I'll let her tell you herself

When I woke up the ship was surprisingly busy.

The cause was Peggy. Something about “the big show” and she went back to discussing how best to move the ship and the tent, so it could be connected with the stage she could erect in next to her garage. I was unsure, what the “big show” was, but seeing how I had promised to help out with her lessons and we still had to wait on the log pose for a few days, I didn't bother holding them up.

Instead I took a stroll through Shanty Town until I passed by Lucia's Restaurant again. She was sitting on the porch and holding her head in her hands like the had a headache.

“Are you alright?”

“Huh?”, it took her a moment, to notice me standing there, “Oh, yes,... no, fuck it... I'm about to go broke”

“What?”

“I let myself get talked into accepting a shipment of high quality food.”

“Oh, yeah I heard that. Honestly it sounded like you made a good deal!”

“You're right, it was a good deal, those ingredients are worth about 10 times of what I bought them for. The problem is, that I can't sell them.”

“Can't you use them for your cooking? You might not be Baratie-level, but you're definitely a good cook!”

“Thanks, but using the ingredients isn't the issue. One of my fridges is now full, literally to the brim with caviar! Even when pricing based on cost, how much of it do you think I could sell on this here island?”

I thought for a moment. I hadn't tripped, when I made it normal for Lucia to get rich, so I was fully expecting fortune to favor her and I had thought that was what I had seen before when she had gotten this food and negotiated for better prices on her other deliveries.

Seeing her apparently screwed over was a blow to my ego.

“Maybe you can make a snack stand and sell stuff to the visitors of the show Peggy is organizing?”

“You mean well, but for starters I don't have a cart or anything. Than there's the thing, that at the festival they usually prefer stuff that goes well with ****. You know udon, grilled meat,...”,

Suddenly she stared at me with a panicked expression.

“Did you just say Peggy is planning a festival!?”

“I guess? I wasn't really listeni-i-i-ing”, my answer wasn't fast enough for the cook, who was gripping my shoulders and shook me like she was interrogating me.

“Spit it out! This important! WHEN!?”

“I-i-i thi-i-ink, som-om-omti-i-ime ne-xt week”, I forcefully removed her hands from my shoulders, “I think she's doing it for me and my crew, so it'll probably be before we leave in eight days.”

“Eight days?... I have to ...”, the panic was replaced with exhaustion and she went limp in my arms.

“It's to much...”, she said weakly before passing out on her doorstep.

What was up with that?

For now she was leaning fairly comfortably against her door frame, however in case she had a weak heart or something like that, I decided to find the islands doctor or closest equivalent and notify them. I didn't want to pass up on what Lucia could conjure up with those high class ingredients after all, even if I would have to pay for the meals.

“Hi, can you tell me, where the closest doctor or something like that is?”, I had approached a group of adults watching over their nine year old kids.

“We normally just call theirs over”, a mother said pointing vaguely at the sea in the direction where the next island presumably was.

“If it's something urgent, like a cut or something, you probably should talk to Peggy or Old man Tonji. That girl had a pretty colorful past and seen all kinds of injuries and Tonji used to be a medic before he retired.”

“I guess I'll look for this Tonji, then. Can you point me the right way?”

“Sure, he lives right over there. Just make sure to knock. Especially since you don't look to be in such a bad condition.”

“Oh, I'm not asking for myself. Lucia fainted.”

“Huh, she's normally pretty hearty. I wonder what happened there. Anyway, remember to knock.”

“Sure” I grimaced at being reminded twice to knock, “I think something about Peggy planning a festival in eight days shocked her.”

One father and two of the mother fainted at those words.

The rest broke out into a panic.

“We have to get the kids out of here!”

“We have to board up the windows!”

“We have to call the marines!”

The passed out adults were nearly trampled as the others ran around like headless chickens. One of the men jumped headfirst through the window of Tonji's house and a few seconds later the old man came jumping out a different window and started limping towards a tower.

I decided to follow him as he seemed to be the closest to what one could consider cool headed.

When he reached a door at the base of the tower he noticed me and motioned me to help him open the heavy door and just as I discovered, that the inside was completely padded he pulled the handle next to the door.

At the top of the tower a foghorn started blaring so loudly, that I nearly let go of the door. Tonji pulled me inside. Even though the room was part of the same tower that housed the object that was right now blowing out the eardrums of everybody within sight of the island, thanks to the padding it was only uncomfortably loud. And now I noticed the only object inside the room: a Den-Den-Mushi.

Tonji quickly dialed the number that was written down on a note that was stuck to the snails shell and with the confidence of a man that had done so multiple times before he spoke: “Marinebase G12 this is Velvell Island calling, please respond!”

“This is G12, we can hear you but there seems to be some loud background noise! If possible please relocate. Can you please explain your reason for calling?”

“The background noise is the alarm! Are your lieutenant or your captain available?”

“Eh, Hina's on mission right now and Tennant doesn't look like you want to talk …”, the marine was interrupted and a snearing voice said: “That's lieutenant Lou to you! Now that alarm sounds familiar …”

The old man got defensive: “Is lieutenant-commander Rusin available?”

Immediately came the response: “It appears that she is to busy and can't come to respond to civilian calls right now, but I'd be pleased to pass a message along. It doesn't happen to have something to do with a party and an open invitation?”

Tonji got angry but before he started to yell into the receiver, he calmed himself down: “Let me give you the benefit of the doubt. Yes, Peggy is hosting a party. She wants to send off a traveling circus, which will leave in eight days”, I could already hear the onset of a similar panic on the other end, when Tonji spoke loudly in hopes of “Lou” still hearing him: “And Tennant, if you decide to come here you better bring the rent you still owe!”

Because of the sound of hectic footsteps on the other end, I assumed, that the apparent lieutenant Lou Tennant had not heard the reminder, but instead there was “get fucked”, before the line was cut.

“Fucking asshole! My cousin is a hotelier over in Jaya and he has less problems with his renters than I!”

He made no movement for the door.

“Should … one of us … gotten ear plugs?!”, I asked.

“Nah, just wait here. It only goes for a bit, should stop any second now!”

Any second turned out to be sixteen, which were so awkward, that you considered just leaving after two.

“So what's the big deal with the festivals?! Why are you calling the marines over your music teacher playing a little with a wandering circus?!”

The answer seemed to be complicated: “When you first arrived here, did you notice something odd, other than all the empty houses?!”

“You mean the kids all being the same age?!”

“Yes, Now why do you think that is?”

“Because …”, I took way longer to answer than Tonji tolerated.

“Because the parties Peggy throws are giant orgies where every woman in the crowd ends up pregnant and because almost nobody ever remembers those days nobody can tell who the fathers are. Our best chance to avoid accidental **** is to invite as many people, who are in no way related to the people here and pray to the law of big numbers and probability.”

“That sounds like a vicious circle: The parties go overboard, so you call the marines, so there are more people at the parties, so they go overboard...”

“You forget, that Peggy usually throws these parties when her girlfriend comes to visit. That's one ship full of marines, that comes anyway!”

He sighed: “Still after the Tortuga got closed it's the best there is.”

“I never heard of an event called Tortuga.”

“And you never will again”, Tonji answered wistfully, “A place like that can only exist once and I was one of the lucky ones to be born at the right time to experience it...”

“Now you're talking like Tortuga was some kind of monument.”

“It was a monument! A monument to sin!”, he laughed, “For real though the 'Tortuga' was a bar in the center of the Booty Islands. Now I said 'bar' but now you have the wrong idea. Yes at it's core was a bar, but that thing was huge, about one square mile, filled to the brim with all kinds of entertainment a pirate could imagine: booze, whores, gambling and fighting you could get anything.”

“I thought you were a marine? Didn't expect you to talk so fondly of a pirate pub.”

“Yeah I was a marine. I served 32 years with diligence, loyalty and pride! And then we were sent to clear out that bar. The operation was lead by Admiral Ginsaka because we expected heavy resistance. What we didn't expect for this place to swallow us all up and spit us out several weeks later. Every single female member of the troop was pregnant, half of the men could not recover their pants, sixteen men woke up with a new wife and none of us remember much beyond us having the blast of our lifetimes.

I fathered at least eight children in there. I checked. They have my eyes, they are definitely mine.

Worst of all was the old Admiral. She like every other woman was pregnant, which was amazing since we were sure she'd be to old at that point but way worse was, that she lost her equipment gambling. And I'm not talking saber and gun.

We were still half dead cursing the sun and the morning when she gets a call from Kong asking her why she would order a Buster Call, when she already had more than enough ships at her location to perform the same bombardment herself. That face when she realized, that she longer had the Den-Den-Mushi on her, instantly cured my hangover!”

“What the fuck is a Buster Call? I heard Peggy say that term before...”

Tonji laughed again: “A Buster Call is the World Government shitting it's pants: When an Admiral evaluates the situation on an Island as completely unsalvageable he can call in a Buster Call. Five more Vice Admiral with battleships come running and fire at the island until it is either sunk in the ocean or they run out of gunpowder. Officially this is for example if we ever found the HQ of the Revolutionary Army.”

“So the 'Tortuga' got flattened in the Buster Call? To bad.”

“Pfft yeah right! Ginsaka knew what was about to happen and made sure we'd be well rested, because when the battleships ran out of cannonballs the 'Tortuga' was still there. Turns out when half the clients are New World pirates, that don't even have to pull up their pants to return a cannonball back to sender, you don't really have to worry about your bar getting bombed.

What Ginsaka ended up doing was besieging the 'Tortuga'. When the pirates inside ran out of booze they came out and it was the worst fight I've ever been in. After the debacle inside HQ was not very helpful and they ordered a lot of men back, so we only caught a few grunts. The big guys like John or Linlin walked right through us with basically no resistance. Honestly I'm not even sure they noticed us trying to kill them. They probably thought it was just hangover. It could have been worse. We could have hit Big Mom's baby. The crazy hag had gone in pregnant, given birth and stayed long enough to be visibly pregnant AGAIN!”

“You sure she wasn't just fat?”

“That was 18 years ago. Back then she still looked more like a woman than a pig in a pirate brothel. Also her next kid was born four months later so go figure.”

I had hoped the old man could tell me more stories of his time with the marines, but the Tortuga-incident was the most interesting thing to happen in his entire life and both his admiral and most of his troop were dishonorably discharged for their failure.

I left him be, when he directed the parents on where to send the kids so they wouldn't get involved in the debauchery that was set to take place at the shore next to Peggy's shack.

There I saw that the crew had already started building up the stage from Peggy's garage. While it wasn't too surprising to see Peggy among them, what with her having started all of this what was surprising was how she was doing it.

She was multitasking. But saying multitasking was like saying she played multiple instruments. Most people would assume meaning capable of playing multiple instruments sequentially.

Right now she was excitedly examining the Buggy-Ball the clown had presented her, her left hand was scribbling onto loose papers filling page after page with what I had to assume were musical notes all the while holding a rope taut by standing on it with one foot and using the other to pluck it like an enormous chord, providing the rest of the crew a beat to sing too, while she was loading the Buggy-Ball into a cannon that was aimed at the waves.

“Blow the man down, me boys, blow the man down

Wey hey, blow the man down

Blow him right back east to Logue town

Give me some time to blow the man down

Give me some time to blow the man down

Give me some time to blow the man down”

As the crew got to the last verses Peggy lit the fuse on the cannon and with perfect timing the shot thundered out.

Even though her ears must've been ringing she turned to Buggy, while finally putting a peg on the rope she had been playing/standing on: “You're right! These fit the key way better! Let's get these crackerjacks lined up next to the stage!”

Buggy did a back-flip.

I had initially planned to pass the time with Annaisha or Alvida but I discovered, that Peggy had pulled them in. My first mate had a stack of paper in one hand, rolling some barrels with the other, which thanks to her smooth skin and strength was just her holding her hand behind it and walking in a weird crouching stance. All the while she was trying to sign, receiving shouted instructions from Peggy, who somehow was not at full capacity with whatever six tasks she was performing out front.

I entered my cabin and found a large stack of papers. I couldn't say that I recognized the handwriting, but it was pretty obvious that Peggy was the author. They were crumpled, there were ink blotches all over them, the writing wasn't properly aligned and the writer had pressed through the paper at a few points. Like someone had written them with their left hand and no underlay and without looking.

One was a draft for the program of the festival, with the forenoons marked for the circus show and then ended at noon by short lessons as she had marked them by Peggy.

Most of the other papers were the texts and notes for a number of duets and group songs for me to sing. I checked the program and realized, that Peggy had taken care to plan in resting times for all crew members even making sure that those who did the bulk of the work setting up right now would have time to rest up. She seemed to have forgotten herself however as she was needed on stage the entire five days with the program not stopping at night. She even had listed an hours total for every crew member with most having to work about 35 hours in these five days, she had listed herself for 120 hours. I would have to talk with her.

“Do you like the program?”

“I don't know a lot about music so I'll trust you on the songs, but there is something you might want to look over again.”

“Do you need more time for the circus shows?”

“No, no, no … it's … you forgot to plan in breaks for yourself?”

“What do you mean?”

“You, … could please stop writing song texts, tuning your balalaika and fisting Annaisha while I'm talking to you?”

She pouted, but she got up which made Annaisha whine: “You gotta fill in for her, Captain!”

I dropped my pants and gave her a rag to muffle her moaning, so I could keep on talking to Peggy, who plucked on one last string before setting the instrument aside, apparently satisfied.

“You didn't plan any breaks for yourself!”

“Oh, yeah. Usually the festivals are only four days, but then again I don't have an entire crew backing me up, so it's going to be much easier.”

“What so you plan to just power through the whole five days?”

“I mean, yeah. That's what I wrote. Normally I have to put up the tent on my own and this time I can take some eight hours sleeping and pillow biting before we even get started! I'll be well rested and can then sleep again afterwards.”

I shook my head in disbelief at the monster I had unleashed. Well this mess was my fault, so the least I could do was make sure it would be glorious. I got to work. Rewriting the circus program to make sure it'd fit into the allotted time slots, helping setting the stage, which also counted as muscle training in my eyes, and learning the lyrics of the songs Peggy had set out or even written for me.

Over the course of the day I had gotten so into the work, that I had not picked up on anything unrelated to the festival. But the hard work had been worth it.

The stage was now erected directly in front of the Big Top, a tent obscuring the ship from view. Gangplanks allowed us to use the ship as a backstage area. A row of cannons were lined up left and right of the stage aimed out at sea. Fencing had been erected to keep the crowd from getting too close to the stage and more importantly the ship and the cannons.

Several props for the stage show had been prepared and everything we wanted to keep was built so when we were done it could be pulled onto the ship within seconds.

We had completed all preparations and slightly more than one day to rest up. As she had said Peggy immediately placed her had on the first thing resembling a pillow (Alvida's boobs) and fell asleep. Alvida showed just how much she liked the newest addition to our crew, by dropping her mace to catch her and carry her into our cabin.

Annaisha and I were sitting in front of Peggy's shack idly chatting, when we heard her Den-Den-Mushi go off.

I decided to pick up.

“Yo, Peggy what the fuck?”, a familiar voice came from the other end.

“Peggy is actually asleep right now, you're Maseo, right?”

The marine skipped right over the pleasantries: “That's lieutenant-commander Rusin for you … Can you tell me, why I learned about Peggy holding a party, because lieutenant Lou Tennant basically stole two ships and went away with his clique?”

“I guess I'm partly responsible. I didn't know what the fuss was about and when I asked the villagers Tonji pulled the alarm and tried to call, but Tennant heard the alarm. By the way do you know, what that was with the rent he owes Tonji?”

“Fucking asshole still hasn't paid him back, huh? Tennant was Tonji's tenant, before he joined the marines. Back then he had no money so Tonji said he should just swing by, when he had the money. We're talking not even a million Berry!”

“What an asshole.”

“Yeah, and now he and his friends are coming to crash the party, while I'm stuck here having to come up with an excuse to the captain. It's not like she's wasn't a pain before.”

I took pity on the marine and with a few glances and whispers with Annaisha I decided to throw him a bone: “Didn't you say your new captain is a woman who came with new recruits? Now correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't those recruits normally be almost exclusively horny hot women? Plus you should normally have been staffed somewhere between a quarter and half with women before, right? With Tennant taking his friends your base should be majority hotties, right?”

I didn't trip.

But to my surprise the marine only sounded more exhausted: “You're not wrong, but what sounds nice in theory is hell in praxis. Why do you think that asshole left? With captain Kavovia the girls are the worst teases! They try to be good! Oh god they try, but they just end up just giving us the worst blue balls! At this point I can't sit down without one of them trying to suck me off, only for her to abort when we hear footsteps.

I didn't get a good night's sleep since Hina left, because I can hear them getting each other off in the women's quarters.”

“Sounds bad, but if you don't have the balls to go behind the bitch's back, I can't help you.”

That was the truth. Turning a large number of marines into hot sluts? Easy!

Making someone do something they are afraid of? Extremely complicated to impossible!

Normality was odd like that.

“It's not about fear, it's about RESPECT! Yes she's annoying and it's making me miserable, but I know she would rather die, than let our duties be neglected!”

“And while you respect captain Bitch, Tennant is making his way here to get laid and lets you take the fall for it.”

“To be honest, I'm not to jealous. Peggy can get pretty rowdy and without her girlfriend to hold her back … Let's just say captain Kavovia won't see the need for corporal punishment, when he gets back.”

The obvious schadenfreude told you that you were in for an interesting party.

“If he's as much of an asshole as everyone says, I'll give him a few parting gifts. What about you? Will you be okay, once your old captain returns?”

“I think so. I'm not sure who'll be in command here, when the mission is over, but I'm confident we'll return to more of an 'as long as it doesn't mess with work' approach.”

“Well then, good luck”, I said as I hung up.

Speaking off good luck: I had not checked up on Lucia since I left her passed out on her doorstep.

To my surprise I found her with a content but exhausted expression sharing an ale with a tiny, chubby man, who looked like he had just finished running 40 kilometers barefoot over burning coals.

“You look better than I expected?”

“Yeah, seems that luck you promised kicked in shortly after I passed out. May I introduce to you: Captain Bailin, Captain Tsuki”, she pointed at him and me respectively, “Why don't you explain what happened?”

He gave me an exhausted but happy smile: “Hello, Ms. Pennelini introduced me as captain, but this might give you the wrong idea: Yes I was in charge of a ship, but we are talking about a cruise vessel, with all nautical affairs handled by a crew without my interference traveling along a previously established route.

You see I was put in charge of the holidays of some very rich people. I'm not just talking about influential successful business moguls but proper nobles. We had made our last stop in Alabasta as guests of Crocodile in Rainbase and had planned to continue being his guests on Kyoka Island. The problem were my passengers. One of the nobles bought a bunch of garish figurines and decided that the best place for them was on the bridge, more precisely the rack where our eternal pose' were organized. Not only did that damn idiot remove them from the rack, but deciding that they were ugly he actually threw them out the window! Now there's several millions worth of pose' floating in the sea and we were without a course. We had not been on Alabasta long enough for the normal log pose to set.

We would have died if it wasn't for this island's fog horn! And then those same idiots who ate our provisions as soon as I announced, that we'd have to ration, complained that they were not welcomed with a red carpet and that they were hungry.

Well at some point they found their way here …”, he finished his story.

“I guess a few wealthy customers certainly came in with good timing …”

“Well, when they came in all I saw was fifteen guys, with just the WORST attitude, but they eat like trashcans and hand out Berry-bills, like they don't understand money in the slightest! I mean they took two liters of virgin black ****. Voluntarily!”

“What's 'virgin black ****'?”

“Black **** is a method to get rid of caviar, that's gone bad: You take the caviar, add salt and vinegar and then drown it in vodka, rum or whatever **** you have there to dull your senses. They saw me drinking a small glass when they came and I joked, that I could make it with spring water, if rum was too benign for their tastes. I gave them a small glass first, so you can't say I didn't warn them.

Then they discussed recommending me to a tenryubitu and enslaving me, but decided against it, since that would restrict access to me … Let's just say I got the money I spent on that food back.”

“I'm happy to hear. Though I hope you didn't forget how to cook as well as you did when I first came here.”

She laughed: “Don't worry. Bailin and I haven't had supper yet. Why don't you grab Peggy and your friends and I'll whip us up some fighter-fish-filets?”

“Peggy's been busy today and is resting up for the party, last I've seen her she was already asleep, but I see what I can do.”

“Please do. She and her girlfriend usually double team me during the party but with her on mission and my 'noble' guests here I'll have to get my rocks of beforehand.”

While I've recently (i.e. since getting my earrings) had gotten used to my life being a lot more lewd than it used to, I was still not prepared for that comment. That said I handled it a lot better than Bailin, who was propelled into a standing position by his bleeding nose.

“I'll be sure to mention it”, I said, as I turned to walk back to the ship. Lucia's invitation had drawn my attention to a problem I had first noticed, when we had left Kyoka Island: I was making it to easy for myself. The last time I had earned myself a girls panties had been in the boutique with Nami.

And now Lucia had made a very clear come on and I was facing a festival of debauchery. And looking forward I could only see it getting easier: With my harem expending with every fling I might one day run into an island, where most of the hotties were already harem girls.

I had no idea, what to do about the first problem, but the second one should be in my control, though I was smart enough to ask Annaisha first, before setting anything in stone.

“You want to dissolve the harem?”, she said in a sad, accusatory tone, that was so over the top, that you were sure she had in fact understood you correctly.

“No I just don't want to wake up at some point and realize, that half the world is my harem!”

Annaisha looked at me, like I had just tried to explain, that the moon was inhabited by machines.

“... why?”

“For one, there are women, I don't want in my harem. But more importantly, I want my harem to be special women, women I care about!”

“Aww, are you saying you care about us?”

That damn woman.

“... Yes! Or do you actually WANT to be just some random woman to me?”

Annaisha got a little bit more serious.

“I was just messing with you. I take it you don't want to just keep it in your pants”, she grinned.

“You want us all to make a vow of celibacy?”, I shot back.

“That's nothing to joke about!”, she said in a tone as if I had brought up murdering puppies, “So you want a way to keep on fucking strangers with no consequences. I take it, you can't undo the previous recruitment method?”

“One, that would go directly against the spirit of your rule, two, no I can't use the ear-rings to do explicitly contradictory things. Which includes undoing previous changes.”

“Aww, you actually respect my wishes”, she gave me a hug.

“Don't get used to it”, I laughed as I hugged her back.

After a few seconds I tapped her back so she would let go. After a few more seconds I took matters into my own hands and pried her from me.

“Back to the task at hand. I want to keep the number of harem girls to a reasonable … number, but making it so harem girls or me no longer turn people into harem girls is not an option.”

“How about two-factor-verification?”

“What?”

“It's a praxis that is employed by banking institutes when large orders are given. If you want to transfer a large amount of money you first have to prove, that you are, who you claim to be and then in an independent process, that you are in fact the owner of that account. That is done by putting a note with a password into a strongbox that only the account owner has the combination to.”

“So you want to make it, so every one of us has a strongbox, … ?”

“No, I want you to make it, so whenever one of us sleeps with a stranger, we have to then explicitly confirm, that we want that person to be a harem girl.”

“And if we don't, they naturally turn back!”

“Exactly! Additionally you could make some kind of cancellation ability, like if you haven't even thought about a certain person for a year, they could pop up in your head and if you don't even know who they are, they stop being a harem girl.”

I was again glad, that I had recruited her. Not only would this allow me to keep the number of harem girls under control, but it would also enable the girls to give me some nice surprises!

“You're a genius!”, I kissed her, “It's normal that somewhere between an hour and a week after a harem girl had sex with somebody turning them into a harem girl, whenever she has a clear enough head to think about it, she will seriously consider, whether she wants that person to be a harem girl and only if the answer is yes that person will remain a harem girl and if not they will go back to being how they were, before they had sex with the harem girl.

It's normal that one year after I last interacted with a harem girl, she will pop up in my mind with the circumstance of how she turned into a harem girl and unless I want her to still be my harem girl, she will stop being a harem girl.”

“Now that that's taken care of, you said something about fucking a cook, we'll never see again?”

“... And now we call it the void century!”, Peggy finished the joke looking at us expectantly.

“Get it?”

“Yes, it's void, because Captain Blake took everything … I don't suppose you expected us to care or know about this void century, BEFORE you made that joke?”, Buggy said in tone so disappointed as if his son had expressed his desire to not inherit the family business, or in his case to pick up honest work.

“Guess who!”, came a voice from below the table.

Buggy let out a long sigh at the person who stole his knee: “Lucia, everybody else is still sitting at the table. It's not that hard to figure out … How are all of you guys already drunk enough to find this fun? I thought the party starts tomorrow afternoon.”

“You juss dn't geddid!”, Alvida said with a ridiculous over the top fake slurring causing myself and the other women at, and below, the table to snicker.

“That's it, Lucia, give me back my knee, I'm going to sleep … thanks for the food, it was really good …” and with that he headed out.

The restaurant owner crawled up from the table barely holding in her laughter: “He's absolutely clueless!”

“Yes, don't explain the joke”, Alvida said in her normal voice albeit with a haughty tone, “How about we now do what we came here for?”

“Whatever could you mean, we have already eaten?”, Lucia said in played confusion as she was wearing nothing but an apron.

Whatever plans she had made, she had made them without Peggy, who promptly tore her apron off, pushed her onto the table, produced a bottle and shouted: “BODY-SHOTS!”

In hindsight I should not have started taking shots with a person, who was notorious for having her parties get out of hand.

I woke up disoriented, with an empty stomach and a head in pain as if Alvida had spent a day practicing her backswing on it. I quickly found the contents of my stomach when I took a breath through my nose. I tried opening my eyes, but found that the sky was made of blinding light.

The memories, or rather some of them came back.

A creature, judging by how it tortured my eardrums a seagull six times the size of the Big Top, screeched. I flinched.

The incredibly loud voices of some of your crewmates could be heard: “SHE FLINCHED, THE CAPTAIN'S AWAKE!”

“SSHH, I'M STILL HUNG OVER!”

Over time the headache and the sickness abated to the point, where I registered the complaints my body had, that were not related to ****: My knuckles were open, my nose was broken and my lips were split, my forearm was bruised and my ass hurt both as if I had it get kicked and fucked well.

I shielded my eyes with my left hand, the right arm being fast asleep, and tried opening my eyes again. It was still uncomfortable, but over time I managed to see.

From what I could tell, without getting up, I was laying on the deck of the Big Top. I was still wearing the same clothes I had worn when going to Lucia, which thank god were normally clean, because ordinarily they would most likely be reeking of vomit and piss.

I was not alone on deck. I saw others sleeping, who looked about as bad as I felt, with bruised bodies covered in vomit. I was an exception in that I wore an entire outfit, while only half the men I could see wore pants.

The ones I had heard talking earlier were doing their best to get the deck clean, which was not easy as a few of them kept throwing up, every time the ship was hit by a wave.

“It's … it's … norm”, I had to stop myself because my head was still spinning from when I had turned to see more of the deck.

“It's normal that harem girls recover instantly from hangover. AH!”

I nearly threw up as I tripped.

“whyyy?”

“You should really be more grateful, captain! You girls recover about ten times as fast as us.”

Drunk me is an idiot!

“Every drunk is an idiot, captain!”

Great I'm to hungover to separate thought from speech.

Before I could worry to much about blabbing I saw the crew mate closest to me collapsing. A quick check revealed, that he was just sleeping off his hangover.

The journey to the galley was long and hard, but it paid off. Having successfully moved, eaten some hard tack and drank some water made me feel almost human again.

Time to sift through the memories I had and try to figure out, what happened during the festival.

“OUGH, why didn't you make it so we instantly recover from hangover?”

I fell to the floor when the bench I wanted to sit down at turned out to be occupied by my girlfriend.

Thanks to her subconscious smoothness her body looked to be in perfect condition, however somebody had tied her to the bench with her clothes. Presumably it was herself, back when she was still lucid.

“Tsuki, is there something in my ass? It feels like a bottle …”, she sounded worried.

“Are you worried about glass shards, if you clench? I'm pretty sure your power would protect you”, I reassured her as I tried my best to get a look.

“I know, I would be fine, but how long until one of you guys could get back in there, if it's full of shards.”

“Good point”, I said as I grabbed the object. It had a cork sticking out of Alvida's ass, but it was no bottle, it's surface was leather and it was malleable. I had some difficulty getting a good grip on it, but when I did it was easy to pull from the smooth hole.

It was a wineskin and judging by the sounds it made not an empty one.

“Thanks!”, a voice called from over my shoulder and a small hand grabbed the wineskin.

I took in Annaisha's appearance, as she removed the cork and brought the opening to her throat.

She looked, in a word, disheveled. Her hair was all over the place, one of her eyebrows was colored pink, she wore her jacket inside out with nothing underneath and pants with the wrong side facing forwards. Not any pants you had seen her wear before, but marine standard issue pants. Which now were normally fitting her perfectly.

“Uggh, they say protein is really good for you, when you're hung over, but I really wanted water”, she complained as a white viscous fluid trickled down from her mouth.

“When the fuck, did we fill up a wineskin with cum?”, I wondered.

Alvida's face lighted up with recognition, as one of her memories came to mind.

Alvida explaining:

“I've got big balls,

fancy big balls!

And he's got big balls,

and she's got big balls”

“But we've got the biggest balls of the world!”, the audience joined in on the chorus.

Never one to pass up the opportunity for a pun, Buggy had rolled one of his Buggy-Balls onto the stage showing it of, while you were removing the innuendo by fucking Peggy from behind, while she was singing.

“Ball-Sucker, Ball-Sucker, Ball-Sucker!”, the crowd chanted as both the song and you were nearing completion. But Peggy started hopping around wilder and when you came and your jizz flew off the stage and in the bottle of some guy in the second row.

He threw it on stage and Peggy caught it, shook it and sprayed all over the closest six guys.

We found it so funny, that we made the decision to from then all catch all your loads in a bottle.

“So when was that?”, I asked.

“Hmm, Cabaji already had a black eye, so it wasn't the first day, but Buggy wasn't doing the hedgehog, so it was before the second evening … shit I can't remember if it was dark... how does that work?”

“With all those stage lights it didn't really get dark, did it? If we were fucking on stage it must have been after the kids left for the day”, I reasoned.

“So, night of the first day?”

“What was that about Buggy fucking a hedgehog?”, Annaisha blared out, having a hard time following what was said.

“No, the thing with the swords!”

“He just looked like one!”, Alvida and I explained.

Tsuki explaining:

As the marine ships came closer, Peggy got more aggressive. While “Bye my beauty” was at least vague enough in it's talk about fighting for freedom, that the marines could easily pretend, like it wasn't about them, the next was more overt.

“And if that is still to smart for you,

I can tell you what you should do:

Join the NAVY! Join the NAVY!

The marines take morons gayly!

You'll make admiral in a day,

if you just kiss boots and obey!

Join the NAVY, they say!“

The marines in question were still a tad bit to sober to just join in and got unruly, kicking of the first brawl of the day.

A brawl that got out of hand, when Buggy couldn't stop himself from bragging about his bounty.

And while the marines were not drunk enough to ignore all that, they were drunk enough to join in in his laughter, when the first sword was sunk into his stomach.

Soon they found themselves trying to figure out, just how many blades they could fit into his torso and after a short time a battalions worth of swords was stuck into his stomach to the hilt, with the blades sticking out his back.

Buggy for his part found it hilarious, that they were just giving him their swords and went around laughing actively confiscating them.

“I don't recall him giving them back, or dropping them”, I closed, “they might come after us...”

“Eh, I take it, you somehow missed, what we did with their ammunition.”

“You mean the fireworks? I think they'll be okay with it. I mean they literally helped us load them up”, Alvida said sleepily with her head on your lap.

Annaisha looked at us incredulously.

“Do neither of you remember, where we aimed the cannons?”

Flashbacks of all three:

“For those about to rock,”

BOOM

“We salute you!

For those about to rock,”

BOOM

“We salute you!

For those about to rock,”

BOOM

“We salute you!”

While a few marines helped Buggy load all the cannons we had brought to the stage and lined up at the shore and also preparing a next round, so they could reload the next shot quicker, Peggy was riding a yawl over the crowd letting her fingers dance over the strings of her Bello-Betty at blinding speed.

“FIRE!”

The stage and the shoreline erupted into fire and thunder.

“FOR THOSE ABOUT TO ROCK,

WE SALUTE YOU!

YEEEAAHEEAAH!

WEEEE!

SALUUUUTE!

YOUUU!”

Buggy and the Domingos on one side and three marines, one of whom still covered from head to toe in bandages from when he was lit on fire, were throwing a Buggy-Ball back and forth.

In between them was the cannon that they were serenading.

“No sword, no club and no lance,

are for me quite the right romance.

No matter how hard I try and swing,

for those my heart just won't sing.

Yes only you can do the things you do:

I just cannon live without you!”

Then they started yodeling while loading the Buggy-Ball until they reached the slow finale of the song:

“And some fine day we may as well retire,

Indulge ourselves in simple fun.

Each day, we'll peacefully sit down to the navy's ire

and bombard the setting sun.”

The cannon was pointed mostly upwards like a mortar and when fired it ripped a whole in the stage to the loud cheering of the crowd.

The Baltico-Overture was mainly comprised of two themes. One was an obvious variation on the anthem of the world government. It droned for a few bars only to be stopped by the onset of the second theme, heralded by a sole flute but quickly picking up wind and growing stronger each time the first theme would try to overwhelm it.

Peggy was playing the flute and the cello, while conducting the orchestra, as they all approached the finale. The cannons were loaded and the bell ringers stood at attention as the orchestra kept on building up.

Until finally with a wave of her conductor's baton she unleashed pandemonium as the bells and the orchestra drown out the artillery barrage the gunners were letting loose.

“11th Division” involved Peggy playing her “Bello Betty” with an impressive amount of speed and dexterity, but all the subtlety of a Yunko. At a few points she would vocalize together with the orchestra.

Notable not playing were most of the drummers. Not that the other drummers were easier heard because of that. The drummers were not sitting on their hands, they were loading and loading the cannons so one could be fired on every first beat.

The last salvo destroyed the anchor chains of both battleships causing them, or rather what was left of them to drift out of the way of the Big Top, which the pirates currently awake were loading back up, while Peggy held the stage with just her guitar. No more need for drunken, sexual or violent excess, after all it was past noon and the kids were coming to see the circus off.

“Damn … We really screwed those marines over … Stupid question: Did we kill that lieutenant?”, I said somewhat lamely when we were done processing, what the fireworks had entailed.

“What lieutenant?”, Alvida asked with her had still in my lap.

“Lou Tennant”, Annaisha provided.

“That's what I'm asking: What lieutenant?”

“Girl! He turned into a Camel and you fell asleep on his back!”

“That guy was just a lieutenant? I thought he was a captain!”

“It's his name! Lieutenant Lou Tennant!”

I felt there was something wrong with that statement, but because Annaisha had shouted my headache had returned, so I couldn't figure it out.

“Ooooh, yeah no, he's still alive … I think...”, Alvida answered.

Tennant in his half-camel form was surrounded by a number of his fellow marines as well as a few civilians. He was waving two torches and dancing to the rock number Peggy was playing on her Bello-Betty-guitar, a kazoo and a drum.

The people surrounding him were holding bottles filled with strong **** and were ready to throw them at him.

“Do it!”, he encouraged them, without stopping his dance.

Buggy shrugged and did as the marine wanted and flung the glass bottle at his chest, covering his fur covered torso in **** and glass shards.

“Wohoo!”, the marine shouted and so the others joined in plastering his head, crotch, legs … and arms.

The **** immediately caught fire and the camel-man was burning.

Though instead of showing signs of pain or fear he excitedly shouted: “Cloven on fire!” and danced even harder for a few moments before finally the heat got to him and he started to roll on the floor to fight the flames under bellowing laughter.

Tennant was standing in front of one of the cannons, his hands stretched out towards the barrel.

“Garp does that all the time, it's easy!”

BOOM!

Everybody hooted and cheered and emptied their cups, before a few of the marines jumped into the sea to fish out their comrade.

Peggy set down her tuba, so she could better slap Tennant, who at the same time slapped the marine to his right. They were not being arbitrary. After every verse, which Peggy played on the tuba, they sang the refrain and slapped the rhythm on their legs and each others faces.

“You did it wrong!”, Peggy complained.

“Again?”, Tennant asked exasperatedly.

“It's up the thigh, down the thigh, on calf in the face!”, Peggy explained the rhythm of the Schuhplattler, or rather the first phrase, for the fourth time.

“What about him?”, Tennant pointed to his comrade, who was knocked out by his slapped.

“He did it right! That means he goes to the next round. Now for you …”

“Yeah yeah, I know the rules!”, he resigned himself taking an open legged stance.

He crowed as Peggy booted him into the crotch and off the stage … into the sea.

The crowed hollered and raised their glasses at the sight.

“Twenty-two bottles of beer on the wall!

Twenty-two bottles of beer!

You take one down, pass it around!

Twenty-one bottles of beer on the wall!”

As Peggy finished the eighty-eighths verse, the eighty-eighths bottle was poured into the funnel, which through a tube, that was pushed straight into the marine's throat, emptied itself directly into Tennant's stomach.

“Twenty-one bottles of beer on the wall!

Twenty-one bottles of beer!

You take one down, pass it around!

Twenty bottles of beer on the wall!”

“Hey Tonji, do you have something for headaches?”

“Tennant, if you don't leave right now, I'm giving you 200 mg of morphine!”

“Awesome! Thanks old man!”

“Fuck you and die, asshole!”

“He's fiiinee”, Alvida concluded.

For a while the three of us just sat there in silence wallowing in self pity over our aching heads.

Then we collectively turned our heads as something fell down the stairs towards us. Something that turned out to be bits and pieces of Buggy, who (mostly) assembled himself and checked the cupboards for the pieces of himself he was still missing. He found something, washed it of and put it into the hole in his stomach, which it filled perfectly.

Then he finally faced us: “Wow, you are already up again!”

“What the fuck, how are you up already?!”, was our collective response.

“Of course I'm awake! Peggy sent me on the ship – two? - days ago, so I'd be able to do my duty as boatswain now. Though my memories of the party are kind of fuzzy and I still have a bit of a headache…

Is it just me, or is Peggy still kind of a revolutionary?”

“FUCK YOU, I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!

FUCK YOU, I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!

FUCK YOU, I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!

FUCK YOU, I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!

MOTHERFUCKERS!”

“So come brothers and sisters

for the struggle carries on!

The Internationale

unites the world in song!

So comrades come rally

for this is the time and place,

the international ideal

unites the human race”

“External control are you gonna let them get you?

Do you wanna be a prisoner in the boundaries they set you?

You say you want to be yourself, by god do you think they'll let you?

They're out to get you get you get you get you get you get you get you”

“You're just imagining things”, Annaisha assured him, while the three of us simultaneously remembered what song she had decided to play as the last song together with the children of Shanty Town.

Peggy sat on the stag together with all the kids from her music class, and just like in her music class they were all grouped around to face her.

Unusually for her, she was only holding a normal guitar.

“Just about everyone heard what happened in Havlum about a thousand years ago.

When the rats were plaguing the city, until each store and granary was empty and hollow.

In that time it was a gleeman came singing through the city gates,

and heard the herald, to earn honest pay at generous rates,

One just see the magistrate and kill the rats,

for they tried all their own dogs and cats.

And so the musician went to meet the council and was met with a closed door,

Because he was beneath them and to inform him of his task the herald was for.”

While the start of the song described the story in a familiar enough way, it quickly took a turn for the subversive:

“With the rats drowned and the city in joy, the gleeman wanted to ask for his fair pay,

But the five councilors agreed that the rat catcher had earned not a single coin on this day!

Only the devil could have so suddenly drowned the rats in the river,

if the musician wanted gold it was the due of the devil to deliver.

The gleeman however, would not simply be turned away,

and wait at the door with his demand and block the way.

The five men in the magistrate retreated into the high up council chamber,

and when there patience was worn, they sent their dogs to kill the camper.

And the dogs eagerly followed their command and chased

and bit the gleeman, their loyalty was well purchased.

The gleeman however was alive, neither dead nor broken,

he wanted justice and for that truth would need to be spoken.

As the parents were busy congratulating themselves for how the got rid of the rats for free,

the musician appealed to their children, who heard him and wanted to pay him back not just his fee.

And so they took their parents to the task and shamed them for what they had done.

But make the wicked see righteousness was never easy and repentance there was none.

Instead truth was answered with **** as the parents beat their own kids,

and the children in spite remained firm and an answer was sought in the councils cabinets.

What happened next was what always happened in situations like these

When rulers want to rule in peace the ruled will not see peace.

It was decreed the banishment, of an entire generation!

Every father **** their own kids in the whole small nation.

Now Havlum was finally quiet, just as quiet as agrave,

but the council still had orders for the council ****:

'it shall be written in a chronicles that it was the gleeman

who murdered the children, a warning against all free men!'

But Havlum's children never died but they learned their lesson well!

When faced with injustice how the true story to tell.

And as long as there is tyranny there are those fighting against it.

Those might as well be descendent of any Havlum kid.

Because till this day there are those who accept injustice as the order of the divine

And till this day I tell the truth to the children so they will refuse to get in line.

And till this day I tell the truth to the children so they will refuse to get in line.

And till this day I tell the truth to the children so they will refuse to get in line.'

“On a completely unrelated note, I would like to talk to her”, I said, “You don't happen to have run into her?”

“I'm pretty sure she's still asleep”, Buggy answered.

“Shouldn't she be about as far at recovering from her hangover as we?”, Alvida asked.

“Come to think of it, I don't even remember seeing her drink anywhere near as much as we did, so she should definitely sober by now”, Annaisha added.

Buggy's stare said: “What the fuck is wrong with these morons?”

After about ten seconds of glaring he finally explained: “You do remember that Peggy just finished throwing a several day long party without sleeping, right?”

Indeed Peggy was in the bed in the captain's quarters. A few crewmen had brought her there.

And there she was sleeping peacefully like a baby.

With her knuckles bloody, a large pair of marine issue trousers tied around her chest instead of a bra, and her hand still holding her Bello-Betty-guitar.