Chapter 2: Free Meal
"Wow! A real pirate ship!" Hibo was bouncing around excitedly as he stepped foot on the Going Merry. He tried to run around the whole ship to see everything but he was restrained by Monoka's hand gripping his collar. Her other arm was being looked at by Chopper. She looked around suspicious of all the pirates whom she still didn't fully trust. Hibo continued to run in place trying to make his way out of Monoka's grip.
"Hibo stop! If you fall over into the water I don't know what I'd do! Calm down." Chopper led Monoka and Hibo down to the infirmary.
"Can I go see everything? Please Monoka? Please!" Hibo jumped up and down just to annoy her. She sat as Chopper had motioned and put her arm on a table. She grumbled rubbing her head.
"Fine Hibo, you can go and look around but be careful. Make sure to stay closer to the center of the ship so you won't fall in, okay?" She started to loosen her grip on his shirt. He nodded furiously and shot out of the room once Monoka had let go. She sighed as she watched the door swing open.
"He's gonna get himself killed one of these days." Monoka winced as Chopper put some soap over her now crusted over wound.
"What was going on back there? Usopp told me that a little boy was hurt and now I'm treating you." He lifted Monoka's arm to examine it and see if any of her muscles were disrupted.
"Misinformation." Monoka paused, thinking about switching the subject. "I've seen many strange things in my life, but a talking reindeer doctor takes the cake."
"Well don't worry, I was taught by the best." Chopper set her arm down and grabbed for some bandages.
"You all don't seem like normal pirates I've ever seen before."
"You have no idea," Chopper finished Monoka's arm with bandage after seeing nothing caused her to be in danger. "You're all done here."
"Thank you, you and your crew are very kind for helping us."
"No problem!" Chopper and Monoka were smiling at each other when Nami walked into the room.
"Hey!" Nami started as she walked down the stairs to glare angrily at Monoka. "What the hell happened back there? First, those guys ran off to defeat you and now Chopper's helping you mend a wound?" Nami stood with her arms on her hips looking down at the still sitting Monoka. Monoka met her glare and stood up to reveal that she was several inches taller than her. The death glare Monoka was giving Nami combined with the dried blood in her wavy hair made Nami take a step back and gulp.
"If we are unwanted, we will leave." Monoka still stared at Nami who was now staring back. Chopper was looking frantically between the two.
"It's okay Nami, there was a misunderstanding. The men chasing her were the Navy." Neither girl looked down at Chopper to break their stares but both listened to what he said.
"So you're wanted by the Navy? Are you a pirate with a bounty on your head or something?" Nami crossed her arms waiting for an answer. Monoka smirked and took her gaze away from Nami for the first time since her entering. She started walking toward her so she could leave.
"I'd never lower myself to that of a pirate." She started up the stairs passing a blue haired woman.
"Oh! Who are you?"
"No one of your concern."
"Wait a second! If you're not a pirate then why does the Navy want you?" Nami yelled up to Monoka.
"They're after me!" Hibo appeared at the top of the steps, smiling. He was still excited that he was on a pirate ship. Monoka went wide eyed and sprinted up the steps and grabbed Hibo and covered his mouth.
"Hibo! Sh!"
"You know, Usopp said the men were going for the boy, we already knew," Chopper spoke up. Monoka stared at him blank faced.
"I was banking on you all being stupid. You are pirates after all." Monoka let go of Hibo. Grabbed his hand and walked away. Everyone in the infirmary followed. "Come on Hibo, we're leaving."
"But Monoka! I want to—HOLY CRAP A DUCK!" Hibo caught sight of Koru and jumped on Monoka's back staring at him. Koru screamed the way ducks scream and ran behind Vivi.
"Watch your language boy!" Monoka was trying to scold Hibo for his words but was distracted by the cowering duck. "Oh for God's sake." She slapped her face and sighed getting tired of all of this. "Hibo, let's go now!" Monoka walked to the railing where she was planning on jumping off of but something stopped her.
"HI!" Luffy's head popped up from behind the railing and jumped onto the ship. Sanji, Usopp and Zoro soon followed. Hibo laughed at his entrance and waved from Monoka's back.
"Did you get rid of the bodies?" Monoka asked concerned.
"Yeah, but walking through town with a ton of unconscious men didn't make the best impression on the village folk." Usopp walked over to the center of the deck.
"If I recall, you weren't carrying anyone Usopp. You dragged one guy but then he grunted and you ran off screaming. I had to pick him up myself." Zoro leaned against the railing and got a glare from Usopp.
"Well, if you didn't pick up seven guys at once and left some for the rest of us then maybe that wouldn't have happened!"
"Can you guys stop bickering for two seconds just once?!" Nami stepped forward with her hands gripped in fists. Vivi stood there dumbfounded to everything that was happening. She had been taking a nap and then she woke up to this problem.
"Can anyone tell me who those two are?" Everyone looked at Vivi who was pointing to where Monoka and Hibo were standing.
"Yeah, what are we gonna do about them?" Nami looked at the guys who shrugged. Then, she got a response.
"Already taken care of." Monoka's voice came from below them. She had jumped down while they were distracted and she was walking back into town. She held Hibo in her arms and he was looking longingly back at the ship. He didn't want to leave, he hadn't seen the whole thing yet! However, he decided to let it be since Monoka always knew what was best for him. He rested his head on her shoulder still looking back. He noticed the boy with the straw hat was watching them walk away.
"I'm hungry..." He said to Monoka.
"Okay, we'll go into town and get you some food."
"Did someone say food?!" Luffy shot up all happy again and shot his arms into the air longer than normal human ones should go. Hibo lifted his head and laughed at the antics of the boy who helped them with his strange power.
"Ya hungry Luffy? I'll go make some lunch." Sanji turned around and started for the kitchen.
"Hey I have an idea!" Luffy's voice got to a high pitch so most people in a half mile range could hear him.
"Oh no." Nami was afraid of what was going to come out of his mouth. Luffy's ideas never seemed to be the best.
"Let's have those two join us! Hey Hibo! That's your name right? Wanna join us for lunch?" Luffy was leaning over the railing with his hands to his mouth to amplify his voice, which was not needed. Hibo's eyes widened in happiness and he slipped out of Monoka's grip with ease and ran back to the ship. Monoka whipped around in fear.
"Damnit! Not again!" She ran after him, knowing the bad mistake he would make next. Hibo was still bright eyed at the offer which made Luffy excited as well. The others in the boat were looking on in either confusion or amusement. Hibo was getting closer. Then, he jumped, trying to make it from the ground to the railing of the ship. Monoka's eyes widened and she started to run faster now. She watched Hibo slowly descend too short of his mark. He was going to fall in the water. The crew on the ship gasped and Luffy was getting ready to save him with his stretchy arm but was beat.
Monoka had sped up quite a lot faster after seeing Hibo miss his target. She jumped up toward Hibo with incredible force and glided to him, catching him in her arms. As she kept going forward from her jump, her foot hit the railing and she spun onto the boat right into the guys who stepped in the way to help. They all fell, Monoka rolling over Luffy and Sanji, till she hit the other side of the ship and hit her back. Hibo was safe in her arms.
He was wide eyed, not from excitement anymore but from fear. He crawled out of Monoka's now weak grip and looked at her. She was wheezing and not looking up. More dried blood could be seen on the top of her head from the quarrel earlier.
"Monoka?" He touched her face with his hand gently. Monoka raised her own hand and grabbed his and lightly pulled it off of her face. She gripped it tightly and softened it, and then she spoke.
"Are you okay Hibo?" Monoka still didn't look up, her back was actually killing her now as well as her foot.
"Yes Monoka." Even though her dirty hair covered her face you could still somehow tell she was smiling weakly.
"Good." She grabbed Hibo and brought him into a tight hug. He returned the favor. "That's all that matters."
The others watched the emotional moment in silence. They were unsure if they should speak or not. Luffy and Usopp had turned around from their fallen state and were sitting but Sanji and Zoro had stood up and brushed themselves off. They all still watched in silence.
Monoka started to let go of Hibo and stood up. She looked to the rest of the people who were staring at her strangely.
"Hibo can't swim." Some faces went from confused to understanding, seeing why Monoka was so serious about Hibo. She looked down at Hibo and saw that he had a saddened face from what he did and she didn't want him to feel like that. She knew what would make him feel better. "I think we can stay for lunch." Hibo's eyes brightened. He was happy to be eating a meal on a real pirate ship.
"Great, I'll set up two more plates." Sanji left down stairs.
"Hey, are you okay? You hit the boards pretty hard." Usopp stepped forward to look at a wincing Monoka. She was gripping her back and leaning to one side to stay off her left foot.
"I'll be fine. Even if this day as been hectic, I've had worse." Monoka took her hand away from her back and into her hair. She removed the hair tie and tried running her fingers through it but it got stuck from the dried blood. She made a face at how uncleanly it was. Then, she decided it needed to be washed right away.
"Do you have any rope I could use?" She refrained from eye contact with the still unknown pirates in front of her. She didn't feel any need to get to know these people. Just get her meal and leave.
"Yeah, why?" Nami made a reluctant motion to go and grab some rope from below deck.
"I need to clean my hair." Everyone looked at her strange. How could she clean her hair with rope? "The thicker the better." Nami just nodded staring at her with confusion in her eyes and got some pretty thick rope for her. Monoka nodded to her and started tying it around a pole tight. Everyone continued to stare at her as she did these strange actions that didn't seem to interact with washing hair at all. Once she had the rope tied tight she threw the rest over the side of the boat away from the port on the other side that she had collided with earlier. Then, she jumped on the rail and wrapped her leg around the rope and dropped over the side.
"What are you doing?!" Everyone ran over to the side and looked over waiting to see Monoka bobbing up and down in the water. But they didn't. Monoka had her legs wrapped around the rope and her head was pointing at the water. There were several feet between her and the surface. She looked straight at the water and saw the many faces of the people above her in the reflection with worried faces on. Ignoring them, she wrapped her good arm around the rope and slid down till her hair met the water. Then, she started to get the blood out of it.
"You know, you could have asked to use the shower." Nami scoffed at Monoka's crazy acrobatic solution to a simple problem.
"I have no need to wash anything other than my hair and I'd never use a lowly pirate's restroom in the first place." Monoka untangled her hair to break up the dried blood and release it into the sea. Nami scoffed and walked away from the side of the ship just as Zoro did and he walked to the top deck.
"Pretty stubborn aren't you?" Nami left to see what Sanji was preparing in the kitchen.
"That's cool! How do you do that?!" Luffy thought how Monoka was using the rope was interesting since he'd never seen something like it before. Usopp found it interesting as well.
"Practice." She lifted her head out of the water and looked like she was in an upward sit up position. Monoka grabbed part of the rope that was above her legs and pulled herself into an upright position and climbed back up the rope and onto the boat. She put her wet hair up into a bun, letting two wavy strands of black dyed hair fall to accent her face. She met the faces of several smiling pirates.
"That's a pretty strange move to learn. Does it have a significance really though?" Vivi walked along side Monoka who was heading for what she figured was the kitchen since she saw their supposed cook go into it and Luffy and Usopp were walking there as well. She had left Koru open in the vision of Hibo who smiled evilly at the oversized duck. Chopper looked between the two and followed after the others.
"It used to." Monoka was not very talkative. When she opened the door and looked down to see the group of four talking and laughing she made a disgusted face. They took notice of her and stopped. She turned and walked the other way. Vivi turned as well to see where she was going but went wide eyed at what she saw.
"Koru!" Hibo had jumped onto Koru and was now riding him like a horse while Koru ran around in circles fearing the little yet hyper boy screaming on his back.
"Get off the bird Hibo." Monoka was walking up the stairs, not facing the little boy. But Hibo listened to her and jumped off quickly.
"Sorry Monoka." He was standing still and facing the others who were watching the whole thing from the top of the stairs. Koru was panting wildly as Vivi tried to help him out.
"What's for lunch?!" Hibo ran over to the others and slipped under them all to the kitchen, a room which he hadn't seen yet.
"Two very different people, don'tcha think?" Sanji looked at Nami and Usopp who both nodded in agreement.
"Haha, I like him!" Luffy turned around and followed Hibo down the stairs.
"That's because you're almost exactly alike!" Usopp followed the rest back into the kitchen.
Monoka had walked up the steps to the top deck and she looked out at the town. She stood for a second thinking, and then she looked up to the bird's nest, the highest point on the ship. While looking up, she caught sight of the green haired man resting against the wall in front of the nest. She made no reaction to him as he seemed to be sleeping, but when she looked at his swords, she scoffed. She hated swords.
Moving the thought of them out of her mind, she jumped up silently onto his even higher deck where he sat and jumped over his head. Zoro opened one eye up and looked at Monoka who appeared to be making her way up to the bird's nest, but not by ladder.
She grabbed a protruding pole and swung forward then back on it and flung herself forward again, doing a flip and had her feet land on the same pole. She jumped up and grabbed another pole and did the same thing but in one fell swoop. She jumped again even higher and landed her feet on the actual latter part and jumped to grab the side of the nest and pulled herself up and dropped in. Zoro grunted a bit and closed his eye again.
"Jeez, they're both monkeys." He returned to his nap.
"Wow, she's strong." Vivi had watched Monoka's little acrobat moves from the other side of the ship. She had finally gotten Koru to calm down but he refused to go down into the kitchen where he knew Hibo was.
Monoka stood on the side of the nest looking out at the town again. This time she could see more from farther away. She scanned the horizon and rested her sights on a vast open area filled with debris near the back of the town. Her eyes lingered there for a moment before she was pulled out of her reverie by her own mind. She closed her eyes and sat down on the railing cross legged and perfectly balanced.
"So what's up with you guys, huh? What's the Navy doing going after you?" Nami was sitting at the table and watching Hibo eat food that Sanji gave him that wasn't being prepared for lunch. She was hoping she could get more out of him than Monoka.
"Monoka told me I couldn't tell anyone," Hibo said through a mouthful of food. Nami's head hit the table in anger. Not knowing made her want to know so much more!
"Monoka's her name?" Usopp was still a little slow on learning these people's names.
"Yep, and I'm Hibo." He shoved more food into his small mouth. He liked being around these people and talking. Usually with Monoka she wouldn't let anyone get near him. He didn't know what made her change her mind but he was enjoying it.
"Boy, you sure can eat can't you?" Sanji turned from his cooking to get more food for Hibo to snack on. He grabbed a plate full of fruit and set it in front of Hibo. He grinned and grabbed an apple.
"I love eating. Monoka says I eat way too much. She usually saves her meals and only eats half. But she always eats the rest later. She says we can't afford to be wasting food." He finished his apple and grabbed a pear.
"Low on cash huh? What does Monoka do to make money?"
"We have a street act. People give us money, we're never sure of how much we'll get but if it's sunny and warm we'll rake in a lot! But if it's raining or cold, we won't get all that we need." Hibo caught sight of some cherries at the bottom of the bowl and grabbed a handful and shoved them into his mouth. He spat out the pits like a shot gun back into the bowl.
"Wow, a street act? What? You guys do flips for cash?" Nami tried to grab for a banana on the bowl but it was quickly and mindlessly picked off by Hibo and shoved into his mouth, peel and all.
"Yeah, acrobatic stuff. We used to be in the circus!" From Hibo saying that, eyebrows were raised around the room. So they were carni's?
"Used to?"
"Yeah, the circus was— Wait... I'm not supposed to say that either." Hibo rubbed his chin with his fingers thinking of the things he wasn't supposed to mention. The others dropped to the ground.
"Okay, enough talk, let's eat!" Sanji turned around with the main meal which was a mound of large king salmon. Hibo and Luffy went wide eyed and quickly dug in. The others just stared at their appetites. Well, they were used to Luffy's, but Hibo's was a bit surprising since he just had several snacks and was such a little boy.
"Hey! Zoro! Monoka! Lunch is up!" Sanji stood at the top of the stairs calling them out. Monoka reacted slowly, she walked around the circumference of the railing of the bird's nest and took one last look out at the town. Then, she jumped all the way to the lower deck, landing swiftly, but startling Zoro slightly who had just come from where he slept. They locked eyes for a second before Zoro took a step back as to let Monoka go before him like men should do. She walked in front of him and he followed her down the steps.
"Hey Monoka!"
"Hey Zoro!" Hibo and Luffy had two huge fish stuck in between their teeth and they waved at the two in the entrance laughing through their mouthfuls. Monoka and Zoro just stared as the other two sat back and continued laughing. Monoka stepped forward.
"Hibo, don't talk with your mouth full, you'll choke." Hibo gobbled down the rest of his fish still laughing with Luffy.
"Have a fish Monoka!" Hibo grabbed a fish by the tail and swung it in front of Monoka who stood behind his chair leaning against the wall. She looked quizzically at the fish and Hibo's nature. She grabbed it and he turned back talking and laughing with the others. She couldn't remember the last time Hibo interacted with people like this. He was always a joyous child, always had a smile on his face, but it was always for her. Seeing him able to be like this around others made her feel happy, happy that he wasn't like her. She decided that she wasn't hungry and placed the fish back on the table and walked out.
"I'll be waiting for you Hibo." Monoka walked past everyone and left out the door leaving the rest to stare.
"Kind of a party pooper, huh?" Sanji ate the rest of one of his fish.
"She doesn't like other people. She thinks they're all bad people who want to hurt us. But she used to be really energetic and happy and greeted everyone with a smile! But now, she's lost it all." Hibo sat staring at the open door in sadness. If there was anything he could do to make her happy, for real happy, not just showing her he was okay, he wanted to do it.
"How old are you Hibo?" Nami asked.
"Six and a half." Hibo put up his fingers to show her.
"Well you sound wise beyond your years." Nami's comment made him smile, she grinned back and ruffled the shaggy hair on his head.
"I don't know, I find it hard to believe she was ever a happy person." Zoro was leaning against the wall, not really feeling too hungry.
"Oh no she was! It's just what happened after our brother—" Hibo stopped abruptly, clapping his hands over his mouth. He started to shake his head and said, "I'm not supposed to say that."
"Wait, your brother? You two are siblings?" Nami got a little excited as she started to learn more. But it was interrupted.
"Hibo." Monoka stood at the top of the stairs glaring down. Her arms crossed and she looked extremely mad. "Finish your food and let's go."
"Yes Monoka!" Hibo ate one last big bite of fish and scurried across the room and up the stairs, he disappeared out on the deck. Monoka still stood there staring down as everyone else stared back up at her. She glanced at every person for a second before turning around.
"Hibo thanks you for feeding him." Then she walked out of sight.
"What a weird girl, hard to believe they're brother and sister." Nami took a sip of her drink and looked up at the open door seeing the dark clouds starting to form above them in the sky. "Looks like a storm's coming. We should stay docked till sunrise and wait for it to pass."
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Shade- That was number two. Give reviews please.