Nami likes tangerines. Duly noted. He makes a mental reminder to himself to go find a bag of tangerines before officially introducing himself to the rest of the Straw Hats, whoever those guys are, who surely aren't as important as a cute lady who sounds like she could whack his head in like a melon with her staff.
But in spite of his brainrot about women, he does listen to the rest of Luffy's explanation. Pirate Hunter Zoro strikes another ping of recognition. Plenty of pirates worth their salt know about that guy, though the Tornans had never personally crossed paths with him. He wants to ask how the hell a Pirate Hunter became a Pirate, but remembers how Luffy had somehow recruited him in less than ten minutes, and closes his mouth to keep listening.
An artistic storyteller rings familiarity. Akhos had a strong fondness for theatrics and screenplays. In another life in which Akhos hadn't ended up becoming a terrorist-slash-pirate, he might've been a playwright. In that regard, though Mikhail isn't even aware of it himself as of this moment, Usopp might somehow actually end up being his favorite person on the crew.
As for Sanji... that disastrous encounter is yet to be determined. At least Mikhail knows how to appreciate a good meal. And a good fighter.
He tucks all that information away for later. The most important thing (after stealing stuff for the ship) is finding a bag of tangerines!
"The Torna Pirates... disbanded," he ways, with an exaggerated air of ambiguity. It's not that he's ashamed of their defeat. They all died fighting, albeit like rabid wounded animals, but describing who had slaughtered them all would only make him choke on his own anger.
"It happens all the time! Even strong crews like ours was are never the strongest. There's always a bigger fish out there to eat the little ones, especially on the Grand Line." The implication of their defeat, rather than the lie of a disbandment, is deliberately subtle.
"So I've gotta wonder, what're you gonna do if you ever have to go toe-to-toe with an impossibly big fish?"
He'd have been more blindly confident just a few weeks ago, but after the disaster (that still somehow worked out for them) of meeting Mihawk, Luffy thankfully doesn't blast out something egotistical and stupid.
Instead he tucks his hands into his pockets as they walk, looking thoughtful. Despite his general demeanor, he does manage to catch the implication of Mikhail's vague answer, though for a moment it doesn't sink in because it's so alien to him. Luffy basically never considers the possibility of really actually losing, of facing anyone who could make him give up no matter how strong they are, it doesn't fit into his worldview so early into his journey. No matter how badly he gets beaten down, he finds a way to stand back up and fight another day, always.
And if he doesn't, someday, then he thinks he'll have lived how he wanted anyway with the time he did have, and that's enough for him.
"Find a way to get stronger," he eventually answers. It's definitely simplistic, but simple usually works for Luffy, so he hasn't really been pushed out of that comfort zone quite yet. "And even the biggest fish have weaknesses, you just have to hold on long enough to find them." Like Arlong, a man barely phased by Luffy's hardest punches, who could be tricked into doing most of the work of dropping a building down on his own head.
Mikhail will find out on his own how good Luffy is at punching above his weight class and somehow coming out on top regardless soon enough, because: "Anyway, we're gonna have to be the strongest someday, because we're going to find the One Piece, and I'm going to be King of the Pirates." Luffy grins blithely, like he hasn't been told how stupid that goal is nonstop since he started carelessly announcing it to everyone he meets. Never mind that that's definitely something he should have mentioned before recruiting the poor guy, so sorry Mikhail. "How about you? What do you want?" Yes, it is time for the dreams talk.
The quiet, cynical part of Mikhail seethes resentment at the simplicity of Luffy's answer.
All the other parts, however, wholeheartedly applaud it. Strength for the sake of winning never mattered much to him. Being smart was more important, even if he'd made plenty of stupid mistakes that brought him to where he is now, so the fact that Luffy can make the solution sound so easy boggles Mikhail as much as it impresses him. If only everyone could see things in such a plain fashion! Overthinking things is part of why his old captain failed at being a good captain, after all.
King of the Pirates, though? That's a whole different beast. Not an uncommon thing to hear from upstart pirates, but definitely a bold thing to say so casually.
"The One Piece? Can't believe there's people who still think it's real..." As far as Mikhail is concerned, the One Piece was just Roger's final joke at the expense of the world. Launch entire fleets of pirates and plunge the seas into chaos. Trick a bunch of rookies into dreaming bigger than they should. Truly a fitting legacy for the late King of the Pirates.
"I'm not the kind of guy to go chasing after wild geese." He shrugs. "I guess I want... a cute girlfriend who'll laugh at my jokes! Hah!"
"You're going to feel real dumb when we find it," he laughs, undeterred as he usually is by Mikhail's disbelief, like it's a foregone conclusion. Don't worry about it, he's just manifesting!
About Mik's dream, though... "Well," Luffy tries not to judge. A dream is a dream is a dream (and if Mikhail had said that he wants to find a really big, tasty meal he'd totally understand, even though it's just as small of a thing), and Mikhail can always find a new dream once it comes true. Nobody has to dream about just one thing their whole life, Luffy is pretty sure, even if he personally picked his at the age of 7 and refused to even consider anything else. "I guess we're gonna meet lots of people, I bet you'll find somebody!" He offers Mikhail a friendly pat on the shoulder, and makes a mental note to ask Usopp to give this poor guy some pointers, because their sniper is their crew's expert in that department, sad as it is to say with how new he is to all that.
Either way, once they're close to the shipyard he slows his steps the way he sees Nami do when she's scoping out a situation, taking in all the angles and guessing at escape routes. He's not doing any of that as much as he is just following the motions though, so he asks: "So, what are we doing?" If they were just gonna take the wood with a fight Luffy would have kept walking confidently, but Mik said something about them not even noticing it being gone, so the fearless Captain is definitely going to need some guidance.
Someday, or soon enough, Mikhail will admit he was being sarcastic about his desire for a girlfriend... or Luffy will see that it's a truly impossible "dream", because of Mikhail's unique talent of repelling women the moment a single word comes out of his mouth. At any rate, finding the One Piece is definitely more likely to happen, no matter how many times Mikhail would insist otherwise.
He'll save the rebuttals for later, though. The shipyard isn't big enough to get easily lost within the bustle of people at work. It's also definitely loud, which is to their advantage, but Mikhail has no intention of sneaking around and avoiding detection.
As it turns out, he's as much of a skilled thief as he is a ladies' man: that is to say, he was definitely not the strategist on his old crew.
With a careless pew pew gesture with his fingers, he says: "I distract 'em, you nab 'em. Just grab as much as you can— we can sort out the bad wood from the good wood afterwards."
He said the other guys in the shipyard wouldn't notice the theft. Which, in his mind, would technically be true regardless of what else they would notice.
That makes Luffy's manic grin crack even wider in excitement, clearly Luffy takes no issue with that pedantic distinction.
That's his kind of stealing, anyway! He definitely does not have the learned skill or even deft touch of someone like Nami, but what he does have, is years of experience doing insane smash and grabs with his brothers in the Goa Kingdom. For food (though obviously those were more dine-and-dash flavored), or treasure, or other things that they just couldn't get out in the jungle or Grey Terminal's junkyards. The noble's guards were no joke, certainly not afraid of dealing violently with children, but if there's one thing Luffy was good at (even as a dumb little kid who had no real idea how to actually utilize his bizarre rubber body to its full destructive potential), it was making chaos work for him.
And he's way stronger now, in case this all goes wrong. (He may or may not be hoping it does. Hey, brawls are fun! And now that they've got a shipwright on the crew, they don't have to worry about running away before getting their ship fixed because they started a fight with an entire island!) "Okay! Meet me back at the ship," A beat, and he considers he doesn't actually know if Mikhail is any good in a fight. "Or just scream if you need help." That would definitely make it harder to sneak away with the wood, of course, but if Mik gets killed by a dock full of shipwrights before they leave, that'll defeat the whole purpose of this little shortcut and they'll be back where they started!
Either way he gives Mikhail a cheesy thumbs up, jams his straw hat down harder on his own head to make sure it stays secure, and then... reaches out one impossible long, stretchy arm to grab the top of the insurmountably tall privacy fencing around the fancy-pants shipyard, catapulting himself over it and into the back of the yard where all the lumber not currently in use is stored like a human-shaped slingshot pellet. Godspeed, Mik.
Mikhail lets out a (pointedly) loud scoff at the suggestion that he would scream for help. The only reason he would ever scream is because he's the best damn decoy the four seas have ever seen, and making noise is what decoys do!
He yells after Luffy: "Yeah, yeah! Just try not to get distracted yourself!"
He counts to seven before making his move, casually strolling into the yard with his hands jammed in his pockets, like it's any other day of the week and he hadn't just joined a pirate crew on a whim. The opportunity for a distraction comes in the form of two workers hauling wooden beams over their shoulders: without even trying to be sneaky about it, Mikhail sticks out one foot as they pass him, sending the man in front tumbling hard to the ground.
The rest of it naturally falls into place: the crash of timber, some very loud shouting and cursing, and Mikhail jeering at the guy for being such a klutz, he should watch where he's going, really, someone could have been seriously hurt!
His own Devil Fruit, in comparison to Luffy's, is nothing flashy nor practical. It was a failed experiment in all definitions of the term, whipped up by a fanatic who couldn't hold a candle to Vegapunk's intellect. Most don't even notice the effects of Mikhail's ability with how unremarkable it is. While other Devil Fruit users can harness flames or create shockwaves or turn their own bodies into weapons, all Mikhail can do is hold someone's attention once he has it. No matter what they do, they can't turn away from this buffoon if he simply wills it.
And this is why he truly is, in all likelihood, the best in the world at playing the role of a decoy.
But he probably could have accomplished the same even without that poor excuse of an artificial Devil Fruit. More workers come to gather around the commotion, pissed off by Mikhail's nonchalance and unaware that he has, quite literally, captured their attention. Luffy is free to do whatever he wants without any danger of being caught, while Mikhail is dodging punches and egging on the man he had tripped to aim better.
On any given day Luffy veers wildly between being the most distractible person on the planet, and being a creature of pure single-minded focus to the point of absurdity. Luckily for the both of them, he heeds the warning to not get distracted and he busies himself with his own task instead of following Mikhail's progress as excitedly as he definitely wants to. His new shipwright is fun!
Unfortunately, he still doesn't actually know what oak lumber looks like by sight. He ends up wandering around in the back until someone spots him, half-listening to the sounds of Mik's far off shenanigans to make sure he's not calling for help, so he uses that to his advantage and points across the shipyard to where the commotion has started getting bigger and bigger and just says "whoa, what's going on over there?"
Then he watches in amazement as that actually works and the poor shipyard worker actually starts wandering over to see what Mikhail is up to in an artificial Devil Fruit-induced daze.
In the process, he abandons a pallet jack loaded high with a pile of pre-cut cedar planks (it's not oak but it's another beautiful quality hardwood, because clearly lady luck plays favorites), so even without being sure of what it is, Luffy decides that's good enough for him and he starts tugging it towards the insurmountable fence.
Huh. He hadn't planned things this far. Well... Mikhail seems to be doing a really good job being distracting, so maybe Luffy can just take it out the entrance that the shipwright used? After a moment of waffling, he decides that the worst that can happen is he can get dragged into the brawl that he's pretty sure is brewing around his new crewmate, and he wouldn't actually hate that. Once he gets close enough to the escape route that a mad dash would be pretty easy to execute he bellows: "Hey, we can leave now, I've got— uh," he trails off, finally getting snagged by Mik's powers himself and totally forgetting what the rush is as he watches the chaos unfold.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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But in spite of his brainrot about women, he does listen to the rest of Luffy's explanation. Pirate Hunter Zoro strikes another ping of recognition. Plenty of pirates worth their salt know about that guy, though the Tornans had never personally crossed paths with him. He wants to ask how the hell a Pirate Hunter became a Pirate, but remembers how Luffy had somehow recruited him in less than ten minutes, and closes his mouth to keep listening.
An artistic storyteller rings familiarity. Akhos had a strong fondness for theatrics and screenplays. In another life in which Akhos hadn't ended up becoming a terrorist-slash-pirate, he might've been a playwright. In that regard, though Mikhail isn't even aware of it himself as of this moment, Usopp might somehow actually end up being his favorite person on the crew.
As for Sanji... that disastrous encounter is yet to be determined. At least Mikhail knows how to appreciate a good meal. And a good fighter.
He tucks all that information away for later. The most important thing (after stealing stuff for the ship) is finding a bag of tangerines!
"The Torna Pirates... disbanded," he ways, with an exaggerated air of ambiguity. It's not that he's ashamed of their defeat. They all died fighting, albeit like rabid wounded animals, but describing who had slaughtered them all would only make him choke on his own anger.
"It happens all the time! Even strong crews like ours was are never the strongest. There's always a bigger fish out there to eat the little ones, especially on the Grand Line." The implication of their defeat, rather than the lie of a disbandment, is deliberately subtle.
"So I've gotta wonder, what're you gonna do if you ever have to go toe-to-toe with an impossibly big fish?"
sorry about how late this is!!
Instead he tucks his hands into his pockets as they walk, looking thoughtful. Despite his general demeanor, he does manage to catch the implication of Mikhail's vague answer, though for a moment it doesn't sink in because it's so alien to him. Luffy basically never considers the possibility of really actually losing, of facing anyone who could make him give up no matter how strong they are, it doesn't fit into his worldview so early into his journey. No matter how badly he gets beaten down, he finds a way to stand back up and fight another day, always.
And if he doesn't, someday, then he thinks he'll have lived how he wanted anyway with the time he did have, and that's enough for him.
"Find a way to get stronger," he eventually answers. It's definitely simplistic, but simple usually works for Luffy, so he hasn't really been pushed out of that comfort zone quite yet. "And even the biggest fish have weaknesses, you just have to hold on long enough to find them." Like Arlong, a man barely phased by Luffy's hardest punches, who could be tricked into doing most of the work of dropping a building down on his own head.
Mikhail will find out on his own how good Luffy is at punching above his weight class and somehow coming out on top regardless soon enough, because: "Anyway, we're gonna have to be the strongest someday, because we're going to find the One Piece, and I'm going to be King of the Pirates." Luffy grins blithely, like he hasn't been told how stupid that goal is nonstop since he started carelessly announcing it to everyone he meets. Never mind that that's definitely something he should have mentioned before recruiting the poor guy, so sorry Mikhail. "How about you? What do you want?" Yes, it is time for the dreams talk.
no worries!
All the other parts, however, wholeheartedly applaud it. Strength for the sake of winning never mattered much to him. Being smart was more important, even if he'd made plenty of stupid mistakes that brought him to where he is now, so the fact that Luffy can make the solution sound so easy boggles Mikhail as much as it impresses him. If only everyone could see things in such a plain fashion! Overthinking things is part of why his old captain failed at being a good captain, after all.
King of the Pirates, though? That's a whole different beast. Not an uncommon thing to hear from upstart pirates, but definitely a bold thing to say so casually.
"The One Piece? Can't believe there's people who still think it's real..." As far as Mikhail is concerned, the One Piece was just Roger's final joke at the expense of the world. Launch entire fleets of pirates and plunge the seas into chaos. Trick a bunch of rookies into dreaming bigger than they should. Truly a fitting legacy for the late King of the Pirates.
"I'm not the kind of guy to go chasing after wild geese." He shrugs. "I guess I want... a cute girlfriend who'll laugh at my jokes! Hah!"
He might as well go run after a goose.
♥
About Mik's dream, though... "Well," Luffy tries not to judge. A dream is a dream is a dream (and if Mikhail had said that he wants to find a really big, tasty meal he'd totally understand, even though it's just as small of a thing), and Mikhail can always find a new dream once it comes true. Nobody has to dream about just one thing their whole life, Luffy is pretty sure, even if he personally picked his at the age of 7 and refused to even consider anything else. "I guess we're gonna meet lots of people, I bet you'll find somebody!" He offers Mikhail a friendly pat on the shoulder, and makes a mental note to ask Usopp to give this poor guy some pointers, because their sniper is their crew's expert in that department, sad as it is to say with how new he is to all that.
Either way, once they're close to the shipyard he slows his steps the way he sees Nami do when she's scoping out a situation, taking in all the angles and guessing at escape routes. He's not doing any of that as much as he is just following the motions though, so he asks: "So, what are we doing?" If they were just gonna take the wood with a fight Luffy would have kept walking confidently, but Mik said something about them not even noticing it being gone, so the fearless Captain is definitely going to need some guidance.
no subject
He'll save the rebuttals for later, though. The shipyard isn't big enough to get easily lost within the bustle of people at work. It's also definitely loud, which is to their advantage, but Mikhail has no intention of sneaking around and avoiding detection.
As it turns out, he's as much of a skilled thief as he is a ladies' man: that is to say, he was definitely not the strategist on his old crew.
With a careless pew pew gesture with his fingers, he says: "I distract 'em, you nab 'em. Just grab as much as you can— we can sort out the bad wood from the good wood afterwards."
He said the other guys in the shipyard wouldn't notice the theft. Which, in his mind, would technically be true regardless of what else they would notice.
no subject
That's his kind of stealing, anyway! He definitely does not have the learned skill or even deft touch of someone like Nami, but what he does have, is years of experience doing insane smash and grabs with his brothers in the Goa Kingdom. For food (though obviously those were more dine-and-dash flavored), or treasure, or other things that they just couldn't get out in the jungle or Grey Terminal's junkyards. The noble's guards were no joke, certainly not afraid of dealing violently with children, but if there's one thing Luffy was good at (even as a dumb little kid who had no real idea how to actually utilize his bizarre rubber body to its full destructive potential), it was making chaos work for him.
And he's way stronger now, in case this all goes wrong. (He may or may not be hoping it does. Hey, brawls are fun! And now that they've got a shipwright on the crew, they don't have to worry about running away before getting their ship fixed because they started a fight with an entire island!) "Okay! Meet me back at the ship," A beat, and he considers he doesn't actually know if Mikhail is any good in a fight. "Or just scream if you need help." That would definitely make it harder to sneak away with the wood, of course, but if Mik gets killed by a dock full of shipwrights before they leave, that'll defeat the whole purpose of this little shortcut and they'll be back where they started!
Either way he gives Mikhail a cheesy thumbs up, jams his straw hat down harder on his own head to make sure it stays secure, and then... reaches out one impossible long, stretchy arm to grab the top of the insurmountably tall privacy fencing around the fancy-pants shipyard, catapulting himself over it and into the back of the yard where all the lumber not currently in use is stored like a human-shaped slingshot pellet. Godspeed, Mik.
no subject
He yells after Luffy: "Yeah, yeah! Just try not to get distracted yourself!"
He counts to seven before making his move, casually strolling into the yard with his hands jammed in his pockets, like it's any other day of the week and he hadn't just joined a pirate crew on a whim. The opportunity for a distraction comes in the form of two workers hauling wooden beams over their shoulders: without even trying to be sneaky about it, Mikhail sticks out one foot as they pass him, sending the man in front tumbling hard to the ground.
The rest of it naturally falls into place: the crash of timber, some very loud shouting and cursing, and Mikhail jeering at the guy for being such a klutz, he should watch where he's going, really, someone could have been seriously hurt!
His own Devil Fruit, in comparison to Luffy's, is nothing flashy nor practical. It was a failed experiment in all definitions of the term, whipped up by a fanatic who couldn't hold a candle to Vegapunk's intellect. Most don't even notice the effects of Mikhail's ability with how unremarkable it is. While other Devil Fruit users can harness flames or create shockwaves or turn their own bodies into weapons, all Mikhail can do is hold someone's attention once he has it. No matter what they do, they can't turn away from this buffoon if he simply wills it.
And this is why he truly is, in all likelihood, the best in the world at playing the role of a decoy.
But he probably could have accomplished the same even without that poor excuse of an artificial Devil Fruit. More workers come to gather around the commotion, pissed off by Mikhail's nonchalance and unaware that he has, quite literally, captured their attention. Luffy is free to do whatever he wants without any danger of being caught, while Mikhail is dodging punches and egging on the man he had tripped to aim better.
no subject
Unfortunately, he still doesn't actually know what oak lumber looks like by sight. He ends up wandering around in the back until someone spots him, half-listening to the sounds of Mik's far off shenanigans to make sure he's not calling for help, so he uses that to his advantage and points across the shipyard to where the commotion has started getting bigger and bigger and just says "whoa, what's going on over there?"
Then he watches in amazement as that actually works and the poor shipyard worker actually starts wandering over to see what Mikhail is up to in an artificial Devil Fruit-induced daze.
In the process, he abandons a pallet jack loaded high with a pile of pre-cut cedar planks (it's not oak but it's another beautiful quality hardwood, because clearly lady luck plays favorites), so even without being sure of what it is, Luffy decides that's good enough for him and he starts tugging it towards the insurmountable fence.
Huh. He hadn't planned things this far. Well... Mikhail seems to be doing a really good job being distracting, so maybe Luffy can just take it out the entrance that the shipwright used? After a moment of waffling, he decides that the worst that can happen is he can get dragged into the brawl that he's pretty sure is brewing around his new crewmate, and he wouldn't actually hate that. Once he gets close enough to the escape route that a mad dash would be pretty easy to execute he bellows: "Hey, we can leave now, I've got— uh," he trails off, finally getting snagged by Mik's powers himself and totally forgetting what the rush is as he watches the chaos unfold.