The emergency lights are on, and everything is black and red and flashing, blinding, pulsing with the hysteria thick in the air. The crew knew they were going to die, and they weren't taking well to it. The gunner was gripping the joystick with a white-knuckled grip, murmuring prayers that were increasing in volume to war with the alarms. The navigator had long since died after the first hit the ship took, breaking her neck when she hadn't put her belt on fast enough. Her replacement, Yosaku, had given up steering the ship to avoid the missiles, instead opting to force the tin can of a spaceship in a straight line. Johnny had abandoned any attempt at communications with the other vessel. His gaze was blank and fixated on the controls, as if soon they would speak to him and tell him what to do, regardless of the desperate shouts Zoro aimed at him. There was nothing to be done. Not that could be done. They were doomed the moment they agreed to Morgan's demands. The Marine captain had never been one for negotiations with bounty hunters. They would have been safe, as privateers, to do as they pleased, but Morgan had taken that away from them too. Now all that was left was death.
No – there was still one option left.
Leaving the seat as acting captain – they hadn't even gotten so far as to decide that yet – Zoro grabbed Yosaku by the shoulder just as another missile took out the engine on their port beam. Consequently the ship began to spin until Yosaku released the controls and joined Zoro as he flew into the opposing wall. Coughing and hacking to regain the breath in his lungs, Zoro rose in the same movement as he gripped his crewmate's arm, dragging him towards the stern.
"What are you doing?" snapped Yosaku, stumbling with the uneven movement of their drifting ship, "We have to get away –"
"There's no way that's happening," interrupted Zoro, shoving him towards the emergency escape pods, "We're getting out of here."
"But Johnny and –"
"They've lost the will to live. We don't have time to force them. They'll follow us if they want to face a potential fate worse than dying here."
Yosaku's expression froze into one of terror at the thought. The darkness. The endless darkness. No one to save them from suffocating in the pod on their own, or starving before then, or succumb to a rotting mind if not even then. They would float forever, lost.
It truly was worse than dying in an explosion.
But death itself was not certain today. Zoro watched Yosaku's fear thaw into steely determination. Regardless of what happened to anyone on the ship now, it was true that tragedy had struck that day. Both men entered a pod of their own, lying down as rough straps snapped over their joints and pinned them in place. Another explosion rocked the ship – Morgan was toying with them now, certain of his sick victory. Rage warred with the nervousness in Zoro's gut, quelling it with sudden ferocity. That's right, it didn't matter what happened next so long as it gave him the opportunity to cut the man down. He would take starvation and suffocation and his own mindlessness if just that moment was presented to him.
A curved door with a series of slits for a window slid over the pod, trapping Zoro with himself. He didn't notice his breathing quicken, or that he had long ago broken out into a cold sweat. All he could think about was the inevitable –
The ship ejected the pod with enough force that Zoro was certain his lungs would rupture there and then. The speed and trajectory was random and the pod began to slow and turn, giving its guest a view of the abandoned ship through the slits. There was nothing to listen to but his own breathing, and the near silent sound of his blinking, but he didn't need to hear to feel the explosion that ripped the ship apart. There was no flame but instead a swelling blue rose, visibly crackling with raw energy, which swallowed the spacecraft whole. The next moment, a flying piece of debris, similar in size and shape to a broken escape pod, came cartwheeling out of nowhere to clip Zoro's hull.
The result was immediate. The pod spun like a top, distorting what was visible outside the case into a dark blur. There was no point in seeing any more, so Zoro slid his eyelids shut and tried not to think about the spinning pod, or his gut clenching, or the swish of liquid in his stomach, or the fierce beating of his heart and the rasp of his breath. There was nothing. Well and truly nothing.
––––––––
He knew he'd been floating for far longer than an hour. Maybe even more than twenty-four. How many days could it have been? A week? A month?
No – he was still alive. He was hungry, very very hungry, and he had to inhale and exhale more than normal, and his head had been feeling light for some time now, but he was still alive, and his mind was still whole. It was like this – drifting alone with no idea if Yosaku had made it out as well, or if he was still alive in his pod now, and feeling the guilt that gnawed at him for leaving the others behind to be devoured by the blue flower – that Zoro was found.
He had his eyes closed, or perhaps they weren't, but regardless Zoro was seeing nothing when he felt a curious tug against his person. The pod had been nudged by something. Eyelids bobbing and struggling to maintain one position, Zoro made an attempt at focusing past the slits towards the blackness beyond them. It took him a minute to realize there was more than just empty speckled space. A small blob was approaching him – or rather, he was approaching it, as he got closer he further realized it was a vessel. It was small, he knew, much like the ship he had abandoned in his selfishness, in his gross self-regard, his greediness to survive, without once thinking of his crewmates that he had left behind. His breathing sped up even more, and his oxygen deprived brain screamed at him to stop, just stop thinking, but it was too late. Without wishing it, his eyes rolled up in his head.
––––––––
He woke to the sensation of being dragged over a threshold. His heels bumped over a track, then there was the hiss and grind of an old automatic door struggling to close itself. Somewhere above him there was a grunt, and this was what stirred Zoro to fully wake and open his eyes in a flash. Above him hovered multicoloured beads locked around black hair, and just beyond that was a pleasantly surprised face with wide, dark eyes and a gnarled scar over one cheekbone.
The scar was enough to put Zoro on edge, but the expression made him stop before he struck out. The human – how long had he seen one other than Morgan? – dropped him immediately and took several paces back, allowing Zoro space to maneuver to his knees. He stared down the human as he rose to his feet. He ached all over, his knees especially stinging at his movement, but they held and he could straighten his back with some act of strength.
The human tilted his head in one direction, then again in the other, before breaking out in a grin.
"Hungry?"
That was not the first word Zoro had expected to hear after being taken from his escape pod.
"Yeah, but –"
"Great! Look, I don't have much to share, but since you starving would be counterproductive, I might as well feed you. Just letting you know now, I get first dibs on all the red meat."
"That's fine, but –"
"Good! 'Cause I'm starving since I only ate breakfast, brunch and lunch and didn't get a chance to have after-lunchsies or pre-dinner supper. "
The human, who under normal laws should have been immensely obese, whisked away to presumably enter the kitchen. Zoro cautiously followed, his right palm resting on the bladeless hilts of his energy swords. Despite his overall weakened state, he didn't doubt he could cut the young human down if the situation called for it. He'd even get a ship out of the deal – providing it was as empty as it seemed in the cramped space. When he caught up to the human, he found he wasn't in a kitchen at all, which he should have known given the size of the vessel, but instead the bridge that held all the controls for the ship. On the captain's seat was a pile of, oddly enough, meat. Undressed and poorly cooked, but apparently safe to eat nevertheless by the way the human was presently stuffing it in his face.
"Come, sit," ordered the boy, miraculously not spraying a crumb of charred meat at Zoro despite the volume of it occupying his mouth.
So Zoro sat, on the floor near the human, reaching out to grab what appeared to be a chunk of white meat. After tearing it in half at the thickest part, to be sure it was actually cooked, Zoro shoved the meat into his mouth, allowing his ravenous hunger to take control of his motor skills. The human was laughing joyfully, the sound muffled with the food in the way. In half an hour flat, all the meat that had been piled onto the chair had been devoured, and the human had made good on his monopoly of the red meat, and all of it had gone right to his stomach. Zoro didn't even care, so long as he had some sort of food in his belly, and now he did. He was so relieved, and feeling a sort of happy grogginess, when he remembered where he was and snapped his attention to the human now staring at him with barely contained excitement.
"Who're you?" growled Zoro, mentally kicking himself for letting a bit of pod-craziness and hunger make him lose focus.
The kid seemed unaware of the danger he was potentially in and grinned broadly at him. "I'm Luffy. This is my ship, making me the captain. You're Zoro aren't you?"
Zoro narrowed his eyes. "How d'you know me?"
"I was looking for someone wicked strong, and I overheard someone saying stuff about a bounty hunter named Zoro. Obviously I went looking for you." His grin widened. "I thought you were dead for sure!"
Exhaling long and slow through his nose, Zoro tried not to lose his temper on the human so fast. "Thanks for picking me up, but I have a place I have to be – and someone to look for."
"That's fine. Since you're with me, we can go together."
"What?"
"Me as captain, you as my first mate."
"That's – No. I have to go looking for…"
The bounty hunter trailed off, finally catching sight of the very poorly drawn skull and crossbones on the wall behind the captain's chair. No matter how obscure it was, it was still obviously a jolly roger. Which meant –
"You're a pirate?"
"Yeah! I'm gonna be – Woah!"
The human, Luffy, stared at the blade suddenly at his neck. Along its extended wire length sizzled a poisonous green energy, tendrils of it drifting from its surface to lick at the ship captain's flesh as if drawn to the blood beneath. Luffy was no longer grinning, but there was still no trace of fear in his eyes. Instead, he cocked an eyebrow at the bounty hunter.
"What's the meaning of this?" snarled Zoro, allowing his suspicion to sharpen the energy sword and open up a red nick in Luffy's neck. "You go looking for a bounty hunter, someone who hunts down the heads of pirates like yourself, and for what? A first mate? Don't make me laugh."
"I'm not lying," said Luffy simply, "It doesn't matter that you're a bounty hunter. You're strong, and I want you in my crew."
"What crew? It's just you!"
"And you, now."
Incredulous, Zoro searched the pirate human's expression for falsity, but found nothing but a ridiculous sincerity that reminded him of a child. No child would look like that with a blade pressing against their skin, however. Resigned, Zoro retracted the sword and slid it back in its place at his hip.
"I'm no pirate," he said with finality even this kid couldn't mistake, "You have my thanks for retrieving my pod, but that's all you're getting. Drop me off at the nearest port and I won't cause you trouble."
Luffy screwed up his nose. "No way. You're gonna be my first mate, I've decided."
Almost as an afterthought, he lifted a hand to brush away the dewdrop of blood that formed at the slight cut Zoro had left behind.
"I said no."
"You're pretty stubborn, aren't you?"
"That goes without saying. I am a. Bounty. Hunter."
"Yeah, and?"
"…"
"Now that's settled, time to set off!"
Zoro watched mutely as the captain draped himself over the navigator's empty chair and punched a few buttons seemingly at random. Obviously satisfied with choosing any old destination, the captain spun around to beam at Zoro.
"Do you know anyone on that big ship? Big ships have tons of strong people, don't they?"
The bounty hunter opened his mouth to reply shortly, but then found himself striding quickly to the very front of the bridge to stare over Luffy's shoulder. It certainly was a big ship, and on the side was a symbol that send a fiery rage boiling through Zoro's entire body. Grinding his teeth together into a grin, the hunter looked down to meet Luffy's wide-eyed gaze.
"Tons. And I'm going to crush the person that captains that particular ship."
"Wow!" Luffy beamed, unperturbed by the obvious bloodlust. "That's gonna be a lot of work you know."
"I'll manage."
"I have an idea! Since you're my first mate –"
"I'm not."
" – then that means your battles are my battles too. I'll take care of all the small fry, so you just go on ahead and cut down the big boss. If I do that, you have to really be my crewmember, okay?"
Zoro could only stare at the conviction and confidence this lanky, scruffy-haired and scarred human was exuding. He wasn't exaggerating. From the way he spoke, Zoro had to believe that Luffy was going to make good on his word, just like how he'd eaten all the red meat. The situation was completely different, but he had no doubt. This kid was serious, and for some bizarre, unmentionable reason, Zoro was excited at the thought of bursting into that hulking Marine ship and ripping it to shreds at his side.
Luffy grinned once more at the change in Zoro's expression and reached out to grab the navigator's joystick.
"Time to take out that ship!"
"Aye," said Zoro, closing his grip around one of his swords, "Captain."
––––––––
A/N: Oh boy. Oooh boy. Okay so I think I might do each of the crew's first meeting and impression of the Strawhat Pirates at each point in its evolution – if I have the motivation. That's the plan. If I can do it. Which I totally can. If I want to. Come on, motivation.
And this is the link to the full size image and my original thought: bitterbeetle. / post/ 93165126627/one-piece-au-in-which-luffy-floats-around-space