(A/N)
I should probably raise my standards; there's more than 30 shows/movies on my To-Watch list, around 40 if one includes things I only watched part of yet still want to finish.
And dammit, I still can't remember for certain what Zoro refers to Robin as. So I'm guessing he uses her name, because I'm too lazy to look into it.
… Come to think of it, it's been a while since I've binged on One Piece. Perchance I should, since I'm writing something that features it and all.
(End A/N)
Spinning the wheel to port and away from the island, the chef aboard the Sunny considered ruffling through his pockets for a cigarette that was dry enough to burn.
But before he could solidly decide, the wheel stopped moving with the sound of wood striking wood- more precisely, a scabbard placed through the spokes to keep it from spinning further.
"I don't recall hearing about plans to leave quite yet." Scratching his head with the hand not holding the sword, the formerly napping and still slightly sore swordsman eyed the man who had his hands on the wheel.
"That island's got trouble on it."
Upon Zoro's face, a mocking smirk grew spontaneously. "Oh, is the lechef thinking he can't protect a certain two someones from a couple of what, rocks? Or," He tilted his head towards the caravel of unconscious men, "from a few Marines?"
"It's not as much 'can't protect' as 'don't want to put them close to a situation that may turn risky'." Leaning back from the wheel, Sanji pushed the scabbard out of the spokes and rummaged through his damp pockets. "And 'Steve' is back there, as well."
"You still suspicious of him?"
"Aren't you?"
"I don't trust him, but I'm not wary of his every move."
Having found a relatively dry cigarette, Sanji began trying to ignite his similarly waterlogged lighter. "Was he ever out of sight when you all went on land?"
"If what I know is right, then he, Franky, and those two," Zoro gestured vaguely in the direction of the women's quarters, "were inside the island for a while, before I... dropped in. After that, Steve wandered off somewhere and was followed by Robin. They weren't seen for a while, and it wasn't until after the pulse thing that Steve returned carrying her."
"Unconscious, I presume."
"He didn't have his weapon at the time, and Robin can protect herself- probably better than most of us can handle ourselves."
"But he's got that 'magic', too."
"And she can sprout more arms than I've got memories. Steve's magic doesn't cancel out Devil Fruits, as we witnessed... during that incident." Sliding the sheathed katana back into its spot with the others, Zoro turned to descend to a lower deck. "If nothing else, she could slow him down enough to get away; he isn't nimble in that armor, as we also saw… at that time."
"Hey, now," Sanji leaned against the wheel, and spoke with a tone of compromise, "we all agreed never to talk about... that event. And I'm not gonna turn us back to that island unless we get a vote to do so."
"I'll get the spare anchor."
"What do you mean, 'Error'?"
"It not able to connect to Master's armor," Tinkering with the jury-rigged mechanigical levers near the Tower Heart, Giblet struggled to get the link operational. "All it say is something about not finding four-hundred-four."
The elderly Minion nearby grimaced; the designers of the Tower Heart's link system had defected to the previous Overlord's posse, and because of that they were also long dead and squashed by the new Master- which meant nobody knew the more advanced workings of the Heart, past image capture and the Seek function. "Try again every few minutes, he may be shielded from magic right now."
Seaman Wilbert had to blink a few times, rub his eyes, turn around, take a few breaths and look back to the scene before what he saw finally computed: Captain, down in a spreading pool of blood; enemy, also down in the same pool; rest of First Squad: barbequed in a charred circle not far from the captain and his opponent.
Rubbing his chin while he beheld the scene, Wilbert wondered just what he had missed when he had been around the rocks relieving himself.
Big, bright light... so pretty... I should get a pony and prance through-
Forcing himself out of that thought process, Steve examined his surroundings- and saw not much. The immediate area? White as snow. The distance? White as a white egg. Sky? White as a shut-in's backside. The only thing not bright and painful to look at was his own body, which Steve offhandedly noticed was still covered in the wounds he had received before he had lost consciousness.
Remembering what he'd been doing prior to blacking out, the Overlord looked around with renewed vigor- he couldn't see anything, not even a door that would lead out; temporarily ruling out a prison cell, he took a breath and realized that the air tasted white.
As he calmed down, the bright surroundings began to dim- slowly at first, but rapidly falling into an absolute blackness so dark, he could have sworn it got several shades brighter when he blinked.
After a few moments of Steve blindly squinting, a voice came from nowhere, reverberating and grating as though spoken by someone with a respiratory illness whispering loudly through a tunnel: "Name, man?"
To the Overlord's slightly fuzzy senses, it came from all directions- even from inside his head, which was just freakin' weird. "Some call me Steve."
"Occupation, 'Steve'?"
"Overlord, Minion Master. Could you make it less dark?"
"I've no control over that. Minion Master, you say?"
"Yes; I'm from a... uh... different dimension, I suppose."
"That seems... say, do you prefer trees, rocks, or daisies?"
"... Trees?"
Abruptly the scenery changed to a pleasingly dank forest, complete with skeletons hanging from branches.
"I thought you said you had no control over that?"
"I don't, but you do."
"… Eh?"
"It's not terribly relevant. Anyway, why are you in this 'dimension'?"
With a slight frown, Steve contemplated. "I… am not entirely sure. At first, I came to find ability-giving fruits; but I'm not sure it will be entirely worth it."
"How so?"
"This dimension is nigh beyond my league. My death will be an eternal probability if I linger."
"Because of that Marine and his resources?"
"As well as those I have traveled with. They are not the type that would condone what I habituallydo to towns I come across, and I strongly doubt I could hold out against even a few of them for more than a couple of moments."
"But there is magic, and the items in the tomb."
"At least a third of the crew could probably still defeat me in single combat even if I possessed such articles at the time. Who are you, anyway?"
"All that is relevant to you is that my main goal is to… reorganize, in a sense."
"… Reorganize?"
"You may understand at a later time. Anyhow, weren't you bleeding profusely before you blacked out?"
Alarmed at the mention of his injuries, the Overlord looked down at his body- when he arrived at the white area, the wounds had been dormant; but as soon as he looked at and consciously evaluated them, blood once again flowed from just about every part of his body.
Suddenly losing strength, he fell to his knees, barely avoiding a face-first collapse to the damp dirt. Looking around the dank surroundings, he sought the origin of the voice, though his vision blurring quickly hampered the result somewhat. As the last of his stamina ebbed away, Steve fell to his side on the bloody mud and grass of the forest.
A dark shape formed and approached in no hurry; a slender yet definitely not small figure, walking with a shadow of authority. The voice returned, this time from the direction of the shape as Steve fell back into unconsciousness.
"Shameful; you're a Master with such pitiful endurance?"
Of the two men rapidly losing their blood on the surface, one of them had the best chance of benefiting the island –at least, he wouldn't harm it like the other guy probably would- with their objectives. If the island were to, say, try and motivate itself to assist its potential benefactor, then said benefactor might not bleed to death.
But, there is no conscience in rock, no mind in shadow, not enough cognitive ability in rats to do anything to assist the man.
Passing through the shadows and the flooded sections, through the stone and past the oblivious rats, a remnant of a person grumbled to itself about the general inanimate-ness of the island and the effort required to assist the man on the surface.
Cautiously edging towards the two unconscious men stuck together by their blades, Wilbert raised his own weapon- a standard-issue rifle, complete with a serrated bayonet he'd added as a personal touch. Though, given the fact that the captain's 'special circumstances' blade had been damaging the armor, the Marine strongly doubted his bayonet would do much.
It took several moments of inching forward, but he finally found himself standing over the man in armor. Tensely raising his firearm, Wilbert carefully aimed the barrel at a gap between the helmet and the metal around the base of the neck.
As he was factoring in the angles of potential ricochet, a slight shimmer rose behind Wilbert, rising directly from the stone surface of the island. Feeling something amiss, the Marine quickly spun with his gun at the ready.
Seeing nothing immediately threatening, he frowned and slowly turned back towards the man on the ground. As he was doing so, he saw something out of the corner of his eye, and spun back away from the two bodies.
Again, nothing at first, though several shifty glances indicated the possibility an ever-so-slight distortion, fainter than even those over a small flame. Upon further squinting, the disfigured air seemed to roughly be about the height of a normal, though slightly short, man.
As Wilbert was about to utter a shaky request of identification, the shimmering form abruptly moved towards the downed combatants- and directly through the Marine standing in the way.
Failing to care that the man it passed through fell to the ground drooling and unconscious, the entity 'knelt' at the side of the one in tattered metal. With an annoyed sigh at the atrocious condition of both the armor and its bearer, the being held a hand over the general torso area of the Overlord.
Rudely yanked out of unconsciousness, Steve's back was forced into an arch as the armor went partially haywire; every warning signal was going off at once, including the ones for 'Too Much Mana' and 'Out Of Mana'. After several moments he was able to make sense of his senses, as his vision cleared and the ringing in his ears faded, replaced by external ringing and Gnarl's pre-recorded voice.
"Warning. Warning. Forced reboot. Warning. Forcing the Arcanium Armor back online may permanently damage the Arcanium Armor and internal systems. Internal systems coming back online. Evil Day Planner reactivated. Note: Spree due for monthly suppression. Automatic Bookie reactivated. Heating & Cooling reactivated. Minion Management Crystal reactivating… Note: Minion Management Crystal unable to reactivate fully due to no nearby Minions providing reference for calibration. Health Regeneration reactivated."
As the time-delayed healing feature of his armor slowly kicked in, the shredded plating jerked again. Too weakened by blood loss to resist the seizing of his garment, the Overlord gritted his teeth and waited for the magic to… do its magic.
Once the system had sealed his wounds, the emergency protocols no longer saw an immediate threat to Steve's health. Since he was now no longer actively losing blood, Health Regeneration began the more delicate and less demanding task of regenerating said blood, changing the violent spasms into an occasional twitch.
Taking the opportunity, the Overlord raised an arm and set his palm against the cross guard of the Marine's weapon, and pushed it out. It hurt, a lot, not to mention another round of strong twitches that took several seconds to stop as the wound was closed by the regenerative system.
Painfully rising from the blood-covered rock, Steve then discovered that blood loss was a terrible, terrible thing. As soon as he started moving, things went woozy. When he tried to stand upright, Steve's vision went wobbly and he staggered, body at a sharp angle, until his shoulder sharply met a rock.
"Warning. Movement is not advised. Detector of All Mannerisms of Magic and Interesting Things reactivated." After an extremely short moment of silence, the DAMMIT then indicated to a few feet away from where the Overlord had been previously setting, where a slight shimmer hovered.
And it indicated loudly. As in, Steve hadn't had a headache until that moment, and clutched at his helmeted skull as he collapsed back to the ground.
"Seriously? You're unstable after losing that much blood? Have you no shame? Grow- okay, I'll sympathize with you on that noise, but you're still a shameful Master in most other regards."
With a pained snarl at his armor, the man shut the squealing system off. The bored entity waited, irritated, as the man slowly rose back to his feet with one arm braced against the rock he'd collided with. His progress faltered as the damaged armor over one leg gave a slight spasm, nearly sending him down to a knee.
During this, the entity made a largely unpleased facial expression. Losing patience rapidly, anger slid into its voice. "Do you need a few moments to recover? Or can you move without falling over now?"
In response, the man in shredded armor emitted a resonating mix of a grunt, a growl, and an exclamation of pain through clenched teeth as he pushed away from the rock to stand, albeit shakily, on his legs. Not hesitating, the entity moved towards the center of the island, followed by the unsteady Master.
"Why do you want my help?" Each word was uttered with strain, laced with effort.
"Because you're probably- no, you're almost definitely the only one who can."
"Shouldn't you be… nicer, then?" Pausing by the other man in the pool of blood, the man took two swords from the ground and secured them to a loop on his waist.
Reversing direction, the entity didn't slow down, bringing parts of its form into contact with the armor; immediately, warning alarms went off as the spasms returned, followed by showers of unstable mana sparks from the most damaged exposed areas of the metal.
"Nicer? I've been in a stone coffin for years; I stopped counting after two hundred, and that was long ago. I was trapped with several items, and those with personalities had their sentience driven insane until it vanished entirely because of the small area. Several hundred years I waited, as mighty magical items were decimated by the mere auras of one another. It was slow torture for them, which I had to listen to for the entire duration. After that, I had to coexist with the shells of once grand items, watch while my own body rotted, trapped in a cell that was lined with a substance to contain any kind of energy, magical or otherwise. Recently, some shock sent a portion of the rock crashing into the tomb, cracking the bars of the cell. But it was like only a small chunk had been taken away from those metaphorical bars; I've been slowly, slowly oozing out of that prison for years, the lingering madness of the others pressing from behind. Today, the door was thrown wide open by you and a colleague, freeing me at last. Now, I find you're my best chance of returning this once mighty structure to where it belongs, and to be perfectly frank, you are one aggravatingly small chance. I feel that my impatience is a little bit justified in this case."
Moving away from the man, the entity fumed. With the end of direct contact, the armor stopped twitching, no longer being driven haywire by the touch of the entity with the decimated portions.
Though, there was also a positive effect of going haywire; with health regeneration being the only thing actively operating, it was fed the overflow that came from the entity, speeding the process greatly. While the man needed a few seconds to recover from being jerked around by his gear while being ranted at, he was better off than he would have been otherwise.
Looking in the vague direction of the stairway into the island, the entity took a wild guess at the rate of which things would be accomplished, given the condition of the man who could make physical contact with the world.
It wasn't a particularly pleasing estimation, though at least the being was used to waiting.
Behind the concentration of mana with a mind, an armored man rose to his feet with considerably less groaning than the previous instances.
"Follow. I really, really want to get rid of this lingering duty crap so I can finish dying."
"What are you? Or what were you?"
Floating forward at a rapid hover, it decided to indulge the question- it had been a long time since the entity had spoken to anything; the slight conversation was nostalgic. "I'm what some would call a kind of ghost. I am- I mean, was, an… aide, to the former Master of this 'island'."
"It said, on the coffin… you are- were-"
"Wife of the Leader of the Black Horde; the Leaderess." Slowing down slightly so the man could close the distance, the spirit glanced over one shoulder. "Despite that rank and my demands to the contrary, the Mins stuck me in the tomb. Isn't it annoying how the little buggers can be extremely dense?"
Stroking his chin, Gnarl suggested something else: "Maybe, try bribing it?"
With a nod, the Forge Master knelt beside the edge of the Tower Heart pool. "Heart! Heart! If you work, we give you nice sheepie-"
"The Heart won't want a sheep, you dolt!"
"-Nice cookies! And cake if Heart is really good!" Scanning the depths hopefully, both Minions saw no change. "We also give nice calendar! Have Mistress and servants! In swimsuits!"
Still no change; the elderly Minion heaved a sigh of temporary defeat. "Well, Giblet, we should probably take a break anyway. Maybe it needs to, I don't know, rest."
"Can Giblet have Heart's cookies?"
"When you get the thing working. If, you can get the thing working."
Meeting back at the grassy deck, the chef and swordsman both wore expressions of a nature not particularly indicating good news.
Sanji asked the question first: "Any luck?"
"All sleeping like bricks, won't even stir. You?"
"Same."
The two men breathed soft sighs and looked to the horizon- the sun was almost halfway down, and the island's sheer cliffs continued to defy the waves that pushed against it.
Upon that island, in a pool of blood and with the stench of scorched human flesh filling his head, Marine Captain Vonvarr's finger twitched.
(A/N)
The last line was originally "-Marine Captain Vonvarr groaned", but I couldn't resist using this instead. Some probably won't understand that, so just Google "finger twitching revival".
… I am so going to make a genre savvy villain who cuts the fingers and toes off his downed enemies. But not in this story. Probably.
THIS CHAPTER WAS ABSOLUTELY AND DEFINITELY NOT LATE AT ALL WHATSOEVER IN ANY WAY. But, if it was (which it isn't), then I'd be able supply a few perfectly valid reasons why it (hypothetically) would have been late (which it isn't). If it was rushed, however (which it was), then it probably could use another proofread or two (likely). But, if it was behind schedule (which it isn't), I may not have wanted to wait that long (which I didn't).
(End A/N)
