Disclaimer: One Piece (c) Eiichiro Oda
Summary: In a dark bar, hopefully far away from his captain, Zoro relates the true events behind the forming of the Straw Hat Pirates. AU, crack, post- EL, pre-TB
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The reporter looked up when the figure approached his table. The newcomer was a tall man, but other than that all his features were concealed under a long dark cloak. Even his face was half-hidden under his hood, and the reporter could only catch a short glimpse at a tense, almost frightened expression on the man's face as he pulled a chair towards the table and sat down.
"Good evening. I presume you're Rorono--…", the reporter began, but was immediately cut off by the cloaked man.
"Quiet, for god's sake. I don't want any attention." The man pulled his hood even further down his face. Frankly, the reporter thought, it made him even more suspicious than any other person in this shabby bar, but there you go. Pirates of his calibre were often quite eccentric… then again, if this man was indeed THE Roronoa Zoro, then any other person in the room, including himself, should be covering in fear beneath a cloak, not the other way around. Maybe this one was an imposter after all?
"I beg your pardon. To be honest, I didn't expect you to show up at all, after I waited all evening."
"Sorry. Got lost.", the man mumbled with an embarrassed scowl.
Well, the reporter thought, that sure sounded like Zoro – the wanted posters listed his lacking sense of direction as number one weak spot after all. Still, the man confused him. Judging from what he knew from all sources at the newspaper headquarters, Roronoa Zoro NEVER went around in public cowering or even with the slightest expression of fear. What on earth could have caused him to behave like that? And then there was the fact that he had come here on his own, without anyone else from the crew… giving him, an unknown reporter, the chance for an interview.
"Well, now that you arrived, let's get straight to the topic. It's not every day a reporter of the Grand Line Weekly gets to interview a member of the infamous Straw Hat pirates after all. I'm sure our readers are dying for any word from the pirates who brought down Enies Lobby."
"You've got it wrong.", retorted the swordsman. "This isn't an interview. This is a call for help."
"Oh?" The reporter raised an eyebrow in honest astonishment. Things got curioser and curioser. "I'm afraid you will have to explain this."
"It's about our captain. Monkey D. Luffy. The thing is… everything you think you know about the Straw Hat pirates is wrong."
The reporter raised the other eyebrow as well. This was not going as expected.
"You mean the fact that you are a group of - by now - nine pirates travelling through the Grand Line and striking fear into the heart of any marine you encounter? The fact that apparently, your captain declared war on the whole world just to get back one of his crewmates last week?"
"Exactly this is it.", hissed Zoro. "We, that is, the crew… we don't know what to do anymore. We thought that at least Robin could escape with her daring plan, but look what happened! Luffy went on a rampage and didn't stop until he recaptured her."
Now the reporter was utterly confused. "… recaptured her? Didn't he save her?... wait. No. Could you please start from the beginning?"
The swordsman sighed and massaged his temples in a gesture of despair. "Alright. I'll try. The truth about us Straw hats is…" He fixated the reporter with a dark glare. "We're all prisoners. Of Monkey D. Luffy's, to be precise."
The reporter stared back in disbelief, until Zoro elaborated.
"See, I'm the first mate of the crew, because Luffy found me first. It was on a Marine base in East Blue. That's right, he found me - in a minor predicament - and subsequently forced me to join him. And he didn't stop there. Right after we set out, Luffy just grabbed the first navigator he could find and made her one of his crew as well. Usopp – that's our sharpshooter – didn't know what he got himself into when he agreed to join Luffy on his own, but after that, Luffy downright KIDNAPPED a cook from the swimming restaurant, the Baratie in East Blue."
The reporter, who had been listening with his mouth slightly open, suddenly remembered to take notes. "Yes, the Baratie. I know that place. So wait, let me get this straight – you're saying your captain kidnapped and forced half of your crew into working for him? How on earth is this possible? Aren't you all supposed to be very strong?"
"You don't know Luffy.", said Zoro with a hollow voice. "Whatever he wants, he gets it. He never, EVER, takes no for an answer. I saw that right after Luffy had dragged off that stupid cook kicking and screaming – that was when Nami, our navigator, tried to escape from him. She stole our ship and ran back to her actual boss, a pirate captain called Arlong. Guess what happened? Luffy… he followed her and tore the whole place into pieces to take Nami back. It was a terrible sight."
"That is unbelievable.", the reporter gasped, furiously scribbling away. "I take it she didn't try to escape anymore after that?"
"None of us did. In Roguetown, for one second, we were allowed hope. Some pirate captain called Buggy actually almost killed Luffy in a public execution, and after surviving that due to some unholy force intervening, he almost got captured by a marine commander called Smoker. But --- he got away again! I have no idea what kind of devil's luck this psycho has, but he escaped, taking us with him of course."
Zoro took a deep chug out of the tankard of rum the bartender had put in front of him.
"After that, all of us pretty much lost our hope, especially after entering the Grand Line. That was a point of no return for us all, so we thought we might as well give in to our terrible fate of working under a batshit crazy lunatic. But we promised ourselves one thing – we would prevent him from kidnapping any more unsuspecting victims."
"And did that work?", the reporter asked, despite knowing the obvious answer.
"Well... no.", Zoro admitted. "Luffy soon found a reindeer zoan on some friggin cold island. Originally he wanted to eat him, but after we could convince him that Chopper was a decent doctor, he let him live. The poor little guy still spends every day being terrified of being eaten despite that. He really has it worst of us all."
"But at least we managed to save that one girl from Luffy. She was actually a princess, and therefore Luffy desperately wanted to add her to his collection. Of course, we had to keep him from dragging her on board and tell him all sorts of excuses why it just couldn't work, but she got away in the end! I really hope I'll be as lucky as her one day."
"This is really a completely unexpected story." The reporter shook his head, still scribbling. "So how do the recent events with Enies Lobby relate to all this?"
"We picked up Nico Robin right after Vivi escaped. She was, like Usopp back then, not knowing what kind of trouble she was getting herself into when she requested to join our crew. Of course we all protested against it, hoping to spare her this horror, but Luffy immediately accepted. It was pretty much a lost cause from then on. In the following months, Luffy dragged us in and out of several hells, during which we'd try to get away all the time – to no avail. We even participated in a Davy Back Fight, hoping the other captain would win us off Luffy, but instead, Luffy won 500 new crewmembers which he just didn't take with him because our ship was too small. In the end we finally reached Water 7. It was there that Robin and Usopp both devised their respective escape plans. By acting at the same time, they hoped to throw Luffy off."
"Amazing. So everything I heard about what happened at Water 7 is a lie?", the reporter asked.
"Probably a lie within a lie", Zoro confirmed. "While Robin turned herself in to some of the strongest fighters of the world government to get away from Luffy, Usopp feigned a really nasty argument with him, thinking that if he just got Luffy angry enough, he would be allowed to leave. Well, it seemed to work at first, but Usopp got the worst beating of his life. It was terrible. I still wake up at night and hear his screams…"
Zoro took another deep gulp of rum.
"Anyway, after immobilizing Usopp, Luffy grabbed us and rushed after Robin to Enies Lobby. You know what happened to the island. Robin even somehow manipulated Spandam to invoke a Buster Call to get rid of Luffy, but that didn't stop him either. Nor did the CP9. In the end, he got her back before she could flee into the safety of the Gates of Justice. For us, this was our greatest defeat."
"But your sniper? Did he get away?"
"No", answered Zoro darkly. "That, too, was an unfortunate turn of events, because it almost would have worked. Luffy couldn't find Usopp before we left Water 7, so in order to make up for the crew member he lost, he kidnapped that cyborg Franky, just for the hell of it. We were still too shocked by Robin's failed escape to prevent that. And then… now comes the tragic part… we left port, and Usopp saw the ship depart, crying with joy over finally being free.
"But you see, Usopp is an emotional kind of guy. And us prisoners, we bonded during our months of working under Luffy. So he screamed and waved after us, crying and wishing us good luck… when suddenly Luffy noticed him, stretched his arms longer than I have ever seen before, and picked Usopp right off the beach. He was back, captured, all his suffering in vain!"
"My goodness.", the reporter breathed.
"And here ends the tale", Zoro said. "We're at the end of our wits. We're hostages, forced to take part in whatever outrage Luffy plans next, and nobody seems to be strong enough to free us. We have tried everything, brute force, cunning, running over to other pirates, running over to the marines… Luffy crushes everyone and everything we put in his way. That guy is a rampaging lunatic who'll one day will get us all killed in one of his so-called "adventures" and a bounty of 300,000,000 beli is not by far enough to express what kind of terror he is capable of bringing down unto the world."
"I had no idea.", murmured the reporter. "This is awful. Isn't there anything I can do for you unfortunate souls?"
The ex- bounty hunter finally pulled back the hood from his head and let the reporter see his full face. Sure enough, this was the face from all the wanted posters, the ones that depicted Roronoa Zoro as the fierce and deadly first mate of the Straw Hat pirates. What a difference those reports were to the haunted man sitting in front of him, with a ghostly pale skin and an unsteady gaze.
"You need to tell people the truth. You must explain how dangerous Monkey D. Luffy really is. There must be someone in the world who is stronger than him, and he needs to stop him before it's too late. I risked everything to come here tonight and tell you the truth. Please help us."
The reporter was taken aback by the solemn request of one of the strongest swordsmen alive. "I will. I promise I-…."
"THERE you are, Zoro!" With a "flump", a boy not older than 18 landed right in the middle of the table where the swordsman and the reporter were seated, effectively tossing over Zoro's mug and spilling its contents over the reporter's notes. With a big grin, the boy lifted up a harassed-looking cuddly little… animal… with horns, trousers and a pink hat. "Got lost again, eh? See, I had to make Chopper sniff you out all the way from the Sunny."
"I'm sorry, Zoro.", the little animal whined. "He made me do it."
The reporter stared. Judging from the resigned expression of the swordsman across from him, the kid was the very hazard they had been talking about, the kidnapping, havoc-wreaking goofball of a captain, Monkey D. Luffy.
It was then that aforementioned hazard turned around and gazed at Zoro's drinking partner. The reporter paled.
"Hey, who's that guy? Know him, Zoro?"
"No, don't know him at all", Zoro hastened to say and tried to divert Luffy's attention away from the reporter, before he'd notice…
Too late.
"Wha- AWESOME! Hey, uncle, your fingers, they're pencils! Why's that? That's SO COOL!"
"… it's a Devil's Fruit ability", the reporter stuttered intimidated. For some reason he was terrified of the boy and his entirely too wide grin. "I ate the Pen Pen Fruit, I can make any sort of pen sprout from my body. But it's extremely useless, really, all it is good for is for my work as a reporter..."
But the boy wasn't even listening. "That's AMAZING! If we had you on board, Nami'd never whine about all her pencils for her maps suddenly disappearing again. Hey, wanna be a pirate?"
Zoro, Chopper and the reporter all simultaneously went white as a sheet. But before Luffy could even set his mind on the decision that he wanted a walking pencil dispenser on the Sunny, Zoro had grabbed a random plate of meat from the next table (subduing the ensuing protest with some well-placed jabs with Wadou Ichimonji's scabbard) and shoved it under Luffy's nose.
"Hey captain, wanna eat that? I couldn't finish it."
And while Luffy delightedly ravaged the meat plate, the reporter fled from the bar, accompanied by "shoo shoo" motions from both Chopper and Zoro.
From a dark, safe corner of an alley, the reporter watched as the three pirates left the bar only some moments later, the captain purposefully striding towards the harbour, holding a firm grip on both of his companions (pencil dispenser thankfully forgotten). He gazed at his notebook, which was still wet from the rum, and gulped hard.
"This is going to be the story of my life."
And with that thought, he scurried off into the night.
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+ fin