One of the customs of the Hundred Beasts is a certain sun tribe that borrows money in style. A mysterious little notebook records their current and future creditors, and it cycles infinitely according to a certain pattern.
Every beginning of the month, Ghost Island is sure to see Drake paying debts everywhere. Correspondingly, by mid-month, she is sure to be borrowing money everywhere. If she doesn't appear, it means she is on a mission.
In a sense, Drake's behavior indirectly promotes internal team-building among the cadres. Sometimes when she gets a windfall from a mission and delays borrowing, others find it strange.
When a class has two people with the same name, others will inevitably come up with additional nicknames using characteristics like size, height, or weight.
Here, Babanuki takes a simpler approach—he directly gives up calling the other person by this name.
After Babanuki's simple distinction, Apoo and Drake were thrown into the same cell. Although it's been cleared out a lot recently, only very few have the privilege of single rooms. These two do not qualify.
Moreover, Babanuki deliberately put them together. As the Prison Warden of the Hundred Beasts, Babanuki's life is relatively dull. He's not Magellan, who spends a large amount of time in the bathroom every day.
Besides ordinary entertainment, watching prisoners fight is one of his pastimes.
"Isn't this Drake? I can't believe they caught you too."
In the cell, Apoo mocked the thrown-in Drake. Though he himself is a prisoner now, it doesn't stop the Super Rookies from disliking each other. They had verbal spats back at the Shampodi Islands.
"Ha, aren't you also a prisoner? What's there to say?"
Rubbing his stomach, Drake felt something wasn't right. Logically, his physique should be stronger than Apoo's, yet Apoo looked unaffected.
The issue must be with the force used. For some reason, Babanuki seemed to hit him harder.
Babanuki wasn't unleashing grievances. Although Drake has a tendency to borrow money, he always repays, and his personality is well-received among pirates. Babanuki just found two people with the same name bothersome.
Combined with the recent manpower shortage, his irritation translated to more force.
Though arbitrary, it isn't considered a flaw among pirates.
"Don't be so angry. After all, we're cellmates now. What got you in here?"
Apoo suddenly realized arguing with Drake was pointless and decided to get along temporarily to use him for his plans.
"Didn't you start it? That Hawkins fellow joined Hundred Beasts, caught me off guard, and his power got me."
"Hawkins, huh? Not surprising. His powers are strange, and his bounty is just below Kid's."
While Luffy and his group's bounties were heavily slashed, Hawkins always had a top-tier bounty due to his powers. In the first half, his "substitute" ability was quite unbeatable, and many fell to him.
"What about you?"
"Me? I ran into Kaidou. After an epic battle, I was defeated and brought here."
"?"
Drake didn't believe Apoo at all. If someone like him could randomly take on a monster like Kaidou, the Navy would've already pacified The Sea.
"Cough cough, don't mind the details. Anyway, the battle was truly epic."
Apoo would never admit that the battle was so epic that Kaidou didn't even acknowledge him, not remembering his name in the end.
The cell went silent. After a while, seeing no guards watching, Apoo quietly voiced his idea.
"Speaking of which, want to team up? If we collaborate, we might escape from here."
"You got a plan?"
"Not yet, but we can come up with one gradually."
Apoo's face broke into a smile. If Drake agreed, he could backstab Drake during the breakout attempt and testify against him as a stain witness to get into a faction.
He had originally planned to find a backer and then scheme for other things later. This current environment wasn't too bad.
Coincidentally, Drake thought similarly.
Though he hadn't joined Hundred Beasts, getting captured fulfilled his objective from another angle.
Moreover, Apoo's recent surrender offer wasn't accepted, leading Drake to think Hundred Beasts disliked weaklings. He planned to maintain a tough demeanor and only surrender when pressured.
Theoretically, pirates often recruited from prisoners. He had hope—reporting someone planning an escape could give him an opportunity.
The two, with different motives, came to the same decision, schemingly reaching a jailbreak agreement.
However, in the following days, Hundred Beasts didn't recruit them but kept forcing them to mine.
Babanuki misunderstood Kaidou's orders, thinking he was to torment the two and wait for further instructions.
But Kaidou wanted him to decide and notify when ready, and he was so busy finding entertainment, he didn't concern himself with the two. Without incidents, their mining stint would be long.
Drake worked silently. As someone aiming to be undercover, he was loyal until ordered to betray, even more concerned about the undercover faction's issues than regular members.
But Apoo was different. The intense labor wore him out, while Drake showed zero jailbreak ambition, always pushing planning onto him.
As Apoo pondered his next move, his chance arrived.
Kaidou hadn't remembered them and had left Ghost Island for self-training rounds, but Queen arrived at Udon Mine.
"Who stands before you?"
"The almighty Queen! The dashing QUEEN!"
"Good, thank my mercy, you scums have the chance to witness my dance live!"
Queen wasn't there idly but to hold his exclusive concert.
Unlike Uta, who thrived on the main stage, as a wanted man and comedian, with the most polarized reputation among Ghost Island's top cadres, Queen lacked authority to throw parties at will, a privilege only held by Arceus and Kaidou.
In all of Wano Kuni, only Udon Mine allowed him such antics.
The prisoners welcomed him too; at least during Queen's dancing, they could rest from labor.
As the music started, Queen began his familiar otaku dance, and this sparked a light in Apoo's eyes. He knew his opportunity had come.