~Third~

As the Strawhats celebrated the whole crew coming back together, their new ship the Thousand Sunny and Franky joining the crew, news of their new bounties reached every corner of the known world, on one dark and gloomy island a certain man was reading the newspaper over a glass of wine when a batch of new bounties dropped in onto the balcony.

Mihawk of course didn't care for the other bounties, only a few in particular caught his interest, he grinned practically beaming with pride as his laugh echoed on the island holding one particular poster "That's my girl"he said, he smiled as he put up the wanted poster of his daughters new bounty displaying it proudly on a wall.

~skip~

The Strawhats were finished with their party and were already settling into a routine as the Sunny sailed in the for now calm seas, Luffy, Usopp and Chopper were goofing around exploring every inch of the ship, Sanji was tending to Nami's every whim and desire as she kept a close eye on the weather, Robin was reading as usual, their new crewmate Franky was steering the ship.

Zoro and Nicole were up in the crows nest, Zoro was braking in the new weights and Nicole was watching him as usual that look in her eyes as she admired those chiselled muscles that glistened with sweat, Zoro glanced over and noticed that look and he always blushed seeing that look but smirked, she was far too easy.

"Hey"Zoro called taking a brake, Nicole hummed snapping out of it "If you're done staring maybe you'd wanna give a try?"he asked with a smirk, only to get a smirk back as Nicole got up from the bench and walked over to him.

"You know what? I might as well"she said tossing her shirt off leaving her in her red bra, Zoro blushed equally red, damn her, always flipping the tables, well this time he refused to show it just casually taking a seat on the bench as Nicole pinned her hair up.

Nicole stretched out a bit before easily lifting the heavy weights Franky had stocked for them in advance, her muscles flexed as she lifted the one hundred pound or so weight like it was as light as air, after a while she had worked up a sweat and now Zoro was watching her with a savage look in his eyes, Nicole smirked taking a break and walking over to him lifting his head as he stared at her cleavage.

"Let's take this upstairs"Nicole said with a smirk returning that savage look "Yeah"Zoro smirked and grabbed her hand dragging her upstairs with quite the haste.

~skip~ (link to lemon in it's usual place)

Zoro panted collapsing on the bed next to her as Nicole shook a bit gathering her breath "You okay?" he asked throwing the blanket over them and gathering her in his arms "Yeah, just that"she took a deep breath finally calming her breathing "That was freaking intense"she said "Glad you enjoyed it"Zoro smiled kissing the top of her head.

~skip~

A few days later Chopper, Luffy and Usopp were playing around on the swing, Robin was gardening and Franky was doing whatever below the deck, Sanji asked the kids to catch octopus for dinner while Nami was in the aquarium/ dinning hall below enjoying some drink Sanji had made her.

Usopp got into some trouble while fishing for octopuses, the commotion from it alerted Zoro and Nicole up in the crows nest as they were training "What are those idiots doing?"Zoro wondered coming over to Nicole as she shrugged, Zoro just shrugged too sitting next to her when he spotted something "Hey there's something floating out in the ocean"he said over the speaker alerting the others.

It was just a barrel which Luffy pulled in "Treasure time!"Luffy, Chopper and Usopp chanted dancing around "Pity it's probably just some old booze and preserved foods"Nami said walking over "What?! You can't see inside how do you know?"Luffy asked "Because it says a treasure offering to the sea gods, it's an old practice called barrel drifting people prayed for safe passage by making an offer to the guardian spirits of the sea so it's more about superstition then actual treasure"Nami said.

"In other words we got our hopes up over a barrel of sea trash"Usopp said "Whoa who says booze is trash let's drink it"Zoro said "What? No that's bad karma"Usopp said "You'll be fine just say a little prayer first"Nami said "I pray to no god sea or otherwise"Zoro said.

"I bet it's really good too with the waves having stirred it around and aged like a fine wine"Nicole said "Oh yeah?! Let's find out!"Franky said getting excited about it "Alright then we'll make a toast!"Usopp cheered "After your finished they say you're supposed to add a new offering and set it adrift again for good luck"Robin said.

"Who cares? Open up"Franky said shaking the barrel around "So hey god we're stealing your booze, prayer over"Luffy said before opening up the barrel, Nicole sweatdropped "Not really a prayer"she said before a flare shot out of the barrel, Nicole got a bad feeling.

"The booze flew in the air and then it blew up"Chopper said "Looked like a signal flare"Robin said "Think that's it?"Nami asked "Could just be a prank i suppose but if it's not"Robin trailed off "If it's not?"Usopp and Chopper asked freaked out "Perhaps we've alerted someone and their coming to look for us"Robin said.

"You mean the booze was a lie?! No even worse it was a trap and we set it off by opening the barrel who knows what kind of horrible people are gonna come after us now! Chopper search the area!"Usopp yelled "Got it!"Chopper said "Make sure we're not being followed those awful bounty hunters might be looking for revenge!"Usopp said.

"I'm looking all over the place but i don't see anyone"Chopper said looking around using binoculars "Nothing here"Usopp said using his goggles "Everyone get into position we're going to escape south by south west a huge storm is coming in five minutes"Nami said and the Strawhats rushed to get the ship prepared.

The storm hit sooner the Nami thought but the Sunny had a trick up it's sleeve to escape, they raised the sails and used the paddle engine system Franky had installed to get out of there, Nami sighed.

"It's nice we got out of the storm and all but where the hell are we? It shouldn't be night yet right? So why's it so dark? And what's with this fog strange huh?"Zoro asked "Reminds me of home"Nicole sighed fondly "This is it we paddled the Sunny straight into that sea Kokoro was talking about geez i wasn't ready for this"Nami said.

"Oh wow so we're at fishman island already?"Usopp asked grinning "Not yet remember the sea of ghost"Luffy said grinning "That's right be careful you've heard of the Florian triangle right? You know it's also called the devil's triangle, a haunted sea where ships are followed by the darkness without a trace"Franky said.

"Haunted?"Usopp asked his voice shaking in fear, Luffy chuckled "Bring on the ghost i can't wait"he said "Shut up! Why does everyone know about this except me? If this is some kind of prank it's not funny!"Usopp said "Nuh uh i hear there's zombies and skeletons too"Luffy said.

"You're letting your imagination run wild stop trying to scare him, listen Usopp the truth of the matter is every year over a hundred ships vanish without any explanation they say the sailors souls stay on the ships wandering for all eternity"Sanji said lighting a match for effect.

"No! Why didn't you warn me about this?!"Usopp yelled "Even if we had there's nothing you can do"Sanji said "Sure there is i'm going to cover myself in anti ghost stuff!"Usopp said "Hey look there's a ship coming this way"Nicole said pointing it out as they heard a haunting voice singing something from said ship.

The voice grew closer as the ship sailed past them, the others freaked out about it being a ghost ship but Robin was calm while Nicole was a bit confused, she could swear she's heard this tune many times before, the ship continued to sail past them, they saw someone on the deck, rather something, a skeleton with an afro singing a tune.

"Did you see that? There's a singing skeleton on that ship"Luffy said "Oh no way! Skeletons don't sing their dead! You're seeing things it's not real!"Usopp yelled freaking out "Sanji you heard him, come on please? Can we go? I wonder if he sings what else can he do? Alright!"Luffy said rushing off but Sanji stopped him.

"Not so fast you can't go alone"Sanji said, the crew drew straws Luffy, Sanji and Nicole went on the ghost ship with a boat and climbed up with the ropes "Look there he is"Luffy said spotting the skeleton again "Come on"Nicole said and they climbed the rest of the way up.

"Why good afternoon, yohohoho, thank you all for stopping by you must excuse me for not greeting you properly before, i really was quite surprised it's been so many years you see wandering these waters all alone, i'm so used to ghost ships that humans frightened me quite ironic isn't it? Ah but please come inside and take a seat i'm sure you have many tails to share" the skeleton said

"Well you're pretty lively for a dead guy aren't ya?"Nicole asked braking the silence "Yohohoho, oh on a closer look you're quite a charming young woman, beautiful, then again i don't have eyes yohohoho"the skeleton said before cleaning up and walking over "Excuse me, may i see your panties?"the skeleton asked "No"Nicole said bluntly with a sharp glare.

"How brutal"the skeleton said falling down, Luffy laughed "Hey wait do you poop?"he asked "We've got like a million questions to ask before that one!"Sanji yelled at him, the skeleton got back up and to his cup of tea "Oh yes i poop"he said "TMI! We don't need to hear that!"Sanji yelled at him.

"Oh hey i've got another question"Luffy grinned walking forward "Will you join my crew?"he asked "Yes certainly"the skeleton said "Just like that?"Nicole asked tilting her head, Luffy grinned "Come on it's fine, for once there's no hassle about it"he said, Nicole shrugged while Sanji was in utter shock.