Disclaimer: If I owned One Piece I would be rich and be writing real stories and not fanfictions, but I don't own it so please don't sue me.

Previously: The empty Going-Merry has been boarded by two men who have collected all of the Straw Hats gold from Sky Peia. Usopp returned to the ship in time to see the trespassers and confronted them as they were about to leave.

Wishful Thinking

Part 6 – Shadow of the Thieves

Zoro had now been lost for the better part of two hours wandering around. The first hour was spent trying to get into town, but after realizing it was a bit of a lost cause he decided to head back to the ship and regroup, which ended up taking about another hour. As he made his way past a group of fairly high shrubbery that was blocking his path he noticed light coming from what looked to him like a bar. He decided that he should reward himself to a drink to congratulate himself on getting out of the wilderness he had been trekking around in for so long.

As the green haired swordsman entered the building, he started to make a direct line to the bar where he immediately ordered a drink from the barkeep. Upon hearing his voice, another person in the bar turned to see him standing and waiting for his drink and called out to him.

"HEY, ZORO!" yelled Luffy with his mouthful of food from across the room.

Zoro turned his head to see Luffy and Chopper sitting at a booth on the other end of the bar. He knew they had to have been there for a while because there was a large pile of used plates sitting in the middle of the table, and Luffy's belly was now protruding out so that his build now resembled that of a beach ball than that of a normal person. Across the table from him was Chopper, who was trying to eat the same amount of food as Luffy but was grossly unable to match his captain's eating ability.

Zoro grabbed his drink and walked over to sit with his friends. As he sat he started telling the two about his adventures trying to find them, but mainly that he knew exactly what to say to the genie in order for him to return Nami back to normal and that he needed one of them to say it. He also mentioned that they should start heading back to the ship now because it took him so long to get into town, but was rather embarrassed when he found out that they were at the edge of town and walking strait down the road would put them back at the docks within a five to ten minutes at the most.

At that same time in a book store in town, Robin was looking for books to add to her personal collection while Sanji was watching Nami like a hawk making sure she didn't try to steal any of the books. Every time Nami attempted to 'hide' a book under her shirt there would be a clearing of Sanji's throat that would inform Nami she was being watched. In the end the throat clearing didn't deter Nami, it just made her smarter about how to 'hide' the books.

Having the mentality of a child, Nami still thought the best way to sneak out a book was under her shirt, but she just had to wait for who she thought was Nojiko to be distracted. This wasn't that difficult because the more Nami watched Nojiko, the more she realized Nojiko was looking at the women in the store with high interest. At first she was confused about why her 'sister' would have such high interest in women, until she realized that Nojiko was most likely admiring the other women's clothing. She saw her chance, while Nojiko was distracted by yet another woman, and quickly pushed a book under her shirt and started to make her way to the entrance of the store and hopefully make her escape unnoticed.

Sanji barely noticed the quick departure of Nami but he still noticed it, the rectangular shaped bulge coming from under her shirt was a little more noticeable however. He pulled his lingering gaze away from the last woman who crossed his field of vision and started to make an intercept course for Nami.

Cursing under his breath to himself, Sanji thought out loud, "Honestly, does she think she can get away with that? She is trying to leave a bookstore with a book shaped bulge under her shirt…" and the more he thought about it, the more he thought out loud and lost focus, "right next to her… bare skin… right under her… her…" he couldn't get anything else out as he started to blush, giggle, and even start to envy the book Nami was trying to steal. Sanji was snapped out of his daydream when he heard a sharp gasp come from Nami.

The sound of the gasp came when Nami, while trying to make her getaway, had accidentally run into someone. Standing right in front of her was a Merman, to be more precise it was a Sea Turtle-Human. He was very old and was dressed in a martial artists garb with a long white beard that easily went down to where his belly button would be if he were a normal human. Nami did not know why but she suddenly was very scared and started to scream.

Meanwhile on the road leading to the docks, Zoro, Luffy, and Chopper were making their way back to the ship to make their final wish and get Nami back to her old self. Zoro was just going over the details of what Chopper will say to R. Williams in order to fix things.

Luffy felt the need to complain about it then, "Why should Chopper get to make the last wish? He already got to wish for something. I want to-"

Zoro immediately interrupted him by yelling, "YOU MADE THE FIRST WISH THAT CAUSED ALL THIS!" Exhaling in more frustration than anything he continued talking to chopper, "Chopper, just repeat what I told you to say exactly and everything should be fine." To which he received a nod from the reindeer confirming he understood.

As they got closer to the ship they noticed something amiss with the way the Merry looked. It seemed like something was added to her side but they couldn't make out what it was exactly. Chopper could see a little better than his two human companions and immediately gasped in shock and transformed into his full reindeer form and started to run towards the ship. Concerned with why their doctor just started running the two took little time to match his speed and the closer they got the clearer their view of the ship was and more so of what was on the ship.

The side of the ship had what looked to be like a figure tied to it with its arms spread apart like he was crucified. The closer they got they now saw that the figure was a man who looked very badly beaten. Then they were so close there was no mistake of what they saw and who it was.

Luffy's expression was pale and blank, and all he could think to do was yell. "USOPP!"

…TO BE CONTINUED

A/N: So yeah been a long time since I actually wrote for this, just been real busy with classes and finals and the like, I know this isn't probably up to what I had previously written for this but just wanted to get this out there and might come back and edit it later. Sorry about it being a shorter chapter than the others I just wanted to get back into the swing of writing and don't think I got it all back yet so I might be throwing out shorter chapters more frequently but no promises because a friend of mine also wants me to help them write a fanfic so we'll see how things happen. Thanks again for reading and hope you guys like it, need to brainstorm for stuff I want to do later on in the story.