A pirate has to have a ship[world building]

Zoro took a deep breath and ran his eyes up and down Tashigi’s body in a way that made her shiver and clench her thighs together. “You’re at my disposal? Are you sure of that?” Zoro asked her in a rumbling growl.

“I’m a marine. I stand by my words and I won’t go back on them!” Tashigi spat out, and then winced as her aching head protested her behavior.

“And I’m a pirate and I don’t have to obey your rules, or live up to your expectations. If you want me to **** your ass, be honest and admit it,” Zoro sneered.

Tashigi’s eyes widened, and her face flushed a deep red. “I don’t know what you think you know, but I have no interest at all in you **** me.”

“Anyway, it wouldn’t be **** if you asked for it,” Usopp chimed in, and then zipped his lip after Tashigi sent a glare his way.

Zoro’s grin broadened. “You keep telling yourself that. Maybe you’ll be able to convince yourself. But you’re not fooling anyone here.” He cut off whatever retort she might have been about to make with a short chopping gesture of his hand. He turned his back to her while saying, “I don’t have time to play with you right now! As long as our ship is crippled we’re trapped here. First priority is fixing that.”

Tashigi fought down the urge to pull out Shiguri and slice the arrogant pirate down. A sudden flare of pain from her old scar had her lifting her hand to it, and in front of her Zoro’s body seemed to waver, and for a minute he looked like a brat of a twelve year old, and then her vision cleared and he was back to normal.

Tashigi fought the urge to sit down as her stomach roiled. Was it just her imagination at work, or one of the memory fragments that occasionally teased her with recollections of her first life? The one before she woke up in a hospital bed at the age of fourteen after a two year long coma, and with no memories of anyone or anything. She had no idea who she’d been, or where she’d come from. Zoro claimed to know, or at least said she looked like someone from his childhood. But he was a pirate and could not be trusted. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t have discovered her background. It wasn’t a secret. And she would have no way of checking any story he might spin. He could tell her that she was his long lost sister, or a bred sex-****, and she’d have no way of knowing if he was telling the truth. Just look at how he’d just lied about her wanting him to **** her. She knew that wasn’t true. Just because she was constantly aware of the fact that he could **** her against her will anytime he chose to do so didn’t mean she wanted it to happen. The way her body reacted was simply biology, not a sign she had some sort of twisted fetish.

“Are you coming,” Tashigi? Carrot asked. Tashigi snapped out of her introspection and flushed as she found Carrot’s face only a few inches away from her own. The rabbit girl was bobbing up and down from an excess of nervous energy as she kept looking over her shoulder at where the Strawhats were trailing after Crocus like a bunch of ducklings following their mother.

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Ranma looked at the lighthouse they were approaching with a puzzled expression. “Are we going to be able to see where this ship is from the top?” She asked Crocus.

“No. But it is the way we have to go to get to it,” the old man answered her.

Crocus glanced over at Ranma and asked. “Do you know what sort of ability the devil fruit user who changed you had?”

“Eh? I wasn’t changed by anyone . . .” Ranma started to protest, but then trailed off as she remembered she’d definitely been changed after going through Ryoga’s portal.

“They’d have to have been a Paramecia. Like your captain. But unlike him they had the ability to change other people instead of themselves.”

“How do you even know I was changed?” Ranma asked, next to her Nami perked up her ears. She knew so little about Ranma, other than the fact she’d fallen out of the clear blue sky and that Captain Ryoga claimed she was the key to finding the One Piece.

“I’ve been a doctor for over sixty years. It’s easy enough to see that your body is not normal. The same goes for you,” Crocus added, giving Nami a look.

“What! No! That’s not true!” Nami protested.

“You might not have noticed. It’s not nearly as pronounced as with this little girl, but the signs are there. If I had to hazard a guess you met whoever changed her, but he, or she, didn’t have the time, or inclination to fully modify your body.”

Nami began to run her hands over her body, as if looking for some evidence of what Crocus had seen, or more likely to prove that he was talking out of his ass.

‘How do you know I didn’t do it to myself, like Luffy?” Ranma demanded.

“You swam. No devil fruit user can swim in the ocean. But that restriction does not apply to anyone who has been changed by a user.”

Crocus rubbed his chin as he ran his eyes up and down Ranma’s body, and not in the good, she’s hot, manner Ranma was used to. “Every paramesia is different. For some they have to maintain concentration in order to maintain the change they induce. Other’s can maintain the changes as long as they don’t fall ****, or die. And for a few, the changes are permanent unless they consciously choose to undo them. “For instance Emporio Ivankov, can transform someone’s gender, and the effect is permanent.”

Ranma jolted, stumbling just slightly at those words. A bitter grin crossed her face. A year ago she’d have moved heaven and earth to find that person, now she could care less.

“Let's get back to me! Just what do you see about me that isn’t natural!” Nami demanded as Crocus walked around to the back of the lighthouse and pushed aside some ivy to reveal a stout iron door that looked like it hadn’t been unlocked for generations.

Crocus made a production of opening the door, making Nami wait for his reply, while not being sure he’d even give it.

The open door revealed a winding staircase heading downward. Crocus started down them. “I might not have noticed if they weren’t so blatantly obvious in regards to Ranma. But with her as an example I can see some of the same signs in you. To hazard a guess I’d suggest your insides are no longer fully flesh and blood. I’d have to take a look to be sure. But you might compare notes and see if you have both encountered someone who might have done it.”

“Ryoga, that bastard!” Nami cursed.

“What! What does he have to do with this,” Ranma asked in a startled voice, giving Nami all the proof she needed that her suspect was the one responsible.

“He likely changed me when he **** me at Buggy’s bar,” Nami speculated out loud. She knew next to nothing about devil fruits, but from what Crocus described, touch seemed to be involved in such transformations. Ryoga, the bastard, had touched her plenty deep with his cock. He’d likely transformed her so he could enjoy getting balls deep into her. “I’m going to kill the bastard!” she vowed out loud.” Nami totally missed the expression of guilt on Ranma’s face, or the way she was nervously sweating.

Nami suddenly felt a chill on the back of her neck and twisted her head around to see Zoro giving her a speculative look. When their eyes met he flashed her a smile that sent a shiver up and down her back. She was pretty sure that the swordsman had made a mental note to check out just how much she might have been changed, if at all. Part of her actually tried to look for the positive. Maybe Zoro would be so distracted trying to stuff that monster between his legs up her cunt that he’d forget about stuffing that rabbit tail butt plug up her ass?

Sex with Zoro was no hardship, even if he was in an experimental mood, but being made a spectacle of with that stupid tail and ears was fucking embarrassing. Which was why Luffy had reserved it for her. It was her own custom punishment for those times she didn’t trust her Nakama, or in the case of Tashigi, tried to frame them for shits and giggles. She wondered what he’d come up with for Tashigi. Or rather, what one of the other guys would suggest that would tickle Luffy’s funny bone. She was a Marine. Most people called them the World Government’s dogs. A butt plug with a nice long swishy golden retriever tail would look good on her.

Crocus had noticed Nami’s discomfort, and mistook the cause, “Don’t worry. You’re still a human being.” He tapped his forehead. “What makes a person a person is up here. Remember you weren’t even aware of any difference until I pointed it out. Try not to think of it as a negative and look at the positive. Many females have trouble with sexual haki cultivation because they can’t fully accommodate the sort of cocks that belong to males with strong haki potential. You won’t have that problem. It will help you grow stronger faster.”

“Maybe Ryoga was just being a nice guy by making it easier for her to take his cock,” Ranma asked in a tentative voice that demonstrated she was far from convinced of her own argument.

“Oh, I’m sure he wanted to make it easier. For himself,” Nami growled.

Crocus shrugged. “In that case consider it as him having made a miscalculation. He inadvertently gave you a pathway to growing strong enough that you might be able to gain **** on him. Most devil fruit users fail due to them thinking that having gotten an ability they have no need for anything else. A perfectly normal person who is a competent haki user can clean the clock of most devil fruit users. Logia in particular tend to think themselves immortal, until they meet a haki user and learn different.

Nami was not some shrinking violet. She knew better than most how dangerous and unforgiving the world could be. She had put a lot of effort into learning offensive tactics with her staff. She was not afraid of hard work, or of becoming more of a kickass combatant than she already was. As the shock of Crocus’s revelation started to wear off she began to think about the up-side. If she wanted to keep hanging with Luffy and the rest of her nakama, she needed to bring more to the table, combat wise. She refused to be the damsel in distress constantly in need of saving. If fucking strong guys could help with that, she was prepared to make the sacrifice.

Ranma had a rather speculative look on her face as she darted a quick glance backwards to where Tashigi and Carrot were trailing along at the back of the crew. Could it be possible that Crocus was right? Did she do something to Nami’s body when she’d fucked her as a guy? And would the same thing work if her guy side fucked Tashigi and Carrot? Carrot didn’t really need any help, but Tashigi really needed to level up if she was going to be a worthy rival for Zoro. That was important. Zoro couldn’t count on finding foes that fit into the perfect sweet spot of pushing his limits, without killing him. He’d been lucky Mihawk had formed such a good opinion of Zoro and had spared him. Most swordsmen would not have done that. If she and Zoro working together could get Tashigi’s level up to the point where they could push each other, they’d both improve by leaps and bounds. She owed her own level to the way she’d been bushed by Ryoga. She’d have never gotten strong enough to kill Safron if she hadn’t had to push herself to keep up with her rival.

Nami and Ranma were not the only ones considering Crocus’ words. Zoro and Sanji were both giving Ranma and Carrot considering looks. It had been a bit shocking to discover just how physically overwhelming the two girls were. The idea that they might be able to get a handle on this haki stuff by fucking the two girls, frequently and roughly, seemed too good to be true. On the other hand, it wasn’t as if there was a downside to fucking either girl bowlegged. Other than chafing, that is.

Usopp was imagining himself powering up due to the efforts of his personal harem of fighting females, which he put on his to do list along with becoming a great pirate captain.

Unlike the other male members of the crew, Luffy’s mind was far away from his balls. The slow pace down the tightly wound spiral staircase was driving him crazy. He was practically vibrating from his desire to rush ahead, but there was no room to get around the people in front of him. When at last Crocus came to the end of the staircase and the bottom opened up into a small room carved out of the mountain with a door in the side Luffy didn’t wait but threw himself, literally, through the doorway.

“Damn it, Luffy,” Nami swore. She ducked to the side and yelled back at the fighting members of the crew, “What are you waiting for, get after him and try to keep him from doing something stupid, again.”

Ranma shrugged and with Sanji and Zoro coming up the rear she jumped through the door, and straight into Luffy’s back. Their dauntless captain was just standing there, an expression on his face that would not have been out of place on a kid seeing the world's biggest amusement park for the first time.

Looking around Luffy Ranma gapped at the vast space that spread out in front of them. They were standing on a stone floor made of blocks five feet on a side. She knew they were square and not just paving stones because there was a huge lagoon in the middle of the space and she could see the edges of the blocks on the other side. The walls and ceiling were lined with a network of huge girders and iron trusses while overhead hoists big enough to hoist even Don Krieg’s galleon ran on tracks from one end of the ceiling to the other.

Scattered around the vast space were dozens of industrious workers busy on numerous projects, most having something to do with ships, but Ranma spotted massive cannons and other weapons under construction.

In the vast lagoon that was centered in the room several ships in various stages of repair and construction floated. And right in the middle, having just floated in through a gigantic metal valve of a door was the Going Merry.

“It looks like the same sort of construction as we saw inside the whale,” Sanji said from behind Ranma and Luffy.

Ranma saw that the cook was right, and it reminded himself that they’d never thought to ask how one old man had managed to build all the passages and structures they had seen inside the massive island whale. Seeing the activity going on around them it was now obvious that he had not. He’d had a lot of help.

“What are they doing with Merry!” Luffy bellowed in outrage. He had clearly been distracted by all that was going on around them and had only just now noticed the Merry. Truthfully, it was easy to miss her, she was by the smallest ship in the lagoon and with her figurehead and mast snapped off she looked even smaller.

Before Luffy could catapult himself across the space between them and the Merry, Nami interjected, after first getting Luffy’s attention by slipping a hand down the front of his pants and wrapping her fingers around the captain’s rubber dick. It was even more effective than grabbing him by the cheek, or ear. “They’re fixing her?” she yelled into his ear.

Very clearly Nami was not taking any chance on Luffy fucking this up for them.

“Oh! Okay then. Thanks,” Luffy said to Crocus as he went from white hot to mild in a single breath.

“Don’t thank me. I just asked if they’d be willing. They’re the ones who decided to lend a hand,” Crocus said.

“Who?” Tashigi asked.

“That sort of comes under the category of, If we told you, we’d have to kill you, marine.” A big booming voice rang out. A fishman wearing a martial arts Gi approached them, his eyes inspecting them in a manner that left the impression that they had no secrets from him.”

“Hack, exaggerates. But you’d likely be happier not knowing, young marine. As the saying goes, don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to.” Crocus said.

“You’re a martial artist!” Ranma said excitedly. “I haven’t seen another one since I arrived.”

“Oh, you fancy yourself a martial artist? What form do you practice? I'm a master of Fishman karate.”

“The school of indiscriminate grappling. Sometimes people call it, Anything goes martial arts. We meld every style we learn into a cohesive whole. I’m going to be the best in the world someday, and I’ve yet to meet anyone yet who can make me work up a sweat, other than Carrot. Ranma wasn’t bragging for the sake of bragging. She was simply hewing to an age old tradition of chest thumping before getting down to the serious business of trying to knock each other’s blocks off.”

“You just came from the East Blue. You might want to wait until you’ve met a few fighters from one of the dangerous oceans before making such claims. They call the East Blue the weakest sea for a reason.”

Crocus coughed into his hand and said. “The Carrot Ranma mentioned is a Mink, traveled all this way from Zou. I watched the two of them go head to head for a good hour.”

The fishman’s eyes lit up. “Interesting. Maybe if we have a chance you and I can have a match later.”

“On dry land!” Nami said in a flat voice. She stepped forward and glared at Hack. “Don’t even think of challenging her to a match in water!”

Before she could say anything else Luffy rested a hand on her shoulder. “He looks like a good guy, Nami.”

“Arlong could play nice when he wanted,” Nami snapped back.

Hack visibly winced. “I’m sorry if you ran afoul of that bastard. But, I won’t apologize for belonging to the same race as him, girl. Or make you any promises that I’m not like him. I’ll just ask you to withhold judgement if you can until you’ve had a chance to get to know us.”

“I don’t see any other fishmen here, witch,” Zoro said. He had been scanning the vast room with his hand on the hilt of wado from the moment Hack had shown up. “Arlong would never have worked with humans.”

“So, you’re going to fix the Going Merry?” Usopp asked, while standing behind Sanji and out of the big fishman’s line of sight.

“That depends on you. We can fix her if that is what you want. I don’t recommend it, we can offer you a replacement instead.”

“Why would you do that for us?” Nami demanded. She wasn’t ready to just forget everything in her past and trust a fishman they’d only just met.

“We don’t own this sanctuary. We are allowed to use it for our purposes on condition that we offer a safe berth to a few special ships, and see that they are ready to sail at a moment's notice when their owner steps forward to claim them. Come with me and let me show you.”

Hack didn’t wait for a reply, but turned and strode away, heading for the far reaches of the room that must have been more than a mile away and deep in the heart of the mountain.

“Watch him!” Nami growled out of the side of her mouth. She showed nothing but a simmering anger as she strode out after the fishman.

“Hack is a good man. One of the best,” Crocus said. He wasn’t trying to convince Nami, just offering his opinion for whatever it was worth.

The rest of the crew followed behind Nami. Except Luffy. He extended his arms upward and latched onto a roof truss. A moment later he vanished up into the shadows with a whoop of delight.

Nami let a small smile of gratitude appear on her face. The captain had her back. With Luffy on overwatch she felt a lot more confident this was not going to end in disaster. In the meantime her burglar’s soul was sitting up and taking notice. Nami had stolen a lot of ships in her day, but spread out in front of her was the equivalent of a warlord's treasure trove. Any one of these ships would have paid off Arlong, with change.

Eventually they reached the back of the cavern, and while there were half-dozen ships floating at harbor, all of them paled into insignificance between the king of them all.

It wasn’t that big. It would have seemed tiny in comparison to Don Kriegs galleon. But not in spirit. It had a presence that demanded respect and awe. This was the ship that had sailed to the ends of the world, and came back.

“No! This isn’t fair,” Tashigi cried out, tears streaming down her cheeks. “How could you show me this? Do you know what the World Government would give for its whereabouts?”

“More than you can imagine, but you’d have to throw your soul in as part of the bargain. They’d park him on off of Marineford, and then with the world watching they’d execute him. Blowing him to splinters as he floated defenseless, unable to fight back or run.”

“I can’t go back,” Tashigi said, openly weeping. “I’d have to lie everyday by not telling my superiors where he is. Damn you. You’ve destroyed me. What am I going to do now?”

Nami gathered the weeping girl to her chest, while Carrot hugged her from behind.

“Join my crew,” Luffy’s voice floated down from the rafters. A moment later his body did as well, dangling from one elongated arm like a spider on a thread of webbing.

He smiled at Tashigi and used a finger to wipe the tears from her cheek. “Join our crew and be our ship’s law talker.”

“What even is that?” Tashigi said through her sobs.

“You get to lecture me on doing the right thing. Just like Nami lectures me on doing the smart thing.”

“Are you going to listen to her anymore than you listen to me?” Nami asked, already knowing the answer.

Luffy just laughed. He then looked over at Oro Jackson and gave his head a shake. “We can’t take him.”

Hack looked at him in surprise. “What gave you the idea we’d let you do that.”

As one everyone turned and looked at Crocus. He returned the stares with a blank look as if he had no idea at all of what they were talking about.

“Why is it here?” Sanji asked, drawing a puff on his cigarette while staring up at the most famous ship in the world.

Roger knew the World Government would destroy it in the most public and degrading way possible if they got their hands on it. Roger couldn’t bear to scuttle him to keep that from happening. Oro Jackson was as much a crew member as any of his other nakama. So he called in some favors and parked it here.”

“That explains the scuttling charges,” Sanji said, pointing his cigarette at clusters of fused barrels scattered in **** locations all around the ship.

“Yes. If the World Government finds this place, we’ll blow them.”

Tashigi let out a gulping sob.

“And what? He just floats here forever?”

“Not exactly, He’s waiting for the last battle. There is going to be a confrontation with the World Government. Sooner rather than later. The rot gets deeper and deeper every year. They grow more and more **** to keep a lid on insurrections and revolutions. It’s a losing battle. The harsher they are in putting out fires, the more they start new blazes up with their methods. There is a story we like to tell. The World Government will fall when the new Pirate King takes his throne. On that day a crew will sail the Oro Jackson out of here to take part in the final battle. Until then we keep him clean and repaired, and every few weeks we’ll have a party and spill lots of booze on his deck to remind him of his old comrades.”

“Sheesheeshee,” Luffy laughed. “Pirates love to party. Told you he was a good guy, Nami.”

Nami flushed and would not meet Hack’s eyes. She just growled out. “So if it’s not the Oro Jackson, what did you bring us here to look at?”

Hack gestured for them to follow him again, and led them around to the other side of the ship they were not going to be taking, and gestured at the one they were being offered.

“A schooner,” Nami said. “She looks fast!”

“She is. She’ll outsail anything she can’t fight, and outfight anything that can catch her.”

“Who’s ship was she?” Luffy asked in a disapproving tone.

“Noones, or all of ours. I suppose you could say she’s a bit of a busywork project. We have a lot of skilled shipwrights here. They like to keep busy even when they have nothing else to do. They put her together out of salvaged timber as a project to try and make the strongest ship they could without having wood from the Adams tree. She’ll at the very least get you to where you need to go to get the ship that will take you the rest of the way. Remember. Roger didn’t start out on the Oro Jackson. He had her built at Water Seven before setting out on the last leg of his journey.”

Luffy looked the ship over with a glint in his eye. “Can you mount my seat on her?” He asked.

“The figurehead,” Nami said.

“No problem.”

“Luffy! You can’t be thinking of abandoning Merry!” Usopp protested. “Can’t we just have them repair her?”

“We can do that,” Hack told Usopp. “We’d have to pull up the main deck, take out the stub of your mast, likely replace the mounting braces and socket just to be safe. There are several sprung planks that should be repaired or replaced. We can have it ship-shape in about two weeks, as good as the day it was built if not better.”

“There, you see,” Usopp told Luffy.

Hack kept on talking. “And if you have bad luck she’ll sink before you reach the next destination. She simply was not built to sail the Grand Line. She’s an East Blue island hopper, meant to go back and forth between two islands fairly close to each other for shopping trips and trade.”

Hack let that sink in, and then added. “But if you leave her here with us we’ll still refurbish her as good as new and she’ll be ready to sail back into the East Blue when you finish your voyage.”

“You’ll be able to take her back to Kaya fully intact, Usopp,” Nami said in a cajoling tone.

“She’ll likely be so happy with how carefully you looked after her gift that she’ll give you a blowjob right then and there,” Ranma added her two bits.

“How long to mount the figurehead?” Nami asked.

“Two days. One day to mount the figurehead, one day for the shipwrights to throw a good-by party for her.”

“What’s her name?”

“She doesn’t have one right now. She’s just been a project. You can give her whatever name you want.”

“How much is this going to cost us?” Nami asked the most important question.

“She’s expensive. You’re likely going to have to throw a party every time you meet one of her builders and tell her how she performed. Plus, you need to raise hell and make sure the leadership of the World Government knows your name so they can curse you every time you screw them over. No slinking around in the shadows. We expect to see your bounty and those of your crew to increase on a regular basis. We’ll repossess if if you don’t treat her right.”

“SheeeSheeeSheeee. Done!” Luffy said.

“What are we going to call her?” Usopp asked.

“Well talk about it and decide before we set sail. We can have a nice ceremony.” Nami said.

“You can take it easy for the next day and enjoy yourself. We’ll all get together for the goodby party.”

“What are we going to do while we wait?” Carrot asked.