A/n: Sorry for the late update! I got caught up in a lot of stuff and couldn't find time to type. I guess this chapter isn't as long as the previous ones, mostly because I just hurried through it. So sorry if there's things that don't make sense! [Kidding. That's how it's supposed to be nyahahahaha~]

Oh and FYI, PLOT TWIST! YAY! Lol~

So if you haven't read my edit on the sneak peak to this chapter, make sure to read it to get an idea what's going to happen!

Also, I've got more great news! Your long awaited wait for the rest of the crew has proved fruitful! though there's still just half the crew mentioned in this one, but they're all going to be there in the coming chapters, albeit in different scenes.

So read on and enjoy~

P.s, the chapters from now will have a little more of suspense and twists rather than angst. Though of course thre's lots of torture! I simply cannot do without my torture :')

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Love~

Chapter 7

Sanji smoothed the hair out of his eyes and eyed his reflection tiredly. The searing water burned his sensitive skin. The little cuts and scratches along his pale body screamed from the unnecessary pain. He found himself staring at the tattoo on his hip again.

It was the third time Zeher had asked for him in a span of one week. It wouldn't be so unusual, as he got regular customers all the time, but something about this man caused all the sirens in Sanji's head to start blaring uncontrollably. He reeked of danger and the blonde could smell the scent of addiction from him. He was already alert despite switching off when he was in 'work mode' but there was something about this guy that made Sanji want to throw up. The way he acted around the cook, like he had complete control over him, like he.. owned him..

Sanji's scalp prickled as his mind whirred from the new idea. That might just be it. Zeher had proclaimed more than once about how Sanji was his. The blonde straightened sharply when the shower door slid open. Zeher came to stand behind him and wrapped lanky arms around Sanji's slim waist. Their eyes met in the glass wall of the small cubicle and the cook forced back the bile that rose in his throat.

"You were taking too long, so I came to check on you."

"How kind of you."

Zeher purred and kissed the nape of the blonde's neck, never breaking eye contact. The man still stunk of beer and the water caused his long dirty hair to stick to both their bodies.

A shiver ran down Sanji's spine as the man pushed back his bangs completely to reveal striking violet eyes. They glinted dangerously and Zeher bit down on Sanji's shoulder, causing him to wince painfully.

"You really are faaar too reserved Prince. You should atleast be yourself when you're with me, don't you think?"

Sanji's mouth twitched and he forced it into a smirk. Zeher chuckled deeply.

"No matter. Sooner or later you'll be spilling out all your secrets to me. After all, we've got all the time in the world."

Sanji shifted from one foot to another and gripped the wrist on his pelvis.

"I'm sorry Zeher san, but it's time for me to leave."

Zeher's lips curled into a snarl and violet eyes flashed black for a second.

"Leave? And where are you going?"

"I have other customers too-"

He was cut off abruptly as the taller man slammed the blonde into the glass in front of them. Sanji cursed softly, sure that his nose was broken, or atleast dislocated. Zeher leaned back and crossed his arms. He looked out the single window that was high up on the wall and said darkly,

"Well we'll have to do something about that don't we?"

He looked at Sanji and their eyes met again in the glass.

"About what…?"

"About your other customers.." The word came out with so much spite, Sanji started to wonder what he had done to offend the man. Despite what Oberon or Ravena said, he could tell this dude was someone extremely important and pissing him off would be the last of the cook's problems. So Sanji put on a confused face and pretended like his simple school-boy mind wasn't able to understand what Zeher was going on about.

That seemed to work, because the man smirked and pulled Sanji towards him. He pressed their bare chests together and wound one arm around the cook's waist possessively. He brought a finger to Sanji's mouth and tapped the soft lips.

"Don't worry you're gorgeous head off. I won't let anyone have you."

The back of Sanji's neck prickled as Zeher leaned in.

"Because you belong to me.."

"So who's the lucky lady?"

Zoro eyed the chirpy man next to him wearily. It was already growing dark and the last thing he needed to was to be around when Oberon's goons came out of their hole.

"What?"

Freddy waggled his eyebrows and swished his mustache. "Ya know~ Striking lad like you, nearly got yourself killed yet yer hanging around here. Gotta mean somethin'."

"Ah."

"Oi oi you can do better than that."

Zoro scratched his head, mind lost in thought. He stared at a patch of dirt on the helmet he was holding and bit his lip. "It's not a woman though."

Freddy's eyebrows shot up so high, they could've flown off his face. Immediately catching on, the swordsman waved a hand hurriedly even as his face started to turn red.

"No! I didn't mean it that way! He's just a-"

Zoro's tongue caught in his mouth and he wondered as to what he was about to say. He's just a… what? Friend? No. there was no way the cook and he shared something as deep as that. Companion? Partner?

"-Nakama." The word was out of his mouth before his mind could think of something else. The answer was so simple, yet why did he hesitate? It was true that he had come to question quite a few things about his relationship with the blonde, if you could even call what they had a relationship.

"Ho? What's with that? You should just say that right away or people will misunderstand ya!" Freddy 'hohoho'd and patted Zoro good-naturedly.

"..Yeah."

"Freddy san! Could you c'mere for a sec?"

"Sure thing! Well see ya later then." The pudgy man winked and waddled away, patting his belly contentedly. Like he wouldn't trade a thing in the world to get out of that shithole of an island. Zoro almost looked away, but a piece of paper caught the corner of his eye. He glanced towards the group Freddy had just joined, their heads huddled together in deep discussion. And then he caught sight of it again as it was passed to the slightly older man. And he was sure of it.

The size was the exact same as that of a bounty poster and call him a fool, but even he could guess whom the poster was of. He turned away hurriedly, pulled the beanie low over his head, shifted his glasses and briskly strode off. The poster was still an old one. The one of him two years ago. And he had made sure to keep his oddly colored hair covered at all times, so maybe, just maybe it was a coincidence and fate was just being a bitch again.

"Roroan kun? … You know, atleast come up with a better alias."

Zoro halted mid stride, his body rigid and ready to defend any kind of attack.

"We're not gonna mug you, if that's what yer expecting."

Fred's voice was strained and not at all like the warm and kind one it had been but a few minutes ago. But Zoro sensed an under tone of something else and that caused him to turn back slowly.

Thinking back to that moment, Zoro might have regretted not walking away. Especially since he was sure he could take down those men even without his swords. But his animalistic instincts were telling him that he should stick around. Something was about to unfold and he was going to stick around to see it through to the end. What, he didn't know. But something that would determine whether his carefully thought out plan would work or not. Something big.

So he stood there waiting for the apprehensive men to inch closer. Freddy held up the poster and nodded at it. "Pirate hunter, Roronoa Zoro. 120,000,000 beri. Who would've known."

"Are you gonna rat me out?"

"Hah! Does it look like we'd go through the trouble of telling those brainless fools that a wanted pirate is on their island and working as a construction worker? They'd just laugh at us and put us in the loony bin!"

"Then what do you want from me?"

Freddy's eyes glinted mischievously and he twirled his mustache. The other men seemed to vibrate with anticipation as they waited with bated breath for the man to explain.

"What we want you to do, is let us in on whatever you're plotting." Freddy wagged his mustache and grinned. Zoro raised an eyebrow.

"Hah?"

"You've thought of a way to get out of here right? Well I can't say it'll work out very well, considering you have no idea who or what you're dealing with. So why don't you let us give you a helpin' hand, and in return you bail us out with ya?"

Zoro sighed and nodded slowly. The last thing he needed was to draw unnecessary attention. But maybe, a big group would be a better idea than jumping into the enemies' territory alone.

"Now that that's settled, we've got something to show ya!"

Freddy and the workers ushered the swordsman behind the site and into a large area packed with warehouses and junk. He wasn't sure what these men planned on doing, but whatever it was, escape was closer than he thought it would be.

On another island—

"Oi Nami! What's taking so long?!"

"Just give me a damn minute Luffy! I can't do magic!"

"It's been over ten minutes already! At this rate we're never gonna find Sanji and Zoro!"

"Oh my god Luffy! Will you shut up for one minute!? I have to concentrate!"

"Usssopp! Dooo somethinggg!" Luffy whined and looked at his sniper desperately. Usopp had a thoughtful frown on his face as he scratched his chin.

"I agree with Nami, Luffy. This is dangerous and we have to do it right or it won't work."

Luffy groaned and dropped his head in frustration. "It's been three weeks already! How much longer will you take?!"

"Oi Luffy! Stop being a pain before Nami konks you and come give me a hand!"

"Yadda!" [A/n: means no or I don't want to depending on context.]

"Luffy!"

The raven-haired youth grumbled loudly, crossed his arms and sulked all the way up to where Franky was perched on a large rock. As the to-be-Pirate-King neared, Franky waved a wrench and grinned up at him. "Don't worry so much! This is Zoro and Sanji we're talking about! There's no way either of them could've gotten into something as bad."

"What does as bad mean?" Luffy grumped as he flumped onto the warm rock. The cyborg-man shrugged and twirled the wrench around the finger of a small mechanical hand protruding from the center of his ginormous palm. "Well. I mean. What could be worse than Zoro not having his swords right?"

"That's why I'm worried!" Luffy wailed, causing Nami to curse loudly and Usopp to shout in alarm.

"We're never going to find them and it's all your fault Luffy!" The carrot haired woman screeched, waving one of the three metal tubes that made up her Clima Tact. Luffy huffed and sat pouting.

"You can't blame me! I haven't eaten Sanji's food for three weeks!" He dodged the tube that was thrown at him and glowered at Nami.

"And we all know that's the actual reason!"

"Oi Nami relax! We're not getting anywhere with you two screaming at each other!"

"Shut up Usopp!" Nami snapped and pulled back the blue cylinder using a line of clouds.

The long-nosed man sighed dejectedly and shot his captain a look. Luffy mellowed but continued to sulk. Franky just chuckled under his breath.

Three weeks without two of their monster trio had completely thrown the crew off kilter. Nami for one was always in a bad mood. One second she was shrieking and throwing things and the next she was sobbing on the floor. Nobody could say or do anything to dampen her foul mood swings. Especially since every third sentence of Nami's was followed by 'I know it's my fault already!'. No one blamed the navigator for her decision; in fact they respected her for being able to make one so important in a situation as dire as the one they had been in. Yet Nami continued to fret and worry, constantly on edge and darting in and out, wringing her hands.

Finally, Robin had come up with a solution to keep the navigator busy. Since Nami could control weather, why not make some sort of tracking device using the clouds and wind so they could trace the duo's wareabouts. If Nami strengthened the clouds, they could use Franky's small tracking device-object-thingy to somehow locate the cook and swordsman.

Of course everyone knew it was something unbelievable and would most likely fail. But no one had the heart to voice it out and Nami would rather die than go back to doing nothing.

So now all she did was constantly bicker with Luffy and yell at a passive Usopp, who did nothing but try to calm every one the hell down. Franky just butted in from the boundary when he thought Nami was about to lose it, otherwise he strictly kept to completely fixing Sunny up.

Robin, Chopper and Brook had gone into the forest that occupied most of the island they were on; in order to get wood from the looming trees that Franky had sworn would not be able to replace the parts of Sunny that were missing. But thanks to the Adam wood she was built with, the ship was only slightly damaged on the outside. But the inner portions were another story.

"I'm hungryyyyyy!" Luffy whined again and threw himself flat on the rock.

"Here, eat this." Franky stuffed a huge watermelon looking fruit into Luffy's mouth without looking up from what he was doing. The rubber man gulped the fruit down in less than a minute and opened his mouth to wail for more food, but shut up. He looked at the tense expressions on his Nakama's faces and decided he might as well do something about his black hole of a stomach than complain. After all, he had gone two years without Sanji's food. Not that that fact made him miss it any less.

The youth swung from branch to branch and finally climbed up what looked like a huge tree that seemed to be the center of the island. He looked around and could see nothing but sparkling ocean. The reason they were having so much trouble locating the island the two missing members of the crew were on, was because of the constantly shifting landmasses and fluctuating magnetic fields. It was absolutely driving Nami crazy and Luffy hadn't seen her that frazzled for a long time.

"Hm?" He squinted into the distance as he spotted a dark line along the horizon. He stretched his neck out as far as it would go, his eyes slits from squinting. He noticed some kind of weird blue cloud thing surrounding the island. No more like, it was encased by a huge globe of glass. Like a ginormous overturned gold-fish bowl. Luffy hopped down and raced back to where Sunny was docked, hoping this information was something that could maybe dissipate the thunder clouds surrounding Nami's head.

Zoro let out a low whistle as he let his eyes travel around the huge warehouse he was currently standing in. he hadn't ventured very far into the red-light district, so he hadn't known that most of the alleyways led to a large open space that served as a junkyard as well as housed several big warehouses and sheds. He didn't really care what they were used for, considering nothing really happened on the island, but the one he was standing in held a massive machine that occupied over half of the enormous building. The ceiling was atleast fifty feet tall and the machine fit snugly into the warehouse, like it had been built around the contraption. The dim lighting made it impossible to decipher much from the metal monster, but Zoro could tell it was some sort of generator.

What it generated though, he was about to find out.

"So Roronoa Zoro kun, can ya guess what this is?"

Zoro shrugged one shoulder and glanced at Freddy with a carefully blank expression. The man simply laughed. "There's no need to be so on guard! Though it definitely isn't something to laugh about either." He sombered up immediately and his glasses glazed over as he looked at the machine.

"Meet Caroline-02, the biggest of all the generators on this island."

Zoro felt a drop of sweat slide down his brow and he wondered why he was feeling so nervous. Freddy looked at him gravely. "Zoro kun, what I'm about to tell ya can easily cost ya yer life. Though I'm pretty sure at this point that's the least of your worries."

Zoro nodded once and Freddy walked forward.

"This lady here is one of three major power houses of this island and also, like I mentioned, the biggest of the lot. Though I'm afraid to say, she's malfunctioning and that's why she ended up here in the dump. But that's not what I want to tell you. What I want to tell you, and I'm pretty sure you've guessed by now-"

"-If this is one of three, then there are two more and considering this one's not working, there are actually three more."

Freddy nodded with approval and continued. "But it's what these are used for that we have to be worried about Zoro kun. Would ya mind if I asked how ya ended up here?"

"Ah.. I- We.. I guess we're cast-aways?"

Freddy nodded again. "And I'm guessing yer crew hasn't been able to find ya?"

Zoro snorted. Freddy smiled wearily. "I'm sure ya know there are very few islands on this part of the Grand Line that cannot be traced without an eternal pose? Well yer on one of 'em!" He swept his hands in a wide arc, like he was congratulating Zoro for winning the lottery.

"So what's your point?"

"My point is, there are some islands that can't be traced due to natural reasons and some due to unnatural reasons." He patted Caroline. "And what ya see here used to be part of the latter."

Zoro raised an eyebrow. His mind was already on over drive. He wasn't sure what Freddy was getting at. So they were stranded on some god-forsaken island that used humongous machines in order stay off the charts? You've gotta be fucking kidding me.

"So what exactly does this thing do? Or did, rather."

"It creates an artificial force field around the island. Kind of like the ones ya see in those Sci-fi Anime. So from the outside, it looks like there's a huge glass globe around the island."

Zoro ran a hand through his spiky hair and shifted uncomfortably. "Soooo what? What does this force field do? Is it supposed to keep unwanted people away from the island? Is it to hide it's magnetic field so pirates or marines stay away?" A sudden thought struck the swordsman. "If that's true, then how did…"

His eyes widened and his jaw fell slack as a stray ray of light glinted off Freddy's glasses. "I guess you've figured it out then. This force field can be controlled using the three machines that are located on the three parts of this island. Unfortunately we could only locate Caroline here and even that was while they were making a big fuss of putting 'er 'ere. Unlike what you think, there's more to this place than just a red-light district and a small town. There's an underground factory, which is directly connected to the world's black market. We don't know for sure what they produce, but obviously none of it can be sold on the surface. Since the force field can be controlled, we can open it when we want and close it when we want. We choose who enters and who leaves. D'you get what I'm saying Zoro kun?"

The dread in Zoro's stomach started to coil and writhe like an angry serpent as he drew in a steadying breath. The gears in his head were slowly clicking into place and everything that he came to understand, left a rancid after taste in his mouth. "So we ended up here by accident?"

Freddy nodded slowly.

"… When did you say this thing started malfunctioning?"

"I didn't. But it was about three weeks ago they put 'er 'ere."

A/n: Yesh, well another successful chapter! I should start typing more so I can regularly update :/

Well, I hope you liked the plot twist!

Sneak peak at the next chapter: Nami decides that they better head towards the weird island Luffy spotted, because that was their only lead up till now. Zoro decides to help Freddy and the gang [Reminds me of Scooby Doo lol] locate the other generators and destroy them, possibly their only hope of getting off the island. Meanwhile, Sanji's been completely placed under Zeher's posessive eye and he finds out shocking thruths of his own.

Stay tuned for more~

review, Follow and Favorite!

Love~