Chapter 4: The Failures

That okama dude may've been an over-talkative moron, but Sanji had to admit, he proved to be quite a challenge. The whirlwind of kicks and foot lashes left the cook nearly speechless. Joso's speed was astounding, and his Devil Fruit powers on top of that made the cross-dresser an extremely tough opponent - - far tougher than Bon Clay back in Alabasta. Back then, he'd only been on the losing side due to the fact that Mr. 2 could transform himself into Nami, and Sanji refused to kick a lady. Now he was losing simply because he was... weaker.

"What's wrong?" Joso goaded, aiming another kick at Sanji's face. "Cat caught your tongue?"

He ducked and retaliated. "You talk too much and your face is freakin' ugly! Collier Shoot!" Sanji leaped into the air, spun, and threw the backside of his foot at his opponent's neck, but to his expanding surprise, the man in the tutu simply cartwheeled back and blocked with the outside of his leg.

"You call yourself a kick boxer? You suck! I could beat you in my sleep! I could beat you if I was unconscious! Pierce-Pierce Totally Unavoidable Spear of Awesomeness!"

"YOUR NAMING IS TOO LONG!" Sanji snapped, but his eyes widened as a cone-shaped spike protruded from the man's foot and stabbed at his forehead. He was forced to roll backward, away from the sudden attack. As it was, the makeshift spear sliced off a few locks of his blonde hair. In spite of himself, Sanji almost let out a very unmanly squeak.

What the hell am I doing? he silently cursed. How could this damned okama be stronger than me!? Damn! It must be 'Lucy' and 'Zoe's' stupid curse. The thought of them as girls is too distracting... If I lose to this bastard, I won't be able to face them again!

In desperation, Sanji came out of the roll and flipped onto his hands in a handstand. Using the momentum from the roll, he turned himself around and around in rapid circles, letting loose a furious volley of kicks that not only rained down on Joso, but took out any unfortunate enemy pirates that happened to get too close. "Party Table!" he called. But when he stopped spinning and flipped back to the side, Joso was only swaying a little, barely looking fazed at all. His hands were raised in a protective X-block and he had only slid back a few inches.

How strong is this guy?

"Your kicks only made me itchy," the annoying bastard claimed. "Now Pierce-Pierce - -"

"Please let it be a short name," Sanji interjected.

"- - Porcupine Full-Body Quill Armor!"

"THAT'S NOT SHORT AT ALL!"

There was a delay of a few seconds, but just as the blonde chef was about to follow up with a few more kicks (this time to be aimed where the sun doesn't shine), the cross-dresser exploded in hundreds of spear-like needles all over his body.

"What the - -" Sanji began, but dived out of the way as the spikes elongated and pierced the air where he had been standing just moments before. No, they literally pierced the air. The very fabric of the atmosphere rippled where the needles stabbed.

"Shit!" he heard Zoe's voice curse. "Sanji!"

Before he quite new what was happening, the feminized swordsman was standing in front of him, gripping 'her' three swords with much effort. Wado Ichimonji looked like it was about to fall out of her mouth. Her kimono blew in the slight breeze and her arms were shaking, but she was holding back the hard spikes that were now Joso's main body with her swords.

"Z-Zor - -"

"It's Zoe," Zoe grumbled, sliding back an inch or two as the cross-dresser's Devil Fruit powers pushed against her. "And don't ask me why I want you to call me that. I don't really know myself. But don't you dare nosebleed over me or I will chop you into more pieces than Buggy can split himself into."

The only part of Joso that hadn't been covered in iron-tough quills like a porcupine, his eyes, widened in shock. "Eh!? It's one of the hotties! How the hell'd you block my ultimate air-cutting attack!?"

"NEVER CALL ME 'HOT' AGAIN!" the ex-boy exploded. "And even though I'm weaker, I can still cut through things harder than steal, because I can still hear everything's breath!"

"The hell are you talking about, Marimo?" Sanji asked, confused.

"OH, FORGET IT! JUST GET UP AND HELP ME BEAT THIS BASTARD, BASTARD!"

"No need to tell me twice."

The blonde teen hurried to his feet and teetered dizzily for a second, but regained his balance and sent Byakuya Joso a steely glare. The cross-dresser frowned and retracted his spikes.

"Damn, this ain't good," Joso muttered. "The captain'll want me to take the cutie alive. How can we sell her in the trade if she's dead? I can kill the weaker of the two but I can't kill the stronger... This is gonna be a bit of a problem. Ha!" Suddenly he sneered. "Just kidding!"

"Oi, are you saying I'm weaker than Broken Compass!?" Sanji snapped.

Zoe scowled. "Both of you talk too much."

"Never mind that!" their opponent said, throwing his hands back and clenching them into fists. "Okama Kick Boxing Ultimate Extreme Secret Technique of Epic Chuck-Norris-Worthy Awesomeness..."

"Looks like he's doing something..."

"NO DUH, MARIMO!"

"I said shut it, Dartboard!"

"ROUNDHOUSE DANCE!"

WHAM! WHAM!

The two feuding idiots were out before either of them knew what had happened.

Chopper was in a dilemma. There was a really creepy lady in his office wearing a really creepy outfit and an even creepier sneer. It sent shivers down the cute reindeer's back just thinking about her. She looked like someone out of a goth vampire movie. Her robes were black and purple, she had plump dark purple lipstick, and she wore night black eyeliner.

'Scary...' he whimpered in his head as he peeked out from under his desk.

"I could've sworn I heard somebody in here," the lady said to herself as she glanced around his office, two short scythes tapping against her legs. "Sounded like a child... too bad. Children don't sell well in the slave trade."

The doctor squeaked in fright. Slave trade!? What was going on now!?

"Oh, little boy who thinks he's a doctor!" the scary woman said. Chopper swore up and down that she was even scarier than Nami, which was saying something. The redheaded navigator could hurt even Luffy - - er, sorry, Lucy - - when she was angry enough... and the reindeer's captain was made of rubber. "Come out, come out, wherever you are, Doctor-chan!"

'Like hell!'

Instead, he backed up farther against the wall, still in the leg space of his desk. He was shivering in fright, every single hair on him standing straight up. If he was a human, he would've been sweating bullets. But wait, he was a human, or at least part human anyway. Could he sweat? That was an interesting theory. He'd have to run a few tests...

'NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO BE THINKING ABOUT THAT!' Chopper admonished himself.

The goth vampire lady's mood darkened so much that he could tell without even looking at her. "Okay, I've had enough this idiotic game of hide-and-seek! I want BLOOD!" The sound of destruction filled the room, and the desk above him started shaking violently, like some extremely heavy monster was pounding relentlessly on it. With his back turned to the space outside, he couldn't even see what was going on.

Chopper yelped and went into full out panic mood, dashing out from under the desk and sprinting for the door in hopes that the scary lady didn't see him.

Not so lucky.

"There you are!" she roared, and the reindeer froze just a few steps from the door. Her voice was noticeably womanly but not soft at all. There was a downright evil edge to it. "Trying to run away, are you? You're a bit furry for my tastes, but you'll have to do! I hate fully grown men and my darling Bond will want the ladies to sell for the trade! ...What are you, anyway? Some kind of tanuki?"

"I'm a reindeer!" he huffed exasperatedly. Why could people never get it right?

She shrugged. "Whatever. Not that it matters. Food is food."

"YAAAAAAAAAH!" Chopper screeched, his eyes popping out of his head. "CANNIBAAAAAAAAL!"

During his shout of fright, he had turned to look behind him so he could dodge if the lady attacked, but what he saw wasn't exactly a woman. It was a monster in the goth girl's clothing. Pale and squinting in the soft light of the doctor's office, two animal-like fangs hung out of its mouth, which was twisted into an incredibly ugly smirk. Its eyes were a solid night color and reminded the horribly frightened reindeer of black holes. Its body was disfigured, though it still looked lithe and it rippled with muscles.

"VAMPIRE!" he yelled.

The horrible monster lunged and Chopper leaped out of the way, its claws raking through the space he'd just occupied, creating small ripples of blackness.

"I ate a Mythical Zoan Devil Fruit, the Human-Human Fruit Model: Vampire!" the monster declared evilly. "My name is Fenrir Cain, and I am the wife of my darling Captain Bond!"

"THAT'S JUST TOO WEIRD!" Chopper gasped, eyes bugging out.

He dug into his shorts pocket and tugged out a Rumble Ball, slipping it into his mouth and chomping on it mid-dodge. Chopper felt a surge of power flow through him, and when Cain's fist tightened and swung at him, he activated Guard Point.

"Rumble!" he called.

"What the..." the goth vampire mumbled. "You changed into a literal ball of fur..."

"I'm a reindeer who ate the Human-Human Fruit!" Chopper told her. "I'm also this ship's doctor, Tony Tony Chopper! A few years ago, I invented something called the Rumble Ball, which enhances the Devil Fruit's abilities and gave me an extra four transformation points! Do the rest of the math yourself! Arm Point!"

She tilted her head to the side, narrowly evading a hoof-slam from his now heavily muscled arms. "You have seven points to transform into? No matter. Cheating doesn't beat true strength."

"IT'S NOT CHEATING!"

The fight dragged on, neither quite gaining the upper hand. It was hard to battle someone in such a small room. Chopper's faithful office was getting ripped to shreds, the only part of the ship that hadn't suffered some form of damage courtesy of one of Luffy's shenanigans. The doctor growled in anger and changed into Jump Point this time, somersaulting over his opponent's head.

"That was your seventh point," Cain noted. He had used all of his other transformation points and had now lost the element of surprise. "No more surprises, then. Alright, guess I'll show you the true terror of a vampire! BAT POINT!"

Before Chopper's eyes, the vampire woman's body transformed into a bat. Chopper blinked and began to wonder how she was supposed to fight in such a small body, but when he swiped at her, she evaded his paw easily and bit his arm.

Chopper's eyes widened and he pulled back quickly, shouting in pain and fear. "YAH! I'VE BEEN BITTEN BY A VAMPIRE BAT! I DON'T WANT TO BE A VAMPIRE!"

"Oh, don't worry!" Cain assured him, having changed back into full human form. "You won't become a vampire, though I have drained you of much of your blood. Tasted like venison. You'll be slightly anemic for the next 72 hours, so you might want to restock up on an extra supply of blood at the next town you visit... Wait, why am I telling you this? Ah, whatever."

Her words were fading away, getting an echo to them, like he was listening to her from the opposite end of a large tunnel made of rock. Chopper collapsed to the ground, already breathing heavy. His vision was darkening, but he could tell she was already out the door, returning to her crew.

'Dammit...' the reindeer cursed in his head, tears building in his eyes. 'I... I lost so easily to that monstrous woman... How will I be able to face Lucy and the others!? Damn... Damn... DAMMIT!'

He pounded the floor in exhausted anger as the last of his strength faded away, anemia already throwing him unconscious.

Lucy knew something was weird. The sounds of fighting all around her were dying down and... did SHE JUST USE A FEMININE NAME FOR HERSELF!? Damn, this whole genderbending thing was whacked. She felt tired, she felt weak, and most of all, she felt damn HUNGRY.

Okay, that was nothing new, but she definitely felt hungrier than normal.

And not to mention those annoying, purposeless boobs hanging off her chest...

'Okay, Luffy, calm down,' she told herself, remembering to use her MALE name. 'Concentrate on the fight... your nakama are counting on you, and do you really want to be a slave!? AS A GIRL!?'

She threw a few more punches at her current despised enemy, one Captain Fenrir Bond, a man with a bounty of 150,000,000 belli. He was tough, but Lucy decided that she could handle him. Or at least, she would've been able to as a guy.

Now?

Not so much. She was weaker, her sense of balance had been thrown totally off-center, and SHE HAD BOOBS. Did she mention that she had boobs? Monkey D. Lucy was very vexed by this fact. Not to mention that her Family Jewels were missing. That felt like an injustice to her masculinity, although she wasn't exactly sure why.

And she really had to stop referring to herself as 'she...'

"Gum-Gum Pistol!" she growled, stretching her arm back, clenching her hand into a fist, and then powering it into Bond's chest, though he didn't seem very affected by the attack.

"Ha! Was that supposed to hurt?" Bond laughed. "Felt like a kid's punch! Chain-Chain Grab!"

The offending captain threw his right hand out at her, his arm turning into a chain that lengthened and rattled as it flew across the gap between them. Lucy narrowed her eyes and dodged, her breasts flopping pointlessly as she scrambled to a stop. A vein popped on her head in annoyance.

"My big bro Ace could take down an experienced pirate captain when he was ten!" she belted, lashing out in a rubbery roundhouse kick. "Gum-Gum Whip!"

"Gotta admit, your reflexes are top-notch, though you aren't very balanced... Chain-Chain Fireworks!"

A barrage of chains punched at Lucy and she grunted, weaving through them and nearly tripping one or two or three times. As she dodged, she glanced around the Going Merry. While Robin, Nami, and Usopp were taking care of the lesser members of Fenrir Bond's crew, Zoe and Sanji were working together to take down some weird okama dude, though it looked like they were on the loosing side. There was also some sounds of destruction coming from the infirmary.

Lucy returned her attention to Bond, confident in her crew's strength.

"Not too shabby," her enemy admitted. "Okay, then. Chain-Chain Special Attack... Metal Jungle!"

Chains shot out from nowhere, attaching themselves to either side of her ship and interlocking themselves, creating an inescapable network of tough metal links. Lucy steeled herself and narrowed her eyes, waiting for Bond to make his move. Cackling, the other captain raised his arms and said, "Welcome to the Jungle of Doom! No swordsman has been able to cut these tough steel links and no free-hand fighter has been able to break them apart! You can't escape!"

The chains had been woven so tightly that although there was enough room to move and stand at full height (which was rather shorter than usual, another irk on Lucy's expanding list), only a few, small, squarish windows broke through the sphere-like trap. One break allowed her to see Bond wrapping a chain around the horizontal part of the mast, the thing the sails were on... what was that called? Lucy had always sucked at remembering those things.

"Oi, Zoe!" she called, mentally reprimanding herself on calling her swordswoman by her feminized name. "A little help here?"

The green haired ex-boy didn't reply, though Robin, Nami, and Usopp were now suddenly aware of their captain's dilemma.

"EEK! LUFF - - LUCY!" Usopp shrilled.

"Oh, no!" Nami gasped. "She's trapped!"

Robin sounded a little worried. "She might actually lose and be sold to the slave trade... Zoe and Sanji have already been beaten, too."

'What?' Lucy repeated in her mind, too shocked for words. Her first mate and cook... defeated? Was that even possible?

She was so surprised she didn't even notice a wide circle opening at the top of the sphere, letting light shine into the trap. Lucy wasn't aware of Bond descending upon her with tremendous force gained from swinging around the yard. She couldn't have known that he had turned the bottoms of his feet into chains made from seastone.

Robin, Nami, and Usopp did, however, and they tried to warn her. "LUCY! LOOK OUT!"

Lucy blinked and was jolted out of her shock. She looked up just in time to be rewarded with a faceful of seastone chains flying at about thirty miles an hour.

The captain of the Straw Hat Pirates was unconscious before she even hit the ground.

Bond had won.

Wow, I haven't updated this since the twentieth of last month. Sorry about that, bros and bras. Well, I have finally released another chapter! I'm finally done with the school play (The Music Man), though a local theater in a near-by town is holding try outs for the same one next month, and I'm thinking about trying out for a bigger role than just a traveling salesman.

On a totally unrelated note, thank you for over thirty favorites and 25 follows in three chapters! You guys are totally awesome! I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as you clearly have enjoyed the rest of the story! I hope I didn't make the crew seem too lame or my enemies seem too powerful. You have to take into consideration that the whole crew is distracted by Luffy and Zoro changing genders, as well as the fact that they are now weaker than they were before. Well, here are my replies to reviews on the previous chapter:

Shirani-Chan: Oh, you feel like you've seen something like this before? Maybe there was something similar in another fandom or something, idk. Thank you so much! Yeah, all these baddies are original. Here you go!

DarkLord98: I don't keep up with the manga at all. I find it confusing. I only watch the anime. I heard that Sabo is actually alive, though, is that true? I always kind of expected that he was... I mean, it would've fucked with Luffy's mind frame in so many ways that there was no way he could've actually died.

Thunderqueen-nat: Yeah, that is ironic, isn't it? XD Thanks, and here you go!

Monkey D. Writer: Not sure whether that's a compliment or an insult, but I'll take that as a compliment. dB The crew is kind of idiotic, so, yeah. XD

XxxAyakixxX: Oh. Okay, I can live with that explanation. It's not too hard to prove you right. All you have to do is compare the yaoi fanfics to the yuri fanfics. *shudders* Fangirls can be seriously creepy. No offense. lol

Neliel Von Schweetz: I thought you guys would like that. Robin breaking the Fourth Wall simply 'cuz she's Robin. dB Thank you! There hasn't been many of these kinds of stories out there, which is kind of surprising, so I decided to make one myself. I figured that if I wanted something like this, then there had to be others who'd want it, too. :)

-TheRealEvanSG