Chapter 19 - ฿ounties

Marine HQ.

In a large meeting room sat the Fleet Admiral Sengoku, the three Admirals Kizaru(Borsalino), Aokiji(Kuzan), and Akainu(Sakazuki). There were also many Vice Admirals as well including Tsuru and Garp who had returned to HQ a few days ago with a cast on his arm.

"So, we're all in agreement about the bounties for the Black Heart Pirates?" Brannew asked the room.

*Crunch*

Brannew was the marine officer in charge of assigning bounties to criminals. "*Sigh* I can't believe these children will have such high bounties," Tsuru said while shaking her head.

*Crunch*

"The average bounty from the East blue is 3 million, but almost every member of this crew has a bounty way over that~," Kizaru added in his trademark slow tone.

*Crunch*

"Hmmm whatever happened to those white-haired bounty hunters from that sea. They were effective enough to almost wipe out piracy in the East and South blue's, I'm sure they could take down these pirates considering how strong they were." Aokiji said as he thought back to the time, he had met the Winter Solders in the South blue.

At the time Aokiji was on assignment and coincidentally met them at a marine base while they were turning in a bounty. He was curious to know why his boss wanted them to join the marines so badly. So, he asked them each for a spar which was accepted. During the spars Aokiji found out his opponents were able to fight equally with him without using a devil fruit, not knowing they were holding back. After the fights, Aokiji asked them if they wanted to join the marines and even told them that with their strength they were guaranteed high ranks, which of course was declined, immediately followed by the Winter Soldiers disappearing in front of him before he could attempt to persuade them.

*Crunch*

"We don't need bounty hunters to the job of the marines! I will find this pirate sc.u.m and deliver absolute justice to them personally." Akainu said loudly. He was about to stand up and leave but before he could, Sengoku stopped him.

"No, you will not! You already have an assignment to re-capture that idiot Caesar Clown before he does god-knows-what. He worked for Vegapunk for years and knows too many of the secrets of the marines. Do you understand?!"

"Hmph. Yes sir." Akainu replied in annoyance. He wanted to rid the world of pirates through what he considered "justice", he didn't care about finding some mad scientist, but unfortunately for him, orders were orders.

*Crunch*

"Sigh* Meeting adjourned, all of you back to work," Sengoku said. Everyone then left the hall except for Sengoku and Garp.

*Crunch*

"DAMMIT GARP STOP EATING SO LOUDLY!" Sengoku yelled at Garp who was noisily eating rice crackers.

"It's a good thing you didn't let Akainu's go after them, because if he had met those kids, then he'd be a dead man," Garp said as he stopped eating for a moment.

'Hmmm, what to do about them-' Sengoku was in the middle of a thought when 'it' happened again.

*CRUNCH!*

"GARP!!"

----

It's been a day since the crew left the baratie and they were now only a few hours out from their final stop in the East Blue, Loguetown. Right now, the Death Rider's A. I had the ship on auto-pilot, and most of the crew was on the deck doing their own thing. Nojiko was lying down on a lawn chair and getting a tan, Nami was tending to her tangerine tree, Koby was in his room playing video games that his captain had introduced to him, Zoro and Kuina were in the ship's training room getting their assess handed to them by Erza in a spar, and finally, Miles was sitting by the front of the ship with his eyes closed, enjoying the ocean breeze.

As the ship sailed the waters of the sea, a news coo flew over and dropped a newspaper down towards Miles. Before the paper hit him, he opened his eyes and caught it while sitting up. He opened the folded paper and saw the headlined which gave him a huge grin. "NEW SUPER ROOKIES THE BLACK HEART PIRATES APPEAR IN THE EAST BLUE". Miles started reading through the article and were surprised by how detailed it was. It was followed almost everything the crew had done in the east blue up to this point, even Mihawk's defeat at the hands of Kuina and Zoro.

'They must have got the info about Mihawk from one of the escaped Krieg Pirates.' Miles thought. Of course, the article did omit a few things like what happened in orange town and Garp's loss at the hands of Miles.

If it was a normal vice-admiral they probably wouldn't have cared as much, but this was the Marine hero Garp who "defeated" the King of the Pirates. The marines and the world government wouldn't let their reputation take a hit because of this loss. As for what happened in orange town, the only people there other than The Black Heart Pirates were Buggy, his two goons, and the mayor. The mayor wasn't there during the time Koby fought Buggy, so he didn't know what happened, and Buggy sure as hell wasn't going to let anyone, let alone the marines know about the humiliation he went through. After Miles finished reading the article, he turned the page and seven wanted posters fell out.

----

WANTED

"Blackheart" Miller D. Miles

DEAD OR ALIVE ฿1,250,000,000

WANTED

"Glacier Blade" Roronoa Kuina

DEAD OR ALIVE ฿800,000,000

....

WANTED

"Inferno Ashura" Roronoa Zoro

DEAD OR ALIVE ฿800,000,000

....

WANTED

"Azure Archer" Nojiko Miller

DEAD OR ALIVE ฿500,000,000

....

WANTED

"Crimson Armoury" Erza Scarlet

DEAD OR ALIVE ฿400,000,000

....

WANTED

"Weather Witch" Nami Miller

DEAD OR ALIVE ฿350,000,000

WANTED

Koby

DEAD OR ALIVE ฿1,000,000

----

After seeing the wanted posters, Miles called the crew and showed them all their posters.

"Why is my bounty so low!?" Koby exclaimed after seeing his pathetically low bounty in comparison to everybody else's.

"Probably because no one has ever seen you fight. Look, they don't even have the right picture of you." Zoro said. The pictures on the posters were taken from the security den den mushi at the shells town marine base. Koby looked very different now compared to the picture on his wanted poster. The only resemblance Koby had with his poster was the hair colour.

As the crew were talking about their wanted posters, the voice of Jarvis, the Death Rider's A.I. came over the intercom. [We are approaching Loguetown. We will arrive in 5 minutes.]

When the crew heard that, they all looked over to the horizon where they saw the polestar islands, the location of Loguetown.

Loguetown, the place is known as "the beginning town of the beginning and the end". The reason for this is because this town was where the former Pirate King was born, and also where he was executed.

In an office of the Loguetown marine base sat a white-haired man with brown eyes and two cigars in his mouth. He wears a large thick white and blue specialist marine jacket which he keeps open, with greenish fur lining the neck, wrists, and hem. The jacket bears the word justice on the back of it like most other marine officer coats. This man is known as "Smoker the White Hunter", Captain of Loguetown marine base. Smoker has a reputation of not letting any pirates escape from the island and has had that reputation for many years, not being broken to this day.

As he sat in his office, he read the newspaper about the new super crew in the east blue.

'What makes them so special that headquarters made their bounties so high?' Smoker asked himself as he looked at the bounty posters of the Black Heart Pirates. As he continued reading the paper, one of the bases petty officers came into his office to make a report.

"Sir, we've spotted the jolly roger of the Black Heart Pirates on the horizon, they should be arriving here in a few minutes, what do we do?!" the petty officer said in a tone that showed his panic.

"Calm down marine, they are just pirates. It doesn't matter how high there bounties are if they come to my town they will not be leaving." Smoker said arrogantly.

"Call in everyone I want them ready for anything and find Tashigi." Smoker ordered. He had no idea how truly strong the Black Heart Pirates were, but when he found out he would be in for a rude awakening.

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