Chapter 3

The ironic thing was that, had it not been for Zombie Day, Nami would have never been able to afford to live in a house this nice with her boyfriend. A two story house in what she assumed would have been considered a "nice neighborhood"? Even if it was in Jersey, it still would have been way out of her price range. Not to mention it already being furnished. And she was getting it for free! Well, maybe not free, she reminded herself, seeing Luffy struggling to carry as many suitcases and boxes as he could through the front door. After all, she had gone through a lot, and Luffy had gone through even more, to get where they were today.

She made the necessary logical leaps to convince herself that she deserved this and then asked if he needed help with all the stuff he was carrying.

"Nope! I got it!" He said, wobbling a little as his balance shifted. He set down the stack of boxes with only minimal sounds of something maybe breaking. "This stuff all goes up in the bedroom I think!" He told her before darting back out to the driveway to get more out of the van. Nami studied a few of the boxes, confirming that Luffy was right, before scooping them up and turning around to head up the stairs.

Luffy was also thinking about the course of his life up to this point. Instead of considering it as a payment, he was focusing more on the dramatic increase in quality over the past year or so. If you read the last story, you'll remember Luffy used to live alone in the completely overrun and abandoned New York City. If you didn't read the last story, Luffy spent most of the zombie apocalypse alone and trapped inside the overrun New York City. He thought moving into the same town as Nami was an improvement, but now he'd actually get to live in the same house as her! Like a real couple would! He assumed that's what real couples did because that's what Coby and Vivi did and that was the only romantic relationship he could base his knowledge off of.

Luffy didn't know much about romance, but he tried his best with what he had. He knew what love was, of course. That part was actually easy to figure out. It was the details that he got hung up on. He knew there were certain things you were "supposed" to do, like hold the door open for her and carry her things. That's what TV taught him to do, but Nami told him he didn't have to do that, which confused him at first. He also knew he was supposed to hug and kiss her often, which wasn't hard to do, as she was easily the highest on the list of people he wanted to kiss. He liked how conveniently that worked out.

A shrill scream emerged from the top of the stairs, loud enough that Luffy could hear it all the way in the driveway. Which reminded him of the other thing he was supposed to do: Come running if he ever heard her scream. Granted, he would come running if he heard any of his friends scream, but with Nami he was supposed to run extra hard.

He tore his way up the stairs, slamming the bedroom door open to find his girlfriend standing with her hands covering her face and a deep red blush spreading across her cheeks.

"NAMI! NAMI WHAT HAPPENED?!" He shouted, looking around the room for any possible threat.

"Nothing! Nothing, everything's okay! It's fine go back downstairs…" She muttered through her hands.

"But I heard you screaming! Was there a zombie in here?!"

"No! No it's all fine! We're all cool!" She lowered her hands away from her eyes to peek at him.

"Then… Why'd you scream?" He asked, lowering his guard a little.

Nami sucked in a deep breath. "It was… That." She pointed a slightly shaking finger towards the bed. His eyes followed her finger until he saw…

"A centipede?"

"I wasn't expecting to see it and I was surprised!" Nami said, forcing every syllable in that angry way when a person wants to feel completely justified in their failure. "So I let out an exclamation of surprise!"

"You screamed," Luffy said flatly. He didn't take his eyes off of her as he walked toward the bed, only looking away from her to focus on the centipede. He picked it up gently between his fingers, making him a braver man than I, and resumed focusing on Nami as he carried it to the bedroom window. He slid it open with his free hand and tossed the offending monstrosity to its fate. If Nami thought Luffy understood what it meant to be condescending, Nami would have thought he was being pretty condescending.

He was only sort of making fun of her. He found her phobia for creepy crawlies hilarious, especially since zombies were way more threatening than a beetle or a centipede. He understood that as her boyfriend, it was his job to take care of the bugs, but that didn't mean he couldn't tease her about it in his own way.

Around that time they started hearing the trumpets.

A half hour or so earlier, Coby and Vivi were going through a similar process of unpacking in their new house. Both of them working together because that's what couples do after all, to unload the van one trip at a time. Just like Nami and Luffy, their house was also way out of their price range, considering they were both eighteen years old.

Vivi had gotten caught up studying the backyard, looking out the doorwall with a box in her arms. Before the construction, it had been one of those open backyards without any fences. Now of course it had the metal panels cutting off whatever had been the view before. Still, it was a bigger backyard than the one at their old house. The one back in Boston.

"Vivi!" Coby's voice snapped her out of her thoughts and she jumped, turning around to see him behind her, shifting the weight of the box in his arms. "You okay?"

"Oh, fine! Just looking around."

Coby grinned at her. "It's a nice place, isn't it? Bigger than the other house! I wasn't expecting something like this to be waiting for us when we got here!"

"It's a beautiful house, and the yard is amazing, even with the walls," she agreed. The walls weren't exactly decorated or designed with aesthetics in mind. Their purpose was to protect and they didn't need a fresh coat of paint to do that.

"Buuuuut?" Coby said.

She shook her head. "But? There's no 'but', it's fine!"

"You're doing that nervous thing where you bite your lip."

"I'm not biting my lip!" She said, biting her lip. After a moment of silence, she set down her box and ran her fingers through her hair. "Alright, fine. I'm just… Now that we're here? I'm wondering if this was the right decision for us to make…"

Coby seemed surprised. "Really? I thought you were totally on board for this! What changed?"

She shrugged, gesturing to the entire house. "This! I didn't expect all of this when we got here! It's beautiful! I mean, the walls aren't exactly pretty, but the houses and the yard and… We're by the water… Yes, it's New Jersey, but… I don't know, when we were talking about joining the others, I just always assumed it would be a temporary thing. This just feels so permanent."

"Wait, your problem is that… The place is too nice?" Coby tried to understand. At this point in the conversation, it could go one of two ways. He wanted to keep Vivi talking. He hated confrontation, but he would rather settle issues as quickly as possible, rather than let them sit for a later time. However, he was afraid she would decide to table the issue for now, which meant that they would continue this discussion when she was ready, and he would have to stew in the meantime.

Vivi shrugged, "I don't know. It doesn't feel like a good place to raise kids. I mean, it feels safe and secure, but… There's only going to be twelve of us here. That's not much of a community."

Coby could feel his throat tightening, and it became harder and hard to get words out. Hopefully his wife didn't notice his voice cracking. "Y-yeah, that's true but-..." Something about her statement didn't make sense. "Kidssss?" he asked. "Uh, whe-when did the plan change to kidssss?"

"When we moved into an actual house and had real neighbors and a real backyard and a real screen door!" She sighed sharply. "We can't have neighborhood barbecues if we don't live in a neighborhood, Coby."

"We also can't really have neighborhood barbecues because it's a zombie apocalypse but…" Coby said

"You know what I mean! Look, we're already here so we might as well just keep unpacking and we can talk about this later." She picked up the box and turned to head toward the staircase.

And there it was. It had officially become something that would hang in the air like a mosquito until it was dealt with. Once Vivi decided they were done talking for now, it was nearly impossible to get the conversation going again. He was about to call out to her to continue the conversation anyway, when they both heard the trumpets.

Evidently everyone else had heard the trumpets. The eight of them had filtered out of their respective houses and gathered near the front gate. They were coming from a distance, somewhere in the subdivision. The Funkytown group looked confused, but the duo from Hancock's group seemed happy. Franky was grinning ear to ear and Baby was sparkling with joy. She scrambled up the ladder to the balcony overlooking the gate. "SHE IS COMIIIING!" She squealed.

"Who's coming?" Robin asked.

"That's Empress Hancock's latest song. The one she plays to announce her arrival," Franky explained. "I guess she's coming to drop off the rest of our group!"

"You mean she's coming here?!" Sanji gasped, similarly smiling from ear to ear in giddy anticipation. He also scaled the ladder to join Baby on the balcony. The two of them peered out over the wall, Baby shifting a little so she was standing shoulder to shoulder with him.

Vivi crossed her arms. "Wait a minute… I know that melody." She brought a hand to her chin and focused on the song being played in the distance. "That's… She's playing Prince Ali. That's Prince Ali from Aladdin."

"Are you sure?" Coby asked.

She nodded. "Just listen."

Coby focused on the song, silently mouthing the words. "Huh."

"I can hear it in the trumpets, but there's something else," Nami said.

"It's a Snoop Dogg track. She has trumpet players doing Prince Ali and she must have a sound system overlaying a hip hop melody. She's creating a live remix," Robin said.

"Ohhhhhhhhhhh" the entire group sans Sanji and Baby said simultaneously.

Baby already had the gate open before the procession had arrived. This allowed Hancock and her escorts to pass through without needing to stop. The scene felt very familiar to Bellemere's representatives. Right down to the pickup truck carrying Hancock's royalty tent thing. However, it wasn't the massive army they had encountered when they first met Hancock a year ago and she threatened to steal Luffy for her harem and make the others her prisoners.

That was a year ago, and they're all friends now, it's cool.

Hancock's truck was flanked at either side by escort trucks and behind her was a van. Her entourage consisted of the kind of eccentric Drama Kids one would expect Hancock to have. The gang could see the escort trucks had a driver and two trumpeters. The van in the back had tinted windows. Presumably to keep the remaining four a secret for dramatic purposes. They had evidently drove in formation the entire way, unlike Bellemere's people who just kind of followed the map. They were starting to feel inadequate in Hancock's presence, but that was normal.

Hancock emerged from her tent and the driver and passenger of the truck immediately leapt out of the truck and dashed to its side. They immediately fell to their hands and knees to create a small human staircase to allow her to step off of the truck bed and onto the ground with grace and authority that most people would only dream of.

With the music gone, the only sound being made was Hancock's heels clacking on the concrete as she stepped deliberately and purposefully to the front of the van. She faced the group. She scanned them all, stonefaced as can be.

The silence was shattered and ground to a fine paste when Luffy waved his hand eagerly and shouted "HI HANCOCK!"

The buttholes of everyone in the area save for Nami, Vivi, Coby, Robin, and Hancock herself immediately clenched up. Franky's eyes bugged out and his head jolted towards Luffy's direction. However, instead of casting a rain of righteous hellfire, Hancock merely smiled, her cheeks going a faint shade of pink, and she waved her fingers coyly. "Hello, Luffy~ I'm so glad you're here~"

The entire group relaxed, but not without some hesitation. "Of course! This is like the COOLEST PLACE EVER! I wouldn't miss it for the world!" Luffy shouted. He was well aware that Hancock pretty much had a thing for him, and that usually people would feel awkward about that, but Luffy didn't see a reason for that.

"Ahhh~ You're so cute, Luffy~" she sang. When her gaze shifted to Nami, the stoneface returned and all those shoujo bubbles vanished in an instant. "Where's your mother?"

"What? Oh! Mom didn't come. Was she supposed to?"

Hancock huffed. "We hadn't agreed on anything, no, but I assumed she would be here to see her daughter off. Now I'll have to drive all the way up there to commemorate this event." She let out an overly dramatic sigh. "I never predicted being her friend could be so inconvenient. I had planned for a ceremony of sorts but now it seems I'll have to cut it short."

She stood up straight and loudly announced "PRESENTING! THE VOLUNTEER STAFF OF OUTPOST LITTLE GARDEN!" And with a grand sweeping motion, she gestured to the tinted van.

The doors flung open and four individuals stepped out. Three of them were complete mysteries, but one of them at least Baby recognized.

"'ALLO LAW!" She shouted, waving from the balcony next to Sanji.

"You know that guy?" Sanji asked.

Baby nodded enthusiastically. "Oh yes! He is my best friend! LAAAWW! IT IS MOI, BABY!"

Law made a deliberate show of completely ignoring her and kept his back to the gate, along with the other three.

One of them, the one with green hair and a scar over his eye, glanced over his shoulder at the balcony and turned back to Law. "I think someone's trying to get your attention."

"I don't hear anything," Law said with the bitterness of orange juice after brushing your teeth.

"THESE ARE THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO HAVE PLEDGED THEIR LIVES TO THE SAFETY AND CONTINUED MAINTENANCE OF THIS OUTPOST!" Hancock announced, commanding authority and demanding everyone look at her because she was important. "THEY ARE! JEWELRY BONNEY!"

The one with pink hair, piercings, and an outfit that looked trashy but in a dedicated way, like she had studied and planned out every bit of her outfit to achieve the most amount of dirtbag possible, waved with two fingers and then shoved her hands in her coat pockets. She carried the attitude of a teenager who was being forced to go to the craft store in the mall instead of getting to go to Hot Topic.

"PERONA!"

The other one with pink hair, but she dressed like a gothic lolita, with the big floofy dress and braided hair and parasol and combat boots, didn't wave at all. Instead she scowled and huffed as though all of this was beneath her. The truth is, not much was beneath her because she was also short.

"RORONOA ZORO"

In complete contrast to the dainty little lolita, Zoro was a gorilla. Evidently he was going for some kind of pirate theme. But not the eyepatch and parrot kind. More like the cool kind, wearing a thick, heavy olive green coat and heavy leather boots. He wasn't too dedicated to the pirate look or else he'd have some kind of cutlass or musket instead of the three katanas attached to his belt. He nodded to the rest of the group but didn't say anything else. He was trying to look cool, you see.

"AND TRAFALGAR LAW!"

In the year since we last saw him, not much has changed about Law. He was still a weenie who didn't get enough sleep and looked constantly annoyed at literally everything in his way. It didn't help that Baby was still ineffectually trying to get his attention by shouting for him nonstop. And yet his dirtbag appearance had this inexplicable appeal and most of the ladies present were happy he would be joining them.

"These volunteers are among the best and brightest of my empire. Each has a set of skills I believe will be more than suitable to meet the needs of this outpost. I would've been able to go into detail, but now that I'm on a time limit, they will have to explain themselves," Hancock said. "NOW! MINIONS! UNLOAD THEIR SUPPLIES!"

She stepped up on the backs of her men and settled herself inside of her tent on the back of the truck. While she did that, the other men inside the escort trucks piled out and got to work pulling suitcases and boxes off the beds of the trucks.

"Oh you guys are gonna bring all that inside-" Zoro started to say, only to watch them unceremoniously dump everything in a big pile in the middle of the street.

Once they had finished this bare minimum work task, they climbed back into their trucks and Hancock poked her head out to address the remaining twelve members. "I leave this outpost to you all! Never forget that you all now represent my glorious empire! Your actions here will reflect on the honor of not only your fellow man, but on your empress! I trust all of you to stand as bastions of my beauty and righteousness! Goodbye, all!" She disappeared into the tent, satisfied with her speech. "NOW TAKE ME TO BELLEMERE!" She called to her minions.

The music started back up and the trucks,

Minus the tinted van, pulled back out into the street. Sanji and Baby watched them leave from the balcony until they were out of sight and the music had faded into silence. Franky walked over to the gate and closed it before turning around to the new crew.

"So! Welcome to Little Garden! Let's uh…" He glanced at the pile of luggage. "Let's get you four sorted into houses, eh?"