One Piece belongs to Eiichiro Oda
All OCs belong to me.
-Chapter Two-
"W-what?" Usopp sputtered out as the group turned their attention to the source of the gunfire. A rugged looked redhead stood there, the gun in her hand now pointed at Luffy as she stared at him with a venomous glare. Taking a quick side glance, she looked towards the limp, torn into body that laid on the ground not too far away. The victim's face twisted into a look of agony as large amounts of blood pooled underneath him.
"Not a surprise" she muttered darkly with a hint of sadness in her voice. She turned her attention back towards the raven-haired man, sneering. "Are you plain stupid or just that desperate to die?" her finger teased the trigger as she looked at each person in the group. Only a few of them looking ready to fight as the others were either shivering in fear and confusion or calmly standing there. "Who are you?" she finally asked after a moment of silence, letting her eyes scan the group before her gaze lingered on both the skeleton and reindeer for a few seconds longer.
"Wha! What a beautiful lady!" the blond suddenly swooned, his one visible eye turning into a heart as Scarlet was taken aback before narrowing her eyes.
"Zip it!" she hissed out. "Do you want to attract more of those fuckers?!"
"S-sorry, but please u-understand that were not h-here to cause you a-any harm, we're just p-passing through! S-so, please, p-put the gun away!" Nami quickly sputtered out as she shook her hands in front of her, praying that the redhead would lower her weapon. Her body was violently shaking as her eyes were wide with fear while Usopp and Chopper both clung to one another. Scarlet look from them then back towards Luffy who look unaffected by the gun that was pointed at his face—as if he wasn't scared that she would blow his brains out. Instead, his lips twisted upwards into a bright smile—a smile that Scarlet hadn't seen anyone wear in years and she couldn't help but lower her gun just a little as a look of shock crossed her face before it returned to its neutral expression as she fully lowered the gun this time.
"Let's head inside, it's…it's not safe out here" she mumbled, eyes trailing back towards the half-eaten body that the creature had been devouring before it's meal had been interrupted. "Especially at night" she added and started to walk towards the run down, two-story home that was close by. Everyone seemed hesitant, some opening their mouth and ready to speak when Luffy happily started to follow behind the young woman without a second thought before finally giving in and following after him. Once they had entered the small home—the blue haired man of the group having some trouble fitting inside—they were all taken aback by how messy and broken down it truly was inside, having to step over large chunks of debris and overturned furniture just to follow the redhead into the kitchen.
"Your house looks…lovely" Nami weakly smiled as soon as they all took a seat at the kitchen table that had a single lantern resting on top of it.
"It looks like shit" Scarlet bluntly said, eyebrows knitted together as she looked around at the group. "Who are you people anyway? You obviously must not be from around here if you're wandering around at night" she said as she continued to stare at the group of people an odd sensation of familiarity filling her as if she had seen these people once before in her life—around a time when things were still normal and well.
"My name's Monkey D. Luffy and I'm going to become King of the Pirates" Luffy smiled, Scarlet's eyes widening slightly as she was suddenly hit by the flash of a past memory.
"Scarlet, you totally got to check out this new anime I discovered! It's called One Piece and it's the best thing to ever come into my life, I just know you'll love it as much as I do!"
But just as quickly as the memory had come, it disappeared, and the redhead's eyes returned to their emotionless state.
"Tell me, Luffy" Scarlet started, shifting around in her seat until she was leaning forward on the table and closer towards the raven-haired man. "Where exactly are you from?"
"The East Blue" he simply answered, his smile not once faltering under the intense look in the young woman's eyes.
"That's what I thought" Scarlet muttered, eyebrows knitting together as she leaned back into her chair once again and crossed her arms over her chest. "Of course, none of you would be aware of what's happening" she breathed out as she tilted her head back to stare up at the ceiling in thought. She was currently dressed in a simple, ragged gray tank top that allowed them all to spy the blood red rose tattooed on her left shoulder and decent sized heart tattoo on her right breast. Mindlessly her tongue seemed to run over the snake bite piercings on her lower lip—the only piercings of hers she kept in since everything started going to hell—and once again looked at everyone. "Tell me, what's the last thing you remember?"
"Well, we were on the Thousand Sunny and had just left Fishman Island and were making our way to the next island when this…this strange portal looking thing showed up in the sky and sucked us all up!" Usopp exclaimed, looking as if even he didn't believe the words he was speaking.
"It was quite terrifying if I do say so myself" the skeleton piped up before he bent down towards Scarlet. "But, miss, may I ask you a very important question?" he asked, watching as the redhead raised an eyebrow before hesitantly nodding her head. "May I see your panties?" no one was surprised when the skeleton wound up on the ground with a large bump on his skull while the redhead glared down at him with cold eyes.
"I'm sorry to inform you all of this so quickly, but you're not exactly in your world anymore" Scarlet said, acting as if nothing had ever happened as she decided to cut straight to the point.
"What?!" everyone was baffled by what the young woman had just said. "What do you mean we're not in our world?!"
"What are you talking about?! How can we not be in our world?!" Nami frowned. "You're not really making any sense right now!"
"It's just as I said, you're not in your world, you're in the real world" Scarlet simply answered, her expression growing sour as she quickly held up a hand to stop any of them from arguing with her that their world was real. "You're in a world that has long since lost hope and fallen into chaos" she explained, not giving any more information other than that. She knew if she told them they were nothing but drawings on a piece of paper they wouldn't believe her since she had no way to prove it. Electricity and the internet had been the first things to go and all her manga had been destroyed beyond repair to feed the flames of whatever fire she'd build every now and then to cook whenever she couldn't get wood.
"B-but how is that possible?!" Usopp sputtered out. "Even if you're telling the truth and we are in another world, how do we even get back to our own?! Is it even possible?!"
"Don't know" Scarlet simply shrugged before a thought suddenly crossed her. "Actually maybe…just maybe you can. You see, there's this person out there who can control those monsters out there—the one who did this to my world—if anyone could open a portal to another world than I have no doubt it would have to be them" she was mainly talking to herself now as she said this before frowning. It was only an estimated guess, but if they did open up a portal and suddenly pulled out a bunch of fictional characters…she was concerned to know why they needed to open a portal up in the first place. "They might be able to help" she finally muttered, putting a lot of emphasis on the word "might" as she spoke.
"Well, do you know this person?" Nami asked. "Do you know where we can find them?"
"I don't know them personally, but I am quite aware of where they are" Scarlet leaned back in her chair until it was only standing on just it's back legs as she suddenly propped her feet up on the kitchen table and crossed her arms behind her head. Whatever look of concern she might have been showing earlier simply disappeared as she let her emerald colored eyes slip shut before sucking in a deep breath. "But, before we discuss this anymore, why don't you introduce yourselves" even though she already knew their names, she wanted to hear them say them themselves to prove that she was right in her beliefs. She peeked on eye open and looked at them all as they seemed to hesitate in giving their names before their captain finally spoke up with that joyful tone of his.
"Like I said, the name's Monkey D. Luffy, I'm the captain of the Straw Hat Pirates."
"Um, I'm Nami, I'm the navigator" Nami was the next to speak up, not looking too sure in giving her real name.
"Roronoa Zoro, swordsman" the moss haired man muttered, his singular eye narrowed into a harden look as he seemed cautious of the redhead and ready to fight if he needed to.
"Um, the name's C-Captain Usopp and I'm t-the—" he cut himself off, body shaking as he locked eyes with Scarlet. "I'm t-the sharpshooter" he finished, thinking better than to say what he was originally going to say.
"T-Tony Tony Chopper, I-I'm the ship's d-doctor" Chopper shivered as he failed to hide behind a raven-haired woman's leg.
"Nico Robin" said raven-haired woman calmly spoke, resting a comforting hand on top of the reindeer's head.
"The name's Franky and I'm the ship's super shipwright!" the blue haired man struck a pose but seemed to falter a little as he spied the bored look on Scarlet's face before she looked at the last two of the group.
"Brook, I'm the ship's musician" the skeleton groaned from the floor.
"You may call me Sanji, I'm the ship's cook" the blond greeted with a charming smile as he scooped up Scarlet's hand in his own. "Now tell me, what is your name, my darling princess?"
"Scarlet Gray" she simply answered him, pulling her hand out of his grasp and standing up from her seat. "Since you all lack the knowledge of this world, it's obvious that you're going to need a guide, someone that can easily get you from point A to point B" she explained before placing her hands on her hips. "Who better to help you than me, I know this world like the back of my hand and I can easily help you get to where you need to be" she continued, causing them all to raise an eyebrow.
"Why would you help us?" Nami asked.
"Because" they all flinched as her voice suddenly grew bitter and cold. "It's better to live in a world with a corrupted government than in this hellhole" with that, she turned on her heel and started to exit the kitchen. "Before we go, there are some things I need to gather up."
-Later-
While Scarlet busied herself with gathering whatever it is she needed, Luffy and them all found themselves seated in the wrecked living. The table was still flipped over and the once flipped over couch had now been picked up and righted to give some of the Straw Hats a place to sit. There was a busted up Tv and a strange black substance seemed to stain one of the walls. Robin was the only one that looked interested enough to examine more of the destroyed room as a question seemed to nag at the back of her mind. "What exactly happened to cause this world to end up like this?" she finally asked.
"Yeah, this is all just so strange, with just one look it's obvious something's wrong" Nami nodded, crossing her arms and holding herself as she shivered. "And exactly just what was that thing back there?"
"We refer to them as Shadows around here since that's what they remind us of" Scarlet said as she came stomping down the old, creaky steps that lead up to the second floor. Her gun was attached to a holster on the right side of her hip while a bag filled with what little ammunition she had left, food, water, and a few other necessities dangled from her shoulder. Poking out of the side pocket of the bag was an aluminum bat, one that had a very old and dark blood stain on it—she never did wash the damn thing, in fact, she never wanted to touch it ever again after beating the person that killed her parent's brains in. But, she knew she didn't have enough ammunition to truly last their whole journey. She needed a weapon on her in case anything went wrong, and she could protect herself.
"Before we go, there are some things you should know" Scarlet started as she plopped down on the dusty recliner in the room. "First, these Shadows can't really be killed—at least as far as we know—but, we found when wounded terribly they will scurry off. So, be sure to cause as much damage to them as you can if you're ever face to face with one" she explained. "Second, and this is the most important thing to know, don't trust anyone. Everyone in this world is on their own—in this world, it's a fight for survival" a grim look crossed her face as she said this.
"No one is to be trusted, people will kill you if it means they can live for another day, you got that?" a small smile tugged at her lips as they all nodded their heads in understanding. "Great, another thing you should know about those Shadow creatures, they're able to perfectly disguise themselves to look human. Just another reason why you shouldn't trust anyone" she said, standing from her seat and walking over to the front door before halting as she peered back at everyone. "Oh, and remember this, if we ever get separated…some people don't give warnings" and with that, she opened the front door and left.
"I don't like this, something just seems wrong about all this" Zoro frowned as he crossed his arms. "Can we be sure we can trust her?"
"Well, at the moment, she's our only source of information" Franky pointed out with a shrug. "We don't really have much of a choice and she did kind of save us back there."
"Still" the swordsman muttered before they all finally followed after the redhead.
"Just how long will it take to reach our destination exactly?" Nami asked.
"Well, since cars and most forms of transportation are out of the question, I say about a week" Scarlet answered. "More or less, really depends on how fast we all walk."
A/N: Enjoy
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