Author's Note: Sorry this chapter took so long! Please review!
Disclaimer: Don't own One Piece
Chapter Eight: Class-2 Criminals
"OI, YOU PUNKS!" the soldiers yelled. Everyone turned to look at them. "Do you have any idea what you've done to the captain?!" one of them yelled, pointing at Nami.
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Nami apologized. "It was… a reflex!"
"REFLEX?!?!"
"I mean, how do you say it… unintentionally…"
"UNINTENTIONALLY?!?!"
"Today was my very first time on a Waver, so I'm sorry about that accident…"
"ACCIDENT?!?!?!"
Nami blinked, then grinned. "Yes! It was an accident! As I'm sure you all know, it's very difficult to control a Waver, and today was my first time on one! I had a very hard time controlling its direction!"
Luffy was confused. "But you were zipping everywhere on that thing so smoothly across the cloud oc-"
Usopp clapped a hand on Luffy's mouth. "Shut up moron!" he hissed. "Nami's got it all under control with this story!"
Pagaya came to save them. "I'm sorry for lending my Waver to a beginner, but shouldn't we take care of Captain McKinley?"
The soldiers jaws all dropped to the floor. "Oh damn! We forgot about Captain McKinley!!" They started running around in circles, crashing into each other and freaking out. "Captain McKinley's hurt! What do we do?!"
The Straw Hats sweatdropped. "Oi…"
"I can offer my house to nurse him, I'm sorry," Pagaya offered.
The soldiers suddenly lined up in the blink of an eye in uniform formation again. "We appreciate your cooperation!" one of them said. They all 'saluted' Pagaya. "Heso!"
Hoshi sweatdropped. "Great… the government here's run by a bunch of loonies," she muttered.
Zoro chuckled. "Sure seems like it."
The soldiers placed McKinley onto a stretcher and started crawling away. "The eight of you stay right there and don't move!" one of them called back.
Sanji lit a cigarette. "There they go crawling again…"
"Just carry the dude already," Hoshi grumbled.
Conis watched them leave. "I know… that you all are not bad people," she said, seeming to have difficulty saying the words. "So… please leave!" she told them, before running off.
Nami watched her go. "We should listen to her, " the carrot top said softly. She turned to face the crew. "I saw it with my own eyes! An island filled with terrifying people!!"
Chopper and Usopp started sweating.
"So you really did go to that forbidden holy place," Zoro said.
Luffy got stars in his eyes. "The place we must never, ever set foot?! Terrifying people?"
Usopp spun around a couple times in panic and covered Luffy's ears. "No more for you!"
"I'm not sure if they're Gods or guerillas, but I AM sure that they're nothing but trouble!" Nami continued. "Anyways, we're leaving, right now! If we stay here much longer, the way our luck's going, those two are going to be in serious trouble!!"
Sanji sighed. "Parting with Conis-chan breaks my heart… but if Nami-san says so…!!"
The crew started preparing to leave. Hoshi glanced back at the house with the balcony… Conis' and Pagaya's house. She felt a strange regret to leave those two behind, but she was certain by now that they weren't people who meant them any harm. The skull and crossbones donning the straw hat snapped in the breeze overhead. She glanced back at the beach… to see that Luffy hadn't moved an inch from where he was standing. She pulled out her wings and flew back onto the beach, landing behind him.
"What are you doing Luffy?" she asked.
"Why are we running away?" Luffy asked back.
Nami answered, "Because we're in danger!"
"Aren't we always in danger?"
"But this isn't just about us," Nami argued. "We might get those two arrested too!"
"But they didn't do anything wrong. Arresting them is what would be wrong."
Nami backed down for a second. "You have a point there… How many times do I have to tell you!? It's too dangerous here! Not just for us, but for them too!"
"Isn't there danger wherever we go?" Hoshi asked.
"YOU'RE NOT HELPING!!" Nami roared at her. Hoshi grinned, unfazed.
"But there is," Luffy agreed. "We're pirates."
"But those people-"
"Please run away!" Conis and Pagaya had returned… with a recovered Captain McKinley and his troops. "I beg you, run away now! Hurry!"
"Crap!" Nami muttered.
"Be silent!" McKinley told Conis. "There's nowhere for them to run. Know that if you try to aid these criminals, both of you will suffer grave consequences as well."
Conis fell silent, trembling.
Hoshi narrowed her eyes, aqua turning to ice.
"At any rate, for repeatedly directing abusive language towards us, and for the obstruction of a public servant… these Class-5 criminals are sentenced to cloud drifting!" McKinley confirmed.
"Crap!" Nami said again, louder. She grabbed Hoshi and Luffy. "Let's get out of here!"
"ARREST THEM!"
Five White Berets pointed arrows at them. Hoshi noticed that instead of points, these arrows had Dials on the ends of them.
"Please run away!" Conis burst. "You can't fight them!"
The soldiers shot their arrows. The Dials activated, spewing out a trail of some sort of solid white cloud behind them. "Milky Arrows!"
"Nami, sorry!" Hoshi yelled. She shoved Nami into the cloud ocean, out of the fight. Luffy dodged the arrows, and fell on top of a trail. He didn't pass through it… it really was solid.
"What is this stuff?!" he exclaimed. As if anyone was going to explain.
"White Berets… attack!"
The soldiers leaped into the air and started skating on the clouds towards Luffy and Hoshi. They both jumped out of the way, just barely avoiding getting hit by them.
"Hoshi, get out of here!" Luffy yelled. "I got them!"
"Right," Hoshi yelled back, jumping to the ground and ducking out of the clouds… or attempting too.
"You're not getting away!" one of the soldiers shouted. Five of them skated towards Hoshi at full speed, twirling lethal daggers in both hands from all directions… left, right, above, below, and behind. Hoshi ran, having trouble because her feet kept sinking into the fluffy cloud.
"Damn," she muttered, drawing her whip from the air. Cracking it even before it had fully materialized, she snapped it around the fluffy cloud below her and jumped, swinging out of the way just as one of the soldiers threw his daggers at the place she had been a second ago. She smirked at him as he passed by. Pulling herself back onto the cloud, she cracked her whip in a special twisting manner. It moved so quickly, it was impossible to see.
"Shiruba Hebi!"
The only clue anyone had to its whereabouts was the soldiers falling off the clouds.
Hoshi actually felt better than she had all day. Her nerves had felt constantly on edge, but now… she felt better. Making pleasant conversation with people she barely knew? Not happening again any time soon, she hoped. Fighting for her life and freedom with the Marines? Somehow, this just felt more her somehow. She felt better in this position.
Luffy had narrowly escaped the knives as well. "Hoshi! They're all wearing skates like mini-Wavers!" he called.
"What?" Hoshi looked, and saw he was absolutely right. Suddenly, she saw something much more important. "Luffy! Look out!"
"Huh?!" A knife wielding soldier was dropping down on Luffy from above and behind. Luffy whirled around and scowled. "It's cowardly to attack from behind!" he roared, grabbing the poor guy's head and throwing him into three of his companions.
"Hoshi! Get out of here!" Luffy yelled. She looked at him for a second, and then grinned. He had the look in his eye again… which could only mean nothing good for the rest of the soldiers.
"Got it," she shouted, jumping from cloud to cloud until she was in the clear.
"I SAID you're not escaping!" a soldier growled, throwing his knife at Hoshi.
The blade buried itself in the back of Hoshi's calf and went straight through to poke out the other side. She blanched, her face tightening with pain as she landed and fell onto the cloud beach. Blood pooled and stained her pants, dying the cloud beach red. Conis screamed.
"HOSHI!" Zoro yelled. He ran to where she had fallen and took one look at her pinched face before shaking her shoulder. "Hoshi! Snap out of it!"
She cracked open one eye with difficulty and tightly grinned at him. Zoro all but melted for a second from relief, then he put a hand between her shoulder blades. "Come on, sit up."
Gritting her teeth, she sat up with his help. Then she grimly pulled the knife out of her leg, a feat accompanied by a small fountain of blood staining the beach even more. Zoro scowled darkly at the blood. She pressed her hands on either side of her leg to stem the flow.
Hoshi squeezed her calf with as much pressure as she could muster, gritting her teeth against the pain. Not only was her leg throbbing like hell, but the phoenix was screeching because it shared her pain. Suddenly, it fell quiet. What now? Hoshi thought in agony. The wound was burning badly… damn, there must have been poison on the knives! Those cheating, low-life, stupid-headed… Hoshi began a looong mental train of colorful words describing the soldiers as she bit her lower lip to keep from crying out.
"BASTARDS!!!" Luffy roared, stretching his arms. He was yelling loud enough to break Hoshi out of her dazed state. "How DARE you hurt my nakama!!"
"Impossible!" McKinley shouted. "A… a Devil's Fruit user?!"
Luffy's twisted himself around in midair, then started spinning while kicking and punching so fast he was nothing but a blur of feet and fists. "Gomu Gomu no… HANABI (firework)!!"
All of the soldiers were taken out. One of them pulled out a bow and a real arrow with a tip, pointing it straight at the unsuspecting Luffy. Zoro left Hoshi for a second to take care of him. He ran to take of him, growling savagely.
Chopper came running up the beach. "Hoshi! You're injured!" he said, taking off his backpack and rummaging around in it.
It took all of Hoshi's willpower not to yell at the little reindeer. She took a deep, shuddering breath, and let it out slowly.
She ALMOST cried out when Chopper shot some antidote for the poison into the wound, and ALMOST cried out again when he put a disinfectant cream on both sides of the wound before bandaging it up tightly. "There," he said, putting a firm knot onto the bandaging. "You'll be fine now, but you have to take it easy for the next few days or it'll take longer to heal," he told her firmly, meeting her eyes.
Hoshi grinned wolfishly. "I don't think the next few days are going to be easy though," she told the little reindeer.
"Chopper, is Hoshi alright?" Zoro asked, coming up the beach.
Chopper nodded. Hoshi stood with a little difficulty, and then they all watched the soldiers groaning on the beach.
Zoro blinked. "That reminds me… Nami!" he called. "What's our financial situation?"
"50,000 Beli," Nami called glumly.
"50,000? That's all?"
"Normally that's enough to get us through a couple days…"
"Why are we so poor?" Luffy demanded. He pointed a finger at Nami. "As your captain, I have to tell you that you need to be more careful about how you spend our money!" he told her.
Sanji snapped. "ALL THAT MONEY GOES TO FEEDING YOU!" he roared.
Luffy froze and sweatdropped. "Ah."
Robin chuckled.
Usopp crossed his hands across his chest and nodded gravely. "Yosh. It seems my idea to use Formation B was a success.
"Really!?" Chopper exclaimed, looking at Usopp in awe.
Conis and Pagaya were amazed.
"T-the White Berets…" Pagaya stammered. "T-they beat them."
"I thought people from the Blue Sea were supposed to find strenuous exercise difficult here," Conis whispered.
McKinley stood up with a groan, then started laughing maniacally. "You fools!" he cackled. "You all are idiots! Complete idiots! There's no going back now!"
Everyone turned to stare at him. "You should have just obediently followed our orders! The White Berets are the most gentle and understanding of all the guardians in Godland. But THEY… THEY will not be so forgiving!"
Nami gasped and started sweating. Hoshi growled.
"You all are now Class-2 criminals! Beg and plead for your lives all you want… but the Priests of Upper Yard will be the ones to judge you now!" McKinley yelled, pointing at them. "Heso!"
"Just shut the hell up already!" Hoshi said, cracking her whip across his face. He stumbled back a little. Hoshi cringed as she put too much weight on her injured leg, but she remained standing. A cut on the captain's face bled sluggishly. Hoshi coiled her whip and pointed it at him. "Lie down and pretend to be dead now, before you really do become dead," she advised him. "Before I become more pissed off than I already am."
He didn't move, just stood there grinning madly. Hoshi's patience snapped. "Kusabana!" she shouted, her whip cracking again. The last think McKinley saw before being knocked out for the second time that day was a pattern of a six-petal flower etched in the air in front of him. Then the whip caught him upside the head with a nasty thud.