A Joke
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One Piece: Desperate
🕑 Added 2021-06-14 06:07:25 +0000 UTCChapter 28
Title: Assassin's Creed...
…
In a well-furnished office, I looked at the man with blue hair in front of me seriously. This guy was someone I could count on to do a good job.
"I want the best wood for my ship," I got straight to the point. "Price won't be an issue. Though I would like to keep it under two billion Beri."
He looked a little surprised at the budget, well confiscating wealth from pirates is super profitable. No matter what people might say about this morally.
It's not like I cared what other people said about it. They wouldn't even know what I was doing, after all, who would care if a pirate got his treasure stolen?
"Do you want anything special about the ship?" Asked Iceburg.
I thought a little about it. What would I want in a ship?
"Can you make it go underwater?" I asked.
This would help in case of an escape and allow Devil Fruit users to go under the water.
"Also a training room with weights that can go as high as you can make them. Without interfering with ship navigation."
….
I made many requests that seemed possible to me. It was surprising how much they could do. Especially with a theoretically limitless budget.
True, the Marines could fix and modify my ship slightly. They would do so for free. But none of them could compare to the upgrade that I was about to give here.
*sigh* If only Vegapunk had enough time to modify the ship of someone like me. Sadly my marine rank was too low for something like that.
…
A whole week passed by uneventfully. There were four CP9 agents nearby and the whole thing was boring as hell.
I now had more appreciation for their dedication. Hell, it got boring for me just watching them do their jobs.
Blueno did his job vigorously as a bartender and even listened to his drunk customer's story. Kalifa was good at paperwork and Lucci and Kaku were just hard-working people. If I didn't have this future knowledge about the story, I would never have been able to tell these guys were spies.
And I was one of his 'drunk' customers too.
"So… yeah… *hicc* so my mind. Uhh, like why do my subordinates trust me so much? I mean there isn't anything that I have done that could be considered trustworthy."
Blueno looked at me with a thoughtful look as he cleaned some glasses. "Well, have you done anything to earn their distrust?"
My mind went back to killing Amelia, but I dismissed such a thought. No one knew what I had done, killing my savior and all that. But it didn't matter, since even something like that wouldn't ruin my reputation.
"No, not really," was my final answer as I leaned my head on the counter.
Then the bar's door opened and I saw Kaku and his square long nose come in. He looked at me and smiled. "Hi, nice to meet you. My name is Kaku. Have to say, working on your ship has been quite exciting. It will probably be the best ship that has ever left Water 7."
Yeah, I doubt that. Roger's ship was also made here, and I knew just how good a Pirate King's ship could be. Because while mine would be good, amazing in comparison to most water vessels out there. But Iceburg will never make me the same ship Franky made. The weapons in it, he would never make something like that for someone like me who works for the Marines and World Government.
Well, I could understand where he was coming from. His teacher was killed by the World Government and his best friend maimed so hard he had to become a Cyborg. Also, Government Agents bother him every now and then about his Ancient Weapon Blueprints.
"I am Max…" I answered sleepily, putting all my act on this drunk persona. "Wanna join my crew? I heard you were strong."
"Hmm…" Kakku seemed to think about it. Obviously a fake contemplation, since I knew he has work here-
"Sure, I will join," came his answer. For a split second that shocked me.
What?! Why?! Did his superiors tell him to spy on me? This was suspicious as hell!
And what scared me, even more, was the way he acted. I couldn't read the man at all, well, I could read him, but there was no way he felt excited to go on a journey with me! He hid his feelings from me too well.
Damn, this was one of those times where I understood just how useful my future knowledge was.
I could refuse him right now, and to not break his cover he would have to take that refusal and go with it. He wouldn't even have forced himself in the marines, because that would be too out of character for the happy-go-lucky persona that he had built.
Still though, with this, I learned many things. First, the government is keeping an eye on me. Why would Kaku accept my proposal otherwise? He has a mission here, so that meant that he had an agenda against me. Still, since I now know that he was a spy, this could be used to my advantage.
Better have a spy that I know of than one I don't know. Plus this whole acting, and how good they were at it unnerved me. Usually, I was good at reading people, or at least telling when they were hiding something. After all, humans instinctively act differently when they have something to hide. But training your whole life to infiltrate seems to offset that. It's creepy just how natural they were at it.
"Sure, *hicc* you can join!" I yelled out at Kaku. "Let's go and destroy pirate scum together. Blueno! You can come too!"
At the mention, Blueno sweated a little. "Uhhh… I have a bar to run, and-"
"Say no more!" I declared, suddenly standing up and putting my foot down on the table. "You are coming with me or no one is!"
"No, I think you misunderstand. As long as you have a bar in the ship then I am willing to come up with you too." Said Blueno with a rare smile on his face.
There it was again, that creepy natural way that he responded. As if he wasn't a superhuman assassin on a mission. Even I wasn't this good of a liar, and I was good… really good at lying. Yet I was jealous of how good they are.
"Hell yeah!" I yelled out. "I am gonna become King of The Pirates!"
"Hahaha, calm down captain. Remember, you are a marine," said Kaku awkwardly with a nervous laugh.
But I had the chance to act deranged because I was 'drunk'. There is no way in hell I was going to let this opportunity go. "I am going to find the One Piece!"
I could feel the other customers in the bar looking at me strangely, and then gazing at my Marine Captain coat.
"Okay, you have had enough to drink," Blueno intervened and tried to take away the booze bottle in my hand. But he was failing miserably.
"You are strong for a drunk guy."
"Hehehe, I have unlocked the power of being drunk!" He sighed at my yell.
"I am already starting to regret joining you."
But it wasn't over as I put my arm over Kaku's shoulder and tugged him in. "C'mon now men! We are going on the adventure of a lifetime. Also, I am paying for everyone's drinks today!"
That earned him a shout of joy from the other customers.
...
*******
Max acted like a drunk fool for over four hours before Raynare came and picked him up. Due to his ruckus, Blueno had to close the bar down for the night as some of the customers started getting rowdy.
Kaku told everyone that he felt bad for Blueno so he will stay behind to help him clean up.
When the bad was empty Blueno looked at Kaku's shoulder and frowned. "It's dislocated, isn't it?
Kaku winced at that and touched his shoulder. "Yeah… when he tugged me in his drunken stupor. Also, it's not dislocated, it is broken."
Blueno looked at him with a nervous look on his face and Kaku reciprocated. "Yeah… at first I might have been off guard. But the split second the tug got too hard I instinctively used <Tekkai>... this guy is a monster. His physical strength is off the charts."
The bull-looking man nodded. "Yeah… we need to be careful. If we get caught, then escaping with our lives would be problematic. Even with my Devil Fruit in the picture. In case that the mission goes haywire, and he grabs ahold of any of your limbs… cut the limb off."
Kaku nodded. "Yeah, I understand."
If they used the Door-Door Fruit to escape and Max got ahold of one of them. Then better cut off the limb than lose their heads.
….
A/N: Max doesn't trust Kaku and Blueno, but he would rather have spies that he knew about than some unknown ones that he doesn't know. This way he could at least fake his image and even deceive the World Government.
