Chapter 24

Grandline, Paradise

The grandline, also known as the sailors graveyard. Now the question may appear to some why it was called as such. Nowadays nearly everyone who was asked would reply by saying that the difference in strength in opponents, compared to the blues, was just that, and said person would be right. But in the past, when barely anyone had the guts to sail these oceans, a different reason was the reigning opinion amongst sailors. And that was nothing other than the unbelivable unpredictability the grandline possessed. Sometimes it would rain one minute, the next a draught would plague the sea and in just the same speed of change it would start to snow, as if to taunt the sailors that they should just turn around and give up, since they didn't have the capacity to sail these oceans anyways. The grandline was, as Azul soon found out, nature personification of a madhouse!

The first day it had been a rather lax day of sailing for him, with the occasional strong currents of wind whipping his tiny ship onwards in a rush of speed, but otherwise the climate stayed the same.

The next day though, showed Azul just why this ocean was so notorious, and yet carried a sense of beauty within it.

It all started with some rather soft rain. But soon the rain transformed into a thunderstorm, the likes of which Azul had never witnessed before, who stood in awe at the shear might mother nature unleashed onto the oceans. But soon after the thunderstorm began it, just as quickly, changed into burning heat that balefully shone down onto the water, followed by a clutter of hail that kept on going for two hours straight, after which even Azul with his thirst for excitement grew kinda ennoyed. Nonetheless, it was an introduction into the grandline he would probably never forget.

After a few days of travelling Azul arrived at an island that had some weird a.s.s mountains, riddled with gravestones, but he didn't care much for it. And so he landed on one of those mountains, set camp for the night and, while he still carried some seaking meat, which he grilled (the only form of cooking he kind of managed to his satisfaction), while waiting for the logpose to reset so he could set course for the next island the coming day.

Though at night he was kind of surprised that some unsavory people had thought to ambush him, which ended with them being thrown into the water in reply. Otherwise his night on the island was pretty calm in his opinion. Something he relished in after those first few days on the ocean.

The next day, after checking his small ship for damages, Azul set sails again and resumed his jouney. Luckily he had had enough seaking meet on board, as he was hit by one day of absolutely no wind, which bored the hell out of him, but all he could do was endure. Luckily, the Maichyo, the grandlines newsletter, came over his ship and after giving the weird a.s.s seagull, which wore a hat and a bag around his torso some berry, he at least found some entertainment to occupy his time with.

It seemed the revolutionary army had started an all out war with the world government and nearly half of the kingdoms on the first half of the grandline, namely Paradise, had been involved so far and it only seemed to intensify. On another note, it seemed as if a lot of rookie pirates had entered the first half of the grandline and were causing havoc and terror whereever they appeared next. In Azuls opinion it was nothing but a poor cry for attention because it surely wasn't fun to attack islands that couldn't even pose a slight challenge in battle. 'Pathetic...' Azul thought to himself.

'And to think the marines would actually give them so much of their attention. Not like they don't have bigger threats to take care of like the motherf.u.c.k.i.n.g emperors for example. But no, they dedicate one whole section in the newspaper to some noname rookies, hahaha' Azul thought to himself in amused wonder. After checking the bounty posters that came along the newspapers, Azul threw it down his cabin, not finding anything of notice in them, before stretching himself under the clear blue sky and closing his eyes to take a short nap. 'Might as well use this time to sleep a little...'

And with that Azul entered dreamland.

Meanwhile another crew of pirates, belonging to the 'worst generation', as the marines so aptely named them, had reached wiskey peak some time ago, and after a gigantic party, hosted by a city of bounty hunters, had to fight their way out of the city, joined by no other than the princess of Alabasta to their surprise. Why you would ask?

Well, said princess had infiltrated the bounty hunters organisation, lead by none other than Sir Crocodile, one of the shichibukai, in order to gather intel on said man, who was instigating a war in said princesses kingdom. Was it smart to do so? Not really as it turned out. But no matter. After convincing the strawhat pirates with the lure of big money, they decided to help her. Yes, indeed, very piraty. But nobody said that they were the best of the lot anyways, hahaha.

As said pirates set sail for the next island, with their royal escort in tow, they were confronted by a woman in some kind of purple dancing outfit and a cowboys hat on her head. Said woman was none other than Nico Robin, the 'devilchild', as she was called after apparently sinking some marine battlesh.i.p.s. Though none of that matters at the moment, since said woman had taken the post of sir Crocodiles right hand in his organisation, which in turn made her the enemy of the strawhats. Though in the end, which confused them immensly, Nico Robin offered them an eternal logpose to Alabasta, which somehow pissed of their captain which in turn resulted the logpose being smashed to pieces and the crew taking the usual route, which lead them to the next island, little garden, exactly the same island Azul was currently landing on which would lead to a meeting neither would so soon forget about...