Thunder Demon Luffy's

Chapter 86's

Luffy walked a bit away from his crew. He was currently on the edge of town, sitting on top of one of the buildings while drinking a glass of whiskey. He reached into his pocket and took out the same transponder snail he had used before to summon Gem and pressed the button on the snail shell.

* purupurupuru** purupurupuru** purupurupururu**Chachak *

"Hello?" Gem answered through the snail.

"Say, you have good news for me" said Luffy.

"Well, I have good news and bad news" replied Gem.

"Give me the good news" said Luffy.

"We found the Powder Dance. Crocodile kept it in his base. Once you've cleared it, we should be able to pick it up" Gem said, causing Luffy to smile.

"That's good news" Luffy replied sounding a little happier. "And the bad news?" Luffy asked.

"We just learned that Crocodile has a Baroque Works agent who plays a rebel army and a royal soldier" Gem said, causing Luffy to laugh.

"you're a very cunning man, Crocodile," Luffy said with a laugh. "She was trying to cause conflict no matter what. Pretty clever," added Luffy.

"Yes, right ... Is there anything else I can do for you?" Gem asked

"Hmmm? No, that's it for now" Luffy replied.

"OK," Gem said before the two hung up. Luffy then stuffed the snail into his pocket and then downed his whiskey glass before he jumped off the building where he was sitting and started walking back towards the rest of the crew.

Luffy walked for a while until he arrived where he had left his men earlier, but found that they were not there. Luffy hypothesized that they had found a place to sleep and were resting. The only person who was there was an old man named Toto. He was still digging a hole in the ground with his worn-out shovel.

"I see you're still digging, old man," said Luffy as he stood on top of the hole staring at the old man with a flat expression on his face.

"The water is still here," the old man replied without looking at Luffy. "Yuba's dream is too strong to be defeated by the sand! The king entrusted this land to me, so I will dig up this sand as much as necessary!" he said with confidence causing Luffy to grin and grab a shovel on the side of the hole before jumping inside with the old man.

"Okay, let's dig it up" said Luffy as he began digging a hole with the man. Luffy used the haki armament on the shovel to reinforce as he dug. Luffy then started digging the hole faster than what the old man did.

In just 10 minutes Luffy dug a 10-foot-deep hole causing the old man's eyes to widen in shock.

"You dug that deep in just this short amount of time?" the man asked as he looked around the hole.

"I can go deeper, but I'm already too tired from walking all day" Luffy said as he wiped the sweat off his forehead.

"How about if you just go inside and rest, I can handle the rest," the old man said with a smile.

"Thank you, old man," said Luffy before he jumped out of the hole and headed to where he felt his crew was sleeping. Luffy opened the door to the inn and saw every member of his crew in their own bed sound asleep.

Luffy then looked around and found an empty bed and dropped down before closing his eyes and falling asleep.

**today**

The whole crew woke up a little early. They all stood where they had first met Toto the previous day. Toto stood there as well, ready to see the straw hats off.

"I'm sorry that there's nothing more I can do for you, Princess Vivi," the old man said in a sad tone.

"Please don't worry about that," Vivi said with a smile. "Well, we have to go now, Toto," he added.

"Oh, wait, take this, Luffy," said the old man as he walked towards Luffy in a small barrel with a straw. "Here, take this with you" he said, handing it to Luffy.

"You managed to find that water?" Luffy asked as he picked up a small barrel from Toto.

"Yes, I reached a humid area after you left last night" he said with a smile. "The water is water vapor that I can extract from wet sand" he said.

"Thank you! I will drink this carefully," Luffy replied with a smile. The group then began their journey through the desert once again this time heading to Katorea.

Luffy had planned to summon the clouds to get them there in no time but there was something Luffy needed to do first.

As they walked, they walked past the dry, withered desert trees. Deciding to execute his plan, Luffy flopped down and leaned against a tree and folded his arms.

"Luffy! What are you doing there !?" Usopp shouted /quired while pointing at his captain, which attracted everyone's attention. Luffy didn't say anything, he just closed his eyes and pretended to ignore the call.

"Luffy?" Nojiko asked trying to see if she was okay.

"Umm, is everything okay?" Vivi asked as she walked towards Luffy. Luffy looked up at Vivi and spoke.

"I quit," said Luffy puzzling everyone.

"What do you mean?" Nami asked while looking at Luffy.

"Whatchu mean? Quit what, Luffy?" Vivi asked in a confused voice.

"We have to go back to that place called Katorea and stop this rebellion or the millions of Alabastas will start fighting and things will get very ugly very quickly!" Sanji shouted as he walked towards Luffy.

"We're doing this for Vivi, so let's go!" he said as he grabbed Luffy on his shirt. Not feeling threatened, Luffy simply grabbed Sanji's hand and threw the chef aside, thus sending him thrown into the sand.

"Vivi," said Luffy caught his attention. "Right now, all I want to do is beat up Crocodile and make this country my territory. Do you understand?" he said while folding his hands. "Maybe we can prevent the people from starting a rebellion, but that won't stop Crocodile. Besides, we won't get anything if we go to Katorea" Luffy said coldly.

"No, that's not true" Vivi said trying to make Luffy understand.

"you want it to work, so no one dies in this fight, don't you?" Luffy asked as he looked at her with a flat expression on his face.

"We will fight one of the seven shichibukai and millions of your own people and you still want everyone to end up safe and unharmed ... you'll never win that way" Luffy said coldly as he stared at her.

Vivi stood there with an angry expression on her face with tears forming in her eyes and her hands clenched.

"Come on Big Bro" said Johnny.

"Can't you show sympathy to her" Yosaku added.

"Hold you two," Nojiko said as she looked at Luffy and Vivi. The young princess threw her hood back and shouted at Luffy.

"And what's wrong with that huh ?!" he asked/shouted. "What's wrong with not wanting to see a dead or injured person !?" he continued. Luffy only looked at Vivi with an indifferent expression on his face.

"Because humans are ultimately dead, that's why," Luffy replied pushing Vivi over the edge causing Vivi to swing her hand at Luffy. Luffy saw this coming and did nothing. He just let Vivi hit him.

"Stop talking like that! I won't listen to him!" Vivi shouted as she saw Luffy's face turn to the side. "If you keep talking like that, I'll really hurt you!" Vivi yells causing Luffy to laugh at what she just said.

"And let me guess, you think it's okay if you're the one who died, right?" Luffy asked as he turned around and looked at the princess. "you think just risking your life is enough to stop this from happening?" Luffy asked as he continued to stare at her with a flat expression on his face.

Vivi now let out her tears and flowed down her face as she looked at Luffy.

"What else can I bet? I have nothing left to bet on, Luffy," Vivi exclaimed hoarsely.

"And here I thought we were friends" Luffy said with a smile that caused his eyes to widen. "You have our lives to bet on," added Luffy causing Vivi to look around at Luffy's crew and see all of them smilingly nodding at him.

Luffy then got up and cleaned himself up, adjusted his hat, and spoke to the princess in an emotionless cold voice. "Now, tell me where I can find Crocodile," he said, narrowing his eyes.

"Lu-Luffy is right, that seems like the quickest way to end all of this," Vivi said as she wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Yes, and we can finally stop wandering around this desert. I'm getting bored already" Zoro said as he folded his arms.

"So, where is he?" Sanji asked, causing Vivi to take out the map and unroll it in front of everyone.

"This is where Crocodile is, Rainbase," he said, pointing to a map. "It was a city to the north of our current location, and about a day's drive from here," he said.

"Good, now back off!" Luffy said as he looked up towards the sky. "I will call the clouds to take us there. As soon as it arrives, I want you all to climb up into the clouds as quickly as possible and hold on tight" he said as he began to call his clouds.

"What, why?" Nojiko asked.

"Because I'm going to raise the clouds as high as possible to the point where there's enough moisture in the air to sustain it" explains Luffy. Everyone then looked up at the sky and saw a huge cloud of lightning descending from the sky. It was bigger than what Luffy would normally call, much bigger.

When the cloud was about 1 meter above the ground, Luffy shouted. "Everyone's up!" Luffy shouted while jumping on the clouds. Everyone also did not waste their time and quickly jumped on the clouds.