When You're Hungry, Eat [Pt. III: Let the Babes Begin]

"...on't believe you!"

"He wasn't even doing anything!"

"What did he do to deserve that, exactly?"

"I already said I'm sorry! I didn't mean to hurt him! I just saw something shiny on 'im and thought..."

"...what that you'd pummel him IN THE FACE?!"

"He'll be fiine! Look."

"IT'S AS RED AS AN APPLE!"

Shudder...

...shudder.

"...ming to, I think."

"Here, prop him up, prop him up."

"Nakaba-san? Nakaba, you alright?"

"You alright, kid?"

Nakaba was thankful light remembered how to stream into his retinas. 'Cause after that blackout, he sure didn't.

Through the glimmery fuzz, subsiding as quickly as drying paint in some mama's oven, he eventually was able to discern a table stretched before him. At his side, some indistinguishable faces. A ceiling fan. And boobs. Ploughable, grippable boobs.

Heaven, I'm home.

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

R-reindeer doctor? That you?

"E-eh?"

"How many fingers?!"

"...zero."

"Oh no! Oh no, Nakaba! His concussion is worse than I could have thought, it's--"

"You don't have any fingers, Chopper."

"Oho. You are correct, Nami! Technically, you are correct! Nakaba, I completely misjudg--AGHH HE'S GOING SUB AGAIN!"

"Did--did he just look at my chest and faint!?"

Chuckle. "I think that may indeed be the case, Nami."

A harrumph to Demon Child's coy laugh, coming right up. "Oi it's not funny Robin!" Hmph. "Looks like he really is a pervert.."

Dangle, dangle.

Swish...

---

A FEW MOMENTS EARLIER
IN THE STRAW HAT SHIP'S SICK BAY

To the thud of cloth against mattress, Nakaba took out his newly fashioned journal and uncapped a pen, taking to a scribble or two on an empty page.

"Doodling dirty thoughts into paper, Nakaba-san?" quipped Robin through the hiss of the refilling beverage in her mug.

"Ha," the kid left the bed with a creak, opening a set of drawers at Chopper's desk as he loudly scoured each one's contents. "Very funny." Crash, went the waves outside. Even clear skies didn't guarantee a smooth sail; just look at whatever divination brought these unassuming Straw Hats in his direction. Wasn't in their favor, surely.

Which is why he had to be careful about this: it was the only way to keep such odds tipped in his. There was no middle ground here -- only the illusion of it. That was what he needed a plan for. Something to enforce it properly.

An illusion of power play, inextricably rigged to his gratification of corrupted prudence.

Fun, and nasty. Not obvious, not overblown. But not too tedious or slow a burn. Something that can get straight to the point if he wished. Flexible.

Yes. Yes, that could work.

"You seem hard in thought."

For a moment, he was. At Robin's voice, Nakaba snapped back to the physical world, before forcing himself back into cool and collected. "Hardly," smirked he. "Just thinking of how to screw you and your friend up those babymakers of yours."

Robin tugged a brow upward. "Me, and Nami? Or," she posed with not a touch of naughtiness, despite the invisible, slightly playful gleam underlining her pause, "me and Nami, individually?"

A sneer pried Nakaba's face before his returning to his journal scratch. "How about I fuck both of you while making the other watch and masturbate to my pants-wettingly sexy, unrivaled woman-railing prowess? How's that for an earth-shattering orgasm or two to tell around the mountain?"

Because it was her, Robin only relinquished a silent smile, the sort you saw from her stately face and none besides, and nothing more, taking another sip out of her cup of morning joe. There was little to add to a poet's self-affirming verse, she had probably figured. So she didn't try. "Where are you from, Nakaba-san?" she asked some distance later. "It's now well-established between the two of us that you are a Babe Spotter. But what is your background? Any family? A reason you were in that wreckage?"

"Yeah, I got some family." Nakaba looked up with two studious eyes."Actually, I am... your father, Nico Robin. Hahahah!"

Chuckling, Robin returned, "Oh, well it's nice to finally meet you. If I'd known you were so lascivious, I would have asked Mother why she married you in the first place." Another sip. "Were she still around to hear it."

"Ehh," the boy's voice marooned, his face obscured by a shoulder, "so that's how it was, eh..."

For the succeeding interim, a pause sat 'tween the room's two occupants. The sailing ship rocked to and fro. Nakaba continued his jotting, apparently with numerous errant touches as he was prone to one erasure and rapid scratch after the other. Plus an unrelenting tapping of the foot.

Eventually, mumble turned to thoughts aloud, the young man ponderously returning his makeshift journal to Chopper's desk. "...if I did, though. What would they think? Or maybe--" He eyed Robin, who was looking out a porthole. And who always seemed to be looking out of a porthole, or scanning the floor, or patiently examining a cup, the moment you set your eyes on the woman. "Robin," Nakaba called.

The buxom pirate's hair swished gently across her face as she met Nakaba's expression, "Yes, Nakaba-san?"

"If a Babe Spotter told you to get on your hands and knees, would you do it?"

Robin looked at Nakaba with just a hint of inquisitiveness before a twist of the lips opened and out whirled reply. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Okay. Okay, great!" Nakaba gestured after a blatant absence of elaboration. "Get on all fours, Robin."

Putting away her mug, Robin conceded, "If you'd like," Only to be drowned in the sound of his laughter.

"Get up! Get up," he sniggered, lifting his hands, "ya dumb whore. I was only kidding."

The woman recomposed herself, hair falling back over her ears classily. "You sure enjoy utilizing derogatory remarks," chuckled the slender pirate babe as she returned to her upright stature. "I would call it almost a game for you." With Robin elegantly along the wall once more, Nakaba addressed her, armed with yet another hypothetical.

"So, what if they said..." Blink. Then a facial cast as if on stage, he engendered, "'Hey! Bitch! Rob that Marine looking douche over there!'"

Austerely, Robin pointed out, "That is a command devoid of sexual purpose."

"So you wouldn't?"

"No, I wouldn't."

He tapped his chin. Then, with a start, "What if a Babe Spotter was fucking a friend? Right in front of you? In a place that, if they weren't a Babe Spotter, would be completely inappropriate?"

Robin made for thought. "I would first react with hostility, if I'm unaware of their title. Upon knowing of it, however, it would become clear that they are engaging in a sexual assessment, not ****. It'll have nothing to do with me. So I will let them proceed with assessing my friend."

Oho. Hot hot hoo-oot.

"How about if he was fucking her ass?"

"Likewise, yes."

"Or all the way down her sad little throat, like a bitch."

"It matters not," Robin keenly cleared up, "the point of penetration."

"So," Nakaba's head danced from left to right, "what you're saying is, for a Babe Spotter of any corner of the earth, doing that would be... typical?"

"Correct," Robin affirmed, gently swishing her cup's liquids. "As typical as housekeeping."

"Because fucking and investigating women and women's bodies is a Babe Spotter's motherfucking job, right?"

"What else would it be?" Giggity ha-ha-ha-ha!

"Even complete strangers?"

"Strangers, relatives; princesses, peasants. You walk up to them, enact your official privileges as Babe Spotter, and their dress is yours to lift, or tear apart -- long as they are carnally minded. Though keep in mind," Robin lightly holds up a finger, "everyone may harbor their own color of opinion towards the deed. It is a Babe Spotter's obligation to deem babes out of any charming girl they invest personal interest in. But some people may still feel trepidation. People who are friends, associates of the spottee. The spottee herself. And in cases of hostility mid-conflict, or a subject with **** clout, you may even be denied your right to spot."

"But--"

"But," interruption interrupted, to Nakaba's slight irritation, but whatever, "doing so, of course, is a particularly coarse decision. Declining is usually reserved for occasions that simply can not merit the sacrifice of time and effort possibly needed for a routine babe spot. Otherwise, except for in other unique cases, it should be relatively well-accommodated. After all, it would be incredibly uncouth to defy, let alone upend, a definitive and nearly global tradition of the world, merely from an intimate discomfort on your part." Robin's eyes gleamed, again. Though this instance may have been a streak of the sun at the right moment. "It would simply be abnormal."

Nakaba took Robin's hands into his own and grinned, "Yes. Yes, exactly! Because it's normal for everyone to want the approval of a great babe spotter, ain't it? It'd be the gotdamn highlight of their month, wouldn't it?" Before he could stop himself he was already going. A mental slap to the face was doled.

"It nevertheless is, for most people." Smiling, Robin lifted the mug up to a lip, casually slipping one hand from under Nakaba's loosely applied right. "And the greater the Babe Spotter is, the greater the need for their regard."

The pair went over another round or two eye to eye before Nakaba finally shifted the discussion. When he did, an expression of probable curiosity dusted his two cheeks. "This manner of greatness," he postulated. "Isn't the normal way it's conveyed through... something a bit of ways below the belt?"

"How do you mean," cocked Robin's head, "Nakaba-san?"

"Isn't it obvious?" The air vacating through Nakaba's teeth seemed especially aglow. "A thick, big wagger of a dick! Am I wrong?"

"No," Robin shook her head. "It is a common sentiment that Spotters are generally well endowed, gifted as they are in the perverted arts. At the very least, to be an efficient one, you are expected to be. What is the point, otherwise?"

"You're a purveyor of sex! Curator of hot chicks everywhere! It's only normal."

"Precisely."

"Greatness and, like, stature can be achieved normally, through experience and skill, o' course." Nakaba was brimming now. "But a dick that's meaty, that's full, and ready to rail their chutes like a piston -- that's like pinning the tail on the big dicked donkey. Instantly, you'd know: this man was born to be a Babe Spotter. This man was born to fuck. This man was born to fuck with, to fuck sopping cunts, pert lil' buttocks, and maybe, just maybe, even someone like me. And that's innately hot. They're unquestionably equipped to do the job. And I'd be intensely proud to have their sexual favor." Grin. "Sorry, sorry. I know I'm only saying what's... normally obvious to you and everyone else already."

Nakaba saw a faint light-crimson on Robin's cheeks, looking at him now as she did, both their faces only inches away, with something he could've sworn was not there before.

"It's fine, Nakaba-san." Finally, Robin cut the silence short.

And finally, Nakaba withdrew.

"So here's my plan, Robin." With folded arms, he sat, cross-legged on the bed, shin of his bent leg atop the top half of his other as he planted his cheek on his fist, as the woman internally composed herself with pitch-perfect recollection. You would've blinked and told nary a difference.

---

BACK IN THE PRESENT...

"WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY!?"

"Shh!" Chopper scolded, and the floorboard-rooted Straw Hats complied. The waves below curdled against the ship hull, the pack of odd eccentric pirates barely squished between the rail and the outer wall of the sick bay beside them. The sun sprinkled rays of light across head and hat, and 'fro, alike.

"Is he really?"

"There's no way," laughed a disbelieving Usopp.

"So that explains it," the skeleton murmured with a scratch of the chin.

"There's only one way to find out," shrugged Franky.

Long-nose laughed anxiously at the notion. Surely, he wasn't implying doing what he thought he was implying.

Actually, maybe he was.

WELL, it wasn't that far-fetched an idea. After all, everyone knew that one determinant factor of a Babe Spotter's status was... was... well...

Their ding-a-ling level! Their balls-to-wall ratio! How much nasty he was packing! If they wanted to confirm, at all, that he was indeed a -- you know -- then, hey. That was one route to doing so.

In the back, Sanji just harrumphed, lighting a cigarette. Zoro's nose squiggled irritably at the smoke, of which he was its immediate directional target.

"It's true," Robin nodded, arms folded as usual, and she turned to face the rest of the crew. While Luffy and Nami were inside tending to their fallen guest, the rest of them were waiting outside here, listening to what was apparently pressing enough for Robin to assemble them here for just the purpose. "Just don't tell Nami. He wants to take it a little more slowly with her. Not too much, mind."

"S-s-s-o," gulped Brook, bones clattering, to Franky's slight grievance, considering he was right beside him, "h-has he... already..."

"That's right." With another one of her mystifying smiles, Robin parted her eyelids, both pupils, of course, catching one of those aforementioned sprinkles of light courtesy of the big yellow ball above at just the right time. "He has successfully assessed me, and my body. I am now officially his Babe."

A stunned, awed silence profoundly overtook the group of guys. Sanji tugged on his collar. Usopp gulped. Zoro, on the other hand, only smirked.

All eyes on their raven-haired shipmate.

Her; the clandestine stoic. The elegant unflappable lady of ladies. Nico Slut Queen Bitch Honey "Demon Child" Robin herself. Marked with that... that boy's Spot!

Not that that was off the table, of course. Nothing wrong or absolutely perversely warped or irrational at all in this situation, completely not.

But who would have thought a day like this would come? Technically, Babe Spotters have considerable reign over those they see fit as a babe -- but Robin has spent a large part of her tenure as a pirate clean, un-spotted. Even in Baroque Works, under Crocodile. Most of the women there had already been marked. She, however, had given their designated Babe Spotter(s) -- plural because, well, several were unfortunately left mysteriously 'out of commission', usually after scheduling an assessment session with the current subject of interest -- more often than not an utter vacancy of cooperation, at most. She did not budge even for a spotter himself. Which was telling, either of her and her steel will, or the Babe Spotters' lackluster acumen, if not their... endowments.

And also, perhaps, of Nakaba's.

Suddenly, were you to blink back into view the arraignment of Straw Hats dawdling outside before the pooling sea, not a meter beyond the door to the resident sick bay, you would perhaps have been host to the sight of them all curiously setting their squinty, wide-eyed, suspicious, inquisitive eyes all the same on said door. Through the according porthole. Where their at-present, only presiding Babe Spotter, and as of yet unaffiliated one, lay **** on one of the beds while Nami and Luffy idled inside, waiting for Chopper to return and slap the guy back to waking form.

A minute or so later, the door opened then closed shut. The straw hatted boy was the first to take notice, spinning his face around with not a second to spare, splashing open into a brimming grin.

"Ah, Chopper!" Just as abruptly, he slumped over the chair, arms limply swinging in front of it. "FINALLY, what took you so long out there!?"

Chuckling, the reindeer doctor just scuttled over to his desk and pulled open some drawers, shuffled some papers, blah-blah-blah. "Sorry, there were some... matters to attend to--"

"Hopefully they didn't involve any women's undergarments." With pointedly closed eyes, Nami spoke her thoughts aloud, although sizeably calmed down from before.

"I'm sorry!" Chopper immediately bolted to the floor before her seat, and she opened her eyes with a sigh. "I-It was just so fun to do at first, when Nakaba recommended it to me I -- "

"Ah. I see." Conducting a notable exhalation of air, the leg crossed orange-head shook her head and opened one eye to look at Chopper. "I forgive you, Chopper. For this one time."

Eyes going sparkle-darkle, the reindeer sat up. "Really?"

"Mm-hm." Sternly, she leaned slightly forward, "Just don't do it again, okay?"

After the two made up, the talking animal hopping into Nami's arms, and Luffy joining in and nearly **** them to **** with a rubbery bear hug, they heard what could have only been described as a dying mountain lion trying to gargle out a batch of onions from his gullet.

Luffy let out an exaggerated gasp. "He's waking up again!"

"Quick, Chopper, do something!"

"I'm on it, I'm on it!"

"AGHH, HIS ARM, NOT MINE!"

"AHHGHA, SORRY NAMI!"

---

Out on the deck, Robin, now alone, leaned elegantly over the wake cast behind their ship's travails. Both elbows on the railing, she dangled an earring on one finger, looking it over with both curiousness and a wavering glaze -- the kind to complement a drifting eye struggling to adjust to a transition in light.

Dangle, dangle.

An inevitable chuckle left the woman's lips, her hand cradling her chin as she stretched the arm, the hand of which tightly held on to the inconspicuous piece of jewelry, towards the sky, testily, pluckily. "I hope you know what you're doing, Nakaba-san." Another chuckle, as she coiled it into her grip.

Crash, slurred the waves.

Crash...

...crash...