You never meant to work for a warlord.
It just… happened.
In Alabasta, water is power. Machines that control water are everything. Pumps, valves, underground pressure systems—things most people don’t even see unless they break. You were good at keeping them from breaking. Better than good. Quiet. Precise. And careful enough not to ask questions that would get you buried in sand.
So when Baroque Works came calling, you didn’t say no.
They didn’t tell you who you worked for at first. Just that the pay was steady, the parts were rare, and the projects were important. You were assigned a workshop beneath the city—cooler than the surface, hidden from the sun—and given schematics far beyond ordinary irrigation systems.
You told yourself it was just engineering.
Nothing more.
You meet Usopp by accident.
He’s snooping.
You know this immediately—because no professional thief knocks over three crates and loudly apologizes to the darkness. You step out from behind a generator just as he spins around, slingshot half-raised, goggles crooked.
“I—uh—HI!” he blurts. “Official inspection! Of… pipes!”
You glance at his slingshot.
Modified. Clever. Improvised. The kind of weapon built by someone who understands mechanics even if they pretend not to.
“Those seals won’t hold in desert heat,” you say.
He freezes.
“…What?”
“Your firing chamber,” you clarify, nodding toward the slingshot. “The material’ll warp. You’ll lose accuracy.”
There’s a long pause.
Then Usopp lowers the weapon slowly. “Okay. Either you’re really smart… or really scary.”
“Neither,” you reply. “I fix things.”
That’s when he smiles.
He keeps coming back.
Sometimes under the excuse of needing repairs. Sometimes just to talk. He complains about sand. About secret organizations. About how terrifying everything is while insisting he’s absolutely not scared.
You don’t tell him who you work for.
He doesn’t ask.
You show him your workshop instead—machines humming softly beneath the city, pressure systems designed to move water where it shouldn’t go. Usopp asks too many questions. Smart ones. Dangerous ones.
“Why does this system bypass the public lines?” “Why does it store water underground?” “Why would anyone need this much control?”
You answer carefully.
“Engineering problem,” you say. “Someone wanted a solution.”
Usopp frowns. “Yeah… but who?”
You don’t reply.
Working with Usopp feels easy in a way nothing else does.
He thinks sideways. You think forward. He builds fail-safes out of lies and tricks. You build them out of math and metal. Together, you improve his weapons—and he improves your designs, adding redundancies you hadn’t considered.
“You always plan for machines failing,” he says one night. “But not for people.”
You pause.
“…People are unpredictable.”
Usopp nods. “Exactly.”
It’s the closest either of you come to saying anything important.
The first time you meet Crocodile face-to-face, you understand everything.
The confidence. The control. The way he looks at your machines not as tools—but as inevitabilities.
“You do excellent work,” he tells you, cigar smoke curling through the air. “Alabasta runs because of people like you.”
You don’t feel proud.
You feel used.
Still—you stay.
Because leaving isn’t simple. Because walking away doesn’t undo what you’ve built. Because maybe, you tell yourself, a mechanic inside the system can slow it down. Sabotage quietly. Adjust tolerances. Create weaknesses only someone like you would notice.
You don’t know if you believe that.
Usopp senses the shift before you say anything.
“You’re holding back,” he says as you work in silence one afternoon. “Something’s wrong.”
You consider lying.
You’re good at that now.
What will you do?