Disclaimer: I don't own one piece folks, and… *Zoro walks past*
SS: *stares bewildered*
Zoro: where's 'the link between worlds' story? I'm kind of lost.
SS: this is the disclaimer section, the story's down there *points*
Zoro: thanks *walks in the opposite direction*
SS: ...Wtf...
(Oh yeah, some of you left comments (thank you for commenting, speaking of which ^^) asking why Luffy wasn't worried about his crew, and there are two reasons for that. 1. He was the one sent out to retrieve the log pose, and so really, none of the others are in danger, and he knows it. 2. All the new things distracted him too much for him to be worrying ^_^ but, that's kind of a petty excuse isn't it? Maybe I made him a little too calm… sorry about that!
Chapter 4 – suspicions and doubt
When the bell rang for the end of the day, Lynn didn't know how glad she was. The rest of that P.E lesson was chaos. Everyone crowded around Luffy asking how he jumped from so high and didn't get hurt, Mr. Stephens had fainted, and Lynn had a hard time coming up with a convincing cover-up. Her excuse was that he'd been doing aerobics since he was little, and had lots of skill. Her petty explanation didn't even convince herself, but it seemed to please everyone else.
Straight after school, Lynn grabbed her bag and along with Miriam, dragged Luffy out of the school quickly to avoid being stalked by Luffy's fan club, who were now even more obsessed after knowing about his amazing abilities. Lynn took them to an empty field on the hill, clear of civilisation. She finally felt like she could relax after a long day.
"You sure caused a lot of commotion," Lynn laughed. "I knew it was a bad idea taking you to school!"
Luffy just grinned, and Lynn didn't like the looks of that. "Give it a rest already."
"You both need a rest," said Miriam, opening her bag. "Look what I brought!" she fished out a pack of cards and winked. "We should do something more peaceful after a busy day!"
Luffy and Lynn looked at each other, laughed, and nodded.
"Are we all set?" Nami asked her crew-mates. "Have we got everything we need?"
Zoro, Sanji and Usopp nodded. They stood in the busy town street after a long day of shopping for supplies, only Chopper and Robin were still guarding their ship. Everyone was pretty tired.
"Food supplies?"
Sanji held up a huge bulging sack. "Check."
"Ship mending equipment?"
Usopp held up his newly stocked up tool box. "Check."
"One direction-clueless swordsman?"
"Oi."
Nami clapped her hands together. "Right, looks like we're all good, you guys can go back to the ship now."
Usopp tilted his head. "You're not coming? Where are you going?"
"Oh, I've just got something I need to do…" she smiled innocentl., "I'll meet you on the ship later!" and with that, she ran off.
The guys weren't sure what she was planning, but they shrugged it off and headed towards the ship; apart from Zoro. He was sure Nami was up to no good.
Nami smiled to herself as she entered the forest off the side of town.
"Now where is that treasure…?" she muttered, fishing a map from her pocket. She had found it earlier that day when she ran into bunch of random bandits in the pub, and the map had caught her eye hanging out of the king bandit's pocket. So she stole it. Well, she didn't like calling it stealing; more like temporarily borrowing it… without permission…
"I knew it," said a voice behind her. Nami swerved around and saw Zoro leaning against a tree. He had followed her. She quickly hid the map behind her back, but Zoro just snorted, "You can quite the act now, I've already seen it."
Nami scowled. "I'm not splitting the treasure, if that's what you want."
"Why are you so damn obsessed with money?" Zoro rolled his eyes. "We've got loads of gold from Sky Island."
Nami pouted. "But that's for mending the Merry, we agreed."
Zoro suddenly had an idea and he grinned. Nami didn't like the looks of it. "How about," he suggested, a sneaky look in his eyes. "If I help you find this treasure, and don't tell the others, you stop bugging me about my debts."
Nami frowned, weighed up the pros and cons, and although disappointed she won't be able to further torment Zoro over his debt to her, decided she wanted this treasure more. Agreeing with a hand shake they set off to search for the treasure.
A good half hour later of treading through the forest with Zoro hacking down trees as they walked to clear the way, Nami marked the spot where she was sure was the X-mark on the map. It wasn't far up ahead. She looked over at Zoro, following her, clueless, and smirked. She had thought of a way to keep the treasure, and keep Zoro's debt at the same time.
"Let's go back Zoro," she sighed, pretending to be disappointed. "There's no treasure here. I bet it's a fake map."
"WHAT?" he demanded. "So you made us wonder around like headless chickens for no reason?"
Nami faked a hurt expression. "It wasn't my fault."
"Whatever," said Zoro rolling his eyes. "I guess we'd better go back then. Thanks a lot for wasting my time." He started off, and Nami smirked, moving onto stage two of her plan. She covered her stomach with her hands and groaned.
"I need a moment, please," she said to him, squirming in discomfort. "Go on back without me."
"What? Don't tell me…" Nami nodded slowly and Zoro wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. "Alright, hurry up then,"
"The ships about 10 minutes walk that way," Nami pointed the right direction for him and shoved him forwards towards. "Now GO."
"Women…" Zoro muttered in annoyance, and set off, but he only walked two steps along the right track before heading dreadfully off course. Nami didn't notice this, however, as she was already racing towards her treasure.
10 minutes later, Zoro realised something was wrong. "Funny," he thought, scratching his head. "I should be at the Merry by now." What he didn't realise was that he was actually back where he started. Confused slightly, he looked around while he walked, and not paying attention to the road, didn't see the hole of light up ahead…
Meanwhile, Nami had managed to dig up her treasure, and gasped in delight at what was in the small chest that she found.
"I'm rich!" she cried, scooping handfuls of the different golden accessories that glistened with magnificence. Quickly, she got out a prepared sack strapped to her belt, and filled it up. Then, kicking the empty old box to the side, she stood up and headed back to the ship, grinning widely.
"Gold, gold, I love gold…" she sang to herself as she walked, so engaged in thought of how to spend her money, that she failed to notice the circle of light that shimmered on the ground; until she stepped directly into it, that is.
"What the…?" she tried to retract her foot, but it was too late. She fell right in.
"I win!" yelled Lynn triumphantly, throwing her hands into the air. "Fifth time in a row!"
"Damn, not fair," Luffy grumbled. "Why do you get all the good cards?" Lynn stuck out her tongue at him and he pulled a face back.
"You're just jealous!" Lynn laughed mockingly, and Luffy moped. Miriam smiled at the two, gathering and reshuffling the scattered cards.
A yell from above causes all three of them to look up. In the blink of an eye, something fell heavily from the sky and landed on the ground in front of them, sending up a cloud of dust. Lynn and Miriam gasped in shock as the figure groaned. It was rather like a scene out of a horror movie, where the dead is revived and starting to rise from their coffins…
"Wow, where am I?" the figure grumbled, ruffling his short green hair and straightening the three sheathed katana strapped to his side. Both Luffy and Lynn recognised him at the same time.
"Zoro!" they shouted in unison, pointing in his direction. The swordsman looked up and his eyes widened.
"Luffy! What the hell are you doing here?"
Lynn looked up at the sky. She couldn't see a portal through the thick clouds but was sure there must be one up there. She expected a shard of wood to fall, but there was none in sight.
"Boy, am I glad to see you!" Luffy got up rushed over. "We're stuck here!" he grinned and stuck out a hand.
"And why do you look so happy about that?" he muttered, grabbing Luffy's hand and allowing himself to be pulled up.
"This place is cool! You get food delivered to your door and everything!"
"Food. That's all you care about. And to think we're worrying our asses off about you."
"I was worried too."
Lynn rolled her eyes. "No you weren't, you were too busy scoffing your face."
"But the others are safe, right?" Luffy asked.
"Yeah, sure. We've docked on an island and we're just waiting for you."
Luffy smiled on hearing this. Zoro glanced at the raven haired girl who stood behind him. "Who are you?" before Lynn could answer, a long scream shocked all four of them. From the sky, a figure fell exactly from where Zoro did and sent up another cloud of dust from the impact of her fall. Nami sat up and groaned groggily. She realised she wasn't hurt from that scarily high fall. Feeling the bag of gold still in her hands, she let out a sigh of relief.
"Oh," she muttered gently. "I landed on something soft,"
"That would be me." Came an angry growl from under her. "Get off me you bitch."
Nami jumped off and looked at her 'cushion'.
"Zoro!" she cried in surprise, "what are you doing here?"
He scowled at her and got up, brushing himself off. "How would I know? On my way back to the ship, and I fell into a weird hole."
Nami blinked. So he fell into the strange light too? "But that was nowhere near the ship!"
Zoro shrugged. "I don't know, maybe I got a little lost."
She threw a mean punch straight at his face, knocking him over. "How the hell could you get lost when I pointed you in the right direction?"
"Ouch, that hurt you stupid bitch," snarled Zoro, rubbing the bump on his head from where she punched him. "They all looked the same to me."
Lynn sniggered. "In case you didn't know," she whispered to Miriam. "This guy has as much sense of direction as a dead fish,"
"Oi."
Luffy blinked. "Hey! It's you!" he grinned happily on seeing his navigator.
Nami turned and her eyes widened. "Luffy!" then her surprise turned into anger and she punched him, too. "What the hell are you doing here? You know how worried we were?"
As Nami snapped and growled at her two comrades, Lynn noticed a small shard of wood lying on the ground beside her. She smiled and bent down to pick it up. She knew there must be a piece, and she was right! Placing the new-found piece together with her gate pendant, she let them merge together. That's 3 down, and god-knows-how-many-more to go. Lynn looked up at Nami, still nagging away; demanding answers from Luffy. Sighing, she dropped her pendant back down her polo shirt, and stepped forward.
"Chill Nami," Lynn said. "It wasn't his fault."
Nami looked up and for the first time noticed Lynn and Miriam. "Who are you?" and after a small pause, she added. "And how do you know my name?"
"Yeah and why did you know mine's?" Zoro added.
Luffy thought for a moment. "You know, come to think of it, you knew my name too."
All three of them looked at Lynn.
"How do you know us?" asked Nami suspiciously.
"You guys are famous!" said Lynn. "Of course I know you."
"Wow! We're famous?" Luffy's eyes lit up.
Nami frowned. "Don't believe you. Them two might have bounties, but I don't. And if we're that famous, why doesn't she know us?" she motioned to Miriam who had a confused expression on her face on seeing the two new strangers. Putting two and two together, though, she figured that they might have fallen through a portal.
Miriam shrugged. "Because I've never seen 'One Piece'."
They stared at her blankly. Lynn sighed and tried to explain as best as she could, even showing them her gate pendant.
"What? We aren't real?" Luffy cried after she finished talking. Nami just laughed.
"Look, missy, we're real, and you can't convince me with a mere piece of wood. We were born and we go through the hardships of life. We aren't just fictional characters."
Lynn shrugged. "I don't know, we probably live in separate dimensions or something."
"Then how do you know us?"
Lynn shrugged helplessly again. "I really can't explain. I just do."
"Nami, stop questioning her," Luffy came to Lynn's defence. "She's not a bad person."
"How would you know, dimwit?" Nami demanded. "She could be just trying to get to our gold."
"No, that's something you would do." Zoro muttered under his breath. Nami gave him a dirty look.
"You have gold?" Lynn's eyes lit up. She isn't usually a treasure hungry person, but after a few days trying to cope with Luffy's appetite, she was skint and desperate for money. Nami took this the wrong way.
"See?" she pointed accusingly at Lynn. "She's just using you to get money."
"No I'm not," Lynn protested. "I just want money so I can feed this guy." She nodded towards Luffy, who grinned in response.
"It's true," Miriam added. "She's been busy looking after Luffy these few days and she's running out of money."
"Yeah, like I believe that." Snorted Nami.
Zoro looked at the bag in Nami's hands. "So you did find treasure."
"But no credit goes to you, as you didn't help me dig it up," she declared triumphantly, gaining a vicious growl from him on being deceived. Nami noticed Lynn also staring at the bag, and hid it behind her back.
"Come on, please?" Lynn begged. "Share some with me or soon I won't be able to afford anymore food!" Nami turned her head away and Lynn sighed, dejected.
On hearing about food, Luffy's stomach rumbled. He turned to Lynn and looked at her hopefully.
Lynn glanced at her watch. It was 5 o'clock. Slightly too early, but Lynn didn't really care. She was starving too, after a long day at school. "Let's eat then," she said. "Why don't we all to a restaurant or something?"
Luffy's face lit up and Nami scowled at his response. She didn't trust this girl. She was almost sure she was just trying to take over her treasure. "No, thank you. Since we're here now, even if we can't get back, we can take care of Luffy. We don't need you or your food anymore."
Lynn felt slightly hurt at her comment, but Miriam came to her defence. "You don't know much about this place, and I can tell you it's different from where you came from. And you don't even have any of our currency."
Nami hated to admit it, but she was right. She could see some of the town from where she stood, and it looked quite different from anything she's seen before. She glowered at them. "Fine, we'll listen to you for now, but don't try anything funny."
"Look, I'll treat the meal today, so are you two coming?" asked Lynn.
Zoro shrugged, but it was in agreement. He was kind of hungry too. Nami had no choice. She couldn't leave Zoro and Luffy with the two suspicious girls.
"Oh yes, one more thing," Lynn said, looking down at Zoro's katana. "You might want to leave them behind."
He put an arm over his katana protectively and frowned. "Why?"
Lynn sighed. It was normal for him to have this response. "Our laws are different from yours', and if you take them into pubic, you're going to cause trouble. And I mean the police are going to come after you."
"How do we know your telling the truth?" Nami narrowed her eyes. "You might have set a trap for us and are trying to make us defenceless."
"Why would I do that? I'm just trying not to get us arrested!" argued Lynn. "Besides, you've still got him." She nodded towards Luffy, who was getting impatient waiting to go.
Zoro began to protest, but he had a feeling she was right. After all, they didn't know much about this place. He didn't particularly want to cause too much trouble. Mumbling his discontent, he stuffed his katana under a bush and covered them with earth and leaves. Then he walked back to the group, rolling his eyes.
"If anything happens to them..." he threatened.
Lynn smiled a smile of reassurance. "Don't worry. We'll come straight back to collect them after dinner, ok?"
He didn't like it, but he agreed with a nod, much to Nami's annoyance. In her opinion, Lynn had just won over another member of their crew.
"Right, let's go!" Lynn led the way, followed by Luffy, Miriam, Zoro, and finally a reluctant Nami. Making their way down the road to the town centre, Lynn didn't say a word to anyone. She was rather disturbed by what Nami had said. She was right. They had no reason to trust her, and since Nami and Zoro were here now, Luffy had no reason to stay with her anymore. The thought made her feel strangely sad.
Arriving at the town a few minutes later, Luffy, Zoro and even Nami widened their eyes at what they saw; lit up signs and bill boards, fancy looking shops and some strange, machine-like holes in the walls of buildings. They had to admit it was quite amazing and interesting. As they walked, Zoro noticed no one else was carrying weapons of any sort, and began to think maybe Lynn was right. Half way down the busy street, Nami saw a restaurant that caught her eye. It was very posh and looked extremely luxurious. She stopped.
"Why don't we eat here?" she said.
"You've got an eye for quality..." Lynn muttered, looking at the sign. It was one of the most expensive restaurants in town, and somehow, she felt that Nami knew this.
"WOW!" Luffy cried in excitement. "This place looks great! I've decided! We're eating here!"
Lynn checked her purse. She had a twenty pound note and about £50 left from the money her mother had given her. That wasn't enough. If they were to eat here, not only would she be completely out of money, but she has to use up all her savings, too. But looking at everyone's expressions, especially Luffy's, she knew there was no way to back out. Giving a nod, she followed the enthusiastic bunch into the restaurant, sighing.
"I hate Mondays…"
"Aah! That was great!" Luffy patted his full stomach, grinning. Zoro smirked in agreement and Nami smiled, as she had to admit that the meal was fantastic. Looking over at poor Lynn, frowning down at her empty wallet, she felt a somewhat feeling of sympathy for her. Maybe the girl wasn't as bad as she thought.
"Right, let go back for my katana now." Said Zoro, standing up. "Thanks for the meal, by the way!"
Lynn smiled a forced smile. "Yeah," she thought. "A meal that cost a bloody fortune." But at least everyone was happy.
Miriam put an arm around her in sympathy. Neither she, nor Lynn had eaten much, in order to save some money, but it didn't really save much in the end anyway. "Don't worry," Miriam whispered to her. "That Nami girl has some gold we could exchange for money. Maybe she'll give us some if we ask again nicely."
Nami overheard this, and she scowled in response. Maybe they were just after her money.
"Come on." Luffy got up too. "Let's go."
Nodding, the rest of them stood and they all made their way to the exit of the restaurant and started back to the empty field. Lynn looked at Zoro whilst they walked. There was a question she'd been dying to ask for ages, but daren't.
"What is it?" Zoro grunted, uncomfortable with the staring.
Lynn grinned sheepishly and giggled. "Well… I was wondering…" she walked up and ruffled his hair. "Is this really green? Or did you dye it?"
Zoro growled, and Lynn jumped back laughing. "Yeah, it's my natural colour, got a problem with that"
Lynn sniggered. "Nope! Just wondering!"
"Rude little twerp," he muttered, whilst everyone else laughed.
"So, where are you guys going to go after this?" Lynn asked, turning to face the three pirates.
They shrugged. "Aren't we coming back to your house?" said Luffy, putting his hat onto his head.
Lynn looked at Nami, who looked away trying to avoid eye contact. She still wasn't completely sure whether this girl was trustworthy or not. But, after coming into more contact with her during dinner, she didn't think Lynn was enemy.
"Why don't you all stay at my place tonight?" Lynn suggested. "We have spare rooms."
"I suppose we don't have anywhere else to go..." thought Zoro out loud.
Nami wasn't too keen on the idea, but she didn't want to reject the offer, as what Zoro said was true. "Just for one night." She said sternly.
Lynn smiled. At least Nami didn't consider her an enemy anymore. It was getting late now and the sun wasn't going to linger about for much longer. Lynn wanted to retrieve Zoro's katana and get home before it got dark. Speeding up, she jogged backwards up the hill, still facing the group.
"Hurry up then!" she grinned.
Nami and Miriam noticed something at the same time. "Watch out!" they both shouted.
It was too late. Lynn, not seeing where she was going, crashed into the sturdy figure that was on their way down the hill.
"Watch it squirt," a deep voice snarled. Turning, Lynn looked up at the man who stood behind her.
"Sorry," she apologized. But then she stopped. She stared. And her heart beat sped up. She knew this man. Everyone else stopped too, seeing the situation. Behind him, a few more bulky looking men stepped up and stood in a line. They followed him as if he were their leader. The man frowned when he saw Lynn face clearer.
"You look familiar..." he said darkly.
Lynn backed up, clenching her fists. Nami noticed this, although she couldn't tell whether it was in fear, or anger.
"You..." Lynn said through gritted teeth.
The man thought for a moment, and then his frown broke into a smirk.
"I remember now!" he laughed sadistically. "You're the brat from back then, aren't you?"
Lynn's fists tightened even more. Her whole body shook.
The man sneered, seeing this. "Well well well. We meet again."
Next time: Lynn's past is revealed. I thought, that since every other straw-hat crew member had a background story, that I'd give my OC one too, and it'll also be the reason for the final battle (hint hint…) ^_^. Not much humour, but some action and some emotional moments. If you're looking for comedy, wait till chapter 6! (Which i promise WILL be funny!)
R&R pretty please, and I'll see you soon!