5/7

Down on his back, Sanji glared up at Zeff and said, "No more cooking? Good - now I can't be recruited to be a cook on some pirate ship. I'll be back up to sous chef in no time." ("You want to see stubborn? I'm going to go at this punishment detail so hard you'll never let me go, you shitty geezer.")

There was another scuffle and then stillness once it was completed and the night passed into the next day once more.

The next morning the very moment Luffy left Dawn and stepped off onto the dock of the Baratie Sanji was already there. He greeted Luffy with a kick to his gut, which knocked Luffy back onto Dawn but didn't hurt him at all.

"Sanji! Good morning! Are you ready to join my crew now?" Luffy cheerfully called out to him as he bounced back up to his feet, unfazed by the hostility Sanji was using against him.

"No. I've had your crew banned from the Baratie," Sanji said with a stubborn scowl on his face. "You are still allowed to order from the waiters but I won't let you board this ship. It pains me to include those lovely ladies and the little girl in the ban but it had to be done."

Luffy's only concern was one thing. "Are you still going to cook the food we order, though?"

"No - I'm still fixing the rest of the holes in the Baratie today. So someone else will cook today if any of you order food. Recruit some other cook - I refuse your request to join your crew." Sanji said with determination.

"Well, I refuse your refusal," Luffy argued back stubbornly. "It will be you and no one else."

"Then you'll get no one else, you stupid straw hat! Now stay on your ship or else I'll kick your teeth in." Sanji shouted before turning on his heel and stomping away in irritation.

"Do you want me to talk with him, Luffy?" Dawn asked.

"If you want to, go ahead," Luffy said while a smile grew on his face. "I know just how to get everyone else to want Sanji no matter what, too."

Dawn bloomed out a lure in the form of a green hummingbird and directed it over to the second level of the Baratie where Sanji was patching up the outer wall.

"Good morning, Sanji! Do you mind if I talk with you?" Dawn called out to him.

Sanji stiffened his shoulders very slightly but remained polite to the lady ship. "I don't mind at all, Miss Dawn. You won't be able to sweet talk me into joining your crew, I'm afraid. Fate will not allow us to sail together."

Dawn fluttered beside Sanji and spoke gently and encouragingly to him. "I know how important loyalty is more than anything and it's very admirable to see the same in you. I also have a feeling that you have a dream that you know will be hard to chase. Luffy is drawn naturally to that type of person. But if your dream is real and burns within you there's no way you can just keep it locked up forever. Once you begin to chase it like everyone else Luffy is drawn to does, you'll shine like starlight and storm the sea like a typhoon. When you're ready to show the world what you're about we'll be ready."

Sanji simply let out a hum of acknowledgment and kept working on the outer walls. He was going to out stubborn that annoying pirate and his slightly less annoying ship no matter what. Zeff was worth giving up his own dreams for.

When the rest of the Straw Hat crew found out that they had been banned from the Baratie it wasn't really anything to be concerned about for them. They still had plenty of fish, eggs, and a kitchen to cook with after all.

"Well if Sanji's locked us out from the restaurant I can cook for us in Dawn's galley - for a small fee of course." Nami offered.

"No." Luffy said with a stubborn glint in his eyes. Sanji was playing at being stubborn but nobody could out stubborn a Monkey. "Starting today only Dawn and Sanji are allowed to cook in her galley. If Sanji won't cook for us then Dawn will have to."

The expressions of horror that were crossing everyone's faces at his declaration caused him to let out an amused laugh. "Shishishi! Sanji should get used to Dawn's galley anyway instead of always using the galley in that restaurant, right?"

So they were stuck with getting food from either Dawn or the completely resistant to leave chef? The chef who was in the restaurant they had all been banned from?

Medaka raised her hand and with complete seriousness asked, "Are we allowed to kidnap him, Captain Luffy?"

"No - he needs to decide to come on his own just like you all had to," Luffy said without a hint of shame or ability to recognize the disbelieving expressions on Ann and Zoro's faces.

Regardless of their feelings towards Sanji, getting him to join the crew was now priority number one for the entire crew.

Up on the outer wall of the Baratie Sanji had to repress a shiver threatening to crawl up his spine. He warily eyed the top deck of the Straw Hat pirate ship and tried to tell himself that the intensity of the eyes looking in his direction was because the two lovely ladies had fallen in love with him. (The swordsman hopefully only wanted to fight him.)

If Sanji had thought it was difficult for him to work when Luffy had been the only one trying to persuade him to join the crew, it was nothing compared to when the rest of the crew joined up in doing the same in their own ways. The first to try was the little cabin girl.

"Good morning, Mr. Sanji!" Sanji looked down to the lowest deck of the Baratie where the little red-haired girl was waving at him to catch his attention (As though shouting his name wouldn't have already done the job). Sanji couldn't even consider it to bring himself to be as rough with Medaka as he tended to be with her captain but did jump down to the bottom level of the Baratie to speak with her without having to raise his voice.

Remembering she wasn't too fond of flower nicknames he smiled and said, "Good morning, little gem. I'm sorry but I did tell your (idiot) captain that no one in his crew is allowed to be here on the Baratie. Did you need to order something to eat? I can have another cook take some food out to your ship."

"No, that's alright, Mr. Sanji." Medaka rebuffed before launching into more talking. "I actually came out here to help you with patching up all those holes. I won't break anything or try to distract you - I promise. I already had breakfast anyway. Dawn made fish omelettes for us but she always leaves the shells in since she said they're a good source of calcium while we don't have any dairy onboard. Is that true?"

Sanji's eyes lit up and he let Medaka follow him back up to the area he had been working in and said, "Now that really is something to try. If the shells are boiled to remove contaminants and then ground up into a fine powder after they're dried the powder really could be used to add additional calcium to many different kinds of foods."

Medaka huffed and followed Sanji's nonverbal motions to mix up the plaster in the bucket he was using to patch up the holes. "Yeah, I'm sure if you did that the food would turn out good. Dawn puts the whole shell in without any grinding though so you just end up with chunks of big shell pieces all through the food."

Sanji tried not to wince at the mental image but carried on the conversation as Medaka began to mix up the plaster with the wooden dowel in the bucket. "I'm thinking she isn't the best at cooking then?"

Medaka, after pausing to lift her arm to wipe her now slightly runny nose with her sleeve, shook her head and emphasized with the motion by speaking. "No. Even I'm a better cook than she is, and I used to eat raw eggs and dry out food with salt out on the rocks behind my old house before I became a pirate apprentice for Luffy's crew."

Sanji seemed to be startled as he looked down at her and asked, "You mean that autumn goddess, Nami, isn't your older sister?"

Medaka let out a short laugh and said. "Are you joking? We don't look anything alike! Why do you think an eleven-year-old kid like me is out here with a crew of pirates? I'm an orphan and my island wanted to get rid of me."

"So you didn't have anywhere else to go?" Sanji asked, sympathetically. "Sounds like you've had a rough time."

Medaka scowled into the bucket of plaster as her eyes burned and began to stir it faster. "It would've probably been worse if Luffy and the rest of them hadn't been there for me. I'd rather be a pirate apprentice with people who like me than live on a peaceful island as an outcast. Why don't you like us, anyway? I know most pirates are jerks (like the ones you and the other cooks fight off) but our crew isn't really all that bad, are we?"

Sanji huffed and filled up another hole with plaster from Medaka's bucket and said, "Who said I didn't like you? Even if the Pirate Empress herself asked me to leave this place, I would have to decline. I owe Zeff my life and my debt hasn't been paid yet - that's the reason I won't ever leave."

When he turned to get more plaster out from the bucket he was startled to find Medaka's eyes had big rivets of tears falling down from them and she was sniffling. (He didn't realize that it was actually the plaster fumes that were making her eyes so irritated.) "Why are you crying, little gem?"

Not one to miss out on an opening like this, Medaka made her voice sound wavering and sad as she spoke. "Y-you don't n-need to make up a re-reason. I-I don't n-need you to l-like me l-like the r-rest of the crew does. S-some people just don't l-like pirates no matter w-who they are..."

Sanji could admit with no hint of shame that probably his greatest weakness was pretty women - but he hadn't realized until now that there existed an even greater weakness of his: the tears of a crying little girl. With a touch of panic in his voice, Sanji hastened to assure, "I do like you! Wait here, I can prove it!"

He vanished from sight a moment later and in only ten seconds or so he was back in front of Medaka, carrying a single serving of chilled custard pudding in a bowl. "Look! It's your favorite! I made a bunch of these last night since you like to order them so much."

He passed the bowl into her hands and presented her with her favorite dessert in an effort to stop her tears. She took the bowl gratefully and smiled up at Sanji hopefully. "If you really do like us, I think you should find a way to pay Mr. Zeff back quickly and come with us. I'll help you wash dishes whenever you ask if you join today."

Sanj pointed down to Dawn and with a slightly more stern tone of voice he said, "No more helping me. Take your treat and go back to your ship, little gem."

Medaka smiled at him and walked away while she savored the tasty confirmation that the twisty sunflower cook really did like them. She would give him a break for a few hours before returning to find a way to bring him into the crew.

When Ann and Zoro approached him together later that morning Sanji felt that he could deal with whatever it was that they would say to him. At least that was his confidence before Zoro nudged Ann with his elbow slightly and in a quiet voice, Ann apologized. "I'm sorry about flipping you over the table onto the floor when we first met. I don't actually hate you or dislike you or anything like that - it was a reflex. If you don't want to join the crew because you hate me I promise that I won't bother you too much once you join."

Sanji was horrified that a lovely spring goddess like Ann thought he was any way declining to be on the Straw Hat crew due to dislike or hatred towards her and nearly fell over himself as he decried the very thought. "Of course I don't hate you, o lovely cornflower goddess! I wouldn't hate you even if you had tried to kill me!"

Zoro nodded his head over Sanji's declaration before turning to Ann and said, "I told you that you were worried over nothing. I knew this love-cook couldn't be that embarrassed over getting tossed around by you - he's just a stubborn moron."

"Who are you calling a moron - you mossy muscle head!" Sanji shouted down at him.

Zoro lifted his head to look Sanji directly in the eyes and said, "You. I called you a moron. You and that head chef of yours don't exactly talk quietly, you know. Why do you think he kicked his sous-chef out of the kitchen to do manual labor out here alone when he could have any one of the other cooks helping you."

Sanji was definitely going to kick the teeth out of that green-haired swordsman. "You want a fight - you leafy brained bastard!?"

Zoro's teeth seemed to sharpen and glint like metal as he held his hand over the hilt of his unnamed sword. "Sure. When I beat you then you'll join the crew as your forfeit. These are the terms of agreement for our duel. Ready to go, love-cook?"

Sanji stopped his trajectory towards Zoro so suddenly that the momentum nearly had him tilting over the rails of the second level. He couldn't believe it - that green-haired idiot was intentionally riling him up to fight so he could set those kinds of terms!? "Not a chance in hell you half-witted grass-cutter! I'm not interested in joining your crew! I never even asked your idiot captain to join!"

Zoro and Ann shared a glance of comradery before facing Sanji and said together in perfectly synchronized voices, "Luffy didn't ask us either. Good luck." ("Moron." Zoro couldn't resist ending his own sentence with a little verbal jab.)

Even Ann's large bird Balloon seemed to be getting into the spirit of things as he kept bringing over large fish that he was catching and somehow conveyed the fact that he wanted Sanji to prepare them for him to eat by simply deboning them. The bird seemed impressed that he could do it even without his chef knife within reach, simply by using one of the needles he had removed from the walls. Apparently, his skill in preparing fish was good enough that the bird kept trying to preen his hair. He couldn't even retaliate against the bird because he would always see Ann in his peripheral vision watching their interactions with a nearly literal glowing smile on her face.

Sanji was slightly relieved and slightly disappointed over the fact that Nami simply spent the entire morning and afternoon charting maps and directions for herself up on the poop deck of their ship without once coming over to entice him into joining the crew. (Though it might've counted that when she originally started she glanced over to him and commented out loud, "Join up whenever you'd like to bring me a drink - anything with tangerine juice will do.")

And so Sanji spent four entire days trying to ignore Medaka coming over to 'help' (while guilt-tripping) him patch up the Baratie walls, Ann's repeated apologies ('I'm sorry I threw my clock at you - I really do promise I don't hate you, it's just that you embarrassed me.'), Zoro's not at all subtle instigations to fight ('Oops. I stabbed a hole here in the wall where you just finished fixing it. If you fight me now and join the crew after I win I'll help Medaka fix it.'), the bird's interruptions to have him prepare fish and Nami's actual subtle suggestiveness ('Well I charted nearly all day yesterday - I think today I'll join you in your workout, Ann. Too bad there's no one around to bring us drinks and towels to cool off.') all while Luffy continued to encourage the "crew bonding time" like a madman.

It was late afternoon on the fourth day and Sanji was beginning to think that only doing something truly extreme (like drowning Luffy or setting fire to their ship) would be the only way to get the Straw Hat crew to stop pursuing him when the new routine finally changed.

The flat sea stretched in all directions, the late afternoon sun scattering diamonds across its surface. Dark clouds could be seen billowing up from the southern horizon and up in the sky a flock of seagulls was flying north of the storm, carried by the cool of the approaching rain.

The first ship leaving from the lunch rush had just left the buoys marking the edge of the Baratie's waters when the distinctive whistling of a cannonball could suddenly be heard. The ship was hit and time seemed to slow down to a crawl while the mast of the hit ship cracked and began to fall.

The multiple cannonballs that struck the same ship half a moment later, on the other hand, seemed to move twice as fast as the rest of the world. One of the cannonballs must have jostled something sensitive in the powder room of the ship because ten seconds into the bombardment the ship just up and exploded!

Now visible on the horizon, seven ships with the same pirate emblem began to rapidly close in on the Baratie's location. The emblem on each ship and flag was a simple skull that seemed to be pinched between the two points of a crescent moon. The only difference between the lead ship and the others was that the lead ship's sails had been dyed red.

The stunned silence following the incredible destruction of the other ship was only broken when one of the other customers finally recognized the emblem of the attacking pirate ship and unleashed a slew of people shouting over each other to be heard.

"That's the emblem of Crescent Moon Galley of the Crescent Pirates!"

"He's one of the top three wanted pirates in the East Blue!"

"I heard he's been taking over the area Don Krieg abandoned when he left for the Grand Line! What's he doing here!?"

"- and is wanted for 18,000,000 beris!"

"He's rivals with Krieg and they're both as despicable as each other!"

"We're all going to die!"

Now in a panic, some of the guests rushed out to their ships in order to find a way to escape, but it seemed to already be too late to escape. The seven ship fleet had moved quickly and had already arched around the Baratie in order to surround her. If a ship attempted to sail in any direction one of the seven ships would fire a cannon to remind them of the fate of the "example" ship.

Sanji scowled as the ship that was starboard to the one with the red sails broke away from the formation and began to approach the Baratie. He moved to stand down on the dock of the Baratie, keeping the restaurant and the cooks behind himself. The majority of the customer's ships had been moved to the opposite side of the Baratie from the approaching ship.

The exception (of course) was the Straw Hat Pirates who all were gathered on the deck of their ship and were watching the proceedings with relatively neutral expressions. Sanji tried not to pay attention to the fact that the ship was right beside Sanji, seemingly to show support in Sanji's decision to stand there.

The customers hid far inside the restaurant while the cooks stood closer to the windows and exits, some customers though boldly spilled out onto the Baratie's dock behind where Sanji and the other cooks were gathered up behind him.

Once the ship arrived at the Baratie the acting captain of the ship, a burly man with a shaved head and a full mahogany brown beard that was bushy and filled with braids and shell beads, stood up at the front of the foremast of the ship to read off from a scrolled down sheet of paper.

"I, Orlop, the acting captain of ship Seven of the Crescent Pirate Fleet, will read the demands of Captain 'Crescent Moon' Chandra Galley. He has issued to you all the following message: 'This is a place that is filled with fools who humiliated and harmed my dear friend Pin and his crew. I don't want any treasure or provisions from you. I only want to be given the heads of everyone here who fought against Pin's crew the other day. The descriptions are for the ten people as follows: a cook with an ugly face and monstrous forearms, a cook with ugly sunglasses who smells like meat, a cook with a stupid mustache that looks like a bunch of stitches across his upper lip, the cook that looks like a boiled potato, the cook that looks like he's made of mashed potatoes, the cook with the hawk nose and twisted beard, the cook with long blond hair with a scar on his cheek, the cook with the swirly eyebrows who likes to kick, the cook with a trident that looks like a giant fork, and the cook with a polearm that looks like a butter knife. If the heads of these cooks are not delivered to the flagship of our fleet, The Crimson Moon, by a ship flying a parlay flag by the time the sun sets tonight I, Captain Galley, vow to begin the complete bombardment and destruction of all the ships here from our mighty fleet.' End message."

"What's with that crazy demand!?" Carne yelled out at Orlop, feeling pretty sure that he was the 'cook with ugly glasses who smells like meat' from the list.

Orlop smiled viciously and plainly let them know what kind of man his captain was. "Captain Galley loves nothing more than to savor the dread that comes over people when he forces them into making horrible decisions. Either the ten of you will die at the hands of each other or everyone here will all die when we complete our attack. Make your choice wisely or else these seas will be red."

Even as Orlop's ship departed from the Baratie, Sanji could already hear the pandemonium beginning to build up behind him as the customers immediately began to demand that the ten cooks hand themselves over to Galley to ensure their own safety. The Baratie cooks (especially the nine aside from Sanji, whose heads were on the line) of course argued back stubbornly that they would take on the Crescent Pirate fleet as they came along.

Before Sanji could join the crowded debate going on at the Baratie though, he noticed that the Straw Hat crew were moving down through the hatch of their ship, likely planning to discuss the situation amongst themselves. He debated to himself for a split second over which group discussion to join before ultimately boarding Dawn with a quick, polite greeting. (Only because there were fewer people to deal with - not because he was getting accustomed to these pirate's specialized style of crazy or anything like that, he justified mentally to himself.)

He managed to climb down the hatch that had opened up on its own and joined the crew gathered on the benches just as Luffy began to speak.

"I don't like that guy already and I don't want to wait for him to attack. I'm gonna fight him. Bring us closer to him since he's too far away for me to stretch over to, Dawnie! I won't let him kill Sanji or any of his family."

"Who said anything about a family you shitty pirate captain," Sanji argued. "I'm only here because those idiots just wouldn't know how to fix a mess like this by themselves."

"Well, do we even have any plan on how we can deal with this situation?" Ann asked. "I already carved that protection spell onto the hull of the Baratie but the protection part might have just defaulted to us."

"Who says we even need to fight? The storm will be here within fifteen minutes. We could just wait until the storm arrives and then escape when it gets here." Nami suggested. "Based on the barometric pressure and wind, I know there will be at least three-meter waves, heavy rain with 50 beri coin-sized hail, and some lightning to top it all off."

"No way! That wouldn't be exciting at all." Luffy denied. "I don't want don't want to sneak around or hide."

"I agree with Luffy. We need to take direct action." Zoro said, fully in support of Luffy's man of action style of confrontation.

"How would we even be able to get close to the ship with red sails without them immediately attacking us?" Medaka asked.

"That's a good point, Medaka. If we want to just get to the root of all this trouble I think it would be a good idea to just fly a parlay flag like the message said and go talk to this Galley directly instead of just waiting around." Dawn suggested. "That way we can know for sure whether he can be reasonable or not."

"What's a parlay flag anyway?" Medaka asked.

It was Nami who answered. "They're part of a traditional method to communicate from one ship to another across a large distance using flags. When two ships encounter each other at sea and one captain wants to approach the other without getting attacked they will fly a white flag instead of their regular one to show they want to talk peacefully. If the crew flying the parlay flag are attacked they can retaliate, but if the crew flying the parlay flag attacks the crew they are approaching first, then their pride as sailors is said to be destroyed. Nowadays this is how pirate ships who are strangers to each other will communicate to each other when they encounter each other at sea."

"So we approach them ready to fight, but also ready to talk if they want to," Ann said with a contemplative expression. "Well, it's the best idea we have so far."

"Alright, everybody! Then let's get ready to cast off." Luffy said as he literally bounced up to his feet with enthusiasm, rushing to get up through the hatch as Dawn opened them up for him.

As he went up to her deck Dawn said, "I'll make some bird lures in case I need to use them later. Ann? Would you do that feather thing on them, please?"

"Of course - we'll keep them down here just in case." Ann said and watched the two lures growing from the center mast intently before glancing over to Medaka thoughtfully and said, "I think you should paint our emblem on the white flag but after that I want you to stay on the Baratie while we approach the other ship."

Medaka immediately glared at Ann and said, "What!? But I want to be with you guys! I'm part of the crew."

Ann nodded and said, "I know you are, that's why I want you to paint the parlay flag. There will come a time when you'll fight at our side but you are our apprentice so keep an eye out and learn from us. I'm sure Sanji can teach you something since he isn't officially our crewmate, you saw how fast he was when he fought last time."