If you haven't noticed, my last chapter had no disclaimer and notes whatsoever... I just wanted to see if you guys liked my story... well, here's chapter two (Haha. I've finished it. You are going to read it. Muahaha.)
Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece. I do have helluva lot of OP episodes though... If you want to find the torrents just let me know and i'll inform you as soon as i can...
Voila! Here's chapter two:
One Piece: Lost dog
Chapter 2 (The memory)
Nami gasped in incomprehensible shock as a face from the past stared out at her.
Even though the eyes were closed, the face was deathly pale and she had not seen him for
over 8 years, there was no doubt about it. It was him.
Slowly, she crawled over to his body, and stretched out her arm to touch him.
Then she stopped herself. The feeling of reality hit her again, and she found herself in a
very comical situation- her, kneeling before a the body of a 14 year old boy who she
thinks is the same boy that she knew as a kid, and who had been a dog just minutes
before.
She let out a sigh of relief on realizing the impossibility of the situation, then-
"Nami?"
A soft, familiar voice cut through the air. 'Oh no... She thought. It's real."
She forced herself to look up and saw the handsome features she had known for
so long as a child. She longed to reach out and hug, him, or touch him at least, to prove
that this wasn't a dream, if not for the fact that there were such things called look-alikes
in this world.
"M-M-Marcus?" She stammered.
"Marcus?" He repeated, puzzled. Is that my name?
Nami smiled and said, half to herself "Yeah don't you remember? We used to
play together you silly boy..."
The moment the sentence left her lips, Nami regretted it immediately. A boy who
has been dead for 8 years suddenly coming back to life? And even if he survived the
attack, he would be 18 by now, like her. And, the moment she said the word 'boy', she
looked down... and it was in that moment that they both re-realized just how naked he
was.
The reaction was instantaneous.
Nami squealed and hid her eyes and Marcus the ex-dog jumped quickly and
noisily behind a stack of crates. And they both couldn't help noticing that he had an
erection from seeing Nami in her rain-soaked shirt.
Hearing the crash, Sanji, Zoro and Luffy burst into the room. Marcus the ex-dog
peeked out from behind the crates.
Zoro and Luffy both stared at him, but Sanji's attention was elsewhere...
"Whoaa! Nami-swannn! You look so cuuute in that rain-soaked top of yours...
would you like a bath...?"
"Who are you?' Zoro growled at Marcus, who lowered his body even lower among the crates.
"I...I..." He stammered and would have been cut up if it wasn't for Luffy.
"I think he looks cute!" Luffy said scratching his cheek.
Zoro's mouth dropped open (The katana fell out) "Luffy! Don't...don't tell me
you're... THAT kind..."
"Go boil your head!" Luffy exclaimed. "I mean, his cute face looks vaguely
familiar... I think... he's the dog we saved this afternoon!"
While Sanji and Zoro were bashing Luffy for talking nonsense, Marcus and Nami
shared a long time staring at each other. Then, she walked over to a wooden chest in the
corner of the room and pulled out a pair of long, red pants, grey underwear and a blue T-
shirt with 'Kaizoku!" printed over the front. She threw them to Marcus, who caught the
clothes with his left hand and hastily put them on.
Nami was feeling more confused by the minute... 'The Marcus I knew... Left-
handed...what's going on...?" Eventually, Marcus finished dressing and walked out from
behind the stack of crates.
"Nami." He said firmly and Nami's heart nearly stopped. 'He knows my name... he's...no
way..."
"Your name is Nami right? That's what your Nakama call you..." he said questioningly
'Of course...' breathed Nami. He heard her name from her Nakama.
"Since you called me Marcus, then Marcus it is! Where am I?" he asked her.
He was interrupted by a loud crashing in the corner- Zoro and Sanji had wrestled
Luffy into a corner of the room.
Nami went over to the three noisy guys in the corner and shut them up before answering.
"You're on board our ship. It's called the Going Merry; we're in the Grand Line
and..." Nami said in one breath.
Marcus cut her off. "I know where in the WORLD are we but where in the
GRAND LINE are we?" he sat down on a crate and glanced at the three knocked out
guys in the corner, each having a large smoking lump on their head, courtesy of Nami.
"Well..." Nami chewed her lip "This isn't the best place to talk." She decided.
"Let's go to the kitchen and I'll tell you all I know about you and where in the grand line
we are."
"Sounds good to me!" He declared and he walked out of the room first.
Nami suddenly had a fleeting flashback... a boy whose face was shrouded in
shadow... Nami asking him over to Bellemere-san's house for a picnic lunch... "sounds
good to me!" he had declared and walked off first. After a few minutes, he turned around
and said "Where's your house Nami?" Nami was laughing at him...
"NAMI!" A voice shouted.
The sharp voice woke Nami up from her stupor. Marcus was standing in the
doorway.
"I just wanted to ask you... Where's your kitchen Nami?"
-----------
Nami watched Marcus eat with interest. He sat in front of her devouring plate
after plate of food , completely unembarrassed about her sitting in front of him and that
she'd seen him naked just minutes before.
After a while, he put down his fork. "Ahh... I'm full"
He looked up and saw Nami staring at him. She was captivated by his handsome
features... funny, she never noticed he was so good-looking until now... Of course...
they'd 'both been ten then... and this boy sitting in front of her looked to be around
fourteen... he even had hair growing around his...Ah...
"Nami, why are you so red? Are you sick?" Marcus asked.
Nami felt her face growing hotter and hotter.
"Nami, you really look like a lobster now... do you have a doctor on the ship? I'll
go get him!" he said standing up but Nami grabbed his hand.
"I'm fine. Sit down" she told him.
He sat down.
"Marcus..." she began, do you remember... anything at all before you woke up
and saw me?" And., why were you a dog just a while before?" She blurted before she
could stop herself.
Marcus suddenly looked grave. He leaned back in his chair.
"Then...I take it that you have an explanation for me?" Nami said.
Marcus sighed. "Have you ever heard of the devil's fruit, and its connections with
the dust storms of the grand line?"
Nami shook her head.
He sighed and took a deep breath, before telling his story.
X-O-X-O-X
He walked alone on the Coast of Kuroden Island. Sighing, he kicked a stone out
of his way and sat back, cradling his head in his hands. His father had just beaten the
crap out of him for breaking his promise to remain at home alone until he came back.
Instead, he'd had a group of friends over and had a wild raucous party. His father came
back early from his errands. He'd chased every last one of his friends away, then took his
stick and began to hit every inch of the boy that he could reach. Enraged, the boy ran
away , only to find that he had no way to leave the island, and there was a search party
looking for him- he'd been missing for two days.
"Land ahoy!" came a shout from very far off, and the boy's heart leapt. This was
an opportunity to escape. This was salvation, and he was going to board the ship. Hijack
it or steal it, he didn't care.
He got up and dragged his blistered feet upright, and made as quickly as he could
for the dock. There, he found a few old carts piled up one on top of the other. Perfect. The
boy pulled out a dagger he'd stolen from a passing merchant the day before, in case the
need to fight arose.' This is what I want.' He told himself. 'Not because of my father. I
need to leave this island. I want to go to Raftel, the island of dreams!'
Just then, he heard a couple of merry voices and crouched even lower. It was a
man's voice. "Yassop and Ben, you go collect supplies for our next voyage. Lucky Roux
will accompany me to meet the Whitebeard's messenger." The group then split up.
The boy then peeked out and saw his chance- apart from some drunken men
finishing bottles of sake, and a few more on the ship, the coast was clear, and the four
men had not turned around. He ran.
Then...
"Well, what do we have here?" Came a refined voice from behind him.
The boy whirled around as if he'd been struck. There, before him stood a man
whom he'd only ever seen in wanted posters. A pirate so strong, that nobody knows his
bounty. Shanks the Red Hair. Behind him stood a fat man tearing greedily at a leg of
meat.
"Who are you?" Shanks asked with a smile on his face.
"Boss..." Lucky Roux began, pointing at the dagger in the boy's hand.
Shanks looked at the said object and merely looked amused. "You wanted to '
hijack my ship?" Shanks asked him in amusement.
The boy was trembling with fear inside, but he put on the bravest front he could
and brandished the dagger in front of him.
Shanks laughed "Do you even know how to use that?" he cried in mirth "Where
do you come from anyway?"
The boy steeled himself and gripped the knife "Up your ass turn RIGHT!" He
called, lunging at Shanks with the knife.
Shanks disappeared.
"You shouldn't play with this, you know...' his voice suddenly drifted from behind
the boy. "It isn't a toy. If you draw your weapon, we have the right to draw ours."
Saying thus, Shanks used his right hand and pulled out his longsword from its
sheath.
"I don't believe... I don't believe I cannot win against a one-armed man!" the boy
exclaimed and lunged at Shanks again. This time, Shanks didn't dodge, but merely held
the tip of his longsword towards the tip of the boy's dagger and struck the point with such
remarkable accuracy and strength that the dagger cracked in two from the tip. The boy
let go of the dagger as if he'd been burned.
"Fine... you want to play strange powers..? I'll play with you!" The boy
exclaimed.
He focused on every cell in his body, to invoke the hidden strength he'd had since
he was four- since he ate the devil's fruit. The change was interesting to watch as he shed
his extremely oversized clothes and shrunk, his ears becoming pointy, his tongue growing
longer, his nose and mouth stretched out in front of his face to form a muzzle, his limbs
shortened and he fell on all fours and sprouted slick, shiny fur all over his body. Then, he
stopped the transformation halfway. He was a huge golden dog the size of a wolf, but he
was also half a human. He was now a werewolf.
Now, Shanks looked more interested. "Hey! That's so cool! He'll make a good pet
for our crew! Waddya say boys?" He called to his crew on the ship.
"Get past me before talking big!" The boy yelled. Lunging at much faster speed
than before at Shanks.
"There will be no need for us to kill each other, my boy." Said Shanks calmly,
blocking the boy's claws with his blade "You were going to hijack my ship to go out to
sea right?" Shanks questioned. The boy growled by way of reply. "Well, now I'm
INVITING you to join our ship. No sneaking, no nothing. How about it? You look like
you've been abandoned. Join us! We are Nakama. We care for each other..."
Chewing his lip for a while the boy finally shrank back to human. Approached
with such a show of affection, he began to feel something. A feeling of excitement. He was
thinking so much about it, that none of the world mattered. Not even the fact the he was
stark naked on a freezing night, or that the search party, tipped off by the coastal guard,
was heading his way now, Until-
"There! I see him!" The boy turned around. Suddenly self-conscious, he got
dressed again and made a split-second decision. He left the island.
As the ship pulled away from the dock, two figures hopped aboard. Shank's most
trusted men , Ben Beckman and Yassop.
"Want me to take them out Boss?" Yassop offered.
"No... I rather think our new companion would like to say... ah.. 'Goodbye' first.
Shanks told him.
Facing the people and the Island he'd grown tired of, the boy decided to show
them his secret. A secret he'd kept for so long. He transformed again, right in front of
them, letting his baggy clothes slide off again.
Silhouetted against the full moon, his transformation looked scarier than ever but
also more majestic, depending on how you looked at it. Then, he changed back, out of
sight of them and dressed again.
"Come back here lad!" A strict voice spoke out loudly among the others By the
light of the moon, the boy spotted his face among the crowd.. His father. His tormentor.
"Come back here or I'll beat the shit outta yah!" He shouted again. Smiling, feeling
genuinely happy for the first time ever, yelled back " I think not
father... next time I come back, it'll be me beating the shit out of YOU!"
This set the whole crew laughing and they caught a quick breeze out of the area,
following the log pose.
X-O-X-O-X
"You met Shanks? How is he?" said a voice from behind Nami and Marcus,
making them jump.
Luffy sat cross-legged behind them, listening quietly.
"Anyway," Nami said, ignoring Luffy. "Why didn't you ever mention your name
in your story?" she asked.
"Don't have one." Marcus told her. "You've just given me one. That shitty old
man never thought to give me one cos' he says he found me floating on the sea when I
was around six... Says I only could remember my age and my hometown and nothing
else..."
"So... where exactly is your hometown?" Nami probed.
Marcus strained his mind, trying to remember.. "I think I came from the East
blue..." Nami's heart skipped a beat "... a place called Cocoyashi village..." Luffy leapt
into the air in surprise and Nami's heart stopped.
"Is there something wrong?" Marcus asked, raising his eyebrows.
"Cocoyashi? Isn't that the name of...?" Luffy muttered glancing sideways at Nami.
"Marcus... how old are you?" Nami asked, her voice trembling.
"Fourteen this year, if the old man really found me at six. Why?" Marcus replied,
fixing Nami with a strange look.
'What the..." Nami thought. 'This is too much of a coincidence! The face, the
voice... even the hometown...'
Nami slumped down in her chair. "Listen Marcus." She said gravely. "I am going
to tell you a story now. It's up to you whether or not you choose to believe it, and this
story is, in all elements, true, to the best of my memory... I feel that... It is best to know...
Best for you to know, I mean..."
She didn't feel comfortable pouring out her personal memories to a stranger, but
after careful consideration, Nami decided on this course of action, and so, she began to
tell Marcus everything, from the boy she knew when she was ten, to the dog she knew at
twelve and finally, the combined product of the two, sitting before her when shi is
eighteen.
To her great surprise, Marcus didn't laugh or even looked shocked at all. In fact,
he practically did not react to this piece of news at all.
"Well... " he said., " I don't know who I am myself... I could be either one in my
past life, or... I could have been sent to a different dimension by that dust storm..."
Marcus finished. "well, let me finish telling you about the dust storms... Firstly..."
X-O-X-O-X
As a new member of the red hair pirates, he was surprised as to how well the
crew got along. There was not even a single fight among themselves, which was
uncommon for a pirate ship.
"Hey!" One man called from the top of the crow's nest one morning. "Enemy
ship approaching!" The boy was struck with fear at these words, but he realized that the
voices of all the others were calm, otherwise laced with excitement. 'What is wrong with
this ship?' he wondered.
A loud boom from the enemy ship shook him back to his senses. The enemy ship
had fired it's cannon at them.
On instinct, the boy morphed into werewolf form on hearing the blast. His top slid
off.
Since joining the ship, the crew had given him a new set of clothes to wear, and
he'd gratefully changed out of his old, baggy outfit, which used to belong to his foster
father. At least now, his pants were tight enough to stay on but they had no top tight
enough for him.
"Hold up there wolf-boy." Beckman told him, placing a hand gently on his
shoulder. "There ain't no need ta get worked up now..."
And indeed, all the men on the ship were relaxed. They seemed to watching the
man called Yassop, who was standing on the side of the ship holding a revolver in each
hand.
The cannonball drew nearer. At the rate it was going, it would smash into the ship
in no time.
"Why aren't we doing anything?" The boy shouted, panicking as he shrank back
into human form.
Beckman gave a mysterious smile and stuck a cigarette into his mouth.
"watch." He commanded.
Yassop leveled the revolvers directly at the cannonball, then, he suddenly fired a
volley of six shots successively.
The cannonball slowed down for a moment and simply hung there, suspended in
space- then the sound of a crack rang out, followed by another ... and another.. and
another... and the Cannonball exploded into smithereens in midair.
Beckman grinned. "Yassop's six-shot-snipe. Never fails." He added.
The boy simply stood there, his mouth hanging open.
"That's nothing to be surprised about, if you're riding with the red-hair pirates."
Shanks told him, suddenly materializing out of nowhere.
He drew his sword and pointed at the enemy ship. A death warrant.
"Now go, men!" Shanks yelled.
Hollering various battle cries, the pirates leaped on to the enemy ship, which had
come just a bit too close.
Changing into werewolf form, the boy leaped across the gap to the enemy ship as
well, Beckman and Shanks following behind him.
Jumping ten feet into the air, Shanks pointed his sword down and kicked off
downwards.
"Death slice!" he shouted just before impact.
There was a sound like a whip, followed by the sound of metal on wood and the
ship promptly split up into a flat, floating battlefield.
It was the time of his life. The boy had kept all this violence, aggression and
hatred inside of him for as long as he could remember, and now, he let it all out in a wild
surge of power, tearing out throats, decapitating the enemy , squeezing them till they
were nothing but limp rag dolls... He had always known that something like this would
happen if he let everything out eventually but he had never envisioned this.
His joy ride was cut short by a panicked shout. "Dust storm!" One of Shanks's
crew exclaimed.
The boy stopped on the verge of biting someone's head off. He had heard of the
legendary dust storms. They happen once a year, in a random part of the Grand Line
each time, and no one knows what happens if you encounter one- nobody who
Encountered one had t lived to tell the tale, nor had any bodies been found after being hit
by a dust storm.
"Dive!" came a command from Shanks.
"I...I can't!" The boy shouted back to Shanks, amidst the splashes of people from
both sides fleeing into the safety of the water.
Shanks looked him in the eyes. "You can. If you sink, we'll save you. Do it."
Shanks commanded with a steely look in his eyes. It was either take his chances in the
water, or face certain death.
He had hesitated a moment too long.
The next thing he knew, the dust storm was upon him and he felt like he was being
torn apart by thousands of tiny needles, ripping and tearing into his flesh.
He looked down. There was no injury-just a feeling of unimaginable pain. But the
danger was there. Taking an instant gamble, the boy took a deep breath, morphed totally
to dog and plunged into the deep, blue sea.
He remembered a strange numbing sensation and many voices yelling at once and
through the haze of near-unconsciousness, thought he saw a white marble court and
many people standing around it.
His last thought, before totally losing consciousness, was 'It is over... I'm in
heaven!'
X-O-X-O-X
Nami listened to this strange tale with interest. By now, the rest of the crew had
managed to get the ship out of the storm and they filed in, soaking wet and found places
around the kitchen, to sit and listen to the story as well.
For a while, nobody spoke. Then, Robin suddenly made a fleur pop out of the
kitchen table and grab Marcus's arm.
Instantly, Marcus jumped and began the change to werewolf on instinct.
"Enough." Robin said. "You say you ate a devil's fruit?" Robin asked him
politely, though she looked at him rather strangely.
Marcus nodded, staring at her also.
"Don't look at me like that. You're good-looking but a bit too young for me."
Robin told him. "Anyway, I don't think you ate a devil's fruit." She informed him.
"Don't be ridiculous, Robin." Nami interjected. "How do you suppose he can
transform into a dog then? Magic?"
"I don't know." Robin continued calmly, as though nothing had happened. "But
I'm sure he did not eat a devil's fruit." She said firmly.
"Let me explain," She said, straightening up in her seat. "Normally devil fruits are
split into three categories: Paramecia, Zoan and Logia. Paramecia fruits cause the body to
change or acquire special abilities, like mine or Luffy's." Luffy grinned and stretched his
cheeks extra wide, being made of rubber, which earned him looks of disgust from the
group.
"Wait, wait." Marcus interrupted "You guys ate the devil's fruit too?" He asked.
"Yes that's right." Robin replied him, beginning to look rather miffed about being
interrupted twice. "Let me continue. Logia fruits, unlike the paramecia, grant the eater
the ability to create, control or turn themselves to a substance like fire, water, smoke
Sand-."
"Like Crocodile! And that Smoky-marine Ossan! And Ace!" Luffy cut in again
excitedly.
"Anyway," continued Robin, ignoring him. "Logia fruits, in short, are the most
powerful and rare among the many devil's fruits, and even though each has it's own
weaknesses, they are not to be taken lightly. Finally, this leaves with the weakest of the
Devil fruits. The Zoan family. Zoan fruits are the most common among the devil fruits
and allow the eater to have three forms. It's original form, the form given to it by the
devil fruit and thirdly, a blend of its original form and the form given to it by the devil's
fruit. These devil fruits are the largest in number -."
"I have one!" Chopper piped up from almost under the table- only the top of his
hat and his antlers were visible when he sat on the chair. "Mr. Dalton-sama has one too!"
"Well... yeah, like I said, the Zoan fruits are the most common, the strongest and
rarest of them being the neko neko no mi, the leopard fruit. However, the reason I suspect
that he did not eat a devil fruit is because, Firstly, though these fruits are so common , it
is extremely unheard of to have more than two kinds of models of the same species. The
Inu Inu no mi, the dog fruit, has two known models already. One has been eaten by one
of the guardians of Arabasta- Anubis guard, Chaka. His is the Inu Inu no mi, model
Jackal. Besides him, one of my ex-subordinates in Baroque works, Mr. 4--."
At this, Usopp and Chopper shrieked together in unison.
"I remember him!" Usopp choked out. "He was that fat guy who had a dog... no
gun... and a big 4-ton bat and..." he stammered
"Yeah! Big red bat!" Chopper continued for him. "And.. and.. he had this big fat
penguin-sorry- mole for a partner... and a gun-dog..."
Robin smiled. "Oh, you still remember them. Good. Well as you know, he had
this gun- dog called Lassu. That creature was actually a gun which had been infused with
the Inu Inu no mi, model daschund, using the technology of the Grand Line. Next, you
say that you jumped into the sea to escape the dust storm right?"
Marcus nodded. "Yes. But what does this have to do with-."
"It has everything to do with the matter." Robin said, cutting him off again.
"Devil Fruit eaters don't drift away. Devil fruit eaters sink. I know that best myself.
Either your Nakama save you, or you drown. Furthermore, when we found you as a dog,
we found you struggling among the waves. This is not possible for us devil fruit eaters,
who lose all our energy in the water. Therefore, I have many reasons to suspect that you
have not eaten the devil fruit." Robin explained.
Nami felt torn. There were as many reasons to trust him as there were not to trust
him, but she wanted to trust him. She was in biggest dilemma of her life. Even if he was
the boy she knew, there was no valid reason to explain why he was four years younger
than she was.
Then she remembered. Marcus, as a small boy of ten had fallen injured himself
very badly while trying to rescue her from a deep pit she had fallen into. He had tried to
pull her out but instead, fell in with her instead, and got his back cut very badly on a
sharp rock. He had bled profusely from the wound until they were rescued and so, when
it eventually healed, it left a scar. It was curiously shaped like a dog's head, and the two
of they constantly made jokes about it, saying that if the full moon appeared, he would
turn into a werewolf. This constantly annoyed her older sister Nojiko, who preferred that
she worked in the tangerine orchard more and talk less.
Looking back at her past, she was shocked to find hoe her childhood jokes had
manifested itself in this form and yes, it had to be in THIS form.
Then an idea hit her. To find out his true identity, she'd just have to see if he had
the scar. Yes, that would be it. The scar could not be fake; only the two of them knew
about it. But how to find out? She missed her opportunity in the storeroom when he was
naked- she had not been noticing anything except his face then.
Her prayer was answer by a huge bump on the side of the ship then. It could only
mean one thing. Enemies were attacking the ship.
They rushed up to the deck as enemy pirates boarded their ship. Nami pulled out
her Clima-tact, Zoro unsheathed his Katanas, Usopp went and hid in a corner, Chopper
became his huge human form, Luffy and Sanji got into battle stances – and Marcus
Turned into werewolf form, shedding his shirt instantly.
Then she saw it. It stood out clearly against his back. A red scar, shaped like a
dog's head...
To be continued...
Author's note: I think it's too long actually... let me know if it is, and i'll try to shorten it... (hehe... counts reviews in glee)
