156 First meeting

A small snort escaped Marco as he walked through the forest, in front of us walked a small gaggle of men. At their very head was a fairly average red haired man with three small scars on his left eye and a goofy smile on his face.

He wore a dull black overcoat covering within a drab floral patterned shirt. A red ribbon-ed straw hat on his head.

"Marco!" he called out with a voice dripping with glee, guffawing a little when the pineapple headed man took on a troubled expression.

"What d'ya want Shanks?" Marco asked, his face the very picture of diplomacy as he nodded to the man's crew in politeness.

"Eh, just came around to get away from the overall storm that the old hag and the drunk beast decided to stir up... From here, we'll probably leave the New World for a bit, the crew's started to feel a little homesick," he answered as he flung his hand over Marco's shoulders.

"Why here specifically Shanks? Is this going to be another spiel where you attempt to convince me to look out for people in my crew?" Marco asked with a slightly frustrated expression as he led the procession forward.

As the men walked forward, one of them from Shank's right approached me pushing out his hand in a sign of greeting. His hand was calloused as a derpy smile adorned his face. Sandy hair fell all around his head contrasting with the swirly blue shirt that he wore.

"You're the new guy eh?" he asked as he smiled at me.

"So it seems. Lorean." I answered shaking his hand as I introduced myself.

"I'm Yasopp!" he called out enthusiastically before flinging his hands over my shoulder as Shanks did to Marco.

I wouldn't say the man's outgoing nature made me uncomfortable as much as the abruptness of it all. Luckily, for me, one of Shank's men quickly gripped onto Yasopp's shoulder manually dragging him back to their side.

"I'm Ben Beckmen and the big man's Shanks. Welcome to the New World" he called out behind his back as he shot me a predatory grin.

"Don't try to intimidate the guy, Ben. He took on old Garp and managed to survive!" Marco quipped quickly coming to my side as he courteously led the band of pirates into town.

Shanks shot me an impressed look as he whistled. "That old relic? How'dya survive? He packs a mean wallop from what I've seen" Shanks said, grinning in satisfaction as Marco led the group into the Town's tavern.

"The old goat was scary, no denying it, but he isn't particularly gunned towards surprise attacks, and he does the worst against speed types," I answered as I began to mingle into the group.

"Fair..." the older captain decided as he took a deep swig out of his bottle before flopping on one of the seats at the desk.

"Get one of the barrels" Marco dryly informed the bar tender as he settled next to the captain, barely acknowledging the nod that he received from the tubby man behind the counter.

Speaking of the tubby gentleman with some classy goggles, he reminded me a lot of Sorren, the same round face and overenthusiastic tone. Of all the New World pirates, if I were to bet on who I thought the little fatty's father was, I would no doubt vote this man into that position.

"So, newbie. How's the New World treating you?" Shanks asked in all of his glorious enthusiasm.

"Worse than a spiky dildo to the butt" I reported to the man briefly glancing over at him.

"Dahahaha! That's a staple around here!" he said chuckling to himself as he took a deep drag off of the huge mug that he had in hand.

Ben looked at me from the other side of the room. "So, what about you're crew? Where are they?" he asked as he let out a massive smoke ring leave his mouth.

"Angella's trying to haggle the book keeper, and Fawkes is out on Marco's ship. The rest didn't particularly have a good week here" I answered as I turned back around to look at Shanks.

"Enough about me, mister Red hair captain... I'm pretty much as curious as Marco here, what are you doing on Sphinx?" I asked leisurely sipping out of a tankard that had been delivered to me a few moments prior.

"Eh, apart from the little stuff that I wanted to talk to Marco about, I'm here for you, kid. When the crew heard that someone took out that flamingo bastard all the way in North blue, they almost immediately wanted to have ya on. So, what d'ya say? Wanna join my crew?" the future emperor asked, as all the noise in the tavern reduced to a maddening crawl.

I looked at him with some measure of mirth in my eyes before shaking my head, the only reason I had not immediately burst out into laughter was to save the poor man some measure of reputation, it seemed that that was not going to work though.

With a childlike pout the older captain winded down his eyes slightly downcast. "Why not?" he whined as Ben chuckled.

"This is the second time Cap'ns been rejected like that! The first time was Hawkeye!" Ben supplied gleefully as he snatched a small stack of bills from a equally bummed out Yasopp.

I simply shrugged my shoulders at him before grinning.

"A toast to that pathetic attempt!" I called out as the room went all but silent. The older pirate's crew stared at me as if judging my position in that tavern. Then as if placed in a domino, the room burst into laughter, the first one to do it being the fat man that sat beside me.

Just like that, I felt immediately more comfortable with this rag tag crew of misfits.