Chapter 68: Chapter 68: Lies, Truth and Reaction

__________ POV Narration __________

And so, Enel looked at the old pirate for a few seconds. Then he opened his mouth and started speaking.

"Honestly, at first I only wanted to protect Luffy..." Enel said as he stretched his earlobe and grabbed a bottle of sake for himself.

"I could tell. That kid certainly has a way with people, huh?" Whitebeard said with a smile of his own.

"Heh, that much is obvious, isn't it?" Enel said as he raised his bottle with his earlobe and took another sip.

"But I was also doing good old Garp a favour. You could probably tell from the way he let Luffy pass him by, but he really wanted Ace to survive that." Enel said as he looked a bit at the sea, catching a glimpse of the sunset in the distance.

Whitebeard nodded a bit, he knew just how tough the marine hero was. Luffy had no hope of actually downing him as he was now.

"I can understand that... But how'd you end up betraying the marines completely and even helping me?" Whitebeard raised an eyebrow while asking that question.

He wasn't about to start accusing his benefactor, but Enel's actions did deserve to be at least somewhat questioned.

"Meh, in for a penny, in for a pound, I figured," Enel said as he shrugged his earlobes again, spilling a few drops of sake on the deck

Whitebeard just looked confused, not really understanding the idiom that Enel was trying to use.

"Basically, if I'm already doing it, might as well go all out. I betrayed the marines the second I got in front of Akainu.

At that point, making an enemy out of you and your crew wouldn't have really helped me in any way..."

"...I can understand that," Whitebeard said as he took another sip of his barrel.

"But, at the same time. You could have easily let me die, and give the marines some semblance of victory in this war, my children wouldn't have any right to accuse you, as you had saved Ace."

Whitebeard said as his eyes narrowed a bit.

"Maybe... But letting you die simply no longer made any sense at that point. You should be well aware that I've not been a marine for long. Not exactly accustomed to all of their rules yet."

Enel just had a wry smile on his face, as he wondered if Whitebeard would believe him in the end.

Whitebeard looked at Enel for a bit, his narrowed eyes studying the former Rear-Admiral for a few seconds.

In the end, the old pirate simply started laughing out loud. "Gurararararara-" Ending in yet another coughing fit, that had the party momentarily stop, as all of the crewmembers looked at Newgate with a worried gaze.

"Maybe you shouldn't be fighting this much at your age. You sound like you're close to coughing your lungs out." Enel said as he intertwined his earlobes in a similar manner in which he would usually cross his arms.

"Shut it brat! I'm still healthy enough to punch you to the bottom of the sea!" Whitebeard said with renowned energy, making Enel sweat a bit.

"Huh? What's with this silence?! Bring me more Sake!"

The party restarted in that instant, with Whitebeard's children quickly bringing him another barrel and returning to dancing around on the deck.

'Where the hell do these pirates get this much energy?!' Enel could remember the celebration they had in Dressrosa, that was so much tamer compared to the party the pirates were throwing among each other...

"By the way, Whitebeard! Where are Ace and Luffy? Figured they'd be travelling with you." Enel said as he also fetched himself yet another drink.

"Ace and his brother are probably still with the doctor. He came at the perfect moment, it's also difficult for the marines to catch a submarine, Enel-yoi" Marco came along this time, giving an answer rather swiftly.

"It doesn't matter where Ace is. As long as he is safe, I am content." Whitebeard said his lips turned upwards, forming a wide smile.

"Indeed... As long as they are safe I also don't particularly care. I'm sure Garp feels the same." Enel took another sip of his drink, looking at Marco for a few seconds.

"By the way, are you going to keep wearing the coat?" Whitebeard asked with a wry smile while staring at Enel's back.

"... I guess not. I'll have to get another one, not marine-sanctioned." Enel looked at the epaulettes that adorned each of his shoulders.

He blinked for a few seconds, before reaching out to them and ripping them off his coat.

"Better than throwing it away, I guess..." Enel said as he simply threw the epaulettes overboard, not giving them even a second glance.

"No, it's really tattered. You might want to go shopping for some new clothes, honestly-yoi." Marco said with a small laugh.

Enel just stared at him with narrowed eyes, before simply shrugging his earlobes and going back to drinking.

'Partying for a few days and recovering with the Whitebeard Pirates doesn't sound so bad...'

And, just like that, Enel had a set course for the following days.

He proceeded to get completely shitfaced and dance around with the crew. Not one person looked at him with weariness after he spoke with Whitebeard.

Now he was just like a regular friend. After all, he had saved Whitebeard and Ace, he was as good as family to them now.

Eventually, a bird came around and delivered the newspaper.

It was a huge hit piece on Enel basically. The World Government had certainly tried their best to paint Enel worse and worse with each article.

A page in the newspaper was rather interesting though, and Enel had apparently gained an epithet to go with it.

Much like Kaido was called the 'King of the Beasts', and Charlotte LinLin was called 'Big Mom' or 'Queen of Totto Land'. Enel became known as, the 'Sky King' Enel.

The photo captured of him was also rather fitting.

With him just sitting on a cloud, cross-legged with his staff over one of his shoulders, with a sparking gauntleted palm pointing towards the ground, a lazy gaze and a slight smile on his face.

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His bounty was not low, not by any stretch of the imagination.

Befitting his epithet, he received the bounty of 3 billion Berry, wanted dead, not alive. Becoming the first man to receive such a major bounty on his first 'evaluation'.

To preserve their reputation, the world government would've done everything possible to hide Enel's betrayal and hunt him down covertly.

But since everything was televised, they weren't able to do anything about it.

Now, instead of being called the 'Unranked Admiral' the newspapers started calling him the 'Unranked Emperor'.

Many large figures and powerful pirates wanted to mock the decision of the press, to call Enel a Yonko.

But when seeing the footage of Enel holding back the entirety of the Navy, as well as footage of Jörmungandr, those critics were silenced rather quickly.

The betrayal of Enel was quickly dramatized beyond imagination, as the world government worked overnight to vilify Enel as much as possible.

Although he was called both The Unranked Emperor and the Rookie Emperor, it didn't seem that the Government had given him the title officially though.

Everyone seemed rather shocked about it, but Enel didn't seem to care that much.

The Whitebeard Pirates could only laugh when seeing the half-drunk Enel wipe his nose with the newspaper and throw it overboard.

The rest of the world was still shaking though.

When the news reached Big Mom's territory, plenty of people had different reactions.

Big Mom didn't seem all that surprised, she also didn't seem to care much about fighting Enel.

The reveal of his Goro Goro no mi did surprise her a bit and rouse her curiosity, but not to the point where she would want to meet him again.

Katakuri was shocked though, realizing that it was likely a good thing Enel didn't fight them that day, as many of his siblings would have certainly died.

Oven wasn't exactly shocked per se, he just felt that the world government was being really scummy about the way they portrayed Enel.

He already knew the former Rear Admiral personally, so he knew what type of person Enel was.

Still, Enel's jacked bounty only made him want to grow even stronger. He didn't let that dissuade him one bit. He was already a wanted criminal, so he had no qualms about befriending Enel.

But the Riku royal family was a bit different.

All of them were shocked by that turn of events. They all knew Enel, and they didn't buy the story about him being some cold-blooded animal.

But the fact that he had become such a high-profile criminal was concerning...

Viola wasn't exactly shocked by him being able to become an Emperor in the public eye, as she already knew he was strong. But she also knew he wasn't a criminal, which confused her quite a bit.

In the end, she, as well as the rest of her family, could only hope that Enel would visit them and explain things at some point...

The Strawhats also had various reactions to that news.

Most of them were rather focused on the fact that their captain's brother was to be executed.

Many of them remembered Enel, even Franky and Brook had heard about him at some point.  Either from Luffy, talking about his long ears, or from Sanji, talking about his speed.

All of them had received the message from their captain though, that they'd have to meet again in two years.

And, seeing the recording and photos of the Marineford war managed to light a fire underneath them.

Zoro especially.

'If I want to be of assistance to Luffy in the future... I can't afford to be this weak!'

Zoro was affected quite a bit by the way Kuma had managed to dispatch them on the Sabaody Archipelago. Now he had also caught a glimpse of just how overwhelming fights at the top level were.

'If I truly want to be the right hand of the King, then I need to grow stronger... Much stronger.'

Sanji also had similar thoughts, he was one of the crew's main fighters, despite being the cook.

He had already been humbled once by Enel during their visit to the Sky islands, but actually seeing how strong the top powers of the world were, made him feel strangely inadequate.

Therefore, he knew that he would need to become a lot stronger if he wanted to be able to protect his friends.

His sentiments were mirrored by the majority of the straw hats. All of them wanting to become better in order to be able to help Luffy achieve his goals...

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Hope you liked the chapter!

Yep, didn't go into much detail about how Luffy ended up contacting the crew :))

The reactions/thoughts of others will be explored more when Enel eventually meets them again.

Btw, my laptop really shit the bed today, I've barely been able to write and it's running like shit.

If u want to support me look up VeganMaster on Patre_on, you'd also get 10 chapters in advance (or 5 depending on tier)

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