278. Jon of Alabasta

The news of 'Demon Eyes' Van D. Jon quitting the Pirate King crew surprises the world. No one ever thought that the Strongest Man in the world would quit the best Pirate crew in the world. People are wondering the reason for this and they get the answer soon.

A week after Jon left the crew, Alabasta held an inauguration ceremony for Jon. He gets the title of a General that serves right under the King and leads Alabasta's intelligence unit. The Kingdom also announces his engagement with Princess Vivi which breaks the heart of some Princes & nobles.

Now the world knows why he quit the Straw Hat Pirates. But then they think that the World Government and Marines will do something about this because he is still a criminal with a very high bounty. Too bad for them, the World Government and Marines aren't doing anything about this.

Alabasta is one of the founders of the new World Government and Jon also contributed a lot. All of the new World Government founder Kingdoms are allies with each other and all have good relationships with Jon, so they all will help Alabasta, and be it the World Government or Marine, they can't do anything about it now.

It's the same case as Kani Country with their Happo Navy. The Marines can only try to capture them when the crew is out of their Nation. But even if they get captured, they will be released without proper punishment.

That's why the Marines and World Government are not really happy now. They know Jon is not an unreasonable evil character, but he is still a criminal with a very high bounty, so it's still their responsibility to capture him. Yet they can't do it because he is now a noble of Alabasta Kingdom and they still need the Kingdom's support.

Anyway, the news spreads very fast and Alabasta becomes the center of attention for a while. They have grown to be a powerful force to reckon with already before and now they have become even more powerful with Jon joining them. People even say that Alabasta is as powerful as an Emperor crew now and can even rival the Marines.

But they don't know how true they are. It's not only Jon's presence that increases their power, but also the changes he makes for the Kingdom. Under his lead, the hidden village becomes much more organized and the ninjas will surely get stronger much faster with him there.

Jon also gives a lot of advice to the King and the ministers using the knowledge he gained from his journey. When he explored the world with the Straw Hat Pirates, Jon was infiltrating every Nation they visited and stealing their knowledge too.

So now he is like a walking library with a lot of copied documents and books he got from all over the world. All these documents and books can be used as references for Alabasta to improve itself in all aspects.

Jon too is using all the knowledge he got to improve his hidden village. While waiting for his wedding, Jon organizes a lot of things in the Sand Hidden Village from recruitment, budgeting, education, divisions, missions, everything.

He checks everything and makes adjustments from time to time. Previously, he left everything to Koza and they only focused on their men's skills. But now they realize they need to improve their organization and management if they want to be a world-class group.

There hasn't been any pirate crew that become as big as Marines or World Government. The reason is they have bad management because they only pursue power, fame, and wealth. While the Marines and World Government are well managed.

Well, it's also mainly because pirate crews only last until their Captains are dead or disband the crews. Marines and World Government are like nations that will keep existing for hundreds of years but pirate crews will only last for a few decades at most.

Organizations like Marines also have already existed for hundreds of years, that's why they can be so big. But even a new organization can grow big too if it's managed well. The best example was the Revolutionary Army and Jon who was there obviously has learned a lot of things from them.

So as a part of Alabasta Kingdom, Jon needs to make Sand Hidden Village exist for a very long time. He wants it to exist as long as Alabasta still exists as well. To make that happen, it needs a very good management as its foundation, not just fighting power.

So Jon works hard on that with Vivi, Koza, and some officers. They focus on managerial stuff for 3 whole months. There are more things to be taken care of than they thought and they know all these things still need to be improved later as they use them.

But at least now everything is more organized in the Sand Hidden Village. They have made SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for everything, so a lot of problems should be taken care of already. Now they just need to implement it and improve it as time goes on.

There are still a lot of things to do though, but they leave it for later because Jon's & Vivi's wedding time finally arrives. This is the wedding that the whole Alabasta Kingdom has been waiting for, that's why it took a few months to prepare because they need to make it big.

It will be broadcast in every town in the Kingdom so everyone in the Kingdom can watch the ceremony. A lot of invitations have been sent to many people from Alabasta or outside of Alabasta and some of these people are actually enemies of each other.

Pirates, Nations, Marines, and even Government officials are invited because this is a Royal Wedding of a Kingdom affiliated with the World Government. If not for this being Alabasta Kingdom's royal wedding, these groups would have jumped at each other's necks.

The reporters are getting crazy over this because these opposing forces are sitting next to each other but can only glare without fighting. This will surely become the headline of all newspapers in the world.

"Straw Hat Pirates and their Fleet, New Beasts Pirates, former Whitebeard Pirates, Heart Pirates, Kuja Pirates, Sun Pirates, Ryugu Kingdom, Dressrosa Kingdom, Prodence Kingdom, Elbaf, Giant Warrior Pirates, Wano Country, neighboring kingdoms, Marine officers, and World Government officials. This is such a dangerous line up. If things go wrong, a World War can happen."

Jon didn't plan to invite Marines or World Government officials even though he has acquaintances there because he invited pirates. But it's a must for a Kingdom to invite the nearby Marine bases' leaders to a royal wedding.

It was supposed to be just the nearby base leaders, but somehow the ones who come are high-ranking officers from Marine HQ like Garp, Sengoku, Koby, some Vice-Admirals, Fujitora, and even Aokiji. These guys know many big pirates will come, so they decide to invite themselves because the invitation was directed at Marines, not a specific marine officer.

The World Government is doing the same. Jon invited Sabo and Koala. May as well invited them because they also invited Marines. But he never thought they would come with many officials who were once members of the Revolutionary Army and it really causes a commotion.

The "Justice & Evil" sides are glaring at each other as if they are ready to fight anytime. It makes the poor normal people invited here to be intimidated. So Koza needs to step in because Jon is still not here and warn them to behave or he will send them out.

They finally get quiet and stop intimidating people with their power. None of them want to be the enemy of Alabasta Kingdom and Jon, after all. Then after waiting for a while, the wedding ceremony finally starts.