This chapter some of you will recognise as starting with the last part of the previous chapter, which I have altered slightly. As I started the last chapter on a low note and ended it as such, I'm going to try the opposite in this.
And I love the idea of Luffy licking an iceburg and then getting stuck...
Chapter 10. The Hound of the Government
Just as dawn was breaking, Usopp's voice from the lookout tower announced "We're entering an iceberg field!" The weather had become decidedly wintry now as they had entered the climate zone of Yamishima and its islets. It was so cold in fact, that Ace was required to melt his little brother off an iceberg he thought would be so delicious to savour.
"Oi Luffy! Where're- WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" Ace's eyes were wide out of his head as he surveyed the foolish captain, still in his summer clothes, leaning out over the side with his tongue stuck to something near the rear of the ship.
"Ibowwie Ath, bupa atho hugry thith thanwi bothnp maff breaflapht tiwu Mami's ufth!" To someone unacquainted with Luffy's, erm, mannerisms, it was completely unintelligible drunk monkey talk, but Ace figured it was something like, "I'm sorry Ace, but I was so hungry since Sanji doesn't make breakfast till Nami's up!" Sighing, Ace joined his brother by the railing (gosh I like those sexy railings don't I?). Luffy's tongue was gradually getting longer as the ship progressed slowly in the light winds. Ace almost slapped his forehead. The iceberg was vaguely meat-shaped.
"Ath?"
"Ah?"
"Woobo mimb geffing me off?" Ace punched his brother lightly, before raising his hand towards the ice meat. Tongues of fire shot out towards it, and melted the surface enough for Luffy's tongue to come free. The pink appendage retracted rapidly, and snapped back into Luffy's mouth. He toppled over backwards to land in the soft snow covering the deck.
"Gee, thanks Ace!" he laughed. His brother kicked him lightly.
"Idiot. Anyway, where are Nami-san and Zoro-san? I don't see them." Ace looked around the deck. Chopper and Scritcher were having a two-on-one snowball fight with Usopp, Franky and Robin were looking at a suspiciously innocent-looking catalogue (paradox!), Brooke was twiddling his violin's keys and Qwerk was jumping on and off the opposite side with a fishnet. Sanji was in the kitchen presumably. Zoro and Nami were nowhere to be seen. Luffy laughed loudly. Nami was going to pissed when she woke up and found Zoro still hugging her.
"I know where they'll be!" Then Ace thought of something rather obvious the captain had yet to notice.
"Luffy? Aren't you cold?" Luffy paused.
"AH, IT'S COLD!"
"YOU'RE SO FREAKING SLOW!" yelled Ace with enough force to push Luffy's hat off.
After Zoro and Nami had been awakened (Ace walked into the kitchen looking oddly, electrified), and breakfast being served and eaten (Luffy was left with a swollen hand after trying to steal Barnet's cheese, resulting in the mouse biting him), the majority of the crew was kicked out of the galley to allow the study of the map Barnet had brought on board. It was large, brown with age and tattered at the edges. The ink was faded in places and flecks of candle wax and other substances dotted the parchment. Nami squinted at the writing. It was in an ancient angular language, one she had never seen or heard. Robin's eyes too roved over the musty map. Barnet sat on the table, drinking from a bottle of ale.
"Odd shape isn't it?" he commented, not looking at the map. Nami recognised the shape of the island as belonging to the one featured in Robin's book. However this map had many lines drawn over it, labels pointing to unremarkable locations. Bakuso was not included on the map, but a ring of eight similarly shaped islands ran around a large central one, covered in mountains sweeping up from the coast to the center. Large swathes of forest formed a dark collar around them. At the very center was a crator, similar to a volcanoes.
"Yeah, it is. Robin, can you read the text?" The older woman frowned slightly and rested her chin in one hand. The writing was, familiar... but she was sure she had not seen it before. It was certainly not a living language... but it seemed so alive. It brought back memories of when she was learning to read, of fairy tales and fantasies. It had in languages as much belonging as an unfathomable fairytale had amongst the great volumes of history. Yet at the same time it was there and living.
"It's not a language that any creature ever speaks, and probably never hears. Nami, have you ever on a very quiet night, just when you're falling asleep, heard a faint sound, a bit like a musical box?" Nami raised her eyebrow. Robin said the oddest things sometimes. Barnet was giving her the most unbelievable what-the-hell-are-you-taking look a mouse could.
"No, I don't think so. Why?"
"This map can only be read by someone who can hear the language of the stars." Did she have something in that coffee? It's worse then Skypiea.
"Robin, I'm not sure what you put in your coffee but I think you should stop." Robin laughed quietly.
"Remember we thought an island in the sky was a fantasy? That came true." Nami sighed. I don't suppose it could get much crazier, this is the Grand Line after all.
"So if stars do have a language what sort of person can hear it?"
"Someone with a pure heart and innocent mind." Nami leaned right back in her chair at the words.
"Robin, we're pirates! Who could possibly qualify for that?" Just then Luffy barged in loudly, wearing a new red and yellow winter coat over his usual shorts and sandals, and of course his straw hat. Chopper followed him, wearing what looked like a poncho with B.S sewn into the back.
"Yo, Sanji- eh, he's not here. Nami where's Sanji?"
"He's in the watch room." Luffy and Chopper bounced out again, leaving Nami staring at the place they had inhabited. Robin giggled again. Right, I'm losing it. If I haven't lost it already. An asylum is more sane then this ship...
"Someone like Luffy and Chopper perhaps?" she suggested. Nami was at the door in moments.
"LUFFY, CHOPPER, GET BACK IN HERE NOW!"
While the Strawhats attempted to interpret Growler's map, planning of a different sort was going on not so very far away, in a large hall cloaked in shadows high in the peaks of Yamishima.
"Well, Swordfinger, have you news for me?" a smooth voice drawled from the velvet draped area. It was illuminated only by the pulsating glow of a hemispherical orb in the center of the great hall. From all other sides the sounds of machinery filed in, loud clanking, grating, screeching sounds. Its opalescent, ever changing surface seamed neither solid nor liquid, an impenetrable marble of mist. The weak light shone on a set of teeth, in a malevolent grin, and sparked on two eyes, glowing evil slits of gold. Above them curled eyebrows like demon's horns. Large hands with fingernails like thorns clasped the arms of a mahogany throne. On the other side of the orb hung a ghostly white mask, with smiling red mouth and golden eye makeup.
"I do, lord Servipol. The Blackjack blood is returning to Yamishima. She is accompanied by the Strawhat pirates and the former Aotsuki (blue moon) rebel, Sheevres Barnet." The voice from behind the mask was low and hissing like a snake. Malice dripped from it like blood from a murderer's knife. Servipol laughed shortly, a cackling mocking laugh.
"The Strawhats eh? The ones who declared war on the World Government." Gold eyes flashed violently. "The Strawhat boy has been involved with a war not so long ago, but I wonder about the others? If it is a war they want, it is a war they shall get!" Swordfinger chuckled.
"Yes, Milord. I shall ready the troops. But may I ask one thing." Servipol grunted in affirmative.
"I wish to be the one who fights Roronoa. He is, interesting. Such fun to play with!" Servipol waved a heavily ornamented hand in a casual manner.
"Of course. You're the one who stole his sight after all and brought them here. Toy all you want." Swordfinger raised hands before his diamond-tuniced breast in a form of salute. From each finger, a glint of metal shot at least one and half meters out. Then he vanished, shooting away into the darkness. Servipol rose slowly from the throne and approached the half orb. It's continuous hum was becoming louder. He frowned at it for a moment before beginning to laugh. Outside the castle the laugh could be heard for miles, sounding like the cry of a devil in ecstacy.
And deep below the sea, a low sad moan echoed
"Oi Nami what am I here for?" Nami forced her captain into a seat and planted Chopper on his lap.The two boys looked decidedly anxious. Chopper was backing into Luffy as much as possible, and Luffy was looking at her with scared brown eyes.
"Did we do something wrong?" Nami twitched.
"Apart from making me chase you all over the ship when I told you to come, no," she hissed. Robin giggled.
"Luffy, Chopper, we want you to try and read this map," she said gently. Luffy blinked once or twice. Nami could practically see the clogs going round in his head.
Slowly he said, "But Robin's the one who reads, and you're the one that makes maps. Why would I need to..."
"BECAUSE WE CAN'T READ IT YOU RUBBER IDIOT!" Luffy picked himself up from the floor, his chair having fallen from Nami yelling. Chopper hid behind Robin as the idiot began to laugh.
"You sure are funny Nami! Didn't you learn to read?" Seagulls perched on one of the many icebergs took flight in a hurry as a large boom echoed around the ship.
"What is wrong with this crew?" Scritcher hissed, cowering behind the mast with Usopp and Brooke as the seething redhead stormed out of the galley, across the deck and into her map room.
"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," Usopp muttered. "And I'd rather face one hundred scorned women than face Nami in a bad mood."
"So, Captain, Doctor, can you understand what the text says?" Robin asked, placing a cold towel on the swollen bump on Luffy's head. The teen pouted and looked down at the yellowing parchement. His face was heavily disfigured to the point of humour. Chopper stood up on his seat to look with a curious expression in his limpid eyes. Although he was childlike in nature, Robin knew the reindeer was very intelligent and capable of logical imagination. After a few minutes both boys sat back and screwed up their faces in thought, as though trying to remember something important.
"It's sorta like... it's trying to speak," Chopper said after a while. Luffy nodded in agreement. Barnet stopped polishing his already beam-like sword and turned to them.
"There used to be an auld legend that the stars spaeke tae the sea. I ne'er believed it myself." Robin was flicking idly through one of her ancient tombs. She paused on a page entitled "Stars beneath the waves." After a few moments reading, she spoke in her usual monotone.
"A long time ago, there were stories that the stars used to speak with the sea, to encourage her to give life to the world year after year. The conclave of the sea and the sky was traditionaly signalled by the rising of a blue moon, at which time believers of this theory engaged in religious fasting and prayer. If the conclave was successful, the moon rose white the next night, if not, it rose red, and great storms sweapt the world until the next conclave." Robin shut her book with a note of finality and looked up to three nonplussed faces. Luffy and Chopper had slight traces of awe, while Barnet was slightly skeptical.
"Due to our knowledge of space, this theory is obviously fantasy, but myths always have their origins somewhere. I believe the original Animal People believed in this legend did they not, Barnet-san?" she asked the old mouse.
"Probably. We're not aren't called the Blue Moon Rebels (sounds like a crappy basketball team XD) for nothing. Growler's idea. He always did like stories." Robin smirked lightly, a sure sign of putting two and two together. Luffy and Chopper were getting bored sitting around. They seamed to have found interest in what shapes they could make out of the map.
"Oh Chopper, this little bit here looks like Sanji's-" Luffy had touched the ancient parchement, at the centre of the map. Rather then a large explosion, or flash of blinding light, a deep calmness settled across the company, like a warm autumn evening. A soft white glow emitted from around his finger, spreading to the text written in paragraphs of the runic tongue, and the company became aware of a faint singing. It had the same tune as what Scritcher had played a day previously.
"hoshi wa , yozora ni , karera wa uta~tsu te iru takai .
chīsana kodomo ni mimi wo katamuke , nani desu ka ？
karera wa , sekai ni komori ka wo ensō shi te i masu ."
Then, without warning, Luffy fell sideways and struck the floor, breaking the trance. Chopper was at his side instantaneosly. Robin bent down beside him. Luffy's eyes were closed and his chest was barely moving. Chopper started screaming for a doctor, while Robin felt for his pulse and tried to rouse him.
"Luffy-san, can you hear me?" she said calmly. Luffy did not respond.
Okay fairly quick and pointless update. Waiting for exams sucks...