Wasuremono: The Things We Leave Behind
With Zoro protecting the Merry, Chopper guarding Sherry and her great-grandson, and Usopp on lookout duty, the four remaining Straw-Hats are surprised by the arrival of the Magpie Pirate's three lieutenants. A group of villains arriving and everybody getting separated you know what must be coming...
Chapter 5: The Fertilizer of Love
The lieutenants could hardly have been more varied in shape.
One, a scarred hulk roughly the size of Chopper's humanoid form.
One, short and rounded.
One, skinny and lanky.
"Which one of you is Roronoa Zoro?" continued the booming voice that had startled Luffy's crew. It blasted out of the bushy baleen mustache of the scar-covered man. "I'm looking for the Pirate Hunter!"
"He's not here, idiot. You think any of these look like him?" the small woman at his feet sniped, holding a hand up to her head to steady the tower of hats balanced there. Even with the several added feet of height, she was almost wider than she was tall. Just how much of her girth was real and how much was caused by the dozens of pieces of clothing visible on her body was unknown - and her face gave no clue as to her true weight, as all but her mascara-rimmed eyes was covered by a thick knitted scarf.
"It's getting dark." 'Scar-Face' said. "How am I supposed to tell?" He squinted his beady eyes, stroking his chest. The scars descended from his mouth, hundreds of white slash-marks covering his chest like a snowy beard, and he stroked them as if that was what they were.
"It's not too dark to see what important." the tall, skinny man said, running his gaze up and down Nami's form and then Robin's as though his steel-blue eyes were paint rollers and he didn't want to leave a single spot bare. "A pair of beauties in the moonlight." He tried to wink conquettishly at both of them at once, but it turned into a blink.
Nami shuddered involuntarily. Sure, this weirdo might have been handsome, not unlike a brown-haired Sanji... if it weren't for the persistant leer that dripped more perversion than Sanji displayed even in the worth of times. Not to mentioned that he seemed to think he was a snappy dresser, but hadn't a tenth of Sanji's fashioned sense - burn and smoulder marks covered both his faded suit and the leather quiver slung over his back.
"Whatever, Solomon." The scarman grunted. "You and Tento do what you want with these four. I just want Zoro."
"He's at our ship, straight that way." Nami said, pointing.
"Thanks very much, little girl." he grinned, starting off down the darkened midway. "I'll see you two back at the Nest." he told his compatriots.
"HEY! Nami!" Luffy cried. "You're helping the enemy!"
"Like hell I'm 'helping' them." Nami said. "I don't know what that guy wants with Zoro, but if he's looking for a fight, Zoro will clobber that big lug. Did you see how torn up he was already? And that's one less person for us to worry about."
"How charmingly ignorant you are, fair lady." Solomon grinned lasciviously. "Paul's scars aren't badges of defeat, they're badges of victory."
"Whatever, Zoro will make mincemeat out of him."
"You must be very confident." Robin said. "I would have thought our reputation would have gotten around by now.
The two of you, here to fight the four of us? Bad planning."
Solomon and Tento laughed, his rattling snicker combining with her bubbly giggles to create an unpleasant sounds not unlike a bush full of cicadas.
"We're not here to commit acts of violence, especially not against two lovely ladies." Solomon explained. "We don't want to DEFEAT you. Just to add to our collections. Stealth is just as good for that. For instance, my cute little partner Tento here collects famous articles of pirate apparel. She's quite fast despite all her layers, and often she'll just sneak up and take something while I distract the target, like I'm doing now."
Luffy felt something being lifted off his head. He whipped around to see Tento, and in her hands...!
"The straw hat that gives the Straw-Hat pirates their name!" she cooed in wonder. "This will be the prize of my
collection."
"Oh dear." Robin sighed. "I don't know what's in that guidebook you're crew has been using, but it obviously left out some important information."
"Like wha" Tento began. She didn't get any farther than that because Luffy slammed into her like a rubber cannonball, screaming "DON'T TOUCH MY HAT!". The force of his charge was softened by the layers of clothes, however, and Tento remained conscious - and kept a firm grip on Luffy's hat - even as the blow sent her flying to the horizon. Clothing, ripped off by the wind, formed a gaudy rainbow describing the arc of her flight.
Luffy looked up at the falling line of clothes in dismay. "OH NO! That dumpling's still got my hat!" Immedietly, he took off into the woods in the direction Tento had fallen, practically foaming at the mouth in anger.
"... Well, it looks like we're all alone together, my charming apple strudels." Solomon grinned, gazing at Nami and Robin.
"HEY! I'm here too, you lousy crap-for-crap!" Sanji yelled. "Nami-san, Robin-chan, leave this bozo to me. He's not worthy of you dirtying your hands."
"I don't have any interest in fighting you." Solomon sniffed. "I'm just here to add to my collection of wives."
"COLLECTION OF WIVES!" Sanji and Nami shouted in unison. "Not while I'm here!" "You'd better not be talking about me!"
"Nami, the legendary thief from the East Blue, with hair the vibrant orange of a mikan peel." Solomon read from his notebook. "And just like the mikans she loves so much, her bitter exterior hides innards soft ... sweet... and juicy..."
Before she could react, Solomon had scooped Nami up in his arms. Gagging on his powerful cologue, she grabbed for her Clima-Tact, discovering on the way that Solomon's hand were snaking down into that area as well.
Giving up on the weapon, she employed the quicker, if less flashy, method of a knee to the groin to regain her freedom.
"Ah, the sweet resistance of the naive maiden." Solomon squeaked. "The tender buds of innocence - soon to blossum into the flaming flowers of passion." As he spoke, he walked towards the entrance to the abandoned Hall of Mirrors, taking advantage of the light of the lamps in the entryway to pose as though he were on stage, a single rose lifted to his narrow nostrils. "All it requires is a gardener's dedication, to pull out the weeds and feed the root with the proper fertilizer."
"Speaking of fertilizer, you're pretty full of it." Nami snapped. "You're wasting your time here if you think Robin or I would shack up with some stranger who just wants to add us to his harem"
"Nami, stand back!" Robin said, grabbing the young thief's arm. But she had noticed too late what Solomon had in his other hand. With an easy motion, he raised the glass spray-bottle and released a blast of pink vapor directly into Nami's face.
She stepped back in surprise, coughing on the fumes, as Solomon continued to hold down on the spray button. Soon Sanji and Robin were reeling from the vapors as well.
"I thought he smelled bad before!" Sanji choked. "Dammit, I can't even see!" He blinked through tears.
"I told you that I had the correct fertilizer." Solomon's voice called through the miasma. "Don't worry, blondie, it won't do anything to you. But an efficient collector like me doesn't have time for sweet talk and seduction. This way is so much simpler."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Sanji yelled, preparing to deliver a kick hard enough to shut the Magpie Pirate up. "I've had about enough of you"
He was silenced by Nami's bo slamming into his head.
"N-nami-san, what?"
"I won't have you talking that way to Solomon-sama!" Nami yelled at him. "Leave us alone!"
"U..us?"
"My greatest invention." Solomon said, brandishing the bottle. The remaining pink liquid sloshed around inside.
"Any woman who so much as gets a whiff of this becomes totally devoted to me. It doesn't make her mindless, not a zombie or anything, because that wouldn't be much fun. Your beautiful crewmates remain themselves, but they're completely loyal to me now."
"A... a love potion?" Sanji croaked. "But they don't exist! I've looked everywI mean, it's impossible!"
"Well, I made it possible. I'm quite the chemist, you know. I'll be taking Nami and Robin now, and I'd advise you not to try and stop them coming along with me." He tousled Nami's hair and Sanji was horrified to see the girl practically melting at his touch. "Because if you want to stop them, you'll have to fight them, and at this point they'll fight to the death rather than be separated from me."
Nami raised her bo threateningly, staying between Sanji and Solomon. "Listen to him, please." she said sternly. "Let's part as friends. It's what I want."
"That's a good girl. And you - don't be shy, my pretty dark-haired vixen, come along."
"No." Nico Robin spat. "I'm... not coming with you."
Solomon recoiled. "What? What do you mean?"
"I have a crew, and a dream. I'm not giving either of them up for you."
"But ... but you breathed the potion! I saw you!" Solomon stammered, clutching Nami tightly to his side.
"Heh." The assassin laughed, mopping beads of sweat from her brow. "I breathed it in all right. Believe me, it's affecting me. It's all I can do to keep my hands off you. But... you really don't know very much about our crew at all, do you?" Exhaustion creased her features, making her look momentarily older than her twenty-eight years. "For all your guides, you don't know a thing about my life. I've had to teach myself how to free myself from emotion when I needed to I even had to learn how not to fall in love. Some smelly idiot with a jar full of magic potion isn't going to make a fool out of me." As the final sylllables left Robin's lips, a pair of arms sprouted from the ground, yanking his feet out from under him. He bellyflopped to the ground with a thud, as a second pair of hands grabbed his ears and whammed his head to the earth one, two, three times.
"I guess I can't keep them off you after all." Robin laughed, turning away. Yet another pair seized Nami's ankles tightly, holding her in place as the bewitched thief struggled to go to Solomon's aid.
Solomon rose up in a fury, spitting dirt and grass. "Dammit... you withered old witch, how dare you attack me?"
"Well! Somebody doesn't take rejection gracefully."
"If you want to stay with this crew of freaks, then do it, and be damned!" Solomon shrieked at her. "But Nami is mine!" He grabbed the navigator and yanked her hard, pulling her back into the darkness. Before either Sanji or Robin could react, both kidnapper and his willing victim had vanished into the Hall of Mirrors.
Robin looked down her extra hands, now holding nothing but a pair of shoes. "I thought I had a secure grasp on her." she mumbled. "He snapped the straps on her shoes. I hope he didn't dislocate her shoulder."
"Crap!" Sanji hit his forehand with his palm. "I should have made mincemeat out of him while I had the chance!"
"Nami was in the way." Robin said. "It's understandable." She sank to her knees. "Resisting that stuff took every shred of my willpower. Nami's still a teenager - I don't think there's much hope of her snapping out of it unless we stop Solomon. And if he gets her alone for long enough..."
"I don't even want to think about what that pervert would do." Sanji said, shrugging off his jacket. "You stay here and try to shake it off. I'll go in after him."
He wrapped the jacket around Nico Robin's shoulders, a defense against the coming chill of the night, and strode into the endless reflective corridors.
End of Chapter 5 - thanks to everybody who's left comments so far! More are always welcome!
In the next chapter - It's that part of the story arc again! The part where everybody has a fight! And for our first match-up, Sanji will face a deadly volley of Cupid's arrows, in the next chapter of "Wasuremono"!