I'm so happy I got the Starting Adventure off the list, I was getting annoyed by it. I'm sorry that this chapter is a little short (2,143 words), but I just take good sized chunks out of the 'mass text' as I'm writing it. Hi Jhonie! *waves*
Gloria: It's so gray outside...
Snoara: I know! I love it! It's not so hot anymore, and this weekend is the Desucon! ^^
Gloria: Yayy, spend all your hard gathered money into manga and ****...
Snoara: What's with the stars?
Gloria: I do not sware, but I couldn't find better suitable word for it. Snoara doesn't own One Piece (nor me!)
Snoara: We've had this conversation before! You Are My Character! (And so is the mystery chick...)
Gloria: Whut?
The next morning they were off before she had woken. When she finally got out of the bed she was feeling really bad as a contrast to yesterday. Everything came back rushing and she leaned to the wall for a moment. She was sore from several places and she had a dull ache in her back.
"Gruaaaah..."
"HEY GEN!"
"Please, Luffy! Don't yell so loudly!"
"Oh, sorry Gen," the boy whispered.
"Hey, hey, guess what!"
"What?" she asked blankly at his suspicious behaviour. Like a kid with a big secret, a goliath beetle in a pillowcase or something like that.
"We kidnapped you!"
"Huh?"
Nami had done some breakfast for them, if it could be called that anymore at twelve o' clock. She ate her porridge and drank her strawberry juice as Luffy explained in triumph of his 'genious' abduction.
"Even when Gen said she didn't want to come with us, I decided: she will! And then we left before she could run away! Shishishi!"
"Horaay," Gen said blankly. "From a pick-up ta a hostage?"
Luffy nodded.
"You can't say no to him," Zoro grunted. She guessed he had a hangover of some level. If not, she'd make sure his day would be bad. Nami sighed.
"I have a bad feeling about this..."
"About what?"
"That we took her with us. She'll be a trouble magnet or something."
"And you don' think he is?" Gen piped up, pointing at Luffy, even when Nami was talking mostly to Usopp.
"Luffy seems to have a liking to you, so all I can say is: don't make it cost me my money! It's mine!"
"Don't you mean 'ours', Nami?" Usopp rised an eyebrow. The navigator glared at him with murder in her eyes.
"MINE."
"Okay, okay!" he surrendered in seconds.
"But yannow, I don' know much about ships and hasn't sailed one at open sea, ever. I can do small chores aroun' an' - pardon me - I think even Usopp could beat me in a fight," she said thoughtfully, fidling with one of the two braids that her hair had been tied into at some point of the night.
"Oi.."
"I don't believe that. He's really weak, you'd beat his ass in an instant."
"OI!"
After she ate, she clampered back down to the infirmary and holed up in there.
"Greg, I never asked this, but what's exactly in you?" she dug through the protesting fabric. She had no idea how the bag had come with her, how it became a living, thinking... thing, or what she'd packed in it. Was something missing? Was something added without her knowledge?
As a result to the trashing, the bunny fell off, the bag stopped flailing and the fallen bunny layed motionless on the floor for a while before sitting up and glaring at her.
Like expected, she found what she had packed in there before she had left her house in the dark of the night. Her scetchbook, penbag, the lipstick, two black T-shirts and a set of underware as well as other small items, like her wooden whistle and a necklace she thought she had lost a long time ago. It was a round plate made from iron and there was a flower in the center of it, a black engraving running at the edge of it. It hung on a strip of maroon leather. What she couldn't find was her Mp3 or her cellphone, but then she remembered that she'd stuffed it in her pants pocket... and the pants were laying on the floor of the Trout.
"Yayy!" she pulled out the pens and the book and sat on the bed. She turned the pages, fondly remembering the occasions when she had drewn them. She passed the seastrand, looking at it briefly, and then turned out a new page. In a way, it was her diary as well.
...
...is Inspiration home? No? Well, will you give her a message? ...yes, I can- no, not at all! I think I'll just wait for her, then...
She sighed and laid down on the bed, crossing her arms behind her head. If you couldn't get an idea, you couldn't get one. Her mind was bustling through the events. 'Good Draketrees! Almost a week!' Then there was a figurative light bulb above her head, and she started schetching away rapidly, before the picture burned out of her mind's eye. Soon enough, she had a rough picture of Moriko in a princess-y dress, much like the maid dresses, but longer and less lacy (Nami had taken the dress away, saying that it could be sold at somewhere). The girl even had a tiara.
She continued in peace with her drawings, until there were hurried steps slapping against the floor and her door was yanked open. She didn't bother look up from her work.
"Wha' is it, Luffy? Did Tim fell down the well?"
"Who's Tim?" he tilted his head.
"Nevermind that. Why did you come?"
"Haha," he looked sheepish. "I thought you jumped off the ship and swam back to the last island."
"And how th' Netherland would I be able ta do that?" she tried to look annoyed.
"Hey, one can never know! You are just like that, and when I asked where you had gone, Zoro suggested that..." he drawled on.
"Ah. So he was mean to ya?" she uncorked one of her loved pens and started inking her picture. When Luffy just stood there, she was starting to feel awkward, teacher-has-nothing-else-to-do-than-hover-over-your-desk-and-breath-down-your-neck awkward. The second she put down the pen, she was yanked off the bed, making her possessions fly around.
"OI!"
"You've been here too long! Come and play with us~!" he sung and dragged her out to the deck. Sun was beaming down on them... she grimaced.
"I can see the light! And it buuurns!" she screeched and tried to claw away from his grip.
"Zoroo! Come and help me! She can't go back in! Captain's order!"
"Ya ain't me cap'n!" Gen wailed. The marimo was sitting next to the railing, an amused grin on his face. Nami laughed, but then remembered the airhead's injury.
"Aren't you in any pain?" she asked. Luffy and the girl turned to look at her, and he let go of her like she'd burned him. She made an 'ooff' noise before getting back up, feeling her back.
"Ow."
"Stop fooling around then!" Usopp scowled. He was fishing with no apparent luck so far.
"See, Luffy? I can't play around with my back open," she nodded gravely and scooted to Zoro, using him as a pillow.
"What... are you doing?"
"Using you. Got a problem?" she cracked one eye open to see his stupified expression and smiled.
"Don't sleep on me, woman!" he pushed her aside, but she grinned and giggled.
"WHAT!"
"Ya called me a 'woman'!"
"So? ...you are one, right?" he looked at her with uncertanity.
"Stupid: of course I am, but no one has ever recognized me as one."
"Oh joy. Now shut up, I'm sleeping."
"No you're not. You are trying to sleep. There's a difference. And it's not really sleeping but napping."
"Go away, before I do something I won't regret."
She rolled her eyes around and rolled away like a log. No way was she going to let go after yesterday! She didn't remember much of the later hours of the celebration (no, it was not a party. She hated parties, so it couldn't be one.) but she did remember that Zoro was a jerk to her. And that he'd roped her down.
That in mind, she climbed up to the crow's nest, hand full of small bits of food. She had seen the few seagulls flying around the main mast and had a payback ready in her head. She looked around and settled some food on the railing, where the gulls snatched them, feet touching the wood only briefly. She looked at them fondly. Gen had never thought seagulls as 'gracious', but right now...
Oh yeah, the prank.
"Gull, gull, gull..." she whispered and waved the hand with food above the empty space to make the birds notice it, before dropping the food down. On Zoro. Then she ducked out of sight, as the flock dived down after the food, and she heard the seagulls and the swordsman screeching. Nami and the rest came and started laughing at the man's cussing. Finally the birds decided to fly back to the feeder, a little confused and hurt too by the trick.
"Oh, don't give me that face!" she smiled. "I only wanted to mess with the marimo," she cooed and stretched her hand to the closest seagull, which surprisingly let her pet it's head.
"You're so cute!"
She swore she saw it's eyes turn into small hearts.
"GLOORIAAAAAH!"
"...doodles."
She had hidden until lunchtime, listening as Luffy and Usopp played with the cannon. There seemed to be a weird stretch or a loop in the timeline, as she remembered this happening almost right after Going Merry left it's birth island. The jolly Roger flapped in the wind, so the whole Goldyjerk issue was squeezed between The Flag and The Cannonplay scenes. And what kind of twisted bastard was he! Keeping women like items...
Back to the present: Zoro hadn't caught her, or then he had done something she'd notice later. She didn't like these kind of situations, but he had started it! At the table, he glared at her between the bites. Gloria ignored him skillfully and opted to listen to Usopp's story about giraffes and pink sharks.
"Hey guys," Luffy started, a foreign, thoughtful expression on his face. "There's still one position that we'll have to fill before the Grand Line."
"I agree. We do have a nice kitchen," Nami leaned into her palm. Zoro took a brake from trying to make Gen burst into flames with his glare.
"He's the one we need most on a long journey."
"You think so too? Because we aren't real pirates before we have... A musician!" Luffy smiled brightly and Gloria laughed.
"Are you nuts!"
"Incorrect. He cannot be all nuts, he's just a coconut," she said sagely.
"You're not a nut. You're a purebred idiot," Zoro said, either to Luffy or Gen, but she still narrowed her eyes at him.
"For a second... I thought you had a good idea, but then you just had to crush my hopes!" Nami yelled.
"What do you think being pirates is about?" Usopp yelled too.
"What? Shouldn't pirates have some kind of entertainment?" Luffy asked. Gen snickered, he really only thought about having fun.
"What we need..." Gen held a dramatic pause to gather attention "...is a pair o' good legs."
"What the-!" Usopp sputtered. Nami's eyebrow twitched, but Luffy looked confused. Zoro sighed.
"Oh yeah, Gen, you promised me a fortune!" Luffy suddenly remembered.
"That is a fortune good enough for now. Keep it in mind, and you see what I mean!" she winked, just as they heard a yell coming from outside. Luffy went to investigate it, followed by shouting and a few crashes.
"How many?" Zoro asked from the floor, where he had taken his nest.
"Just one," Nami and Usopp watched through the galley window.
"He can take care of it, then."
After some more trashing, Zoro got up and went out. Gen smiled to herself: she knew this scene quite well. Johnny, telling him Yosaku was sick etc. so she spaced out and sat there, waiting for something interesting to happen. She didn't even notice when the two idiots came to fetch the lemons, but when she felt the teeth in her shin, she yanked her leg up from the floor in instinct.
"What the Netherworld!"
"Finally, M'Lady! I thought you had left your earthly being!"
"Uh... huh?" she was too confused to nag about the 'M'Lady' part, as the palm-sized black and white bunny bowed in an apology.
"I called you, but I couldn't get through, so I had to bite you. I'm sorry. By the way, your pants taste like lemons."
"...right. Did you have something important or did you just want my attention?"
"Ah, yes. I have a message: 'Stop by the head, when you have time.'"
"A message."
"Yes."
"From who, if I may ask?" The bunny looked sheepish (how can a toy do that?) and rubbed it's paw.
"Can't tell. It's a secret."
"Come on! Tell me! Aren't I your lovely Lady-sama?" Gen batted her eyelashes and Greg started to sweat nerveously.
"I-I can't! She told me not to-!" and he slapped his limbs over his flappy mouth (or the place where it should've been).
"It's a chick?"
"Noo! Stop asking me, M'Lady!"
"Stop calling me that."
"So-sorry..."
"Give me a name."
"NOOO!" and the little thing ran away. Gloria sighed, she could've easily caught him since his small size made him slow, but didn't want to pressure him more than that. She'd find out. 'Stop by the head... when you have time'. What head?
"Greg? You still hear me?"
"I'M NOT TELLING!" came his reply from somewhere.
"Not that... just what 'head' did you mean?"
"Head? The message, you mean? She didn't tell any more than that- AH! You sneaky seaurchin-! Don't make me talk!"
She sweatdropped. How sneaky is a seaurchin? Gen shook her head and got up, going outside to meet with the 'bounty hunters'.
Gloria: Hey, who is it? *shuffles through the chapters*
Snoara: OI! *grabs the computer* No peeking!
Gloria: Come on! Who is it?
Snoara: Not telling! Again, I'm terribly sorry that it's so short.
Gloria: *snicker* Like ya...
Snoara: *frown* Go to hell.