{ Prologue }
"drunk and pretentious"
"He's late."
Barely heard over the raucous laughter behind her, the orangette's voice is laced with annoyance, a tick having sprouted on her temple. She growls, quickly downing her drink before sliding the mug and her finished plate of yakitori back to the bartender.
The man gives her a knowing look, disappearing in the back with the load before replying, "Sure he's coming at all?"
The young woman sighs, leaning her cheek on a fist and closing her eyes, one slim eyebrow twitching. "He's a moron, but he doesn't forget stuff like this."
"Still. He could've decided he just didn't want to-" His mouth snaps shut under her glare.
Her voice is firm, and her hazelnut orbs narrow with silent threat. "He's coming."
The man quickly nods, sensing the danger before clearing his throat, muttering out an apology. He watches her shoulders relax and her eyes close back shut as he wipes another glass mug with a dry washcloth.
From where he's standing, she's the most striking woman in this whole male-dominant bar. Her pouty lips are tainted a natural soft pink and tousled orange hair flows effortlessly down her back and ample chest. The guy she's been complaining about for the past hour is one lucky bastard. The bartender turns back to get another mug.
After a long minute, Nami opens her eyes to look down at the numerous shopping bags on the floor in front of her stool. She scowls, glancing at the clock again. An hour late. Knowing her captain, he probably got distracted by the meat stands she recalled passing by after her shopping spree across the island. Slender fingers reach up to her bosom, subconsciously feeling for the hidden jewel behind her sundress.
Hurry up, idiot.
A new mug of beer, rimmed with fizzing foam, is suddenly placed in front of her. She shoots the bartender a questioning look but all he does is shrug.
"On me."
Never one to refuse free things, Nami mutters a thanks before taking a sip, watching the bartender slip out once more to the back. The beverage is sweeter than she likes, but tastes strangely better. Taking another sip, she turns her head to cast a quick survey of the room. It's long become a habit to check for any potential danger.
Even in the middle of the day, the bar is loud and rowdy, as expected of the pirates and scumbags having gathered in one place. Half of them are drunk, and the other half is getting there. Waitresses prance around in enticing outfits, and raucous jeers follow them as they pass the occupied tables. Indecent and shameless, Nami thinks, but nothing unusual th-
She stiffens. Her gaze shifts to the far corner of the room, where even without activating her Haki she can sense less-than-innocent intentions brewing amongst the group. She swivels back around in her chair, aware of the eyes that follow her movements. If her intuition is right, the men huddled over there are pirates, and they were strong enough to have survived this far into the New World.
Not that she couldn't take them. (The cold metal of her striped clima-tact strapped to her left thigh warned that things would get hot and electric quickly, and it's been a while since Zeus had some fresh air.) Nami just didn't need this right now. She would leave but couldn't think of an efficient way to get out without damaging her 500 thousand beli cargo. So she waits.
They swagger over two minutes later, drunk and pretentious.
"Now what's a beaut like you doin' in the middle of the day, all's alone in a bar?" A voice slurs behind her. Cue the expected snickers from his cronies.
Nami rolls her eyes, taking another nonchalant sip from her mug (six men surrounding her, various sizes and, she guessed, at different levels of drunkenness, strengths yet to be determined). Experience said it was best to play the innocent card, but she's feeling rather irritated at the moment.
She turns, locking eyes with the speaker - possibly the captain with the way he stands so haughtily, one hand in his pocket, a long knife attached to his hip.
"Screw off."
The man - who actually doesn't look much older than her, maybe a couple years older than Sanji and Zoro - chuckles, moving closer, and Nami imagines he must be a stupid kind of drunk to think that her command actually means that she's interested. She scrunches up her nose, eyes watering as the foul stench of alcohol assaults her senses.
He attempts a smirk. "Feisty. But a pretty little thing shouldn't have such a foul mouth." He snickers, arms spread wide as he gestures to his grinning crew. "Leave that to pirates like us, ne?"
Nami almost snorts but manages to keep her face blank, eyes reflecting all the world's boredom.
The man frowns a bit, put off by her lack of reaction to the idea of pirates taking an interest in her (and to herself Nami affirms that he must definitely be stupid if he actually thinks that someone would be surprised about encountering pirates in this half of the Grand Line.) She watches him look down, noticing the shopping bags scattered at her feet.
He looks back up at her with a sly smile. "A tough woman to please, eh?" There's a menacing glint in his eye. "I like myself a challenge."
The orangette scowls as a response but he only leans closer, invading her personal space with his stale breath.
He licks his lips, reddened eyes shamelessly shaping her body. "How's about we take you out of here to have a little fun, hm? You can have all the pleasure you want with us."
Nami's scowl deepens as a slimy hand settles onto her shoulder, metal rings on each finger cold on her skin. She slaps it away before crossing her arms and sending them all a glare that would kill if only she could will it.
"Thanks, but I'm not interested. I'd rather spend my time with some real men."
The cold rejection unsurprisingly garners anger from the group, her cutting words wounding their pride. They growl, and just as their circle tightens, Nami senses a familiar strong presence nearby, and closing in.
Finally.
The biggest of the group sneers at her, pudgy face a startling red. "Watch your mouth, bitch."
It goes unnoticed by them that the men and women standing close to the entrance of the bar start to foam at the mouth before falling to the ground, unconscious.
Nami doesn't spare the bigger guy a glance, speaking only to the leader who had the gall to even approach her. His face is scarlet with anger, mouth set into a gritting frown, unable to respond to her taunt.
She huffs. All talk, after all.
She rises from her seat. "I'll be taking my leave now."
She stoops down to take her bags and makes to push past the leader when she hears the silent intention of one of the men in the group. Her eyes widen, hands flying to her clima-tact but realizing too late that they're weighed down by her load. She curses, stepping back, bumping into her stool, but the heavyset man is surprisingly fast, side-stepping his captain, his clenched hand swiping through the air -
It never reaches her.
A poignant quiet hangs in the air, like all sound had shrunk into a noiseless speck.
A disturbed cloud of dust settles back onto the wooden floor.
The few men and women who haven't fallen unconscious stare at the scene in front of them, sobering quickly, eyes wide with a mixture of gross fear and awe. Those who try to move, even to stumble back, find that they can't - they are paralyzed, gaping at the scene in front of them. Their mouths move up and down but no sound comes out.
(Because it can't be-)
(Not here-)
Belatedly, the group of pirates who converged on the young woman found that there was someone in the center that wasn't there a second ago. Confusion, then a sudden cold fear grips them by their throats.
The gold-rimmed black coat on the newcomer's shoulders waves from the slight breeze created by his movements. His head is bent down, dark eyes shadowed by the telltale straw hat that sits on a head of wild black hair. His mouth is turned down in a frown. A single hand grips the bigger man's wrist effortlessly, whose own hand shook, centimeters away from the young woman's arm.
The bar is enveloped in complete silence. Then -
"You're late."
The Pirate King raises his head, burning black eyes shifting to the young woman who addressed him. The bar occupants watch as his eyebrows slowly scrunch together and, to their bafflement, his mouth forms into a pout. (It's so inappropriate in the tense situation and so contradictory of the powerful aura he emits that it's almost comical.)
"Gomen, Nami," he almost whines. His gaze shifts back to the man who's wrist he still held, pinning him under his glare. Luffy scowls, now, voice hard.
"I couldn't refuse free meat."
Nami rolls her eyes. "Baka."
She sighs again, but her lips twitch upwards to a small smile. "But I guess it couldn't be helped."
She ducks under her captain's steady arm, picking up her dropped bags once more. She twists agilely through the frozen group of men before turning back to him, out of the circle. "I was going to make you owe me 100,000 belli but these guys were more than enough."
Luffy only grunts, still staring the bigger man down. His voice is low. "They've still gotta pay."
Audible gulps are heard as well as gasps of recognition, the shocked whispers having arisen after Luffy said her name. Their epithets are voiced softly from the mouths of the lesser pirates, spreading like the plague.
Nami marvels at how they've managed to not be recognized for this long. Three days. It's a wonder, really. Then again, no one really expects them to look so young, even with their bounty pictures. Or to be out vacationing in such a big country instead of running away from marines. But those two things usually lead people to underestimate the very crew that shook the world.
Nami smirks. It's always a damning mistake.
"It's… it's the Pirate King…Monkey D. Luffy..."
"Dorobo no Neko Nami…n-no way… is the rest of his crew here too?"
"A bounty over 2 billion..."
"What's he doing here?"
Said Pirate King scowls harder. On his way here… He didn't like what he sensed. And if he had come a second later…
"What exactly," the captain of the Straw Hats starts, and the big man lets out a small yelp as Luffy tightens his grip on his wrist, "were you planning to do with my navigator?"
A bead of sweat rolls down his bald head. The man licks his lips, mouth dry. "I-"
But the straw hat man is already digging his thumb into a spot into his wrist, forcing him to open his hand-
From her spot near the door, Nami can see the wet cloth drop on the wooden floor, the strong chemical smell filtering through her captain's nose, and any idiot could figure out what that was meant for...
The pending silence screeches guilty guilty guilty.
Everyone seems to be holding their breath as Luffy looks each man in the eye, steeling each to their spots by his own will.
He lets go of of the man's wrist. The man stays in his vulnerable position.
Nami blinks.
Then the ceiling explodes.
The whole bar groans as large wooden shards rain down from above. The people who are the closest to the group and still conscious cover their heads as dangling lights crash into sparks onto the floor beside them. They still can't seem to move from their spots.
It takes Nami a moment to realize that Luffy had punched the man through the ceiling, and the force of it had ripped off the whole roof of the bar. She sweatdrops. (Because that was him holding back. A lot back.)
She can see through one of the cracked windows the shopkeepers poking their heads outside of their doors, no doubt wondering what all the ruckus is. Bystanders outside scream as debris seemingly from the sky crash onto the ground and some on their merchant carts.
Nami looks back at Luffy just in time to see him turn to the pale-faced bartender who had kept her company in the last hour.
"Sorry about the roof."
He doesn't wait for a response before turning back to the other men, the wicked grin under his shadowed eyes somehow more terrifying than the anger that had been on his face. Luffy cracks his knuckles.
"Who's ass is next?"
He makes quick work of the other five, and makes it especially clear he doesn't like the leader by prolonging a severely one-sided fight rather than knocking him out in one go like the others.
Nami, meanwhile, takes advantage of the stupefied pirates to gather more loot before stepping outside to wait, bags in tow. A crowd is gathering quickly near the unhinged doors, surrounding the fallen and bruised body of one of the men, and while they're distracted, Nami searches for possible routes of escape. The marines are probably going to arrive soon.
A minute passes, then two, and the throng of people grows bigger. She senses their unease. Nami isn't too worried, but she wonders what the crew will think when she comes back with marine officers tailing them back to the ship - she had, after all, told them to leave Luffy to her. But they all know by now that words like that are just said, to be said, and not actually applied. A small grin adorns her face.
For who can control the Freest man in all the seas?
And with that thought, the bar collapses. It's structure caves in, all creaking metal and crackling wood, but with the roof gone, the broken pieces form an open square, revealing what is at its center.
There stands the bartender, still behind an intact counter, the waking and conscious pirates and waitresses scrambling to get up and away, and around them, overturned tables and broken chairs.
And of course, there's Luffy.
While the crowd moves back, coughing from the dust, Nami stays where she is and watches as he dusts off his coat with one hand, straw hat in the other.
Nami squints as one of the waitresses picks up a den den mushi. She lets out an annoyed sigh.
"You know they'll be calling the marines now, right?" she calls to her captain, the crowd murmuring behind her.
Luffy strolls towards her, flip flops lightly tapping the ground and kicking up more dust. "Yup."
"And we'll probably on the run for the next couple of days again."
"Hm," he nods, taking some of the bags from her hands.
She feels a tick sprout on her forehead again. "The log pose hasn't even set yet."
He looks at her, eyebrows clouded in yellow dust, and grins before shoving the hat down on her head. "That's fine. I've got the best navigator."
And just like that, her anger and annoyance disappears. She sighs, punching him half-heartedly on the head. "Let's go, moron."
Thank you.
Luffy's grin widens and Nami doesn't have to wonder how he knows. He just does.
She points to the far west. "The ship's that way. We can slip through one of the alleys and-"
But he;s already chuckling and Nami reads his intentions too late as he hikes the bags up onto his shoulder and wraps his arm tightly around her waist, another arm stretching back only to sling forward to grab onto a building.
"Luffy!" She shrieks, pushing vainly at his arm. "No!"
"Shishishi! Hold on tight," is the only warning he gives before they're flung across the town, Nami screeching all the way.
When the crowd is gone and the marines in pursuit of the infamous pirates, he walks over to a visible pair of limp legs and kicks them.
"Oi, you awake?"
The rest of the body is underneath a pile of rubble and wood but he hears the man let out a muffled grunt.
"I'll take that as a yes."
He touches one of the pieces of wood and watches as the rubble slowly sizzles away under his power, the sun above bright and intense. He stops when he sees skin. Bruised skin. Bloody, too.
"Geez, boss, I haven't seen you look this bad since… well since forever. He messed you guys up bad. "
The drunken man flips him the middle finger. The bartender grins in response.
"Shut the fuck up and help me up," his captain slurs.
"Yeesh, cranky." Still, he does as he's told, grabbing the front of the man's bloody t-shirt and hoisting him up with one arm.
The bartender steps back as his leader reels forward, groaning, an arm around his chest. But there's a mad grin on his face.
"Damn!" He laughs. "He broke my ribs! Haven't felt that in a while."
"Well, what did you expect?" a new muffled voice asks from a similar pile of large debris. "You're lucky he didn't kill you right then and there, with your body already so weakened."
"I told you it was a bad idea," a female voice whines from near the upturned tables. She sits on a curved pipe, a den den mushi in her hand. The former waitress rolls her eyes. "I mean, chloroform? How original."
"They fell for it, didn't they?" the man retorts, his voice calmer. The bartender watches as his captain pulls off the metal rings off his fingers, one by one. They clang as they hit the ground, revealing how heavy they were.
Then he gazes in awe as the bruises slowly start to recede, seeping back into his skin like it never existed, and the formerly drunken man stood tall, ribs apparently healed, eyes shining with excitement.
"Get up you lazy asses. We finally got a taste of who we're dealing with," the captain announces. "Which makes it all the more crucial we don't mess up the plan."
The other fallen men and another disguised waitress begin to get up, pushing the debris off their bodies effortlessly. They stand around their captain in a circle as a whole crew.
"Of all your dead-end plans, this one is particularly suicidal," the other waitress criticizes, chewing on a piece of gum.
"Gotta agree with the Stick this time, captain," the big bald one who had been punched through the ceiling says, groaning as he cracks his back into place. "Mugiwara no Luffy is the Pirate King for a reason. He's survived a war with the government and has fleets ready to defend him with their lives. Mess with him, end up in the infirmary for a year. Mess with his nakama-"
"Which is why we can't get caught," the captain affirms. "The plan's already in motion. Did you do it, Jiro?"
The bartender, Jiro, nods. "Done."
"Then let's set sail and follow them." He grins, a hand on the handle of his knife, facing the setting sun.
"Things are going to get a lot more interesting."
:)
- forgottensongs
Edited: 07/19/18 (past tense to present tense, minor changes :P)