Chapter : 26:

I know I seem to say this a lot, but what the hell! How has it taken me this long to upload? First I'm moving house... then I'm trying to find another job... then I find another job and then... I'm moving house again...

GAHHH! This is why I can't write properly. There is no real rhythm to my life yet. There isn't a calm schedule that will encourage me to have a set time for all the things I want to do. Hopefully this new job will give me space and allow for my unfocused mind to continue writing new stories and chapters in record time.

Oh, and by the way. I'm going to work in London.

Yay!

Bye Bye Norwich! Hello busy, Multicultural London!

Shoot. This is going to be terrifying.

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Hard Lines: The Miny Monster

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The street was full of hazards like people and toys and weird shaped buildings that shouldn't have been real. And I clambered up stairs and across shining, slippery, tiled rooftops that didn't seem to end.

The fairy, well, it was a weird thing no matter what it was, bounced up and down to get away. Seemingly, hopping from one place to the next as if it had invisible springs attached to it's feet.

"Your not getting away you thieving Fairy!" I yelled.

I ran as fast as I could, and almost caught him. But just as my fingers grazed him he took a sudden right turn down a market street and disappeared into the sea of people that were around him.

"Where did you go?" I adjusted my sunglasses to make sure they didn't fall off.

'I'm spending to much time around Tashigi, I'm starting to act like someone who wears glasses all the time.'

Off in the distance someone screamed and as I turned in that direction I saw them being bashed up into the air apparently by an invisible person.

"Over there." I charged my way through the crowd talking aloud to myself. "It's jumping up onto the roofs of the buildings!"

"Well I don't know about you, but I'm disappointed." I heard Tashigi say behind me. "I always thought Fairies could fly."

I shook my head, to stop the absurd spoken thought from Tashigi from ruining my concentration. I took a running leap up on top of a purple and white striped, sun shelter that was over some sort of pot stall and from that I jumped onto the next house stall's weather-shelter. Which in turn gave me immediate access to a window ledge onto the second floor, and from there I could jump from street light to roof with ease.

"Now I'll get you." 'I can now just see the thief on the other roof.'

"Be careful!" I heard a voice below me calling out, and a few gasps from a few of the nobody onlookers in the market place. I briefly looked down and saw how Tashigi had decided to keep low and follow the chase at ground level. 'She always was quite good at keeping a track on me.'

'Okay focus, back to the chase.' The roof had a crazy mixture of patterns. Lots of white and black squares not in line with each other but rather cut and bent in strange directions that made me feel like I was unbalanced. 'Who the hell came up with this freakish show! And what the hell was he drinking. I don't see this sort of pattern on my very worst drunken nights. Ah! He is just ahead of me now. Just one lunge!'

"I've caught you!" I grabbed a hold of Shuusui and ripped it away from the wide sack that the weird creature was holding. "I'll be taking back my sword." I said triumphantly.

For the briefest of seconds I felt tiny hands grab a hold of my stupid disguise and somehow flip me over them and toppled me over the edge of the damn roof.

"Zoro!" I heard Tashigi yell my name.

I fell the three stories from the rooftop, smashed through the sun guard infront of some person's shop or house, and landed flat on my back. Taking a deep breath I opened my eye fully expecting to see either blurry buildings or to be blinded by the sun. But instead I saw something large and round falling down from the top of the house I had just been.

"Dam-mmmitttttt." I heard a high-pitched voice scream call out just when the heavy stolen load crashed into my face and chest. There was a massive dust cloud that seemed to rise up from the hit and I couldn't prevent a few heavy coughs from escaping me.

"I'm in Trouble. Trouble! What a klutz I am! The human will see me!" 'What the hell?' I heard the sound of Tashigi's footsteps approaching through the thick dust cloud, strangely enough no one else seemed to have gathered or even inspected the crash site, despite the terrible smashing noise and mess I had made from landing.

The high-pitched voice spoke again. "I have to get away before the human..."

My one good eye caught both of hers as she said this and she stopped in shock. "No!"

It no... she was, standing on top of my chest pulling at the heavy bag that had crash-landed onto me. She was like a little human in appearance, except she had blue hair and a blue and red hat, and a huge fluffy sort of tail.

"Excuse me." The little fairy thing seemed to suddenly get some manners as it tried to walk off my chest, that it had decided to land on for good comfort.

I grabbed it in my hand before it could escape and held it up so I could get a better look at the thing. "What the hell are you?!"

It looked up into my eyes and started crying. "I've done it now! What a failure! I'm a fool! An Idiot! I knew this would happen at some point."

There was a crashing sound behind me and as I briefly looked in that direction, and saw Tashigi dusting herself off. 'She must have just slipped over or something.'

She looked both left and right until she saw me and ran over to were I was sitting. "Thank the maker. You got Shuusui back..."

"I'm fine as well. Thanks for asking." I glared at her.

"Oh, don't be silly." She patted my shoulders, creating more dust clouds while whipping the rest away. "You're way to strong to be actually taken down by a thief."

I felt my cheeks go red. "So good of you to notice." I tried to reply sarcastically, but it just sounded stupid.

"Of course..." She stopped in mid-sentence when she saw the blue thing. "Ohhhhh! It's so cute! So this is what the fairies look like?"

"Tuh!" 'Why is she so thrilled with it?' "Don't get carried away Tash. It might be a toy."

"I'm not a toy." The thing waved it's arms madly in the air. "I'm Wicca of the Tontatta Clan." It suddenly became very serious looking. "Please don't tell anyone that you saw me."

I glared at it. 'What real reason was there to not tell anyone that I had seen the damned thing. It wasn't like their existence was being kept a secret from anyone.'

"Please!" The tears started streaming down her face like a river.

"Zoro have you hurt her?" Tashigi frowned.

"No! I have no idea what's going on." I glared at her. "Oi! Explain yourself!"

"I don't have time for this!" She waved her arms about again hitting my hand trying to get free. I held on to her tighter and she started crying again.

"Zoro, be careful with her." Tashigi leaned in whispering. "Don't be cruel."

"I'm going to die." the Fairy said in a dramatic breath. "My life is ending!"

Tashigi had that worried face on. 'If I don't do something quickly she's going to try and take the fairy from me, and then it'll escape, because Tash doesn't know how strong these things really are.' I cleared my throat and spoke to... the Wicca person. "It's not like I was planning on eating you. Just tell me what's happening."

"I-I can't!"

"What?" Tashigi asked. "Why can't you?"

"I can't tell that to a big person."

"Let her go." Tashigi said.

"What!?" I shook my head. "No, she'll..."

"No," Tashigi shook her head. "Let her go."

'Damn, why does Tashigi's voice have to sound so sad...?' I set her down on the ground infront of us, and she smiled.

"Thank you..." the Fairy began. "but Forgive me... I'm going." She took a triumphant, tiny step forward, screamed, and fell to her knees.

"What's wrong now?" I asked with a smirk. 'Ha! serves the fairy right. No one steals my swords, and gets away without consequence.' and as if Tashigi had read my mind she hit my arm. "Oi!" I frowned back at her, but she wasn't paying attention.

"What's wrong?" She said, repeating what I had just said, but in a kinder voice.

"I can't walk." She cried. "I twisted my ankle earlier! I'm such a klutz!" She started banging the ground in front of her, and the power from her tiny fist seem to be breaking up the stone beneath her. "A KLUTZ! A KLUTZ! A KLUTZ! A KLUTZ! A KLUTZ!"

Tashigi knelt down next to the mad, strong, blue fairy apparently undisturbed by the tearing up of the breaking ground. "What did you do Zoro?"

I frowned, raising my recently lost prize. "It wasn't my fault the damned fairy is a thief." I turned back to the the tiny fairy. "How are you so strong? You're shattering the ground."

She suddenly stopped pounding the ground and looked up at me. " I have a request! Please, take me to my Commander! And because you started all this so it's really all your fault."

"That's because you are the one who stole my sword."

"Stole?" she had a confused expression on her face. "What are you talking about? We are the Green Watchers of this land! The big people call us fairies and give us all sorts of Things! That's their job!"

"Give you?" I fell a scowl coming up. "No, you steal things! I never gave you this!"

Tashigi picked her up by the back of her blue coat and held her out on her palm. "He is right you know. If you take something that doesn't belong to you it is stealing, and because we're visitors we don't necessarily know this pact you have with the rest of the town, and neither do we benefit from it. So it is very wrong of you to assume that you could just take anything that just so happens to take your fancy." The fairy made a pouty face, but Tashigi continued. "What would you do with such a big sword anyway? Why did you even need to have it?"

The fairy was avoiding eye contact as if maybe looking up into a big person's eyes was somewhat forbidden, or maybe she was just worried that she would spill or spell out all her secrets if she looked into the caring big, brown eyes. "Is someone using you to steal?" Tashigi asked in a concerned tone.

There was a sort of flash of recognition across the fairies eyes. "No! Wait... No.! We're getting distracted again! We need to hurry! I'm part of the scouting unit, I'm in a hurry! I have to report the location of the Donquixote family to the commander!"

"WHAT!?" both Tashigi and I said at once.

"This is our chance! I just confirmed that they went to attack the Straw Hat's ship!" the fairy's eyes widened in excitement, and then widened even more in shock. "KYAHH! What a blunder! I went and spilled the beans on everything!"

"What!?" I leaned in closer. "Hey, is what you said true?! I'm part of the Straw Hat Crew! You'll be dead if I find out you're lying."

"Calm down." Tashigi put a hand on my shoulder, and I snatched the thing from her hand. Holding it up from around the middle again.

"Oi! fairy. I am being serious. Is it true that the Donquixote Family went to attack the Sunny?"

"That's a secret,... but I saw them with my own eyes."

"I don't have a Den Den Mushi," I looked back at Tash.

She gave an apologetic frown. "Don't look at me. I gave Sanji the spare."

"So we've got no way to contact the others?" I let out a frustrated sigh. "Out of all of us, for that group to be targeted."

"What do you want to do? Shall we go back and warn them?" Tashigi asked.

'Got to think these things through. Both Chopper, Nami, and Brook are good fighters, but they suck when they're scared. They will need my help.' I dropped the fairy, Wicca, onto Tashigi's shoulder. "Alright, I'm going back to the Sunny."

"Wait, take me to the flower hill first. Then I'll lead you to the coast." The tiny trouble said.

"Like I care, I'm heading to the coast right now!" I grabbed Tashigi's hand and pulled her up.

"Zoro," Tashigi started, "We could split up if you wanted. I could take Wicca to her commander and you could get back to the ship in plenty of time."

"No. Not happening. If they have been spying on us then there is only a short amount of time before they try and divide our crew and take us out one by one, and by the looks of things they will be able to succeed really soon, if we don't hurry up." I ran faster and Tashigi's voice started to get a bit breathless.

"But...Zoro." Tashigi called. "You're going -in the -opposite di-rection!" I stopped suddenly at that and looked around.

'It looks exactly like the road we just came down.' I shifted my sunglasses again flipping them up and down hoping that the readjustment of light would show me something that I wasn't currently seeing. 'Nothing...different'. I looked down at her. "Are you sure?"

Tashigi smacked her palm into her forehead. "You don't know how to get there, do you?"

"I do!" The annoying miny monster spoke up.

"Good, well show us the way." I said taking her back off Tashigi's shoulder.

Wicca shook her head. "Not until you take me to meet with my commander first!"

'Damn! I don't have time for this sort of power play...' "No!" I said. "We are going to the sunny first!"

"Zoro," Tashigi spoke quietly. "I don't want to sound uncaring, but if they do have an organized small military force it might be better to regroup with them first and exchange more intel, and contact the rest of the strawhats from there before going to save the others, that way we could let everyone know what is going on."

I nodded there was good sense to her statement. 'No matter how much I don't like it. It makes more sense.'

"Fine. Let's get a move on. Which way fairy?"

Wicca pointed and we started running.

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I hope you enjoyed it. I've already started the next one.