Jack locked eyes with Augur, the silence stretching on for what felt like an eternity.
"Patrick Redfield," Jack echoed, rolling the name around in his mouth like it was some cheap rum he was trying to savor.
Augur simply nodded, a brief acknowledgment.
Jack hung in the moment, and when no one else chimed in, he casually shifted his gaze to Crocodile.
"Should I know who that is?"
Crocodile stared at him, her expression a mix of disbelief and incredulity.
"You fired a heavy cannon at Gol D. Roger's execution, you've got a bounty of two hundred and fifty million, and yet you know next to nothing about the legendary figures of the sea who came before you."
"I know Roger."
"For less than a minute!"
"He made quite the impression."
"He was being executed!"
"I remember everyone I fire my cannon at."
Crocodile clicked her tongue, but the humor barely lightened the tension that was building in her shoulders.
Her dark eyes remained glued to the sorrowful forest, and the gleaming gold hook on her right wrist was already starting to gather a swirling, dry curl of sand.
"Patrick Redfield was one of the most formidable nightmares of Roger's time," she said, her voice dropping to a low, dangerous hum. "He stood shoulder to shoulder with absolute legends—Gold Roger, Whitebeard, the Golden Lion Shiki—yet unlike all of them, he sailed without a single soul at his side."
Jack raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "No crew?"
"None."
"He didn't need an armada, a grand fleet, or conquered lands to make the World Government tremble. He was powerful enough all on his own. That's why the tides called him the Lonely Red, or Red the Aloof."
Dragon's stern face looked like it was carved from ancient mahogany. "There were dark whispers in the Grand Line... that he could read a man's very soul and thoughts just through Observation Haki."
Jack's grip tightened slightly around the neck of his rum bottle. "Well, that sounds rather rude."
"Eventually," Crocodile went on, her hook scraping against her coat, "the Marines had enough. Fleet Admiral Kong took it upon himself to confront him. Their battle dragged on for eleven grueling days."
Jack's smile faded. "Eleven?"
"Yep."
"And the Marine came out on top?"
"Just about. Redfield was hanging on by a thread from sheer exhaustion by the end. Even then, Kong nearly met his end taking him down."
Kuma loomed over them, his massive form casting a long shadow on the damp ground as he peered into the mist. "The last report from the Admiralty had Redfield locked away in the deepest, darkest part of Impel Down—Level Six."
Crocodile nodded in agreement. "That's the last I heard too. How he managed to slip those cursed chains, how long he's been roaming free, or why he's lurking on this miserable rock, I couldn't tell you."
Jack glanced back toward the thick, dripping fog. The unseen presence beyond the trees hadn't moved any closer, but it felt intentional—like a predator that knew its prey was trapped with nowhere to escape.
"So," Jack drawled, "he sounds like a handful."
Crocodile shot him a sharp, deadly look. "That's what you took away from all that?"
"It seemed like the most important point."
"It was the bloody obvious point!"
Jack shifted his focus back to Augur. "So why did this ancient, one-man pirate empire decide to take a shot at you, mate?"
Augur's broken rifle dangled from his bruised shoulder. Even standing seemed like a monumental effort, yet his voice remained as dry as a desert bone. "He wanted Pato. And he thought I was the one who owned it."
All eyes dropped to the small, crimson-feathered bird.
Pato immediately took a nervous step behind Augur's boots.
Jack squatted down a bit, staring at the creature. "The bird?"
"A talking bird," Augur clarified.
A heavy silence settled over the glade.
Dragon blinked once, while Kuma slowly lowered his massive, solemn head. The swirling sand around Crocodile came to a halt, dropping to the ground like a forgotten thought.
Jack leaned in closer to the brush. "The bird can talk?"
Pato pressed itself tighter against Augur's leg, gazing up at the sniper like a condemned prisoner. Augur—who had already been battered, tossed through a grove of trees, and nearly killed because of this creature—calmly took a step to the left.
That left Pato standing completely exposed in the damp grass.
The crimson bird looked at Augur with a heart-wrenching sense of betrayal.
Augur adjusted his cracked glasses with a bloody finger. "You dragged me into this mess."
Every pair of eyes in the forest was fixed on the bird. Pato shuffled back a tiny step, its little chest heaving with anxiety.
Jack leaned in, a wild spark of curiosity lighting up his eyes. "Go on then. Sing us a song."
Pato opened its beak, but no sound came out.
Crocodile crossed her arms, her hook glinting ominously in the dim light. "We don't have all day."
Pato took a deep breath, puffed out its bright red feathers, and finally blurted out in a surprisingly human voice, "I ate a Devil Fruit!"
Jack straightened up, snapping his fingers. "Aha! So the bird ate the Human-Human Fruit!"
"No!" Pato squawked, shaking its feathery head vigorously. "I ate a Devil Fruit that lets me turn into a bird!"
The group stared at it in disbelief.
Jack examined the feathers. Then the wings. Then the hooked beak.
"You are currently a bird."
"Yes!"
"And the fruit... allows you to become a bird."
"Yes!"
Jack nodded slowly, his expression deep in thought. "Doesn't that seem a bit redundant?"
Pato's feathers fluffed up in indignation. "I wasn't born a bird, you know!"
"Well, that clears up one strange mystery," Crocodile said, rubbing her temples in frustration. "But it still doesn't explain how a stray creature talks like an English lord."
Pato hesitated, shuffling its claws in the dirt. "My... my master taught me how to speak."
Crocodile narrowed her dark eyes into slits. "And who, if I may ask, is your master?"
Pato glanced toward the shadowy mist, clamping its beak shut.
Dragon stepped forward, his dark cloak rustling like dry leaves. "Is your master on this island?"
Silence hung in the air.
Crocodile lowered her voice, a wisp of sand rising from her boot. "What's your connection to whatever Redfield is after?"
The bird squirmed, clearly nervous. Van Augur noticed the flicker of panic in its eyes.
"He gave me one of his feathers earlier," Augur said quietly. "With that feather, I can write on a common leaf, and whatever I write becomes real."
Jack slowly turned his gaze back to Pato, who took another frantic step back.
A slow, cunning grin spread across Jack's face. "Well, now. That's a pretty handy little bird you've got there, isn't it?"
Pato scrambled behind Kuma's massive leg for safety. Kuma glanced down at the top of the red head, and Pato, seeing the giant's terrifyingly blank expression, panicked and scurried back behind Augur.
Crocodile's face turned as cold as marble. "That strange power might be exactly why Redfield is after it."
Jack took a long, hearty swig from his rum bottle before slamming the cork back in with his palm. "Then we'd better go get old Gibbs before our crimson friend decides to pluck the bird for answers."
"He already tried," Augur remarked dryly, eyeing his ruined rifle.
"Fair point," Jack agreed.
Without another word, the mismatched band began picking their way through the tangled woods, moving deeper toward the strange settlement.
---
AN: Sorry for the delay. Went on a trip with friends, and had to watch my crush get closer with someone else while friend-zoning me.