soooooo I know that this chapter is kinda short...SORRY!
not every chapter is gonna be suuuuper long...I do try to keep them at a bare minimum of two thousand words, but well...I'm not good with change of chapters lol...still doing this on my own here! hahahahahahahahaahha... (picture a big anime style sweat drop going down as I scratch the back of my head in nervous embarrassment! lol)
also! I just noticed that ya'll are almost halfway caught up with me for where I've been writing in my google document! SSHHHHIIIITTTTTT...that week away is now really really starting to bite me in the ass...lol...I like to be at least two thirds ahead of ya'll! ahhhh!
anyways! wooooo I might have gotten a job back with my old company! just a different section...front desk instead of RSA lol...oh well...a desk job is technically better for my knees lol at least according to my doctors lol...I dislocated my left knee back in 2012, causing me all kinds of knee problems with standing jobs.
soooo this chapter is still in alabastra...I am going to be doing some of those filler episodes in the anime...just a quick warning! mostly because I need them for Will and Luffy to bond on the way to Yuba! lol...also...quick question? would any of you be interested in me doing another story in the future from Will and his twin's POV? of the sections of story that is where Wisp cant see...like the scenes that she's just not there or should I do them as separate chapters in this story? (Will's twin in case you forgot is someone who you haven't met yet lol...wont meet her for a WHILE yet...the tiger girl zoan if you recall...)
Chapter 17
Eventually Luffy woke up, Oh joy to the world, the cacti juice must have worn off along with Chopper's sedative, just greeeaaat, I thought as Zoro proceeded to dump his ass with an annoyed comment of, "if you're awake then you can walk on your own."
Neal and Zoro had traded on who was carrying/dragging Luffy when Will and I had stumbled from the heat. It was near two in the afternoon and the sun was reaching the peak in the heat of the day.
Even Zoro had a over heated flush going on across his high cheekbones.
Will had climbed on Neal's back for the last hour and I had been carried piggy-back style on Zoro's back. I had been too exhausted from the heat to appreciate the feel of his skin and muscles, sadly.
When Luffy woke up, I'd begged off on being carried, as Will had recovered enough to give Neal a break in carrying anyone. It took ten minutes of constant reassurance that I was fine before I was allowed to walk on my own again though, which annoyed me.
Luffy somehow lagged behind even Will, Neal and I, with his tongue hanging out as he panted audibly. I resolved myself into ignoring him for the remainder of the walk. Focusing instead on the stripes of Zoro's robes ahead of me, where he was walking side by side with Chopper as they spoke privately. I was too exhausted to talk any with Will or Neal.
It was around mid afternoon, I estimated 3-4pm, by the time that we all spotted a group of rocks forming in the distance, and another half hour before we all concurred that it couldn't be a mirage.
Luffy, in his excitement, somehow managed to Gum Gum Rocket us all over to the outcropping in two seconds flat.
I was too sun baked to care that I'd once again managed to land draped over Zoro. I'm sure there's some cosmic message I'm supposed to be paying attention to with all this, but fuck it's too damn hot to think philosophical about it now.
Being Will and Neal's first flight via Luffy Express, they took longer to stand upright than us seasoned veterans.
Zoro would have been first up if it wasn't for my bulk. As it was, he had to stand while pulling me up with him. God damn, he's got some fine muscles there in his arms! my heat addled brain noted dazedly as I watched his biceps bulge when he pushed us up off the sand.
Once standing though, he was quick to yell and scold Luffy for his thoughtless actions. No one believed him when he gave out a quiet and bored monotone, "Sorry everyone".
Zoro went to sit down on one of the smaller rocks next to me when I noticed I was starting to feel like I was sinking. Not very fast mind you, more like that trickling sensation when you climb up the side of a small sand dune and the sand shifts under your feet.
One second I was looking at Zoro, who had just sat down and had turned to face me, mouth open to say something, when suddenly he's falling through the ground!
I lunged after him, hand reaching for his, instead catching his outer grey/black/orange stripped travel robe. I wasn't expecting to have to deal with gravity though. Damn it Gravity! Why do you always gotta be such a bitch?!
So, naturally, I lost my balance and fell down the very deep dark hole too. I yelped on my way down, almost reaching a normal speaking volume. I heard Neal squawk loudly as Will yelled out my name in surprised fear.
Only to land, once again, on top of Zoro's broad chest.
"I really have'ta stop this weird habit of falling on him. I'm sure it can't be good for his health." I thought breathlessly as I attempted to catch my breath and slow my pounding heart.
Zoro grunted beneath me with a breathy chuckle of his own. Opps, said that aloud again, shit...
Sitting up, I was happy to note that, although it was dark, it wasn't total blackness. There was very faint light filtering down from above from the hole we fell through.
With the sound of shifting sand, Chopper accidentally joined us in the pit from a separate hole.
He landed in solid sand thankfully, "it would have sucked to have him die by braining himself on one of these rocks. Not to mention the amount of effort we'd have to put in to find another doctor who suits Captain Luffy's standards," I thought morbidly as I started looking around as best I could in the blackness.
My eyes were better equipped to adjusting with the darkness than Zoro's purely human ones. I wasn't sure how well Chopper's night vision was being a mixture of reindeer and human though, something to ask about and see if he'd want to experiment later...
Chopper popped up out of the sand screaming, running around with eyes wide in fear, yelling out, "Don't scare me like that Wisp!"
I could hear Luffy laughing from above us, along with Will calling out to me, "WISP! Are you alright?! HEY! Answer me damn it, Wisp!"
I scowled before cupping my hands over my mouth to 'yell' hypocritically up to my brother, "I'm fine, stupid! Zoro broke my fall! Quit your cussin' or I'll tell Ma when we find her! See how you like the Soap Treatment!"
Ha! That shut his ass up, I thought as I saw him looking down at me with a worried expression.
It was situations like this that I was sooooo thankful he had learned to read lips! He quietly relayed what he'd said to Luffy when he asked, causing Luffy to throw his head back laughing. I turned away from the face of my worried younger brother when Luffy, in a stroke of absurdity on his part, decided to join us down in the dark.
Now that my eyes were fully adjusted to this low level of light, I was able to see that this 'pit hole' that we'd fallen in, was in the shape of a dome, and obviously man made. There were old looking carvings engraved into the stone work all around us and letters that I couldn't make heads nor tails of their meaning.
Zoro whistled in appreciation beside me, as he thought aloud, "wonder how old this place is? Did it just get buried by accident with the sand or on purpose?"
Frowning, I asked, "Why would anyone bury this place on purpose?"
He pointed to a large black cube behind me.
Turning around to get a better look at it, my eyebrows rose. Having spent the last seven years under the tutelage of several marine officers, I knew how to recognize nearly anything that was considered illegal world wide, and this?
This was top of that tier list.
A Poneglyph.
A special cube shaped rock that was made of a unknown material, the knowledge lost to time. Some people said it was to be nearly indestructible by all modern methods. The World Government had made a ban on pretty much EVERYTHING involving the Poneglyphs. That included, but not limited to, studying them, owning them, failing to report their location, replicating the hieroglyphics and just about anything else you can think of in regards to them.
It was taller than Zoro and I, nearly twelve feet tall, a solid blue black, darker than obsidian and had these strange characters engraved into the stone. I felt this...internal tugging...something was pulling me towards the stone, but yet at the same time my feet were planted firmly in the sand beneath me. Not too differently from how I felt when I had first met Neal's hypnotic gaze when we first met.
Just seeing one like this, I couldn't help but wonder, just what it was that the government was trying to hide away from the world about these ancient cube shaped stones.
"I should take a rubbing of this...could be important." Will said behind me, causing me to jump out of startlement.
I hadn't heard him come up behind me, and seeing him as he stood there with no parrot on his shoulder, I scowled, "Great, NOW how are we all gonna get out of here?"
Will just raised his eyebrows and jerked his thumb at Neal, causing me to blush as I realized that, of course, Neal can fly...duhh…
Still irritated, but too curious for my own good, I asked, "What did you mean by a "rubbing" for the Poneglyph?"
He was pulling out a giant piece of paper from his Storage Box, along with some chunks of graphite to make a copy of the ancient words written there. As far as I knew, it was a useless endeavor since no one could read or write the language anymore anyways.
He glanced back at me with a smirk and said, "I was told by several of the Whitebeard Commanders that if I ever came across one of these, to always make a rubbing because it could be important to finding the secrets of the world. Not that I really care about that sort of stuff, but apparently some people would pay a fortune for these things."
He shrugged and gets to bracing the paper up against the black stone. Neal flew over to land on the top of the cube and held fast to the paper, leaving Will's hands free to begin rubbing the charcoal against the paper, leaving behind the whited out letters of the ancient letters.
"Huh...I wonder if there's anyone out there that can read them then? I mean, why else would a Yonko make that a rule?" I mused out loud as he continued to rub his charcoal across the broad surface.
I could hear Luffy and Zoro in the background, they were arguing about how to get out.
Luffy was insisting that he could do it all in one go with his stretchiness, while Zoro was saying that we could take turns on Neal and get out by riding on the griffin. Luffy both loved that idea and thought it was too slow and therefore would be boring.
"Where would the fun be in that idea?!" he finished his argument by yelling.
In the end, it was decided that we'd try flying out with Neal. Only to discover that the hole we'd all fallen into, while large enough for a person, was far too small for Neal to fly up and out of while in his Full Griffin transformation.
Luffy hopped up and started to punch a couple times into the ceiling, creating a large enough hole for Neal to then fly out of.
Once we were all top-side, Chopper informed us that he could smell Nami's perfume and we all started the trek in the direction that he said it was coming from.
I couldn't help my confusion though, we were having to carry everything on our backs with our focus being geared towards speed of travel being more important than comfort, so then, why would Nami have brought a luxury item like perfume along into the desert?
Turning to the bipedal reindeer, I asked confusedly, "What perfume?"
Chopper had a small 'ah ha!' look come over his face as he said, "Oh that's right, you and Luffy weren't with us because you were looking for food! Well, back at Nanohana Sanji bought Nami some perfume," I nodded, makes sense, must have been to go along with those stupid dancer clothes, the fuckin' pervert, "because I'm originally an animal and not a human, my sense of smell is stronger than a normal humans nose is," again I nodded, "and lets just say that it, uh, it smells very different from what you guys say it does."
I grimaced in sympathy.
"That sucks for you Doc. I happen to like sakura scented stuff, which I try to use in all of my hygienic products. I hope it's not too strong for you, if I ever put too much on, just let me know, ok? Last thing I wanna do is make my nakama uncomfortable, especially when it's something I can actually control like my choice in scented products."
I must have said the right thing, because he was now smiling and blushing and doing his little embarrassed dance he does, saying, "Is that what that scent is on you? Growing up on a winter island like Drum, we didn't actually have cherry trees, so I've never smelled them before. It's so pretty!"
I smiled, and nodded to his question. Will starts laughing from behind me and said, "God, Wisp! You're still using that stuff? Hahahaha you're such a sap!" Great, now I'm blushing, I thought as I glared backwards at Will.
He was bent over nearly double, gripping his stomach as he laughed at me, all while still keeping up with us as we walked. Luffy had ran ahead in the direction of the others, who we could only just barely see in the direction of the setting sun.
Neal fluttered off of Will's shoulder and changed to his larger Griffin form to stand beside us as we continued to slowly make our way over to the others. Sanji and Usopp were jumping up and down, waving their arms out towards us, each yelling something different. Sanji was yelling only my name and asking if I missed him, while Usopp was chanting everyone else's names excitedly. I ignored both.
Zoro looked over at my blushing face and smirked out, "What's got her so red?"
Chopper and Neal shook their heads, they didn't know either of course.
Struggling to get his giggles under control, Will gasped out, "Cooking, sewing and making scented stuff were the only skills Mom was ever good at. Mom tried to teach Wisp to cook and sew and all that other home domestic skills, but she always failed. Only thing Wisp could do was make anything that was Sakura scented. Didn't matter what, lotion, shampoo, soap, so long as it was that scent she could make it. It was the only domestic skill Wisp was ever good at! Hahahaha," he dissolved back into more giggles and Zoro snickered.
Chopper only gave a soft, "oh...but…?" before he grew confused, "How is that even possible?!" he finally yelled out.
I was sure my face must have been as red as Luffy's shirt by that point. With a near silent huff, I stalked over to Will and shoved him off the side of the sand dune we were currently climbing.
"You don't have to keep laughing about it, Brat!" I called down to him, as loud as I could to ensure he heard me, before stomping on towards Luffy (who'd only just now reached the others) Nami, Vivi, Sanji and Usopp, who thankfully hadn't heard what Will was saying to Zoro and Chopper.
Nami raised an eyebrow at me, but my embarrassed scowl must have promised death or something, because neither she or any of the others said anything. I gathered that by Vivi's suddenly pale complexion behind Nami on the perverted camel.
I tried to ignore the sound of the boys behind me as they laughed at me for my childishness, but when that didn't work, I looked to Nami and asked in an annoyed growl, "Which way do we gotta go to reach Yuba?"
She pointed just slightly to the left of the setting sun and I nodded, turned that way and started stomping off. They could catch up if they wanted and hopefully they'd all have stopped laughing and I'd have cooled off my embarrassed rage.
Fucking hell...this had better not be a thing with Will, or else he's going to remember just WHY the two of them listened to me so damn well back then...I thought darkly as I recalled some of my more...shall we say...embarrassing pranks I'd pulled on my younger siblings as retaliation.