Igaram entered the pool area. He scanned the group, spotted Vivi lounging near the edge of the pool, and made his way over to her.
"Princess... this is..."
"Igaram," Vivi interrupted gently, "I'm not a princess anymore, remember? Just call me Vivi, like you used to when I was little."
Igaram didn't respond. He silently handed her a stack of bounty posters.
Vivi accepted them curiously and looked at the first one. The image made her burst out laughing immediately.
There was Luffy at some kind of feast, wearing his straw hat with chopsticks shoved up his nose, doing the world's dumbest dance.
"Pfft... hahaha! Why is his bounty photo like this?!" She couldn't contain her laughter. She'd seen plenty of bounty posters before, but this was easily the most ridiculous one she'd ever encountered.
"Vivi... Prin— ahem..." Igaram caught himself. "You're a wanted criminal now too."
"Wait, what?! Let me see!" Vivi's curiosity immediately shifted to her own poster. Despite everything, she was still a young woman who cared about her appearance, and the thought of an unflattering bounty photo was a bit concerning.
"Aren't you worried about being hunted?"
By now, the rest of the Straw Hat crew had heard the commotion and crowded around, eager to see the new bounty posters.
The first one everyone noticed was obviously Luffy's ridiculous photo.
"Hahahahaha! Luffy! The picture on your bounty, oh man!" Usopp pointed at the image, laughing so hard he could barely stand straight.
Luffy snatched the poster, completely unbothered by how stupid he looked in the photo. His eyes went straight to the number at the bottom.
"Ninety-six million berries?!"
The excited shout made everyone freeze.
"How much?!"
"Shishishishi! My first bounty is ninety-six million berries!" Luffy waved his poster around proudly, grinning from ear to ear.
The others immediately started searching through the stack for their own posters.
But this time, only five people had received bounties:
Straw Hat Luffy: 96,000,000 Berries
Traitor Princess Vivi: 66,000,000 Berries, ALIVE ONLY
"Miracle Maker" Marcus: 90,000,000 Berries, ALIVE ONLY
Devil's Child Nico Robin: 89,000,000 Berries, ALIVE ONLY
Explosives Maniac Usopp: 33,000,000 Berries
The five of them stared at their respective posters in silence.
Vivi was confused about hers. "I don't think I did anything that crazy... why is my bounty sixty-six million berries? And why does it say 'alive only'?"
Igaram's expression turned awkward. "Actually... that probably has to do with the ideas you've been spreading. I think the World Government classified you alongside the Revolutionary Army. You know how their initial bounties are always unusually high."
"I see." Vivi wasn't surprised. She'd read about Revolutionary Army bounties before, they really did start absurdly high compared to regular pirates.
But the "alive only" specification was troubling. That phrase usually appeared when an allied kingdom or someone high up in the World Government hierarchy wanted someone captured for a specific purpose.
Why would they want her taken alive?
While Vivi pondered this mystery, across the pool deck...
"Huh? HUH?? WHAT?!" Usopp stared blankly at his bounty poster, his brain refusing to process what he was seeing.
Why? He didn't even do anything! Why did he have a bounty at all?
Zoro and Sanji leaned over to get a look.
"Thirty-three million berries?"
"Why the hell do you get thirty-three million?!" they both demanded simultaneously.
The two of them were clearly unhappy about this development. When it came to actual fighting ability, they both considered themselves second only to Luffy in the crew.
So why was Usopp the one getting recognition?
Sure, Marcus' bounty was higher, but they understood his situation. The guy had unique and incredibly useful abilities, everyone had seen those CP agents trying to capture him during the battle. His high bounty made sense.
But Usopp getting thirty-three million berries? That was just offensive.
Meanwhile, Alvida held Marcus' bounty poster in her hands, her expression twitching strangely. Without warning, she reached into her cleavage, pulled out a purple-black pearl, and smashed it onto the deck.
In an instant, Marcus materialized beside the pool, looking completely confused.
"...What?"
He glanced around until he spotted Alvida, who was holding something.
"What's going on?"
She handed him the bounty poster.
Marcus looked down at it, and the first thing he noticed was the number. "Oh?! Ninety million? Not bad at all. Didn't expect my first bounty to be this high."
He wasn't surprised. After defeating Crocodile and seeing all those CP agents swarming around, he'd known this was coming.
"Look at the photo," Alvida said flatly.
Marcus frowned and examined the image more carefully. At first glance, it did sort of look like him, the general shape was right, at least. But as his eyes focused properly on the details, they widened.
"This... this is the iron golem!"
Sure enough, the photo on his bounty poster wasn't him at all. It was the iron golem he'd possessed during the battle.
"How did they get the wrong photo? Who picked this picture?! Can I file a complaint somewhere?"
He considered himself a pretty decent-looking guy, his online friend, Mario, had even complimented his appearance before. And now the whole world was going to think he looked like a walking block of iron.
By now, the rest of the crew had gathered around to see what all the commotion was about. They looked at the poster, saw the iron golem image, glanced at Marcus' face, and burst out laughing.
"You guys are the worst! Does anyone have a Den Den Mushi? I need to call the Marines and report this!"
Sanji tried to offer comfort while barely suppressing his laughter. "Pfft... okay, yeah, the photo's pretty weird... but hey, your bounty amount is actually really high! That's what matters, right? It's just... pfft... the photo that's weird."
"You're laughing now, but when your bounty poster comes out, it's gonna be way worse!"
Sanji flipped his hair. "Please. An iron golem could never match my natural charm. When my poster comes out, it'll make thousands of women fall in love."
Marcus rolled his eyes so hard they nearly fell out of his head.
Just then, Luffy walked over with sparkling eyes. "Marcus! The golem can't stay in Arabasta anymore, right? So let's bring him on the ship with us!"
He had been wanting to recruit the iron golem ever since he'd first met it, and now that the opportunity had presented itself, he wasn't about to let it slip away.
Marcus sighed heavily. "You know how much that thing weighs, right? The Going Merry can't possibly support it. We'd sink within an hour."
"Aww..." Luffy's face instantly fell. It was like someone had told him meat no longer existed.
Marcus sighed again, unable to resist that look. "Alright. I didn't say bringing him aboard was completely impossible. Just that we'd need to make some modifications."
Looking down at the bounty poster in his hands, he knew they couldn't leave this particular iron golem in Arabasta anymore. Not with a bounty attached to it.
"Speaking of which, where is the golem anyway?" He glanced around curiously. The special iron golem had been under constant supervision since they'd arrived.
Luffy immediately grabbed Marcus by the arm and dragged him toward the pool. "Right here! He's been lying in the water since we started swimming."
Marcus looked where Luffy was pointing and spotted the iron golem floating contentedly in the Minecraft water, looking more relaxed than anyone had any right to be.
He stared at the scene in silence.
Did the golem... enjoy taking baths?
The iron golem slowly rose from the pool water when it spotted Marcus approaching.
"Cre... a... tor."
The slow speech pattern caught him off guard. This was his first real face-to-face conversation with a talking iron golem, and he hadn't expected it to sound like a malfunctioning robot from a bad sci-fi movie.
"You always talk this slowly?"
"No." The iron golem's tone suddenly turned clean and crisp, like someone had flipped a switch.
Marcus stared in silence. What was that about?
Seeing his confusion, the iron golem felt compelled to explain further. "Talking slowly makes me sound more like a machine creation. It's cool."
"What?"
Marcus turned to look at Luffy, Chopper, and Usopp, and suddenly understood where this ridiculous idea had come from. Those three had probably been feeding the golem all kinds of nonsense about "cool robots."
Maybe at the start, the iron golem really did speak slowly, after all, it needed time to learn how talking worked. But somewhere along the line, it had decided that slow speech was some kind of aesthetic choice.
"You don't have to play along with their nonsense," he said, trying not to laugh.
But the iron golem shook its head. "This is a man's romance."
You're not even a man. What romance are you talking about?
Marcus almost blurted out the retort but managed to hold it in. There was no winning this argument, not with the "Men's Romance Brigade" cheering in the background.
"Forget it. Anyway, here's the Munch-Munch Fruit. You should be able to eat it now."
He pulled the Devil Fruit from his inventory, and immediately every head turned to stare. The newer crew members, Bon Kurei and Robin, looked stunned.
After all, this was a Devil Fruit, one of the sea's greatest treasures. Getting your hands on even one was extremely difficult and expensive. Most pirates never even saw one in their entire careers. And here was he just handing one over to a walking pile of iron.
The iron golem accepted the fruit and gulped nervously. "Can I really have this?"
"If you want to eat it, go ahead. You're not the first. That cosplayer over there, he beat you to it." Marcus pointed at the chicken swimming in the pool.
Clucky clucked twice in response.
Chopper translated helpfully, "He says it's not a costume, it's a disguise. You never know when it might come in handy."
Marcus shrugged. A chicken disguised as a duck... What's the difference, really?
The iron golem raised the fruit with both hands and tossed it into its mouth. Without even bothering to chew, the entire Devil Fruit disappeared down its throat like it was nothing.
"How does it feel?" Marcus asked, curious about how Devil Fruits interacted with non-organic beings.
"Yeah, how is it?" Luffy and Usopp leaned forward eagerly.
The iron golem was silent for a moment, as if processing the changes happening inside its body. Then its eyes lit up.
"Transform!"
With a loud shout, its mouth suddenly gaped wide and began swallowing its own body whole. Everyone watched as the golem consumed itself from the head down, leaving only a floating iron jaw suspended in mid-air.
"What the..." Sanji's cigarette nearly fell out of his mouth.
The disembodied iron jaw began to flow like liquid metal, morphing and reshaping itself.
In an instant, the liquid metal reformed into a humanoid figure.
A figure that looked almost exactly like Marcus.
Almost.
One eye was looking left, and the other was looking right in completely different directions.
"You look 'smart,'" Usopp said.
"You didn't need to copy my face exactly," Marcus said, his mouth twitching.
The iron golem nodded and concentrated. Its features began shifting and morphing again, gradually stabilizing into a form that he recognized immediately from his memories of Earth.
The T-800 Terminator.
Muscular, imposing, with that iconic stoic expression that promised violence.
"How... how do you even know what that looks like?" Marcus was bewildered. This form was pulled straight from his memories of movies he'd watched back home.
The iron golem struck a classic bodybuilder pose, flexing metallic muscles. "I was born from the soul of my creator. The emotions you gave me, and a fragment of your consciousness that flowed into me during my creation, they shaped what I became. This form represents your expectations of me."
Marcus fell silent, processing that information. So his subconscious thoughts had literally programmed this thing? That was both cool and slightly terrifying.
"I also have a second form!" the golem announced proudly.
"SECOND FORM?!" Luffy's eyes turned into stars.
"Show us! Show us!!" Usopp was jumping up and down.
"This is amazing!" Chopper added with sparkling eyes.
"This is a man's romance!" Bon Kurei declared, striking a pose.
The "Men's Romance Brigade," which had evolved from a trio to a quartet, was thrilled.
Meanwhile, the women's side of the pool maintained their dignified silence.
Nami took a slow sip of her orange juice. "What's so special about this, exactly?"
Alvida stretched out on her lounge chair, showing off her curves. "I sort of understood the first form, but this second one? I really don't get it."
Kira tilted her head. "Maybe they're just excited because it can transform?"
Vivi was laughing along happily with the guys, not really understanding what was happening but enjoying the energy anyway.
Robin, however, stayed quiet. She'd caught something important in what the golem had said, Marcus' consciousness had flowed into it during creation. That meant this form had existed in Marcus' mind before, and apparently in great detail. What else might be hidden in his memories?
The iron golem's mouth curved upward. Its muscular body began changing again, the "flesh" melting away to reveal an endoskeleton.
Red lights glowed from its eye sockets.
"Beep-boop... beep-boop! Second form: Terminator!" Its voice had changed too, becoming deeper, almost perfectly mimicking the iconic movie character.
The men's side erupted in cheers.
The women's side exchanged glances.
But before anyone could comment further, the iron golem's body suddenly began reverting. The skeletal frame filled out, becoming bulkier, until it had returned to its original blocky iron golem shape.
"Huh? It's over already?" Luffy looked disappointed.
The others shared his sentiment, clearly wanting to see more transformations.
The iron golem shook its head weakly. "Just tired... especially when I activate the second form. That one uses a lot of energy."
As if to emphasize the point, its stomach let out a growl.
Everyone froze.
Marcus blinked in surprise. Wait, do iron golems need to eat?
The iron golem scratched its head awkwardly, looking embarrassed by the noise its body had made.
Luffy, always the first to understand food-related problems, stretched his arm toward the grill and grabbed some barbecue. "Yeah, using Devil Fruit powers burns through energy fast. Don't be shy, we've got plenty of food here!"
The iron golem looked at the meat and shook its head. "My body is made of iron. I can't process carbon-based food like you do."
"Huh?" Luffy tilted his head.
But Marcus got it immediately. Of course. The thing was literally made of metal.
He pulled out a stack of iron ingots from his inventory, and handed them over.
The iron golem grabbed one ingot and happily bit into it.
"This is it! This is what I needed!" It munched happily on the iron ingot like it was candy. "But Creator, you've given me too much. I can't digest all of this at once."
After consuming about nine ingots, it looked full and tried to hand the rest back.
Marcus waved his hand dismissively. "Keep them. Also, you don't have to keep calling me 'Creator.' Just call me Marcus."
"I can't do that." The golem seemed troubled by the request. "Creator is Creator. That designation cannot be changed."
It was like hitting some kind of hardwired programming limitation.
Marcus thought for a moment, then decided not to push it. Some things were apparently non-negotiable.
"Since you can talk now, we can't keep calling you 'iron golem.' You can pick your own name, or I'll give you one."
"Please, I would be honored if you would name me."
Marcus grinned. "How about... Goliath?"
The iron golem, now Goliath, immediately nodded, clearly pleased with the name. It suited him perfectly, and he seemed excited to finally have a proper identity.
"Those iron ingots, you can store them directly in your stomach, right?" Marcus asked. "The Munch-Munch Fruit should create a special storage space inside you."
Goliath nodded. The Devil Fruit's power not only allowed him to transform what he consumed but also created a large internal storage dimension. Otherwise, how could he have swallowed his entire body earlier?
Goliath opened his mouth wide and began swallowing the remaining 991 iron ingots one after another. They disappeared into his throat like water down a drain.
"With the power of food flowing through me... Transform!"
Once again, he shifted back into his T-800 form.