*Oi! Disclaimer! I don't own One Piece, any of the badass characters, epic settings, or any of the freaking amazing universe in general. To sum things up, I'm not Oda because I don't have an island of money or epic art talent. ∨ (^.^) ∨

*Also, please review! I'm curious to see what you all think, since this is the first fanfic I've ever written!

Chapter Two

You'd expect a nightmare. You'd expect blood all over, or awful silence, or the dreadful space between breaths when you know it's ending. But the Circus Avalon was nothing like that. I wanted fog or rain, a lightning storm to froth the seas so high we couldn't beach the Merry, but it didn't happen. We trudged on towards the island and I could feel the hair on the back of my neck rising, tingling, like there was a strangling noose about my neck. Standing beside Nami on the deck, I almost coughed aloud.

The navigator turned her gaze from the island to the empty deck. I could almost see the gears in her brain turning, thinking how we could land the Merry, how we could find a new Log Pose and return to our heading. Nami leaned back, cupping her hands around her mouth as the hazy place grew larger and larger on the horizon. "Land ho!" She shouted, loud enough to force me to press my hands to my ears, loud enough even to shake a few of the Merry's timbers. She rocked back, hands on her hips, expecting an instant flood of the crew, everyone rushing up to the deck to see what we had found. No such luck.

Sanji emerged from the kitchen, cigarette clenched between his teeth, frying pan full of eggs in one hand. "Nami-swan, will you ever learn?" He asked, casually leaning out onto the deck. "Just watch." Speaking no louder than usual, he said "breakfast!"

Instantly, everyone emerged from below decks in a boisterous cloud. Sanji gave Nami a killer smile, obviously attempting suavity. The look changed to shock, however, when Sanji turned around to discover that Luffy had his entire arm, still-cooking frying pan included, in his mouth. "Luffy! What the-" He kicked our captain in the stomach, sending him flying across the deck straight into the mast, which he bounced off of and hit Ussop and Franky full force, sending all three of them sprawling. Zoro casually side-stepped and all three of them fell headfirst through an open porthole.

Nami laughed, and I couldn't help joining her. She leaned over, hands on her knees, as though she couldn't stop. For a second I thought I was dreaming again, that there was something unnatural about Nami's laugh, the way she had her eyes squeezed shut almost like she was in pain, the way her body rocked with the force of her laughing, the sound like it wasn't even hers, like it belonged to a far away place, a far away person...

I shook my head to clear it, looking ahead to the now visible island. Nami straightened, and the otherworldly terror I had felt melted away. "Come on, we'd better get some breakfast before these morons knock it into the ocean," she said, not bothering with the stairs but leaping down from the stern onto mid-ships, running full-tilt into the now writhing mass of our crew all trying to fit through the doorway to the kitchen at once. With a running start, she jumped as high as she could, and landed squarely on Brook's back, forcing all of them in a tumbling heap into the kitchen. The noises of Luffy eating—demolishing—everything in immediate sight began even before they'd all gotten up.

I smirked, laughing a little and taking the more civil route down the stairs and towards the kitchen, where the crew were already halfway through breakfast. I slid into a seat on the end beside Chopper, who was standing on tiptoe trying to reach a bowl of fruits halfway across the table. I leaned over to hand him the bowl, but Zoro was faster, placing the bowl on the top of Chopper's hat, causing our little doctor to spin about on his chair, trying to reach the bowl. Zoro and I both laughed.

"Swordsman-san, you have a strange sense of humor," I said, reaching up to take the bowl from Chopper's head. Zoro was faster once again, placing it in front of Chopper and putting his arm around the deer's shoulders.

"There you are, Ototo-chan," he said, clapping the doctor on the back.

Chopper's eyes widened as he smiled, piling the fruit onto his plate.

I looked at Zoro as he turned away from Chopper and towards Sanji, joining a conversation about battle scars and the best ways to insult an enemy's manhood. He was a hard man to read, there were secrets none of us knew, a city pulsing inside his head that no one on the crew could gain access to. For that reason, he was a danger to me. I hate things I cannot understand or guess at, and Zoro's actions and decisions almost all fell into that category. I shut my eyes and looked away as a vision flew through my mind of Zoro with a hideous smile on his face, blood coating all three of his swords as he waltz-stepped on broken ankles across the top of the ocean. I nearly gasped. The strange image had come from nowhere, or maybe from my nightmare. I looked up straight into Brook's face—or lack thereof—and he seemed to me a grim reaper with huge eyes waiting to take me…

"Everybody, listen up!" Nami said, standing up and slamming her mug on the table to get our attention. Everybody stopped speaking immediately, turning towards her. My frenzied breathing was calmed instantly by the familiarity of Nami's domineering, confident speech. "So we're heading towards an island. We don't really know anything about it, except that for some reason the current around here is so strong it's actually pulling the sails against the wind. So be careful on deck, we don't exactly know what could be—"

Nami stopped speaking, turning around towards the table and whacking Luffy's hand, which was reaching into her bowl of tangerines, with a piece of the Clima-Tact. He swore fervently, his hand flying back involuntarily and smacking him in the face, sending him toppling to the floor. Everybody laughed under our breath, but when Nami turned around again, all went quiet.

"—out there. We should be ashore within a couple hours, and then we'll decide if we want to stay."

Luffy, having returned to his seat, interrupted Nami again. "Robin, is the island dangerous?" He asked me, leaning forward, the light of adventure in his eyes.

I was caught under the gazes of all my crewmates, trying to think how I could answer. Yes. Yes this island is dangerous and we should get away while we can was my thought. I opened my mouth to speak, but before the syllables could leave my tongue, the boat pitched in the stormy sea so violently that it upset the table and nearly all the chairs. Only Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji maintained their balance amid the clatter of plates, food, crewmembers, and furniture.

I fell beneath my chair, one of the legs hitting me on the head. Pain blossomed like a sick flower across my forehead, and little bubbles popped momentarily into my vision. The ship rocked fiercely in the other direction, and I rolled across the deck, slamming into the table, which fell on me with a dull thud, splattering food across my body. I nearly blacked out for a second, but forced myself to stay conscious, looking around for help. All the members of the crew who had managed to stand up were holding onto whatever non-movable objects they could reach so they would not tumble as I had. My eyes met Luffy's and from across the kitchen he stretched out one arm and flipped the table off of me in a single swipe.

"Robin, are you alright?" He asked urgently as the ship rocked again. This time I was fast enough to avoid being crushed under the table, standing and stumble-walking a few steps towards the cabin's wall. "Nami, what's happening?" Luffy shouted as I fell against the refrigerator.

Nami was looking all around, once again baffled by the weather, once again helpless to do the one thing she had always been confident in her ability to do. "I…" she said, looking around as the boat pitched dramatically again.

Zoro pulled out a katana and sliced the table in half as it sailed across the deck towards he and Chopper. Nami shut her eyes, trying to make sense of something she could not explain, "I…" she said, her voice trembling.

The Merry pitched so far that everybody against the upward side was thrown into the wall, myself included. Franky caught me, taking the wall's impact for both of us, and shielding my face from a ceramic plate that broke against his metal arm.

"Nami?" Ussop shouted, his voice high in the pitches of fear. My vision was beginning to go dark, whether from fear of from the fact that Franky was squeezing me so tightly I don't know. I heard Luffy scream as the boat pitched again, now beginning to spin. And then it was like everything froze and I was seeing through someone else's eyes, realizing that I had never seen my crewmates so scared before. We had faced the Marines, disabled and disbanded CP9 and Baroque Works, stood up to the World Government, defeated Shichibukai and sea kings, and traveled over halfway through the Grand Line, and we had never once been this scared. What was it about this place, then, that was different? What made us tense and tremble? Something in the water, the air? The smell of decay clinging to each of us, the reality that we could die here on the Merry, the one place we had always felt safe? There was something here, something otherworldly. And now they could all feel it just as I had all day.

"I don't know!" Nami was shouting, her voice and the desperation in her dark, brave eyes throwing me more than anything. "I don't know what kind of storm this is!" She cried out as a bowl hit her in the head.

Ussop was holding tightly to the wall beside Luffy, who had his arms stretched out along the length of the cabin, keeping every one of us from falling. Brook and Franky were doing their best to stay upright and keep Nami and I safe, and Zoro had Chopper held tightly against his body, two of his katana dug into the wall beside him, so he and Sanji could hold onto them. All of us were braced to be swept up as even the Merry shuddered a little, as if in fear. We were ready to die.

And then it stopped. Just as suddenly as it had come, the storm died down. We were all left tense, scared, and braced against the wall as the Merry's deck leveled, almost like she was sighing in relief. The kitchen and lounge were a mess, and I had no doubt that the rest of the ship was in a similar condition. None of us dared to speak, all still braced, ready to fight. And then it began. A calliope.

Drifting across whatever miserable strip of water remained between us and the island we were heading dead towards, the melody was almost seductive, hinting at things one wasn't supposed to discuss in the light of day. We looked around, everyone entranced, mystified, some still scared. And still the calliope played. As it had no doubt played for eons, for the hundreds of other pirates who had been caught in its path. It beckoned us along, wrapping cool, warped fingers around the Merry's mast and dragging the Straw Hats, one of the most feared and respected pirate crews on the oceans, towards a place that just might be more than a match for us. We all looked at Luffy, our captain, who had taken us through so much. And for once he was not smiling, not doing anything stupid or laughing at one of us. He pulled back his arms and straightened his hat, pushing it back on his head. "Well, I guess we're going exploring then," he said quietly.


Luffy-san, you have a little robin with you!

And so many other exquisite birds, so many sharp, formidable claws!

I wonder what makes them go, what kind of clockwork?

And if I took them apart, would they bleed?

It's been so long since I've seen anything bleed…

Come into the circus, Luffy.

Come and meet me…

I'm waiting for you.

And I am very hungry.

The first sign of life on the island was the fact that its pier wasn't in total disarray. There were mussels and barnacles clinging to the pier's legs, its boards had rotted and become swollen with seawater, and mildew was beginning to creep around the edges of buildings and benches, but all of it looked staged. Too perfectly, artistically, disarranged. It was as if performers of some kind had set up a play for us, a very certain image that we had to see, lest the magic of the island's ground-fog lifting to reveal its secrets be ruined.

The calliope played on as the Merry docked at the empty pier, its melody more sweeping now, more powerful. Looking out towards the ocean, it was easy to see the storms we had been caught in. They moved in eerie dances about the surface of the water, as if there were many winds, independent of one another, all stirring up their own tempests. The currents towards the island were so strong it was easy to see them manipulating the waves miles out at sea. Almost like the island wanted people to come, like it was forcing us to be here.

We stepped off the boat, all of us still quiet. Luffy was the first to disembark, calmer now that the oceans had stilled, but he was walking fast, betraying his excitement. The Merry groaned a little as we all disembarked, like she did not want to be left alone. I was the last to leave the ship, and I touched the Merry's timbers hoping she would still be there to touch when we returned.

I followed my nakama down the gangway and onto the pier, where they were all standing behind Luffy. We must have presented quite a picture to the people I now know were watching us from the fog, the dust, and the trees. The nine of us, all so different, so fierce, and so afraid in our own ways, the next crew come to meet the challenges of the island, whatever they were.

Luffy set his shoulders and began to walk forward, the rest of us following him into the fog.

"Look," Chopper said, breaking the silence and running away from us into the fog.

"Chopper!" Zoro called, running after the doctor, already drawing a katana to defend them if he needed to.

"Wait!" Nami called, reaching out to grab Zoro's arm. She was too late, he had followed Chopper into the fog.

All of us stood tensely, instinctively moving into fighting formations. I bent my knees and tensed my shoulders, ready to use my Devil Fruit's ability if necessary. But then Zoro's voice echoed eerily through the fog, sounding excited and very much unhurt.

"Guys, come here!" He called.

We relaxed, running into the mist after Zoro and Chopper. Though they were thickly obscured by the grey fog that clung stubbornly to the ground, we could still make out a strange box that they were standing next to. I recognized it immediately.

"That's an electrical box," I said. "It turns something on if you flip the switch."

"It does!" Luffy said, his jaw dropping. "How does it know how to do that?"

I opened my mouth to explain, but it was too late.

"It's magic!" Luffy said, running up to the switch, wrapping both of his arms around it, and yanking it down, triggering the mechanism.

"Luffy!" I said, "we don't know what that switch turns on! It could have killed you!"

"Rubber doesn't conduct electricity," he said, beaming at me from ear to ear. It was the one piece of scientific knowledge he had retained from all the questions he had asked me, and he never failed to bring it up whenever he could.

"You know, for once that was actually relevant." Sanji mused, stamping out his cigarette on the pier. "In any case, it looks like whatever it used to turn on is either broken or gone. Maybe there aren't people here after all."

It was at that moment that the calliope stopped. I had forgotten its presence, the melody, so easily it fit into my head, into the inner workings of my brain. And when it was gone it was like someone had taken a part of me. I felt cheated, abandoned.

But then the lights came on. It started at the end of the pier, old-timey streetlights with big ball lights at their tops flickered into existence, the fog cupping around their light, creating great eye-like shapes. Then the lights in the abandoned shops on either side of the pier further along illuminated, their cheap, old neon faded or broken in places. They were carnival games. A shooting gallery, an apple-bobbing booth, a fortune teller, an apothecary, food stands and ring tosses and a photography stand.

It seemed that the lights would stop there, but the circus's tawdry magic was only just beginning to unfold. Much farther inland, electric motors began to whir, and a roller coaster with lights all along its track began moving. More streetlights and hanging bulbs began to illuminate a great midway, a gigantic tent with the words Mirror Maze printed on it became illuminated from within, and animatronic voices began calling out the names of attractions. A Ferris wheel clattered to life, its thin spokes against he dim, foggy sky like bones. The whole island, as far as we could see, was covered by tents and rides and attractions.

The image was entirely eerie. I felt my spine shiver a little, and Nami grabbed hold of my arm, like she too could not believe what we were seeing. Through the fog, it was impossible to determine details of the circus. All we could see were broad shapes, sweeping arcs and darting pyramids, a haunting conglomeration of sound and space and fabric.

No one said anything, what was there to say? The circus was more entrancing, more beautiful, than any place I had ever been. I found myself longing to be lost there, pondering the romance and shady glory of the tumblers, magicians, clowns, and animals. I took a step forward, then another. It was calling me forward.

And the others felt it too, the sense of wholeness that came with the place, the need to be inside it. We moved forward together towards the end of the pier, where the gate to the island stood open, welcoming.

As we neared it, I looked up at the gate. One last sign flickered into being as we passed through the gates. The large, swooping letters, perfectly blue and red and white neon, spelled out the name of the island boldly, subtly. Almost cruel, almost casual. The last letter came alive and the sign was complete.

It read: The Avalon Circus.


Ahhhh, at last.

I can see again, through the eyes of the circus.

You don't know how many eyes I have,

how many hands.

There's so much possibility for you,

so many ways to make you forget what you're not seeing,

what you're not remembering.

You woke me up, Luffy,

and now I won't go back to sleep for a very,

very

long time.