Another reeeeeeely short chapter, I know, but I publish them faster when they are shorter. Also, when Sanji and Zoro meet, the chapters will get a lot longer. Despite the shortness, enjoy!
Transfer
Zoro awoke to footsteps and the jingling of the lock on his cell. He opened his eyes to see what looked like half of the marine base crowded around his cell, with one marine nervously unlocking the door and another unwinding the chains that secured it to the frame.
"What do you want?" Zoro complained. "I'm trying to sleep."
The marines ignored him, two of them talking in low voices.
"Is he a devil fruit user?" A marine whose uniform was highly decorated with metals asked.
"I don't know." This came from a less decorated marine, one that the swordsman recalled seeing around the base before. He was the captain of the base, Zoro had figured.
"What is he classified under?"
"His records say uncertain. He has apparently been glimpsed with three heads and six arms, and was reported to have almost superhuman strength and endurance. He survived a blow from Mihawk which would have killed a normal human several times over."
"I'm not a devil fruit user, you know." Zoro's comment was largely ignored by the two men. The lower-level marines, though, paled visibly when they realized that he was awake.
"Put him in seastone," decided the unfamiliar marine. "Why didn't you have him in it already?"
"Well, sir, our stocks of seastone handcuffs were all lost in the huge storm a while back, and our order for new ones hasn't arrived yet. We put him in the strongest metal that we had, and hoped that it would hold him until you arrived to take him."
Zoro snorted. This was their strongest metal that they had? I could have broken it with just a little bit of effort, had I not wanted to find out what happened to my nakama, and hopefully be sent wherever they were. To prove his point, Zoro jerked sharply on the handcuffs, prying them an inch from the wall. He tugged again, pulling them out farther and sending a shower of dirt and small pebbles raining into his hair. He shook his head to get it off, and when he looked up, the marines were rushing into his cell.
His hands were quickly taken out of their handcuffs attached to the wall, and shoved into strange-looking ones. They must be seastone, he decided after inspecting them. They were light, and the stone that they were made out of was hard and cold. The fact that they were as smooth as glass was a good thing, Zoro decided. That way, they wouldn't chaff the way that his old, metal ones had. The marines hooked weights attached to chains to his ankles, so that he couldn't run when they got outside. Each weight took three men to carry in.
Zoro stood up, brushing the dust off of him the best that he could with his hands manacled together.
"Well?" He asked, "Are we going?" The dumbstruck marines trailed after him as he walked out of the cell, dragging the weights behind him. These are heavy, he thought to himself. Oh well, it's like training. Now I can strengthen my legs as well as my arms. I don't think that Franky would let me on the ship if I had these things on, though. He'd complain that they'd bash up the ship too much.
"Secure him, men!" cried the marine captain. The marines rushed to grab his arms, and proceeded to haul him the opposite direction that he was going. This continued for a couple of minutes until the weights got too heavy for the marines to drag and they were forced to let him walk on his own. The group continued through the twists and turns of the base's stone walls, passing cell upon cell of prisoners. Zoro caught a glimpse of his swords being carried out by a marine in the group.
When they emerged outside, the swordsman took a deep breath of the cool, fresh air. There was a gigantic marine ship in the harbor, which Zoro was lead onto. He saw the marine carrying his swords board, and watched him trip, slicing his hand open on Sandi Kietsu, which had become unsheathed near the hilt. That sword always was a problem child, Zoro thought, but at least his swords were all headed off to Impel Down with him.
The marines quickly set sail, much more efficiently than his crew did, Zoro noticed. They were off in five minutes, as opposed to the ten or twenty it would have taken the Straw Hats to set sail because of all of the bickering involved.
Zoro watched the base recede into the distance. He was off to see his crew, and when the Straw Hats were together, nothing could stop them.
