The Dead Agents
Listening to Virus of Life by Slipknot, reading a ZoLu/SmoAce fic called False Pretenses (which is really good, btw) when I got an idea. SmoAce
Summary: Ace died. Or did he? When Smoker spots Ace walking down the street, he thinks he was hallucinating or crazy. But then Ace sends him an E-mail, telling him to meet at the Blades and Gates Apartment Complex. Smoker feels his life just got a hellouva lot more complicated. One-Shot, I hope.
Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece or Slipknot. That makes me sad.
It had been about two months since Ace had passed on. The weather had been dreary ever since, as if the gods felt Smoker's sadness. Or maybe August was just a very rainy month...
Smoker walked down the street to his job. Working at Blueno's was boring, and he hated it, but he needed something to put on his resume or else he couldn't show he had enough exprience to work at All Blue. Maybe he should of listened to Hina and became a Marine officer instead of a Chef...Nah..When was Hina ever right?
And then, he spotted a flash of orange. He looked at the orange, and shook his head when he realized it was only an orange shop that had just opened. He sighed, and continued to walk to his hellish work. Once again, he considered if he should of just blow off that one girl who said that society just served to work you to your death. Then he reassured himself by remembering that she wound up dead for oposing the World Government six months later.
As he walked, he thought back to how he had met the childish narcoliptic. He was working at Blueno's when the incident happened. Hell, he still was. Maybe if he rid himself of Blueno's he'd forget about the damned boy. Smoker shook his head, as if he was trying to clear it. He clenched down harder on his Cigars and stared at the ground. He didn't need to know his surroundings to get him to work, he had been down this damned road so much to his work that he had memorized the damned road.
But today, he didn't count on being ran into. He collided, and took a few steps back in recoil. He bit down on his Cigars and glared at who had run into him. A young girl with black hair who was now rubbing the back of her head.
"Sorry! I'm in a hurry!" She ran around him, and Smoker's eyebrow twitched. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted something orange. He shrugged it off as the Orange cart from behind him and kept walking. But the blob of orange kept moving. In fact, it ran right across the street in front of Smoker and past him, right into a familar apartment complex. Blades and Gates. Smoker froze, his eyes widening. Was that...was it...could it be...? He had most certainly seen the moving orange hat on top of a head of messy black hair with freckles and an unconcerned grin.
What...the...hell...
Smoker blinked, and just then realized his cigars had fallen out of his mouth. He cursed, and pulled out two more. He grabbed his lighter from his pocket and lit them up. He shook his head. Maybe he hadn't of had enough sleep, or maybe he was still asleep. Perhaps his coffee was making him hallucinate.
Maybe he was crazy.
Smoker grimaced. He didn't want to be crazy. No straightjacket for him, please. He shook his head and passed it off as his coffee making him hallucinate before walking on to Blueno's.
Later that week, he had for the most part forgotten the incident. Smoker was now watching some random Anime that his co-worker had asked him to watch. It was the first episode, and there was too much gore and nudity. What was the title again? Elf Lie? Something Elfyish...He made a mental note to never watch any Anime that Saturn asked him to watch ever again...
He jumped as the telephone rang. He looked around the room, trying to remember where the hell he had put it last. He wasn't a very socail person, so getting a phone call was weird, not to mention his phone calls were usually weeks apart, which made it hard for him to remember where the hell it was. He got up and started to locate it by sound. He found it be the fourth ring and hit the Talk button.
"What?" He wasn't use to talking on the phone, so he didn't really know the basics of answering. The voice on the other side chuckled.
"Is that how you always answer the phone, Smo-kun?" Smoker's eyes widened. He recognized the voice. And only a few people called him 'Smo-kun'...
"Saturn, what the hell do you want?" Smoker said, sighing and rubbing his temple. It was bad enough that he had to put up with the schitzo-psyhcopath every day at work, but she knew his phone number? What the hell...
"Just checkin' ta see if you were checkin' out the Anime, Smo-kun!" Smoker growled at her abnormaly cheerful voice. She always got this way when there was something gruesome. It wouldn't really be surprised that Saturn would like this gorey Anime...
"Yeah, I watched most of it. Why the hell do you still watch that shit? aren't you a little ol--" he was cut off by the numerous amount of swears coming from the other side of the line. Saturn got pissy whenever somone said something that refered to age.
"No agism, you bloody bastard!" Smoker sighed. He was going to kill whoever gave out his phone number to this psycho.
"Whatever. How the hell do you watch all that gore and nudity?" Saturn chuckled on the other side of the line.
"I watch the Sci-Fi channel on Thursdays and on the weekends. They show horror movies on those days. By the way, have you seen Final Destination Three?" She asked. Smoker's eyebrow twitched. She had been asking everyone that question.
"Yeah, I saw it with Ac..."He stopped mid-name. Ace. He had seen that movie with Ace. He frowned. Saturn was oblvious.
"You did? Sweet! Tell me how they die!" She proclaimed. He could tell she was grinning on the other end of the phone.
"No." And with that, he hung up. On the other side of the line, a black haired girl was blinking. Then she realized that she had just been hung up on, and started shouting numerous curses. Her two cats looked at her, and then started to walk away. Dumbass schitzo-psychopath...
Smoker turned off the Tv and shook his head. He looked over at his computer, which was on. He walked over and turned the monitor on before walking over to his fidge and opening it, pulling out a Pepsi. He opened the Pepsi as he walked back over to the computer and placed it on the desk after taking a sip of the sugary product. He pulled out the chair a plopped down onto it. He pulled up an interent browser and typed in an address of a good site that Saturn had given him. Sure, she was weird, but she went to pretty decent sites. The address was fanfiction dot net.
After a few hours of reading about Flame the Charmander, he decided to check his e-mail. He typed in the url for yahoo, hit enter and waited for the page to open. He grabbed his Pepsi subconsciencly and took a drink as he used his other hand to type in his password and username for his e-mail.
He had mail, and it wasn't updates from fanfiction or coupons or on sales.
It was from Ace.
Smoker moved his cursor over to the link and clicked on it. He read the e-mail and checked his watch, before grabbing his jacket and running out the door.
Reach the Blades and Gates Apartment Complex by 7:29
Smoker ran down the street. Just a few more minutes and it would be 7:29. He didn't know why he was doing this. It just felt right. That's all that motivated him to run a twenty minute walk to reach the apartment complex in five minutes. He ran through the sliding glass doors, and over to the elevators.
Hit the up button at exactly 7:30
Smoker looked at his watch. Twenty more seconds. He took in a few deep breaths to calm himself, and when it finally hit 7:30, he pressed the up button.
Enter the elevator.
Smoker walked into the elevator, still breathing a bit hard. Mental note: never try to run a twenty minute walk in ten minutes...
Hit the star button, and then the six button.
Smoker pressed the two buttons. Part of the elevator wall was sucked into who knows where, and a mechanical whirl sounded.
There should be a keypad.
A board with numbered buttons replaced the section of the wall that had been removed.
Put in the following numbers: 4, 9, 3.
Smoker punched in the numbers. The keypad withdrew, and the elevator sprung to life. He was going up. About a minute later, the elevator door opened. Smoker blinked, and walked out. He took a look around. It looked like a normal hallway, except there was just a single room at the end of the hall. It was numbered.
696
The room at the end of the hall should be 696. Walk to it and knock rapidly three times.
Smoker hesitantly walked towards the door, every cell in him telling him to leave. Well, except that one cell that was crazy. But no one ever listen to that one except for now. Eh. The door cracked open, and a green eye peered through the crack in the door.
"Password, mortal?" A femine voice asked.
The password is Awesome Guild of Extraordinary Necromancer Tenant Slayers.
"Um...Awesome Guild of Extraordinary Necromancer Tenant Slayers?" Smoker really hoped he hadn't got that wrong. The mysterious eye had a...evil, murderous, sadistic and slaughtering look to it. Like Saturn had when she missed a TV show for working extra hours... The eye had a look of amusement in in.
"Correct, you may enter, mortal." What the hell was up with the 'mortal' thing? The door swung open, and revealed the girl he had seen earlier in the week who had bumped into him. Only, she looked a bit more...Demonic than before. She smirked, and motioned for him to come in. He hesitated, but walked in. Inside, it was pretty dark. But then something orange sparked. It looked like...fire! Oh, shit! Shit shit shit shit shit!
"Oooo...pretty..." The girl who had answered the door said in a mesmerized voice. She ran up to the fire. Was she crazy? Eh, chances are she was. He heard other voices, and the lights were truned on. What...the...hell...
Ace was sitting, good as new, with flames coming out of his hands.
"Hello, Smo-kun." The raven haired moron said casually, grinning childishly.
"What...how...who..." Smoker held his head. "What the hell is going on?!" The girl giggled.
"Welcome to the Awesome Guild of Extraordinary Necromancer Tenant Slayers." She spoke, grinning like a maniac. A girl with blue-black hair and red glasses turned to her.
"Uh, weren't you angry earlier that Makura ate your pizza?" She asked, raising an eyebrow. A male with purple hair turned pale and looked at the one who had spoken.
"Tashigi! Thanks alot! Now she's gonna kill me!" He whined. The girl who had answered the door turned on the purple haired man.
"Yes. And you will die a slow and painful death with a wood chipper." She breathed ominously. The purple haired male went even paler and fainted, while the girl who answered the door laughed maniacly.
"O...k..." Ace laughed.
"They seem crazy at first, but you'll get use to 'em." Smoker frowned, and turned his attention back on Ace.
"You! What makes you think I'm staying?! And why the hell did you fake your death?!" Smoker nearly screeched. Ace blinked, then laughed.
"Because, Smo-kun. You just died in that elevator. Like I did. A clone will go to work and fake your death later this week. And you'll remain here 'til they show up again and then we'll kick their asses!" Ace said, grinning. Smoker blinked, before throwing his hands into the air.
"What the fuck are you talking about, god damnit!" He shouted. The one he supposed was Tashigi cleared her throat.
"We are the Dead Agents. Our job is to hunt down and destroy any unnatural creatures that appear in Lougetown." Smoker raised an eyebrow, and Tashigi continued. "Each one of us was hand chosen by the Shinigami of the town. If you step into the elevator at that time and punch in the very things you punched in, you die. Any other time, you live." Smoker's mouth dropped open. His cigars fell on the floor.
"You're telling me I just killed myself?" Tashigi nodded. Smoker was quiet before he started laughing. "That is the biggest load of bull shit I've ever heard. What, so we're suppose to go around killing Unicorns because some 'Shinigami' told us to?"
"Yeah, that's pretty much it." Ace said, flopping down on his back."I didn't believe it at first either, but then Tashigi did her...thing...and I began to believe." Smoker raised an eyebrow.
"Thing?" Tashigi nodded. She took her sword that was in it's sheath and pulled it out, before plunging it into her chest. Smoker's eyes widened, and he started to think that she had just killed herself, when she pulled it out and there was no hole. There was no blood. There was no...anything...
"Holy hell." Ace smirked, and pushed his oorange hat over his eyes.
"Yeah. We all got specail abilities, and we can't be stabbed or smashed or nothing. Can't die if you're already dead. But there is a drawback..." Smoker raised an eyebrow.
"And it is...?"
"You're stuck like this until your ghost body decomposes. And you don't go to heaven or hell aftr that. You go to Everlost..." Tashigi informed.
"Great..." Smoker said, sarcastically, "and you didn't think to put that on the e-mail, why exactly?" Ace chuckled.
"I did. Chances are, you didn't notice." Smoker snorted.
"Obviously. So, now what?" Ace smirked once more.
"Now we wait for something to pop up. Ryuk'll tell us when somethin' comes." Smoker sighed, and sat down.
"Why do I feel that my life just got a hellouva lot more complicated?" He muttered. An unconcious Makura muttered something.
"Not life...dead...hnnn...piiiiizzzzaaaaa...snort..."
Longest...One-shot...Ever...I'm going to go watch Route 666 with Wait.What now...