Authors' Note
Here's chapter seven, love you guys! :)
Review Responses
Jui-Imouto-Chan: We feel like genies fulfilling all of your wishes! We...hate Flambe with a burning passion, it was very fun writing her getting banished. Katakuri's a big softie at heart and we love him very much, enough to give him a cute kitten to take care of and cuddle with. We actually both completely forgot about the existence of Boa Hancock...oops...Thanks for the reminder! She will definitely be around XD
Jordansdevil: Glad you're keeping up with the story! Thanks for the review!
Final Syai Lunar Generation: Yay new reviewer! Your review made us so happy...and may or may not have had us laughing out loud...you're wonderful :) One of the main reasons we started writing this story is because Luffy is just too cute. Thanks for your kind words, hope you keep enjoying it!
What to expect in this chapter
- film references
- the plague
- psychotic flamingoes
LUCCI'S POV
Looking back on the past few days, Lucci decided that he really didn't mind being a leopard. He'd scared quite a few people, chased some birds and some dogs for the heck of it, and evaded capture with ease. This was why he didn't bother moving when the door of the house whose back porch he'd spent the night on slid open, revealing a tall woman with long, straight black hair that he recognized as Robin, the wife of an underground broker.
"Oh, hello there Mr. Leopard." she greeted him, "it's a nice morning, isn't it?"
"It always amazes me how calm she is about everything." Lucci mused as he flicked his tail in response to her words.
"Would you like something to drink, ?" she asked, "I can get you a bowl of milk if you'd like." This time, she didn't wait for an answer, turning and going back inside,
Lucci thought back to the first time he'd met her, having needed her archaeological expertise for a case involving a man by the name of Condoriano. They'd met at night, just off the street behind the museum where she was employed, and a man had decided it was in his best interest to mug them. Her voice had remained as calm as ever as she'd asked,
"Don't you know that, if you were to shoot me, you would get my blood and pieces of my flesh on your clothing? It's so difficult to get out," then she'd proceeded to disarm and knock the man unconscious before turning back to Lucci with a small smile and continuing their previous conversation.
His thoughts were interrupted by a loud voice shouting,
"OW, ROBIN! HAVE YOU SEEN MY MAKESHIFT FLUX CAPACITOR?"
"Cutty Flam, also known as Franky. One of the world's craziest engineers...and best repairmen…and Robin's husband." Lucci thought,
"I think it's in the cabinet above the toilet in the guest bathroom!" Robin called back, "Or you could check under the bed!"
"They...are definitely a strange couple."
"OW! IT WAS IN THE BATHROOM! WHAT'S FOR BREAKFAST?"
"I was going to make a quiche but we can have cola instead, all the milk is going to the leopard on our porch." Robin replied
"THAT'S SUPERRRRRRR GREAT!" Franky shouted as Robin reappeared in the doorway with a large bowl of milk.
"I didn't know how much you wanted, , but you're a rather large cat so I used what we had left in the fridge." she informed Lucci, setting the bowl down beside him.
"...I could definitely get used to this." Lucci thought as he stood and went to drink his milk.
SMOKER'S POV
"We have literally nothing new that we can tell you." Doctorine said the second Smoker walked into the lab.
"Nothing?" he sighed, "At all? 5,000 dead and you can't pinpoint the cause?"
"No," the elderly woman replied,
"We've tested all of the letters that were found with some of the bodies." little put in, "the substance found on them was basically chalk, nothing harmful to the human body."
"Well then, why did so many people drop dead?" Smoker questioned, by now used to trusting the word of the young doctor,
"Well, the symptoms described by witnesses, and the data collected from the autopsies suggests...an extremely accelerated strain of the septicemic plague."
"...the plague. You...you did not just tell me that they all died of the plague…"
"...Yes, yes she did." Chopper said
"My theory," Doctorine continued, "is that the chemical that triggered the onset of the disease was in that white powder. The letters created a sort of sterile, vacuum space, combined with a coating of an unknown substance on the paper itself to keep the chemical alive, making each envelope a small bioweapon. Once the powder was exposed to the air, the disease stayed alive long enough to infect anyone nearby, either through contact with the skin or inhalation, before dying off after making contact with the oxygen."
"Well that...that is not good." Smoker said lowly, "Not good at all. In fact, that would indicate a terrorist attack."
"Has anyone claimed responsibility for the attack yet? It's been almost two weeks now." the woman asked.
"No, it's been completely silent and that is something I find highly disturbing. Who would kill this many people, making his mark on this city and striking fear into the hearts of all the civilians and not speak up? It would suggest some other motive that we can't even begin to figure out." Smoker replied,
"What are you going to do, Detective?" Chopper asked,
"...I'm going to go attempt to get some help." Smoker said tiredly, "I'm overwhelmed and need someone to assist me."
DOFLAMINGO'S POV
"Thanks for nothing, you useless reptile." Doffy said, glaring at his reflection in the mirror a vet had set up in his temporary enclosure.
Crocodile's plan had, admittedly, sounded like it was going to work. It wasn't too difficult to pretend to be ill, laying around and eating very little for a couple of days. The goal had been to be taken to the clinic near the back entrance to the zoo. The security at that point was nowhere near as tight as the rest of the place. They had expected to be able to break out with relative ease. What they hadn't expected was for the zookeepers to notice four completely different animals with the exact same symptoms and immediately assume that they were facing an outbreak of some new disease, resulting in the subsequent quarantine of all four of them in different facilities around the zoo. Crocodile had apparently not noticed that there were specific treatment and rehabilitation centers for the different categories of animals...meaning that he was alone in this awful building with only his reflection as company.
"I am getting very tired of being a bird." he muttered, still staring at his reflection, which he supposed the zookeepers would think was great, "when I find out who is responsible for this I am going to crush them and I will take great pleasure in watching them burn." He turned his back to the mirror, glaring instead at the door,
"the police are probably still running around uselessly, they don't have a clue what's going on." he snorted, "they don't stand a chance without quality leadership...Akainu's obviously not in charge of this investigation, or is involved in keeping it an unsolvable mystery somehow, not that his officers will ever notice, he's a skilled actor when it comes to hiding his...duplicity."
His musings were interrupted by the door opening and closing quickly, admitting one of the younger zookeepers that had been annoying him at frequent intervals. The young man carefully picked him up and turned him to face the mirror, trying not to stress the flamingo out too much.
"I don't want to stare in this stupid mirror you worm!" Doffy growled, head darting forward to peck at the offending hands. The zookeeper yelped in pain when the blow struck home, backing away quickly and clutching his now bleeding hand as he waited for one of his coworkers to open the door for him.
For a few minutes, Doflamingo had some peace before the door flew open once more. The next few moments consisted of gloved hands grabbing his beak to keep it shut, more of them keeping his wings out of harm's way, and a needle being jabbed into him before he was laid out on a table to "relax". Apparently, when he had first arrived at the zoo he had been labeled as "unpredictable" and "high-strung", meaning that the idiots took any outburst of his very seriously.
He sighed and stared up at the tv in the corner, watching as the reporter updated her viewers on the most recent stories...or the lack of updates on the most recent stories...the investigations were ongoing and literally nothing had changed.
"If this hadn't happened to me, this would have been the perfect opportunity to vie for power. I could have taken down those annoying Charlottes in the confusion, the police are too busy to do anything about gang violence at the moment." he frowned, trying to figure out who could have had the ability to do something like this since turning humans into animals in an instant was no easy feat. His eyes widened as he remembered,
"Caesar! He was missing for a while before this...but...what would he gain? Who gains from turning humans into animals?"
The woman on the screen began talking about the last of the odd cases, the image changing to a picture of a familiar grinning face.
"I'd be willing to bet that Law's roommate's case isn't isolated like they think." Doffy thought, "he's probably in the same situation as the rest of us, though I can't imagine why...Little Law must be sooo worried." he cackled as darkly as a flamingo could, noting with amusement that that earned him some terrified looks from the zookeepers around.
"I'm not going to be in here forever," he muttered, "and when I get out, there'll be hell to pay."
ACE'S POV
"It's been three days since we finally found a suspect and we have no idea where he is!" Sabo growled, staring down at a map of the city that was frustratingly free of targets.
"As we've discovered, corrollating our information and Pops', unlike the other Charlottes, Dogtooth is surprisingly secretive. His base has never been found." Marco sighed, "to be honest, I'm not sure where to go from here…"
"We brought food!" Thatch shouted, throwing the door open and holding up a bag as he entered, followed by two familiar faces.
"Zoro! Sanji!" Ace exclaimed, "It's so good to see you!"
"We ran into Thatch in town," Sanji explained as he shut the door behind him,
"We want to help." Zoro said, "Luffy's my best friend and I want to be part of finding him."
"We need all the help we can get." Ace admitted, surprising them both by throwing his arms around them in a tight hug before they could take more than a few steps into the room.
"Ace, let them move," Sabo drawled, "we need to fill them in on what we suspect if they're going to help out."
Once Sanji and Thatch had distributed the food, they settled on the couches and Sabo stood to talk.
"I'm just going to lay this out." he began, "From what we understand, Luffy was attacked in his apartment, for whatever reason stripped of his clothes, and dragged outside. From there, his kidnappers were then attacked by someone we suspect to be one Charlotte Katakuri,"
"Dogtooth?!" Zoro exclaimed, eyebrows shooting up
"You know him, Marimo?" Sanji asked as everyone's attention turned to the green haired man.
"...I fought him once...in the underground colosseum...never before have I fought someone with such bloodlust." Zoro replied seriously, "I was able to escape with my life, but not without losing this." he pointed to where his left eye had been.
"What does such a dangerous man want with Luffy?" Sanji asked no one in particular
"...we don't really know…" Sabo admitted, "that's a question we're all asking."
"It looks like he just killed the kidnappers and..took off with Luffy." Ace interjected, "and he didn't have his clothes! Who knows what he's doing to Lu!" the man's voice rose as he spoke until Marco grabbed his shoulder,
"Ace, calm down-yoi. We have many resources in this city and Pops' complete support. We WILL find him."
"Dogtooth may be brutal, but he's never been known to hurt kids." Thatch put in, "and Luffy looks significantly younger than he is."
"he's always been tiny, the brat." Sanji snorted, "for once that might work in his favor."
"If you guys want to help," Sabo began, drawing the attention back to himself, "Zoro, I want you to ask around the underground fighting rings, even the colosseum, and see if you can find out where Dogtooth's subordinates tend to gather. Maybe if we can get our hands on one of his lackeys, we can force them to tell us where their base is."
"I'll go with him." Sanji put in, "he'll get lost otherwise."
"I will not!" Zoro growled, glaring at the other man,
"This coming from the guy who can't even walk from the campus to his own dojo without ending up on the opposite side of town!" Sanji shot back,
"Well at least I don't have a dartboard on my forehead!"
"Mosshead!"
"Womanizer!"
"ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT!" Thatch interrupted before it could come to blows, "That's quite enough! We have things to do!"
"That's right." Sabo said darkly, "Dogtooth had better watch out. We're coming for him."
LUFFY'S POV
Luffy liked the rain. He liked how it looked as it fell. He liked the sound and the smell of the rain, especially with his heightened senses. He was grateful that Kuri, as he had taken to calling the tall man, had realized this and opened the window, leaving only the thin screen as a barrier from the outside world.
Katakuri stood from where he'd been lounging nearby, reading, and carefully stroked the kitten's fur. Luffy closed his eyes, allowing himself to enjoy the feeling for a moment as a purr came unbidden from his chest. He rolled over and grabbed at the man's massive hand with his comparably tiny paws (even though his paws were big for a cat his size), making Kuri chuckle a bit as he allowed the kitten to "catch" him and playfully bite down on his hand. Ever since Kuri saved him from the scary girl, Luffy found himself letting his guard down more and more, getting used to being a small kitten and actually acting like one. After Kuri played with him for a little while, he got up and headed for the door,
"I'll be back soon, King." he said as he left the room, leaving Luffy sprawled contentedly on the windowsill.
Luffy stretched before turning over and going back to watching the gentle rain outside, watching calmly for a few minutes before something caught his eye.
A big, colorful butterfly held his attention as it fluttered around in front of the window. It moved from side to side, looking for a dry place to land before settling on the screen, just out of reach. Luffy leapt to his feet and reared up onto his hind legs, planting his front paws on the screen for balance as he stretched to try and reach the little insect. He was almost able to sniff at the butterfly's last set of legs, just a little farther and he'd maybe be able to get close to the delicate wings. He stretched, putting more of his weight on the screen, just a little farther and...the entire thing fell out of the window, taking Luffy with it, his tiny claws trapped in the mesh.
Luffy hit the ground hard, the wind knocked out of his tiny body. He retracted his claws and lay there for a moment until he shot to his feet, wrinkling up his nose at the cold, wet feeling of the rain sinking into his fur. He looked back up at the window, immediately realizing that he wouldn't be able to get back inside that way. He could make his way around the house to one of the doors and either meow until he got someone's attention, or wait there until Kuri inevitably noticed that he was missing and came looking for him...or, he could...have an adventure while waiting for someone to find him...the rain wasn't that bad once he got used to it.
Luffy made up his mind and began his trek through the yard, padding along as the wet grass soaked his belly fur, not that he minded, he was having an adventure! He lost track of time, exploring the surprisingly large yard, stalking beetles and pouncing on flowers as they swayed in the breeze. It was fantastic...until a loud clap of thunder made his fur stand on end.
"...should look for the door…" he thought, eyeing the cloudy sky warily,
For a few minutes, it seemed as though the thunder that had startled him was the only one, a false alarm that he was thankful for as darkness fell. The sudden downpour, followed by an even louder peal of thunder than the previous had him running for what he hoped was Kuri's house.
Little paws met pavement and, for a brief second, Luffy was relieved, thinking he had found the porch. Blinded by the rain, he stumbled forward, searching for the door, only to fall a short distance into rushing water. It was then that he realized that he had gone away from Kuri's house, not towards it, meaning that he had just fallen into the street and was being swept away by the runoff. He coughed and sputtered as the rushing water hit him in the face, struggling to escape the current. He was about to be swept into one of those big drains that had terrified him when he was little (the ones that maybe still scared him a bit, not that he would ever let Ace know that…), he just knew it.
He didn't think things could get any worse until he saw, through the rain, the headlights heading straight for him. Luffy meowed as loud as he possibly could, desperate for someone, anyone, to save him. He didn't want to die, he couldn't, Ace and Kuri would be so sad if he died. He shut his eyes as the light of the approaching vehicle became painful, still crying out as best he could even as he braced for impact.