A/N:Trucking on, here! Thanks for the feedback thus far. Also, if you're the sort of person who'd like to beta this, I'd appreciate it if you'd drop me a line.
Luffy could only assume there was a military curfew in place on the island. The lack of pedestrian traffic wasn't too far out of the ordinary in a small town, but Shells Town wasn't exactly a small settlement. It was a trade hub, and there should have been people coming and going next to street lanterns until the wee hours (when the taverns closed).
Instead of a bustling night life, there were only the echoes of scavenging animals and night birds bouncing on empty streets.
While usually happy to ignore the cold night air, Luffy could feel a chill wind nipping at her torso through bullet holes. Her experience as an urchin trained her to look for new clothing in the most expedient way possible. In this case, she trained her eyes on the clotheslines that marked civilization the world over.
She used her rubber limbs to pull herself over a short fence and into a yard where an assortment of garments dangled unguarded. She helped herself to a shaggy brown sweater interspersed with messy knitting and a misshapen hood. If nothing else, it would hide her form from any roving marine sentries (however absent they may be).
With aplomb, she resumed her search of Coby, occasionally startled by dogs barking. With the knowledge available to her, she assumed he would either be at an inn or a bunkhouse. Though he lacked money, most places would let you stay in the common room in exchange for manual labor. It was a hospitality custom that stretched back centuries in East Blue as a courtesy to shipwrecked sailors, but her little friend would certainly be in need of it now. The boy had naively left her with their coin purse.
After an hour, she spied the only lit streetlamp in all of town. Near it was the telltale wooden sign that indicated an open inn. She ducked against the outer wall and stealthily made her to the closed saloon doors.
Her entrance was relatively low-key for what her personal history had assigned to normality. Her guess as to Coby's location had been absolutely on the money: He was hunched over a table in front of a dim bar attended to by a woman who looked more like Luffy's childhood caretaker Makino than she had any right to.
He was currently completing the dissonant action of staring into space while at the same time letting the object in his eyeline burn its image into his corneas. It was dark, so she couldn't make out the bags under his eyes or any redness behind his damaged glasses lenses, but she assumed those details were there. She hadn't meant to scare him like that… Well, for more than the couple of seconds that people addicted to shock value tended to. The intention to hurt certainly wasn't present.
The innkeeper, who had no reason to recognize Luffy, was more than willing to sell her a couple of ciders, though she did narrow her eyes at what was probably an infamous local sweater.
"How is Avery these days?" she asked casually as she provided the beverages.
"No idea." Luffy said, thinking very little of the probing for an explanation for her stolen good. "I took this without asking."
The barkeep sputtered and moved to take the drinks away.
"Eh? Can we do this later?" Luffy motioned to Coby. "I kinda have something more important to do right now."
"We don't serve thieves here," came the innkeeper's reply.
"But I bet you'd serve a murderer." Luffy retorted, leaving double the amount of coin needed for the beverage as the woman blanched, clearly intimidated.
Coby continued his staring in the near-catatonia of someone who watched their hopes die, barely even moving as a steaming mug was laid down in front of him. Luffy sidled near him and took off her straw hat to place it on his head with a sympathetic hum.
"Sorry for the delay." she hummed, placing her face directly onto its side on the table's surface. "I had some ...things..."
Coby coughed, recognizing the familiar scents, sights, and sounds of the only friend he'd had in years.
"Luffy?" He asked hoarsely, rubbing his face and righting his posture to look at her concerned face.
"Yeah." She confirmed.
He let out a burst of shaky, uncertain laughter, but said nothing as clarity returned to his eyes.
"I thought it best not to poke the bear." She explained. "The bear being the marines… and poking them being, you know, not dying when they ordered me to."
His face screwed up in contemplation as he grabbed a dirty fork so hard his hand shook.
"So you're telling me that you, Monkey D. Luffy, made a decision based on logic."
"Yes?" She sat up, feeling a dark aura emanating from her companion.
"-and in order to do it, you had to let me see you get brutally murdered by my heroes."
"When you say it like that, I sound like quite an asshole!" She laughed.
He stood up and knocked over his chair with the effort. "That's because you ARE!"
It would be a lie to say Luffy was caught off-guard by his wild haymaker (and not a small one, at that). She actually let out a small chortle as the chair tipped back with the force.
"Feel better now?" she asked from the floor, looking up at the ceiling with amusement.
"Immeasurably." Coby replied, the anger melting away from his face in front of a gathering group of spectators. He bent over to help Luffy back up and started to laugh despite himself. "I can't believe you, Luffy."
"I get that a lot." She conceded, grinning like an idiot.
"I'll bet."
Coby waved to the innkeeper, who had approached in concern during the ruckus. "It's okay, Ms. Leah! This is the friend I was talking about!"
Ms. Leah frowned. "You only talked about the one the marines gunned down."
Luffy had the decency to put an arm behind her head and at least look ashamed.
"Would you believe it if I said they missed?"
"No." Ms. Leah and Coby responded in unison.
"Ah. Well, I'm a rubber human, so I'm bulletproof."
"I don't believe that either." Ms. Leah deadpanned, only to have Coby interject with a,"That one's true, though."
Luffy pulled the side of her face and stretched it obscenely, allowing all of their spectators to see the flesh of her gums and cheek. She then let it snap back into position, making a sound not unlike a bullet. The customers of the inn gaped.
Small footsteps began to run down stairs at the sound. Luffy waved at the little girl from earlier but Ms. Leah stepped between them.
"You claimed to be a murderer?" she asked, her voice shaky. The other patrons mirrored her fear. "I.. I can call the marines!"
Luffy grinned and sat back down on her chair. "Oh, no. I accused you of serving murderers." She leaned forwards, brown eyes intense. "The marines. I was talking about the marines under Captain Morgan. Or am I wrong?"
The people in the bar showed a gamut of reactions, all of which only affirmed what Luffy had already suspected. Coby looked upwards suddenly, recalling one of the things that had been bothering him before their ridiculously nonchalant reunion. "They're going to kill him."
"Zoro?" She asked, though probably unnecessarily. It took work not to look pleased with herself (especially when the room carried an energy that could only be described as 'pre-riotous').
Coby nodded. "A patrolman came by with the announcement. It's going to happen tomorrow at noon."
"YOU CAN'T LET THEM!" Screamed the little girl on the stairwell. Ms. Leah's mouth hung open in a pre-protest. Those two had probably had this conversation already. In fact, Luffy thought it safe to assume that everyone there had already mulled over this idea and thought the best of it.
The base contained hundreds of marines with guns. Historically, unarmed civilians did not fare well against such odds.
"Rika, sweetheart, we can't just-," Ms. Leah began.
"I'LL GO MYSELF!" Said little girl stood her ground and merely shrieked this, eyes squeezed shut. "I'll go myself and I'll beat them up!"
"Shishishi!" Luffy laughed uproariously. "She's brave! You must be very proud."
The word 'proud' should have been replaced with the word 'horrified', but Luffy was relatively certain that those two sentiments could exist side-by-side.
"Coby, I think my work is cut out for me. You coming along in the morning?"
The boy threw up his hands in surrender. "I can't stand to see the marines acting so shamefully. You know I have no choice here."
"Yes!" Luffy pumped her fist into the air. "Anyone else up to a revolution?!"
There were a few murmurs, but ultimately no one came forward. Oh, well. Luffy didn't really expect anything else.
Zoro hated being wrong. He especially hated being wrong when it meant he was going to have to pledge his allegiance to what he could only identify as a mysterious, insane, ambitious, and very poorly-dressed young woman. She was truly the offspring of the devil.
That being said, he loved the fact that he could look at the towering hulk known as Captain Morgan and his entourage without actually being afraid that he would die. He also appreciated that Helmeppo had tried to talk his father down in front of everyone under the midday-sun, presumably still consumed by guilt about a non-murder.
Captain Morgan wouldn't have it. He'd already made up his mind to kill a dissenter, and he'd be damned if a child he never loved would stop him.
The firing squad consisted of 20 soldiers. Knowing Roronoa Zoro's reputation meant he wouldn't take any chances. The swordsman had no doubt that, counter to regulation, every single rifle would be loaded.
There was the sound of something elastic snapping and the same object soaring through the air that came right before the order to fire. Again, Zoro was shielded by a waif. This time the bullets pushed through the air behind her, dragging her skin into obscene lines that snapped the ammunition back into the air.
She remained standing and even laughed at the stunned marines in front of her. Helmeppo fainted right away.
"So, which one of you guys is Captain Morgan?" she asked, beaming brightly from where she stood in a mangled sweater.
No one answered, so she just went after the enormous likely candidate with a punch like a pistol. To be fair, not everyone had a literal target on their face like her chosen enemy. He had a metal jaw that shimmered in the midday sun, and Zoro loved the sound it made when it was mangled in a single blow.
He didn't have long to meditate on this before he felt someone assertively pulling at the knots keeping him stuck to his wooden cross. Luffy's little friend wasn't doing a very good job of setting him free, but the bounty hunter knew an honest effort when he saw one.
"You're going to need a blade, kid." Zoro muttered.
"Got it. I think I'm going to have to wait for Luffy to incapacitate some soldiers before I get a saber, though."
As if in an answer to both of their prayers, Luffy's manic laughter broke through the air, accompanied by panicked soldiers' screams.
"I think," Coby said, pushing his glasses frames up the bridge of his nose. "-that's my cue."
He ran over to a group of incapacitated soldiers and took one of their standard-issue cutlasses. He returned with it and sawed the bindings off. Zoro immediately fell to his knees and tested the bounds of his new freedom to the rhythm of Luffy's wanton (but ultimately nonlethal) violence.
Zoro's eyes eventually fell on her as he stumbled to his feet. She had danced her way around the battlefield stunning her opponents when possible. Some of the marines weren't even trying to engage her after seeing what she could do. They certainly weren't trying very hard to protect their commanding officer, whom Luffy was strafing like an angry starling with her punches and kicks.
The bounty hunter suspected she was toying with him. He could only guess as to why, but his primary theory involved humiliating him to show his underlings he didn't deserve to command their fear. If that was her plan, it was shaping up nicely.
She broke away from the fight to make eye contact with Zoro. She gave him a knowing glance that was more confusing to him than anything else. Then, she merely stood there with her back to the enemy in what he hoped was merely a game of chicken with the ax.
Moments passed and he began to realize she wasn't playing chicken with the ax. so much as with him (assuming she wasn't actually immortal; he needed to ask about that). She was allowing an infuriated man with an enormous weapon in his arm to charge at her exposed back so that he would move his ass and cover it.
He'd made a deal, and while she hadn't yet completed her end of the bargain, she was close.
He grabbed the sword from Coby's hand and deflected a would-be killing blow despite his exhaustion.
Luffy clapped twice. "Nice, Zoro!"
"No problem," he deadpanned, only to have his eyes widen as her arm elongated to strike a finishing blow. He was beginning to put together her powers from watching her fight (combined with her nigh-invulnerability where bullets were concerned), but it was still unnerving to watch the limb extend from the sleeve of her ugly sweater like an obscene fleshy stem.
Captain Morgan fell forward, and the remaining marines threw their weapons up into the air with the hoots of liberated men. Coby joined their happy shouting, but remained close to Zoro's cross. This wasn't truly his party.
As unpredictable as she had seemed to be, Zoro didn't bat an eye when Luffy hummed happily and shot herself through a window on the third story of the base. He assumed she was fulfilling the rest of their pact and turned out not to be wrong.
She returned with what he could only assume was every sword she could find, and happened to have his three blades in the pile. He stroked them lovingly and ignored and sounds the people around him made in response. How he felt about his katana was his own business. They could take their petty blade-related prejudices elsewhere.
Finally reunited with his lovelies, Zoro let himself relax and his body's fatigue caught up to him. He collapsed to his knees, which apparently alarmed his new… captain, was it? She pursed her lips into a frown and picked him up like he weighed as much as a toddler. Though he had lost some body mass, Zoro still knew to be impressed.
He dozed off in that position, content that he was in capable hands.