Josef Mengele's POV;
This town was really pretty and the economy was flourishing. The vendors were selling their goods with bright smiles and only a small Marine presence was seen. We were going from shop to shop, occasionally testing some food or looking at something interesting.
Noa agreed to my request of looking through a few bookstores before going to the Galley-La shipyard. So far I have found three books about herbs, one about old and rare illnesses and two about poisons. Noa did find a good half of a dozen books about ships and wood crafting in general.
Afterwards, we used these Yagara Bulls to bring us up to the Galley-La shipyard. The area was massive and some rather large ships were in the middle of being build. There was a sign it had written on it that anyone who would fight here, regardless of reasons would be thrown out, but not before getting beaten up. Noa pointed it out for me, both of us shrugged. We did not have had the idea to cause trouble.
We were just passing the entrance when someone called out to us. “Ey, isn't that Noa? Little Noa who's only good enough to work for this old geezer?”, sneered a man around Noa's age. He had two friends with them, both were laughing.
I noticed how Noa tensed next to me. These guys must be from his home island. And not his friends if I judge their tone and words correctly.
They were coming over to us with grins on their faces. “Who're them?” I asked with a raised eyebrow at their obvious attempt to look both cool for any onlookers and intimidating to Noa.
It was pitiful. Jonny and Yosaku could look more intimidating and don't even speak about Lara. I have only seen her really angry once, that was when Lia was wounded after her fight against Sabo. The air was vibrating and small stones were disintegrating. Her presence made me almost piss myself and her anger was not even closely directed at me.
“Some idiots that liked to team up against me when I was younger. They work for a rivalling shipyard named Qual Shipyard,” supplied Noa. He turned fully around, now facing the three guys.
One was rather tall, almost four metres high, another one was way smaller and looked extremely round, like a ball. And the last one, the one who led them had a normal, yet muscular body. He was the one who spoke at the start, their obvious leader.
He has had a wide cruel grin on his face when he addressed us. “Thought you died in the race. Who would have known that the two girls who took pity on you and helped you during the race were the infamous 'Blood Elven Twins'.
Why they have saved you is a mystery to me. Your good looks definitely were not the reason.” I almost snorted at his last claim, not because they were right, but no man would look good enough for Lia and Lara, they are too busy with each other.
“Or his strength”, added one of his two friends, the small round one. All three laughed loudly as if that was the best joke ever. What generic idiots. But who would have known that Lia and Lara have such a nickname? Even if it has some truth they mostly kill anyone who attacks us, the emphasis is on attacks us. Others are often ignored or played tricks on with their Devil Fruit.
“Did you know that Lia and Lara are called Blood Elven?” I asked Noa with a slightly disinterested tone.
“Would have rather called them 'Destroyer of Chicken' and 'Devourer of All Brownies'”, he answered with a laugh.
“Oy, don't speak this casually about the twins. Their crew is one of the strongest in this half of the Grand Line. Only seriously strong guys are with them. I heard that Big Cleaver Yosaku took Bellamy the Hyena out with a single attack. And Quick Draw Jonny stopped his first mate without even trying.” Shouted the big guy angrily, as if he personally got insulted.
“Yeah, and don't forget Pressure Point Mengele, you're dead if he gets close to you. One hit is enough for him to leave you paralysed,” said the small one with a shudder. Huh, didn't know that I'm known as well.
“It's rumoured that they were the reason for Mock Towns destruction. The whole town was destroyed.” Said the leader, his two friends nodded, “You'll better not speak this disrespectful about them.” I almost facepalmed when he had the audacity to shake a fist at us.
He waited for one of us to say anything, when we did not he nodded self-satisfied. “Anyway, what is little Noa doing here in the big Water 7?”
“Looking around, building a ship for my crew, this and that”, answered Noa. I'm asking myself why he is even answering them. It's not like they matter.
“Can't be a great crew, if they have you as their shipwright,” laughed the leader. I was just about to knock them out when I remembered the sign. Noa wants to take a look at the shipyard, causing trouble will make that impossible.
“Come, Noa, these idiots aren't worth it. You wanted to take a look at the shipyard proper”, I said, instead of beating the three idiots up, and guided Noa away from them. They laughed at us, but they were not worth it. Maybe we can kick their asses after taking a look.
Quite a lot of carpenters and shipbuilders were walking around, doing their job and creating massive ships that would sail the Grand Line. “This is so awesome Josef, I'd always dreamed of coming here and taking a look,” gushed Noa. He was a few steps ahead, looking left and right in childlike wonder. He has already forgotten the three idiots after taking a single glance at a massive crane.
“Oy! Who're you?”, yelled suddenly a gruff voice from the right. We turned and saw a massive man with a grey anvil-like beard and black hair, he was carrying a wooden plank easily five times my size.
“Sorry sorry, I'm Noa and this is Josef. I'm from Shipstand Island and came to admire the shipyards of Water 7.” Apologised Noa for our trespassing.
“Is that so? Then do you like what you see? We have the best shipyard in the world!” shouted the man, he was praising his workplace with a laugh and wide grin. He was also now close enough not to shout for us to understand.
Noa nodded rapidly. “Hell yes! This is so awesome, you have auto-cranes, massive furnaces, really high-end materials and tools. Everyone is skilled in what they do and the ships you are working on look marvellous.”
He patted Noa heavily on the back. “Hahaha, that's right, that's right. We from the Galley-La have the best of the best. If you want to apply for a job you'll have to train hard. Only the best are taken. You should take part in this months application test. There are a few from Shipstand Island who takes part as well! By the way, my name is Tilestone. One of the foremen of Dock One!” He was still yelling. Is that his normal behaviour? Doesn't that get on the people's nerves?
“Eh, sorry. I don't want to join you, I'm part of a great crew and will build their ship. And then we will sail the rest of the Grand Line,” apologised Noa awkwardly.
“Well, doesn't matter. You can try even if you don't want to work for us. Might make the whole thing more interesting. The test is great entertainment for us. Tell you what, if you win I will ask the boss, Iceburg if he can give you some tips. Come to think of it, the test will take part in half an hour. Follow me!” He turned around and walked off. Noa instantly hot on his heels, which left me following them in a slow slander.
Tilestone led us through the shipyard with practised ease. The wooden plank was just given to two seemingly random workers. On the way, he was explaining things to Noa that must be about building a ship, but most of their terminology went above my head. Noa looked happy and was deep in his element.
Soon we reached a clearing with stands for sitting. Most sitting places were already taken, loud chatter rang through the area. The workers were betting on whom will win, talking about promising new recruits or work in general. The mood was good.
We passed the stands and walked towards a small group of other men. One of them was explaining something to five others. “Oy Paulie! This here is Noa. He's a shipwright of a crew.” Shouted Tilestone. He turned to Noa and asked for the first time, “Which crew by the way?”
“I'm the shipwright and carpenter of the Kage Pirates”, proclaimed Noa proudly. I don't know if it was such a good idea to shout this as loudly as Tilestone was speaking, but I too don't want to hide my membership. I like it to travel with the others and would defend them and the crew's name as well.
The group muttered among each other, especially three men I recognised. They were calling us liars. The exception was the guy who was just about to explain something. He had blond hair, wore a pair of goggles on his head, a blue jeans jacket and jeans. He was smoking a cigar and had some thick robes hanging from his hip.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Pirates eh? Don't do anything stupid and we don't have to kick your ass boy. So Tilestone, why did you bring him, another recruit?” Said the blond guy, most likely Paulie after inspecting both me and Noa. Noa gave him a serious nod and was waved over to the rest of the group. He stood away from the three guys that were now staring at him.
“Not really, he doesn't want to join us. But said he'd like to see the shipyard. Thought it might be interesting to see how skilled he is. If he wins then I promised to introduce him to the boss. If not then we had something to laugh”, yelled Tilestone jovially.
“Fine then as I was just about to say, this here is the introduction test. We from the Galley-La expect every single carpenter of us to know a ship. Specialisation in making one comes afterwards.
We have a ship prepared for you, each of you will have time inspecting it and then will write a list of things that are right, wrong or broken in the ship. Including possible repairs or different ways to get a better solution for a problem, they too will be taken into account.
Once the time is up a jury will decide which one of you wins. The decision is final, none of you will whine about unfairness. Those who do can get lost and stay away. The rest can try next month again.” Paulie gave each of them a hard glare and then left them to wait for the last five minutes. I decided I should find a place to sit and watch.
I found one of the last standing places in between a group of five lovely women. They were part of the seamstress crew.
The stands were completely filled when it began and an announcer came into the middle of the free area. “Good day folks. Today's the day again, the monthly introduction test. And as every month I'd like to present the jury to you.” The crowd roared loudly. I had the feeling it was more for the jury and not for the event itself.
“First we have Rob Lucci and his aid Hattori!” A man with a long top hat and small beard sat down on a jury table. He had a pigeon on his shoulder that wore a red tie.
“Hello, it's nice to judge again”, greeted the pigeon with a raised wing. It speaks! Is this one like Mrs Chicken Wing? But she can't talk, or can she and is only bullshitting us all the time? I wouldn't put it past the hen.
“Next we have the beautiful and sexy Kalifa, head secretary of Mr Iceburg!” A strictly dressed blond woman with glasses sat down.
“That's sexual harassment Alex”, noted the woman, while pushing her glasses upwards. The crowd loved her, the males found her hot and the females saw in her a role model. I don't know why, she looked pretty yes, but her one single sentence made her weird.
“And last but not at least, Tilestone!” Him I already knew, he sat down and was dwarfing the tiny Kalifa next to him.
“Hahaha, it's great to see new aspiring craftsmen!” He was yelling louder than the already roaring crowd.
The commentator waited for the crowd to quiet down somewhat before he began to introduce the participants. “And here are our six wanna be Galley-La carpenters. We have Fan, a local who wants to make his father proud”, said father was roaring loudly from the stands, “ then there are our three guests from Shipstand Island. Jure, Karl and Walt, all three of them were long-time workers for the Qual Shipyard.”I noticed Noa was glaring at them.
“Then we have a wandering shipwright that wishes to settle down, Morl. And lastly, the latecomer, Noa from the Kage Pirates.” The crowd roared in approval of all of them. Some were talking about our crew and were worried if something might happen. Others assured them that the foremen would take care of any troublemakers.
“This month the contestants will have to inspect a ship. Their task is to write down anything that is wrong, anything that is good, anything that could be improved and how that could be done. They have half an hour. On three you are allowed to start, but no shoving or fights.
One...Two...Three Go!”
All six of them rushed to the prepared ship. It was of the smaller size, maybe two-thirds of the Shadow. I could only make out a slightly broken mast and some obvious wear and tear that comes over time.
There is certain to be way more, but I don't know anything about ships. I only manage to sail them somewhat, taking care of one is not part of my skill set. The things the people around me were discussing and arguing about made no sense to me. There were, apparently, some glaring faults with the ship.
Noa does, and he was looking with some horror at the ship. He slowly inspected the outside and wrote as fast as he could on his notepad. He then jumped inside the ship proper, an aid for the commentator followed him with a tiny camera transponder-snail. The picture of all six was shared on a rather large screen.
Noa was knocking on wood, inspected beams and struts and looked at some smaller things with extreme care. He also inspected the living quarters, the kitchen and the storeroom.
The young man from Water 7 and the wandering shipwright did the same as Noa, while the Qual Shipyard guys did only half. They inspected mostly the ship itself and not the rooms of the crew and where they live.
For me it was basically waiting half an hour, but for the spectators, it seemed to be great fun. Well, I'd like a presentation about medicine, which would be for most extremely dull. However, it was almost over and the six testees were asked to hand their results in.
The commentator gave them wordlessly over to the jury and then began to speak about future events for the firm. Like a barbecue festival in a week or the wedding of two workers. It took the jury fifteen minutes to come to a conclusion.
They waved the commentator over to them, who got from each a slip of paper. He looked at them, nodded once and then walked back into the middle. The spectators slowly quieted down and waited for the announcement of the winner.
“Well, seems like we won't welcome this months winner into our ranks. Noa from the Kage pirates won with three out of three votes. The list he handed in is fairly long and has pretty much everything that is wrong or not perfect with our test ship.
You all can read it later on the blackboard. He even found the none strategic placement of the crew's beds, something often only seen by old Marines.
As promised from Tilestone Noa won't join us, but get an ask and answer meeting with our great boss Iceburg!” The seamstresses next to me were telling each other their jealousness about Noa being able to meet Iceburg. Which turned into an argument about which part of Iceburg is the hottest.
I didn't wait for the results of this particular argument and made my way down to Noa. There I could see how the three idiots from Shipstand Island were making a scene.
“And I'll tell you. Noa Franklin isn't good enough to find all the mistakes in this ship, he must have had inside help!”, argued the leader of the three. He was facing Paulie, who looked not very pleased.
“Are you saying that one of my men was helping someone to cheat?”, asked Paulie evenly, his tone held a dangerous underline.
The idiot was too angry and stupid to notice that and nodded strongly. He even looked as if he was finally getting to something. In return, he got wrapped up in thick ropes that came out of Paulie's sleeves. Paulie pulled at the ropes and smashed the idiot into the floor.
Might have hurt some normal people, but none of us would be faced by this much force. Lara's training regime makes one pretty durable. Still, the idiot was down and not moving anymore.
“Take your friend and piss off. You all heard that arguing won't give you better results”, snarled Paulie to the shocked looking two remaining idiots. They grabbed his friend and quickly left the shipyard, followed by the disapproving glares of the workers.
He turned around to us and smiled as if nothing happened. “Well then, Noa wasn't it? I'll bring you to Iceburg as promised. He is already informed and agreed to answer some questions. I'm Paulie by the way.”
“Thanks, Paulie, as you know, I'm Noa and this here is Josef,” greeted Noa with a shake of Paulie's hand.
I did the same. “You must be Pressure Point Mengele then”, said Paulie in greeting.
I nodded and gave only a short reply. I don't want to be in anyone's focus, Noa can speak to them, he is eager enough. “Yeah, the doc for the crew.”
Paulie nodded and beckoned us to follow him on board of a Yagara Bull. We drove some waterways upwards and stopped in front of a large mansion. There we stepped out and were escorted into an office. The woman from the jury was present, standing behind a man with blue hair and a beard. He wore a suit and was sitting behind a desk with some papers.
“I'm Iceburg, mayor of Water 7 and owner of the Galley-La. Tilestone called me and said that you've won this months introduction test?,” greeted Iceburg while standing up and walking around the table.
“Yes sir, I did. Wasn't too hard, most things were glaringly obvious. Thanks for meeting me”, replied Noa. He was trying to look casual, but it was visible that he was admiring this man.
Iceburg laughed loudly and sat back on his chair while gesturing to two others opposite of his table. “It's no problem. Kalifa made a background check on your crew when we were informed by Tilestone.
There is not much known about you, only that you are the shipwright of the Kage pirates and that you participated in the yearly tournament of Haribo Kingdom.
We have more on Mr Mengele here, and a lot more about your captain, but everything we gained showed that you've never attacked civilians and even helped in Alabasta.” He smiled, but I knew that we wouldn't be here if we were like normal pirates. Fighting only pirates and Marines was showing its good sides.
“So what is it that you want to know. I don't want to brag, but I might be one of the ten best shipbuilders in the world”, continued Iceburg. He leaned back in his seat and waited for Noa to formulate his questions.
Noa eagerly jumped at the offer. What followed were hours of talk about building ships. At first, Iceburg looked as if he was only answering some questions, but the longer the talk went on the more he asked questions himself. Paulie, who was waiting on the side, also sat down and participated. All three of them were soon laughing and arguing about the best ways to build a ship.
Some things I took note of was Noa asking some things about a kind of ship called catamaran. I don't know what kind of model this ship is, but it seems like our new one will be of this type. They were mightily impressed with his plans and added a few things or stated some problems I didn't understand.
Something completely unrelated was the extremely subtle stares from Kalifa. She was watching me from her position behind Iceburg as if she was searching for something. Iceburg said that they know some things about me, is she wary of me? But her looks were more of the scrutinising kind and less of the defensive or wary form.
I ignored her as best as I could and kept the time in mind. I made myself known when it was almost time for our crew to meet up again. “Noa, we have to get back to the inn,” I stated.
Noa sighed and nodded and addressed Iceburg. “Yeah, it was fun speaking to you. May I ask one last question?”
Iceburg was way more open now and laughed loudly before answering. “Sure, it was very informative. We really can use some things you've pointed out here in the Galley-La.”
Noa rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment but asked anyway. “My old man, the one who thought most of what I know, said that he had a friend here in Water 7. His name is Marvin something, called Marv by most. He and my teacher had a shipyard back when he was living here. Do you know where I might find him?”
Iceburg and Paulie both stilled when they heard the nickname Marv. They looked a little surprised as well, “Say, Noa, might the name of your teacher possibly be Yarn Gregorsen?”
Now Noa was the one who was surprised. “Yeah, old man Yarn thought me almost everything I know.”
“Then I know who you mean. Marv and Yarn were a rivalling shipyard to my own teachers. Their ships were almost as good as ours,” he laughed about his own bragging, “he still has a small shipyard near gate four. In the Buffalo Waterway 23, haven't spoken to the old drunk in years.”
Noa nodded in thanks and stood up, I followed. “Thanks, I promised the old man to give his friend a visit.” We gave each other the hand again and then left to meet up with the rest of the crew.