One Piece : Safety second

Hansen was lost in thought as he stood at the dock of Rocky road and watched the anchored ships.

"Uh, what are we doing here?"

Interrupted from his thoughts, Hansen looked to the side and saw a swollen face. Recognizing him as the new member in their group, Hansen turned back to the dock.

"We need to get ourselves a ship to go back. Tsk, that bastard."

Cursing Spike once more, Hansen got lost in his thoughts again.

*********

Hansen was looking at Tom, who had fallen unconscious as he noticed Freddy approaching him. As he turned around to face him, Hansen saw Freddy ordering his people to take away Tom. 

Though he was not completely fine with that, Hansen decided to ignore it and asked,

"Your Majesty, since the issue has been dealt with, why don't we get back to what we were discussing earlier?"

"..You must be joking, right? The situation is over? There are still ingrates outside who are causing a ruckus, and it seems they all came here for you."

"Tha-"

"Enough. Go back and wait till I call for you."

Hansen got angry at the dismissive tone Freddy was taking towards him. He decided to let his displeasure be known and started glaring at Freddy.

It seemed to have the opposite effect than he intended, as the old ruler sneered.

"What? Are you angry? What can you do about it?"

"You-"

"I can only tolerate so much disrespect, boy. This is my last warning if you want to safely return. Go back and stay still till I call for you."

"Are you threatening me? It seems you're forgetting who I'm representing here."

"No, you are the one that has forgotten where you are. This is my land, and it is very simple for me to just fabricate a story."

With no way of knowing whether Freddy was serious in his threat, Hansen decided to take a step back.

"I hope we can reach an agreement the next time we meet."

"Hmm, we'll have to see."

"...."

**********

Hansen still remembered the way Freddy looked at him as he left. Gritting his teeth, he started cursing Spike again.

"Ahhh! That bastard! Why'd he have to take everything with him!? Hey! Does it make any sense?!"

"N-No, sir!"

Looking at the startled knight, Hansen took a deep breath to calm himself down and looked at the log pose on his wrist.

'Should I be happy that I have this at least? Nothing's gone right since I arrived on this island. Why'd that bastard have to take away everything? He didn't even leave a den-den mushi.'

Letting out a sigh, Hansen reaffirmed himself to make sure that Spike gets punished when he gets back and then come back to Bedrock Island.

'That Freddy, I don't know if he was bluffing or serious, but I'll make sure that he'll regret it.'

Turning his attention back to the dock, Hansen looked around one final time before saying,

"Let's go."

**********

Under Freddy's castle there was a dungeon. It was where he kept most of the people that ended up committing crimes on his land.

In one of the cells, Tom was laid out with a dumb smile on his face, seemingly having a good dream.

"Nyahaha, that's right. I'm awesome. Now give me all of your treasure."

He wasn't alone in his cell, as Jerry was sitting beside him. Looking at his captain talk in his sleep, Jerry let out a wide smile as he took out a sketch pen. As he got to work on the canvas that was his captain's face, Tom slowly woke up.

Feeling someone scribbling on his face, Tom did not even have to look to know that it was Jerry. Wondering why he lets the kid tag along with him, Tom grabbed Jerry's hand and sat up.

"O-oh, Tom-san, you woke up? Hihi, I wasn't doing anything by the way."

Ignoring Jerry, who was shamelessly lying, Tom looked around. 

"Is this a cell?"

"That's right. They put you here right after you lost again. The others are still up there though. I don't know why."

Tom's eyes twitched when he heard Jerry state that he had lost again. The mental jab included with the art that the boy was trying to make earlier was enough to push Tom over the edge.

"I thought to myself to never use this. Blame yourself."

"Eh?"

Jerry was confused at what Tom said but soon understood when he saw him take out a fly swatter. 

"N-No! Why do you have that?!"

It was an item that he recognized very easily. Back at the orphanage, Mamy was very ruthless in punishing Tom but not so much when it came to Jerry. She could handle most of his pranks and just brush them off, but even she had a limit. The swatter was the item she took out when she reached it.

"N-No! Let me go!"

Ignoring the cries of his vice captain, Tom pulled him and laid the boy on top of his knees, belly down. 

"Hieeek!!"

**********

In the throne room of his castle, Freddy sat on top of his throne as one of his subordinates whispered something to him. After he finished hearing everything, Freddy scoffed.

'That little kid wanted to stronghand me into doing something? I hope he learned his lesson now.'

Dismissing his subordinate, Freddy fell into thought.

'Hmm, I wonder if they reached out to any other nearby islands? It won't hurt to find out. The whole situation is weird.'

Fatare was an island that Freddy had trade relations with in the past, but that all changed a few decades back when the island suddenly shut its gates. 

'It would only take a few weeks for Hansen to reach Fatare. Enough time for me to probe around.'

"How long are we supposed to just stand here?"

Snapping out of his thoughts, Freddy looked at the person that just spoke. Standing with his arms folded, Tyke was staring down Freddy in his own throne room.

'Damn pirate. None of them have any respect whatsoever.'

"Are you dissatisfied, pirate?"

"Yes."

"Haha, what can you do about it?"

"...."

Seeing him go silent, Freddy looked at the other two, a woman and a pink-haired lad. The woman was who he was most interested in, not because of her beauty but because of the power she demonstrated.

"I'm telling this for your own good. We don't have any business here anymore. If you let us go, we'll simply leave the island."

Freddy looked at the audacious pirate who was looking at his log pose and scoffed. He felt no threat from them, as the only dangerous woman was already shackled in sea stones. 

Attributing the hole in his castle to the woman, Freddy never considered the others as a threat because they had surrendered very easily, and though he had not seen the fight between Hansen and Tom, he thought that the pirate was not much of a threat because he was defeated too quickly.

"Take them away and lock them together with that blue-haired pirate."

As the soldiers tried to grab onto them, they were momentarily scared by Tyke, who glared at them. They did not have to drag them away, as the three easily complied and started walking to the door led by Tyke. While exiting the throne room, Tyke turned to Freddy and said,

"Let's hope you still have your castle at the end of the day."

Freddy scowled at Tyke as the latter went out of his sight and decided to take care of them after he finished having his lunch. He did hope he could get the woman to work for him .

**********

Tyke, Yuuki and Della were led underground, where they entered a dungeon. The guards who were guiding them looked a bit surprised at how well-behaved the inmates were. They soon reached the cell where Tom was.

Tyke looked at Tom, who was groping around the iron bars that held him before he noticed them. As Tom let out a smile after seeing them, Tyke observed that his captain was not shackled. 

Letting out a sigh, Tyke wondered whether the castle would stay up at the end of the day as his captain had a fondness for blowing things up.

__________

Author's note : Happy New Year, folks! I'll see you a couple of months later then.

Nah, I'm kidding. I have a rough outline for the upcoming chapters. So I don't think there'll be too big of a gap this time.