Mirror Ball Island: Aftermath

Morning arrived with a flash.

PING!

A shard of sunlight bounced off the enormous mirror ball, still swinging gently beneath the clear dome, and stabbed Nami right in the eyelids.

“Nggh...”

She opened one eye and saw sky. She opened the other and saw more sky through the dome. Then the morning breeze touched her bare breasts.

Nami shot upright with a scream.

“EEEEH?!”

Her voice cracked across the plaza and sent three sleeping birds flapping off the rim of the fountain. She was naked. Completely naked. Her orange hair stuck to her face, her big round tits shifted heavily as she lurched up, and her narrow waist and long legs were bare to the air. When she snapped her thighs shut, something thick, warm, and sticky shifted inside her.

She froze.

Her face went white, then red, then white again as semen leaked from her pussy and slid down her thigh. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. Somewhere inside her head, a tiny imaginary Nami burst into flames, exploded, and left behind nothing but a smoking pair of sandals.

“I didn’t drink anything,” she whispered.

She looked around, already grasping at the only explanation that made any sense on an East Blue island famous for freaky casual public sex.

The plaza was no longer a plaza. It was a floor of naked bodies. She could barely see the ground beneath the sleeping people sprawled over it in piles of limbs, backs, bellies, breasts, thighs, asses, and slack open mouths. A pair of female legs hung over the fountain rim, toes pointed at the sky, while the rest of the woman floated somewhere inside the water. Nami decided not to think too hard about whether she was comfortable or dead.

Clothes were everywhere except on people.

That part, at least, was useful.

Nami moved before her panic could get organized. She crawled over two sleeping stomachs, stepped carefully between three tangled legs, and lunged for the nearest heap of discarded clothing.

SNATCH! SNATCH! SNATCH!

A loose white shirt went over her shoulders. It was too big, but it covered her chest. A short skirt followed. It was too short, but that was tomorrow’s problem. A red sash cinched everything into something almost wearable, and a pair of sandals that were close enough to her size completed the emergency outfit.

Ten seconds later, she was badly dressed, which was infinitely better than waking up naked in the middle of whatever nightmare carnival had swallowed the island.

Only then did she breathe.

Then she noticed the purses.

Her eyes sharpened at once.

CHA-CHING.

A coin pouch vanished into her sash. A wallet disappeared inside her shirt. A bracelet, two purses, and a suspiciously heavy little bag joined the collection before any of their **** owners could develop objections.

“For damages,” she muttered. “For emotional distress. For medical expenses. For whatever happened to my underwear.”

Her memory gave her nothing useful. Running. Noise. Panic. Then blank.

Her body, unfortunately, had prepared a full confession. Her thighs ached. Her hips felt loose. Her pussy was swollen, sticky, and so packed with semen that pretending ignorance would have insulted her own intelligence. Worse, beneath the soreness, she felt light, warm, and horribly refreshed, as if every tight knot in her body had been wrung out by a hundred orgasms and left to dry in the sun.

Nami clenched her fists.

“That does not make this better!”

Finding the others took time because they were nowhere near her. Luffy turned up wrapped in a tablecloth, awake just long enough to ask for meat. Zoro was standing nude in the middle of a side street, completely calm, holding his three swords in their scabbards under one arm.

“You’re naked!” Nami snapped.

Zoro looked down at himself.

“Huh.”

BONK!

She hit him with a stolen shoe.

Usopp and Sanji were found before either of them had managed to dress, which improved Nami’s mood immediately. Usopp shrieked and tried to cover himself, but he was too slow to hide the huge poofy brown bush above his soft little three-inch dick.

“DON’T LOOK!”

“I’m trying not to laugh!”

Sanji woke next, saw Nami staring down at him, and turned blue. Sparse blond pubic hair, small balls, and a soft two-inch penis made all of his romantic speeches collapse into ash.

“N-Nami-swan! This is a misunderstanding! I'm a grower!”

Nami smiled sweetly.

“It looks tiny.”

Sanji died standing up, then fell over.

Nobody remembered anything useful. Luffy remembered hunger. Zoro remembered nothing he considered important. Usopp remembered screaming, which narrowed nothing down. Sanji claimed to remember Nami’s beauty and received another kick for the effort. Around them, the endless naked carpet of bodies began to stir, groaning, stretching, and blinking up at the morning as if the whole island had woken with the same hangover.

Nami clapped her hands.

“Everybody up. Let’s get out of here before the Marines chasing us remember what they were doing.”

That did it.

The Straw Hats grabbed whatever discarded clothes they could find and ran.

By noon, the Going Merry was already cutting away from Mirror Ball Island. Nami stood at the rail in stolen clothes, stolen money tucked safely against her hip, sore, sticky, horribly relaxed, and in a mood dangerous enough to alter weather.

Luffy waved at the glittering island.

“That was weird!”

WHAM!

Nami kicked him across the deck.

KA-PING!

Morning struck Mirror Ball Island again, scattering squares of light across the raised street from the giant mirror ball overhead.

Tsujo woke with sunlight in his eyes and stone under his back. He lay there blinking for a moment while the world sorted itself into shape. The street. The dome. The distant harbor. The snoring. The naked Buggy Pirates sprawled across café tables, stair rails, flower boxes, each other, and one unlucky pastry cart that had collapsed into a cream-filled disaster.

Beside him, Alvida sat up slowly.

She was naked too.

For once, the most beautiful woman on the sea did not immediately have a speech prepared. She stared down at herself, then at Tsujo, then at the raised street full of nude pirates and strangers.

“What happened?”

Tsujo scratched the back of his head. “I was hoping you knew.”

Alvida frowned. She was not frightened and certainly not ashamed, but she was annoyed, which for Alvida meant reality had committed some personal discourtesy by failing to ask her permission first. Morning light slid over her huge breasts, smooth stomach, long legs, and full hips, making her look less exposed than displayed. Three half-awake pirates lifted their heads, saw her sitting there bare and magnificent, and immediately sprayed nosebleeds like broken fountains.

Alvida glanced at them.

They fainted.

“At least some things still make sense,” she said.

Tsujo pushed himself to his feet and picked up a discarded pair of pants from the street, shook them once, and tried stepping into them.

Alvida snorted.

“What?”

“I had your pants tailored for a reason,” she said. “No normal bloke’s trousers are going to contain your dick, Tsujo.”

He looked down, then shrugged. “So what?”

“So let’s go back to the restaurant, get your actual pants, get my clothes, and leave before the Marines wake up properly.”

Tsujo dropped the borrowed pants.

“Right. Restaurant.”

She pointed down the street. “That way.”

They backtracked through the waking wreckage, stepping over bare legs, sleeping backs, and one man who had somehow gotten his head stuck through the seat of a chair. The plaza below them groaned awake like one enormous beast with a hangover. Alvida made no attempt to cover herself. She moved naked through the elevated street with a baffled frown and queenly posture, every sway of her hips causing some pirate to go rigid, salute, pass out, or attempt all three in the wrong order.

Their clothes were still at the restaurant, piled beside their table among empty plates, toppled cups, and a sleeping man using a breadbasket as a hat. Tsujo snatched up his custom trousers with the urgency of a man rescuing treasure from a burning ship.

“Thank every saint of tailoring.”

Alvida picked up her bikini, then glanced down at herself again. For a brief moment she looked genuinely puzzled.

“I still don’t understand why I took it off.”

“Everyone took everything off.”

“Yes, but I usually remember deciding to improve the scenery.”

Tsujo buckled his pants with care, making sure the custom fit settled properly. “Marines will be waking up soon.”

Alvida sighed and slipped into her dress. “Fine. Beauty may tolerate fabric in emergencies.”

Down in the plaza, Buggy woke up in installments.

His face became aware first. It was buried in a woman’s pussy.

His pelvis became aware second. It was in a completely different woman’s pussy.

His head opened one eye. His pelvis twitched somewhere else. His hands emerged from beneath two separate sleeping bodies, and his feet kicked free near the fountain. For three strange seconds, Captain Buggy’s scattered body parts held a private meeting without inviting his brain.

Then his head screamed.

“GYAAAAAAAAH!”

His pelvis detached with a wet pop.

Buggy’s face turned blue, then red, then a shade of clown-white usually reserved for ghosts and unpaid bills.

“No! No reports from that part! That part is fired!”

Around him, the Buggy Pirates began waking in waves.

“Where are my pants?!”

“Why am I wearing a tablecloth?!”

“Who put me in this fountain?!”

“Why is Richie on a roof?!”

Richie the lion was, in fact, on a roof. He wore five belts, a spoon necklace, and the expression of an animal who had enjoyed a productive evening.

Mohji woke underneath a bench, saw him, and screamed. “Richie! Why are you more dressed than me?!”

Cabaji appeared balanced on one hand atop a lamppost, naked except for a single boot and a napkin tied around his waist.

“I have reached a conclusion,” Cabaji said solemnly.

Mohji pointed at him. “If the conclusion isn’t pants, get down!”

Buggy’s head floated upward while his torso, arms, and legs zipped back through the air. He reassembled badly, one foot backward, one hand holding someone else’s hat, and his dignity swollen to twice its usual dangerous size.

“I remember nothing!” he shouted.

The crew gasped.

Buggy paused. His eyes narrowed. Something moved behind his smeared makeup: not memory, exactly, but a glorious feeling. A warm, triumphant certainty that somebody somewhere had received justice from Captain Buggy.

“But I feel... victorious.”

The crew leaned in.

Buggy clenched his fists. “Someone insulted me. Someone rude. Someone unworthy. And I, Captain Buggy, delivered perfect flashy justice!”

“Who?” Mohji asked.

“I don’t know!”

“How?” Cabaji asked.

“I don’t know!”

“What did you win?” someone shouted.

“I don’t know!”

A long pause followed. Then Buggy stabbed one finger at the sky.

“But whoever lost deserved it!”

The crew roared with approval because it sounded almost like leadership.

From the raised street, Tsujo leaned over the rail. “Marines are waking up.”

The roaring stopped at once.

Below, several groggy figures were beginning to find uniforms, swords, hats, and official-looking panic. The mood shifted quickly. Confusion was one thing. Confusion with arrest warrants was another.

Alvida cracked her knuckles.

“Enough. Ship. Now.”

Buggy spun toward the harbor.

“The Big Top!”

Instantly, the crew became a stampede.

Pirates grabbed whatever clothes were closest. Wrong pants. Wrong shirts. No shirts. Two hats at once. Cabaji flipped across balconies, kicking weapons and clothing down into the crowd as he passed. Mohji landed backward on Richie, who leapt from the roof and carried him screaming through the street.

Buggy floated overhead in pieces, shouting directions with complete confidence and no accuracy.

“Left!”

“That’s a wall, Captain!”

“Then avoid it flashily!”

Tsujo and Alvida cut through the chaos.

At the harbor, the Big Top waited.

The gangplank vanished under the first wave of pirates.

Alvida stepped aboard without slipping. Tsujo followed. Cabaji landed neatly on the rail. Mohji and Richie crashed onto the deck in a heap. Buggy reassembled on the bow, shirt inside out, sash crooked, dignity enormous.

“All hands aboard?”

A hundred voices answered.

“Yes!"

Buggy raised both fists.

“Let's go!”

The last pirates scrambled onto the Big Top as shouts began rising from the streets behind them. Buggy thrust one hand toward the sails.

“Captain Buggy has once again prevailed!"

The next day, the Tulip Pirates attacked.

Mirror Ball Island had barely finished scraping dignity off the cobblestones when Captain Yurikah came crashing into the harbor with sails wide, swords out, and a crew full of flower-hatted idiots ready to plunder a city still blinking at its own hangover.

Jango saw smoke, shouting, and confusion, and immediately recognized an opportunity.

“Seeya later, stupid Marines!”

He was halfway to open water before the rhythm changed.

Back on the island, the man from the dance contest had stopped dancing and started punching. Fullbody, Marine lieutenant, hit the Tulip Pirates like a fired cannonball with eyebrows. He was not elegant about it, and he was certainly not clever, but his fists were honest, fast, and heavy. Pirates went flying every time he stepped forward.

Captain Hina saw it from the far end of the street. She also saw Jango turn back.

That mattered.

Yurikah had grabbed a local woman by the throat, blade up, grin wide. Fullbody stopped cold, his justice caught in the hostage’s shadow. Then Jango’s little boat swung back toward shore.

The hypnotist came running in with his disguise gone and his glasses flashing.

“One, two... Jango!”

The ring swung. The hostage-taker’s eyes crossed. Yurikah’s men stumbled into one another. Fullbody surged forward, fists cracking through the opening Jango made. Together, pirate and Marine flattened the Tulip Pirates in a storm of punches, hypnosis, and ridiculous footwork.

When it was over, Jango and Fullbody danced on top of the fallen pirates.

Hina watched the whole thing without smiling.

Fullbody had fists, courage, and a useful weakness for loyalty. Jango had timing, nerve, and a dangerous talent that worked beautifully when aimed in the proper direction. They were rough, ridiculous, and badly in need of discipline, but Hina could work with that.

Then Fullbody arrested Jango.

“Hina approves,” she said, stepping out of the smoke.

Both men froze.

Fullbody snapped into a salute. “Captain Hina!”

Jango stiffened in cuffs. “Captain?”

Hina’s eyes moved over Fullbody first: bruises, split lip, shaking legs, still standing. Then she looked at Jango: ring, posture, cowardice already trying to become charm. Her gaze dropped briefly to his trousers.

The bulge was impossible to miss. Large, heavy, and poorly concealed, it dragged one side of the fabric into a shape that made regulation tailoring look naïve. Hina’s face did not change, but some private, buried part of her mind marked it with cool approval. She did not know why. She did not remember acquiring an opinion on such things. The reaction was there anyway, sharp and inconvenient.

Jango noticed her glance and immediately tried to stand taller.

Fullbody noticed too and looked as if he had been punched in the soul.

“Hina has seen enough,” she said.

Jango swallowed. “Enough to let me go?”

“Enough to know you are useful.”

“That sounds worse.”

“Hina agrees.”

The trial came later.

At Marine Headquarters, Jango was sentenced to hang. Pirate. Hypnotist. Former Black Cat. Trouble in striped pants. The judges saw a criminal and moved the law forward like a blade.

Fullbody stepped in front of it.

He begged.

Then, because he was Fullbody, he danced.

The courtroom resisted for three seconds before the rhythm caught. By the end, the judges were swaying, clerks were clapping, and Jango’s **** sentence had collapsed under the weight of one man’s stupid, sincere friendship. Jango was acquitted. Fullbody was demoted.

Outside, Jango tried to leave.

“A pirate and a Marine can’t be friends,” he said, lifting his ring. “So I’ll make you forget.”

Fullbody’s jaw trembled.

“One, two...”

Then Hina walked past.

Both men stopped dead.

Pink hair, long legs, cigarette smoke, absolute authority.

Jango’s ring lowered. Fullbody saluted so hard his spine squeaked.

Hina looked at them both.

“Hina has decided,” she said. “You two will serve under Hina.”

Jango pointed at himself. “Me?”

“You.”

“I was a pirate.”

“Hina noticed.”

Fullbody raised a hand. “Captain, does that mean I’m restored to lieutenant?”

“No.”

He wilted.

“You are mop boys.”

Jango stared. Fullbody stared. Hina turned away.

“Report to the deck.”

And that was how Jango the hypnotist and Fullbody the fist-fighter joined Hina’s ship at the very bottom, swabbing boards with buckets beside them and disgrace hanging over their heads.

For almost one minute, they worked.

Then Jango’s foot tapped.

Fullbody’s foot answered.

The mops spun, the deck became a dance floor, and by the time Garp passed with Koby and Helmeppo, half the Marines were clapping along while the deck remained absolutely filthy.

Hina watched from above through a thin gray line of cigarette smoke.

Idiots, she thought.

Useful idiots.

Hina had found worthy recruits after all.