123 Jagged dagger

Marco choked as he glanced at the door. His hands slowly leaving the cuff of the man that he was holding up before he walked back to the counter with a forced expressionless face. With a small snort he settled down before picking up a half finished bottle of booze and chugging down silently.

The room shifted awkwardly under the sudden silent turn, before the bar tender who had ducked below the bar counter rushed out to welcome his latest customer, thanking the man in his mind for appearing when he did.

With sweat running down his forehead the man straightened out his crinkled apron, fingering his beard anxiously.

"Welcome sir! What would you like to have..?" He began with a voice of faked bravado.

I couldn't help but smile at the man. He was quite well built, but still his torso crouched forward, making his actual figure appear much smaller than it was.

"Can you get me a bottle of booze and a plate of some decent grub?" I asked simply. Shooting him a small smile before wading through the wreckage towards the room corner.

"Ummm… This.." the bar tender began hesitantly, his eyes shooting over at the till recently rambunctious crew that had been chugging away at the last vestiges of his booze stores.

The pineapple headed whitebeard came to his rescue, shooting me a small smile before he offered me an unopened bottle of booze.

"We finished the last of the alcohol, but this bottle is unopened. Why don't you take it?"

With a slight chuckle I nodded at him, turning from the direction I was heading towards to walk over to the phoenix man.

"Huh, you guys must have cleared out the poor man's coffers if his expression was anything to go by. I'm Lorean by the way, nice to meet you." I said with a small flourish of my hands before seating myself next to the other pirate, grabbing the bottle from his hands and uncorking it in one motion.

A few people around chuckled at my jovial statement shooting the sweating bar tender an understanding smile.

Thatch had the decency to look a little guilty at the damage that he had caused to the tavern. Of course his rambunctious personality made it so that he could not remain grim for too long. Almost as soon as I had taken a big gulp from the bottle that had been offered to me, he sidled into the seat to my right, grinning cheekily.

"So tell me, Lorean. What are you doing on an island this far into the grand line!" His baritone voice rumbled out as half the drinking crew shot me looks of curiosity.

"Eh, wanted to be a pirate. scrunch. gulp.

Got into the new world with a few accidents… Gulp.

Literally the first island that I found.." I said as I stuffed my face with the steaming food that had been offered to me.

"So." Marco began in his clipped tone. He had offered me the booze more as a sign of courtesy, but now there was an actual hint of interest in his otherwise flat voice. His eyes narrowed as he looked at me, "What's your bounty?"

Ah. There, he just had to go ahead and say it. We were having such a good time too.. I had begun to question the overall efficiency of the marine system at this point, seeing as they had still mooted on my bounty. Not a wink of it had been seen, from the time of my escapades on Swallow island!

"Ugh.. About that… Those bastards still haven't -" And there I was interrupted by the bar tender gasping loudly. Then came the ringing, as a precaution, I had gotten a few of the transponder snails from the ship, both as a means to call the ship if there was ever a need for a quick entry and in case there was a report that Mimir had for me.

'Pere pere pere pere pere' the snail called out somberly as pulled it out of my jacket pocket. Its eyes following my hands as they moved to receive the call.

With a swift nod towards the group I got off my chair and walked out of the tavern into the glaring light of the sun. My observation Haki bloomed around me as a method to make sure that no one would hear the call that I was about to receive.

"Superbia." I called out crisply as I picked up the receiver.

"Roman here sir!" A crisp and dusky voice called out from the other end. I could hear a hint of excitement on the man's voice, though he masked it quite well with the professional tone that he had employed.

"Boss! The papers came in and you got to see this!! The marines sicc-ed a completely unknown rookie crew with an insane bounty!" he huffed out, his voice breaking with the excitement of it all. Whatever sense of decorum he had had been blown away as soon as he began the report.

"Oh..? Send over a copy of the bounty pages as usual to the records group. They'll brief me about the overall trends." I said professionally before immediately shutting off the call.

I had a hunch that I wanted to clarify.

*********************

"Are you sure about this, Sengoku?" One vice admiral Tsuru called out as she flapped a small collection of bounties in the air.

The fleet admiral curtly nodded, not even looking over the huge heap of papers that he had in front of him.

"Do you realize the kind of upset that this will cause? A drastic increase of bounties like this, at this rate the marines will look like a bunch of fools!" She called out as she gave the absurdly large number a seething glare.

"I tried sending Garp after the group Tsuru, he couldn't even catch up to him! And not only did he beat Doflamingo, he also had a run in with Kuzan! You know how that brat is. I had no choice but to give him that high of a bounty!

Any lesser and anyone that went after his head would end up dead, whole naval teams would have been lost! And even if we warned those bases in the grand line about him, and issued a gag order to shut them up, it still would be a fire under our asses! " he groaned out as he looked at her through his rimmed glasses.

Genuine fatigue colored his old face as he sighed, rubbing at the bones of his nose.

Tsuru sighed as she began to calm down. Even if there had been a mistake, there was nothing she could do now.

'But still four hundred million berries? As his first bounty too! What sort of monsters did you drag out to sea Roger??'

With another sigh she exited the room, her mind going out to her fatigued friend. Her fingers aimlessly caressing at the edge of the yellowed bounty. Upon which in bold letters were written;

'jagged dagger' Lorean- 400,000,000 berries

'shard blade' Angella - 100,000,000 berries

'Mountain cutter' Fawkes- 150,000,000 berries