Broomhead arrives in Loguetown

It was an early morning on the seas of East Blue, and the lone wolf known as Fresh was currently resting in a hammock on the inside of a naval vessel. He wasn't affiliated with the Navy – directly, anyway – but his father was, and that was why he was here. After some unfortunate events on their home island of Kyuka, his father had transferred to a much safer base in the Blues in order to ensure the safety of himself, his wife, and his son. The son, however, had other plans.

"We're here, Junior!" Fresh's father called out from the entrance of the room as he threw the door open. Fresh, who had been halfway to falling asleep, slowly stirred and looked in the direction of his father. "Oh, alright. Let me just grab my things." Fresh's father was very excited to start a much safer naval career in East Blue, though Fresh himself was notably indifferent about the whole thing. He had been planning to set out on his own soon one way or another to begin his bounty hunting career, and this just expedited the process. The Blues being safer just meant he had much access to weaker prey of his caliber.

Fresh slowly exited the hammock and grabbed his flintlock pistol and sword from beneath it, stowing them carefully on his person. He had used his savings from working at the hotel to buy these precious commodities, and he was going to take care of them. He wasn't confident enough as a fighter to go into battle without weapons just yet, so he figured a gun and a sword would be good enough to snuff out his foes since he would be on his own. Monty Fresco, Sr. Stood by the door, grinning ear to ear. Fresh resembled his father quite closely, sporting the same toothbrush looking hairstyle, though his father's was clearly beginning to gray in some places.

"How are you feeling, Junior? Excited to be somewhere new?" Fresh nodded. "A change of pace is always good." The stoic Fresh had always been much less of an emotional beast as his father, even as a child. This had never been too much of a problem, except when his father got way too protective of him. Fresh's mother, Judith, was particularly awful about this. Getting away from his father wasn't going to be the chore, it was going to be getting away from his mother. He loved his parents, sure, but he was twenty three years old. Surely it was time to let him spread his wings a bit?

Speaking of which, where was his mother? "Where's mom?" "Already way ahead of us, of course. You know your mother, she's... well, proactive." That was a very charitable way of putting it. Judith Fresco was a very motherly mother, almost aggressively so. She was a well oiled machine of getting everything done as soon as it needed to be. For a housewife that lived on a resort island with only one child, she really never learned how to relax. "That makes sense." Fresh's dad chuckled and gave him a pat on the back. "Let's get off of this rig, shall we?"

Fresh nodded in agreement and followed his father out of the room and up the stairs that led to the deck of the ship. The vessel was a smaller one compared to the many others he had seen before, but apparently this one had some special coating on the bottom of the ship that allowed it to traverse the dangerous Calm Belt with relative ease. Other marines bustled around the deck, and Fresh got a good look at this island that was supposed to be his father's new home. The port alone was quite a bit bigger than the one on their home island, and even from here this expansive city looked much bigger than Kyuka.

Fresh's father patted him on the back again as they both looked out towards Loguetown. "A lot different of a place than home, huh? Looks like you'll have a lot of things to do here." Fresh crossed his arms. "It definitely seems that way." He still hadn't discussed what he wanted to set off and do with his father. That was a conversation that was going to have to happen rather soon, but for now he was just going to play along and wait for the right moment to strike. They had just gotten here, after all.

Fresh's dad nodded towards a pair of suitcases close to the boarding plank. "Here's our stuff, already pulled it out of storage. Grab yours, Junior." Fresh had a brown leather suitcase whilst his father had one made of black leather. Without a word the stoic grabbed his suitcase, which was relatively light. In truth, the only thing in his suitcase was two towels wrapped around a few rocks. The rocks were to feign weight and the towels were to prevent the rocks from just tossing around the suitcase, all to create the illusion that he had actually brought things from Kyuka. In reality, he had sold all of his belongings on Kyuka. He knew he was going to be traveling light for the forseeable future, so why not start off with as much cash as he could?

Fresh and his father disembarked from the vessel and started their trek towards the town. The docks were quite expansive especially since they had landed near the back, so it actually took a few minutes just to get into the town proper. Once they actually got into the town Fresh really had no idea where they were going, so he just assumed his father was heading in the right direction.

Along the way his father hummed cheerfully. Fresh, meanwhile, was trying to talk through in his head exactly how he was going to break it to his parents that he wasn't going to be staying. The more he thought about it, though, the more he realized that his problem was that he thought he had to be tactful about this. He didn't have to be tactful at all! He was twenty three years old and it was time for him to set off on his own, gosh darnit.

It must have been rather obvious that Fresh was lost in thought as his father cleared his throat loudly and snapped Fresh out of his train of thought. "What are you thinking about, son?" Fresh decided it probably was best to just get it all out when both of his parents were present. "Something I've been thinking about for a while now. I want to talk about it with you and mom when we get to the house." "Ah... oh, okay. Sure." Fresh could tell by his father's tone that he was a bit taken aback by his response. Oh well.

The rest of their trip to the new house was rather quiet. Block by block the two of them went, passing buildings of all kinds. This city probably had almost everything one could possibly need, Fresh imagined. He definitely would be coming here again, and not just to see his parents. He surmised that the criminals here were probably much more organized and tougher, so he wanted to start somewhere else where there was a bit less of a risk.

A patrol of marines walked by the opposite side of the street, and Fresh's father nodded to them and smiled. "That's the sixth patrol I've seen since we got here. This town is a lot safer, huh?" Fresh nodded. There was much more of a marine presence here than he had ever seen before.

After a bit more walking they turned a corner and Fresh's father finally had their new home within his sights. "There's the house, and your mother too!" He point a few houses down the street, where Fresh could see his mother waving excitedly on the front steps. As they arrived at the steps, Fresh's mother descended and gave her husband a big hug. "This house is so lovely! I can't believe this is our home, Monty!" Once she let go of Fresh's dad, she moved on to him, putting him in an even tighter hug. "Good morning, sweetie. We're finally at our new home!" "Hi, mom," Fresh replied, straining to breathe because she was gripping him so tightly.

When she finally let go, Fresh began to breathe regularly again. Fresh's mother, Judith Fresco, was in the happiest of moods this morning. She had her beautiful long and wavy purple hair all the way down, and was wearing a lovely orange sundress. "Well, gentlemen, let's get your things inside. Then you can help me finish unpacking and organizing!"

Fresh nodded and went inside, letting his parents go first so they could admire the house together for the first time. It was a tiny and quaint little house with no real color scheme as everything was just the color of the wood it was made out of. The entry room seemed to be part of the kitchen and the adjacent room was a dining room with a wooden table and four seats. There was a box of dishes on the kitchen counter that his mother had probably been in the middle of unpacking when they arrived. A small staircase past the dining room was most likely where the bedrooms of the house were. Fresh assumed there were two, one for his parents and one for him. Maybe they could use his room as a guest room instead? That would be a way to keep things positive.

Fresh's mother immediately got him to work on unpacking. His first step was to take all of the dishes out of the box and place them in the appropriate cupboards (she had them organized by occasion). His next step was putting up all of his mother's decorations. Her decorations weren't anything special, but most of them had been in their old home for so many years that it would have been weird not to have them. One was this fairly odd looking porcelain duck, another was a painting of some sort of landscape that didn't look like anything that was actually real. Then, of course, there were the dozens of pictures of the three of them at various stages in life. Fresh's childhood was actually rather well documented since his mother actually owned a camera of her own.

Once he had finished the tasks that his mother set out for him, his mother showed him to "his" room. He carried up his suitcase full of rocks and towels to feign that he was going to actually unpack. Really, he was just going to mull over exactly what to tell his parents. "We left your room plain because we figured you would want to decorate it yourself," His mother said, pushing the door open to reveal a small bed, a wooden desk, and a chair. It was rather minimalistic, but that was how his old bedroom had been. "Thanks, mom. I'm going to do some unpacking now." "Sure thing, honey. I'm sure it won't take you long since it looks like you didn't bring too much. We're going to have lunch soon, okay?" "Okay."

As soon as she left, Fresh simply sat on the bed and started to plan out exactly what he was going to say. He figured they could talk about it – hopefully in a civil manner – over lunch.

"Lunch is ready, sweetheart!" Fresh's mother calling out to him from downstairs snapped him out of this thought. It was just in time, too; he had more or less come up with what he had hoped was a satisfactory way of breaking it to his parents that he was going to be leaving to pursue a career of bounty hunting. Fresh hopped off of the bed and made his way downstairs as his parents conversed with each other in their loving and romantic way.

"You're spoiling us, Mrs. Fresco. We haven't been in our new home but a day and you've already made us a home cooked meal!" "Well, it was easy enough. The captain let me take some of the ship's provisions. Plus I need to feed the two most important men in my life!" Fresh sat down quietly as they continued their lovey dovey stuff. It wasn't that he didn't care or didn't appreciate the fact that his parents had been married for twenty five years and were still perfectly in love with one another, it was just that it was something that happened every day and he had gotten pretty used to it. Sometimes he wondered if he would end up in a marriage like that one day, but he wasn't too sure. That would take a lot of strong feelings.

Fresh's mother had cooked up some buttered mashed potatoes and seasoned pork loins. The three of them dug in, and Judith Fresco's cooking was as delicious as always. Fresh took a drink of water in order to prepare himself to start this conversation, but was cut off by his father. "What was it that you said you wanted to talk to us about earlier, son?" Fresh calmly placed his silverware down and looked at both of his parents. "Now that we are in a new place, I am going to be pursuing a career of my own." "Well, that's a good thing! What were you hoping to do?" "I'm going to be a bounty hunter."

As soon as the words left his mouth, the room became so quiet you could make a pin drop. Fresh's mother looked absolutely petrified, the complexion of her face getting whiter by an entire shade. His father, however, did not appear to be too surprised. "Well... it was really only a matter of time once you bought those weapons, wasn't it?" "Monty... you're not just going to... let him go, are you?" Fresh's father let out a sigh.  The pale white of Fresh's mother's face quickly turned to a red. "It's not our decision anymore, Judith. He's old enough to face the world."

Just when Fresh thought his mother was going to explode in anger, she did quite the opposite. Tears immediately began to flood down her face and she put her head down. "Ohohoho... you're right..." Fresh's father began to comfort her as he gave Fresh a nod as if it say "don't worry, it's fine." Fresh quietly excused himself to the front porch to give his parents a moment to chat. That definitely wasn't the reaction that I had expected, Fresh thought to himself. I thought she would be much more resistant to the whole affair. Fresh leaned against the post of the porch and looked out onto the street. They were in a residential area so it was mostly just average looking folk going by about their business. After a minute or two, a patrol of three marines went by. After a few more minutes, there was the sound of a throat clearing behind him.

"Junior?" Fresh turned around to see both of his parents. His father had his arm around his mother's shoulder for support, and she wielded a hankerchief and red, puffy eyes. "We had a quick talk, and... we wish you the best of luck on your start as a bounty hunter." "I-I have two conditions, though!" His mother peeped out weakly. Fresh calmly replied. Hopefully they would be two rather simple conditions. He would appease them, of course, because this was his mother he was bargaining with. "What are they?" "You... you have to find other people to work with. Business partners." That was actually a rather smart suggestion. Going lone wolf would definitely be dangerous, especially since he had very little combat experience. "Very well. A crew would be beneficial, actually."

"A-and second--" his poor mother was still clearly trying to hold back tears – "please stay here for the night, just one last night with your family and... and then you can leave, as early in the morning as you want."[/color] "And of course, Junior," his father added, "You'll still have a bed here whenever you're in town." Fresh nodded. "It's a deal." Fresh then extended his arms so that his mother could embrace him, which she immediately did, crying into his tanktop. He wasn't much of a hugger, but it was pretty much required protocol in a situation like this.


With that, Monty Fresco, Jr. had his parents' blessing to go of and begin his bounty hunting career. He stayed for dinner – his mother went out and bought steaks for the occasion – and he left bright and early in the morning to catch a ship out to islands unknown. His mother practically didn't sleep just so that she could see him off in the morning. His father, on the other hand, slept like a rock.