Canon Fodder

CHAPTER 141 BOUNTY BULLION

“You all need to worry about the Florian Triangle,” Iceberg said. The Mayor of Water Seven had been hanging around the pool at our hotel more and more. 

“What’s that?” Nami asked.

“It’s also known as the Devil’s Triangle. It is between Water 7 and the next island for your Log Pose. I have been trying to make a route from Water 7 to the Red Line with the Sea Train, but whenever I try, something always breaks the tracks. It’s where hundreds of ships disappear every year. Other times they find ships without crews at all. The few that make it out of there talk about the living skeletons and ghosts they see in the Triangle.” 

“Ghosts!? Skeletons?! Triangle?” Chopper, Luffy, and Usopp yelled. Luffy was the most excited about it though. The others sounded scared. 

“Whenever I hear the Triangle mentioned,” Robin said. “I always hear talk about the treasure ships.” 

“Treasure?!” Nami asked excitedly. “Guess we better risk it.” 

“Nami! No!” Chopper yelled. 

“Sorry, Chopper. Nami has spoken,” I said with a laugh. “We just better make sure the captain doesn’t try to make any ghosts part of the crew.” 

Robin, Nami, Usopp, Zoro, and Sanji turned to face me slowly. “What do you know?!” Nami yelled. 

“Me? Nothing!” I said, trying to laugh it off. Growing scared by the looks the others gave me. 

“Would a ghost really join our crew?” Luffy asked. 

Glares from the others made me talk. “Ghosts aren’t real,” I said quickly. “Come on, let’s uh go see the new ship.” 

“Franky said he needed another hour,” Chopper said. 

“I’m sure he’s done. Just setting up a reveal for dramatic effect,” I said. We got up and started to head out, but we were stopped as someone started yelling for us. 

“Straw Hats! Straw Hats!” Voices yelled as they ran into the pool area. The poor normal patrons quickly disappeared with the appearance of these people. They were Franky’s crew. Technically shipwrights one and all they were more of a salvage crew. Instead of building ships they took them apart expertly. They had robbed us of our Skypiea money, and taken everything of ours from the Going Merry before our Enies Lobby escape. Once we got back into town they returned it though. 

“Straw Hats,” their front man sighed, seeing us. He was a short man with spiky black hair, but wore a Hawaiian shirt like Franky. “Your bounties came in.” 

“What?!” Nami asked angrily. “But we attacked Enies Lobby weeks ago. Why would they send out bounties now?”

“Bureaucracy,” I said. “Cool, who got them?” 

“You all did,” the man said, spreading out the bounty posters. 

I was pretty sure they stayed the same as in canon. Luffy was 300,000,000 berries. Zoro was 120,000,000. Robin was 80,000,000. Sanji actually had a real picture of him instead of the drawing. It appeared to be when he was jumping to the roof of the building when they confronted Spandam and CP9. His legs spread wide it looked like he was doing a ballet leap. Very…flamboyant. They might accept him on the isle of men more quickly because of it. Usopp had a bounty of 30,000,000. Nami had one of 16,000,000. Chopper had one for 50 berrie. 

Most important of all was my bounty. 200,000,000 berries. I smiled widely as there were excited and dejected moans from everyone. 

“Not bad,” Zoro said with a smile. 

“Not again,” Robin remarked. 

“This can’t be right,” Nami whined. “Cat Thief Nami? Why would they call me that? I’ve never stolen anything in my life!” I decided not to comment on that. 

“Does-does this say 5,000,000 berries?” Chopper asked, his voice hurt. 

“Sorry Chopper. It says 50.” He cried out sadly. 

“I’m a pirate!” He whined out. 

“The cutest pirate,” I said. He cried louder. 

“This can’t be,” Sanji said, gripping his bounty poster. “All the cool things I’ve done. They find a picture like this!?” The more I looked at the leap he had done in the picture, the harder it was not to laugh. “Weston, how do I get a new picture?” 

“Raise your bounty a bunch,” I suggested. “Yours says just Alive though, instead of Dead or Alive. Maybe they want you to join the Marine’s Ballet?” 

Sanji began cursing in another language. Zoro barked a laugh. “The Marines have a ballet?” Chopper asked innocently. 

“I understand your…excitement,” Franky’s crew member said. He pulled out another wanted poster though. On it was Frank’s face. Calling him Cyborg Franky he had a bounty of 44,000,000 berries. 

“I don’t know why the marines ignored us and Iceberg’s people. But they want Franky now.” 

“Probably because they still suspect he has blueprint plans for that weapon,” I noted. He did have them, and I wanted to keep them. Hopefully we could build the ancient weapon later. 

“Exactly. He won’t be safe here anymore. Straw Hat Luffy. Please take Franky out to sea with you. You can protect him better than we can. It’s in his blood. He is the son of pirates. He has to go out to sea.” 

Luffy laughed. “Of course we want him in our crew.” 

The members of Franky’s crew looked happy and sad by the news. “He won’t want to go,” I told them. “I’ve been trying to talk him into it daily. But he keeps fighting it.” 

“We just need to really convince him,” Luffy said. 

“I know how to do it,” I said. “But…it’s going to be tricky.” 

“What? How? I’ll do anything!” The crews said. 

“Simple, we just need to be ourselves.” I explained the simple truth to them and they all quickly got on board. 

—

“Here it is!” Franky said, revealing the ship with some flourish as he pulled a sheet. 

The ship was massive. At least 25 feet tall it was 30 feet wide and 100 feet long. In place of a sheep's head at the front was that of a yellow lion that looked like a sun. A large number 1 printed on the side there was red paint and the plain brown of the Adam’s wood. There was a main and fore mast on the ship. Seeing it in person was so much better than in a manga. 

“This is a brigantine class ship,” Franky said. “She has my blood, sweat, and tears poured into every bit of her. I have dreamed of making a ship like this for years, and she turned out better than I could have hoped.”

“Thanks Franky!” Luffy yelled as he ran up the gangplank. We all ran up it excitedly, walking past Franky. “There’s grass on deck,” Luffy said as he began rolling on it. 

The crew was quickly running all over the place. “What’s this do?!” Smoke billowed out from somewhere. 

“Woah a window” A crash sounded as it was broken. 

“Are these sails strong?” The noise of ripping sounded. 

“What’s under this grass?” Chopper asked as he began lifting it up. 

Franky stood there in shock for a moment. “WHAT ARE YOU ALL DOING!?” He yelled. 

“Shit, come on guys,” I said. “Hey Iceberg!” I yelled back at the ground. “We need a shipwright to fix this thing already! You were Tom’s apprentice. You think you could join us around the world? I don’t think the ship will last a week otherwise.” My words were made true as a crash sounded somewhere below. Soon Luffy began walking out of the ship, whistling like he hadn’t done anything. 

“I can’t be your shipwright!” Iceberg yelled. “I do know someone that can!” 

I heard Franky grinding his teeth behind me. “Oh Franky, you’re still here?” I asked, surprised. “By the way, we found this on our way here.” I pulled out the bounty poster of his. His eyes bulged as he read it. “Look, it says, ‘known associates are the Straw Hat Pirates’.” 

Franky looked up at me, shocked. “Hey Franky!” Luffy yelled from the main mast. “I love this ship. You mind joining our crew?”

Franky closed his eyes and breathed out. “Fine! I’ll join your crew. Just to make sure you idiots don’t destroy the ship!” 

“Awesome!” Luffy said. Grabbing a rope he asked, “What’s this do?” I laughed as he was thrown off from a counterweight. Until he was thrown into the sea and I was forced to jump in after him. 

“You did it, captain. You can stop breaking stuff on the ship,” I said. 

“Breaking stuff? I was just looking around,” he said. I laughed, knowing that he meant it. I knew being himself would have caused enough damage. 

—

With the ship ready to go we were on the water and fully stocked with food by the next day. Franky moved his stuff in and we had a nice long tour of the ship. If the Going Merry was a Pokemon, then the new ship was about 3 evolutions further. Better in every way. 

The helm was at the front of the ship this time. There was a lower deck where the grass and the foremast was, then an upper back deck where the main mast and an observation deck sat. The kitchen was huge and had a lot of storage with locks on doors. The men and women had large quarters that they could share. But I had slipped Franky some extra money to make me an actual room.

A live-well on the ship for food there was every amenity imaginable. A wine cellar, ovens, and most importantly there was a shower with actual hot water. Usopp and Franky had their own workshops. Chopper had a med bay. It was everything we needed and then some. 

After the tour we had a vote on a name. I voted for Titan, but wasn’t too heartbroken when they said no because of the Titanic and all. Luffy wanted polar bear. But for some reason we went with Iceberg’s suggestion of Thousand Sunny. Which I wasn’t about to fight since that was canon. To each their own. 

“Luffy!” A voice yelled over a microphone. We all ran to the back of the ship to see that the marines were trailing up behind us. Luffy’s grandpa was yelling at us as he waved. “Sorry! I got yelled at for letting you go. I’ll have to capture you all now that your bounties are raised.” 

“What?!” Luffy yelled. Franky handed him a microphone. “What?!”

“I said I have to capture you now!” His grandpa yelled. “Sorry about this. Just give up!” 

“Are we ready to go?” I asked Franky. 

“I have a way to get us out of here quickly,” Franky said. “But they could give chase.”

I knew that we could do a Coup de Burst to get away, and I doubted Garp would give chase. However… “Captain, permission to try something?” I asked. 

“Don’t get close to their ship,” Luffy said. “Grandpa can swim.” 

“Not that, I have a new ninja move I want to try. It may not work though,” I said. 

“Ninja?!” Luffy asked excitedly. “Let’s do it.” 

“Alright, start getting ready to set sail,” I said to the crew. “I will try something which should knock their ship out of commission.” 

“Yosh,” Luffy said and people began scrambling to open the sails. “Grandpa! It was great seeing you, kind of.” I jumped off the ship and walked away from it. “Don’t be mad if your ship explodes. We are going to do a sweet ninja move.”

“Ninja!?” Garp yelled. “I want to see!” I laughed at the old man’s reaction. Far enough away I focused as much as I could. Just like Kame said, I did the summoning jutsu and released all the chakra I could at the moment my hands touched the water. It was time to do the Cross World Summoning. 

For a moment I was afraid it hadn’t worked, then smoke poured out of the water and a giant sea turtle rose out of the depths. It wasn’t Kame like I had hoped, but still the largest one I had summoned. The turtle raised up out of the water slowly. Me on it’s head it was about 2 times the size of the Thousand Sunny. 

Luffy, Chopper, Franky, and Usopp had stars in their eyes as they saw the giant turtle. “Kaminari, right?” I yelled down. 

“Weston?! What do you want?” The giant turtle grumbled. 

“See that ship ahead. Can you make a hole in the side of it?” I asked. 

“That small ship?” He asked. To him it was very small. 

“Yeah, don’t destroy it, but knock a side off,” I said.

Kaminari rumbled but focused water chakra in his mouth. A torrential stream of water shot out of his mouth like Squirtle’s water gun breaking off a huge section off the side of the ship. “Luffy! Not fair!” Garp yelled. 

“Thanks Kaminari,” I said. The turtle nodded and turned into smoke. I fell to the water and was running to the ship as soon as I landed. 

“Weston! That was so cool!” Luffy yelled. “I want to learn ninja stuff!” 

“Later Luffy. We should run for now,” I said.

“Oh right,” Luffy said. Going back to the microphone he began yelling at the marine ship as it turned around. “Bye Grandpa. See you next time!” 

There was no answer from the marine ship. Luckily they were at the island with the best shipwrights. We were all soon running around to the tune of Nami’s orders. Starting our next adventure as we went to sea.