Summary: Working with what you have...

Chapter 22: A Bridge in the Middle of the Ocean?

Luffy's piercing whistle cut across the deck of the Discovery, easily gathering the attention of his crew. A few had been training, a few doing basic-but-needed tasks around the ship, and Nami and Nojiko had been chatting in the pilot house as the former sketched measurements on a nautical chart.

"Gather around, everyone! We're sailing into somewhat risky waters, so I need you all to know what's up!"

Given that Luffy had been gone half the morning, winging ahead of the ship in the form of a swift, that certainly got their attention. Within less than two minutes, everyone had gathered below him as he sat atop the pilot house, legs dangling over the edge. He'd already discovered that it made a good place to speak to everyone from on previous such occasions. He was easily visible this was and, so long as he was sitting, he didn't tower over them to the point they had to crane their necks much. Kuina, in keeping with her role as First Mate, spoke up for the crew as soon as everyone was together.

"What is it, Captain? Dangerous waters or enemies?"

Luffy raised a hand and made a so-so motion with it.

"Technically neither and a bit of both. Nami, would you care to enlighten everyone why this is one of the few parts of the East Blue you haven't mapped yet?"

Nami blinked, then shrugged as everyone turned to her.

"Because there's nothing up here. No major trade ports that I know of North of Kimate or west of Cozia. Good reason for that too, as it gets cold as fuck up here during the winter. Even during the summer, you occasionally get big icebergs that come down and threaten ships. I assumed that was one of the things you were scouting for?"

Luffy nodded.

"I was keeping an eye out, certainly. Though this time of year they are uncommon and I didn't spot any. What I was more directly checking on, however, were two specific locations we need to be wary of. One of those is a mid-sized island that used to be uninhabited, but currently serves as the anchorage for Don Kreig's fleet. That means, even if we avoid his island for now, we're more like to encounter his ships coming or going from this region."

That caught the clear interest of several members of the crew. While it was true hunting Krieg's ships was mostly serving as something to do while they both got used to handling the Discovery and working as a unit, it was still a matter of interest for exactly those reasons. Still, that was technically the lesser concern. They weren't actually on course for that island at the moment. Instead, Luffy had been guiding them toward the other danger in the Northen East Blue.

"The other danger is a lot more…problematic. There's a massive World Government project up here that isn't exactly common knowledge, despite having been ongoing for literally centuries. We'll be very carefully skirting around it as Nami charts the area…and discussing if we want to do anything about it."

Getting confused looks from everyone, Luffy sighed. Prior to this morning, he'd avoided looking too closely into this region. He'd confirmed years ago just, exactly, where Tequila Wolf was. But aside from confirming it existed, he'd stayed well the fuck away from it. Mostly because he knew almost nothing about it. He had no idea if the World Government was keeping an active, careful eye on the place, or if it was a half-forgotten project going on in the background mostly out of sheer momentum. While he seriously doubted there was anyone ranked above Commadore keeping an eye on the place, given its location in the East Blue, it's very possible some Grand Line level Captains or even an aforementioned Commadore rank might be doing so. It was, so far as Luffy remembered at least, a Celestial Dragon project. Which meant a certain level of security was to be expected.

"Discussing what we want to do about it? Why would we be wanting to do something about some remote world government project?"

Nojiko, looking suspicious, had cut to the heart of the matter. Luffy grimaced and bit the bullet on explaining.

"Because the construction project in question is being done using slave labor."

For just a second, it failed to process for all of them. After that initial moment of disbelief, the reactions were far more varied. Nami and Nojiko's eyes both narrowed, Kaya gasped in horror, Usopp hadn't gotten past the shocked phase, and Kuina and Zoro were stoic. Well, stoic and calm on the surface, at least. There was a bit of a tempest building behind Kuina's eyes, where Zoro's were much less emotional. That was…interesting, actually. He'd known for a while that Zoro's obsession with swordsmanship was more laser-focused than Kuina's. But this is the first time he'd seen so much of a distinct stronger reaction from her than him. Relating it to her own situation with her father, perhaps? Certainly, something of that sort was going on with Nami and Nojiko, both of whom were looking properly murderous.

"How certain are you?"

It was Kuina that asked the question. Her voice carrying a hard edge none of them had heard before, causing even Zoro to look at her with a bit of surprise. Luffy kept his own voice as even as he could in response.

"Before this morning? It was only speculation. But this time I risked getting close enough to confirm it with my falcon-form's eyes. It's possible at least some of them are criminals…but there were children among the population there, wearing the same numbered jumpsuits as the rest. And the guards weren't shy about whipping them along with the rest."

Nami and Nojiko were practically growling at that, and Kuina was gripping the hilt of Wado Ichimonji with white knuckles that betrayed her own lack of calm. Even Zoro's eyes had sharpened with sparks of anger at that reveal, and Luffy sighed as he realized they weren't any more willing to let it stand than he was. Part of him had hoped that they would balk at it, giving him a reason to at least think twice. This was so much greater of risk…even if slavery stoked his own rage almost beyond reason. He'd only remained quiet about Tequila Wolf so far as he'd been both uncertain about its status and a little leery of the strength they risked encountering there. He might be an idealist in many ways, but he was also a pragmatist, and knew that he wasn't yet able to stand on the same level as the true monsters of this world. Not yet.

"I think I already know the answer here. But who's in favor of doing something to help the slaves?"

Every single member of his crew raised their hands, even if Usopp's was shaking a bit. Luffy nodded.

"Alright. I suspected you'd all feel that way. But we need to be smart about this. There are, as near as I can tell, several thousand slaves there. And…well, you'll see the problem when we get close enough to see the place with a glass. That will be at least two hours from now, so everyone but Nami can go back to whatever you were doing. Nami? I need to discuss how to best do this without us getting spotted. We're going to need navigation charts for this area if we want to do anything at all…"

... ...

"That is a bridge."

"Yep."

"A giant bridge in the middle of Fuck Off Nowhere, East Blue."

Luffy snorted, then blinked in surprise at the comment, which had come from Kuina. His First Mate almost never cursed. In fact, Zoro was looking at her in complete astonishment…and a little pride. Weird, and he wasn't touching that with a 49-and-a-half-foot pole.

"Yep. Under construction by slave labor, at the bidding of the Celestial Dragons, for something like 700 years. No idea why."

Everyone was looking at him, gaping. And he shrugged.

"Like I said, no fucking clue. That's almost literally everything I know about it. Aside from a general headcount and such."

Nami shook off her surprise faster than the others and looked speculatively back through her spyglass. The things were cheap enough in his System Store that he'd bought a dozne fairly high-powered copies for the ship, better than could have been bought on most islands. Given the extreme range the Discovery's guns were capable of, he'd figured they were a good investment, even if it wasn't normal for a ship to have a full dozen of them on hand. Originally, he'd been stocking up on the idea that some of them would inevitably be lost and wouldn't be easy to replace without questions being asked. Since that hadn't happened yet, though, there were enough of them to go around that everyone could get a look at the bridge on the edge of the horizon simultaneously.

"The problem is how to move the slaves, isn't it?"

Nami's observation was spot on, as expected. Before he could say so, however, Kuina surprised him again by guessing the next part of his plan.

"And Kreig's Fleet is the solution. That's the real reason you wanted to go after such a low-bounty target. Isn't it?"

Luffy gaped for a moment, then snapped his jaw shut and nodded.

"How the fuck are we going to crew the ships, though? You can't tell me enough of the slaves are likely to know how to sail?"

The practical question had come from Zoro, surprisingly enough. Though the answer was awkward.

"Well…about that. We can't really handle this operation on our own. In fact, it would be better if we're never connected to it. Attacking a Celestial Dragon project is a one-way trip to attention we likely wouldn't survive just yet."

Nojiko lowered her own spyglass and glared at him.

"You said we would be doing something about this!"

Luffy held up a placating hand.

"We will. Kuina already hit the nail on the head with our part in it, though. As we continue to go after Kreig, I want to make a significant portion of his fleet disappear. With evidence that they were sunk alongside the rest. Maybe half his ships, including all of the larger vessels we can manage. His flagship alone could likely move 500 plus slaves, with a bit of crowding. Get enough of his larger vessels and that's a fleet able to move the thousands of slaves here with even a skeletal group of sailors. As for the sailors themselves…"

Luffy signed and took the plunge.

"I know how to get a message to the Revolutionary Army. We can't possibly man that many ships, or even corral so many panicked slaves. Let alone relocate and hide them. But, if provided a means to move them all? I've seen the Revolutionaries move nearly that many people once before. And if they could do it after the Grey Terminal fire, they can do it now too. At least if they have the ships. Back then they had to move people off Goa piecemeal."

Every single member of his crew was staring at him now. Finally, Zoro just shrugged.

"Okay. How do we get started?"

Several people face faulted and Nami yelled at Zoro a moment later.

"IS THAT ALL YOU HAVE TO SAY, SWORDS FOR BRAINS?! I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS!"

Luffy laughed as Nami's yelling set off the rest of the crew. He'd have to quiet them soon and get them focused on the logistics and execution questions. But, for now, things were going to plan...in so much as he actually had one, at least.

... ...

"There she is, Luffy stated calmly."

He'd shifted his eyes to falcon form, a trick that gave him something of a headache without doing the whole transformation. It meant he didn't need the spyglass Nami was using to peek at the opposition, though. His navigator nodded, humming some nameless tune as she assessed the ships he'd scouted out hours before. Personally, Luffy was just enjoying the way her breasts pressed into the back of his head as he kept them both up with Geppo.

"We're coming in right behind them, and your distance assessment was good. With some slight course changes, we'll be able to slide into range after nightfall nicely."

Luffy nodded, pleased the plan was working out. The trio of ships he'd spotted heading away from Don Krieg's island were a nearly ideal target for their current plans. One of the pirate fleet's four galleons, accompanied by a pair of brigantines that looked like they'd been modified more for loot hauling than fighting. They also had a single smaller sloop with them, out ahead for scouting. That one didn't interest them, even though they would need to deal with it. It was the larger ships that they wanted to capture. Which would be significantly more difficult than simply sinking them like they had the first such group they'd taken on.

"Okay, Luffy. I've seen enough. Let's head back down and plan."

Despite how pleasant certain bits of Nami's anatomy being pressed against him was, Luffy was glad for that. Holding up two people's weight with Geppo, and doing it in such a fashion that he kept Nami steady enough to use a spyglass properly, was exhausting even for him. With a quiet sigh of relief, he slowed his kicks and sank back toward the Discovery. The rest of the crew gave him plenty of space to land, and he only felt a tiny twinge of regret as Nami's warmth slid off his back. He shivered for just a moment as she brushed a kiss over the base of his neck as she went, though as she stepped around him to face the arc the rest of the crew as making on the deck, she was all business.

"Alright! It looks like we're good for the plan as it stands. We're almost perfectly on course already, and I'll make some quick adjustments in a minute. With the greater night-vision of Luffy's owl-eyes, we shouldn't have any trouble sliding right between one of Brigs and the Galleon in the dark. Pirates aren't exactly known for keeping great night-watches. After that…Captain? Kuina?"

Luffy nodded his thanks to Nami and took over.

"Kuina and Zoro, you'll be taking the Galleon. But not until Nami and Nojiko are already away to the Brigantine. The goal for both groups is to take any crew that's awake and on watch out as quickly and quietly as possible. As much as these men probably deserve it, we aren't assassins. So the follow up to taking out those on watch quickly will be to drop the sleeping gas Kaya and I worked on into the lower decks. The stuff isn't one hundred percent safe, but most of the crew dosed with it will live. Since we're after the ships, not bounties, we'll dump the sleeping men over in the ship's launches."

He paused a moment, waiting to see if Kuina and Zoro, their most honor-focused duo, would protest. Neither did, being pragmatists at core. If he'd suggested poison gas, he suspected they'd have protested and insisted on just challenging everyone. But since this was really just a way of sparing a bunch of small fry that weren't really 'worth fighting,' they weren't going to fight him on it. Good. Frankly, he'd have been uncomfortable with outright assassination too. Which is why he'd chosen this approach.

"Kaya and Usopp will be looking after the Discovery. I will be using my owl form to quickly move to the brigantine on the far side of the galleon and repeat the boarding action there. Remember, this isn't a do or die mission and Usopp will have the Discovery's guns ready to just sink either ship if you get in trouble. Zoro and Kaya, you can both Geppo at this point to pull back. And Nojiko you can get Nami and yourself clear with a crystal platform if you have to. Retreat if you need to, fight if you want to. Try to limit the damage to the ships. It's going to be a stone-cold bitch to move all of them as is, even if we aren't going very far."

That was the other reason this particular ambush was perfect. There was an uninhabited island not too far off the course the ships were already sailing that had a fairly well-concealed cove. Frankly, only the fact that the Discovery itself could be managed by a single person while operating on its engines was going to make it even remotely viable to sail three ships this size. Even with the relatively small distance they needed to cover. Even then, only the monstrous strength possessed by most of the crew made it even remotely plausible. The smallest of these ships should have had a minimum skeleton crew of a half dozen. The galleon at least twice that.

"Alright everyone, get some rest or make your final preparations. We'll be pulling in the sails in two hours to go in under pure engine power. I'll be topping up the engines while Nami makes our course corrections."

Nods and words of acknowledgement came from everyone as they split up…

... ...

There was no noise aboard the Discovery as they crept in under the cover of darkness. They were so close to the other vessels they could see the handful of lights each night shift was using to go about the minimum duties of a sleeping ship, and everyone knew how sound could carry randomly over water. Nami was still at the controls, ghosting the Discovery between the two target vessels with a skill that no one else could have matched.

Ships at sea, particularly at night, didn't sail in close company if the crews were remotely sane. Which these pirates were. That meant there was a half nautical mile or so between the two vessels, and Nami was aiming them roughly halfway between. Agonizing time passed as she got them into place and slowed their speed to match the sailing vessels…then handed the controls over to a nervous-looking Kaya.

All of them had gotten a bit of training with the Discovery by now, and all Kaya really needed to do was keep them it place. But she was also the least confident of them at doing so. Usopp was better and would still be aboard if he noticed her struggling. But his primary task at the moment was keeping the two guns tracked onto the enemy vessels. Luffy and he had carefully oiled the rails to make the shifting of the guns as quiet as possible, but they still didn't want to risk fine tuning the shots until all the boarders were away. Which meant Usopp would be busy for at least a few minutes once the action got started. Nami, satisfied with their position and Kaya's instructions, finally joined her sister. Who, in turn, was already forming a crystal platform for them to ride. A quick thumbs up to Luffy, the only one who could really see them all clearly at the moment, and he let out a soft bird call.

That was the signal to move, and Nojiko and Nami were off on the platform, skimming the waves. Kuina and Zoro would be faster, but were also likely to make more noise once combat started. So Luffy held his second call until he saw the two sisters slip aboard the Brigantine, unspotted by the watch. A second quite hoot got Kuina and Zoro hopping over the edge of ship, falling nearly to the waves before they caught themselves with Geppo and shot off at high-speed toward the Galleon. Seeing Usopp already moving to start final adjustment to the two guns now that the others were away, Luffy waited a few more heartbeats…then launched himself off the edge of the ship.

Owls aren't the fastest fliers in the world, but Luffy had quickly discovered that his proportional strength carried over to his animal forms, making them a lot more powerful then one might expect. He'd picked a Tawny Owl early on in his experiments with animal forms, specifically with the idea of using the form as a night scout. It paid dividends now as the species' insane low-light vision let him pick out the ships with great clarity despite the near-moonless night. Like most owls, the soft feathers of the species made him near-silent as well, and his increased strength over any natural bird had him quickly moving at a good sixty miles per hour. He reached the far Brigantine at almost the same time as Zoro and Kuina reached the Galleon as a result…and no one saw him board as he swooped in and transformed right behind the helmsman.

Not quite having the stomach for outright assassination, Luffy simply knocked the man out with a blow to the back of the neck. It was another case where Luffy was very glad for the tougher bodies of the One-Piece world, as the man was unlikely to any lasting damage…even if part of him knew he'd probably be saving more lives by outright killing him than this half-measure. Still, this wasn't a game, and that wasn't a line he or his crew were quite comfortable crossing. Nojiko, as the most ruthless of them where pirates were concerned, might have been. But she was the only one and was well aware her younger sister wouldn't be comfortable with it. Which had kept her from suggesting it, even when Luffy had been able to see that suggestion lingering in her eyes.

Well. It was what it was. And Luffy had no more trouble with the next three crewman than he did with the first. The final pair was standing together, facing each other. Which meant that one did see him coming…but he only managed a half-gurgle before choking as a strike took him in the throat. Not hard enough to kill him, but enough to silence him while Luffy put down the other and then simply brute forced his way through the choking man's weak guard to knock him out too. He secured these final two just as he had the others, then quickly moved to the stairs down to the berthing deck. A peek inside which showed a rather open configuration, with sleeping men in hammocks. Grinning, he armed and tossed in the sleeping gas canisters that he and Kaya created, before quickly backing off.

Moving to the ship's rail, he shifted to his owl form again, using its far greater hearing to assess what was going on elsewhere. There were sounds of fighting from the Galleon, but that honestly wasn't unexpected. There was a far larger crew over there, and Zoro and Kuina weren't naturally all that stealthy. He'd already tied the wheel of this ship in place. So, once he was sure the gas had worked, he'd head to the Galleon to make sure they were fine. Not that he honestly expected they would be overwhelmed. Numbers meant little with pirates so weak, against fighters of Zoro and Kuina's level. He was honestly more worried about Nami and Nojiko…but they had an emergency flare and it hadn't gone off. Presumably, they were fine. Given that Nami was by far the most stealthy out of all of them, he was hoping those two wouldn't need to fight anymore than he had…

Five minutes later, he risked the hold, holding his breath as he checked for anyone awake. There were none and he quickly took off to check on the rest of his crew. Kuina and Zoro had wrapped up…though they'd ended up killing about a third of the crew of the Galleon. Unfortunate in a way, but honestly not exactly something to cry over, given just what type of pirate they were dealing with. He moved on to the other Brigantine to discover that Nami and Nojiko had already started setting sleeping sailors adrift. Chuckling that they'd actually been the most efficient team, he quickly gave the all clear to everyone else and went back to manage his own ship.

That, unfortunately, had probably been the easy part. Wrestling three ships of this size with so few of them to go around was going to be irritating as hell. Even in the calm waters of the East Blue. And he still needed to fly out ahead and chase down that scout sloop to drop a few 'unlucky' lighting bolts on, too…

... ... ... ... ...

A/N: So...Tequila Wolf was a stone cold bitch to find ANY information on. As such, details like its location are largely guesswork on my part. Though my guesswork seems to line up with other people's as well. I also felt that dealing with it was something Luffy would want to do...and it served as a bit of a catalyst for another East Blue adventure. That said, forgive me if I got anything about it wrong, as it was hard to find anything definitive about it at all...