Author's Note: Thank you very much for giving me your opinions, everyone! It was very helpful! You'll probably notice that I didn't use any ideas outright, but the ideas were what inspired this chapter. It's a sort of merging of your suggestions and my own ideas, I guess. But there was just one idea that, though it was the most common suggestion, I couldn't use—the appearance of White Beard. The thing is, with White Beard, I know nothing about him apart from his appearance, and the fact that he seems a little overconfident. I don't know what it is that makes him so strong, or what his personality is like. I know, I could make the stuff up, but… So I apologize to those people who I have disappointed in my decision.

This chapter is dedicated to all my reviewers, on whose suggestions this chapter was written.

Replies to Reviews:

purple-lilas: Like I said above, I can't use that, I'm very sorry… But thank you for your opinion!

babe300: Thanks for the ideas! I know I never used any of them outright, but they inspired what happened in this chapter—hope you like it!

Midori: Interesting… The only thing is, I can't really get White Beard in the story for reasons mentioned above… Thanks very much for the ideas!

VM: Yes, everyone generally seems to agree that Ace and Luffy should fight… Hope you like this chapter, although it might be something that wasn't quite expected or welcome…

Lavagirl: Very interesting idea… Thanks!

Revenge of Clown

Chapter 6:Fear

"Nami-san! Robin-chan!"

Nami, Usopp and Chopper heard the call and knew who was coming before they saw the blond-haired cook. The cook jumped onto the deck soon after the three on board heard his calls.

"Nami-san! Are you alright?" His eyes swept over the ship deck swiftly. "What are all these people? What did they do to you?" His voice was angry, as though he intended to attack the men who were already knocked out.

"Sanji-kun!" Nami rushed over to him, his words not even appearing to have reached her ears. "Robin and Alvida fell into the water! You have to go save Robin!" Sanji's eyes widened.

"Robin-chan!" In an instant, he was rushing towards the edge of the boat. When he reached the edge and was about to jump, however, he abruptly halted. "Wait—who's Alvida?"

"The woman Robin was fighting, go save Robin!" Nami, Usopp and Chopper all called out in unison. Before they had even completed their sentence, however, there was a splash and Sanji was underwater.

The three crewmates rushed to the ship's edge and stared down into the dark water, cursing the fact that they could see nothing.

"It's taking so long…" Chopper muttered nervously.

"Idiot, it can't be more than twenty seconds since Sanji went down! It's got to take longer than that!" Usopp made the reply, but his voice and body were shaking with anxiety. Nami only stared down into the water, tightly gripping the railing.

"It's taking much too long," Chopper muttered again after a pause.

This time neither Usopp nor Nami said anything, only giving him their silent agreement.

"Three minutes," Nami murmured to herself.

"Well," Usopp licked his lips uneasily, "Sanji didn't go down immediately after they went down, right? So it must take some time to reach her, and it could be hard to get back up again, especially holding a person who's being dragged downwards…"

Nami and Chopper looked at him anxiously.

"You mean Sanji might have drowned?" Chopper asked, his expression immediately turning to one of alarm.

"Idiot, I never said that!" shouted Usopp. "I only said that it could take some time! Not-"

A splash and a gasp from below caused him to stop and look. Sanji had surfaced, gasping, and apparently struggling to keep his head above water. His arms appeared to be pulling him downwards.

"Sanji-kun!" Usopp and Chopper looked to the side to see Nami throwing down a rope, tied into a loop at the end. "Put Robin in here!"

"Thank you, Nami-san!" Sanji said in gasps, attempting a smile and doing as he was told, transferring Robin from his left arm into the loop. When Robin was in the loop, Nami began to struggle to pull it up.

"Help me, Usopp!" her words were accompanied by a glare, and Usopp rushed to obey. They pulled their raven-haired friend up until she was level with the top of the rail.

"Hold on to the rope, Usopp," Nami instructed as she let go. Usopp was about to protest when she walked over to the railing and began to pull Robin's body onto the deck. As they laid her down and Chopper began to attend to her, Sanji appeared at the side of the ship, pulling himself up with his legs and left hand, and still appearing weighed down by his right hand. As he climbed over the railing and pulled his right hand over as well, Nami and Usopp stared, and Chopper gaped, forgetting to care for Robin.

"S-Sanji!" cried Chopper in dismay.

"Qu-quick! Kick her into the ocean, as far away as you can!" Usopp yelled from where he was hiding behind the main mast once more.

Sanji frowned.

"Usopp, you really don't have any manners. That's not how you treat a lady!" The blond cook's voice was cold and menacing.

"Sanji-kun, you idiot, that's our enemy!" Nami screamed at him as the beautiful woman began to cough and stir.

Sanji turned to Nami in surprise.

"Nami-san, of course! I could never doubt your words!"

"Then quick, kick her overboard!" the navigator cried.

"Of course!" He aimed a hard kick at the woman's back, but to his surprise, as his foot came in contact with it, he found himself stumbling forward and hitting the railing, and the woman unaffected. "What the…"

The cook was suddenly looking at the woman with wide, serious eyes.

"Get her out!" screamed Nami again and a second later her stick had hit the woman on the hips, and the woman was flying over board once more.

"Ah!" cried Sanji in dismay as he watched the woman fly through the air.

"Don't you dare!"

As he attempted to leap into the ocean once more, he found himself held back by the collar by a very angry orange-haired woman.

"But Nami-san!" Sanji protested.

"I told you, she is an enemy! Even you couldn't possibly defeat her were she conscious."

"Nami-san, you wound me!" Sanji announced dramatically, appearing to forget the other woman. "I would protect you from anything and everything! There is nothing that can get past me when I have you to protect!"

Nami rolled her eyes and released him.

"What are all these people?" came a calm but tired voice from behind them. The four crewmates wheeled around to see the archaeologist conscious, sitting up against the railing.

"Robin-chan! You're alright! I was so worried! Would you like a drink?" Sanji was swooning again as Nami's eyes passed over the unconscious men scattered around the deck.

"While you were fighting Alvida, these guys came and tried to finish the three of us"-she indicated herself, Usopp and Chopper-"off. Needless to say, they weren't that strong and didn't succeed."

"I see." A small smile appeared on her lips as Robin turned to Sanji. "And yes, I would appreciate cold coffee, if that isn't too much trouble."

"Of course, I would be delighted!" said Sanji as he happily headed for the kitchen.

"Now we just have to wait for Luffy and Zoro," said Usopp when the kitchen door had closed.

"Yes," agreed Nami. "Then we'll leave this island as soon as possible."

At this, Robin raised an eyebrow.

"But navigator-san?"

"Hm?" Nami looked questioningly at the older woman.

"What about the Logue? We don't have any Eternal Pose to depend on." Nami looked down at her wrist and paled.

"I'd forgotten… And the Logue hasn't collected yet!"

"I wouldn't worry until captain-san and swordsman-san get here. They could be longer than you expect, you know."

Nami, Usopp and Chopper looked worriedly at Robin at these words.

"These were my comrades, Luffy."

Ace's voice was dark as he spoke.

"I know that you value your comrades. Well, I value mine, too. So now my duty would be to fight you."

Luffy's face was serious and grave as he looked at his brother.

"I'm sorry, Ace. He had my hat, and I wasn't thinking."

Ace chuckled grimly as he shook his head.

"I know that your hat is extremely important to you, but dear little brother, you never think at all."

Luffy smiled.

"We're pirates separately seeking One Piece. We would have ended up fighting each other eventually anyway. It doesn't matter whether it's now or later. But right now I hurt your comrades. You have a duty to fight me. It's more serious if we fight this way, right? Otherwise it wouldn't be any different from the fights we had in the village."

Ace's grim smile widened into a grin.

"You're really capable of saying smart things now and again, aren't you? But you're right." His grin disappeared, and he took a fighting stance. "You hurt my comrades. I wouldn't go without fighting you, even with the circumstances involving your hat."

A flicker of doubt that had existed within Ace, opposing to fighting his brother under such serious circumstances, disappeared.

"Good." Luffy's word was accompanied by a serious expression as he, too took a fighting stance.

Without warning, Ace came rushing at Luffy, his arm held out to the side. As he rushed past Luffy, his arm burst into flame, and Luffy only just managed to dodge. Ace's other hand came flying at him, but Luffy had anticipated this, and leapt into the air, nimbly avoiding it. As he flew upward, he kicked out at the other pirate's abdomen. His leg, however, passed right through the man's body.

"Hot!" cried Luffy, nevertheless managing to avoid a column of fire that was shot at his feet.

Ace kicked, punched, and sent out columns of fire, but Luffy succeeded in dodging them all. However, Luffy was not unhurt. He frequently attempted attacks, which accomplished nothing but causing self-inflicted burns.

Ace was quite confident that he could win—he had easily bested his brother before he had eaten the Devil's Fruit, and now, with that advantage, he was sure that his brother had no chance of victory. He did, however, admire his younger brother's determination—he always had. That attitude as though nothing could ever possibly fail, and yet taking defeats without discouragement, but only more determination. He knew that he, too, was like that to an extent, but with Luffy, it seemed to come as naturally as breathing.

Luffy, meanwhile, was not particularly thinking anything. All he knew was that if he was to become Pirate King, he needed to defeat Ace. It did not matter that he had never won before, because then it had just been fights for training and for fun. This time, he had to win in order to fulfill his dream.

Then without warning, something verysmall and unfamiliar entered Luffy's heart. Luffy abruptly stopped moving, surprised. At that very moment, a fist, in the shape of a column of fire, came shooting at his chest. He didn't even try to dodge it. He felt a bursting, burning pain in his chest, and then felt himself flying backwards. The pain, however, was too intense for him to pay much attention to the latter. He thought that he smelled something unpleasant, and then thought that he heard his brother's voice, but the pain was so intense that he could scarcely even tell if it hadn't been his own imagination. As he found himself hitting the water, he felt relieved as the burning stopped. Then, attempting to sigh, he found that he could not breathe or move—he was sinking in the ocean.

The last thing that Luffy felt before everything went black, was puzzlement. What had happened to him?

"I really am fine, doctor-san."

Chopper had been trying continuously to treat Robin's cuts and bruises, but to his frustration, she refused, repeatedly insisting that nothing was wrong, that she was fine.

"But Robin, what if something got infected? And you fell into the water too—the climate here is on the warm side, but not too much so, and that's the perfect climate for a lot of poisonous fish!"

Robin smiled inwardly at the small doctor's determination. Shaking her head in defeat, she gave him a small, kind smile.

"Very well, then, if you insist." Sitting down, she allowed the doctor to rub herbs over her cuts and bruises, also inspecting all exposed skin for bites.

Usually Robin did not refuse treatment, but at the present moment, she was feeling particularly anxious. It had been quite a while since her own fight had ended and Sanji had returned—she had sipped two glasses of cold coffee slowly while she patiently read a book, and then spent approximately ten minutes refusing treatment. Why had the captain and swordsman not yet returned? Was the battle that vigorous? Or had something happened to them? Nami and Usopp occasionally went to the edge of the ship and looked at the docks, but neither could see any sign of movement, nor of Luffy or Zoro. At one point Usopp had said that something, perhaps a fight, appeared to be taking place a little way down the dock, too far to make out clearly, but the movement had abruptly stopped.

Chopper was nervous. He knew that Robin's cuts and bruises were no big deal, and that if she had been fine so far, it was unlikely that she had received any sort of poisonous bite, but he felt the need to do something. He was frightened for Luffy and Zoro, but felt too afraid to go out of the ship on his own to go and look for them. Besides, no one else had mentioned going out and searching for them, and he didn't want to appear to have less faith in the captain and swordsman.

"Hey, a ship's heading this way!" called Usopp. "Only…" his brow furrowed. "It seems to have come around the island from the other side for some reason…"

Chopper rushed to his side to look, the other three following close behind.

Author's Note: I know, about 1000 words shorter than usual in addition to the delayed update. But I promise—the next chapter will be up when I receive five reviews, so review everyone!