Chapter 89: The Great Alabastan Colon Cleansing and Other Disasters
(POV: Portgas D. Ace)
I've survived the Whitebeard Pirates' hazing rituals. I've survived the Grand Line's mood swings. I've even survived my own goddamn narcolepsy. But waking up on the Going Merry in the middle of the night after a "power nap" that felt like a decade? That was the beginning of the end.
My stomach didn't just growl; it let out a sound like a dying Sea King. I was starving. I'm always starving, but this was different. My hand fumbled in the dark, searching for any scrap of food the girls or that blonde cook might have left behind. My fingers brushed against something small, dried, and wrinkled.
I didn't think. I just ate it.
Big mistake. Huge.
The second that thing hit my tongue, I realized it wasn't a normal chili. It tasted like it had been grown in the heart of a sun that hated me personally. It wasn't just heat; it was a localized breach of reality. My eyes didn't just water; they felt like they were going to melt out of my skull.
"Motherfucker," I wheezed, my throat closing up.
My entire life didn't just flash before my eyes; it performed a synchronized swimming routine. Every bad decision I'd ever made led to this moment—eating a pepper that clearly belonged to a god with a twisted sense of humor. Then, the internal sirens started. My digestive tract decided it was done with me. It was over. The evacuation order had been issued.
I scrambled toward the guest bathroom Sunny had "upgraded." I burst inside, sweating buckets, and stopped dead.
"What the hell is this?" I hissed, clutching my stomach.
There was no bucket. There was no simple hole. Instead, there was a throne of gleaming white porcelain, surrounded by a spiderweb of weighted pipes, buttons that looked like they belonged on a Marine battleship, and a manual the size of a phone book dangling from a chain.
I squinted at the first page. 'Zero-Gravity Waste Management System: A Guide for the Spatially Conscious Pirate.'
There was a diagram of a suction pipe. A suction pipe.
"I am not letting a machine play tug-of-war with my dignity," I growled.
Another cramp hit me, sharper than a Vista sword-strike. I looked at the pipes, then at the manual, then at the window. I wasn't doing it. I didn't care how "efficient" Sunny and that ship thought they were. I was a Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates. I had standards.
I threw myself out the porthole, hit the dock in a dead sprint, and didn't stop until I found a hotel with a normal, primitive, beautiful toilet.
The next morning, I was a ghost of a man. I sat on the edge of the hotel bed, my ribs bruised from the sheer effort of surviving the night, and my hatred for Sunny reached a new, crystalline level of purity. That "Cutest Pirate" brat was doing this on purpose. He was trying to kill me with "innovation."
I dragged my sorry ass back toward the docks, muttering every curse word I'd learned from Thatch, when I saw her.
A woman was lurking near the Merry's gangplank. She was tall—unnervingly tall—and dressed in garments so tight I wondered how she managed to breathe, let alone sneak around. She had "suspicious" written all over her, even if she was, objectively speaking, the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen outside of a bounty poster.
"Hey!" I barked, my voice still raspy from the chili. "Who are you? What are you doing near my sister's ship?"
She didn't flinch. She turned slowly, her long black hair whipping around like a silk cape. She looked at me like I was something she'd found on the bottom of her shoe.
"I have an important message for the one they call Sunny," she said, her voice dripping with a regal arrogance that made my fire-haki itch. "It is a matter of global security. Stand aside, fire-man."
"Fire-man? I'm Ace," I snapped. I didn't believe her for a second. She smelled like perfume and lies. "And Sunny isn't here. He's... doing whatever pretty boys do in the morning."
Before I could interrogate her further, the Merry started to hum. Then the clouds started to gather. Not normal clouds—solid, fluffy things that looked like they were made of cotton candy. The ship started to lift.
"Oh, no you don't!" I yelled.
I didn't have time to deal with the mystery lady. I ignited my legs, the flames roaring as I propelled myself into the air to catch the rising ship. I was halfway up when I felt a sharp, heavy weight pull at my waist.
I looked down.
The woman had thrown a rope. Not just a rope—a rope coated in Haki so dense it felt like lead. She had latched onto my belt, her expression one of grim, desperate determination.
"What the fuck are you doing?!" I roared, the drag nearly stalling my flight.
"I will see him!" she screamed back, dangling over the Alabastan desert like a very glamorous, very heavy anchor. "Carry me, peasant!"
"I'm not a goddamn taxi!"
But I couldn't drop her—not from this height. So I flew. It was the slowest, most painful trip of my life. Every burst of flame from my feet sent a jolt of pain through my still-tender stomach. The woman was heavy, the rope was digging into my hip, and the desert heat was mocking me.
We climbed higher and higher, the world blurring into a haze of bruised violet and gold. My Haki was screaming, my muscles were cramping, and all I could think about was Sunny's smug, glowing face.
Finally, the ship leveled out. I saw Sunny on the desert, looking perfectly coiffed and utterly un-traumatized, talking to some stranger in a suit.
"That's it," I wheezed, my grip on my sanity slipping.
I didn't land. I crashed. I let the flames die out and we plummeted the last twenty feet, slamming into the sand like a meteor made of spite and purple silk.
I rolled through the grit, coughing up dust, my eyes locking onto Sunny. He looked surprised. He looked "cute." He looked like a target.
I climbed to my feet, my fists igniting with a heat that had nothing to do with the sun and everything to do with that space toilet.
"Sunny," I rasped, a dark, murderous smirk twitching on my lips. "We need to talk about your plumbing. And then I'm going to kick your ass."