A/N: Hm. A much longer chapter. The plot awakens, stretches, and pokes its head out of the cave. Maybe it even lumbers out into the sunshine. I dunno. The metaphor is too difficult to maintain. My creative side is sleeping.
Uh, no more exposition - yay?
We have some italics representing people's thoughts in this one. Just throwing a few curve balls to make sure you're still awake, dear reader.
Chopper walked steadily beside Luffy and could hear Brook over to Luffy's left side. Fortunately, none of the townspeople had been afraid of Brook; everyone assumed he was just wearing a really good costume for the carnival. After the pie-eating contest, the three of them had wandered the streets playing many games and trying lots of new (and free) foods. The smells had long ago overwhelmed Chopper's blue nose, but he felt safe with Luffy and Brook right there. The crowd had grown as the night set in, and now it was difficult to move without bumping into someone.
The crowd pressed in on them, and Luffy laid his hand on Chopper's back. They pushed through the swell of people easily and the crowd dissipated.
"Nani…" asked Luffy, looking up and down the street they were on. Back the way they had come, there were remnants of the crowd, which seemed to be moving away from them. Down the street there were no more vendors, just closed stores with dark windows.
"I think we reached the end of the festival, senchou," said Brook.
"Aye. I agree."
"Oh, okay. Let's go back! I want to eat the pie again!"
"Luffy, baka! You can't eat it twice!"
"Yohohoho! Yohohoho!"
As the three of them turned around to return to the carnival, something made Chopper's fur stand on end. He swung his deer head to tell Luffy something was wrong, but he was interrupted by a heavy net weighed with stones catching him and throwing him down the street. He could only keep his eyes open long enough after that to see Brook tangled in a kairouseki net identical to his own.
Luffy!… he thought as he lost consciousness.
In the same moment that Chopper had turned to tell him something, Luffy instinctively glanced over his shoulder and jumped as quickly as he could. His nakama were caught up in nets that felt like that mystery rock, seastone, that Crocodile had used for his cage in the bananadile room. The net meant for Luffy harmlessly zipped through the air where he had been only milliseconds before, then it fell in a clump meters away.
Sounds of surprise from their attackers reached his ears, but he didn't grin at his small victory. Instead, he landed between them and his trapped crewmates. "Oi! Who are you assholes?"
"We are the Argos Bounty Hunters," said a deep male voice. "And you are our target, Monkey D. Luffy."
"Eh? You want my bounty? What did you do to my nakama?"
"We simply caught them in kairouseki nets. We don't care about them. They're worthless."
Luffy's face grew dark. "Maybe to you."
The voice laughed cruelly. "Of course, of course. I'm sure they mean so much more to you, Mugiwara no Luffy. In fact," he paused, "I'm counting on the fact that they do.
"You see, at this moment all over this town of Yuya, your crewmates are being captured. And once we capture all of them, you will have no choice but to turn yourself over to us."
Luffy made a tiny choking sound. "What? My nakama? What are you doing to them?"
The voice laughed again, and the man it belonged to stepped out from the shadows of his men. They stood shoulder to shoulder and crossed the entire street, blocking any escape. The man stepped into the light of a nearby streetlamp, and Luffy saw that he held two long spears decorated with blue and green feathers crossed in front of his chest. It was then that he noticed all of the other bounty hunters held similar spears.
"What's with those spears?" he asked, a crease forming between his brows. "They look lame."
The man laughed louder, which made Luffy's frown deepen. "These spears? They are your downfall, Strawhat! They are weapons of the finest quality; they will be the manner in which I make a name for mysel-"
"Shut up! I don't care!" the rubber man cried. "You tied up Chopper and Brook, and you're going to pay! I'm going to kick your ass!
"Gomu Gomu no… Pistol!"
With the force of a gun, Luffy's fist shot through the air, straight towards the man's head. The man didn't flinch, and Luffy grinned. This was going to be too easy.
And then, inexplicably, his hand grew limp and slowed down. The man started laughing that obnoxious laugh again as Luffy's wrist, and then his forearm, started to withdraw from the attack to snap back to his side. "What the hell? What's going on? Gomu Gomu no… Gatling!"
Again, his fists flew like bullets towards his attackers, but none reached their targets. Just as each got close, his fingers would get tired and loosen and his arm would be repelled. "What is doing that?!!" he exclaimed.
"That… is the power of these spears, Mugiwara no Luffy. They, like the nets that now trap your friends, are made of kairouseki." He chuckled darkly. "For you, this time, there will be no escape."
"All this walking around has worn me out, Robin."
"Hm. Perhaps if you didn't have to carry so many bags, you wouldn't be as tired."
"Robin, Robin. How will I get through our next journey if I don't have new clothes? I have a bounty now. I have to keep changing my appearance so that no one will recognize and kidnap me!" said Nami woefully.
The older woman hid a grin at her friend's vanity. "I see, Navigator-san. Then shall we return to Sunny-Go?"
Nami nodded gratefully, three shopping bags slung over her shoulder and three swinging in her other hand. Robin walked beside her, but then halted.
"What is it, Robin?"
The older woman had turned her head slightly to the left, as though listening. Her eyes suddenly grew wide and she spun around. Nami followed her gaze – to see a bunch of men with spears advancing toward them. "N-n-nani?" Nami gasped. "What is this, some sort of … part of the carnival… a parade…?"
"Nami! It's kairouseki!" exclaimed Robin, backing away from the men.
"What? Kairouseki? The spears…"
Nami glanced at her friend, and saw the fear in the woman's blue eyes as she stared at the men. Robin had lifted her hands and crossed her wrists in front of her as though to attack, but the redhead's quick mind realized that such an attack would be useless, and possibly detrimental to their situation.
She was on her own.
"Alright, Robin. You stay back. I'll handle this," she stated firmly with a tiny smirk on her face. Robin closed her eyes and nodded, stepping further back to stand behind her.
The group of men had stopped moving forward and looked confusedly at the Perfect Climatact assembled in Nami's hands. Murmurs shivered through the crowd.
A leader spoke up. "You are the pirates Cat Burglar Nami and Demon Child Nico Robin of Monkey D. Luffy's pirate crew?"
"Aye," Nami responded, almost amiably, and Heat Ball and Cool Ball leaked from her staff unbeknownst to their opponents. She twirled it affectionately, stirring up the air currents. "What do you want?"
"We are here to capture you! We are the Argos Bounty Hunters, and we have been ordered to keep you here until our captain's task is complete! You cannot win!" cried the men, shaking their spears at them.
"Hm. Can't win, eh?" Nami's smirk grew. "I very much doubt that." She heard a weak chuckle from behind her. Robin was feeling strong again. "What do you think, onee-chan?"
"The odds of them winning? Negligible, Navigator-san."
"We will not let you leave this spot! Do not doubt our strength!" One of them foolishly threw his spear at Robin. Lightning-fast, Nami spun her staff to come down hard on the shaft as it passed her, slamming it into the ground. How dare they try that?
"Kairouseki?" she asked murderously. She pointed the Climatact at them. "What makes you think you can just toss such dangerous things like that at my nakama and get away with it?" The men, shocked by her reflexes, stood dumbfounded.
"How did she… That speed! Right out of the air! ..."
"In your future, I forecast cloudy weather," said Nami, now spinning the Climatact with a vengeance. "… with 100% chance of thunderstorms. Thunderbolt… Tempo!"
A minute later, Nami and Robin began picking their way through the scorched bodies, with Robin leaning carefully on Nami's shoulder. The nearness of the spears was enough to weaken her body, and she was grateful for the navigator's support. Nami, on the other hand, was confidently seething. "How dare they. And what the hell did they mean, 'keep us here until their captain's task was complete'? If they were bounty hunters, why didn't they want our bounties?"
"Maybe they did want our bounties," replied Robin. "The wanted posters say Dead or Alive, so they don't have to kill us to get the money. Just capture us."
"But… something's not right…" Nami fell silent, thinking hard. Her eyes watched the ground carefully, steering both of them around the kairouseki so Robin wouldn't get hurt.
Robin also pondered the men's interesting choice of words. 'We will not let you leave this spot!'… They'd have to take us elsewhere to collect a bounty… Why would they be so insistent that we stay here? And where did they get so much kairouseki –
"Luffy!" she shouted suddenly.
"Nani?" asked Nami.
"Senchou-san and Doctor-san! They're alone!"
Nami quickly grasped her meaning. She left her friend to stand alone and fell upon the closest bounty hunter. She grabbed the front of his shirt and began to shake him violently. "Wake up! Wake up, damn it!"
The man sputtered for a moment and came to. Upon seeing Nami's face, he pushed away in terror. "I'm sorry! Don't hurt me again, weather witch!"
"I won't hurt you if and only if you answer my questions correctly: Where are the rest of your crewmembers? Do all of you have these spears?"
"Y-y-y-y-yes, th-these are the sp-sp-spears that S-senchou said would be able t-t-to defeat th-the Strawhats, because you have so many Devil Fruit users! All of us are required to carry them!" answered the cowering man.
Nami's eyes widened with dread. "And… where are your crewmates? Your captain?"
"Senchou sent the women's division after your men in the taverns, and he himself took the largest division to get Monkey D–"
"How many men?" Nami asked him in a whisper. She could hear Robin's heavy breathing behind her, and she knew it wasn't just from the seastone. They had come to the same conclusion.
Chopper, Brook, and Luffy were all Devil Fruit users. They had no protection against the kairouseki spears. And with the largest division against them, they had little to no chance of survival if help didn't arrive fast.
"One hundred –"
Nami didn't let him finish. She dropped him and started to run, reassembling the Climatact. "Come on, Robin!" she shouted. "Hold on, Luffy, Chopper! Brook!" Please be okay!
Robin voiced an affirmative and ran after her, pushing herself to ignore the weakening effect of the spears littering the ground beneath her feet. We'll get there in time. We always do, she convinced herself. We just have to run…