The deck of the Going Merry was a scene of utter confusion. The crew was safe, floating at the base of Reverse Mountain.
The grumpy-but-helpful doctor, Crocus, was explaining the tragic story of the whale, Laboon. And stuck to Laboon's head like two very flamboyant, very confused barnacles were Miss Wednesday and Mr. 9.
Ben's Sticking Charm held them fast, their feet super-glued to the whale's tough, scarred hide.
"GET... ME... OFF... THIS... WHALE!" Mr. 9 roared, wildly swinging his bat at the air. He was trying to look intimidating, but since he was also doing an involuntary split, he just looked like a very angry, very pink starfish.
Crocus, who was now leaning against the Merrys' railing, looked up at them with his trademark expression of boredom.
"Ah, them," he grunted. "They're from Whiskey Peak. They show up every few weeks, full of... ambition. They try to harpoon the whale, but they fail. I patch up Laboon, and they leave. If they successfully acquire whale meat, their town can eat for 2 or 3 years."
The Straw Hats, to a person, went quiet.
But Ben, his mind ever-whirring, saw an opportunity. Not for empathy, but for chaos.
"Hold on," Ben said, his voice thoughtful. He pushed himself off the mast, his white hair catching the spray from Laboon's blowhole. The crew turned to him, expecting a magical solution.
Instead, Ben Apparated.
With a soft, near-silent POP, he vanished from the Merry and reappeared directly in front of the two stuck agents on Laboon's head.
Miss Wednesday and Mr. 9 screamed like frightened birds.
"Where did he come from?!"
Ben, however, ignored him. He walked straight past the man in the green suit and stopped, inches away from Miss Wednesday. He was silent. He just... looked.
Miss Wednesday, who was already in a high-stress situation, began to sweat. Very badly.
Ben put his hands on his hips. He circled her, inspecting her from all angles, as if she were a piece of modern art he couldn't quite decipher. He leaned in close.
"I know you," Ben stated, his voice flat.
Miss Wednesday's heart stopped.
Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no! her mind screamed. He knows! He must have seen a newspaper! The World Conference! The pictures of the Alabasta royal family! My cover is blown! If he tells them I'm Princess Vivi, my entire mission to expose Crocodile is... It's over!
She forced a shaky, high-pitched laugh. "I... I don't think so, Sir! I have a very... common face! We've definitely never met!"
"No, no..." Ben insisted, walking back to face her. He leaned in uncomfortably close, his glowing blue eyes scanning her face. "I... I definitely know you. That hair... those eyes... the way you're sweating profusely and lying to me..."
The crew on the Merry was watching with rapt attention.
"What's Ben doing?" Luffy asked, picking his nose.
"He's... interrogating her?" Nami whispered, confused.
Sanji was already scowling, his hands deep in his pockets. "He'd better not be harassing that mademoiselle, even if she is a whale-killer..."
Vivi was about to faint from the stress. "I'm telling you, you're mistaken!"
Ben suddenly snapped his fingers, a look of pure, enlightened, horrifying realization spreading across his face. The entire crew leaned in, waiting for the big reveal. Was she a famous bounty? A Marine? A long-lost sister?
"I remember now!" Ben declared, his voice ringing out across the water. "Aren't you the one who stole my first time when I got drunk in a tavern?!"
The world... stopped.
A seagull, flying overhead, seemed to freeze and fall out of the sky. Laboon let out a low, confused gurgle. Mr. 9 stopped struggling, his brain completely short-circuiting.
The crew of the Going Merry had, to put it mildly, a varied reaction.
Luffy just tilted his head, his expression one of profound, bottomless confusion. "First time? First time what? Stealing? Is that bad? Nami steals from us all the time. Did she take your meat?"
Usopp's jaw unhinged. His eyes bulged so far out of his head they nearly detached from his skull. A single, high-pitched, tea-kettle-whistle sound escaped his lips before he just stammered, "EEEEHHHHH?!"
Zoro, who had been half-asleep, just grunted. "Hmph. Pathetic." It was impossible to tell if he was referring to Ben, Miss Wednesday, or the concept of "first times" in general.
Nami's face, in a fraction of a second, went from pale to pink, to a shade of red so deep it rivaled the Red Line itself. She didn't say a word. She just acted. She spun on her heel, and with a haki-like (but not Haki) fury, WHACKED Ben on the back of his head. "BE SERIOUS, YOU PERVERTED WIZARD! THIS IS A CRISIS! STOP TALKING ABOUT YOUR... THAT!"
But the greatest reaction... the purest reaction... was from Sanji.
He had been standing at the railing, a look of mild annoyance on his face. When Ben said the line, Sanji froze. The cigarette, held elegantly between his fingers, dropped from his hand, tumbling in slow motion into the sea.
His world was shattered.
His heart, which he had so readily offered, broke into a million, culinary-themed pieces.
"...Ben...?" he whispered, his voice a fragile, broken thing. "And... that... beautiful, mysterious, blue-haired mademoiselle... they... they...?"
A single, dramatic tear traced its way down his cheek.
Then, his entire body ignited in a column of pure, chivalrous rage.
"YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU..." Sanji's roar was a thing of legend, his face a mask of demonic fury. "WIZARD BASTARD!"
Vivi, for her part, had just finished processing the accusation. Her face was a similar shade of nuclear-red to Nami's, but it was from pure, unadulterated, outraged embarrassment.
"I HAVE NEVER!" she shrieked, her voice cracking. "I WOULD NEVER! I DON'T EVEN KNOW YOU! I HAVE NEVER... DONE THAT... WITH ANYONE!"
Sanji had Ben by the collar, shaking him so hard the wizard's teeth rattled.
"APOLOGIZE!" Sanji screamed, his eyes now literal fireballs. "APOLOGIZE TO THIS PURE, INNOCENT LADY! APOLOGIZE FOR YOUR LEWD, UNFOUNDED, AND UTTERLY HEARTBREAKING ACCUSATIONS! A LADY'S HONOR IS NOT A PUNCHLINE, YOU... YOU... CASANOVA-WANNABE!"
Ben, holding back a hurricane of laughter, raised his hands in surrender.
"My mistake! My mistake!" he choked out, trying to look sincere. "I am so sorry, Miss Wednesday! You just look... exactly like the girl who... well, never mind. A thousand apologies!"
Ben winked at her, a single, devastatingly smug wink. Vivi looked like she was about to spontaneously combust.
This, Ben thought, wiping a tear of pure joy from his eye, is even more fun than the anime. Being a main character is the best.
---
This entire, deeply dysfunctional soap opera was interrupted by the sound of the world ending.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The entire whale shuddered. Laboon had, once again, slammed his massive, scarred head into the unyielding rock of the Red Line.
The shockwave sent everyone sprawling. Sanji, Ben, Vivi, and Mr. 9 were tossed around like dice. The Merry was nearly capsized.
"LABOON!" Crocus roared, his voice filled with a desperate, painful plea. "STOP! STOP IT! YOU'LL ONLY HURT YOURSELF! PLEASE, MY FRIEND... STOP!"
But Laboon, lost in his grief and his fifty-year-old promise, just moaned, his great body tensing to strike again.
Luffy, who had been pushed to the deck of the Merry, stood up. He wasn't laughing. He wasn't confused. His straw hat shadowed his eyes, his fists clenched. He looked at the whale's massive head, covered in scars, fresh blood welling from the new wound. He looked at Crocus, a man trapped in a whale's stomach, trying to save his friend from his own hope.
He ran.
He sprinted across the Merry's deck, leaped onto the railing, and with a force that shocked everyone, jumped onto Laboon's back.
"LUFFY, GET BACK HERE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Nami screamed.
Luffy didn't listen. He ran up the massive, sloping, blue-skinned back. He ran until he was on the very top of Laboon's head, standing right over the fresh, bleeding wound.
"This... hurts, doesn't it?" Luffy said, his voice quiet, directed at the whale. "But you won't stop. Because you're stubborn. And... so am I!"
The crew watched in stunned silence. What was he going to do? Talk to it?
Luffy bit his thumb.
"What's he doing now?" Usopp whispered.
"Is he... picking a fight?" Sanji breathed.
"GEAR... THIRD!"
Ben's eyes went wide. Huh, looks like he figured it out, I only gave him a hint!
Luffy blew into his thumb.
"GOMU GOMU NO..."
"HE'S GOING TO PUNCH THE WHALE!" Nami shrieked in despair.
"...GIA-GANT... PISTOL!"
Luffy swung. The punch, the size of a small house, connected directly with Laboon's scarred head.
THHHWWOOOOOOM!
The sound was deafening. Laboon was rocked by the force, his entire body shuddering, his roar of surprise and pain echoing off the Red Line.
And then, the air hissed out.
Psssssssssssssshhhhhhhh...
Luffy's arm deflated. And then, so did the rest of him. He shrank, and shrank, and shrank, until he was a tiny, chibi-Luffy, squeaking like a bath toy.
"Shishishi..." he squeaked, his voice high-pitched and weak. He then fell over, completely exhausted.
Ben noted with a wince, stuck in that form. He wasn't in control of the drawback.
Laboon, now furious, turned his massive, angry eye toward the tiny, squeaky figure that had just assaulted him.
"LUFFY! HE'S GOING TO EAT YOU! AND YOU'RE AN APPETIZER NOW!" Usopp screamed.
Laboon roared—a jet of water and air from his blowhole that blasted Chibi-Luffy off his head, sending him flying like a tiny, rubbery cannonball back toward the Merry.
"Got him!" Ben said, sighing, as a gentle Arresto Momentum caught the tiny captain, who landed in a heap on the deck.
Luffy popped back up, still tiny, and shook his fist, which was the size of a grape.
"NOW WE'RE EVEN!" he squeaked, his voice cracking. "You hit me! I hit you! The match is a DRAW!"
Laboon, Crocus, Ben, and the entire crew just... stared at this ridiculous, tiny, indomitable child.
"We're rivals now, whale!" Luffy continued, his squeaky voice full of power. "Our fight isn't over yet; we'll have to settle things later. Your friends might be dead, but I'll always be your rival! One day, we'll settle this and see who is stronger! Once we conquer the Grand Line, and when we come back, we're gonna have another fight! So you have to wait! And we'll have our fight and decide who is the strongest!"
Laboon's eyes welled up with massive tears. But it wasn't a sad tear. It was... happy.
The whale let out a long, high, joyful cry that echoed across the sea.
Crocus was stunned. A genuine, crinkly, unfamiliar smile broke his severe face. "He... in fifty years... that idiot. He just... solved it. He gave him a new promise."
Luffy, still tiny, nodded. "Right! But you're stubborn. You might forget."
He looked at the Merry. "USOPP! BEN! GIMME PAINT! LOTS OF IT!"
Ben, sighing, Accio'd several barrels of black paint from the cargo hold.
"I'm enabling this, aren't I?" he muttered.
Luffy grabbed a mop, and he landed back on Laboon's head.
He got to work.
And he painted the worst, most crude, most lopsided, most artistically offensive Straw Hat Jolly Roger imaginable, right over Laboon's scarred dome. It was terrible. It was perfect.
"There!" Chibi-Luffy squeaked, putting his tiny hands on his hips. "That's our mark! It's our promise! Don't you dare scratch my flag, whale! We'll be back!"
Laboon cried, happy tears streaming down his face, and let out another triumphant roar.
On the deck, Nami was dabbing her eyes. Sanji was lighting a cigarette, his face soft. Zoro was smirking.
Ben just leaned on the rail, laughing to himself. He looked at Miss Wednesday and Mr. 9, still stuck and now completely bewildered.
"Well," Ben said, "that's one problem solved. Now... what to do with our other two barnacles?"