Author's Note: This is my first try at an original fic with the canon characters, so bear with me here! Review and let me know if I should continue this story or just drop it now.
Disclaimer: Don't own One Piece
Chapter One
"Sanjiiiii," Luffy whined. "I'm hungry."
"Well I'm not giving you food," Sanji grumbled. "You just had lunch."
"But I want food! Food, food, food!"
"Shut up Luffy," Nami growled, punching the rubberman into the mast. "You're annoying."
Luffy landed on the deck, rubbing his head gingerly. "Ow…"
Sanji had hearts in his eyes. "Ah! Nami-san's so cute when she's mad...!!"
"EVERYONE HEADS UP!" Usopp yelled from the crow's nest. "ISLAND AHOY!!"
The Straw Hats all looked up… even Zoro cracked open an eye to peer at the island. He raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Is it just me, or does this island hav-"
"HOW AWESOME!" Luffy yelled, stars in his eyes. "IT HAS A MOUNTAIN SHAPED LIKE A BANANA!!"
Zoro sweatdropped. "I was going to say it looked like a pair of bull's horns…"
"Well, whatever, it's a new island!" Luffy said, bounding onto his special seat. "Nami! When are we going to get there!?"
"We'll probably get there in an few hours or so, it's not too far off," Nami stated.
"Yosh! Everyone prepare to land on the new island!"
Three and a half hours later, the Going Merry was pulling into the harbor, her eager occupants hanging over the sides in excitement.
"Look! There's a city!" Nami said with glee, pointing. "Maybe there's a marketplace I can visit!"
"Not necessarily, Kokaishi-san," Robin said, looking up from her book. "To me, that looks like a strange city, don't you agree?"
Looking to see what she was talking about, everyone sweatdropped. There was a large sign bearing the town's name, "Revisiting Town". Underneath the name, in smaller letters, there was a message. "Enter if you are prepared."
"A-a-ah," Usopp gasped, throwing himself to the floor and pretending to choke. "I-I-I… have a… rare disease that is kicking in ri-"
Sanji sucked on his cigarette. "Chopper, Usopp has an 'I-must-not-go-on-the-new-island' sickness again."
The little reindeer waved his front hooves in the air, sweatdropping. "I'm sorry, there's no cure for stupidity. I could try to make a medicine if yo-"
"Oi," Usopp said, miraculously recovered, a stress mark appearing on his head.
"Yosh! Let's find some adventure!" Luffy crowed.
Zoro had gone back to sleep.
Nami sighed. "If you try making medicine to cure stupidity, make sure you make enough for those two as well," she said, jabbing her thumb at Luffy and Zoro.
"Ah Nami-san's so beautiful when she sighs," Sanji swooned, a heart in his eye.
A stress mark appeared on Nami's head. "On second thought, make enough for all the guys."
"Yosh! Let's go and explore!" Luffy yelled, jumping onto the harbor and running into the town.
"Hang on! Luffy! Wait, we haven't even planned anyth- … he's not listening," Nami grumbled as everyone watched their crazy captain become a smaller and smaller shape as he ran down one of the streets before he turned a corner and disappeared.
"Well, he can take care of himself," Zoro said, standing up.
"But how're we going to find him later?" Nami demanded.
Zoro shrugged. "We just find the loudest place in town."
Nami sweatdropped. "You're right about that…"
Robin chuckled. "Sencho-san does have a mindset of his own."
"Well, I need to restock our food supplies," Sanji said, jumping over onto the dock. "I'll see you all later."
"Come back before sundown, alright?" Nami called as he started to walk away.
"YES NAMI-SAN! I SHALL RETURN TO YOUR SIDE BEFORE THE RED SUN SETS IN THE SEA OF LOVE IN MY H-"
"That applies for the rest of you too," Nami said, ignoring Sanji and turning to the rest of the crew. "A couple of us should stay with the ship, though."
"I'll stay," Chopper chirped. "I actually do have a new medicine that I want to finish making."
Nami nodded. "Well, you mind staying alone? I think the rest of us all have stuff we want to take care of."
Chopper gulped, but nodded, a determined look coming on his face. He was sweating a bit at the thought of staying on the ship by himself again, but he nodded. "Yosh. I got it."
Zoro patted Chopper on the top of his pink hat, destroying the reindeer's dignity. "It's okay, I'm going to be staying too."
Chopper turned in surprise. "Really?!"
"Yeah. I don't really have anything I need. My swords are in good condition, and there's still plenty of booze in storage."
Nami raised an eyebrow. "There actually is still some?"
"Shut up!"
"Well, let's all be off," Nami sighed. "And if any of you see Luffy, be sure to tell him he has to be back at the ship before sundown."
The crew dispersed. As Zoro settled down to take a nap, Chopper headed into his little workshop to work on the medicine. Robin set off for the nearest bookstore, Nami went looking for a store that sold cartography tools, and Usopp went looking for a store that sold weapons for more gunpowder.
Nami was thoroughly spooked by the town. There was absolutely no one in sight, and the wind whistled forlornly down the empty streets.
"This place gives me the creeps…" Nami shuddered as she continued walking down one of the main streets. Glancing at the stores on either side of her, she saw that most of them were in good condition. As a matter of fact, they looked like they would be in their opening hours if it weren't for the strange lack of people.
Cautiously, Nami was making her way down the street when she heard a muffled yelling of voices.
"Oi! You! Get back here!"
"Thief!"
Footsteps echoed behind her. Nami turned and saw a ten year old girl in a sky-blue tank top and darker blue knee-length pants clutching a full sack, being chased by a several yelling men. She couldn't see the girl's face because orange locks were covering her eyes as she ran.
Making a snap decision, Nami whipped out and put together her Clima Tact. "Thunderbolt Tempo!" she yelled, sending a wave of electricity at the figures pursuing the girl. They screamed as the electricity overloaded their circuits, and they fell burned black.
The young girl stopped running and fell to her knees, panting. Nami put away her Clima Tact. "Are you alright?" Nami asked, holding out a hand.
When the girl looked up, Nami fell over, her eyes wide with shock.
Going down yet another street devoid of human life was Usopp.
"This is really strange… there's no one here," he mused, looking into the windows of this store and that. "Hello?" he called, opening the door to an antiques shop.. "Hello? Anyone here?"
There was obviously no answer to his calls. He shivered. "Man, this is like some sort of ghost town," he muttered, turning away and continuing down the street. He started to tremble in earnest. "What... what if the ghosts here don't like being disturbed, and they're going to come after me with swords dripping with the blood of their previous victims..."
The mental image he gave himself was so terrifying to himself that his body stopped on its own and refused to go one step further, the knees trembling like crazy.
Usopp wildly shook his head. "No no no no, there's no such thing as ghosts! There's now such thing as gh-"
A faint yell met his ears. He turned around, nearly dying from fright, before he saw that the voice belonged to a boy, perhaps nine or ten years old. A bandana was wrapped tightly around his head, with a childlike version of a Jolly Roger stitched onto the forehead. He wore a dark brown T-shirt with no sleeves, a white waistband that streamed out behind him like a flag, light brown pants and green boots. A bright green shooter was tucked into his waistband.
Usopp started sweating as the boy drew nearer. This, he now knew, had to be a sign that this town was a ghost town.
None of the stalls in the marketplace seemed to have anyone manning them, even though there was food piled high. Walking up to one, Sanji inspected the food. It was all fresh. There was no sign of any spoiling or rotting in any one of the fruits he looked at. He lit his cigarette and took a deep breath on it. Where could all the people be? Some sort of town meeting or something?
He walked down a different street. This street had restaurants lining up and down the right side.
Sanji opened the door to a restaurant, curious about what sort of food was cooked in this town. A little unsettled by the lack of people, the blonde cook was surprised to hear sounds of pots and pans coming from the kitchen. Taking a peek, he saw that there was a young boy of eight or nine preparing some food. Chopping up some vegetables, he put them into a pot simmering with some soup. The kid wasn't that big, maybe even runty, though like Sanji, he was also a blonde. Wearing dark brown shoes, the kid wore navy blue pants and a white, button-down shirt.
Although the kid wasn't exactly a gourmet chef, Sanji had to admit that this kid showed promise. The vegetables had been chopped, more slowly than Sanji himself could have done it, but with some rhythm and accuracy to it. He could also tell that the soup was going to have some bits of sediment in it, by the way it was bubbling. But it was more than he would have expected from someone that age.
Suddenly, the kid became aware of Sanji's presence and turned around so Sanji got a good look at the boy's face. Sanji's eyes widened with shock.
Robin walked down a narrow street that was crammed with stores on every side. Unfortunately, none of them seemed to be open, and the apparent lack of people in this town was starting to make her nerves prickle a little. There were no signs of life, although she could make out that people had been there not very long ago, a few hours at the most, when she walked into a restaurant and found a pot of soup, still hot, on the stove. Even some of the lights were still on, indicating that the people had left in a rush.
Was it because of us? Robin wondered. Did they clear out the town as a pirate precaution?
...That is, of course, assuming that there are people living in this town...
There was a sudden sound of something crashing to the floor. Robin turned casually and deliberatly, scanning the room for the source of the noise, her guard up.
Whoever had made the noise was on the other side of the counter. Robin leaned over the counter and put her head on her forearms right above the head of a child. She was young, no more than nine or ten years old, and she was both dirty and underfed. Raven black hair was most of what Robin could see… the girl was curled into a trembling ball, though she could make out that the girl was wearing a simple crimson dress. It had no sleeves, like a light summer dress. Robin smiled, partially out of relief that it was just a little girl, and tapped the girl on the head. The poor girl gasped and scuttled to the wall on her hands and knees in record time, before turning around to look behind.
Upon seeing the girl's face, Robin suppressed a terrified gasp, but she could feel the blood draining out of her face as the little girl watched her with terrified eyes.
Luffy had gotten tired of running down one street after another, finding absolutely nothing interesting, except for the fact that he wasn't seeing anyone else. He had been running down empty streets for quite some time now, and he had started just walking.
"Ah, damn, I think I'm lost again," Luffy grumbled. "And there's nothing fun to do. Where're all the people?!"
Bored, he started trying to open random doors, but most of them were locked. After doing this for a while, he suddenly realized that he had somehow ended up back at the harbor, though at another end than the Going Merry was. It stretched out for a while on either side of him.
"I guess I should try to get back to the ship," Luffy mused. "I wonder what the others are doing…?"
Looking up and down the boardwalk, trying to decide to go either right or left, Luffy spotted the back of a small boy, probably eight or nine, standing at one of the piers, watching the sea. Tousled black hair blew in the sea breeze. He wore jeans rolled up to his knees, and a white T-shirt with a blue stripe running around the sleeves and neckline. Staring at the horizon line, the boy suddenly grinned for no apparent reason.
Luffy stared at the boy in bewilderment. He had the oddest feeling that he had seen this boy somewhere before, but he had no idea where.