One Piece – Halfway Broken

Warning, chapters 118-120 were all posted back-to-back! Returning Readers make sure you pick up where you left off!

Chapter 120: Visiting the Amazons

Luffy idly spun a random Resonator Crystal, something that Nojiko had thankfully eventually managed to crack how to grow, on his fingertip as he stared at his System Map. They’d left Hightide behind the day previously, on their way to Amazon Lily for their planned joint training, yet he was already thinking a few steps ahead. Yes, he still wanted to visit the Torino Kingdom, but beyond that he was a bit…stumped, in a way.

No, stumped wasn’t the right word.

Indecisive. That was better.

The truth of the matter was that his crew had honestly collected almost too many tools with which to grow already. They all had access to Haki, and every single one of them had some project or other that really just needed more time and training. Whether that be the two different-yet-similar sword styles that Kuina and Zoro were solidifying, superior mastery of their Devil Fruits that Nojiko, Brook, Hina, Yamato, Perona and Robin were pursuing, or refinement of new skills and technology that some of the others were working into their kit.

Truth be told, the only two he wasn’t entirely happy with just yet were Vivi and Chopper, and even they were both making major strides. Vivi was exploring new ways to use her Air Doors, while Chopper was at least trying to follow up on Luffy’s suggestion not to rely on his rumble balls for more forms. Heck, some of his crew like Kaya, Brook and Nami were arguably overwhelmed with options at this point. Which was not the problem he’d expected to have.

Which was where the indecisiveness came from, of course. The truth was that they didn’t really need more powerups, so much as they needed to refine what they already had. The stop at Hightide and the fight against the Giant Guardian had, if anything, confirmed that decisively. The biggest gains in that fight had been people like Kuina and Zoro solidifying gains via combat experience, rather than working out anything new.

Which was what brought him to his current conundrum.

Was it even still the right move to hunt down random islands and look for new tricks? Or would they honestly be better served just…looking for fights. Technically, that would just be reverting to type, in a way. He had started the crew as bounty hunters, after all. Even if that wasn’t exactly on the table any longer, given all of them were a bit too infamous at this point to turn in a bounty. Nor would doing so and the information getting out to ‘other pirates’ that they had exactly be great for their building reputation.

A reputation he’d realized back on Fishman Island was more important than he’d originally cared to admit. Back when they’d first been labeled pirates, he’d kinda just shrugged and done his best to throw dual middle fingers at the concept. Yet, now, he’d come to realize that he’d unintentionally built a power base off of being a powerful pirate. Like it or not, that’s what the Yonko were, proof that being a powerful enough pirate was a sort of legitimacy on the world stage. The only type readily available to him, at that.

Sighing and realizing the System didn’t have an answer to this particular problem, he figured he had probably ought to bring it up to at least his girls for advice. He suspected all of them would be in favor of continuing to go new places, rather than just hunkering down somewhere to train. But exactly what sort of places they focused on traveling to might need to shift. Perhaps reaching out to contacts and finding pirate crews that needed elimination? There weren’t very many ‘challenges’ left in Paradise, on the System Map, and he wasn’t sure if they should move into the New World just yet.

Then again, there was nothing saying they couldn’t. He’d been mentally stuck on the idea of not doing so mostly because the original crew had taken the full two years to get stronger. With their current strength, though, did that even make sense? If they avoided the Yonko, the New World might just be the place to find the sort of challenges they needed at this point, after all. Staying in Paradise might actively be hurting their growth. All while also not doing great things for a reputation that was suddenly more important.

Groaning in frustration, he solidified the idea of asking for advice. Robin and Nami would likely have good perspectives…and he should probably pull Kuina into it too. Not to mention that they were headed to Amazon Lily, and Hancock was sure to have a better feel for just what the New World was like at the moment. The Kuja didn’t hang out there as much as most crews of their strength did, but they did regularly make trips there, aided by their ability to traverse the Calm Belts.

Right. No point in worrying about it until he gathered some advice. Besides, they did still have the Torino Kingdom to visit. That stop, at least, he was sure of, since he knew Chopper had found useful knowledge there for Zoan users in the original timeline…

… … …

“Captain! We should be coming into sight of Amazon Lily’s lookouts in a few minutes!”

Luffy blinked at Nami’s call, having gotten distracted with drafting blueprints for a shield generator he hoped to install on the Discovery. Quickly casting about with his Observation Haki, pointing it mostly down, he was quick to determine there wasn’t anything big below them. That wasn’t too much of a surprise, honestly. The incredibly poisonous/venomous sea-serpents that the Kuja used to pull and protect their ships were native to the part of the Calm Belt Amazon Lily resided in. At least, they were now. He had no idea if that had been the case originally or if the Kuja breeding them had caused it.

Either way, the effect was the same. Sea Kings, even the giant ones of the Calm Belts, tended to avoid the waters immediately around Amazon Lily. Still, he’d needed to check, since they were still hiding a trick or two, even from their allies. Less out of any desire to deceive, and more out of the principle that ‘Two people can keep a secret…if one of them is dead.’ For that reason, they’d been flying low, barely twenty meters over the water. Far enough up not to be easily detected by something below the ocean surface, but not high enough to attract attention too far out from the island. Now that he’d checked they were in the clear, though…

“Bring us down, Navigator! Then take us in the rest of the way to the visitor’s dock, as planned.”

Nami nodded and used the extra controls he’d added to control altitude, sending her reply idly over her shoulder in his general direction.

“Aye, aye, Captain. You might want to have Vivi get on the Mushi and warn them we’re almost there, too.”

Luffy nodded at that. Travel times on the Grand Line, even in Paradise and even more in the Calm Belts, were normally nebulous. That honestly wasn’t nearly so much the case for them, the Discovery’s abilities and Nami’s mastery of weather having put them largely beyond the usual issues in this half of the Line. Yet the Amazon’s didn’t truly understand that yet, so their ‘arrival time’ would be thought of by the locals as more a span of ‘anytime over these several days,’ rather than exact. Calling ahead while maybe still an hour out at a leisurely pace was only polite.

Getting up, Luffy yawned and stretched a bit, having been hunched over one of the worktables in the back of the pilot house. Carefully storing his design away, he made his way out onto the deck, catching Vivi practicing with a new version of her Peakcock Slashers. She was trialing a new set that used Tonal Tech, but wasn’t sure yet if they were better than the Crystal-and-Dial enhanced ones she’d been using previously. Personally, Luffy thought the probably weren’t, but might have niche uses. Waiting until she finished her current set of test strikes, he called out when she finished.

“Vivi! We’re on approach to Amazon Lily. Call ahead to them with the Mushi, would you?”

Turning to face him, she smiled as she processed that, following the smile with a rough salute.

“On it, Captain!”

Chuckling at Nami having rubbed off on her, he let her pass him, then started gathering the rest of the crew. Best make sure everyone was presentable and remembered the rules for how to behave on Amazon Lily…

… … …

Luffy was impressed and wouldn’t have minded in the slightest admitting as much to anyone who’d asked. As they’d sailed closer to the island, he’d gotten a good look at some of the defenses that the Empress had ordered added to her domain. He could see why it had taken this long to arrange for the first true ‘joint-training,’ given just how much work they’d obviously done. Strong the Kuja might universally be, but they didn’t have a huge population, and the stonework alone must have taken months without crippling their regular operations. Doubly so since they were sending trainers to Alabasta semi-regularly as well.

The most obvious new addition were the towers.

Luffy didn’t know what had caused it, but Amazon Lily had a ring of large hills/small mountains which surrounded the much larger central mountain and its ludicrously oversized snake statues. Given they were all more or less flat-topped and fairly evenly distributed, he somehow didn’t think those ‘hills’ were any more natural than the statues were. Still, natural or not, the Kuja had cut and hauled enough stone to the top of every single one of them to erect watchtower/cannon ramparts of considerable size on each hill.

Given he could just make out the tips of the guns he and Pagaya had designed poking out of those towers? Well, anyone trying to bring a fleet anywhere remotely close to Amazon Lily was going to be in for a world of pain. He’d started with the deck gun design he’d originally used for the Discovery, scaled it up, then added dials for good measure. The resulting guns were effectively the sort of coastal artillery pieces used to defend major ports in World War II on his original world…only with even more power, a faster firing rate, and elemental ammunition. All based on the technology trades they’d made to Amazon Lily and the industrial capacity of the Alabastian Alliance to actually produce the guns.

By their best estimate, those guns had an effective firing range of nearly twenty miles.

Better yet, the hilltop position actually gave them enough line of sight to hit things at that sort of distance. It was so ludicrously far outside the range of even the largest Marine Battleships that any fleet trying to approach Amazon Lily was going to pay a horrible, bloody toll, just to make landfall. So much so that Luffy doubted the Marines could honestly muster enough seastone coated ships to pay the price. Making the only real way to take the island being to send high level officers to wipe out those emplacements. Which would, in turn, let the defenders engage those officers without the support of their henchmen and ships.

If they’d done what he’d suggested, the towers even had mirrors that could be raised to prevent Borsalino from just bombarding them with light. It would let him travel to them, yes. But the watchtowers even higher up, on the snake statues, meant they should have warning enough to bring in heavy weight fighters of their own to cover the emplacements. If they could force the Marines or WG to fight only with the likes of Admirals, Amazon Lily could theoretically call on enough similar level fighters from Alabasta, Fishman Island, and his own crew to make that fight a seriously dicey proposition.

Nor, he was sure, was it the only new defense they’d added. To be honest, even he, and even with the massive advantage of the Discovery, wouldn’t really want to test this island now. Not without an incredibly good reason. If the powers that be wanted Amazon Lily, the price they would have to pay for it might well be just as terrible as what they’d paid at Marineford to finally bring down Whitebeard…

… … …

“I am pleased to see you made good time to Amazon Lily. My Kuja had been looking forward to this ‘joint-training’ idea for some time. Though I am less certain it is for the reasons we originally agreed to it for.”

Luffy’s lips twitched at the dry exasperation in Boa Hancock’s voice. He wasn’t sure if she’d displayed a sense of humor before they’d met her. But the more she’d relaxed around his crew, at least, the more she’d also displayed a delightfully dry sense of humor more and more frequently. One that was all the more effective due to how opposed it was to the ‘over the top’ narcissistic personality she displayed much of the time. A personality he’d grown increasingly convinced was mostly persona. A means to both amplify and make use of her Devil Fruit, rather than core to her true thoughts and emotions.

He was glad of it, as it made her much easier to work with than he’d expected.

She also, of course, wasn’t wrong. The very moment his crew had docked, the local Kuja, the ones that weren’t part of the pirate crew, had immediately gone a bit nuts piling on the ‘interesting outsiders.’ It had happened before, to a lesser extent, but Luffy had to admit he was surprised to see it happening more dramatically this time, rather than less.

“Haven’t you been sending Kuja trainers to Alabasta? Why are they so…”

Luffy gestured wordlessly at the crowd of Kuja, who were swarming his crew with questions and offers. Hancock sighed and actually outright pinched the bridge of her nose, as if dealing with a sudden migraine.

“That is the problem. Before, even the Kuja Pirates tended to have minimal exposure to outsiders. Loot from ships we raided, yes. But very little legitimate discussion or cultural contamination. The groups training the Alabasta military on the other hand, have been exposed to a broad spectrum of new everything. Clothes, literature, food, ideas in general. If it weren’t for the fact its actually eliminating some odd problems, I might have put a stop to it.”

Luffy blinked. Odd problems? His face must have shown his confusion, even if he wasn’t sure he should voice it, as Hancock snorted and explained. Honestly, she sounded like she wanted to explain to someone and he just happened to be a convenient non-local.

“Kuja have some…non-standard traits. For reasons no one understands, emotions from those born on the island tend to run to dangerous extremes. All are taught to control and suppress that, but if something gets through that suppression, it can legitimately make us ill. As in, seriously endanger our lives ill, not just depression or something of the sort. I and the Elders noticed quickly that those who spent time in Alabasta are leveling out somehow. That leveling out is a half-known thing, and part of why the Pirates exist, as the stronger the Kuja the more dramatic the problem. So sending off all the strongest on sea voyages…”

Hancock trailed off, and Luffy nodded.

“It acted as a pressure relief valve? Preventing the most likely to have problems from having them by getting them away from the island for a bit?”

The Empress nodded back.

“Exactly. We’d never realized that whatever is happening spreads, though. When someone ‘levels out’ away from the island and return, they apparently help the others who remain behind somehow. We don’t understand it, but its now observable with the number of warriors cycling through training.”

Huh. That…Luffy wasn’t sure what to do with that. It almost had to be something spiritual, and he was absolutely going to mention it to Kaya. Some sort of passive effect an artifact on the island was causing? Why would an artifact do that? Well, he couldn’t exactly go poking around the Isle of Women himself, so he’d have to let Kaya investigate if she was interested.

“Of course, with them also bringing all sorts of stories back, now the rest of the Kuja are interested. The fact that your entire crew are strong, and thus attractive, only makes them more prone to swarming you. Hopefully we don’t get any cases of Love Sickness.”

Luffy…decided not to say anything to that. Apparently emotional sicknesses were real on this island, rather than something an author played for laughs and drama. So, better just keep his mouth firmly shut on that topic unless something came up. Instead, he directed the conversation toward how they should run the upcoming joint-exercises. They’d only made the vaguest of vague plans when they’d first come up with the idea, so some brainstorming was needed to figure out just what the joint-training was even going to consist of.

Frankly, Hancock seemed relieved for the change in subject to, so that had probably been the right choice…

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

A/N 1: So, Luffy's thoughts kinda mirror my own. Originally I envisioned needing more islands for them all to pick up powerups from. Truth be told, though, I managed to work enough developments for the extended crew into the islands they've already hit that I appear to have been wrong about that. Kaya and Pagaya have picked up upgrades all along, Nojiko is being tutored by Neethrax, Kuina learned what she needed to on Asuka, really. Even Perona and Hina have really already hit their required revelations and just need to refine what they've figured out. As such, I'll likely be pivoting a bit to give them more combat and scenes that show them solidifying what they already have.

A/N 2: There is some seriously unexplained weirdness going on with Amazon Lily. This chapter included some setup for a few of the characters (not Luffy in this case) to explore that weirdness in the next update. It's another case of me trying to create an underlying reasoning for some of the weird shit in One Piece that goes unexplained and barely remarked upon.

A/N 3: Hey everyone! Most of you should know that I have a for Early Access chapters (find the link for it in my profile, or just search 'Novus's Fanfiction Works' in your browser of choice). I'm currently updating four stories a month, with 20,000 words each, plus at least one 10,000 word extra. One Piece: Halfway Broken is updated twice every month, so there are always 20,000 words of content in Early Access. That said, none of my fanfiction work is permanently paywalled. Support is appreciated, but it will make its way here and elsewhere eventually if you're patient :-).