Hearing Problems Chapter 10: Tricks and Traps, an one piece fanfic

Only two more chapters after this! -sob- Nuuuuuuu!

I'm planning a sequel, though, and there's also the prequel.

But still! I've loved this story to death! D: This is sad for me.

Contract
Fan
Teapot
Rooster
Toga
"What happened to your eyebrows?"
"When you get rejected more than once, it really doesn't matter anymore. You become immune to hurt, I suppose."
"I don't feel like doing this anymore."
"Hey, why is there a set of lace underwear in your things?"
"Bang, you're dead. Or something like that."

Guess who the first question was asked to. Go on, guess. Seriously, it's not that hard to guess.

Disclaimer: For the last time! I don't own One Piece, I only wish I did.

Warnings: Plot development. Lots of it. Yeah, I know, strange, isn't it?

Quoter:

Lyon sighed and looked around, wondering where he was even supposed to begin with this. "There's a Marine ship." That seemed like a good starting point.

"There's a lot of those," Janx said vaguely, still examining the apparent scratch on his gun. Lyon pinched the bridge of his nose and leaned against the doorframe.

"Would you put down that damn thing and pay attention?" he snapped. Janx looked up, shrugged, and sat up, then laid the gun on top of a random assortment of clothes piled next to him. "Good. Now—" Lyon paused, noticing the clothes pile. "Hey, why is there a set of lace underwear in your things?"

Janx smirked. "Guess."

"All right," Lyon said. "I can guess on that. Now explain the toga." He pointed.

"How close are they?"

Karimi was shaking slightly. "I can't tell," she said quietly.

It was an obvious lie to her, but he nodded, and believed her. He seemed to be confusing the fact that no one could lie around her by thinking that she couldn't lie around anyone, either. It was far from true. Though she hated it, her new ability made her more able to lie if nothing else, because it helped her to know what people would believe. What tone of voice to use, what to say, how exactly to word it, everything. Right now, though it wasn't what he wanted to hear, Lyon nodded comprehendingly.

They were going to have to fall back further. He moved towards the door, but stopped when she spoke again.

"Daddy?" He looked back. "I don't feel like doing this anymore."

Still paused at the door, he looked at her for a moment, and her eyes remained on her knees. He opened his mouth to reply, could think of no reply, shook his head, and left the room with a sigh. Karimi looked up at the door as it shut behind him. Looking back down at her knees, she shut her eyes. Just a little bit more and there would be no avoiding Garp catching up, and then she was going to have to explain everything that was going on.

Not far behind the pirate ship, cutting smoothly through the water, was the overtaken Marine ship that was pursuing it. The person who had overtaken it stood towards the bow, staring out over the water, waiting for the first sign of sails to come over the horizon. That ship would be a difficult one to catch up with, if she was right, and it could have very well ended up being days longer before they caught the slightest glimpse of it. It had definitely looked like it was built for speed more than size when she saw it up close for the first time only a couple days ago. It was certainly a beautiful ship, especially when compared to the metallic eyesore she was aboard now. She glanced around at the ship, shook her head at it, and looked back out at the water.

"Hey." Helena sighed at the voice she heard speak up behind her.

"I don't believe I know anyone by that name," she said. She didn't have to glance back at Garp to know that she was being scowled at. "Now try again."

"All right. Helena—"

"And that's no way to address your captain." She grinned at the annoyed sigh she heard behind her.

"Fine, Captain," he continued. She glanced back, raising her eyebrows in recognition, and smirked when she saw his annoyed expression. "The lookout spotted a ship."

"A ship?" she asked. "Just a ship?"

"We're not close enough to be able to tell yet, but—"

"Right," she said. "Get the telescope from him, I'll keep lookout from here." She looked back out at the water, squinting at the horizon. She could almost see a pinprick there, but it could have easily been an island.

She glanced to her left when something clouded her peripheral vision only a moment later and saw a telescope there. For a moment, she merely blinked at it in mild surprise, and then she took it. "Thank you," she said.

She extended it from its collapsed state and looked through the lens at the pinprick. It was hard to tell anything, even with it magnified. It was no doubt a pirate ship, but the flag, while visible, was waving too much for the symbol upon it to be at all discernable.

Regardless, she said with certainty, "It's him." She looked over at Garp, who was looking at her oddly. She shrugged. "Mother's intuition."

"Of course," he said, obviously in total disagreement, if the tone of his voice was any indication. "You know—"

"What, too lazy to argue?" she interrupted, seeing the subject was about to be changed

He ignored her and continued, "I did the math—"

"You did math?" She looked up at the sky. "Then where are the flying pigs?"

"And if everything you said earlier was true—about the kid, you know," he continued, a little louder, "then he would have had to have spent three years chasing that girl."

"Four," Helena corrected. "Karimi was born late in the year. But I congratulate you, I didn't realize you could add and subtract. Now, what's the point of this?" she asked curiously.

"I'm just wondering how he could keep it up for so long."

"You kept it up for five years," Helena said. "Granted you were just trying to have me executed. Wonderful job at that, by the way," she added, smirking. "Now both times you've attempted to take me back to headquarters to have me executed you've had your ship commandeered. Sorry," she said, seeing he was about to continue this argument, "only kidding. I guess you could say he's stubborn. Not like he gets it from anywhere strange. But I can see your point, being rejected that many times, you would think he'd have given up…." She looked through the telescope at the ship again. "But then again, when you get rejected more than once, it really doesn't matter anymore. You become immune to hurt, I suppose."

"Damn it, I should've had the bastard sign a contract or something saying he wouldn't follow me…"

Having left Karimi in his cabin to check and make sure everything was fine with the crew. Leaving Janx in charge was something he did only when absolutely necessary, since something was bound to go wrong if he was. It had been absolutely necessary this time, and something appeared to have gone wrong, horribly wrong. It seemed that there was a marine ship not very far behind them, and that almost definitely meant Garp.

"You think it's him?" Clara asked incredulously. "I thought you had Karimi listening for him."

Lyon shook his head. He wasn't exactly sure of how to answer that question. He had a feeling it was Garp. He wasn't certain of it, but no one else was pursuing him. The only problem was that if it was Garp, the only answer to Clara's question was that Karimi had been purposely causing them to fall back far enough for him to catch up, but that didn't make any sense.

"What's Janx doing?" he asked. "I vaguely remember leaving him in charge."

She shrugged as she looked down at the deck. "He left me in charge about a half an hour ago and went into his cabin. He mentioned something to do with something exploding and him needing to hide for awhile until Ren stopped trying to kill him."

Lyon rolled his eyes. "That would figure…"

He stomped back towards the back of the ship and bypassed the door into his own cabin. It was the other door he went for this time, and he swung it open upon reaching it and looked in. He looked around and didn't see anyone.

Then he looked down and spotted Janx lying on the floor directly beneath a ceiling fan, holding his shotgun above his head and examining it. Janx looked up. Lyon started to ask what in God's name he thought he was doing in here when he was left in charge of the crew, but it came out more as, "What happened to your eyebrows?"

Janx reached up and felt his eyebrows—or where his eyebrows had once been—and blinked. "Well, you see, the microwave—"

"Never mind," Lyon said, holding up a hand to stop him. "I take it that's why you're in here." He shrugged, then lowered his head back down and continued examining his shotgun. "And what are you doing?"

"There is a scratch," he said slowly, "on my gun. And I'm trying to figure out how it could have possibly gotten there."

"Well, you've only had the thing for what, ten years?"

"I know, it shouldn't have any scratches on it." He paused and looked up again. "That was sarcasm, wasn't it?" Lyon nodded. "Ah. Right."

Lyon sighed and looked around, wondering where he was even supposed to begin with this. "There's a Marine ship." That seemed like a good starting point.

"There's a lot of those," Janx said vaguely, still examining the apparent scratch on his gun. Lyon pinched the bridge of his nose and leaned against the doorframe.

Janx smirked. "Guess."

"All right," Lyon said. "I can guess on that. Now explain the toga." He pointed.

Janx's eyebrows—or lack thereof—furrowed and he looked over at the heap of clothes, his smirk from only a moment earlier quickly turning into a frown. He spotted the toga Lyon was pointing to and shook his head, looking perplexed. Finally, he shrugged. "Whiskey, probably." That was more than enough explanation.

It really wasn't enough explanation for the gold embellished teapot sitting atop a desk in the room, but Lyon decided he probably needed to stop getting sidetracked by all the eccentricities of this room and get to the point. "Now, there's a Marine ship."

"Yes," Janx agreed. "We've already established that there are quite a few of those, I think, and that they seem to like chasing this ship. What of it?"

"Well, one of them just so happens to be chasing us right at this moment," Lyon said. "I happen to think it's Garp." Janx waved a dismissive hand and lay back down on the floor, grabbing his shotgun again. "Who else could it be?"

"Anyone else," Janx said. "Anyone but Garp. You've got Compass Girl listening in on Garp's ship, we'd be the first to know if it was him catching up with us. And she seems to think he's too far away to hear, hence why we… keep having to slow down… and let them get closer…" Janx blinked, looking thoughtful, and then looked up again. "You think she might have been lying?"

Lyon sighed. "I don't think she…" He shook his head. "I don't know. I really don't. I can't see why she would, but…" Again, he shook his head, trying to clear all the annoying thoughts out of it. Rum, he needed rum. "Regardless, they're obviously pursuing us, they're not that far behind us, and I'm going to need you out there to keep the crew under control. Not in here wondering how a scratch got on a gun that's practically antique."

Janx shrugged and lay back down the rest of the way again. "Get someone else to do it."

"Do I have to go get the blind rooster out of the lifestock holds?"

"I'm not sleeping, it wouldn't do you any good."

"It wouldn't do you any good to have a rooster crowing at you while you're in here being a lazy bastard either, would it?"

Janx thought about this and nodded before standing up and putting his gun back in the holster strapped to his back. "Point taken."

"Good. Just keep lookout from the crow's nest for now, we'll hold the ship at the speed it's going now until . If you see any sign of Garp on the ship whatsoever, let me know."

"Are we going to run or stop and see what he's playing at?" Janx asked. Before Lyon could respond, Janx added, "I say we trick him. Stop, act like you're willing to negotiate. See, all right, here's how it goes. You're Garp—"

"Don't—"

"And," Janx continued, "I'm you. This is just hypothetically what could happen. See, you lead him off to negotiate somewhere that his crew can't back him up and then—" Suddenly and without warning, Lyon was staring down both sawed-off barrels of Janx's shotgun. "Bang, you're dead. Or something like that," he added, lowering the gun. "You know, with you at the moment as Garp, so that's meaning Garp's dead. Less bang, being that you don't know how to use a gun."

"I do, I just don't like them," Lyon lied immediately. "And don't point that thing at me." Janx shrugged, then walked out onto the quarterdeck past Lyon. "So, haven't seen the psychotic cook around anywhere, have you?" he asked cautiously, looking around.

"No," Lyon said. "Just hide behind everyone else on your way to the mast and you should be fine."

He nodded. "Right."

With a black flag depicting the head of a lion and cutlasses crossed beneath it now visible on the ship they were pursuing, there was no doubt of who the ship belonged to. They were close enough now that through her telescope, Helena could very clearly see the first mate stationed in the crow's nest looking back at her through his own telescope. Now, if her son didn't already know what was going on from Karimi, the truth would doubtlessly be revealed. There was no way around it.

She waved, causing Janx to drop his telescope in surprise. A moment later, he was hurrying down the ladder that led back down to the deck.

After around five minutes, something rather strange happened. It appeared that, only on the patch of ocean Lyon's ship was upon, that the wind had stopped blowing entirely. The water lay flat and smooth beneath and around the ship. Helena surveyed this phenomenon with interest. So this was the extent to which he could use his devil fruit powers, to control the very tides of the oceans themselves. Given that, it was surprising he hadn't already taken Gold Roger's title as the most recent pirate king.

Helena heard footsteps next to her and didn't bother looking over to see who they belonged to. She was fairly sure she knew already.

"This is only the fourth time I've ever seen that kid use his power," she heard Garp's voice say next to her. "Yours might look more dangerous, but that is probably the worst power any pirate could ever have."

Helena lowered the telescope and looked at him. "I wouldn't want it to fall into the hands of any Marines either," she said, raising an eyebrow. "It's dangerous for anyone to have."

A gust of wind hit the Marine ship and increased its speed significantly as it caught the sails, coaxing yells of astonishment from the crew at their sudden increase in speed. Helena looked back in the telescope at the ship they were now moving towards so quickly. She hadn't thought he would be so cooperative, though it just as well could have been a trap. They would all have to be on their guard.

And on that bombshell, I'm off.