Smooth Sailing Chapter 21: Ocean's Navel 1 (Patreon)

Chapter 21: Ocean’s Navel 1

As fun as the little break had been, we were back on the open seas soon enough. It had been a few days since we’d had our fun on Gold Island. Almost a week, in fact, and we’d been sailing up and down the East Blue looking for any sign of Luffy and his crew. So far, no dice.

Both crews were starting to get a bit antsy. They wanted to find land or have a more concrete goal than just aimlessly wandering. Buggy’s crew was bigger, and he had to bust a few heads every so often to keep them in line, but not even he and his right and left hands could keep that up forever.

As for the Iron Mace Pirates, I’d taken the time to get Jango and Moodie up to speed with the way things worked on the Lovey Dovey, along with some training to get Medaka, Moodie, Eliza, and Jodie used to fighting, but the cramped confines were wearing thin on everyone. We needed a new ship, and I briefly regretted letting Eldoraggo go free. His vessel would have been a good choice.

“Hey, captain?”

“Yes, Jango?” I asked, not looking up from the blueprints for Moodie’s weapon I was working on out in the middle of the deck. I was thinking a rapier, but modified to act like a giant hypodermic needle that could inject poisons or anesthetics.

“Buggy is calling.”

At that, I finally lifted my gaze from the pages to look towards the telepathic snail he was holding out to me. I immediately recognized the round, red nose it sported and held back a sigh.

“Thank you, Jango,” I said, accepting the Transceiver from him. “What’s up, Buggy?”

“My crew is getting rowdy, so we’re going to stop off at a nearby island. Also, we kinda need to restock and do some repairs. Got tossed around a bit during that storm we used to escape from the Black Cage.”

“True,” I nodded.

We’d taken a lot of supplies from Eldoraggo’s ship and bought what we could from the people back on Gold Island, but they didn’t have much, and since Buggy’s crew was larger than mine, they needed to resupply more often, so we needed to get fresh food and water, and soon.

Add in a bunch of damage from the weather – and probably from the fight with Luffy – and the Big Top needed some patching up from professionals.

“What island are we stopping at?” I wondered.

“Well, I figured we could kill two birds with one stone,” Buggy claimed. “We’re near Ocean’s Navel. And there is a treasure there!”

“Ocean’s Navel… the Ship’s Graveyard and geographic center of the East Blue,” I hummed. “Interesting. But isn’t it crawling with monsters?”

Alvida’s memories I could access were spotty, but even she recalled the news that a bunch of Sea King-esque creatures had begun attacking the island a decade ago.

My own memories were only slightly better. It was the setting for a movie… or was it an OVA? Regardless, it had something to do with a living skeleton like Brook, and some Kaiju. I couldn’t remember the storyline exactly, as I’d merely seen clips of it and heard of the whole thing second hand through friends and reviews.

‘Though, admittedly, I learned about One Piece that way,’ I thought.

“Heard it settled down a bit. And honestly, with two Devil Fruit users, I’m not exactly worried about ‘em,” Buggy said, not sounding too concerned.

Which, fair, between the two of us we could probably handle whatever was thrown at us… in the East Blue, at least.

“Alright, we’ll adjust course as well. And I bet we can find a new ship, there!” I declared eagerly.

“Don’t get your hopes up. Ocean’s Navel hasn’t had a decent shipbuilding industry in years. Not with the monsters wrecking shit. And good luck trying to find an intact and seaworthy vessel in the Ship’s Graveyard!”

“Ugh, spoilsport,” I huffed, deflating a bit, before getting hanging up. “Hep! Adjust course! We’re heading to Ocean’s Navel!”

“We are?” Hep called back.

“Yes, we are! To resupply and try and find the treasure! And if we’re lucky, a new ship!” I said, and that got him – and the rest of the crew – excited.

Our new destination wasn’t too far off, and a few hours later, we caught sight of Ocean Navel: a gargantuan sinkhole in the middle of the East Blue with an island smackdab in the center. Surrounding the island were countless broken ships, victims that’d fallen in. And rising from the center of the island was a mountain, tall and imposing, and yet wasn’t even visible from the edge of the sinkhole. That was how deep the pit in the middle of the ocean was.

However, in the OVA, despite the island being inhabited, there’d been no way for ships to reach it aside from crashing down from above, and no way to return to the surface. Simply put, it was impossible, even for this world’s nonsensical setup.

Why? Because trade was absolutely vital and necessary, even in this world. It was nearly impossible for an island to support a city of the size shown on screen. There simply wasn’t enough land or ways for the inhabitants to get food or other resources.

Unless a population went full primitive, like those on Kumate Island, then trading for goods was absolutely vital to maintaining society, especially the mish-mashed ones seen in the anime and manga. Can’t exactly build lightbulbs or generators without some very specific materials that not every island may have easy access to. It was why pirates were so feared. Raiding a single merchant ship carrying tons of food in its cargo hold could cause an entire island starve!

Unlike the show, in real life Ocean’s Navel was quite different. While still a sinkhole with a mountain and island at the bottom, up top it was ringed by numerous rocky cropping’s and reefs, some of them island-sized in their own right.

These protrusions had a large series of nets, ropewalks, and bridges built between them, preventing most ships from passing through and falling over the edge. The whole setup was known as the Dock Ring.

This was where the people of the Ocean’s Navel worked, and where their wealth came from. Here, numerous shipwrights toiled away in drydocks constructing all manner of ships, from merchantman to Marine.

Of course, it was possible for visitors to visit the sinkhole. To get down to the island, a series of cranes and freight elevators had been set up, allowing salvaged goods from below to come up, while sending people and other supplies down to city.

Ocean’s Navel was a major shipbuilding facility for the East Blue, one of the largest, in fact. Or it had been, before the monsters. It was still possible to send things down and get them to come back up, and of course lumber and other building supplies could still arrive at the Dock Ring, so ships were able to be built, but most of their supplies and the reason for their success was how they recycled the trash that slipped past the nets and into the waters surrounding the island.

With the monsters wrecking havoc down there, it made it harder for everyone at the Ocean’s Navel.

‘Thank you, Alvida,’ I thought to myself, grateful for the woman’s memories and knowledge of the place.

In fact, the Miss Love Duck had been an Ocean’s Navel ship, and I felt a phantom pang of regret from the part of me that was still ‘Alvida’ at the loss of her ship.

As we approached the Dock Ring, it was clear as day that it’d seen better days. Whole sections were rotting and in disrepair, and a few parts of the barricade had broken down. And while there were ships docked at it, they were few and far between.

The lack of customers meant we were able to coast right on up and get ourselves a nice little pier all to ourselves, though, so there was an upside.

Our arrival drew attention of course. Several people cautiously approached. We weren’t flying our jolly rogers right now, but ships with lots of, shall we say ‘personality’ aren’t exactly normal, and often get used by pirates.

Still, we weren’t attacking, and the hope for money and other supplies won out, and one of the people who approached us was a grizzled old man. He was chewing on a couple nails and looked like he could bench press Richie with those arms.

“Docking fee is seven hundred beri a head,” he informed us, and I grimaced.

“That’s highway robbery!” Buggy growled, saying what I was thinking.

“Well, if you’re here for repairs, we can knock it down to four hundred beris,” he replied, folding his arms.

Grumbling under his breath Buggy fished out a wad of cash and, after doing a quick headcount of his crew, tossed the money at the dockworker.

“Give our ships a full look over. Been a while since we had one, and we’ve had some rough waters recently,” Buggy ordered.

“Same,” I said, paying for my crew.

We all disembarked after that, eager for a bit of R&R, even if there likely wasn’t much we could do here.

Still, even this place had to have a bar and someplace to eat, and we could probably sell some of the gold in the hold as well as they other things we’d looted from Mirror Ball Island to the handful of merchants docked here.

“Moodie, Eliza, find out if any of the merchants here are selling, and what,” I instructed them. “And if they are, see if we can offload some of treasure onto them in exchange.”

“Can do, captain!” Eliza said, throwing up a mock salute, and I snorted and shook my head at her antics.

“The rest of you? Have fun and don’t fall overboard,” I told the others. “And Medaka? No trying to sneak any beer!”

“Ugh, fine,” she huffed.

A moment later, the red-head’s eyes drifted towards the sinkhole, and she whistled. “Sure is big. And deep. How is the water not filling it up as it pours in?”

“That little miracle is thanks to the Ocean Navel’s Sacred Treasure,” the weathered old man declared proudly, even as he directed a number of shipwrights to go over every inch of the docked vessels.

“Sacred Treasure, huh?” I hummed, and Buggy eyed the island at the center of the pit with interest.

“Wonder what sort of treasure can do that,” he hummed. “Seen some wild things in my days, but there’s always a few flashy things that even I would call bizarre.”

“What, like magic?” Pop scoffed.

“Pop, you’re on a crew with a man who can hypnotize people with a coin on a string, and I am immune to stabbing, slashing, and being shot at,” I drawled, giving my deckhand a pitying look. “And you’re talking to a guy who can break his body apart at will and has an unnaturally big, red nose.”

“Stop talking shit about my nose!” Buggy shouted, but we all ignored him.

“Magic definitely exists in the world,” I continued, talking to Pop and everyone else who was listening in. “Sure, a lot can probably be explained away with ‘ancient technology’ or ‘Devil Fruits,’ but there’s still plenty of stuff you can’t just pretend isn’t mystical in some way.”

Pop clearly looked skeptical, and so did his brothers, Moodie, and Medaka. Eliza, Jodie, and Jango on the other hand all seemed a lot more accepting of the chance of magic being real.

Well, I wasn’t trying to convince them. They’d seen soon enough how bizarre this world was once we hit the Grand Line.

“Anyways, tell us more about this ‘Sacred Treasure,’” I requested, turning to the old man, and he just snorted.

“Hoping to try your luck and get your hands on it, huh? Wouldn’t be the first,” he grunted. “And you’ll end up just like the rest.”

He pointed to the Ship’s Graveyard at the bottom of the pit. “Down there, in the belly of the monsters that now call the Ocean’s Navel home.”

“Monsters, huh?” Mohji scoffed. “We ain’t scared of some Sea Kings!”

As if he’d tempted fate, a section of the massive collection of driftwood and shattered vessels that had collected down below was thrown into the air, and rubble began to get tossed around left and right. Some were even tossed hard enough to reach us, and we all ducked as the mast of a ship was hurled over our heads.

“Holy crap!” I exclaimed, and I wasn’t the only one, as loud expletives rang out from the rest of the Iron Mace and Buggy Pirates.

A giant green cephalopod had risen up out of the Ship’s Graveyard, tentacles flailing everywhere. It vaguely resembled the kraken from Fishman Island, and was roughly the same size, but it had white, hair-like cilia growing alongside its head and underneath its mouth, giving it a sort of moustache.

For a minute or two it continued its rampage, turning ships around it into splinters and trying to hit the Dock Ring with its fury, but after it failed to do anything to us it sunk back down, hiding amongst the wreckage.

“You see?” the man said bitterly as we picked our jaws off the floor. “That’s what awaits you down below. And it’s not the only one.”

“How have you survived ten years with something like that?!” Medaka demanded incredulously.

“Not easily,” he replied, lighting up a cigarette. “We parachute crates of food and other goods down into the city when we can, and bring up who and what we’re able to during the intervals they’re inactive.”

“The Beasts of God also don’t come out at the same times, and stick to their own territories for the most part,” the dockhand continued. “It gives us slight windows of opportunity, but even so… Ocean’s Navel is dying.”

“Beasts of God?” Eliza asked. “Bit of a pretentious name, isn’t it?”

“The mountain at the center of the island is known as God’s Mountain,” the man explained. “And after a bunch of lowlife pirates attacked us in search of some sort of treasure, they disturbed the mountain and unleashed those things from within.”

“Well, shit,” I said, folding my arms in disappointment. “Guess there is gonna be no treasure hunt today.”

“Treasure hunt?”

A new voice spoke up, having heard us. It was a young boy’s voice, coming from a teenager who was glaring at us. He had shaggy brown hair and wore a wooly green and beige shirt with a ragged clock thrown over it.

“Eh? What’s up with the kid?” Buggy wondered.

Instead of responding, the teen just ran over and kicked Buggy in the shins, which had him yelp in pain and start hopping up and down on one foot.

“Little brat!” Cabaji snarled, reaching for his sword, but I put a hand on his wrist, stopping him.

He switched his glare towards me, but I ignored it and instead watched what would happen next.

“Hamu!” a young woman with short blue hair and an equally fuzzy brown and beige shirt shouted as she rushed over. She reached out and grabbed the teen by the ear, before pulling him away from a hopping mad Buggy.

“You heard them, Meroie!” the boy – Hamu – shouted, angrily glaring at us. “They’re just like Joke!”

“Joke?” Buggy muttered with a frown, pausing in his hops. “Where have I heard that name before…?”

“They’re pirates!” Hamu declared, pointing an accusing finger at Buggy. “They’re just after the treasure! You can’t let them stay, old man Leery!”

“Paying customers are paying customers,” the older dockworker shot back, before spitting over the edge into the water. “We need ‘em whether you like it or not, brat! So long as they follow the rules, I don’t give a damn what they are.”

“Coward!” Hamu shouted.

“Idiot!” Meroie, the woman, retorted, hitting the boy in the back of the head.

“Ah! Now I remember!” Buggy suddenly declared, putting a fist into his open palm. “Joke! That was the name of the Funny Pirates’ captain! His bounty was thirteen million beris, dead or alive!”

He then glanced back towards Hamu. “Heard he died ten years ago, though, during an attack on the Ocean’s Navel… and if I’m not mistaken, it was after that that the monsters showed up…”

“Think he unleashed them by accident, and that’s why he died?” I wondered. I couldn’t remember if that was how it went in the show, but that didn’t sound right.

“Possibly,” Buggy shrugged. “Well, for now, let’s just wait and see what we’ve got going on, repair-wise.”

Unfortunately, we didn’t receive much good news on that front.

“Your ships are in pretty decent state for what you’ve gone through,” Leery informed us, the old man apparently more than just a dockworker. He was the head shipwright of the Dock Ring.

“They were built tough,” Buggy declared proudly.

“Right. Even so, we’ve spotted some spots where you’re going to want some serious work done. Here… here… and here,” Leery informed the clown, pulling out a blueprint of the Big Top and pointing to a couple spots. “Biggest thing that needs fixing is the rudder. Seen a lot of abuse, and while it isn’t critical, it will be soon. Rest of the damage is fairly minor. Stress on the booms is making it harder for ‘em to turn properly, and the rigging also needs replacing as it is getting frayed and worn out.”

He tapped the blueprints. “Add in a bunch of patches to the hull, and a desperately needed antifouling session to remove all the barnacles that’ve built up, and we’re looking at a whole week in the drydocks.”

“What?! Can’t you do it faster?” Buggy demanded, and the old man shook his head.

“If we had access to our usual stockpiles and more workers, we could cut it down to a couple days, easily. But the Guardians are making that impossible. The octopus won’t let us near the Graveyard, which is where we source a lot of the materials for repairs, and the second Guardian patrols the island itself, preventing large numbers of us from coming and going.”

“Ugh! Damn it!” Buggy growled, stomping off.

“And what about my request?” I inquired, already getting a sinking feeling in my gut.

“Well, missy, repairing your sailboat won’t be hard. Removing a couple barnacles, repairing the railing, and adding a bit of grease to the squeaky bits will only take two days, max,” Leery informed me.

“Buuut…?” I said, urging him to go on.

“But, if you want an actual ship, you’re gonna have to wait a month, minimum,” he informed me, and I groaned.

“Let me guess, because of the Guardians and the same reasons you gave Buggy,” I sighed, and the shipwright nodded.

“Building a ship takes a lot of time and resources. The Ocean’s Navel is able to cut that down by a lot thanks to all the ships in the Graveyard we can reuse and recycle, but even a caravel isn’t quick or easy to get up and running.”

I groaned and ran a hand over my face in disappointment. I admit, I’d had some unrealistic expectations for the timeframe involved. But, in my defense, Franky had only needed three days to build the Thousand Sunny.

‘Although comparing the Straw Hats’ SUPER! Shipwright to normal, East Blue ones was probably a mistake in the first place. After all, Franky is a genius and a damned cyborg who had the backing of the entirety of Water Seven – including a pair of giants – to help with the work,’ I thought.

While it was still ridiculously fast, put into that light, it made sense how the Straw Hats got their ship so quickly. Even taking a month was insanely fast, as sailing ships back on Earth would take half a year at least.

“And even if we beat up all of the monsters and saved the island, it’d still take a while, wouldn’t it?” I guessed, and Leery confirmed my fears with a grunt.

“Damn,” I sighed, before shaking my head. “Fine. Do what you can to tune up the Lovey Dovey. And any reinforcements you can give it would be appreciated, too.”

“Understood,” Leery replied. He wandered off to shout at some people, and I went to join Buggy at the edge of the Dock Ring.

He was staring down towards God’s Mountain, his gaze eventually shifting to the Ship’s Graveyard as one of the Beasts of God began arose once more from the watery depths.

“Think we could bombard the octopus from up here?” I wondered, peering over the edge down at the giant cephalopod that had begun smashing things up again.

Buggy shot me a suspicious look, clearly thinking I was trying to help people again (which, to be fair, I was), but after a moment he merely nodded.

“Probably. Wouldn’t exactly be hard. Finding the right angle might be difficult, though,” he replied, turning his gaze back to the sinkhole. “Range might be a bit tricky, too.”

“Maybe we could strap one of your Buggy Balls to a parachute and drop it down that way?” I suggested.

“Maybe,” Buggy grunted in a non-committal tone. “Though if the locals hadn’t already tried that, I’d be surprised.”

“They might not have,” I commented. “Aren’t these things some sort of holy animals to them? They might not want to harm them on religious grounds.”

“That would be stupid of them,” the clown huffed. “But it’s a possibility.”

“Kinda ugly,” I hummed as I stared at the tentacled creature. “Wonder if it’s an actual Kraken?”

“Eh, looks sorta similar, but there are differences,” Buggy

“Aren’t Krakens native to the North Blue?” I asked, glancing sideways at him. “How’d an East Bluer like you get there and back?”

I was hoping to prod him and get the guy to open up a bit more, and it seemed he took the bait as he puffed up a bit.

“Wasn’t always sailing the East Blue. Been to all four Blues and the Grand Line,” he claimed. “Like I said, seen some shit.”

“Right. And this guy you hate so much? He was also with ya during those adventures?” I inquired.

“Ugh. Red-haired bastard,” Buggy grumbled. “Yeah, Shanks and I were cabin boys on the same ship. Is that really so hard to understand?”

“Shanks?” I said, putting on a shocked face. “The Emperor?!”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t blow a gasket over it,” Buggy replied.

“Sorry, but hearing you were friends with a guy who’d go on to become an Emperor is pretty wild,” I commented, and he grimaced.

“Shanks and I aren’t friends,” he huffed. “Not after he made me eat the Devil Fruit and lose my map!”

“How did that happen?” I asked.

“He startled me and I accidentally swallowed it,” Buggy admitted after a moment. “And then he slapped me on the back while I was choking and got knocked overboard!”

“Pfft!” I snorted. “Su-su-su-su!”

I laughed, letting out a very distinctive One Piece-esque laugh, and that realization brought me up short a moment later, causing me to snap out of it.

Thankfully, Buggy didn’t notice my shock, or care that I’d suddenly cut off my mirth. Instead, he was busy staring down at the octopus as it curled up and went to sleep again.

“Alright, Alvida, I’m game,” he suddenly announced, and I blinked.

“Eh?”

“Tomorrow, we’re gonna gear up and kill those ‘Beasts of God’ or whatever,” Buggy declared. “Because I don’t want to spend two weeks waiting around for repairs. If getting rid of them and saving the island is the only way to do it, then fine.”

“I knew there was a good person buried under all that make-up,” I teased, and he glared at me.

“Watch it, Alvida,” he warned.

“Okay, okay, no more jokes at your expense,” I assured him. “How we gonna do this?”

“We’ll spend tomorrow learning what we can about these monsters, the island, and where they might have come from, and then the day after that, we’ll attack,” Buggy declared, punching a gloved hand into the air. “We’ll rain bombs upon ‘em, and then, we’ll take this ‘Sacred Treasure’ for ourselves!”

“You know how to make a rousing speech,” I said. “But it sounds like a solid plan.”

Buggy grinned at me, before turning back to the pit. I wondered what was passing through his mind, but eventually I mentally shrugged and decided it didn’t matter.

The sun had started setting, and I needed a stiff drink and some food. Odds were it’d mostly be seafood, but at least it’d be fresh. To that end, I went off to find the nearest tavern and grab dinner. Time for some grub!