinned with sadistic satisfaction.
"Fishman island! It's huge, amazing!" Luffy shouted in child-like wonder.
Cherry joined in with Sanji and Brook chanting "Mermaids! Mermaids!", which Robin could only shake her head at knowing she was just messing around.
Sanji kept scrunching his face in discomfort, clearly indicating that he would be spewing his entire blood supply out of his nose if not for Cherry's little modification. Though Cherry was wondering if it could actually hold up under the strain Sanji was putting on it.
"Kraken! What the hell are you doing submitting to those humans?! Huh?!" A voice shouted, sounding like a juvenile delinquent.
Surume flinched at the voice, turning to its source. A zoo's worth of sea kings swam over to greet them.
"Oh, you found a female? Is it mating season already?" The voice, a conger fishman, wondered.
He turned his attention back to the pirate ship in front of him. "I see that you're the Straw Hat pirates. You defeated Arlong, but you also saved Hachi and struck a celestial dragon. So I'll give you a choice, swear allegiance to the New Fishman Pirates or die!"
"What did you say?" Luffy said, sounding a bit miffed at the ultimatum.
"Franky, get ready to use a Coup de Burst! There's no way Luffy will even pretend to submit, we need to get out of here! We're at a disadvantage in the open water against fishmen and that many sea kings!" Nami quickly and quietly told Franky.
"Mm, even if Surume sides with us, which seems unlikely under the circumstances, it's unlikely that he and Takako can both fight and protect the ship." Cherry reasoned. Though she looked disappointed that she couldn't just go all out.
"Right, we've already got the fuel rigged up and ready to go!" FRanky said, rushing over to the helm.
Cherry poked her hand out of the bubble for Takako to slurp back inside.
"What the fuck?!" The Conger Fishman shouted in disgust and confusion at the sight.
"Forget it, BAKAAAA!" Luffy shouted at them, as his official answer to their absurd proposal.
The conger fishman started ranting about how they were now "enemies of all fishman kind" whilst Luffy made funny faces at him in response, making full use of his stretchy powers.
Before the fishmen could make a move, the Sunny jerked forward with its Coup de Burst. About half of the air was sucked out of the bubble, but that was fine since the destination was close at hand.
The ship pierced through the outer bubble of Fishman Island, stripping the bubble coating off of their ship. Their momentum continued and they pushed through the inner bubble as well.
Unfortunately, the other side of this bubble wasn't air like the last, but water. Seeing the helpless devil fruit users on their crew, Cherry rolled her eyes and got to work rescuing them from an otherwise watery grave.
'They couldn't have just aimed at the obvious official entrance? I'm sure this won't bite us in the ass later…' Cherry thought to herself in annoyance.
Cherry was about to grab whoever she could and bring them to the surface, when she happened to lock eyes with a group of mermaids that were passing by.
One of the mermaids was familiar to her. It was Camie, whom she had met two years ago.
"Ahhhhh! I forgot to escort them here! I thought it was next month?!" Camie panicked, dropping her groceries.
"Are those illegal immigrants friends of yours, Camie? Should we help them? It looks like they're about to drown…" Another mermaid said.
"Of course, please help me save them, girls!" Camie rushed over to grab Luffy.
"I'll take you somewhere dry, okay?" A mermaid spoke to Cherry.
"I'm fine, thanks. You can help one of the others." Cherry answered clearly.
"Huh? Are you part fishman? You speak so clearly underwater…" The mermaid said, before turning her attention to Chopper and swimming away with him.
Everyone was brought back to Camie's home, with the exception of Franky who was a bit too big. He was able to get along underwater just fine without assistance, so he went off on his own for now.
Only Cherry, Robin, Zoro, Nami, and Brook were conscious in Camie's home at the moment. Luffy, Chopper, Merry, Sanji, Usopp, and Cabernet were sleeping soundly in a big clamshell.
"I'm so sorry for not being there to meet you. I'm such a scatterbrain sometimes." Camie smiled awkwardly, scratching the back of her head.
"That's alright, Camie. We made it here just fine." Nami said, drying off with a towel.
"Something is missing…" Cherry said, looking at each person in the room.
"Franky went off on his own," Camie said.
"No, no not him." Cherry said, rubbing her chin in thought. Then she snapped her fingers and looked enlightened. "Where's our barrel creep?"
"Barrel creep?" Camie asked, confused.
"Right, Caribou. You should tell your friends to be on the lookout for him. An ugly guy stuffed into a barrel with just his head poking out. Who knows what he'll do if he gets let out." Nami warned.
"Probably kidnap mermaids, he seemed the type." Robin said, having caught her breath.
"Okay, I'll go spread the word. Mermaid traffickers are the last thing we need right now." Camie said, jumping back into the pool she used as an entrance.
"Look how scary she is!" "She's scary!" "No she isn't!" "I think she's scary?" "So what if she's scary?" Five tiny mermaids poked their little heads inside from the pool entrance.
Naturally they were talking about Cherry.
"Surely you have scarier fishmen here? With sharks and eels and what not?" Cherry asked.
"Nope, not even close! "Not even close!" "Very close!" "I think it's not close?" "So what if it's not close?" They answered.
"Do you do that every time you talk?" Cherry asked. "Or are you just messing with us?"
They all look to their top right and whistle nonchalantly like they didn't hear the question.
Camie came up from the entrance and grabbed one of her bubbles to float on.
"Would you like something to eat? I can have something whipped up in about half an hour." Camie offered.
"I want to look around, seeing if they have swords here." Zoro answered.
"I want to see what they have to offer for sale as well." Nami said.
"I will go with Zoro to make sure he doesn't get lost." Brook said.
"I want to see the historical sites." Robin said.
"I'll probably go looking for trouble." Cherry answered, earning a glare from Nami.
"No you won't! Anyways, Luffy will probably be happy if you had something to eat for when they wake up, Camie. Thanks in advance." Nami said.
"Alright then. I'll show you how to use the bubbles to get around." Camie said.
After a brief rundown on how the bubbles work, they were off on their own.
Cherry wasn't necessarily looking for trouble like she said, but she expected that she might find some in her current task. That was to find out what happened to Slenk and Borke.
After asking around, Cherry learned that a good place to get information on fishman island was to ask Madame Shirley who ran the Mermaid Cafe. Tourists and locals both frequented the establishment, so a lot of news and rumors came through as well.
*Ding ding*
Cherry opened the door which rang a bell overhead and confidently strode inside.
"Welcome~! Would you like a table or a booth?" A beautiful mermaid waitress asked.
"A booth please. Would it be possible to meet with Madame Shirley?" Cherry asked.
"Madame Shirley is very busy at the moment. May I inquire about the reason for your desire to meet her?" The mermaid waitress asked. Most wouldn't notice that her tone and posture shifted to a more defensive nature, but Cherry did.
"I just had some questions, maybe you can answer them." Cherry said, not minding the change in demeanor.
Seeing the mermaid waitress nod, Cherry asked away. "Do you know about two human swordsmen who came here about a year ago by the names of Slenk and Borke?"
The mermaid waitress's demeanor shifted again, though Cherry couldn't quite read it this time.
"They were regulars a while back. A couple of months ago they were arrested for murder." She answered.
Cherry seemed calm on the inside, but inside she was burning up like a volcano. "What was their sentence?"
"... Death…" The mermaid waitress answered, a single tear rolling down her face.
She had been personally saved from traffickers by those two. Their unfair fate was something that haunted her dreams since the verdict came from the palace.
"I see. Thank you, here's something for the trouble." Cherry said, putting down several bills on the table.
As Cherry was walking away she stopped. Without turning around she asked "Do you know how I might gain an audience with the king?"
"I-I don't know. You could ask a patrolling royal guard, maybe?" The mermaid waitress answered.
"Okay." Cherry left the restaurant.
…
In the Ryugu Palace, the royal family minus the princess was eating lunch.
"Father, I heard there was a case of illegal immigration by a group of pirates earlier. From the sounds of it, it might be the Straw Hats. Should we deliver Jimbe's message about where they can meet him after lunch?" Prince Fukaboshi asked.
"I see. I suppose it is better to deliver it personally since it's Jimbe, jamon." King Neptune answered.
Prince Fukaboshi responded. "Of course, Fa-"
They all froze in place. The air around them suddenly felt ten times heavier than the water outside fishman island.
The guards in the room had directly fallen unconscious.
"What is this Haki, jamon?!" Neptune wondered aloud.
He and the three princes turned in the direction of its source. Each of them saw an illusion appear in their mind's eye.
Two hawk-like red eyes burned into their minds. A cold fury dwelt in those eyes as they seemed to judge them.
Then the pressure was gone.
"W-what was that, Father? So la ti do…" Prince Ryuboshi asked.
"Why do I feel so guilty, Akkamanbo…" Prince Manboshi spoke. The other three knew what he meant by that.
"Those eyes… Did we do something to upset Hawkeye, jamon?" King Neptune wondered. Hawkeye was the only one he could think of with eyes like that, that could also pressure them so much.
The minister of the right rushed inside with more guards. "Your Majesties, are you alright?!"
"We're fine, tend to the guards that passed out." Prince Fukaboshi said.
"Send some royal guards to look for the Shichibukai Hawkeye and invite him to the palace, jamon. Perhaps we can avoid violence, but if not then it's better to face him here where civilians won't be hurt in the battle, jamon." King Neptune ordered.
The Minister of the Right wanted to argue but held his tongue. His majesty was right, a man like Hawkeye couldn't be underestimated. "Yes, your majesty!"
…
Meanwhile, inside the Ryugu Palace's dungeon.
"Hey Borke, did you just feel like Cherry was really angry at us for some reason?" Slenk asked.
Borke shrugged his shoulders.
"Did I just imagine it?" Slenk wondered aloud.
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