"Still alive!" Usopp touched his own head, looking around in a complete daze.
The same thought crossed every crew member's mind, and they all let out sighs of relief.
"Row! Quickly! This isn't the time to just sit around being grateful we're breathing!" Zoro reacted the fastest, already grabbing for an oar.
But before anyone else could respond to his command, their situation went from bad to worse.
The cannon blast that had failed to slow their descent had accomplished something else, it had gotten massive whale's attention. The whale opened his mouth wide. An endless torrent of seawater rushed in.
The Going Merry, along with her entire crew, was swallowed up.
Everything went dark in an instant, as if someone had suddenly turned off the sun.
"Huh? Did it turn to night already?" Luffy asked, displaying his maxed out ability to ask the most obvious yet unhelpful questions at the worst possible moments.
He'd just emerged from the cannon room at the ship's bow, still covered in gunpowder residue.
Nami, looking utterly drained and sporting several new bruises from the crash, wailed weakly, "We've been eaten."
"Who got eaten?"
"WE DID!"
"Oh, you guys got eaten? Well, that's really bad for you!"
Of course, that earned him a solid punch to the head from Nami. "I mean ALL OF US! We've been eaten by that whale!"
As they bickered noisily, because being swallowed alive wasn't enough to stop their usual antics, a light appeared ahead of them.
Soon, the entire crew found themselves staring at blue skies, white clouds, and what appeared to be a small floating island in the middle of this bizarre "ocean."
"Is this heaven? Are we already dead?" Usopp stared blankly at the scene before them.
The sight was so surreal that for a moment, nobody could process what they were seeing. They were clearly inside a whale, yet somehow there was sky above them and what looked like a peaceful island scene.
Kira spread her wings and took off directly into the air, hoping to get a better view of their surroundings and maybe figure out how they could escape.
But she crashed into the ceiling almost immediately, much to everyone's surprise.
"What the hell?!"
"This is... painted on?" Kira touched the soft wall above them.
Just then, the calm was shattered as a gigantic squid burst out of the waters below them. The creature was massive, easily the size of a small ship.
But before the crew could even begin to panic about this new threat, iron hooks fired from the small island, piercing the giant squid. The creature was hauled in like it was nothing more than a regular catch.
Marcus felt confused by this development. He'd been expecting changes. After all, he should have caused some ripple effects in this world by now. At minimum, there should be a day or two of difference in timing, right?
Yet here they were, the Merry's ram had broken off, and this giant squid had appeared right in front of them.
In the next moment, Crocus stepped out of the small hut on the island.
With his dead-fish expression, he stared at the Straw Hats for a long moment, then sat down in a lounge chair and opened a newspaper.
The crew just stood there, staring at him.
Then came a rumbling as Laboon began ramming into the Red Line again.
Crocus sighed, put down his newspaper, and prepared to go inject a sedative into the whale to calm him down. But on his way, Miss Wednesday and Mr. 9 took advantage of the moment when Crocus opened a small hatch to access Laboon's interior. They attempted to ambush and take him hostage.
It was a stupid plan.
The result? Neither of the Baroque Works agents was any match for him. With a single move each, he grabbed both attackers and threw them directly into the whale's stomach waters.
"He is seriously strong!" Usopp, watching through his telescope, was the first to spot this development. "Wait... those two are swimming toward us?"
"What should we do?"
He turned around, only to see that Sanji had already lowered the rope ladder.
"Hey! You don't even know if they're good or bad, and you're just letting them climb aboard?" Usopp was startled by Sanji's action.
But Sanji, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, replied, "How could I possibly leave such a beautiful lady to die?"
"Perverted cook," Zoro muttered under his breath.
"Huh? What did you say, moss-head?!"
The two immediately started bickering.
Soon enough, the pair climbed aboard the Going Merry, dripping with whale stomach juices and looking thoroughly shaken.
"Scared me half to death, I thought I was done for," Mr. 9 said, wiping sweat from his forehead along with less pleasant fluids.
This was their first time inside a whale's stomach, and they'd expected the digestive acids to be immediately lethal. The fact that they'd survived even a few minutes in that environment suggested that Laboon's stomach wasn't quite as dangerous as a normal whale's would be.
Miss Wednesday, still trembling from the experience, nodded in agreement.
But when they looked up from their relief, they found the entire Straw Hat crew staring at them.
Mr. 9 immediately put on a flattering smile.
"Gentlemen and ladies, we can't thank you enough for saving our lives. Without your assistance, we would have perished in that sea of stomach acid."
"Thank you so much," Miss Wednesday added gratefully.
"Why did you attack that old man?" Luffy asked.
Mr. 9 launched into a long story about how the island's residents were constantly terrorized by the whale's violent behavior, and how the old man exploited and extorted the local population in various ways, using his position as the whale's caretaker to demand tribute and protection money.
"So he really is a bad guy then!"
"That sounds totally made up, Luffy!" Usopp quickly exposed the falsehood, having told enough tall tales in his life to recognize one when he saw it.
"Yeah, that lie is way too clumsy," Alvida shook her head. "If that old man were really as evil as you claim, you two would already be fish food. The fact that you're alive suggests he showed you mercy."
She'd heard far too many lies and deceptions during her years as a pirate captain to be fooled by something this obvious.
"Huh? So you two are the bad guys?" Luffy looked at them in disbelief.
Miss Wednesday sighed and elbowed her partner. "Mr. 9, I told you, that cover story wouldn't fool anyone."
But Mr. 9 looked puzzled. "I thought the story was great. Where exactly was the flaw in my logic?"
"You ARE bad guys!" Luffy shouted, having reached his conclusion through his own reasoning process.
Zoro, finally losing patience, spoke up. "Enough, Luffy. Mr. 9... that codename gives you away. You're from Baroque Works, aren't you?"
"Who are you? How do you know the name of our organization?!" Mr. 9 was shocked, then suddenly focused on Zoro. "Ah... I remember now! You're that infamous bounty from the East Blue, Roronoa Zoro! Our organization tried to recruit you once, but you cut down Mr. 10 and Miss Tuesday!"
Zoro spread his hands. "Don't make it sound like I killed them. They're alive and well. Last I heard, they were recovering in some hospital back in East Blue."
"Zoro, you know these people?" Nami asked curiously.
"Sort of. It was just before I met Luffy. I was broke and about to hunt down a couple of pirates to earn some food money when these two showed up. They tried to recruit me into Baroque Works. I refused, but they kept insisting. So finally I told them: fine, I'll join, but only if I can be the boss. They didn't like that and attacked me."
"So what exactly does this organization do?"
"From what I remember, it's some kind of bounty hunter guild. Members get certain perks and support..." Zoro thought for a moment, clearly having paid minimal attention to the recruitment pitch, and was already forgetting the specifics.
"You can access better information about pirate movements, purchase superior weapons through the organization's network, and if you become an officer, you even get your own logistics team!" Mr. 9 explained eagerly, apparently proud of the benefits package.
"Right, that's it. But the most important requirement was that you had to follow the organization's orders without question. That's why I refused, I don't work for other people," Zoro recalled.
"Sounds like a regular bounty hunter association."
Still, Nami was surprised. She hadn't expected an organization from the Grand Line to have influence reaching all the way back to the East Blue.
Alvida rubbed her chin. "Now that you mention it, I think I also ran into a few bounty hunters who claimed to be with Baroque Works. I didn't really pay attention and just beat the hell out of them. They shouted something about revenge as they ran away."
Marcus listened with a strange feeling. Wait... wasn't Baroque Works supposed to be a criminal organization in the original story?
The more he heard, the more it sounded like they were actually some kind of law enforcement group.
He was speechless. The original story was one thing, but reality was apparently something completely different.
After all, bounty hunters, at worst, were still people who targeted criminals. Their prey were pirates, wanted criminals with prices on their heads. Claiming to be on the side of justice wasn't entirely unreasonable for people in that line of work.
And in this era, pirates like Luffy who sailed purely for the sake of adventure and freedom were extremely rare. Most pirates were exactly the kind of violent criminals that bounty hunters were supposed to stop.
Miss Wednesday nudged Mr. 9 with her elbow and pointed upward with her chin.
Above them, a pirate flag was clearly visible, flying proudly from the Going Merry's mast.
Mr. 9 froze when he realized what she was indicating.
His expression changed dramatically. He had just claimed to be a bounty hunter, and here he was, face-to-face with a pirate crew.
"Hahahaha, we're actually not really Baroque Works members at all. We're just ordinary people passing through, not even bounty hunters," Mr. 9 forced out a laugh, though his hands were already moving to a more aggressive position. "Miss Wednesday..."
In an instant, he swung a rocket launcher from his back and aimed it at the Straw Hats on the deck.
But before he could fire a single shot, both he and Miss Wednesday received solid knocks to their heads.
The one who struck them was Zoro, moving faster than either agent could react.
"Your lies are pathetic," he said dismissively.
Sanji, however, looked at Miss Wednesday with concern and pity. "Hey, moss-head, when you're dealing with a lady, couldn't you be a little more gentle?"
He immediately went to fetch the ship's medical kit to tend to her injury.