Chapter 13: All Together Now
Once Usopp had awoken again, the four of them sat in a circle debating what had happened. Usopp and Nami had been de-aged to only about a year old. Luffy had been reduced to a 5 year old.
Usopp's eyes were big and round, yet his nose remained disproportionately large in comparison to his round face. There was a mass of curls protruding from his head, much bigger and looser than they would be when he got older. Nami's eyes were also big and round, a darker shade of brown than the reddish cinnamon they would one day become. Her hair was short and fluffy, a little messy mop of orange that sat atop her round head. Luffy looked much the same as he always did, aside from his much larger eyes and only slightly shorter hair.
"So that whole facility has been studying de-aging potions or something?" Usopp asked, looking around the circle for answers.
Chopper nodded, "And they were using us as their test subjects. Comparing the effects on devil fruit users versus regular people. That's why they were taking Luffy up. They were testing the de-aging effects on his body by injecting it into his system. However, it would appear that more natural absorptions such when someone ingests it is much more effective. The misting should only be temporary. When Luffy would get injected with a minimal dosage, his change always lasted only about 10-12 hours. When misted, it lasts only about 5." Chopper explained.
"Why hasn't it affected you, Chopper?" Nami asked the seemingly unchanged reindeer.
"I suppose my fur protected me, but there's a chance I could still absorb it once it seeps through my fur and to my skin."
"Well, what do we do now?" Luffy whined, "I don't wanna be like this forever!" He sat down and pouted, folding his arms across his chest.
"I think it'd be best if we tried to find Zoro and the others before we do anything else. Maybe they've had a run in with this whole de-aging thing, too. Maybe Robin or Sanji-kun know something we don't." Nami reasoned, looking to Usopp for support of her idea.
"Sounds like a good idea. Can we get a ride again, Chopper? We'd make better time than if we tried to walk." Usopp stood up and looked down at his tiny legs.
So the four of them climbed on Chopper's back and he galloped off through the woods, following the smell of what he figured to be the nearest town.
As they went, Chopper could feel the damp moisture of the mist from earlier seeping through his coat and onto his skin. 'Crap!' Chopper felt his body lurch as a few years were knocked off. His legs became shorter, his antlers smaller, and his body weaker. It was marginally more difficult to carry all three of his nakama who had all fallen asleep nestled together on his back. 'I have to make it to the town!' Chopper tried to pick up his pace, but his legs were unable to move any faster.
Nami was the first to awake. "Chopper? Are you alright?" She adjusted herself from where she was leaning against Usopp.
"The aging potion has started to affect me, but I want to get closer to the town before I'm de-aged." He explained as he shrunk a little more. The three toddlers were becoming more and more difficult to support.
"Chopper, if we're close, we can just walk." Usopp offered, not wanting to burden their doctor.
"Thanks, it'd be much appreci—" Chopper shrunk a final time, now the size he was when he was a fawn. Nami, Luffy, and Usopp lurched forward and fell to the ground. Nami and Usopp blinked a moment before they burst into tears, complaining about the pain in their scraped knees and the scary fall they'd just endured. Luffy looked at them like they had a screw loose.
"What's the matter with you guys? O-Oi!" He looked over at Chopper, "Chopper, what's going on?"
Chopper's ears fell as he looked around at his Nakama. He stood up on his thin, wobbly legs. "They're going through a sort of relapse. They're minds have temporarily reset to the age that their bodies have been de-aged to." His hat slipped over his eyes, covering his vision. He stumbled a bit on his wobbly legs and let out a surprised little bleat.
"Seriously? That's gonna be a pain..." Luffy muttered, adjusting the oversized hat on his head. His vest was more like a tunic, and he was struggling to keep his shorts, that had become a pair of incredibly baggy pants, on his new body. Nami and Usopp were in much the same state. Nami was only in her tank top, which looked kind of like a summer dress, and Usopp had thankfully donned a t-shirt beneath his overalls that day and was covered by that.
Chopper did his best to shift his hat without the use of his no longer existent hands. "We should probably keep heading for town. We need to get out of here before our minds regress to the point where we won't be able to find our way."
"Alright. Luffy picked Nami up and held her the way he remembered Makino would do for him when he was a child. "Can you carry Usopp?"
"Sure!"
Luffy picked Usopp up and placed him on Choppers back. Chopper wobbled for a bit, but he eventually got control of his legs. "Yosh!" Luffy cried, "Let's go!"
o()o()o
Zoro, Robin, and Sanji were out and about grocery shopping. They had grown low on the dried foodstuffs, and figured a day out and about wouldn't be all that bad. Sanji was walking quite a bit better not that his foot nearly healed. They had all agreed that they wouldn't be going back to see that doctor, and that they could simply cut off Sanji's cast when the time came.
Robin was grateful for her growth spurt. She no longer had to rely on Zoro to carry her around anymore, though she hadn't really minded the free ride. She was walking on Zoro's right side, Sanji on his left as they strolled through the market place.
Suddenly, through the crowd, a very familiar voice could be heard. "Oooiii! Zoooroooo!" Zoro's head snapped up as he looked around. He could've sworn he'd heard his name.
"Zoro! Over here!"
"Zorooo!"
Zoro whipped his head around until his eyes finally landed on the faces of his chibi-fied crew. Luffy had Nami on his back and Chopper was shakily walking with Usopp on his. Luffy was smiling broadly and ran up to meet his Nakama.
"Woah! Robin! Sanji! You guys are little too!" Luffy exclaimed as he came to a halt.
"Sencho-san!" Robin ginned, though she was surprised to be looking up at Luffy's 5-year-old body. "And Navigator-san, and Doctor-san, and Nagahana-kun. It's certainly a pleasure to see you guys again."
Nami and Usopp got down from their perches and looked up at the only adult Strawhat. "Woah, Zoro! How come you're the only one who's not tiny?" Usopp asked before toppling from Chopper back onto the ground as ungraciously as he could manage.
"A stroke of bad luck, I guess." He muttered, running a hand through his hair. "It's gonna be a pain in the ass when you all relapse without anyone to help me." He muttered. "Though the real question is where the hell have you been this past week?"
"We were locked up in some weird prison thing, but we were the only prisoners." Nami explained, "And then we got taken upstairs into a sort of laboratory. It turns out they were using us as test subjects for a de-aging potion." She frowned, irritation furrowing her brow. "The nerve of some people! Using adorable little me as a test subject."
"That's terrible Nami-san!" Sanji wailed, conveniently back to normal for the moment.
"But we escaped!" Usopp continued grandiosely, "As we were trying to get away, they sprayed us with this weird mist, which turned out to be one of their de-aging techniques. Luffy, Nami, and I all de-aged close to immediately after, but it took Chopper a lot longer cause his fur protected him for a while."
"Where have you guys been?" Chopper asked, trying, once again, to readjust his hat.
Zoro leaned down and shifted the big pink hat back on the much smaller head. "We've been staying at this little house just outside of town. It's only got one bedroom and a loft, though. It'll be tough getting you all to fit..."
"Well, we've got enough food to get by for a while, so lets get you all back to the house." He scooped up Nami and Usopp and held one in each arm, the groceries hanging from his elbows.
"Z-Zoro!" Nami blushed, pounding at Zoro's chest and demanding she be let down. This was horribly embarrassing.
"Just shut up and let me carry you. It's faster that way."
"Zoro, you look like a mom." Luffy teased from where he was walking next to the swordsman, a brooding Sanji on the other side.
"Should I call you Okaasan now?" Usopp joked, snickering and high-fiving a chuckling Nami.
"Shut up, or I drop you." Zoro threatened with a completely straight face, the maliciousness accentuated by his apparent lack of concern for the outcome.
Usopp, knowing he wouldn't hold true to his threat, kept on chuckling, "Okay, Okaasan~"
"Nooo!" Sanji whined from Luffy's other side, a jealous pout on his face. "Zowro is mine! You can' have him!" Sanji ran over to go stand in front of Zoro's lifting his arms up towards his guardian. "Up! Pick me up, too, Zowro! Carry me!" He demanded, pulling on Zoro's pant leg a bit.
Zoro sighed, deep and heavy. "Sanji, I can't carry Usopp, Nami, and you. You're a big boy, you can walk."
"Noo!" Sanji whined, "Carry me on youwr showdahs!"
"You'll kick Nami with your cast if you do that. You wouldn't want to do that, would you Sanji?"
Sanji frowned, eyebrow creased and lips pouty. "I di'int want a li'l bwover or sister. I wanna just be you, me, n Wobin! Pweeeease! Carry meee! I don' wanna waaalk!" He complained, pulling a little harder on Zoro's pants.
"Sanji, Sanji, don't pull!" Zoro warned, keeping his voice stern. He certainly didn't want to lose his plants in the market place.
"Jeez, Sanji, what's gotten into you? You're acting like a brat!" Luffy joked, laughing at how funny Sanji was acting.
"Shut up, Asshowle!"
"Cook-san, watch your mouth." Robin scolded. She normally wouldn't have minded, but this was a 3-year-old child saying these things.
"Sowwy..." He muttered. "Zowrooo~" He whined, nearly at the point of giving up on his demand.
"No, Sanji."
Sanji glared up at the intrusive new children taking his spot in Zoro's arms. How come they got to be carried and Sanji didn't? Sanji was there first, it was his right as the eldest...well, he wasn't the eldest anymore, but it was his right to be Zoro's top priority. How dare these other children monopolize his nii-chan's attention. Can't they see he has a broken foot? He deserves the attention, not these two. Regardless, he walked beside Robin, sulking the whole walk home.
"Sanji's acting really weird..." Usopp muttered. "It's like he really is 3 years old."
"That's what happens when he relapses." Zoro explained. It was a foreign feeling to the swordsman to be the one who'd have to explain things. "He's been like that a week, so his relapses are quite a bit longer and annoyingly frequent. Have you guys relapsed yet?"
Nami and Usopp looked at each other before turning to look back up at Zoro. "Yeah, once." Nami answered. "It was really weird. I felt like I was a baby again. All my rational thoughts completely disappeared and my memory of my future was completely blanked out. When I came to, I was like I had just woken up from a dream."
"It was really strange." Usopp agreed. "I think it was triggered by that fall. Like shocks to our system are what makes us relapse. I don't know about Sanji's case, but that's what happened with us."
Zoro's brow knit as he thought about what he was being told. His brain hurt. Why'd he have to be responsible for putting this whole mess together? There were more puzzle pieces that had to be fit together than he wanted there to be. But now with Nami and Usopp's explanations, the more he thought about it, Robin had been much the same way, having always remembered what went on during her relapses once they were over. Why was Sanji so different?
"Wait...you remember everything that happened during your relapses?" Zoro asked Nami and Usopp. They weren't devil fruit users like Robin was. Maybe their experiences would be more similar to Sanji's.
"Yeah, I remember mine. How bout you, Usopp?"
"Ah, yeah. I mean, to an extent. I wasn't really thinking in words, it was more just pictures and emotions I remember experiencing."
"Why don't we talk about this more at the house" Robin suggested. "I'm sure there are many questions that deserve answers."
o()o()o
Everyone was sitting in a circle on the living room floor, the only place that had adequate space for a group conversation. They were taking turns exchanging detailed recounts of their past week, helping bring a bit of light to the situation, tough there was quite a bit of disappointment from Nami and Usopp.
"Whaaaat?" They cried in near perfect unison. "We're gonna be stuck like this?"
"Until we find the antidote, yes." Robin clarified, "The doctor told us as much."
"How come you, Chopper, and Luffy get to change back without it?" Usopp questioned, pouting at how unfair it all was.
"Because, people the bodies of devil's fruit users sort of wage an internal battle against the fountain of youth's effects. The devils fruit, representing evil or some such, repels the pure of the de-aging." Robin clarified, drawing a low mutter of general understanding from those where were previously ignorant."
"So the rest of us need an antidote, right? Where can we get that?" Nami had a hard time believing that a solution to their problems would be easily recovered. Nothing was ever easy when it came to them,
"It can be found on this island's sister island. Would you happen to know where that is, Navigator-san?"
Nami crossed her chubby little arms and thought for a moment. "Well, I don't have any of my maps, so I can't tell you for certain, but I believe that this island and its sister are connected by a strip of land a couple meters beneath the surface, oftentimes getting run into by large ships who are unaware of its presence. Luckily, the Merry was small enough to be able to go over that ridge without a problem, but...it was sank only shortly after..." Everyone fell into a solemn silence. "But if we could find some way to follow that underground trench, we'd be able to find the sister island."
"Something else the doctor mentioned was that there was a traveling lab, I'm assuming this is the one you four were trapped in, that also supplies the antidote. While I'm pleased to hear that this lab we've heard about has finally docked, I'm not one to believe acquiring it from there would be the best option, given our current standings." Robin had a hand on her chin as she thought. "Since the two islands are connected, I doubt a log post would serve as much use, considering the two islands will have the same pull. However, there may be a way to navigate there ourselves. Though how we would do so is still a mystery."
"Ahhh this is soo boring~!" Luffy whined, rolling over onto his back. "And I'm hungry! I wanna eat dinner~!" He complained, flailing his limbs about to demonstrate his frustration.
"Well, Sanji can't make us food, so I'm afraid I'm the one responsible for feeding us for the time being." Zoro was none too enthused by the idea. Quite frankly, no one else was either, but they didn't really have any other options at the moment.
It came as a major surprise to the 4 who had never sampled Zoro's cooking when the food Zoro served had been edible; more so than they had originally feared. After dinner came the issue of where everyone was to sleep.
"Imma sweep wiff Zowro!" Sanji insisted, hugging tightly to Zoro's leg as he stated his claim.
"Yeah, yeah." Zoro agreed, picking up the kid. Sanji giggled and pressed his hands to Zoro's face, smooshing his cheeks and giggling at the silly face his Nii-chan was making. Zoro smirked and began to tickle Sanji's stomach, making the blonde laugh and squirm in his arms. It seemed they'd forgotten for a moment that there was anyone else in the room.
Everyone, except Robin of course, being used to such a sight, openly stared at the two who they had always perceived as being cutthroat enemies. "Err...Zoro?" Usopp tentatively piped from where he sat on the floor, "What are you doing?"
Zoro frowned down at his tiny Nakama, embarrassed by his behavior towards Sanji. He remembered when Robin had been that small and a fond smile threatened to break out on his face. He managed to quell it. "It's different when he relapses." He explained curtly. He placed Sanji back on the ground gently. "Go change into your pajamas." He instructed.
"Kaaay~" Sanji scampered off to do just that.
"Alright," Zoro looked at his recently de-aged friends, "where are you guys gonna sleep?"
"Kenshi-san, I'd be alright with sleeping in the loft. Perhaps Sencho-san could join me up there. Then Nagahana-kun and Navigator-san could sleep in the crib together. Is that a plausible suggestion?"
Zoro internally thanked her for solving his problem for him. "Yeah, that'll work." He glanced at the clock. Well, it's late. I'll go grab some pajamas for you guys. You probably want out of those oversized clothes." He mumbled before heading off to the bathroom where all the children's clothes were kept.
"Zoro seemed..." The chibi sniper put a pudgy hand to his chin in thought, trying to think of an appropriate description for Zoro's unusual behavior.
"Different?" Nami supplied helpfully.
"That's one way to put it. I mean, who would've ever thought Zoro could be so..."
"So motherly?" A small chuckled escaped the navigator.
"You know, you could've at least said fatherly."
"I know, but motherly was funnier."
Zoro returned with 2 onesies for the tiny tots and a shirt and shorts for Luffy. "Oh, hey, Chopper, where are you gonna sleep?"
"I can just curl up on the floor. It's perfectly comfortable when I'm in my current form." He assured.
"If you're sure." Zoro picked Nami and Usopp up. "Alright, lets get you changed." There was much protest and kicking and screaming until Usopp and Nami, Nami was especially against the idea of getting changed by her male crewmate; they were placed inside the crib together. They were firmly against it at first, but eventually, the two succumbed to sleep, having spent little of the past week sleeping restfully.
Zoro went up to the loft to confirm that Luffy and Robin were safely tucked away and that they wouldn't roll out of the loft in the middle of the night. After making all the rounds, Zoro was finally able to flop down in his bed, Sanji already comfortably nestled smack dab in the middle. How considerate. He gently pushed Sanji over onto his side of the bed before climbing in, getting comfortable beneath the sheets
Just as the exhausted mommy marimo was about to close his eyes, there was a gentle wail from down the hall. Zoro's eyes shot open. 'No, not now. Why now? Why, why, why?' He quickly got out of bed and hurried to the loft. Robin was kneeling at the edge, holding onto the ladder supports. "Nii-saaaan..." She cried. "I'm scaaaared." She sniffled, fat tears rolling down her face as she cried. Zoro had to give her credit for being a quiet crier.
"Jeez, I should've known better than to make you guys sleep in the loft..." He muttered, thinking back to when he'd forced Sanji to endure the same torture. "You're going to have to be quiet now, I can't have you waking Luffy."
"Nii-san, can I sleep with you?" She asked, wiping away her tears away from her big blue eyes. "I don't want to sleep up here anymore..." She hiccupped as a gentle cry slipped past her trembling lips.
"Yeah, yeah sure. Come here." He held up his arms for Robin to jump into. She did so without hesitating. "Gotchya." He ran a hand over her short black hair. "You're okay now." She nuzzled into his chest as he carried her back to his room. He sat down on the bed, still holding her as he scooched to the center of the bed. He placed Robin on his left side as Sanji peacefully slept on his right. Zoro lay back and pulled the covers over the three-year-old girl before settling back in. He closed his eyes and was ever so close to dreamland when his door swung open, a very displeased boy standing in the doorway.
"Jerk!" He bellowed, sniffling as he voice became uneven with distress. "You left me all alone up there, Robin!" Zoro detected that a fit would most definitely been within their imminent future. A mass regression, crying fit was the last thing he needed right now.
"It's alright, Luffy, come sleep here with me." He ushered the boy over with the wave of his hand.
"No! I'm a big, brave boy! I'm almost a grown up! I don't need you!" He argued, the volume of his voice still too high for Zoro's liking.
Zoro thought about how to play into this. "You know, Robin was scared earlier. Why don't you come over here and sleep next to her. Someone has to protect her, right?" His taunt seemed to work, because Luffy sucked in a breath, keeping his tears at bay as he strutted over, plopping himself down in the bed and curling up, sniffling to himself a bit. Zoro reached over and gently patted Luffy's head, running his fingers through the dark hair soothingly. "That was very brave of you." He encouraged.
Luffy took one more mighty sniff before chuckling a bit, a wide grin on his face. "I guess I'll have to protect you too, Zoro!"
"Oh, and why's that?"
"Because," Luffy said as he yawned widely, "you're my only kaasan! And you think the loft is scary!" He laughed gently again at the thought of his guardian being afraid of the loft, even though it really was quite spooky and there was a gross spider in it. Luffy was snoring only seconds later and Zoro couldn't help but smile. Maybe playing big brother for a few more crewmates wouldn't be as bad as he thought. He already had the basics down, how hard could it be?
Famous last words.