Posting this fic for the readers here on Fanfiction. The rest of the chapters aren't as weird as this first one. Please enjoy! And if you like, please review!
The island on which the Strawhats made landfall was a beautiful, tropical one. The warm sun shone down on beautiful trees and flowers of various types, some they'd seen before and some which were completely alien to them. There was all sorts of good food, from exotic fish to brightly colored fruits and vegetables. There were palm trees and shells that sparkled like jewels on the glistening white sand beaches. All in all, it seemed a wonderful place to settle down if one was into staying in one place.
Then again, according to the locals, they were going to be staying on the island for at least five weeks since that was exactly how long it was going to take the log pose to set, so in a way, they were staying in one place. Boredom threatened to overwhelm Zoro, so getting off the ship once they'd dropped anchor was a top priority.
"Ad-veeen-ture! Ad-veeen-ture!" Luffy sang as he and Zoro flung themselves over the railing of the ship and onto the ground.
"Most people want to rest and relax in a place like this," Nami said as she leaned over the same railing they'd jumped over just moments before. "But you want to adventure. Just make sure you keep an eye on Zoro so he doesn't wander off."
Zoro grumbled something about knowing exactly what he was doing, then he and Luffy were off.
Not wanting his most precious person to get lost, Luffy took and held Zoro's hand as they walked around a bustling city, taking in the sights, sounds, and smells. There were children playing along the sidewalks, and vendors beckoned to them from the streets, wanting the two newcomers to taste their wares.
"They have lobster kabobs over there!" Luffy exclaimed excitedly, pointing. "Come on Zoro, let's get some! My treat!"
"Well, okay. But don't buy too many," Zoro said as he walked with Luffy to the vendor stall.
"Hello there! Would you like to try my lobster kabobs?" The vendor asked in a friendly manner. He was a rotund fellow looking to be in his late fifties, with a bright smile on his face.
Luffy nodded vigorously. "Yeah, we'll have five skewers each!"
"Aho! I told you not to buy too many!" Zoro said, cuffing Luffy on the head. Then he turned to the vendor. "What he actually means is we'll have two each."
"But Zoro~!" Luffy whined as he paid for the four skewers. "We have enough money for ten!"
"We don't need ten!" Zoro told him.
The man laughed heartily as he took the money and handed them their kabobs.
"So what kind of attractions are there here?" Zoro asked as he blew on one of his kabobs before biting off a piece. "This is really good!"
"Well, you're in luck if you can stick around until later this week," the man said as he prepared his grill for more kabobs. "Later this week, we have our annual island festival with music, good food, fun games and prizes, and there will be a fireworks display at the end of the night."
"Sounds like fun!" Luffy said, getting pumped. "We'll definitely be staying for that!"
"You guys can go. A festival's not really my thing," Zoro stated, biting off another piece.
"But Zoro, I wanna go with you!" Luffy, who'd already inhaled his kabobs, whined.
"It's not even here yet!" Zoro said as he held his kabobs away from a grabbing Luffy. The man handed Luffy another one "on the house".
"I know, but it'll be fun!" Luffy said, cozying up to his boyfriend.
"Eh, alright. I guess it wouldn't hurt to stay there a few hours," Zoro said, giving in.
They thanked the man for the food, then they were off again.
"Zoro?" Luffy looked around. He couldn't find Zoro anywhere, and he'd only let go of his hand for a second! "Zoro!"
He ran all around the city, trying to think like a Zoro. After about a half hour of looking, he ran back to the ship. Maybe Zoro had found his way back there?
"Sanji! Sanji! I lost Zoro! I only let him go for a split second, and now he's gone!" Luffy cried as he ran into the galley.
Sanji snuffed his cigarette out in an ashtray. "Whoa, whoa. Hold on. Calm down. Where did you last see him?" He asked.
Luffy couldn't just simply, "calm down". Not with his boyfriend missing! "We were returning to the ship, when I let go of his hand, then like a second later, he was gone!"
It was a good thing that everyone had their own Baby Den Den Mushi with them this time around. Everyone except Zoro that is, who'd been supposed to stay with Luffy. Sanji called everyone else, alerting the rest of the crew to the disappearance of their crewmate. "And when you find him, bring him back to the ship. Luffy's waiting for him." Then he disconnected. "Try not to worry too much about him. He'll eventually find his way back."
Zoro looked around. There were nothing but trees and strange bushes and other plantlife growing all around him. He was hungry, tired, and had no idea where Luffy had gone, or where he himself even was for that matter. The time was tending towards evening when he spotted a cave up ahead. Maybe he could rest there and get his bearings before searching again for the ship.
It was surprisingly not too dark inside the large and winding tunnel. As he wandered further in, a sweet, fruity smell met his nostrils. At first his tried to ignore it, but as he wandered further, the fragrance became stronger until it was impossible to ignore, as if it were trying to lure him.
After several minutes of walking, he came upon a large cavern with a high ceiling. What surprised him was that, right smack in the middle of the cavern, was a strange tree, though what a tree was doing growing in a cave was beyond him. What was also strange was that the leaves were odd shades of either pink and lilac, pale yellow and baby blue, and peach and mint green. All pastel colors. The strangest of all though, was a single small, green fruit about the size of his fist hanging from one of the branches. It was nothing really remarkable, other than being star-shaped. He deduced that the fragrance was wafting from the tree.
Normally, he was cautious about such things, but he knew two things. One, he was ravenous, and two, that fruit was not a devil fruit. They'd eaten many strange things on many strange islands over the course of their adventures. What could it do to him?
Feeling emboldened, he picked the fruit, wiping it on his sleeve before taking a bite.
This was definitely not a devil fruit. It was fragrant and had a soft, but slightly crispy texture. It was also delicious, in a way that no devil fruit had ever been described. It had no seeds, nor core, just pure juicy deliciousness all the way through. He wiped the juice from his mouth after finishing the last bite, then licked the juice from the back of his hand.
Wondering where he could get another of these fruits, his eyes set upon the leaves of the tree. Specifically, the pink and lilac ones. He picked one, tentatively gave it a nibble, then realizing that the leaves were much like the fruit in flavor and texture, he set about eating his fill of those...
The rest of the crew had all but given up on finding Zoro, and Luffy was on the verge of breaking down. The only other times he got this hysterical was on the rare occasions he misplaced his hat. "Calm down Luffy," Nami said calmly, trying her best to refrain from shaking her captain. "He's still on this island somewhere, we just need to find him."
"Yeah, he can't have gone too far," Usopp added. "It's just that he's probably looking for us at the same time we're looking for him so it'll probably take a while longer."
"Either we'll find him, or he'll find his way back to the ship... eventually," Sanji said, taking a puff of his cigarette. "Either way, it'll help if we remain calm."
Luffy tried to calm himself down. He focused his mind on finding Zoro, and he wouldn't rest until he did.
Now that Zoro's stomach was full, he was sleepy. No, it was more like he was exhausted. After he'd eaten the fruit, he'd stripped every pink and lilac leaf from the tree. For some odd reason, he only found the ones of that color combination appetizing. He'd tasted the other colors not finding them to his liking at all. Now, he needed to get back to the ship so he could rest.
Amazingly, he was able to make his way out of the cave, as if his feet somehow knew instinctively where to go. Once he was out of the cave, he picked a seemingly random direction, and began walking again.
Everyone except Luffy was asleep by the time he'd gotten back. The ship was eerily quiet, and Luffy was sitting in the dining area of the galley when Zoro ambled in. Luffy trotted over to his boyfriend, wrapping his arms around Zoro several times.
"Where've you been?" Luffy asked quietly. "We've been worried sick!"
"Cave..." Zoro said around a jaw-cracking yawn, barely able to keep his eye open.
"Cave? What kind of cave?" Luffy asked as Zoro began to drag him, still hanging onto him, into the men's quarters.
"Fruit," Zoro said simply as he shed his swords and dropped limply into his hammock.
"Fruit... cave? What does that even mean?" Luffy asked, but Zoro was already asleep. "Goodnight Zoro, see you in the morning."
Luffy thought about it a while, wondering what kind of fruits Zoro had seen. Was it like a stash of devil fruits? But then again, probably not. Those were rare, even on the Grandline. Plus, there was nothing different about Zoro. What kind of fruit was he talking about then? Oh well, maybe I could ask him tomorrow, Luffy thought as he slipped into the hammock next to his beloved, embraced him, and closed his eyes with a smile.
"What the hell is THAT?"
Luffy was jolted out of his sleep by Sanji's exclamation. Upon awakening, he noticed to his utter disappointment, that Zoro was gone again. "Sanji, Zoro-" Luffy cut himself off as he followed Sanji's gaze upward into a corner of the men's quarters where the two walls met the ceiling.
There was a massive, off white, cocoon-like formation nestled into that corner. "What do you think it is?" Luffy whispered to Sanji as if the thing on the wall would hear him.
"I don't know, but we need to get it out of here, and quickly, before whatever's in there comes out." Sanji lit a cigarette, taking a drag off of it. He wondered, not for the first time since seeing it, how whatever it was had gotten past their defenses and into the men's quarters of the ship. He was startled out of his thoughts by Luffy's panicked yell.
"AH! Whatever made that thing TOOK ZORO! LOOK!" Luffy pointed to Zoro's clothing lying on the floor; coat, sash, haramaki, pants, and boots. By that time, the rest of the crew in the men's quarters were waking up, one by one wondering what was making Luffy so upset, and one by one beginning to gawk at the strange 'thing' that had seemingly grown overnight on the walls near the ceiling.
"What the hell is that thing?" Franky asked as he walked over and tentatively touched part of it with his massive hand, then giving it a gentle squeeze. "Whatever's in it is alive, and it moves when I squeeze it."
"Don't squeeze it. We still don't know what it is," Sanji reasoned, thinking it looked like a cocoon of some sort.
Noticing that they were short one crewmate, Franky and the others looked around for Zoro. "Where's Zoro-bro?"
Luffy, who'd tried to calm himself down, told Franky, "Whatever made that thing, took Zoro! He came back a few hours ago, talking about caves and fruits, and when I woke up," Luffy pointed to the corner where the cocoon thing was, "that was up there, and those," He pointed to Zoro's clothing. "were down there."
Franky put a hand to his chin. "Maybe if we open it up, we could see what's inside, and get a clue as to Zoro's whereabouts."
"Great idea!" Usopp chimed in.
"Bad idea," Robin said from the door of the men's quarters. Everyone looked around to see her and Nami standing there.
"What do you mean?" Usopp asked. "Zoro came back but he's gone missing again." He pointed to the swordsman's clothes beneath the cocoon. "His clothing is still here, so we were going to try to find out what happened to him."
"If what I've read about this particular island is correct, you may not want to disturb that cocoon," she said, coming in.
"How come?" Chopper asked.
"Because Zoro's inside," she replied simply.
"But if he's inside, shouldn't we get him out then?" Usopp asked worriedly. "We don't even know what put him in there!"
"No one put him inside, he made it himself," Robin told him. "Come with me. I have something to show you."
In the library of the Sunny, Robin cracked open a book she'd read on the culture, customs, and history of the island they were currently visiting, as well as a book on the plantlife.. Over the course of the next several minutes, Robin explained in detail about the caves, the trees with their fruit, and what happens to the human body once the fruit is eaten.
"So that's what Zoro meant," Luffy said, getting it now.
"What do you mean?" Usopp asked.
"When Zoro came back, I asked him where he'd been, and he was so sleepy, he just said "cave". When I asked him what kind, he said "fruit". But I didn't know what he meant," Luffy explained. "Do you really think he could have found one of those fruits, and not something else?"
"Yeah, you did say they were rare," Usopp piped in.
"Yes, one or two grow in the caves once every one-to-three years," Robin said, recalling what she'd read. "They're rare, as well as being extremely difficult to locate for the great majority of people."
"So the question that remains is, how did Zoro, of all people, find one?" Sanji asked, taking out another cigarette, lighting it and taking a drag, blowing out the smoke.
"I'm not sure. All we know for certain is that he's eaten at least one, and one is all it takes. It's only a matter of time before he comes out of the cocoon and we get to see the new Zoro."
A smile spread over Luffy's face as he thought about Zoro's new form. "Zoro's gonna have wings! I wonder what color they'll be?"
"It'll depend on whether or not he ate some of the tree leaves. Each tree has three different color combinations. Usually pastel colors like pink and baby blue," Robin went on explaining. "If he didn't eat the leaves, his wings will just be a dull brown or grey color. As for the colors of Zoro's wings, we'll just have to wait and see."
"I hope they'll be pink!" Luffy laughed. "That'll go great with his green hair!"
"I don't think pink and green would go together..." Usopp said, trying to think about what that would look like.
"What are you talking about?" said Luffy indignantly. "Pink and green go great together! Like a watermelon!"
"I dunno..."
"They do!"
"Besides, the inside of a watermelon is more red than pink."
"Pink and green will be pretty!"
"What's the point of arguing when we haven't even seen his new form yet?" Franky asked, shugging his huge shoulders. "We don't even know what color his wings will be!"
Luffy laughed. "Gonna be pink!"
"How do you know?"
"I just know!"