And he comes with a free ship!

“You've gone to the wrong island! I am Captain Usopp, captain of the Usopp pirates! This island is under the protection of me and my 30000 men! If you go back on your boats now, we won't kill you!”

This 'captain Usopp' was standing atop a cliff holding a slingshot. To his sides dozens of flags and banners were being waved around. And even though a slingshot wouldn't normally make the list of threatening weapons he could definitely make it work. Two warning shots at each of one of your feet, were fired in not even two seconds and enough **** to spray sand all the way up to your knees. If it wasn't for your sixth sense you doubt you'd been able to dodge his shots, if he aimed for your center mass.

That said, you had a hard time calling 'captain Usopp' anything but a boy. Even if it wasn't for your sixth sense you could tell, that there were at most three more people in the bushes to his side (and they quickly fled once Nami called them out) and even though from his position he had a decent chance to defeat four normal pirates with his weapon of choice, before one of them even got to draw theirs, you could tell that he didn't dare letting it come to this and desperately wanted to scare you away.

“If you keep pointing that slingshot at us, you're best prepared to face ****, because someone's going to die.”

Usopp stared at Luffy and was sweating beads.

“That's not a threat, you know? That's a promise.”

Thankfully Usopp did back down, because you did not want to see Luffy beating that boy up. What surprised you was, that Lufy recognized the boy, because Red-Head Shanks's sniper had told Luffy about him.

We went to have lunch together and you could see Usopp's score rise over his association with Luffy as he kept on telling stories about Yasopp. When it reached 35 you decided to use the chance: “Hey Usopp, maybe you could help us with the reason we came here?”, it went to 37, “As you've seen our boats aren't exactly fit for the Grand Line. Do you know where we could get a good big ship?”

“Hm, there is someone, who could have a ship like that...”

Usopp: 35/100

So he didn't like the idea of us taking to that person. Before you could stop her Nami pressed on: “Really? Could you talk to them, so we could borrow it.”

Usopp: 25/100

“Oh, look at the time! I'm almost to late for an appointment! You guys eat and drink up. It's on me!” And he was off.

Luffy and Zoro had done their best to run up the tap for Usopp, when his three little helpers showed up. For some reason they thought, that we had eaten him, but afterwards they told us, where Usopp had gone: He was coincidentally the emotional support storyteller of exactly the young woman, who owned the boat you were after. Luffy catapulted us into her garden, where her butler/surrogate father immediately wanted to throw us out and started insulting Usopp and his father. When he went far enough, that Usopp decked him you picked up something odd and you could tell Zoro did, too: Kurahadol had suppressed a trained reaction.

As Luffy went after Usopp, Nami, Zoro and you stayed with Usopps 'crewmen'. You were contemplating what to do next, when you saw something really weird: A man walking backwards, by taking forward steps.

“Who are you?”

“I am Jango, the great hypnotist.”

The kids immediately got excited and demanded a demonstration and you again heard something, that Jango probably should not have said out loud: “I'm supposed to keep a low profile, but I guess there's no harm in giving this children a small taste...” He was powerful alright. He used a chakram as a pendulum and after only three seconds not only the kids, but also he himself were sleeping on the road.

“Welp. I'm gonna try and see, if I can't get Lady Kaja on our side”, you said after the hypnotist got up and left.

“Do you expect us to wait for you, too?”, Nami said in an annoyed tone.

“We're not just gonna leave Yuri behind!”

“Chill. We still need a ship, so odds are Luffy will come back to her either way.”

As you turned to leave I spotted Nami: 16/100

She liked it, when you were thinking ahead.

You weren't exactly walking fast and had only reached the outskirts of town, when Usopp caught up to you. He was running with a frightened expression on his face. You sped up to keep pace.

“What are you running for?”

He didn't answer you directly, but instead screamed to the whole town: “ATTENTION! YOU ALL HAVE TO LEAVE IMMEDIATLY! THE PIRATES ARE COMING!”

“Who exactly are you trying to convince?”, you flicked his nose to get his attention.

“What? It's true!”

“Whether it's true has no impact on whether anybody would believe you. And you have such a bad reputation that I picked it up in the few minutes I've been on this island.”

“I have to warn ouch, ouch, ouch”, you pulled him away from the town center by his ear.

“Stop! First you're going to tell me, why you're trying to get an angry mob to beat you up.”

When he realized you wouldn't let him get back to screaming before he did what you told him, he finally did tell you: Apparently Kaya's butler Kurahadol was actually the declared dead Captain Black and had planned to settle down with Kaya's inheritance, making sure she would die, of course.

“Okay... I'll assume what you say is true. That shit is hard to believe coming from a neutral messenger. The towns-people won't believe you. Now Kaya... she actually likes you. But I doubt you'll be able to get her away from Kurahadol without coming of as jealous.”

“So what? You expect me to just let it her die?”

“I will try to warn her, you think about what you can do.”

You hadn't really left the town, when you heard Usopp pretty much completely disregarding your advice and screaming how he heard the pirates plan their attack tomorrow morning. Nowonder He and Luffy got along so well At least he was smart enough not to name drop Kurahadol. That would only give you a small head-start, before he would run up to Kaya. And he was the faster runner.

You were completely out of breath, when you reached the front gate of Kaya's mansion. You knew, that Usopp had a way through the hedge, but you wouldn't find it in time, so you tried something different: “Hi, sorry to bother you. I wanted to say something earlier, but I didn't really get an opportunity.”

“Aren't you one of the pirates Kurahadol threw out earlier?”

“Yes. Would you please listen? We aren't the only pirates currently anchoring close to here. While exploring I noticed a pirate ship and used my binoculars to read the lips of two crewmen.”

“We are quite away from the coast, why don't you warn the people in town?”

“I was getting to that: They mentioned an informant. If I understood right a former pirate has been living here for the past three years. They found him and made him tell them what he knew. I don't know who their informant is. Only that they called him 'four-eyes', but glasses don't really narrow it down.”

“And what does this have to do with Lady Kaya?”

With shock you realized, that they were to dumb to pick up on your hints: “If this informant has lived here for the last three years, he knows that Lady Kaya is the richest person around and so she will most likely be the target of the pirate attack tomorrow. I'd suggest you best tell everybody who DOES NOT wear glasses...”, you didn't get any further, as Usopp was causing a ruckus.

As you made your way past the angry mob, you heard a gun shot. You were worried for a few moments, but Usopp quickly caught up to you.

“As good as new.” The bullet merry had shot at Usopp had only grazed him, so you only had to bandage it. Which was good, because that was the extend of your medical knowledge.

Usopp however still looked miserable: “They didn't believe me. None of them did. Not even Kaya and tomorrow she will die, because all I am apparently is a liar...”

Luffy didn't pull his punches: “That's what it looks like right now.”

“Better yet, they chased you out of town and shot you for your efforts”, Zoro upped Luffy with a grin. Between them there was an unspoken agreement and it took me a little to get, what they were going for.

“I told you: 'Do what you can and let me warn Kaya.' Now they will believe it was just another one of your lies.”

“That doesn't matter!”

“It doesn't?” Nami had picked up on what we were doing and prodded Usopp to continue.

“Those pirates will kill not only Kaya but pretty much everyone in town. How about you run away?”

“No!”

“No?”, Zoro grinned, “What else are you going to do?”

“I … I will make sure that what I told Kaya was just another lie! I won't let Captain Curo touch a hair on her head!” The passion was in his voice, but his knees were shaking.

“Hey, at least this time when you're defending the town, you'll have pirates with actual combat experience as back-up. Just get your legs back under control”, I tried to cheer you up.

Usopp went down from 30 to 28: “I don't want your pity!”

“Pity's got nothing to do with it”, Luffy said firmly, “You're making a stand, so we'll stand with you!”

We had gotten a little rest but were now, several hours before dawn standing on the beach.

“Once they've gotten up this precipice there's only flat open land leading up to the town and Kaya's mansion. If they get this far, they can just run past us. If we're going to stop them, we're going to do that here”, Usopp explained.

“That's good. So what exactly are we going to do to stop them?”, you asked.

“Cutting.”

“Punching.”

“Stealing?”

“Running!”

“Like hell you are!”

Usopp did have more than just running in mind. Over the next one and a half hour we helped him bringing barrels of oil and grease to the precipice.

“I hope it was worth lugging them here”, you complained.

“Of course. They'll have a hard time getting up here, even without us pushing them back down!”

“Nice. Good that you knew, where they were going to make landfall... by the way how do you know, they'll make landfall here and not those cliffs where we were?”

Nami paled immediately. The mere thought of other pirates getting close to her treasure enough freeze up.

And Usopp wasn't exactly a beacon of security either: “They were here when I listened to them talking about their plan...”

You were not sure how it happened, but you know Luffy had run ahead first. Usopp was faster than you and even Nami quickly went past you.

When you finally reached them they were arguing over would do the bulk of the defense: “I'm crying with fear!”

“Your eyes are dry. Leave the lying to me.”

“We”, you interrupted them huffing from exhaustion already, “We … talked about whew this. I fight them until Luffy and Zoro get here, Usopp, you make sure I don't get overwhelmed, Nami, you whack anyone, who gets to close to Usopp.”

“Right!”, they both said reassured by your arrival.

So much for that plan. Turned out that when there's over thirty of you it was pretty easy to run past one exhausted woman, even if she was to make a man cough up blood with one punch and deflect a sword strike with small knife.

“What are you doing still fighting these punks? Don't you remember Captain Curo's plan? If we don't get to pillaging that town and killing this Kaya we're all done for! Just run past the long-nose and the red-head, too!”

With nobody to throw yourself at you fell over. You tried to get up, but you were simply run over. When you finally did get back up the last of them were already running past Nami and Usopp.

And then they came back on their asses: Luffy and Zoro had finally arived.

They gave us everything they had, which honestly wasn't that much: Their two best fighters only lasted for more than two seconds against Zoro, was because he let one of them steal his first. You could see, how the average sailor could them as a threat; they were rather quick, but they also telegraphed stronger than a Den-Den Mushi.

While Nami was plundering their ship to make sure, they had none of her treasure, or rather no treasure period, their captain showed up.

You actually learned something from watching him, or rather using your sixth sense on him, since he moved to fast for you to follow him with his eyes. His telegraphing wasn't as bad, when he wasn't showing off, but his battle field awareness was nowhere good enough for someone moving at his speed. You were able to prevent him from slicing you up, by holding up your leg in his path so he'd hit his knee on your foot.

When it was over Kaya had all of you treated by a physician she paid for. After all we were covered in cuts and bruises. She did adhere to Usopps request and did her best to keep the fact, that her well respected butler had plotted to **** her, secret.

Usopp had left as soon as the doctor would let him and went to talk to his 'crew' and so the rest of you found yourself back at the eatery where you had run up Usopp's tab the day before. Kaya came in. She looked much better than just a few hours ago and a quick use of the Devil Fruit gave you:

Kaya: 61/100

She wanted to thank all of you for saving her life and led you to the beach where the battle happened.

And there was a ship. While it was much smaller than pretty much every other pirate ship you've ever seen or heard of, it was still a proper ship. While Usopp was saying his goodbyes to Kaya her other butler, Merry, was showing Nami and you around. It was obvious, that the ship to take a VIP on vacation. Despite its size it had everything you'd need travel the Grand Line: The construction was sturdy, able to withstand even head on collisions … to a decree. Inside the (small) cargo-hold was an entire replacement sail. It had enough bathrooms and quarters for ten crew mates. On the afterdeck was a gardening plot, which would allow to keep any interesting plants we might find or alternatively supply you with fresh produce. It had two cannons, one front-facing and one back-facing. The galley part of the main room, where the helm was located, had a fridge, an oven, a stove a range hood and between the two, in the worst possible place for a picture, was picture of Kaya. You decided to take it of the wall and put it in your bag, so you could clean it later.

Usopp had for some reason decided, that he'd try being a pirate on his own, without a ship, but Luffy overruled him and so we took of. Usopp quickly proved to be a valuable addition to the crew: It took some arguing to accept, that Luffy would be captain, and our Jolly Roger should reflect that, but then he designed and made a beautiful flag, that was promptly flown from the main mast. And then he demonstrated, that his skill with a slingshot transferred to a cannon, by shooting a tiny island from multiple miles away, and we had ourselves a gunner.