Snippet Story - A Systematic Tale: The Pirate 2 (Patreon)

I wasn't expecting to write another chapter of this story so quick, but you guys liked the last one, so I put a bit of a rush on getting this out.

Chapter 2:

The Black Pearl groaned beneath his feet as it kept on sailing over the open ocean. 

William stared at the devil fruit cradled in his palms, its surface catching the last grey light filtering through storm clouds above them. The purple-black skin seemed to pulse with its own heartbeat, swirls and patterns shifting like smoke trapped beneath wax. It was heavier than he expected, dense with potential, with the promise of transformation that couldn't be undone.

He'd saved Lucy’s life with one devil fruit. Now he held another that could change his own.

He knew that in terms of fighting capability, he brought absolutely zilch to this crew. Actually, considering he'd been born on Earth where adult humans were fundamentally weaker than even children in One Piece, it was less than zilch. 

It was a negative contribution. 

These insane people could punch through walls before they hit puberty, and he'd once pulled a muscle reaching for the TV remote. 

It had to be the diet—constantly eating Sea King meat, training from birth, or maybe just being born in a world where physics had given up and gone home.

His stomach growled at the thought of Sea King steak, that mythical protein that could apparently turn children into tiny gods, and then his brain caught up with a horrible realization that hit like cold water. 

Sanji had left. 

Their cook—the one who could make even rations taste like five-star cuisine—had walked away into Loguetown's rain and taken all his culinary genius with him.

"Fuck," William muttered, then louder as the implications sank in. "We don't have a cook…"

The sound of rope hitting wood made him look up. Nami and Lucy had finished securing the sails—those impossible black sheets that seemed to catch wind that wasn't there, propelling them through the water at speeds that made physics cry. 

Lucy landed on deck with unnecessary electricity crackling around her feet, while Nami descended more carefully, still shooting suspicious glances at the rigging like she expected it to come alive.

They approached him with very different energies. Lucy bounced with each step, while Nami moved with the calculated grace of someone who'd learned to navigate through a world that wanted to rob her blind.

"Is that another one?" Nami's voice carried genuine surprise as her gaze locked onto the devil fruit. Her orange hair was plastered to her skull from the rain, but somehow she still managed to look amazing. 

Were all the women in the world as good looking as her? Because she was a “10” hands down. Hell, even Lucy was a 7 or 8. Way cuter than he would have expected a female Luffy to be. Just a bit shorter and more slender than nami was.

"...Devil fruits are supposed to be myths outside the Grand Line, worth more than entire islands, and you just... have two? What are you, some kind of traveling fruit vendor?" Nami continued. She stopped three feet away, hands on her hips, rain-soaked shirt clinging in ways that made William's higher brain functions stutter. "What is it? Are you going to eat it? Because if you're not, we could sell that thing and buy an actual fleet—"

"It's a Mythical Zoan," William interrupted, rolling the fruit between his palms and feeling its unnatural warmth. "Model: Nekomata. It would basically turn me into a..." he paused, suddenly aware of how ridiculous this was about to sound, "...a magical cat boy. With fire and necromancy powers. Cat ear and two tails."

The silence stretched for exactly three seconds before both women exploded into giggles.

"A cat boy?!" Lucy wheezed, doubling over with her hands on her knees. "Like with the ears and everything? Would you purr if we tried to pet you?"

"That's—" Nami tried to speak through her laughter, one hand pressed to her stomach. "That's the least threatening power description I've ever heard. 'Magical cat boy.' You'd be the cutest pirate on the Grand Line!"

"It's actually incredibly powerful," William protested, his face burning despite the cold rain. "Nekomata are legendary yokai that can raise the dead, control corpse puppets, throw around hellfire—"

"But with kitty ears," Lucy added helpfully, making little ear shapes with her fingers on top of her head.

"I'm not sure if I'm going to eat it just yet," William said quickly, desperate to change the subject from his potential feline future. "We've got time until the next island, right?"

Nami wiped tears from her eyes, her expression shifting to something more thoughtful. "We'll hit Reverse Mountain in a few hours. Maybe sooner—this ship is..." She paused, looking around at the Black Pearl with newfound appreciation. The way it cut through the waves, the way the wind always seemed to fill its sails regardless of direction. "It's actually amazing. I've never felt anything move this fast under sail."

William couldn't help the grin that spread across his face, that pride of knowing something they didn't. "The Black Pearl is supposed to be nigh uncatchable. The fastest sailing ship in the entire world. It can outrun even the legendary Flying Dutchman—"

Lucy's entire body seemed to vibrate with excitement. "The fabled ghost ship of Davy Jones!? Our ship is even better than that one!? THAT'S SO FREAKING COOL!" She grabbed the rigging and swung herself up, hanging upside down from a rope as rain ran up—or down?—her face. "Are you serious?! This is our ship now?! We have the fastest ship in the world?!"

"You're not pulling our leg, are you?" Nami's skepticism had returned full force. She pulled a barrel from where it had been lashed down and sat on it, crossing her legs with a squelch of wet fabric. "Because I think I would have heard of a ship like that. Information is money, and a ship that could outrun Marine battleships would be the kind of information that starts wars."

William shrugged, shoving the devil fruit into his pocket where it sat like a warm coal against his hip. "Believe me or don't. You'll see for yourself when we hit the Grand Line and nothing can catch us."

"Whatever," Nami said, but William caught the calculating look in her eyes, already planning routes and escapes with their new advantage. She wrung water from her hair, creating a small waterfall that pooled around her barrel. "Captain, I think we should get to know our new mysterious crew mate more in the meantime anyway. Man appears from nowhere with two devil fruits and knowledge of ships that shouldn't exist? That's not suspicious at all."

Lucy dropped from the rigging, landing in a crouch that sent up a spray of deck water. "Of course! He must be super awesome!" She was suddenly in William's space. "What kind of crazy adventures did you go on to get them?! Find a secret treasure island?!" Her eyes had gone starry, that look of absolute wonder that was pure Monkey D. bloodline. 

"Magic." 

William finally said it, the syllables falling from his mouth with all the conviction of wet newspaper. 

The Black Pearl creaked beneath them as if laughing at his pathetic attempt at explanation.

Nami's expression went through several fascinating transformations—disbelief, annoyance. "Magic," she repeated flatly. "You're seriously going with 'magic.'"

William's hands moved in what he hoped was a mystical gesture but probably looked more like he was trying to swat invisible mosquitoes. 

"I'm not kidding!" His voice cracked slightly on the last word, and he cleared his throat before continuing. "It really is magic. The Black Pearl literally materialized out of thin air because of magic. These devil fruits?" He patted his pocket, then gestured vaguely at where Lucy stood. "Magic. Sometimes absolutely insane things just... happen around me."

He spread his hands helplessly, knowing it was the weakest possible explanation but infinitely better than trying to explain parallel dimensions, omnipotent beings making bets, and system interfaces that would make him sound like a crazy person…

"I can't control it. I can't predict it. It just..." he made an explosive gesture with his hands, "...happens."

"SUGOI!" Lucy's delighted shriek cut through the tension. She was suddenly in William's space again—when had she moved? She had both hands on his shoulders, her eyes literally sparkling with excitement.  "Magic is SO COOL!" She was bouncing on her toes, making William bounce with her through sheer enthusiasm transference. "I LOVE magic! You're like a wizard pirate! A pirate wizard! A... a pizard!" She paused, frowning at her own word creation, then shook her head and continued with undiminished enthusiasm. "You're going to be such an awesome part of our crew, William! Can you make other stuff appear? Can you pull things out of hats?"

"Lucy, you can't just believe everything people tell you," Nami said with the patience of someone very much used to these kinds of questions from Lucy. "Magic isn't—"

"But you saw the ship appear!" Lucy protested, bottom lip jutting out in a pout that was surprisingly effective on her face. "And he saved my life with that fruit! That's pretty magical!"

Nami opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, then made a frustrated sound that was part sigh, part growl. "That's not... those could be... there might be logical..." She trailed off, clearly unable to find a rational explanation for a ship materializing from thin air. The Black Pearl chose that moment to adjust its own sails without any of them touching the rigging, catching wind that shouldn't exist to push them faster through the increasingly calm waters. "Fine!" Nami threw her hands up in defeat. "Magic! Sure! Why not! My life is already insane enough with a captain who got her head chopped off and came back as a storm person! What's a little reality-breaking magic on top of that?"

Lucy's hand shot out, smacking Nami's shoulder with enough force to make the navigator stumble sideways. "Hey! Don't be so intense with our newest crewmember!" Her voice carried that particular edge of protective irritation, the tone she used when someone was messing with her people. "He still saved us, remember? He shoved a fruit down my throat when I was literally dead! That's nakama behavior!"

Nami rubbed her shoulder, her aggressive posture deflating like a sail losing wind. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, worrying at it for a moment before her gaze shifted to William. The sharp edges in her expression softened into something that almost looked apologetic. "I... didn't mean to come off like that," Nami said, and the admission seemed to cost her something. Her fingers twisted in the damp fabric of her shirt, wringing out water that had already been wrung. "I'm just keyed up, okay? It's been..." She paused, searching for words that could encompass the absolute chaos of the last few hours. "It's been a day." 

William opened his mouth—probably to say something self-deprecating about understanding—but Nami wasn't finished.

"I want you to know that you already have way more of my trust than those other three bastards ever earned," she continued, and her voice went sharp again on the word 'bastards.' Her fists clenched at her sides, knuckles going white. "Zoro with his trauma complex, Sanji with his sexist chivalry obsession, and that coward Usopp who stole our ship—that had my mother's tangerines on it..." She cut herself off, shaking her head hard enough to send water droplets flying from her orange hair. "Hopefully that's the last time I have to think about any of them."

Then Nami's expression shifted. It happened in the space of a heartbeat with the hurt tucking itself away behind something far more dangerous. Her lips curved into a smirk that should probably come with a warning label. She adjusted her stance, pushing her arms underneath her chest in a movement that was deliberate, calculated, and absolutely effective at drawing William's eyes exactly where she intended.

Her rain-soaked shirt had been clinging already, but this—this was different. Her breasts pressed together and upward, creating curves that defied several laws of physics and all of William's remaining composure.

"Besides," Nami said, her voice dropping into a register that could melt steel, "I already gave William his hero's reward back on the docks." Her smirk widened as she watched the color drain from his face before rushing back in a violent blush. "Remember? The kiss?"

"EH!?"

Lucy's startled yelp cut through the moment like a thunderclap. She whipped around so fast looking between the two of them. Her eyes had gone comically wide, darting between Nami and William like.

"When did that happen?!" Lucy demanded, and there was something in her voice—something sharp and surprised that Nami's experienced ear immediately catalogued as jealousy. "I didn't see any kissing! There was no kissing announcement!"

Nami's eyebrows climbed toward her hairline. Well. That was unexpected. And interesting. Very, very interesting.

"It was just a little kiss," Nami said, enjoying this far too much. She made a small gesture near her cheek. 

“It was just on the cheek…” William mumbled and turned his head to the side.

“And a bit on the corner of your lips,” Nami said, finding she was enjoying teasing him. His reactions were so much more—normal—than her old male crewmembers. And damn did she notice she was starting to appreciate that!

Lucy's mouth opened and closed several times, her expression cycling through confusion, realization, and something that looked suspiciously like indignation. Her fingers flexed at her sides, tiny sparks jumping between them in response to whatever emotional storm was brewing in her chest. "Should I give him a hero's kiss too?" Lucy asked, and her voice carried that particular tone of complete seriousness that made the question somehow more dangerous. "Because he saved my life. That's a way bigger save than just regular saving. That's like... maximum saving." She nodded to herself, already convinced by her own logic. "Yeah, I should definitely—"

"William actually looks like he's about to pass out," Nami interrupted, genuine concern mixing with her amusement as she took in their newest crewmate's condition. "So maybe save that one for later?"

William had, in fact, gone beyond red into some new color that didn't have a name yet. His eyes had glazed over slightly, his breathing had gone shallow, and he was gripping the railing behind him like it was the only thing keeping him upright in a suddenly tilting world. His mouth worked soundlessly, trying to form words in a language his brain had temporarily forgotten. Was he actually hearing those words coming out of Lucy's mouth correctly?

Nami snickered—a genuine, delighted sound that cut through the tension. "Seriously, Lucy, I think you broke him."

"I didn't do anything!" Lucy protested, but she was staring at William with that intense focus she usually reserved for particularly interesting beetles or mysterious meat. "Why's his face doing that?"

"Because you just announced you wanted to kiss him," Nami explained patiently, like she was teaching a child about basic social interaction. "People's faces do that when they're overwhelmed."

Lucy tilted her head, electricity crackling softly in her hair. "OH!? You know what, I think I get it now… Ace always got this way with some girls back on our island growing up….”

"That's..." Nami started, then stopped. “Wait!? You actually do understand!?” Nami asked, not bothering to ask who Ace was. She could ask later. She was more shocked Lucy was LEARNING!

“Shishishi…” Lucy snickered, taking her hat off for a second to rub her head. “Yeah, I think this new devil fruit made me smarter or something? Or maybe it fixed my head from all the times Jii-chan punched me on top of the head as a little girl…”

Nami didn’t know how to respond to that. Lucy previously having a tiny bit of brain damage did unfortunately make some sense. She was very glad that it was fixed now. Logia fruits really were a cheat in this world weren’t they? And now she had another thing to thank William for. 

"You know what, never mind. We'll have this conversation later," Nami told Lucy.

William finally managed to wrestle his vocal cords back under control. "Maybe—" His voice cracked, and he coughed, trying again. "Maybe now would be a good time for us to check if this ship came with any supplies?" 

Nami glanced down at herself—at the shirt that had gone from white to rust-red with Lucy's blood, at the way her skin felt tacky with salt and gore and harbor water. Then she looked at Lucy, who was somehow even worse. Her captain's red vest had turned nearly black with dried blood, and there were still flecks of it in her hair that the rain hadn't quite washed away.

"Yeah," Nami agreed, grateful for the subject change even if it came from desperation. "Hopefully we can find something on this ship." She moved toward the nearest hatch, her navigator's instincts already mapping the Pearl's layout in her mind. "But judging by the fact that all these barrels are empty—" she kicked one for emphasis, producing a hollow thunk, "—I don't think we're going to have any luck."

Her shoulders sagged slightly with the admission, exhaustion finally catching up to her adrenaline. "We're going to have to make some kind of emergency stop pretty much as soon as we reach the Grand Line for supplies. Food, water, clothes..." She gestured vaguely at their blood-soaked states. "Everything, basically."

“Before that!” Lucy suddenly declared, “William never got to finish introducing himself!”

William started to open his mouth to say his boring, normal Earth surname when a thought hit him.

He was in a new world, sitting on the deck of the Black Pearl itself, the legendary ship of Captain Jack Sparrow. He'd just been recruited by Monkey D. Lucy to be part of what would become the most infamous pirate crew in history. Shouldn't he have a name that fits? 

Something worthy of the insanity he'd been thrust into? He was a PIRATE now!

"Sparrow…" he said, the name feeling strange but right on his tongue. A grin spread across his face—not quite confident but trying its best, the expression of someone committing to a terrible decision. "My name is William D. Sparrow."

Lucy gasped. "William, you have the same middle name as me! We're like, D buddies! D friends! D... twins?" She paused, frowning again at her word choices, while Nami buried her face in her hands.

Nami facepalmed. "Please stop trying to make compound words with D in them," the navigator muttered through her fingers.

"But it's so cool!" Lucy bounced in place, making the deck vibrate. "Monkey D. Lucy! And now William D. Sparrow! We're gonna conquer the Grand Line with the power of the D!"

"PLEASE phrase that differently," Nami groaned, knowing Lucy was getting smarter, but would still need to learn a lot throughout the rest of their long pirate journey.

…They were approaching Reverse Mountain when he came back on deck. The search of the lower decks was a bust, yielding a treasure trove of things that were entirely inedible.

William emerged from the dark, damp hold of the Black Pearl, dusting cobwebs off his shoulders. "Bad news," he announced, his voice fighting against the rising wind. "Unless we want to start a diet of gunpowder and rusted cannonballs, we're out of luck. No food, no water, no clothes."

"Nothing?" Nami asked, gripping the railing as the ship pitched violently in the pre-mountain choppy waters.

"There's spare canvas for sails, enough rope to hang a giant, and enough gunpowder to blow us to the moon," William listed off, grimacing. "But not a single biscuit. It's a ghost ship, alright. Ghosts don't need snacks."

A sound like a dying whale echoed across the deck. They all froze, looking around for a sea monster, before realizing the noise had come from Lucy’s midsection. "I'm starving!" Lucy complained, draping herself dramatically over the gunwale. "Being dead makes you super hungry! Can't we fish?"

"We're about to sail up a mountain, you idiot!" Nami snapped, though she looked relieved that their only immediate crisis was hunger. "Starve quietly for ten minutes! If we mess this up, we'll be smashed against the Red Line and then we won't have to worry about lunch ever again!"

She pointed a commanding finger toward the masts. "Get to your stations! Lucy, take the main sail. You’re the only one with the freakish strength to handle that heavy canvas in this wind."

"Aye aye, Navigator!" Lucy saluted, bouncing off the railing and sprinting toward the main mast, electricity crackling around her sandals.

"William!" Nami barked, pivoting to him. "You’re on the jib and the mizzen. Keep them tight! If the wind shifts, we need to adjust instantly."

"On it!" William scrambled toward the bow, his heart hammering against his ribs. He’d seen this in the anime, read it in the manga, but the reality was a terrifying wall of noise and spray. The entrance to the Grand Line wasn't just a plot point; it was a natural disaster waiting to happen.

Nami took the helm. The wood of the wheel was cold, slick with rain, and black as pitch. She braced her feet, preparing to fight the rudder—she’d steered ships through typhoons before, and the currents around Reverse Mountain were notorious for tearing rudders clean off.

But as her hands tightened on the spokes, her eyes widened.

The wheel didn't fight her.

It didn't shudder or jerk. When she applied the slightest pressure to port, the massive ship responded instantly, cutting through the chaotic waves with supernatural grace. It felt... alive.

Is this ship haunted? Nami wondered, a shiver running down her spine that had nothing to do with the cold rain. A Klabautermann?

She’d heard the legends from old sailors—spirits that inhabited well-loved ships. But this ship had just appeared out of thin air. Maybe it wasn’t a spirit. Maybe the ship itself was just magic. At this point, she decided to stop questioning it.

"Hold on!" Nami screamed over the roar of the water. "Here comes the current!"

The current hit them like a physical force.

One moment they were sailing fast, the next, the ocean had grabbed the Pearl and yanked. The ship's bow lifted as water pressure built beneath them, and suddenly they were accelerating toward something that dominated the horizon.

Reverse Mountain.

William had seen it in the anime—that impossible waterfall that defied physics and common sense, where four seas met and flowed upward before crashing down into the Grand Line. But seeing it in person was different. It was massive, a wall of churning white water that climbed toward clouds, roaring with the voice of a hurricane made liquid.

"HOLY SHIT!" he screamed over the thunder of water. "THAT'S ACTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE!"

"WELCOME TO THE GRAND LINE!" Nami screamed back, her whole body straining as she fought the wheel to keep them centered in the current. The Pearl was moving faster than anything she'd sailed before, spray flying back to drench them all. "WHERE PHYSICS GOES TO DIE!"

Lucy had abandoned her post to run to the bow, grabbing the railing with both hands as the ship's nose tilted up, up, up. Water crashed over the figurehead and soaked Lucy from head to toe, but she didn't care. Her face split into that signature grin, the one that promised chaos and adventure and absolute refusal to acknowledge danger. "SHISHISHISHI! THIS IS AWESOME!"

The Pearl hit the ascending water and shot upward.

William's stomach tried to stay at sea level while the rest of him went vertical. He clung to the rigging with white knuckles, spray blinding him, the roar of Reverse Mountain loud enough to feel in his bones. The ship was climbing at an angle that should have sent everything sliding backward—should have sent them sliding backward—but the Pearl held steady, its enchanted construction keeping the deck level even as they rode up a literal waterfall.

Nami wrestled the wheel with every ounce of skill she'd earned through years of navigation, reading the current through instinct and desperation. One wrong move and they'd flip, or slam into the rocks on either side—

But the wheel practically steered itself, needing only gentle corrections to keep them centered in the rushing flow.

They climbed higher. The East Blue fell away below them—that entire ocean where they'd met and fought and lost crew members—now just a vast expanse of darkening water. The other three currents were visible too, great streams of ocean being pulled upward by forces that shouldn't exist, all converging at the mountain's peak.

"HOLY FUCK THIS IS AWESOME!" William screamed toward the front of the boat, not caring that he was soaked to his skin for the second time that day, not caring that his voice cracked, not caring about anything except the sheer impossible reality of riding water upward toward the sky. His hair was plastered to his skull, his clothes stuck to him like a second skin, and he'd never felt more alive.

Lucy was laughing—full-body, manic laughter that mixed with thunder and spray. Lightning crackled around her in response to her joy, dancing along the rigging and across the water without shocking anyone, a light show that turned the white spray electric blue. "SHISHISHI! NEXT STOP, THE GRAND LINE!"

The peak rushed toward them—that moment where four seas became one, where everything changed.

The Pearl crested Reverse Mountain with the grace of a bird taking flight. For one impossible heartbeat, they were airborne, the ship and its three-person crew suspended between the old world and the new. William could see it all, the dark, mysterious waters of the Grand Line spreading endlessly ahead, storms brewing on distant horizons, islands that were just shadows against the dying light.

Then gravity remembered its job and they plunged.

The descent was faster than the climb, the Pearl's bow cutting into the downward current like a knife. Nami kept them steady through experience and the ship's mysterious cooperation, while Lucy whooped with joy at the front, and William held on for dear life wondering if this counted as flying.

They hit the Grand Line's surface with a massive splash that sent water cascading across the deck. 

"We made it!" Lucy's voice rang out clear and victorious, fist pumping the air as electricity danced between her knuckles. "We're in the Grand Line! WE'RE ACTUALLY HERE!"

Nami slumped against the wheel, exhausted but grinning. "Holy shit, we actually pulled that off. Three-person crew, blood-soaked clothes, no food, and we just rode up a waterfall. We're either the bravest pirates on this ocean or the stupidest."

"Both," William gasped, finally releasing his death grip on the rigging. His hands were shaking, his heart hammering, his brain still processing that he'd just experienced something that should only exist in fiction. "Definitely both."

The adrenaline high from conquering Reverse Mountain was finally starting to ebb, leaving William's hands shaky and his heart still hammering against his ribs. He leaned against the railing, letting the spray from the Pearl's cutting wake cool his flushed face, and tried to process that he'd just done that—had actually ridden a waterfall into the Grand Line like it was some kind of demented theme park ride.

His gaze swept across the dark waters surrounding them, taking in the way the Grand Line's surface moved differently than East Blue—choppier, more aggressive, like the ocean itself had more attitude here. Storm clouds gathered on distant horizons in formations that made no meteorological sense. The air tasted different too, heavier with salt and something else he couldn't quite name. Danger, maybe. Or endless possibilities.

Then his brain, still cataloguing everything through the lens of anime knowledge, snagged on something.

Wait.

William's eyes narrowed as he scanned the water more carefully. They'd just descended Reverse Mountain, which meant they should be right at the entrance to the Grand Line proper, which meant—

Where was the giant-ass whale?

The thought had barely formed when the ocean a hundred yards off their starboard bow began to churn. Not the normal chop of waves, but something deeper, more ominous. The water started to bubble and froth like a pot coming to boil, and the Black Pearl—despite its supernatural grace moments before—lurched violently to portside.

"What the—" Nami grabbed the wheel with both hands, her knuckles going white as she fought to keep them steady. "What's happening?!"

The water exploded!

A mountain of black flesh erupted from the Grand Line's surface with enough force to displace what must have been thousands of gallons of seawater. The spray hit them like a physical wall. 

William was knocked flat on his back, Nami let out a yelp as she was drenched, and Lucy staggered but kept her footing, electricity crackling instinctively around her in response to the threat.

But it wasn't a threat. Not exactly.

It was a whale.

"WOW!" Lucy's voice cut through the roar of cascading water, pitched high with genuine wonder. She rushed to the railing, gripping it with both hands as she stared up—and up, and up—at the creature that had just breached beside their ship. "LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT THING! Are all whales that big in the Grand Line?!"

William picked himself up on shaking arms, water streaming from his hair and clothes—third time today, some distant part of his brain noted—and just stared.

He'd known Laboon was big. The anime had shown it. The manga had drawn it with dramatic panel layouts meant to convey scale. But knowing and experiencing were two entirely different things.

Laboon wasn't just large. He was impossible.

The whale's body seemed to go on forever, a living island of scarred black flesh that rose from the water like a mountain achieving sentience. His head alone was bigger than the Black Pearl—bigger than three Black Pearls put together. Water cascaded off his massive form in waterfalls, catching the dying light and turning the spray into momentary rainbows. Scars crisscrossed his skin in patterns that spoke of decades of self-inflicted violence against the Red Line.

When Laboon opened his mouth to release a mournful cry—a sound that vibrated through William's chest cavity and made his bones ache—William could see down his throat. Could see the darkness there that went on and on, a tunnel into living flesh that could swallow their ship whole without the whale even noticing.

"Holy shit," William whispered, and his voice sounded small and pathetic against the backdrop of Laboon's song. "They called him an island whale in the story, but that wasn't—that wasn't hyperbole. That's an actual island."

His hands were shaking again, but not from adrenaline this time. This was something else. Some primal mammalian response to being in the presence of something so much bigger than himself, something that made him feel like an ant looking up at a god.

And this thing wasn't even fully grown yet he was pretty sure. Compared to what lurked deeper in these waters. Sea Kings that made Laboon look small. Creatures that shouldn't exist, that couldn't exist by any rational physical law, but did anyway because this was the Grand Line and physics was more of a suggestion than a rule.

This was the world he was part of now. 

This batshit, impossible, terrifying, beautiful ocean where whales the size of mountains sang sad songs and waited for crews that would never return.

William's hand went to his pocket, fingers closing around the devil fruit there. 

The purple-black skin felt warm against his palm, almost pulsing with whatever power it contained. 

He'd been hesitating all day, turning it over in his mind—maybe I won't need it, maybe I'll get something better from my System at the next island, maybe I can avoid losing my ability to swim forever.

But looking up at Laboon, feeling the spray from the whale's breath mist across his face, watching Lucy stand at the railing completely unafraid of something that could kill them all with a sneeze—

This was his wake-up call.

The Grand Line didn't give second chances to people who hesitated. It didn't care about his Earth-born weakness or his reluctance to commit. Out here, you either had power or you became fish food. Simple as that.

William pulled the fruit from his pocket with hands that had stopped shaking, that had gone steady with decision. The Nekomata fruit sat heavy in his palm—purple-black with those swirling patterns that looked like smoke and shadow, heavier than its size suggested, warm like it had its own heartbeat.

Nami noticed the movement, her navigator's awareness tracking everything on deck even while she kept one eye on Laboon. "William? What are you—"

He didn't answer. Didn't let himself think about it anymore, didn't give his rational brain time to list all the reasons this was permanent and irreversible and would change him on a fundamental level.

William raised the fruit to his mouth and bit down.

The taste hit him like a physical assault. It wasn't just bad—bad didn't begin to cover it. It was like biting into rotten meat that had been soaked in gasoline, mixed with the sourest thing imaginable, then left to ferment in sewage. His taste buds screamed in protest. His gag reflex activated immediately. Every instinct in his body was telling him to spit it out, to throw the fruit into the ocean and gargle with seawater until the taste went away.

But he'd already committed.

William forced himself to chew—god, it was somehow worse when he chewed—the texture like rancid mushroom mixed with sand. His eyes watered. His throat tried to close. But he kept chewing, kept forcing it down, because stopping now would mean he'd destroyed a Mythical Zoan for nothing.

He swallowed.

For one blessed second, the taste was gone and he thought maybe the worst was over—

Then his stomach lurched.

Something was wrong. Not nausea—this was different. This was internal, fundamental. It felt like his cells were rearranging themselves, like his DNA was being rewritten in real-time. Heat bloomed in his chest, then spread outward in waves that made his skin prickle. His vision swam. The Black Pearl's deck tilted underneath him, or maybe that was just him losing his sense of up and down.

"William?" Lucy's voice sounded far away, muffled like he was hearing it through water.

He tried to answer, tried to say he was fine, but his legs had stopped supporting his weight. The deck rushed up to meet him—or he rushed down to meet it, the distinction wasn't clear anymore—and he felt the impact distantly, like it was happening to someone else's body.

The half-eaten devil fruit rolled from his slack fingers, coming to rest against a barrel. Purple-black skin with one massive bite taken out of it, the exposed flesh inside already starting to dissolve into mist.

Thump.

William's world went dark, consciousness fleeing like water down a drain. The last thing he registered was voices—Lucy and Nami shouting his name in perfect, horrified unison—before everything went black and silent and far away.

"WILLIAM!"

Lucy was moving before she even finished his name, electricity crackling around her in agitation as she dropped to her knees beside their newest crewmate's collapsed form. Her hands hovered over him uncertainly, not sure where to touch or what to do.

"William?! Hey, wake up!" She grabbed his shoulders and shook him—probably too hard, but she didn't know her own strength yet with these new storm powers. "You can't just eat something and pass out! That's not how food works!"

"Lucy, stop shaking him!" Nami was there a second later, having abandoned the wheel to rush over. She pressed two fingers against William's neck, feeling for a pulse, her navigator's training including enough emergency medicine to not be completely useless. "He's breathing, his pulse is—" Her eyes widened. "His pulse is racing. Like, really racing. His heart's going way too fast."

"Is that bad?" Lucy asked, and the fear in her voice was raw and real. "That sounds bad. Why is his heart doing that? Did the fruit hurt him? I thought devil fruits just gave you powers, not—not this!"

"I don't know!" Nami snapped, but the anger was directed at the situation, not Lucy. Her mind was racing through possibilities. She'd seen people eat devil fruits before—hell, she'd watched Lucy eat one less than six hours ago. But that had been different. Lucy's transformation had been immediate, violent, a resurrection wrapped in lightning. This was—

William's body suddenly convulsed.

Both women jerked back instinctively as his spine arched off the deck, every muscle going rigid. His eyes snapped open but they weren't focused on anything, pupils blown so wide the blue was almost invisible. A sound ripped from his throat that was somewhere between a scream and something feline, something wrong.

"What's happening to him?!" Lucy's hands were sparking now, her distress manifesting as uncontrolled electricity that danced across the wet deck. "William! WILLIAM!"

Then, as suddenly as it started, he went limp again. His breathing evened out. His pulse—when Nami checked it with shaking fingers—had slowed to something closer to normal.

"I think—" Nami's voice was unsteady, her usual confidence shaken by watching someone go through what looked like a medical emergency with no idea how to help. "I think he's stable now. I think that was just... the fruit. Changing him."

They both stared down at William's unconscious form, at the way his chest rose and fell with steady breaths, at the bitten devil fruit still sitting nearby like evidence of something irreversible.

Lucy's hand found Nami's, gripping it tight enough to hurt. "He's gonna be okay, right? He has to be okay. We just got him. We can't—" Her voice cracked. "We can't lose another crew member, Nami. Not after..."

"He'll be fine," Nami said, squeezing back with all the certainty she could fake. "He's tough. Anyone crazy enough to shove a devil fruit down a severed throat is tough enough to survive eating one himself. There’s a small island nearby with a lighthouse, why don’t we pull the ship over there and maybe we can get some supplies."

“Maybe even a doctor lives there!” Lucy said cheerfully.

Nami chuckled and rolled her eyes, doubting that a doctor would live at a tiny lighthouse at the bottom of Reverse Mountain.

‘…Son of a bitch! A freaking doctor actually did live at the tiny lighthouse at the bottom of Reverse Mountain!’ Nami thought to herself as the rude old man, Crocus, was looking over William. 

Nami stood beside the patient bed, arms crossed, trying to look like she was assessing their situation clinically. Trying not to stare.

She was failing.

The lighthouse's interior was cramped—part living quarters, part medical clinic, with shelves of glass bottles and bandages competing for space with nautical charts and harpoons. It smelled like old wood, disinfectant, and whatever Lucy had just pulled from Crocus's fridge (some kind of cured meat that was probably supposed to last the old man a month).

They'd been in the Grand Line for barely fifteen minutes and already nothing made sense, Nami decided. A doctor living in a lighthouse at the base of Reverse Mountain? 

Sure. Why not. 

Add it to the list of impossible things she'd witnessed today, right after "captain resurrects from the dead" and "ship materializes from thin air."

William lay unconscious on the examination table, and he'd... changed.

"Your crewmate will be fine," Crocus said from where he was washing his hands in a basin, his weathered face showing the kind of calm that came from decades of medical emergencies. The old man had barely blinked when they'd carried an unconscious teenager with cat ears up to his door. "This is completely normal for Zoan-type devil fruits. Unpleasant, but normal."

"Normal?" Nami tore her eyes away from William long enough to look at the doctor. "He convulsed and passed out! His heart was racing like he'd run a marathon! Maybe two marathons!"

"Zoan fruits are different from Logia or Paramecia types," Crocus explained, drying his hands on a towel that had seen better decades. "They don't just grant you abilities—they rewrite you on a cellular level. Your body has to integrate with an animal's physiology, and that integration process..." He gestured at William's unconscious form. "Well. It's not comfortable. Most people black out from the pain. He'll wake up within the hour, maybe two."

Nami exhaled slowly, some of the tension leaving her shoulders. "So he's not dying."

"Not even close." Crocus moved to check William's pulse, his experienced fingers finding the right spot on the wrist. "Strong heartbeat. Good color. The transformation is complete—you can tell by the physical changes. He's just sleeping it off now."

"Sleeping it off," Nami repeated, and finally let herself really look at what the Nekomata fruit had done to William.

The most obvious changes were the red cat ears sprouting from his hair—soft-looking, tufted things that twitched occasionally in response to sounds even while he slept. They were the color of autumn leaves, a few shades darker than his messy red hair, and they looked... god, they looked cute. 

Adorable, even. The kind of thing that would make girls want to reach out and touch them. Nami's fingers twitched with the urge before she shoved her hands deeper under her arms.

Two tails had also appeared, emerging from—well, she assumed from the base of his spine, though they were currently draped over the edge of the examination table. They were the same red as his ears, fluffy and full. Even unconscious, they swayed slightly, moving with his breathing.

Yes, he was now a catboy…

But it wasn't just the obvious animal features.

The devil fruit had reshaped him.

William had been cute before in a nerdy, harmless kind of way—lanky build, soft around the edges, the physique of someone who'd spent more time with books than barbells. The body of someone who'd never had to fight for his life, never had to haul rope or climb rigging or do any of the thousand physically demanding things that made up pirate life. Not that she’d ever judge him for that after what he did for her and Lucy, of course.

And it didn’t even matter because that old body of his was gone anyways.

Not dramatically—he wasn't suddenly built like Zoro had been with slabs of ridiculous muscle. 

But the devil fruit had refined William, filled him out. His body was still lean but now it was toned—she could see the definition in his arms where his sleeves had been pushed up, the way his chest rose and fell with the suggestion of actual muscle underneath his shirt.

His face had changed too, just slightly. More defined jawline, sharper cheekbones, like someone had taken an eraser to the softness and left behind something that would photograph well. He even looked taller—maybe an inch, maybe two, enough to notice.

‘Yeah, I can definitely work with this,’ Nami caught herself thinking, and immediately felt her face heat. 

"He should wake up within the hour," Crocus said, and Nami definitely didn't jump at being caught staring down at William. "Keep him hydrated when he does. Transformations are taxing."

"That's great!" Lucy's voice came from across the room, muffled by what sounded like half a pound of meat. She was perched on Crocus's kitchen counter—when had she even gotten over there?—happily demolishing what appeared to be an entire cured ham. "Hey, old man, you got any more of this? It's really good!"

Crocus turned slowly, his expression progressing through several stages of grief as he watched Lucy bite off another enormous chunk of his food stores. "That was supposed to last me two weeks."

"Oh." Lucy paused mid-chew, actually looking apologetic for half a second. Then she swallowed and grinned. "Well, it's really good! You should make more!"

"Make more," Crocus repeated flatly. "Yes. I'll just make more. That's how cured meat works. Instantly."

Sarcasm was still lost on her. That was something they would have to work on, Nami decided. 

"Awesome!" Lucy hopped down from the counter, completely missing the sarcasm. "You got anything else? I'm still starving! Dying makes you super hungry, and then we rode up that crazy waterfall, saw a HUGE WHALE, and then William did his whole passing-out thing—" She was already opening another cabinet, peering inside with the single-minded focus of a glutton in search of more food.

"Lucy!" Nami snapped, mortified. "Stop eating his food! We're guests!"

"But I'm hungry!" Lucy protested, though she did pause her cabinet raid. "And we don't have any food on the Pearl! William checked!"

"That's not an excuse to eat through someone else's entire—" Nami stopped, pinching the bridge of her nose. This was a losing battle. Lucy and food were like the tide and the moon—natural forces that couldn't be reasoned with. "You know what, fine. We'll pay him back somehow. We don't have any money," she said, and that was fucking painful to ever say out loud for someone like Nami, “but Lucy here can do some physical labor if you need it, Crocus?”

Yep, she had no problem physically pimping out her ridiculously strong captain to do some physical labor!

"Don't worry about it," Crocus said, waving a weathered hand dismissively as he settled into a chair near William's bed. The old man pulled out a pipe and started packing it with tobacco, movements automatic from decades of habit. "I've fed hungrier pirates. You're not even close to the worst locusts I've hosted. Having a crew of only three people is a bit strange though…"

"See?" Lucy said triumphantly, pulling out what looked like dried fish. "The old man says it's fine!"

"I did not say—" Crocus started, then sighed out smoke. "Never mind. How did you three even end up here? The Grand Line's not exactly forgiving to..." He gestured vaguely at them. "Whatever this crew situation is."

Nami leaned back against the wall near William's bed, suddenly exhausted. "Long story. Very long story. The kind that involves executions and resurrections and ships appearing from nowhere."

"I got my head cut off!" Lucy announced around her mouthful of dried fish. "Like, completely cut off! And then William shoved a devil fruit down my throat and I came back to life…"

Crocus's pipe paused halfway to his mouth. "I'm sorry, what…?"

"It's true," Nami confirmed, watching the old doctor's face cycle through disbelief. "I caught her head and body separately. There was... a lot of blood. But this idiot—" she gestured at William's unconscious form with something that might have been fondness, "—apparently decided that decapitation was a treatable condition if you had the right fruit."

"That shouldn't have worked," Crocus said slowly, staring at Lucy like he was seeing her for the first time. Really seeing her. "Devil fruits don't resurrect the dead. That's not—fruit powers don't work that way."

"Well, this one did!" Lucy grinned, electricity crackling between her fingers to demonstrate. "And now I've got storm powers instead of rubber! I can make clouds and lightning and I threw a clown into the sky!"

Crocus took a long drag from his pipe. "You know what, I don't want to know. I'm too old for this..."

…The top of William's head felt tingly—no, not just tingly. Good. 

Really, impossibly good in a way that made coherent thought difficult. Like someone had found a pleasure button he didn't know existed and was pressing it repeatedly with expert precision.

His consciousness drifted up toward that sensation like a moth to flame and that feeling—warm fingers moving through something soft on his head, scritching and petting in a rhythm that made his entire body want to melt.

A sound rumbled up from his chest. Deep, vibrating, utterly involuntary.

He was purring.

"Oh my gosh, he really is purring when I pet his ears!" Lucy's voice cut through the pleasant haze, pitched high with delight. "This is adorable!"

Ears?

William's eyes cracked open, vision blurry and unfocused before it became clear in a way his eyes never were before. The first thing his brain registered with the crystal clarity was that Lucy was leaning directly over him. Her face hovered maybe eight inches above his, which meant her chest was significantly closer. The modest swell of her breasts pressed against a clean white shirt that wasn't blood-soaked anymore, and she was right there, practically in his face, and—

His face went nuclear. "Guh—" was the intelligent sound that escaped his mouth.

Lucy's fingers kept moving through his hair—no, not his hair. Through something on top of his head. The sensation was overwhelming, electric, better than anything had a right to be. Every stroke sent pleasure cascading down his spine, making his thoughts scatter.

The purring got louder.

"So cute!" Lucy giggled, her grin wide enough to show all her teeth. She adjusted her angle, fingers finding a spot behind what he was increasingly certain were cat ears, and William's back arched involuntarily off the bed.

"Lucy," came Nami's voice from somewhere to his left, strained with something between amusement and exasperation. "Maybe give him some space? He just woke up."

"But his ears are so soft!" Lucy protested, though she did lean back slightly. "And he's making that noise! Listen to him! You have to try it too!"

William's head turned—mostly to escape the sensory overload, partially to assess his situation—and caught Nami standing beside the bed. She'd changed too, wearing a clean blue shirt that actually fit her sizable chest properly, her orange hair was pulled back from her face. 

And her hand was extended toward his head, fingers curled like she'd been reaching for him, but the moment their eyes met she snatched it back like she'd been caught stealing.

A blush spread across her cheeks, turning them pink. "We're glad you're awake, William," she said, her voice a bit too casual as she cleared her throat and crossed her arms defensively. Her gaze flicked away, then back, then away again. "Also, you're a cat boy now. Just so you're aware," she added, trying to sound casual.

"I—what?" William's hand shot up to his head, fingers encountering the soft, tufted triangles of fur sprouting from his skull. They were his. Part of him. And they were incredibly sensitive—although he noticed his own touch didn’t feel even close to as good as when Lucy was scratching his ears...

"Cat ears," Nami confirmed, gesturing vaguely at his head. One corner of her mouth quirked up despite her obvious attempt at composure. "Red ones. They match your hair. Oh, and let's not forget the tails too…"

Movement in his peripheral vision made him look down.

Two tails—fluffy, red, easily three feet long—were swaying behind him with minds of their own. As he watched, they flicked in opposite directions, then curled around each other, then separated to lash irritably at the air like they were having an argument.

"Those are new too," William said weakly, watching his tails continue their animated conversation without his input. He tried to move them consciously, and they responded, but there was a lag—like his brain was still learning how to operate the extra appendages. One tail curved up experimentally, the tip twitching. The other smacked against the bed frame with a soft thump.

"You've been out for about an hour," Nami supplied, finally unfolding her arms and moving closer to the bed. Her expression had shifted from flustered to something more analytical, that navigator's mind cataloging details. "Crocus said the transformation was complete. How do you feel?"

"Weird." William pushed himself up to sitting, and immediately regretted it. His balance was off—those tails had weight, changed his center of gravity, and his body's kinesthetic awareness was still calibrated for his old, tail-less configuration. He swayed, caught himself with one hand on the bed. "Really weird. Like someone added extra limbs while I was sleeping and forgot to include the instruction manual."

"Can you make the tails stop moving?" Lucy asked, fascinated. She'd circled around to the foot of the bed, watching his tails wave and curl with the intensity of someone observing a particularly interesting bug. "Or do they just do whatever they want?"

"I'm... not sure?" William concentrated, trying to still them. The tails slowed, quivered, then one of them—apparently offended by his attempt at control—lashed out and smacked him in the face.

Lucy dissolved into laughter, doubling over and clutching her stomach. "Shishishi! Your own tail hit you!"

"I noticed," William muttered, rubbing his cheek where his traitorous appendage had struck. The tail in question flicked smugly, entirely unrepentant.

Nami's lips twitched, fighting a smile. "You'll get used to it. Probably. Maybe." She moved to the small table beside the bed where a pitcher of water sat sweating in the lighthouse's humid air. "Crocus said you'd be thirsty. Transformations are hard on the body."

She poured water into a cup, and William accepted it gratefully, suddenly aware that his mouth tasted like he'd been chewing on cotton. He drained half the cup in one go, then paused.

His reflection stared back at him from the water's surface.

The face was his—mostly. Same blue eyes, same general structure. But sharper somehow, more defined. His jaw had angles it hadn't possessed that morning. His cheekbones were more prominent. Even his hair looked different, the red brighter, more vibrant, like someone had adjusted the saturation.

And the ears. Red, tufted, currently pinned back against his skull in what he was pretty sure was an expression of distress.

"Well," he said to his reflection, "at least the devil fruit worked as advertised." He drained the rest of the water, set the cup down, managed a weak chuckle. "Except now I'm never going to be able to swim again."

The humor in the statement fell flat the moment it left his mouth.

Lucy's expression shifted, her laughter dying as something more serious took its place. She moved around the bed to stand beside him, close enough that her arm brushed his. "Yeah," she said, her voice dropping from its usual boisterous volume to something quieter, more solemn. "That part really sucks. You have to be really careful around water now. Trust me." She held up her hand, let electricity dance between her fingers in a small demonstration. Blue-white sparks jumped from knuckle to knuckle, crackling softly. "I can't even take baths anymore without feeling weak. Have to do, like, bucket baths where the water's not deep enough to take my powers away." She wrinkled her nose. "It's annoying."

"According to Crocus and Lucy, showers are fine," Nami added, returning the pitcher to the table. "As long as you're not submerged. But actual swimming, baths, falling in the ocean—" She made a cutting gesture across her throat. "You'll sink like a stone. Zero buoyancy. And you won't have the strength to even try to save yourself."

William felt the weight of that settle in his chest. He'd known it intellectually—devil fruit users couldn't swim, everyone knew that. But knowing and experiencing were different things. He knew he would inevitably experience it at some point. This wasn't fiction anymore. This was permanent alteration of his body, irreversible, a choice he'd made in a moment of determination that he couldn't take back.

"No more swimming," he repeated, testing the words. One of his tails curled around his waist in what felt like a self-comforting gesture, the fluffy tip brushing against his arm. The other reached out toward Lucy, wavering in her direction like it wanted to touch her but wasn't quite brave enough.

Lucy noticed immediately. "Aww!" Her hand shot out, catching the questing tail before William could stop her. "Your tail wants pets too!"

The sensation of someone else touching his tail hit him like an electric shock—not painful, but intense. More intense than the ear-scratching had been. The fur there was even more sensitive, every hair follicle connected directly to nerve endings he didn't know he possessed.

His face went red again. The purring came back, louder.

"Lucy," Nami said warningly, but she was smiling now, the concern from earlier melting into something more playful. "You're going to break him."

"He's already broken!" Lucy protested cheerfully, stroking down the length of the tail with obvious fascination. "Look how red his face is! That's not a normal face color!"

"That's called embarrassment," Nami translated. "Some people experience it when cute girls touch their sensitive new body parts without asking first!"

“Oh right! We already went over this, didn’t we?” Lucy said and stuck her tongue out at Nami who just rolled her eyes.

His traitorous tail wrapped around Lucy's hand, keeping her from pulling away. The other tail was swaying happily now, the earlier irritation forgotten. Apparently, his tails had decided Lucy was trustworthy. Good to know his body was making executive decisions without consulting his brain.

"They like me!" Lucy announced, grinning triumphantly. She gave the tail another stroke, and William's purring intensified despite his best efforts to suppress it. "See? We're friends now. Tail friends."

"That's not—" William started, then gave up. What was he even arguing against? His tails did like her. He could feel their contentment, a warm satisfaction that buzzed through whatever new neural pathways connected him to these appendages. "Okay, yeah. Apparently, we're tail friends now."

Nami leaned against the wall, arms crossed again, watching this disaster unfold with barely suppressed amusement. "So," she said, clearly fighting to keep her voice steady, "now that you're awake and we've established that you have extremely friendly tails—what else does the Nekomata fruit do? Besides the obvious cat features?"

William blinked, his brain finally catching up to the question through the haze of sensation. Right. The powers. He'd eaten a Mythical Zoan specifically for the abilities, not just to become the Grand Line's most pettable pirate.

"Fire for sure," he said, grateful for the topic change even if his tail was still happily wrapped around Lucy's hand. "Nekomata are supposed to be able to create and control flames. Also—" He hesitated, because this next part sounded insane even by devil fruit standards. "Necromancy. The ability to raise and control the dead? The legends are kind of vague on the specifics."

"Necromancy," Nami repeated slowly. "As in, actual dead people? That sounds gross and unsanitary, especially on a ship…"

William did have to agree with that second part. It would probably be a power he used sparingly. Unless he could control puppets or something instead of actual corpses. 

Something to test out later…

A door nearby slammed open with enough force to rattle the glass bottles on the shelves!

William's body reacted before his brain caught up.

One moment he was standing beside the bed, still processing the conversation about necromancy and trying not to think about how Lucy's hand felt on his tail. The next, his legs had coiled and released like springs, launching him straight up with power that shouldn't have been possible for someone who'd pulled a muscle reaching for the TV remote two days ago.

He cleared six feet of vertical distance easily—easily—his new body operating on instincts he didn't know he possessed. Time seemed to slow as he hung there, suspended at the apex of his jump, his tails whipping out for balance, his cat ears pinned flat against his skull in startled alarm.

Then gravity reasserted itself and he came down. But instead of the awkward, flailing landing his old body would have managed—probably followed by a face-plant and injured dignity—William's legs absorbed the impact with feline grace. He landed in a crouch, weight distributed perfectly, one hand touching the floor for stability, his tails curved behind him in perfect counterbalance.

It was the most athletic thing he'd ever done in his life, and he hadn't consciously controlled any of it!

"Holy shit," he breathed, staring at his own legs like they'd betrayed him. "Did I just—"

"YOU JUMPED SO HIGH!" Lucy's delighted shriek made his newly sensitive ears flatten again. She'd dropped to the floor herself, sprawling dramatically with her arms spread wide. "That was AMAZING! You went like—" She made a whooshing gesture with her hand, tracing an arc through the air. "—straight up! Do it again!"

"I don't think I can do it again," William said weakly, straightening from his crouch. His heart was hammering against his ribs, adrenaline flooding his system from the unexpected acrobatics. "I don't even know how I did it the first time. My body just... moved."

Nami's eyebrow had climbed toward her hairline, her expression caught between impressed and concerned.

The door—the one that had started this whole demonstration—closed more gently as Crocus stepped into the room. The old doctor took in the scene with the kind of calm that suggested he'd walked in on weirder. 

William did his best to grin at the fact that he knew he was meeting an old member of Gold Roger’s pirate crew. 

"Good," Crocus said, his weathered face creasing into something that might have been approval. "Your last crew member is finally awake." He pulled the pipe from his mouth, used it to gesture at the three of them. "You look functional enough, cat boy. Can you walk or are you going to be jumping everywhere now?"

"I can walk," William said, straightening fully and trying to look dignified despite having just performed an involuntary circus act. "Probably."

"Probably," Crocus repeated, the word heavy with doctorly skepticism. His gaze shifted to Nami, sharp and businesslike. "You said you were willing to do some work to pay off all the food your captain ate—" his eyes cut to Lucy, who had the grace to look slightly sheepish, "—and the clothes I've lent all three of you. Well, now it's time to work."

"Correction," Nami said, her voice taking on that carefully measured tone that meant she was about to bullshit her way out of something. "I said that Lucy would have no problem doing some work. I was very specific about that. Just Lucy. Solo labor."

Lucy's mouth opened in protest. "Hey—"

"Too bad," Crocus interrupted, completely unbothered by Nami's attempted negotiation. He shoved his pipe back between his teeth, speaking around it with the ease of long practice. "I need to go work on Laboon out in the water, which means you need to come as well, Miss Navigator."

Nami's expression shifted from confident to suspicious in a heartbeat. "Why do I need to come?"

Crocus fixed her with a look that suggested he was explaining something to a particularly slow student. "Because in case your captain ends up falling in the ocean—" he jerked his thumb toward Lucy, "—who's going to jump in after her to save her? The cat boy who just ate a devil fruit and sinks like a stone now?" He shook his head. "You're the only one who can actually swim without drowning. You're coming."

"That's—" Nami started, then stopped, her mouth working as she tried to find a logical counter-argument. "That's actually a good point," she admitted grudgingly. "Dammit."

Crocus's attention swung to William, his pipe jabbing in his direction like an accusatory finger. "And you'll be coming too. Good to get some exercise after sleeping. Work the stiffness out of those new cat-like muscles."

"He just woke up from a mini-coma!" Nami protested for him. "You can't just throw him into physical work right after something like that!"

Crocus scoffed. "Which one of us is the doctor here?"

‘Well, you can't really argue with that kind of logic,’ William thought. The man wasn’t just any doctor either…

Nami's mouth snapped shut. Her eyes narrowed dangerously, the expression of someone who knew they'd lost the argument but wasn't happy about it. 

"Come on. Daylight's burning and Laboon needs treatment. The boat's docked near your—" he paused, his weathered face shifting into something between confusion and appreciation, "—extremely fancy black ship."

Lucy was already moving, bouncing after Crocus and asking more questions to him about the giant ass whale. 

"This is going to be exhausting," Nami muttered, but she was following too. “Do you see how big that fucking whale is…”

William followed out the door after them. He was learning to walk again with his new muscles surprisingly quickly.

They emerged from the lighthouse into the late afternoon sun, the Grand Line's strange weather making the light thick and golden. The Black Pearl sat in the harbor like a gothic fever dream, its black hull and dark sails looking somehow more ominous in daylight than they had during the storm. 

Beside the Pearl, dwarfed by its supernatural presence, sat Crocus's small rowboat. Crocus was already climbing into it, moving with the steady competence of someone who'd spent decades on the water. "Get in. We're burning daylight and Laboon's wounds won't treat themselves."

Lucy hopped in with zero regard for the boat's stability, making it rock violently. Crocus didn't even flinch, just shifted his weight to compensate with the automatic ease of an old sailor. 

William approached the boat with significantly less confidence. He eyed the water around the boat nervously. 

"Today, cat boy," Crocus called, already picking up the oars. "Before we're all old and grey. You won’t fall in as long as you’re not stupid…"

William climbed in and settled on the rear bench. His tails coiled around his waist automatically. One of his ears twitched, tracking a seabird that wheeled overhead, and he had to consciously stop himself from watching it. 

The instinct to track moving things was also going to take some getting used to.

And somewhere in the back of his mind, a thought was growing. ‘Wait! If we're about to go treat Laboon, and this is following the plot even loosely, then that means… That means Vivi was about to show up! Princess Nefertari Vivi of Alabasta!’

XXX