Chapter 3 – My Brother Just Can't Be This Dead

"Coffee?" Marco asked holding up a fresh mug. Luffy made a face.

"Ew, gross."

Chopper held out his hooves making grabby motions. "I want some!" Marco handed the steaming cup to him and the little reindeer took a deep gulp, sighing with satisfaction.

"There's soda in the fridge, do you want one?" Marco asked. Luffy got up to help himself. Marco's fridge was pretty bare, there was bottled water and a few questionable looking containers of leftovers. Spread among these were a few cans of Orange Crush. Luffy grabbed one and popped it open.

"Okay, so now can you explain what's going on here?" Luffy asked as he walked back to where the others were sitting and plopped down.

"Did your uncle ever say anything about crossdressing?" Marco asked. Luffy shook his head.

"Do you want me to punch you?" He countered. Marco sighed.

"Fine, so your Uncle Shanks was the leader of the old order of Devil Scouts. They each have the Devil power running through their bloodlines, so the power is passed down through each generation. There are special objects—in this case your uncle's hat—that allow people with enough Devil Power to channel it into ways to defend against evil," Marco explained.

"So that weird clown…Boogey," Luffy began.

"Buggy."

"Buggy, what's his problem?" Luffy glanced over at where Chopper was fussing over Ace as he lay motionless on the couch. Marco's expression was blank for a moment then he continued.

"He's part of the Dark Devil Power, they're a group that is here on earth to collect Devil Power for various nefarious purposes…Buggy mentioned someone named 'Lord Doflamingo' and I've never heard of him before so I'm not sure what he's specifically after. He's done something terrible to your uncle and the rest of the old Devil Scouts though or else Shanks wouldn't have passed his straw hat on to you…" Marco said. Luffy frowned. First Ace and now Shanks? He was liking these Dark Devil people less and less.

"So then we have to rescue my uncle and the rest of them now too," he asked. Marco gave him a weird look.

"Well, they're probably dea—"

"Do you want me to punch you?" Luffy smiled sweetly. Marco closed his mouth deciding it was best to change the subject.

"Fine. We have to rescue them, but first we need to find a way to cure your brother or else the darkness will find its way to his heart and eat it away."

"You said someone who knows their way around Dark Devil Power?" Luffy's brows furrowed.

"Yes, a specialist," Chopper supplied helpfully from where he finished what he could do for Ace and Joined them at the table. "Do you happen to know anyone around this area, Marco?"

"Well, there might be one person…I hope you guys like tacos," he said. Luffy and Chopper looked at each other.

Meanwhile, Nami had finally woken up and she was fuming. That idiot Luffy had skipped. She couldn't believe it—after she had helped him study every day for the test! Not only that but he had made her skip! She was going to kill him.

"Nami, are you hungry?"

"No, can't you see I'm busy, Zoro!" She snapped. Zoro just looked off into the distance not bothered by Nami's outburst in the least. Nami noticed this and it annoyed her even more. "What's with you anyways?"

"Like I said, are you hungry? Because I am and I wanna go to McDonalds," Zoro told her. "Chicken Nuggets."

"What does that have to do with me, go by yourself."

"…"

"Wait a second," sudden realization dawned on her face, "you don't know how to get there and you want me to take you there."

"…no," Zoro said but then Nami gave him the flattest look ever, "Okay yeah maybe, but I'm offering you coffee?"

"…only if it's vanilla ," Nami sighed and off they went. At first they strode along the shopping district in a sort of comfortable silence. Nami admitted to herself that she might just be pouting the tiniest bit. She looked over at Zoro who was perfectly fine just walking in silence and decided to break it. "So, why the sudden craving for nuggets?"

"Can't a man just satisfy his craving for overly processed junk food once in a while?" Zoro countered crossing his arms. Nami narrowed her eyes at him.

"There's something going on here and I will find out," she promised, "but I'm willing to drop it until I've had some caffeine."

Zoro continued to look everywhere except back at her.

Not too much later at McDonalds Sanji was busy hating his entire existence. Not only did he have to work the damn register, that stupid green haired weirdo was in his line again. At least when he was at the deep fryer he didn't have to deal with the public…but today Nami was there with that bastard.

Sanji discreetly licked his finger tips and made sure his eyebrow curl was in top shape before slipping into his best ladies' man smile as they came up next.

"Hello my beautiful Nami-swaan, what can I get for you today?" He made sure to really lay on the charms.

"Um," Nami said putting her hand on Zoro's arm, "Actually Zoro is the one ordering." Sanji couldn't help himself, his lip curled as he glanced over at the other man. Zoro's eyes were wide and his face was a bit flushed. There it was again. Zoro was acting extra weird lately and Sanji had no idea why.

"Okay fine, what do you want," Sanji scoffed. It was a full ten seconds before the Nami elbowed Zoro and he responded.

"Um what?" He asked, blinking stupidly.

"Your order," Sanji fought the urge to roll his eyes. He wondered how annoyed Manager Zeff would be if he asked for another smoke break so soon after his last one. "I don't have time to deal with your crap at work so make it snappy." Sanji smirked to himself as his words had the desired effect. Zoro visibly bristled like some kind of angry cat.

"I want a 10 piece nugget. Try not to have it completely soaked in grease. Oh, and vanilla McCafe for Nami." Zoro was back to his gruff self.

"That'll be eight bucks-" Sanji had just reached out a hand to take Zoro's money when another customer came walking up and cut right in front of him. Now Sanji had seen some rude shit before but this took the cake today. "Sir, there is a line for a reason."

"Take your line and shove it, I have something a little more important." As the guy said this he motioned with his hand and Sanji saw he had a gun. His curly eyebrows shot up high on his forehead.

"Look man, you want the register open? Free hash browns? My uniform?" Sanji was halfway naked as he asked. The man just shook his head and it was then that Sanji noticed the guy's crazy shark toothed saw-like nose.

"Nice try, but it's not money or food I'm after—it's you," he said and then cut his eyes toward Zoro and Nami. "All three of you to be exact."

Just as Zoro was tensed to tackle him from behind there was the sound of a second gun cocking and something hard pressed against the back of his skull.

"Don't be a hero," the second man warned. He looked like a clown. "Hands up above your head."

Reluctantly, Zoro complied. Nami's face lit up in recognition.

"Hey, aren't you that weirdo from this morning?" She demanded.

"Whose nose are you saying looks weird!?"

"…" Sanji saw that this situation was clearly going to deteriorate fast. He had to get everything under control before the rest of the customers saw what was happening. "Okay fine, you're in charge but let's take this out back." Sanji didn't wait for either of the armed men to agree before coming around the corner and tugging his hat off.

The first man kept his gun trained on Sanji as he followed his lead, he looked none too happy at losing even a bit of control of the situation though. The clown jammed the gun into the back of Zoro's head to get him moving and grabbed Nami's arm yanking her along as well.

It was a short skip and a hop to the fowl smelling alley where Sanji took most of his smoke breaks. The dumpster where they threw all their greasy food was right there so Sanji leaned up against it.

"Okay, so what do you want from me?" He asked.

"Where's Luffy, what did you do with him!?" Nami cut in viciously. Sanji had never seen her so riled up before.

"Can it. You should be more worried about yourself," the guy with his gun on Sanji warned. "Buggy, let's get this started already."

The other man dug into his coat and eventually fished out a strange glass ball with what looked like a black vortex floating in its middle. "Right, this is gonna be quick and painful kids!" The clown said with obvious glee. Sanji had a bad feeling when he held the object above his head and said, "Drain!"

It was like the crack of a whip, something inside Sanji snapped apart and he doubled over in pain. "Argh!" There was a sharp ringing in his head like someone was trying to separate the right and left sides of his brain with a crowbar. A sideways glance at the others told him Zoro and Nami were equally affected by the glass ball's high pitched screeching.

"Speed it up, we have a lot of energy to gather to make up for your earlier screw up."

"Shut up Arlong, nobody cares."

With that the pull from the ball doubled and a pull tugged hard at Sanji's chest, up through his esophagus and all of a sudden his mouth was forced open as a stream of purple smoke flowed out from him. The sensation was like puking but it was way too drawn out and Sanji couldn't breathe. Totally gross and uncomfortable.

Was he going to die here? In his shitty work uniform? Talk about a damn crap shoot.