A/N This is just a random idea that came to me… I couldn't think of what to write, and then suddenly this came to me, and it seemed perfect. I don't know exactly how long this is going to turn out—all I know is what's going to happen. I don't know about how anything will connect, or how to end it. But I don't think that it should be any longer than five chapters… Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters, or the world—those belong to Oda Eiichirou.
Revenge of the Clown
Chapter 1:The Lost Hat
It was a night just like any other on the Going Merry. Not quiet, by any means—the swordsman was training and the cook was challenging the marksman and doctor, who had been attempting to steal food during the night—but quieter than the daytime.
"Come on, Sanji, just a bit!"
"I said, get out of my kitchen! You had a snack after supper, you'll survive until breakfast!"
This was followed by a whine from the doctor, which was immediately followed by a crash. A second later the marksman and doctor came bolting out the door.
As he listened to this, the swordsman could not help but feel that something was off. There was nothing unusual about refrigerator raiding in the middle of the night, or the cook grappling with those who did so. What was off was the quick retreat of the raiding party. As he watched Usopp and Chopper bolt across the deck, it suddenly struck him, and his arms stopped in the middle of swinging his weight.
The captain had not raided the refrigerator that night. Putting down his weight, he heard calm footsteps leaving the kitchen.
"Luffy didn't come."
In Zoro's comment to Sanji, there was no question, but a reply came anyway.
"No, he didn't."
"That's strange." Sanji snorted.
"He probably came up earlier, before the rest of us got up." Zoro glared.
"Are you saying that I wouldn't hear him getting up? I have sharp ears."
"Not when you're sleeping like the idiot you are for longer than all the rest of us put together."
"Are you asking for a fight!" Zoro's hands had flown to his swords, and Sanji's leg lifted from the ground.
"He hasn't been up here."
This voice came from above, and Zoro and Sanji's heads shot up to look at the black haired woman who had called down calmly from the observation deck.
"I wonder if something is wrong," the woman continued. "The captain never misses a night to raid the fridge." Zoro looked up at her suspiciously.
"You're supposed to be watching the ocean, not the deck. How would you know?"
"Insult Robin-chan again and you're dead, aegagropila!"
"As if you could do me any harm, fancy-brow!"
"You-"
"Captain-san is awake," Robin cut in, her voice still as calm as anything. The swordsman and cook instantly looked up at her. "He appears to be searching for something. He is saying something, but I only sent my eyes there, so I could not hear anything."
"I'd better go see what he's up to." Zoro turned and walked off towards the males' cabin. As he walked, he heard Sanji's voice behind him.
"Ah, my Robin-chan, you must be so cold up there! Would you like something warm?"
"Coffee would be nice, cook-san."
Zoro snorted as he opened the door on the deck. That was the third time that he had heard that same exchange in the last twenty-four hours—though there were minor variations on the cook's part.
As he climbed down into the cabin, he indeed found his captain searching frantically. He knew instantly what the object of his search was. For one thing, the straw hat was missing from Luffy's head. For another, he was tirelessly repeating the words "my hat, my hat" as he looked in every crack of the room. He did not appear to notice that Zoro had come into the room.
"Luffy, how did you lose your hat?"
Luffy replied without a single pause of his hands as he continued to tear the room apart.
"My hat, I can't find my hat!" Though used to his captain's ways, there was a tone of impatience to Zoro's voice as he replied.
"Yes, I can see that. How did you lose it?"
As he answered, Luffy's voice sounded completely calm. However, the rapid movements that he made as he searched gave away his panic.
"I don't know! I was asleep, and then I woke up and felt hungry and decided to go up and get something, but I couldn't find my hat!" Zoro stared.
"You mean your hat disappeared in your sleep?" Luffy turned to stare back.
"No, it was gone I woke up."
"That's the same thing, you idiot!"
"Oh, it is? …My hat!" And Luffy was back to his searching. Taking a quick look around the room, Zoro found himself mystified. Luffy could not have simply lost his hat like this. That simply did not happen. When Luffy lost his hat, it was always during a battle-
"Luffy! Were you dreaming about a battle?" On sudden inspiration, Zoro wondered if Luffy had subconsciously stormed around in his sleep, losing his hat as he did so.
"No, I dreamed about eating meat." Zoro sighed. That was typical, but not the kind of dream that would lose a person's hat.
Zoro joined Luffy in hunting for the hat, attempting to keep Luffy from destroying the room too badly as they searched. Just when they had covered half of the room very thoroughly, there was a crash from above, and Usopp and Chopper came falling in.
"Sanji isn't here, is he?" Chopper asked, looking nervously around. But Usopp's first concern was the boat.
"Why are you destroying the ship? We're in the middle of the ocean, idiots! And Merry is precious! You can't just-"
"Luffy lost his hat," Zoro cut in, keeping an eye on Luffy in case he decided to start searching in a way that was harmful to the boat again. Instantly, worries of Sanji seemed to disappear from the reindeer, and the long-nosed boy abruptly stopped his talking about the importance of the ship.
"He what?" asked the marksman and doctor in one voice.
"Lost his hat. In his sleep. We're searching. We've finished this half, so you two look in that quarter, and we'll try this one."
Ten minutes and an incredibly thorough search later, they had to admit that the hat was nowhere in the cabin. As Usopp and Chopper worried, Luffy went on a fifth search of the room, and Zoro wondered where Luffy could have lost it if he had not gone up onto the deck, the door on the wall swung open to reveal the fuming face of the navigator.
"What in the world made you all decide to make a racket at this time of night in here! And why is it that I'm the only person asleep at this time of night?"
"Robin's on the observation deck, I think Sanji must be pampering her since he hasn't come after us, and we-"
"I can't find my hat," Luffy cut into Usopp's explanation, still searching.
"And we were looking for it, but it isn't in here," Chopper explained helpfully. The red-haired navigator stared at the four men.
"Are you sure that you looked thoroughly?"
"Of course we have! The four of us checked the entire room four times. Luffy claims to have lost it in his sleep, but it isn't in this room." As Zoro spoke, a sudden thought occurred to Usopp.
"Hey Nami, he hasn't been into your and Robin's room, has he?" Nami shot a dark glare in the direction of the marksman, who instantly regretted his question. They all knew that it was a ridiculous question to ask in the first place. The only times when the men entered the women's room was when there was a problem, and the door connecting the two cabins under the deck was always locked from the side of the women's room.
"Since when have I allowed any of you in this room at random?" Then she turned to the calm but mystified Zoro, the nervous Chopper, and the searching Luffy, in whom there were the subtle signs of panic. "How about the deck? Maybe he sleepwalked…"
"Robin says that he never came up," Zoro replied, shaking his head. Nami's brow furrowed.
"Luffy, are you sure that you had it when you went to sleep?"
"I had it! That was rude!" Luffy's reply came in a huff, closely followed by backup from his crew.
"Nami," Usopp reasoned, "one of us was bound to notice if his hat was gone when we went to sleep."
"Luffy wouldn't lose his hat while conscious," Zoro added.
"He had it when we went to sleep, I saw it!" Chopper's words left no argument.
Nami looked back at her own room, scanning it thoroughly.
"It definitely isn't here…" she said slowly.
For a time, there was silence. Luffy completed his search, and then stood in the middle of the room trying to decide what to do. It wasn't in their cabin, nor was it in Nami and Robin's. That meant that it could only be somewhere in the rest of the ship… Without a moment's hesitation, Luffy jumped out onto the deck. This broke the silence under the deck as well.
"We should try and look up there, too," Usopp said as he stood and climbed back up, Zoro having wordlessly left after Luffy. Chopper followed, and Nami closed and locked the door before climbing up from her own room.
As the last three were climbing up onto the deck, Luffy bolted out from the storage room, apparently having searched both that and the bathroom beyond that, and Zoro exited from the anchor cable hangar, which was on the other side of the lower deck, shaking his head briefly to Luffy.
Luffy instantly was on the higher deck, having pulled himself swiftly up, running into the only un-searched room—the kitchen. The four others had scarcely begun to ascend the stairs as well, when,
"You are not getting food! I have to tell you night after night! Live with it until morning!"
Just as Sanji finished his last sentence, Nami entered the kitchen, closely followed by the others.
"No, Sanji-kun—Luffy lost his hat."
Sanji's mouth fell open, and he turned to look at Luffy, who indeed had, instead of heading for the fridge, begun to search.
"Haven't you checked the cabin, Nami-san? He had it when he went to sleep, and Robin-chan said that he hasn't been up on the deck."
"We've searched our cabin multiple times, Nami looked at the girls' cabin, Luffy checked the storage room and bathroom, and Zoro checked the anchor cable hangar, but we haven't found it. And it obviously isn't in the kitchen either," Usopp added as Luffy ran out of the room, having completed his search. The others followed after scanning the room themselves.
Failing to find his hat on the deck, Luffy reached up to grip the edge of the observation deck, pulling himself up.
"Captain-san? Is something wrong?" Robin asked in her usual calm and collected manner, wrapped up in a blanket and sipping her coffee.
"I can't find my hat- Hey, there's a ship!" He had spotted a ship on the horizon.
"Luffy, don't get distracted! It doesn't matter that there's a ship! Can you see your hat from up there?" Sanji called up at him in exasperation.
"Nope- Hey look-"
"Luffy, stop getting distracted!" This time it was Usopp, Sanji, and Nami who called up at their captain.
"No, the ship is Buggy's!"
"Buggy?" questioned Usopp, Sanji and Chopper. Robin raised an eyebrow in surprise. Zoro spun around to look in the direction where Luffy was looking. Nami looked up at Luffy.
"You know Buggy the Clown?" inquired Robin.
"He and Zoro fought him when they were trying to persuade me to join them," said Nami.
"And he tried to kill Luffy in Logue Town," added Zoro.
"Oh, that guy with the big red nose?" asked Sanji.
"Yeah, that one," Nami replied.
"That's strange…" Robin frowned, and said her words as though speaking to herself.
"What is?" asked Usopp.
"He was here about half an hour ago… Just a little before you all woke up." The rest of the crew stared at the archaeologist in shock. Even the rubber man turned to look at the woman sitting behind him.
"You're supposed to say that sort of thing!" shouted the captain, swordsman, and marksman. Meanwhile, the cook swooned.
"Robin-chan is so stunning, the way she's so indifferent to everything," Sanji commented, unheard by all.
"Who's Buggy?" Chopper asked Usopp.
"You mean he came on to this ship?" Nami asked, panicking.
"It's alright, Nami-san! You can hide in my arms! I'll protect you!" However, as Sanji approached the navigator, he was knocked out of the way by her impatient hand as Robin replied.
"No—he just brought his ship about five meters away from this boat. But he told me that he had no idea who the Straw Hat Pirates were, or who Straw Hat Luffy was either… I didn't think I'd mention it since he never came onto this ship or seemed to do anything harmful."
"Robin," Zoro spoke up. "Were both his hands in sight for the whole time that he was talking to you? And his head?" Robin looked at the swordsman, raising an eyebrow.
"Of course his head was there. And his hands were clasped behind his back."
"Robin, what he means is, could you actually see his hands, or did you just see his arms and assume that his hands were attached to them?" Robin's eyebrow rose higher at this.
"No, I didn't see his hands in that case."
There was an instant uproar.
A/N That's all for this chapter. Review! I refuse to update unless I get at least two decent reviews! (Decent meaning actual constructive criticism—not flaming.) You can flame if you like, but I'm more likely to listen to constructive criticism.