Musician: Chapter 1--Finally! A Drummer?"
It was a hot, humid day as Luffy and the seven Straw Hat Pirates sailed into the port of Ale Town. The sights and smells of city life greeted them with expectancy. The sun beat down on their faces as they set the anchor on the outskirts. Today was going to be of special importance, because the crew was re-stocking on meat!
"Let's go guys!" shouted Luffy at the top of his lungs. "We're going to get some MEEAAT! Yosh!" He was hungry as heck, and couldn't wait to get to the nearest restaurant.
"Yahoo!" yelled Usopp. He was excited, because he was going to buy some new cannonballs and gunpowder, as well as some ship repair supplies. The Going Merry had taken a beating lately.
The crew climbed down the ladder to the shore, but Zoro stayed behind. "Why aren't you coming, Zoro?" asked Chopper, confused. He thought Zoro was cool.
"I'm taking a nap," said Zoro. He sat down against the mast and instantly started to snore.
"Just leave him!" said Nami. "I want to go shopping, NOW!"
"Nami-san is so pretty when she's angry…" swooned Sanji. His eyes, shaped like hearts, beat in and out of his head.
"Shut up! Let's go!" yelled Nami as she slapped Sanji upside the head, leaving a gigantic bump.
"Ohh… she's a demon…" whimpered Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper. They obediently fell in line behind Nami with their heads bowed in shame. Robin smiled softly and followed behind them.
From a dark, second-story window of a hotel on the main street of Ale Town, a dark shadow loomed. A dark fire was in his eyes. (tap-tap). On the street below, the Straw Hats walked by. They were laughing. (tap-tap-tap). The man in the window looked down on them. Even from that distance, he saw something in the eyes of the man with the straw hat. It was…(crack) The broken end of the drum stick fell through the window onto the cobblestone street below. Luffy looked up at the window to see where the sound had come from, but the man was gone.
Later that day, all the Straw Hats had gone their separate ways to buy their own items. Nami and Robin had gone shopping for new outfits, and Usopp and Chopper had gone to the hardware store. Luffy and Sanji had gone to one of the several local pubs, Luffy, to get some meat, and Sanji, to pick up some chicks. As they sat at the bar, eating and drinking, a band jumped up on the stage.
"Ahoy, me hearties! We have a great line-up for you today. Enjoy!" The lead singer strapped on his guitar, and the drummer clicked off. The rowdy melodies echoed from the acoustic instruments, livening up the room and spellbinding Luffy. "I love to see the treasure in your eyes, in your eyes, the treasure I find…forever lasting love…"
"COOL!" said Luffy with a far-away look in his eyes. "Hey Sanji, this just reminded me. We still need a musician for our crew! Let's get one of those guys." Sanji, however, was not listening. He was flirting with some pretty dancers at another table. Luffy walked up to the stage and addressed the lead singer. "Do you want to be our nakama and be a pirate?"
The singer looked disgusted. "Hey Manny, could you get this drunk kid out 'a here?" the singer told the bouncer. A large man picked up Luffy and threw him outside into the dusty street, just as the sky began to get dark.
"Hey, I forgot to pay for the food," thought Luffy. "Oh well." He started walking back to the Going Merry. "So much for the musician, that would have been fun," he thought.
"No, please, noOOO!" A young woman's scream echoed from an alley behind the bar. Luffy spun around surprised, and raced towards the sound. He rounded the corner to find a dirty pirate violently groping a young bartender. As Luffy was about to save the girl, a man jumped out of a dark two-story window into the alley.
"Let her go," said the man to the dirty pirate, in a weird, raspy voice. The mysterious man stood there with his shoulders square, his short, brown hair soaked with sweat. His head was bowed, and he held in his hands two drumsticks. There was a strange, shiny object protruding from the left side of his head.
"HAHAHA!" laughed the pirate. "And what are you going to do to me if I don't? Hit me with your little sticks? Just leave us alone and go away." The girl screamed again.
"Let her go," said the man again. His muscles tensed, and his breathing grew deeper.
"And who are you to tell me what to do?" said the pirate.
"I'm Drummerman." The man lifted his eyes. They were blood red. As he said this, he pressed two small buttons on the sides of the drumsticks. sching was the sound as blades came forth from the sides of the sticks and locked into place. Drummerman raced towards the pirate at full speed as the pirate pulled out a pistol. BANG was the sound that echoed through the alley. Drummerman spun his sticks, forming a shield. The bullet ricocheted, and lodged in the wall of the alley. The pirate was about to fire again when Drummerman rushed up and sliced off his hand. Spurts of blood gushed forth.The drummer held his bladed drumstick to the pirate's neck.
"Oh no," was the only sound muttered from the lips of pirate before his death. In a flash, the stick cut through his neck, and a fountain of red, sticky blood erupted from the space where a head used to be. The body crumpled to the ground, and a pool of blood formed. The young bartender, covered in blood splatter, was too shocked to speak.
"My work here is done," said Drummerman as he turned away from the young woman. His blades retracted into normal sticks, and he stuck them in his pocket. He walked away towards the other end of the alley, where Luffy was.
As Drummerman approached, Luffy could see that the bottom section of a glass bottle was stabbing into the side of Drummerman's head. "It's a mystery bottle...cool…" said Luffy. "Hey! Can you play drums?" he asked Drummerman.
"Of course," Drummerman replied.
"Cool… You're going to join my pirate crew and be our musician!"
"And… who are you again?" asked the blood-soaked drummer.
"I'm Luffy: the man who will become the Pirate King!"
Drummerman remembered seeing this man from his hotel window earlier in the day. He remembered the spark of adventure that he had seen in Luffy's eyes… that wonderful look of complete happiness, as if nothing in the world could stop him. Drummerman wanted that feeling for himself.
"Yeah, I'll go with you," said Drummerman. Just then, a great shout came from inside the bar.
"Murder! Murder! There's been a murder!" A few people who had come outside saw Drummerman and Luffy, the former being completely covered with blood. "It's them! The murderers!" yelled the people.
"Oh crap, not again," said Drummerman. He reached for the sticks in his pocket, as if he had had to do this several times. Luffy stopped him.
"Let's go," said Luffy, and he started running. "Sanji, Nami, Usopp, Robin, Chopper, it's time to go!" As if on queue, all the Straw Hats stumbled out of the various buildings and ran towards the ship with their captain, as an angy mob chased them.
"What did you do this time, Luffy," said Nami as she ran up beside him. "It's a good thing the log pose only took three hours to set."
"I got us a musician! He's soooooo COOL!" Luffy thought everything was cool. "Zoro, raise the anchor! We're leaving!" Luffy grabbed all his nakama with one of his arms, including his new one, and stretched to grab the mast of the Merry with the other. Everyone flew onto the ship, slamming into walls and such.Everyone groaned. "Yosh! Set sail!"
As the night wind carried them onward, Luffy thought of something… it was something that had been bothering him ever since he had met Drummerman just minutes before………
"WE FORGOT THE MEAT!"
End Chapter 1