Pirate Attack #62

The sun was just starting to rise over Marineford's docks, casting a soft orange glow across the bay. The air smelled like salt and gun oil, with just a hint of steamed rice from the mess hall down the way.

Gale sat cross-legged on a crate, gently strumming his guitar, the worn wood comfortably familiar under his fingers. He tilted his head toward the sea and began to sing, voice smooth and low:

"In Banbridge Town in the County Down, one morning last July-- down a boreen green came the sweet cailín, and she smiled as she passed me by…"

It wasn't exactly the kind of song you'd expect from a guy with tattoos and a rapier, but Gale had a soft spot for old-world music.

Maybe it was nostalgia. Maybe it was homesickness. Or maybe it was just a great excuse not to think too hard about where he was headed.

He plucked at the strings with practiced ease, letting the music carry him a bit. Across from him, Poqin sat on a stack of ropes, drinking something suspicious from a gourd that Gale was fairly certain had never been washed.

The monk swayed slightly with the rhythm, eyes half-lidded and content as a cat sunbathing on a windowsill.

Some marines passed by with their families in tow—kids bouncing along the dock, wives waving off their husbands. A few paused to listen. A little girl clapped at the melody before her mom gently tugged her along. One elderly sailor gave Gale a nod, the kind that meant "not bad, kid" without saying a word.

Gale smiled and kept playing.

"She looked so sweet from her two bare feet to the sheen of her nut brown hair. Such a winsome elf, that I pinched myself, for to see I was standing there…"

The lyrics hung in the morning air, light and wistful. Funny, really—Gale never pictured himself singing folk songs on a military dock while waiting for an admiral who moved like molasses and talked like he'd just woken up from a nap inside another nap.

Speaking of which...

Gale glanced around. "So, uh... where is Kizaru?"

Poqin shrugged and took another swig. "Told ya already. He said 'meet me at the docks around sunrise'... but knowing him, that could mean anything from dawn to next Tuesday."

Gale sighed. "Great. So we might just be waiting here until the sun burns out."

"Less time for us to mess up, though," Poqin offered helpfully, then added, "Or more time to pregame. Want a sip?"

Gale stared at the gourd like it might grow legs and bite him. "Absolutely not. Last time I drank from that thing, I couldn't feel my teeth for a day."

"Small price for enlightenment," Poqin said with a wise nod, before immediately falling off his coil of rope and landing on his back with a dull thud. "...I'm good."

Gale shook his head and returned to the song, quietly chuckling to himself.

It didn't take long for Gale's fingers to slow, then stop entirely. A shadow had fallen over him—literally.

He looked up, squinting against the morning sun... and found himself staring at a tall figure in a yellow pinstriped suit, with a Marine coat lazily draped over his shoulders like it was a fashion statement instead of a rank.

The man had short, curly black hair, a neatly trimmed beard, and a face that was somehow equal parts bored and amused. A pair of tinted glasses sat on his nose, doing absolutely nothing to hide the fact that this guy looked like he hadn't rushed a single day in his life.

"Oooh," the man said, voice slow and syrupy, like he was rolling each syllable in molasses before letting it go. "That's a very nice melody, young man... why did you stop...?"

Gale cleared his throat, instantly recognizing Admiral Kizaru—even if the guy looked like he just wandered out of a beach resort for retired jazz musicians.

"We need to depart very soon, sir," Gale said quickly, snapping into a salute.

Kizaru blinked at him like he'd just been reminded he was supposed to be doing something today.

"Oooh, now that you mention it... I also need to get going... hmm..." He turned his head, eyes scanning the docks with exaggerated slowness.

"Say, young man, did you happen to see two youngsters around here...? One of them is scrawny with a cloak... the other one's wearing monk clothes... I'm supposed to take them with me..."

Gale's eye twitched. He glanced at Poqin, who stared back at Kizaru with a look that could only be described as 'Are we all hallucinating this or just me?'

The monk leaned toward Gale and whispered, "Is he drunk?"

"No," Gale muttered back. "Just... like this."

He cleared his throat again and turned back to the admiral. "Would the two young men you're searching for happen to be named Gale and Poqin?"

Kizaru rubbed his chin and then reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a crumpled parchment like it was a grocery list he'd forgotten existed. He squinted at it.

"Oooh... indeed. Gale and Poqin... How did you know, youngster...? Are you some kind of magician...?"

Gale resisted the urge to facepalm so hard it would register as an earthquake. He deadpanned, "No sir. It's just that we're Gale and Poqin."

Kizaru blinked once.

"Oooh... that's some coincidence," he said, slipping the parchment back into his pocket like he'd just discovered fire.

Gale stared at him.

Poqin stared at him.

A passing seagull hovered overhead and stared too, probably wondering if it should be concerned or amused.

Then, as if his brain rebooted mid-thought, Kizaru tilted his head ever so slightly. "Oooh, anyway..." he droned, eyes narrowing a fraction as he slowly gestured toward the two of them. "Did you happen to see the two youngsters I'm looking for...? The ones who look suspiciously like you... and have strangely similar names...?"

Gale's brain short-circuited. For one blissful second, he considered grabbing Kizaru's long earlobe and stretching it like taffy while screaming, "WE. ARE. THE. GUYS. YOU'RE. LOOKING. FOR!" But unfortunately, assaulting an admiral was still frowned upon—even if they were begging for it.

Instead, he took a deep breath, shoved the cartoonish image aside, and forced a polite smile. "Yes, sir," he said, trying to sound professional and not on the verge of an aneurysm.

"Because we are the people you're looking for. We're supposed to accompany you to Mary Geoise."

Kizaru blinked once. Twice. The lights were on, but you couldn't quite tell if anyone was home.

"Oooh... well, why didn't you just say so?" he said at last, with a cheerful little nod like this was their fault for not reading his mind.

He turned and began to meander in the direction of the ship with the same urgency as a cloud drifting on a warm breeze. "Come on then, let's get moving... we have a lot to do..."

"A lot to do...?" Gale echoed under his breath, glancing sideways at Poqin, who just shrugged and took another sip of whatever suspicious drink he was still nursing. "Does that include locating his sense of direction?"

"I think his soul left his body ten minutes ago," Poqin whispered back.

Gale sighed and followed after the admiral, guitar slung over his shoulder and a growing sense of dread in his gut.

This was it. They were really heading to Mary Geoise. Home of the Celestial Jackasses. Great.

He just hoped they'd make it there before Kizaru forgot who they were, and threw them into the brig for boarding a marine ship without permission.

...

The thunderous sound of cannon fire shook Gale from his blissful sleep like a slap from the universe.

"Ghh—what the hell?" he groaned, flailing in his hammock like a drunken octopus before tumbling to the floor in a heap of limbs and tangled blankets. His brain, still stuck somewhere between dreamland and reality, tried to process what exactly was going on.

Another explosion rocked the battleship.

He blinked blearily at the swinging lamp overhead. "Did the ship crash into a volcano or is that just how the Marines do wake-up calls?"

Muttering curses under his breath, he scrambled to his feet, shoved on his pants (wrong leg first, naturally), and snatched up his sword and revolver from the nearby rack.

His shirt was nowhere in sight, but at this point he figured dignity could take a number. He bolted up the stairs, heart pounding with that familiar adrenaline mix of fight or flight—leaning heavily toward fight.

The upper deck was chaos. Marines were dashing every which way like panicked ants at a barbecue. Someone was shouting about port cannons. Another screamed for reinforcements.

And somewhere in the background, someone actually yelled "My leg!" which, in fairness, felt contractually obligated at this point.

An officer stood near the helm, barking orders like a man who'd skipped his coffee and wanted the world to suffer for it. "Stations, everyone! Get those cannons ready—MOVE!"

Over at the starboard side, however, things looked... disturbingly calm.

Kizaru stood with his hands in his pockets, completely unfazed, watching two distant ships exchange cannon fire like it was a fireworks show on a lazy Sunday.

Next to him was Poqin, who looked about as interested as a monk forced to sit through a cooking show about pork.

Still barefoot and half-asleep, Gale made his way over. "Sir?" he asked, trying not to sound like he'd just woken up in the middle of a warzone. "What's going on...?" 

Kizaru turned his head s l o w l y, blinking down at Gale with the kind of pace that could only be described as existentially delayed. "Oooh... it's you," he said in that trademark drawl. "Good morning, youngster..."

Gale blinked. He glanced around at the chaos, then back at Kizaru.

"Sure. Great morning. Love the ambiance," Gale muttered under his breath.

Kizaru turned his gaze lazily back to the sea. "Looks like a pirate raid... those two ships over there... oooh, they're really going at it, huh?"

Gale followed his line of sight and squinted. Sure enough, two ships were duking it out a few klicks away. One flew the unmistakable black flag of a pirate crew—something crude with fangs and a spiky skull. The other, more ornate, had a familiar crest.

"That flag..." Gale muttered, frowning.

Kizaru nodded, so slowly it was almost comical. "Mmm-hmm. I think that ship belongs to the Alabasta Kingdom."

Gale's frown deepened. Alabasta... that's the desert island in Paradise, right? With the sand and the rebellion and the giant banana-gator things? Where Luffy fought Crocodile?

'Well, technically, where Luffy will fight Crocodile,' he thought mentally slapping himself.

Meanwhile, Kizaru, completely oblivious to Gale's brief existential timeline crisis, continued. "Yoou seee, during the Reverie, all the royal families gather at Mary Geoise, right? So naturally, pirates try to intercept the royal ships. Try to capture a king or queen... maybe get a little ransom out of it."

Gale nodded slowly, putting the pieces together. "Right... because nothing says 'diplomatic summit' like kidnapping and extortion..."

"Exactly," Kizaru said cheerfully, as if someone had just agreed with his taste in tea.

"Shouldn't we... I don't know, do something?" Gale asked, already mentally loading his revolver and stretching his muscles for a fight.

Kizaru raised a hand, checking his nails. "Oooh... I suppose we should, huh?"

Before Gale could so much as ask another question, Kizaru let out a soft, drawn-out sigh—like someone being asked to stand up during a nap.

Then, with a flicker of gold, he was gone.

The admiral vanished in a flash of light, zipping through the sky like a drunken firework that somehow knew kung fu. Gale's eyes shot upward, tracking the beam as it ricocheted through the air in zigzags too fast for the eye to follow.

"Oh, cool," Gale muttered, shading his eyes. "He teleports lazily. That's somehow worse."

The light came to a stop above the pirate ship. Hovering there like a smug celestial screensaver, Kizaru crossed his arms mid-air and muttered so casually it was almost rude:

"Yasakani no Magatama."

A second later, the heavens opened—not with rain, but with a barrage of glittering death. Beams of light rained down like divine bullets, pummeling the pirate ship.

The mast was the first to go, splintering apart like a toothpick in a blender. Then came the screams. The hull cracked like an egg under a boot.

Moments later, the entire ship split clean down the middle with a dramatic KRRAAAAACK and began to sink into the sea like a very expensive, very flammable rock.

Gale blinked, eyebrows raised. "Well… that happened."

Before the last piece of flaming timber hit the waves, another beam of light shot back toward the Marine ship. In the next instant, Kizaru casually materialized back on deck with his hands in his pockets, not a single hair out of place.

"Oooh… they sure made me work up a sweat," he mumbled.

Gale gave him a long, deadpan stare. "Uh-huh," he said, because he'd seen dead people with more signs of exertion. The guy hadn't even glowed aggressively.

Still, the sounds of gunfire and clashing steel echoed over the waves. From the direction of the Alabasta ship came shouts, more explosions, and the kind of panicked yelling that only ever meant "we are losing, and someone has a machete."

Gale cleared his throat. "Uh, sir? I think some of the pirates made it onto the Alabasta ship... shouldn't we help with that?"

Kizaru turned his head—slowly, always slowly—and waved a lazy hand, like he was swatting at an annoying fly.

"Mmm... they'll manage," he said, almost sing-song. "But if you want to go give them a helping hand... I won't stop you, youngster."

Gale exhaled through his nose, hand already resting on the hilt of his sword.

Of course. Naturally. The man could vaporize a battleship in five seconds flat but couldn't be bothered to walk twenty feet.

"Right," Gale muttered. "No pressure or anything."

...

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