immamartillo | 5th Hat Flip [Voice/Action]

[Voice]

[It's early in the morning-after a night of much boredom and little sleep- when Firo opens his journal.]

I've been wonderin': what kinda weapons do people use back where you guys come from? Where I live, people'll fight with anything from fists to tommy guns, but I figure everywhere's gotta have somethin' different.

[Action]

[Later that morning, Firo sets off running for the Battle Dome. He hasn't been too pleased with himself lately: he failed to be effective against the droids that attacked a few weeks ago, and then he couldn't even protect his friend from being mallynapped. Actually, ever since Ennis was kidnapped before his arrival in Luceti he's felt nagging feelings of uselessness. They've only been intensified by recent events.

He has to get stronger. The capos of his Family would be disappointed if they saw him like this. In the back of his mind Firo can practically hear Yaguruma berating him.

He spends most of the day at the Battle Dome, focusing on training until he's ready to drop (though feel free to interrupt him). Maybe trying to go so long without a break isn't a good idea, but that doesn't matter to Firo at this point. When nightfall comes, he wanders outside and slumps by the door, exhausted.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Is it already bad there?

The men are. The base would take a buster call to destroy. It's in the New World after all so it has to deal with some pretty extreme conditions.

What's in the New World? Besides crazy marines, I mean.

Crazy pirates, lightning rain, pirate emperors, monsters... it's a fucked up place.

Pirate Emperors-?

It certainly sounds like it.

It's an honorary title like Pirate King. One of them was the strongest man in the world and the only equal Rogers had in strength. [Keyword: was.] He was killed in a war however and his killer took his strength and most of his islands, the other 3 are likely to try to do the same, and so it's a further mess.

Took his strength?

[That sounds uncomfortably similar to how immortals kill each other. They don't gain their victim's physical strength, but their memories and knowledge instead.]

How's that work?

Blackbeard took Whitebeard's devil fruit capable of earthquakes. No one knows how he did it other than his crew, but it should be extra impossible because already had a devil fruit. If a devil fruit user eats two, they explode.

The only person who seems to know what makes Blackbeard different is the first division commander of the Whitebeard pirates. They used to be nakama, after all. But he's hardly one to explain it.

...Ya know what? I used to think weird things happened where I live, but I think your world's got mine beat by a lot. At least nobody back home's never exploded from eatin' fruit.

As far as I know.

From what I can tell of stories from other people and books in the library, my world is a bit more insane than most.

Especially the Grand Line.

[Firo'd say that Smoker seems normal enough, but he does turn into smoke, so...

He laughs.]

Do I wanna ask what goes on there?

The New World is the second half of it, so it's twice as insane. The first half isn't so bad except each island is one season year round, they all have their own magnetic fields and they're islands, so they developed individually over several thousand years of isolation and they can be pretty weird.

There's even rumors of prehistoric islands still stuck in dinosaur days.

[Just one season? Maybe it's due to those magnet-whatevers Smoker just mentioned. Firo refrains from asking in case the explanation gets too complicated. Besides, his attention is caught by something much more interesting.]

No way... Have the dinosaurs ever left their islands? Could they?

[Rubs his chin in thought.]

I guess the flying ones could, but I'm not sure they'd want to. And they wouldn't necessarily have anywhere to go. Plus, depending on where they went, other animals just might see them as prey. [Yup, it's a weird world when dinosaurs are just assumed prey to high evolved life forms.]

There was an ex-marine who ate the T-Rex devil fruit, however.

Prey..?

[But they're so... huge.]

And what happened to that guy? Somethin' saw him as prey and ate him?

No. Devil fruit users aren't so weak as to get eaten.

He became a pirate. "To see how the other side lived."

Really? That seems like an awfully big decision to make off of just curiosity.

I doubt it will be to his liking.

Because it's so different from the marines?

It's easy to romanticize pirates. Adventure, freedom, chasing One Piece, but in reality very few are like Gold Roger or Whitebeard. They're wimps, cowards, and general weaklings.

The marines have a lot of problems, and I suspect Drake probably left more over those than he claims, but at least we usually have each other's backs. Pirates only protect their own damn crew, and plot against each other every chance they get. Exceptions to that are rare. But whether he can handle it or not is on him now.

Would the marines ever let him back? Doesn't sound like you can trust a guy who'd switch sides just to see what it's like.

[To Firo, it doesn't matter if the marines have problems. He's been taught that you never leave your organization and that those who do deserve death.]

No, he definitely would not be allowed back.

Even if he wanted to be a shichibuaki, which I doubt, they're not going to forgive that easily.

What's a...

[He pauses to try and get the pronunciation right.]

What's a shichibuaki?

Seven warlords of the sea. They're legalized pirates. They have their bounties forgiven in exchange for a cut and they're called in to fight other pirates.

It's bullshit.

[It's starting to sound like there's a lot of jumping ship and switching sides in Smoker's world. Firo's faintly disgusted, but decides he shouldn't be too surprised. There'll always be a good amount of people looking out for their selfish interests.]

Still, sounds like it'd be a pretty sweet deal for him if he got caught or somethin'.