124 Forces begin to gather

Shanks groaned as he shook his head, trying to shake off the effects of the previous day's partying. Lucky Roux had put on a masterful party, with a whole collection of well-made and refined fried cousine.

The Red hair flag waved vigorously in the wind as he chuckled. With a slight shake of his head he walked off the expansive deck, walking towards one of the few bodies that wasn't passed out cold.

With bow he looked over at the mustached figure before him. "Oi, Hawkeye hell of a party wasn't it!" He exclaimed as he sat on a crate next to the stoic swordsmen.

"Ugh, red hair.. All this alcohol shall be the end of you I swear.." Mihawk groaned as he slapped his hand onto his pale forehead. His sword Yoru rested silently at his side, while his golden yellow eyes closed in annoyance.

One of the strongest Swordsmen in the world was currently flummoxed. On one hand, if he stayed here, he would be able to get a lot of action paced spars, but on the other, he would have to deal with the red hair pirate's in all their foolhardy glory. Tough decision.

"Don't be like that Hawkeye it's not like you have anything else to do.." Shanks began to whine, as he tossed back a bottle of ale that he got from god knows where.

"Quite, Red hair." Mihawk chided as he slowly opened his eyes. He with a sharp gaze he looked over to the small patch of land that he had encountered Shank's crew on. In the shadows of the copse of trees that dotted the sandy beach a glimmering figure could be seen walking purposefully.

As Mihawk laid his eyes on the incoming figure he could not help but relax. The fall of a warlord had had him on edge. Especially if the ones behind Doflamingo's death was the one that he was thinking about.

He had had his fair share of battles with that rabid beast and didn't much want to face off against the suicidal menace.

However, things were not as they seemed. For the lonesome figure of Ben Beckman, that would at most times bring out feelings of relief within Mihawk as the only other sane person in Shank's vicinity, his somber expression was anything but.

He silently made his way onto the deck, overstepping Lucky's snoring sack like body and made his way up to his captain. As he did, a small smirk began to appear on his scarred face, the cigar in his mouth waving a silent smoky trail in the air.

This was it. Dracule decided, when Ben adopted the feral grin that he currently had on, he was more than likely to urge his captain into doing something infinitely crazier than anything the red haired blockhead could ever manage to do on his own.

"Red hair, I'm leaving!" He yelped out as he hastily got off the crate that he had been sitting on. Then with a strong heave he jumped off the ship landing on his rickety boat. Within seconds he had begun rowing away furiously.

"Nothing too serious captain, I think I just found us a new set of Rivals-in-the-making. What say you, we go visit 'em?" He asked with a cheerful chuckle as he handed over a fairly new paper. Throughout it all his cigar danced, smoke raising in happy little clouds to the sky.

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

I sighed in annoyance as I looked at the bounty poster in front of me. Marco and Terrick had left me alone to go back to their own thing after a few minutes of probing glances, Terrick wasting away his seventh bottle of rum (this was the number that I had personally counted to after I had come to the tavern) as he obnoxiously betted against his crewmates.

Marco had resigned to the corner accompanied only by a small collection of pirates as they played poker amongst themselves. He would shoot a few glances over at me from time to time, in what he thought was a stealthy manner, turning back to his cards after a few seconds of cautious staring.

This was not the thing that had me annoyed unfortunately. Oh no, I was annoyed for a completely different reason altogether. It was because of the image on my bounty poster. I wasn't complaining about the print of the picture as much as I was with the angle that the camera man had decided accentuated my looks.

On the paper I could be seen with a derpy smile as I slept on the deck of our ship, bare chested, and with a collection of scribbles on my face, curtsey of the kid doctor that I had had the misfortune of sleeping near.

I mean think about it, the first debut into the world, and I appeared like a two bit comedian that doubled up as a mime!

And so here I was, neglecting my food in favor of the more raunchy drink that I was drinking away almost as liberally as the fatass extrovert in the center.

"Hey! Now that I think about it, what is the great 'jagged dagger' doing on such a small island?" the afore mentioned fatass in the center queered.

I shot him a look as I abandoned my drink, "Got into the new world, and the only thing we had on us was a log pose. So we ran in the direction that it pointed us towards and here we are." I said as succulently as possible. Turning back around to my still steaming food as soon as I was finished.

"Another thing!" the bartender brought up croakily, the pressure in the room ramping up as everyone in the room looked over at me.

"It says on here that you killed a lot of innocent civilians on Rubeck island. What's that about?" he asked, though his phrasing sounded crass, his tone was nonetheless polite, so I decided to answer him.

"Hmm, Rubeck. Oh that island. Well we came upon that island and it basically turned out to be a rat's nest of every single kind of lowlife you could think off, save for a certain kind of bubble wearing freak.

Some idiot decided to try mugging us on ship, (here I could not help but grin in fond memory) while another decided to try sell off a crew mate of ours.

So as current company would provide, we slashed and burned. Honestly man, since your catering to the whitebeards, you need to be used to the kind of smear shit that those blowhards in the marine push out their ass.." I grumbled, the room rapidly de pressurizing as the scanty few judged me safe enough to stop staring at.

The bar tender offered me a apologetic smile as he bowed slightly, a rag in his hand as he went back to cleaning up his bar top.

With a loud thump the door opened once again, this time to reveal the crew's only responsible influence. With a small sack of what I would wager was books stood the spectacled Angella. And she looked worried….