The ship approached with bold, assured intent.
The ship was festive in a way only the dedicated achieve—flags flying, colors blazing, and a mastermind at the prow. In Liam's experience, the Grand Line never sent threats masked as cheerfulness, only cheerful things that hid more beneath the surface—and that was always worth watching.
Luffy stood at the bow and pointed. "There's a person on that ship," he said, his tone shifting with genuine interest.
The person on the ship was already waving.
---
Bon Clay burst onto the deck with a performer's exuberance. He was big, his style unmistakable, and his entrance radiated full-volume energy—Bon Clay knew no half-measures.
Luffy immediately found this excellent. His expression turned to genuine interest. "Who are you?"
"Mr. 2 Bon Kurei!" The delivery was total. "Also known as Bon Clay. Also known as the greatest artist of the sea. Also known as—" He stopped. "There are more titles, but we have limited time, and I prefer to demonstrate rather than list."
Luffy leaned forward, entirely serious. "What are you demonstrating?"
"Watch."
Liam was watching Bon Clay's hands.
Liam watched Bon Clay's hands, tracking every move. He knew what the Clone-Clone Fruit demanded. He recalled how copied faces brought trouble. Instantly, he decided: Nami's and Vivi's faces would not be copied.
Everything else about this encounter could proceed as planned.
Bon Clay demonstrated.
His first transformation was Luffy—one dramatic slap to his own cheek, and suddenly, he was a flawless double. Same hat, same scar, same infectious grin. The voice was close but not quite right, and seeing Bon Clay's spirit shining through Luffy's features was a spectacle all its own.
Luffy instantly circled his double, fascinated and delighted. He inspected the hat, the face. "This is so weird." He was delighted.
Bon Clay then became Usopp. The nose and posture were perfect. Usopp's feelings—his complex self-image—made the accuracy both flattering and unsettling. Seeing himself reflected was both right and inexplicably off.
Usopp spoke up, hesitant. "The nose." He didn't elaborate, unwilling to admit more.
Chopper reacted—thrilled and mortified, a snapshot of himself. To see his form copied by someone who found nothing odd struck a chord that words couldn't express.
He made a sound that carried all those tangled feelings. Liam, watching close by, thought it was the truest moment of the whole meeting.
Bon Clay, delighted by his audience, moved toward Nami.
Liam moved quickly, stepping between Bon Clay and Nami before Bon Clay could close the remaining distance to her.
Liam intercepted—subtle, accidental to onlookers, with a quick glance confirming Nami understood. The moment passed. Bon Clay now faced Liam, forced to adjust.
Liam kept his voice low and his expression conversational. "A word."
With a subtle gesture, Liam guided Bon Clay a few steps away from the group—close enough not to seem secretive, but far enough that their conversation was private.
Liam's voice stayed low. "The two women—orange hair and blue hair. You won't touch their faces. I'm not speaking rhetorically."
Bon Clay had survived Baroque Works by reading situations. He read this: Liam's flat delivery, his steady eye contact, all communicated exactly what was intended.
"Of course." The graciousness of a person who had decided that this was a hill he was not going to die on. "The lovely ladies are completely respected."
"Good." Liam stepped back into the main interaction. "Show them what else you can do."
---
Bon Clay showcased his flair. By his departure, the crew was left dazed, having met something out of the ordinary and mostly wonderful.
The flag-bright ship dwindled behind them, growing smaller with every wave.
Liam waited until the ship was distant, then broke the silence.
The crew had gathered on deck. "That was a Baroque Works agent." "His power is called the Clone-Clone Fruit. He can replicate the exact physical appearance of anyone he touches on the face. He doesn't know who we are — he thinks he had a pleasant encounter with interesting strangers — but he now has access to three of your faces."
He looked at Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper in turn.
"If he uses those copies, we'll need to distinguish real crew from fakes. A physical marker he can't replicate."
"Like a bracelet?" Usopp asked, uncertain.
"Or an armband, with a cross beneath it" Vivi said. She produced a plain cloth band. "Baroque Works used visible, consistent identification to prevent betrayal. Same arm for everyone."
Vivi answered instantly, decisively. "Left arm." She had clearly been thinking about it already.
The crew fashioned armbands from what was available. Each member, including Liam, Nami, Vivi, and Carue, wore one.
"He can't copy the band and cross beneath it if he doesn't know about the cross. Don't take them off."
Nobody argued with this.
---
Vivi found him at the rail in the quiet late afternoon. Carue lingered. Vivi wore the expression she used when asking directly, not circling a question.
Vivi broke the silence, voice low. "Can you actually handle Crocodile?"
Liam turned from the water to meet her gaze. She wore the look of someone doing something that cost her—not out of weakness or uncertainty, but with the rare openness of a person who had carried her burdens alone for a long time and was finally asking for something genuine.
"He's a sand Logia," she continued. "Every Marine who has tried to take him on has found nothing to hit. Even if you have some capacity with other Logia types — which I've gathered you do — sand is different. He can absorb strikes, redirect force, and become the environment."
"He can," Liam said. "I've encountered one Logia before—my body solved the intangibility problem with focus. I don't know exactly what Sand Logia is like yet. My body adapts; I can push that adaptation. Crocodile will be harder than Smoker. The solution will take more time."
She took this in. "How much time?"
"Less time than the fight will give me if I commit fully. I can stop him. It'll require contact; I know what the answer looks like. I just need to get there."
She looked at him for a moment. The evaluation she ran was thorough — she was not credulous, she did not give trust that had not been earned. She had been watching Liam since Whiskey Peak, and the evidence she had assembled over that time was forming the foundation of a decision.
"Okay." It was a small word, but it carried the weight of her country, the years she had spent defending it, and the decision to trust some of that burden to someone she had met on the waves.
"It's going to be all right," Liam said. He offered it as certainty, not consolation.
Carue made a noise that, in his own way, sounded like relief.
---
After dinner, Chopper appeared at Liam's side, eyes bright. "Did you know the Merry has a compartment under the main hold that I didn't know existed?" he blurted, urgent with discovery.
Chopper repeated, more insistent. "Did you know the Merry has a compartment under the main hold?"
"I did know."
Chopper explained rapidly. "There's fishing equipment in it. And extra rope. And a box of something I couldn't identify."
"Usopp's experimental materials. I'd leave the box alone."
Chopper considered this. "I am a doctor. I can identify most substances."
Chopper nodded, a mixture of caution and curiosity in his eyes. The Merry, he realized, was full of secrets—some yet undiscovered, some best left alone.
"I'll check with Usopp first," he decided.
"That's the right call."
Chopper lingered, the way he did when there was more beneath his words. "The spar this morning. You weren't going to get hurt."
"Not in any permanent way."
"I had my bag."
"I know. I appreciated it."
Chopper nodded once, with the solemnity of a doctor reassured that his presence had mattered. Then he headed off to wherever he was going.
---
The Goro Goro no Mi.
The idea had been quietly waiting in the back of Liam's mind since the spar, and now he brought it forward with deliberate focus. The lightning Logia—the fruit that turned its user into living electricity, granting all the classic Logia advantages: intangibility, overwhelming offensive power, and a reach that outstripped sand, smoke, or nearly any other fruit he could name.
The reasoning was clear once he followed it.
His body had already cracked the puzzle of Logia intangibility once. Smoker's elemental form had been a challenge his physiology could meet through focused adaptation. The sand Logia would need a new approach, since sand had a physicality that smoke and lightning lacked, but the underlying problem was familiar. That meant the Goro Goro no Mi's signature defense—a body made of lightning—was something he could handle.
The offensive application was its own argument. Lightning at the scale Enel produced was at a level most physical opponents did not reach. If the hypothesis about multiple fruits was correct — and he had not confirmed it, had not even decided to test it — then the combination of his existing adaptive physiology with the electrical generation of a lightning Logia would be something that compounded rather than added. The lightning provides external offense. The physiology provides everything else.
But it was the electromagnetic possibilities that fascinated him most, in ways he hadn't quite put into words before. Sensing—detecting the electrical fields all living things give off, making it possible to find hidden people. Communication. Moving at speeds nothing else could match. The fruit wasn't just about fighting; it was a whole new way of being.
Enel was in Skypiea. Skypiea had Nami's gold.
These two things would require coordination.
He hadn't chosen to chase the fruit yet. But he had decided it was worth serious consideration—a step closer than he'd been just a week ago.
Alabasta was halfway ahead of them. The arc there would reveal to him things about the sand Logia that he did not yet know. He would take what it told him and factor it into the decision. The decision was not made. The direction was.
The Merry glided through calm waters, the way it always did when the sea was gentle, the crew at ease, and the road ahead clear—even if its destination was still a mystery.
Liam stood at the rail, feeling the steady, forward-looking focus of someone who had gathered his threads and knew exactly which one to follow next.