CHAPTER 2: TRENCH RUNNING

Recap: We were on our way, but I didn't know where.

Zoro POV

The train lurched and started, and I felt, more than saw, Sanji sit beside me. It was silent, something I had longed for ever since we got here. These cloths, this car, everything was different, surreal… unreal. I found comfort in the blonde beside me, something in this unrealistic place that would never change. He still ogled women, be it this 'Alina' or Nami, and he still did that thing with the cigarette, flicking it up to almost touch his nose, and then down to the side dumping the ashes to the ground.

The warmth he emanated, his thin waist and sharp boned back pressed against my side was something I was used to and glad for. Even the awful lurching of the thing we were on felt almost like we had never left the Merry-Go.

Damn, sometimes I wish my mind wouldn't do that. Now I just want to be home again.

My mind started racing, thinking thoughts that had already crossed it over once, twice, maybe even more. Where were we? How did we get here? What are we doing next? Where are we going? Are we here for some underlying reason that only fate knows of?

Sanji elbowed me sharply. He must have thought I had fallen asleep. People tend to do that. I close my eyes and think, and people think I fall asleep. I yawned; I may have not been asleep but I was tired. My back ached, a dull pain, and my right arm was asleep from being stuck behind Sanji's…

Wait a moment - How long had I been like this? The train was still moving at an even pace and the light from the…

Damn, I must have fallen asleep. The sunlight from under the door looks more like moonlight. How long has it been, then? An hour? Two? Three?

Sanji elbowed me again. I looked up. The guy, Alex-salamander something, I can't remember, must have been talking. He didn't look happy. Everyone else looked asleep. Why couldn't I be sleeping too? I felt my eyelids droop slightly and---

"Zoro, listen!" Sanji hissed quietly into my ear. So much for falling back to sleep.

"As I was saying, we are headed to Stalingrad. We have to take it back from the Germans and keep them away from the oil fields. Stay with Alina or Borya. They know this place better than you." Aleksandr motioned to both of them. I don't think he knew they were asleep.

"Why should I listen to you?" I protested, habitually reaching for my swords. And… they weren't there. I knew that, I must have, when did I forget? Aleksandr turned to Borya and kicked his shin, making the elder cry out.

"Hey, Borya wake up!" Once satisfied that the man was awake, he continued. "Back me up here. We have a possible rebel on our hands." He spoke with authority, like he knew what he was up against. Yea right. Borya looked at him like he had grown another limb from his forehead.

"How? I am just a lowly Tank commander." Borya shrugged. He was playing innocent, I could tell. He was trying to conceal a smirk, and it was working pretty well. His comment made Aleksandr's eye twitch.

"Borya, you're a Lieutenant." Aleksandr spoke like he was telling something very obvious to a boy with mental issues. "You have more power than I do." Aleksandr had an edge to his voice, and I swear I felt Sanji tense beside me.

"Why should I help you? You have done nothing for me." Borya let his smirk loose and gave him a half-shrug. Aleksandr was steaming and I expected his head to burst into flames. That would be really funny right now, actually. He started yelling at Borya in their language, and Borya started yelling back. It was an insult war, I think. I couldn't tell, I don't speak foreign. Alina coughed once, more of an ahem, really, and raised her SMN to her eye. That time, I know Sanji flinched. This Alina was just plain scary.

"Aleksandr…" She muttered softly when her 'ahem' didn't catch his attention. The man in question turned to face her and his eyes went wide. That certainly caught his full and desired attention.

"I See You…" Alina said, smirking. Aleksandr jumped about three feet in the air and scrambled for cover. Said cover happened to be myself and Sanji. Alina then shifted her gaze to Borya, who cowered in his uniform. He looked like he had wet himself, the poor guy. Then Alina aimed at us.

"You should listen to us because other wise we, meaning me, will shoot you." She spoke softly, placing her gun in her lap, smirking. The train lurched to a sudden stop, and the door opened again. It was night, or at least as dark as it. A heavy haze of steam hung about everything, and the sky was black with smoke. I could hear bullets, and from the way Sanji wasn't letting go of my arm, he could too.

We were herded, along with Aleksandr, into a small dingy. It didn't look like it could float at all, let alone hold the twenty so men they wanted to put in it. They eventually settled for six, three of which were Aleksandr, Sanji and myself. A tall, heavily built man stood up in the front of the boat, and how the thing didn't go belly up is beyond me. He started speaking in such a heavy accent, I don't know how I understood him, but I did.

"Welcome to Stalingrad. You're about to begin the greatest moment of your life." That was such a lie.

"The Germans have lost hundreds of tanks and planes. Hitler's brutalized hordes are now advancing toward Stalingrad over mountains of there own dead bodies." What the hell. Who is this Hitler, and when did he get hordes? And the phrase 'dead bodies'? Really didn't settle with me well.

"Our Bolshewk party, our nation, our great country, have given us the task not to let the enemy reach the Volga, and to defend the city of Stalingrad!" Whoa, slow down. Speak the not foreign, please. 'Our' nation? 'Our' great country? You mean 'your' stuff, buddy. I don't even know where we are. And what in the world is a Volga?

He gesture to the blood stricken battle zone behind him. It was total chaos. I saw one guy fly up into the air, and land in the water with a scream. Sanji was gripping my arm so tight, I couldn't feel my fingers. A large, missile looking thing hit the water next to our boat, making it lean sharply to the left and shaking the crap out of everyone. Yet the guy was still standing. That… was just plain creepy.

"Forward against the enemy! Up into the unremitting battle, comrades, for Stalingrad, for our great country! Not one step back!" 'Unremitting battle'? We're going to go die because a guy in a boat told us to? As I thought this, two men jumped out of the boat. So then there were four. The man in the front pulled a pistol, something I even remotely recognized, and he shot at them.

That was why we're doing this. He'll shoot us.

"Cowards and traitors will be shot! Do not count days, do not count miles, count only the number of Germans you have killed!" Can I count how many times I wish I was home instead, buddy? Without my swords I don't think I could really kill anything.

"Kill the German; this is your mother's prayer! Kill the German; this is the cry of your Russian earth!" Number 1: I don't think my mother really cares who I kill, thank you. Number 2: Is that were we are? Russian? Where on the Grand Line is THAT? And it's not MY earth, what ever it is.

"Do not waver! Do not let up! Kill!" So… you want us, to go die, for a place we've never heard of, and you want us to go kill people, and we don't even know why we're fighting them? I'm starting to believe this man has eaten some kind of 'Crazy Fruit'.

"Death to the German invader!" This cry was met with cheers from the men in the boat, well, all but me and Sanji anyway. We were hustled out onto the weather worn dock, and onto dry land. I wanted to cheer, that boat was DEFINETLY going to sink sometime soon. We were handed packets of bullets, long and pointed, but I saw no point. We had no guns. Why give us ammo and no guns? What are we gonna do, throw this at them?

There was a shout from ahead of us, and we were herded towards it. It was like they thought we wouldn't walk in the right direction without help. Sanji was staring the wounded and blood covered men lying on cots near us. One groaned and reached for his hand, like he could help, and Sanji quickly switched to grip at my other arm. Great, now I'm going to have TWO purple arms.

We noticed Vladimir cooking something that smell so wonderful, I wanted to stop and eat. If my stomach hadn't lost its voice at the sight of the blood covered men it would have agreed. Another shout made Sanji tear me away from the promise of food and the warm fire to meet the man who had been shouting at us for the past, I don't know, twenty minutes? I would have hoped he had lost his voice, but nope, he was still in a screaming mood.

"Hey, Sanji," I whispered to the blonde, just before we reached the really big hole in the ground and the grumpy man standing by it, "Is it just me or does it sound like we have a good chance of being killed around here?" He nodded. I put my hands on his shoulders, trying to get him to not freak out.

Then I realized something. Sanji… was about to freak out. That never happened. Ever.

"Hey, are you alright?" I asked, concerned. If it freaked him out, I might as well scream.

"Yea, kinda… It's just the fact that we don't know where we are, we don't know anyone here anymore, we're in strange cloths and expected to either die or kill people and it's just making no sense!" His last words were more screamed than anything, but he was right. We were in a dog-eat-dog world now and the fact that it was so different… it was scary in its own right.

"Zoro… I want to go home…" he muttered softly. I nodded, understanding him completely.

"Don't worry, we'll get through this and get back to the Merry-Go and… and I promise I'll try that cherry-thing you wanted to make for me and… and if I don't like it you… you can hit me over the head with a frying pan, ok?" I was just trying to raise his spirits when I said this, but I knew he'd remember my promise when, or if, we got home. But it was worth seeing him smile again, at least that once, and just knowing everything will turn out alright anyway, no matter what happened next.

That said and done, we turned the corner to finally great Mr. Grumpy. He looked young, which was odd, seeing he had the lungs of an older man. I checked his uniform when I realized he probably wasn't going to give us his name. A name tag on his breast pocket read Oleg Puskov.

"You're with me. Pay attention and follow my orders or I'll shoot you myself." I was already beginning to hate this guy, and he hadn't even said 'Hello' yet.

"Quickly, we're expected at the front lines!" He ran into the large hole and we followed, Sanji clinging to my arm and I clinging to his. He stopped and we almost plowed into him. He pointed up a hill, past brick buildings and parts of walls to what looked like a large fire, burning behind closed walls.

"The fascists have reached the park, and are about to cut Stalingrad in half! We must stop them at all costs!" I wanted to make sure he knew those were HIS costs, not ours. He started up the hill and we tried to stay as close as we could. Black marks and holes were everywhere, and dead bodies littered the ground. I had to close my eyes for a second before I threw up. A bullet whizzed over my head, cutting a few hairs, and we all ducked to avoid others. Sanji's grip tightened on my arm and I returned the squeeze, giving him a reassuring smile.

"They're stopped shelling the boats. Be ready for anything." Puskov said, as he continued moving down the trench. I really wanted to stuff a sock in his mouth, he was getting annoying.

"If you hear the whistle of the artillery, then the explosion is not far off." Several men jumped over our heads, and we all ducked. They were running from something, back down the hill, all scared spit-less. I looked back behind us and winced when an officer shot another man just because he was deemed a 'traitor'. Sanji stood up, despite the tugging on his sleeve courtesy of me, to take a look at the battlefield around us. We heard a gun go off and I tugged him back down behind the wooden wall. His hat floated down to meet us, a small pea-sized hole clean through it. It was smoking and we exchanged scared looks. That… could have been… Sanji's head. I gulped. We were called again, and I had a mind to yell right back at him. Instead, we crawled to him at the end of the wooden blockade, and an explosion sound pretty close off.

"Incoming! Get down!" Puskov yelled as a large, metal pipe rolled over our heads. So that was what the men were running from. He got up, tugged us both to our feet, and then dove into a mortar hole. We followed suit so we wouldn't die.

I was actually starting to want one of those cherry-things Sanji had wanted me to try.

"Wait here and stay close to me." He said softly. We actually did as we were told, not knowing what lay ahead.