Chills

After lunch Fox had retreated to her cabin: the egg Nola had given her was starting to give off signs of being ready to hatch and Fox fully intended to be there when the baby serpent emerged. Monitoring the gradual increase in movement within the skull-sized egg was slightly hypnotic; she didn't notice the passing of time until the distinctive sound of a flare going off at close range jarred her out of her trance. Determining that at this rate it would be at least half a day more before the egg hatched, Fox hurried out on deck just in time to be roped into helping the ship change course. She stayed outside as the sudden storm whipped up, helping with the sails and rigging until they had escaped the pressure cell and the wind faded away into thick mist that smothered the sky.

Fox knew this area: this was the Florian Triangle. Moriah's turf. She'd never crossed it on the sea's surface before.


Fox leant against Zoro's shoulder and watched as Luffy, Sanji and Nami climbed on board the ship with the animated skeleton on it that had drifted past them in the mist.

"He's a Devil Fruit User," she murmured in the swordsman's ear, "goodness knows what type. And I don't like our being here at all."

"Here by this ship, or here in the Florian Triangle?" Zoro quietly asked back.

"The latter; ships drift within the Florian Triangle due to the circular currents and mild, windless weather, so many crews are likely destroyed by starvation or disease, but I think there is something or someone here that is taking advantage of the area's reputation to skim a little more off the top, as it were," Fox explained quietly. "I can feel living things and things that act alive but shouldn't, and we are drawing closer to them. It makes my skin crawl."

"Sounds like a good fight," Zoro mused.

"Or a tricky enemy," Robin chimed in. "One who prefers traps and cunning to outright battle."

Both Zoro and Fox mused on this until the trio of explorers returned with the living skeleton, who introduced himself as 'Dead Bones' Brook and was a total pervert, as his next words were to ask to see Fox' panties.

The white-haired woman frowned at him. "My underwear is my own business and the only person allowed to ask about it is my lover. Cease and desist before I put a Kairoseki blade through you."

The skeleton with the afro bowed and apologised to her before turning to ask Robin the same question.

"Hey, Luffy!" Zoro snarled, "What the hell is this guy?"

"He's so funny so I made him our nakama!" the captain explained cheerily.

"I won't accept that!" the swordsman roared, before turning on Sanji and Nami. "Why do you think you went with him? You were supposed to stop Luffy running wild!"

"We're ashamed," navigator and cook said together, heads bowed. Then Brook decided it was dinnertime, so they adjourned to the dining room with their new… crewmate? Luffy relied on his instincts more than anything else and said instincts had helped him put together a formidable crew, so this stranger was probably here to stay. Fox wasn't sure how she felt about that right now; she was still hurting from the Usopp fiasco. She could be polite though, as she had with Vivi.

Fox collected her hat and sunglasses before sitting down at the table. She put a bandanna over her hair every morning now as a matter of course, but the other accessories she preferred to do without. Well she liked the hat, but wearing the spectacles made her feel like she was hiding. She didn't like hiding on board her captain's ship.


After dinner Brook shared the story of how he had come to be a skeleton wandering on a ghost ship –it did indeed involve Devil Fruit– then it was discovered that he had no reflection. No shadow, either. After the panic died down a little Brook went on to explain that his shadow had been stolen and that he could no longer walk in the light as a result. After that brief instant of terrible depression however the skeleton proclaimed how happy he was to have finally met people after so long alone at sea, but added he should probably decline the invitation to become Luffy's nakama due to his lack of shadow. Luffy of course wasn't going to let that slide:

"If that's the case, we'll get your shadow back! Tell me who stole it!" Brook was silent. "Where is it?!"

"You're a really good person." Brook said, sounding stunned. "I'm surprised. Even then, I cannot tell you. I only just met you. You shouldn't say that 'you'll die for me'."

"It's Gecko Moriah, one of the Shichibukai," Fox said tiredly, folding her arms under her chest. "He is the only Devil Fruit User Fox knows of to have power over shadows."

"Another one?!" chorused Nami, Sanji, Chopper and Zoro.

"Another?" Brook repeated. "However, let's sing a song! In honour of the good encounter we had today. I'm very proud of my abilities. I used to be the musician on my pirate ship."

Luffy's eyes sparkled and Fox resigned herself to the inevitable: the rubberman had apparently been agitating for a ship's musician since before she joined them at the Baratie and was not going to let this one go now that he had been found.

As the gates of the floating island-ship of Thriller Bark closed behind them the egg in Fox' cabin started to hatch, so the assassin swiftly begged off this particular adventure. Luffy, on hearing why she wanted to stay on board, was quick to agree and eager to see the baby snake for himself after he got back. Fox then hurried back to her cabin, removed the egg from the incubator and placed it on the bed on top of a towel and settled down to wait. Her reverie was disturbed in short order however, as her senses warned her of an intruder on board; a Devil Fruit User whose life-force signature was warped. Glancing from the egg to the door and back again Fox sighed, grabbed her Sea Stone knives and went on the hunt. Hopefully this wouldn't take too long.


Brook and Thriller Bark. And in the last chapter, Fox' mother's second cousin is indeed Jinbe. Congrats to guisniperman who got there first! Kudos to InsaneScriptist and s.f. the Guest reviewer, who also replied.