Oh look, there's more!
I think that's what scares me....
The gang stood, slouched, or crouched in front of the Thousand Sunny and tried to figure out what side of Mars they were on.
The expanse of terrain stretched before them looking even worse than the desert they'd just driven through - at least that had nomads, tribes, wayward hermits, bleak farms and desperado cities. There was little sign of greenery or plant life of any kind above ground in the forthcoming wastelands - it was far too dusty for that. The sun was many degrees hotter now as they approached the former borders of California and Mexico, having driven through a now barren watercourse.
Rio Grande, we hardly knew ya.
"We gotta cross that?" Luffy asked Nami again. He was the only one unmoved by the dust-laden maw of doom that opened out towards the horizon. The orange gnoll licked her whiskers and nodded glumly.
"Where we're tracking them is that way, for sure, or I can't navigate worth shit."
Well, that sealed it. Everyone knew that Nami, irrespective of her many faults, could find her way anywhere, even blindfolded with her head stuck up her own ass. That was as true as her overgrown clit (the only dick any of the able-bodied men would willingly suck) and her dislike of clothing. Even in the aftermath of - well, just about everything that had happened - it took a long argument and a near gang-rape to convince the gnoll that it would be in everyone's best interest if she covered her snatch and her crack. The boobs were too hard to hide - besides, they were often used as decoration, pillows, headache relief and enemy distractions.
"Upsy-daisy, ladies," Zoro grumbled, Orzo and Rozo scowling as he hitched his pack higher onto his shoulders. "We need to get supplies before we even think of crossing that dried shithole. Doc Chop, with me. Curly Duck and Long-nose, together. Nami 'n' Nico - try to work, not fuck. Bones, keep Cap't under control. Franky, whaddya need?"
The android was already decoupling the container from the vehicle with his prodigious strength, his long toolbox in his other metallic hand.
"Oil, bros and hoes. Coolant, cola, and batteries too."
Zoro shook his heads at the android's peculiar programming as Sanji puffed his cig.
"You heard fungus-scalp over dere," the thug cook snapped while adjusting his half-boots and ducking their lieutenant's reflexive blade slash. "Any ting edible, potable, or luggable is up fer grabs. Skin a few muties if ya hafta. Mes belle filles need proper food ta make it 'cross dat merde."
"Move out!" Orzo barked as Zoro climbed up on Chopper, who'd already switched back to walking on all fours. The reindeer started trotting away, tossing his rack of antlers under Zoro's hands.
"Also look for anything medical!" the baby of the gang cried over his withers. "Bandages, Rad-X, Geiger counters! You should know the drill guys!"
The rest of the gang grumbled in acknowledgment as they split up.
[~~~]
Soon, only Franky, Sanji and Sogeking remained by the dismembered carcass of the mother truck. Franky was busy under the truck while Sanji finished his inventory of the gang's food supplies. Sogeking had the rad mask on top of his head like a macabre cap, the strap tight under his neck. He was looking out over the wasteland once more.
"I can't...I can't go...Stop! I've got can't-venture-into-the-wastes-cause-I'll-die disease...Seriously, can't you feel that you won't get out alive? Do you really want to-"
"Whazzup, Nose King? Ya ent ready fer dis?" Sanji drawled as he dropped a hand on the sniper's shoulder. He felt the younger man flinch and was puzzled. Sogeking was never skittish - hell, he ran into danger head-first, right behind Luffy, Zoro and the blond himself. Many times he thought the boy-man had a suicide wish-
Sanji shook his head. No need to go down that chain of thought when you knew the answer.
"Stop that. I told you, Sanji-kun, we're always ready!"
The blond let Sogeking turn away and stomp into the not-so-barren wilderness behind the truck, a curly brow drawn down into a thoughtful frown as he followed reluctantly.
'Who da fuck is we?' the chef pondered as he slouched along, trying to ignore the itch in the webbing between his toes. His one working blue eye glanced at the rad mask, and the hardened thug (and part-time cannibal, but that was most of them) found himself shuddering right up to his feathers. He couldn't forget the way the mask had shimmered in the moonlight the night before, winking in time to the conversation. The cook was no priest, but he had the instincts of an oft-preyed upon creature. Something shitty was about to hit the proverbial fan.
[~~~]
The 'Going Merry' traveled for well over a month with the three men (or five, if you count heads) squeezed into the cab. Barring the incident where Sogeking tried to teach the other two to drive and ended up destroying a village, they had an easy trip until they stopped by the smoking remains of the Baratie diner, where they met Prince Sanji the Duck.
See, Sanji was born looking human, save some minor issues: golden feathers instead of hair with long, curly eyebrows, scaly legs with four webbed toes tipped with savage claws and latent swimming skills. In long leather pants and a pair of half boots, no-one could tell the difference!
...That didn't fly by his father. He took one look at the child, trussed up Sanji like a game hen and sold him to a traveling tribe.
Fortunately, they worshiped birds.
He became known as Prince and he lived a life of relative ease - all he had to do once he had froth in his morning piss was give up his tender ass to the tribal men before they went warring.
Did I mention Sanji generally hates men?
Anyway, in the middle of receiving an 'offering' from the tribe's half-mutie leader, Gin, a raiding group descended like the hounds of hell, followed swiftly by a sandstorm from the edge of the Rad-Line. End results? Sanji had a well-oiled asshole, Gin's amputated cock, a basin of holy water, no food, and a burly raider with a broken leg for company.
Warning: never ask Sanji if he has something stuck up his ass. That's suicide by foot.
Caught without food or most of their clothing, Sanji and the raider decided to work together to stay alive. Beyond all hope the raider was relatively paternal and heterosexual, so he taught the boy all sorts of survival skills, including how to how to kick ass in the most literal sense and eat just about anything.
Starting with half-mutie dick, chased with gangrenous human leg.
Sanji and that crippled raider stuck it out for years, building the Baratie with their blood and sweat. They drafted other ne'er-do-wells and built up a reputation for the best pig-rat stew anywhere. Beings came from everywhere to eat and Sanji became a slut chasing after every not-male diner - willing or unwilling. Yes, life was good till Don Krieg's raiders swept through the area and torched the place while Sanji was out hunting more pig-rats.
Trust him to return at the very moment that the others arrived. He took one look at the gutted diner and his feet started talking. It took them a day to wear him down, plus another two nights to talk sense into him. After that, they let him bury a charred carcass with a red braided beard and a rival gang's brand on the forehead, he gathered his cooking utensils and joined them.
[~~~]
Little side note: Zoro almost lost his life after meeting up with Sanji. He still blames the duck, though it's utterly irrational, just like the rest of their relationship.
How? Oh, the jolly green jerk-off (as Sanji likes to call him) had an unpleasant encounter with the Rad-Line's own Hawk-eyes Mihawk.
I can hear you asking, "How could a small-fry tribal catch Mihawk' eyes?" Simple, quite frankly. Have you ever watched a high-kicking man-duck and a three-headed, three-bladed, six-armed tribal fighting? It's beautiful I tell you. And Mihawk, despite his general lack of external sex organs (oversized cojones not included), loves beautiful things, like all other men do.
He just has problems taking them alive.
That story leads to a whole 'nother side joint on how Luffy, Zoro, Sogeking and Sanji became real close, but I want to tell you how they became the Vault-suit raiders. Suffice it to say that the scar bisecting Zoro's chest was their first symbol of unity in the face of relentless pursuers.
Just don't say the word 'cock 'n' candy,' whatever you do. That sends Zoro, Rozo and Orzo into a blind rage, and the other three men into giggling fits that are downright creepy.
[~~~]
Soon after escaping Mihawk, Nami the gnoll literally ran into them. Actually, she says it's the other way round; no-one is dumb enough to challenge her on it.
[~~~]
What's a gnoll? Are you shitting me?
Gnolls are humans with orange or red fur, short muzzles, huge canines, claws and a fully functional set of bats, balls, and catching mitts - generally they're hermaphrodite hyena.
Yes, I do mean fully functional. Pervert.
[~~~]
Nami, like most gnolls, doesn't know her real parents, but her adopted mother was an ex-Sister of Steel named Bellemere. Her older sister was a tangerine dryad named Nojiko, I think...anyway, Nami and her family were living peacefully in the burned out husk of a city, tending Nojiko's tangerine orchard, when mutie raiders came in and tore up their lives.
Muties, being ten times stronger than everything and immune to most radiation, usually think very little of just about every other being, probably because they are also very stupid. This gang, however, was led by a sly mutie named Arlong. Arlong basically told the citizens their choices: hand over money, a warm, wet hole, or fertilize the earth.
Most everyone went along with money except for Bellemere. That woman was hardcore Steel - she didn't ask for, or take, any quarter. She hid Nami in Nojiko's orchard while she found her old armor and loaded her plasma gun one last time...
'Coure the bitch died - but she took half of Arlong's gang with her. That earned Nami and Nojiko a twisted sort of respect in Arlong's eyes when he found them. He willingly took the orange gnoll under his wing, provided that she handed over 100 million chips or her virginity within 10 years to free the whole town.
Mutie dick is like a baseball bat, and Arlong loved a tight fitting lover, even if he killed them, so Nami became a thief in the surrounding cities - a good one at that. She'd earned 90% of the money when a Brotherhood of Steel unit commandeered Nojiko's grove, body, and the money Nami'd been hiding. The dryad resignedly serviced them as Nami ran for Arlong-
-Who was in on it the whole time. Nami barely skipped out of Dodge with her pussy intact.
In fleeing, Nami ran smack into the Going Merry. She's lucky Sogeking had quick reflexes, or she would have been Sanji's road-kill stew. They scraped her up, tended her bruises and listened to her story, their eyes burnin' mad by the time she was done.
Please - for all that is good and holy - do not tell four men whose lives have been ruined by gangs and betrayers your pitiful tale about back-stabbing raiders. Seriously, the blasphemy they'll commit will stain the land for eons to come.
Nami watched as these humans took on muties without pausing and proceeded to smear them across the city. Luffy in particular was a beast, trouncing Arlong by bludgeoning him to death with his rubbery head, all while laughing. They rescued Nojiko from the Steel, earning them raider status and the loyalty of the world's most clever, lust-inducing, penny-pinching gnoll navigator.
They loved her right back.
[~~~]
With Nami on board, the gang set Going Merry on course to the Rad-Line, hunting down an array of raiders that kept destroying the sprinkling of villages and tribes throughout the Blighted Lands. After an episode in a Brotherhood of Steel outpost called Loguetown - an experience Sogeking often referred to as tiptoeing through Hell with kerosene half-boots on, no smoke-mask, and bad eyesight - they made it into the Rad-Line.
Let me guess? What the fuck is the Rad-Line, right? You're a damn yokel, ya know that?
The Rad-Line is where the nukes first wiped their asses on the planet at the end of the Far Past - a long corridor of radiation vomited from bombs that were stronger than anyone had any right knowing how to make; stronger than a few suns too. Most muties alive come from the Rad-Line, along with a whole host of other variations on life, including Doc Chop.
[~~~]
Chopper was a caribou - yes, that is too the same as a reindeer - living with Mother Kureha on the last mountain in the Rockies, above a small city named Drum.
Nami'd come down with radiation sickness (a side effect of exposure to muties) and the old woman was rumored to be sitting on a stash of Rad-X as high as the mountain itself. The boys had been worried sick, sleeping in the same side of the 20' container with her, their combined body heat easing her pain. They'd searched high and low for a doctor before hitting Drum completely by accident (okay, fine, it was Zoro who pointed it out, same difference!).
Zoro and Sogeking guarded Going Merry while Luffy and Sanji got Nami up the mountain, avoiding a host of Lapins (yeah, the man-eating bunnies - you do know something!) and an avalanche. Sorry - Luffy and Nami avoided the avalanche. Sanji got smacked by it. If he weren't holding on to Luffy's hand at the time, no-one would've ever found the paralyzed blond again.
Somehow, Luffy made it up the mountain with both Sanji and Nami on his back, his hands and face bleeding under the cruel winds of a nuclear winter. He met Doc Chop at the top and begged him to help his new family.
Luffy knew better than most that his mind couldn't stand the loss.
Chopper took them to Kureha, who nursed them all back to health in her unique way. After eighteen hours, the Rad-X purified Nami, Sanji's avalanche-fractured spine was reset and Luffy's wounds were bandaged.
The moronic former mayor of Drum decided that it was a perfect time to reclaim the city he'd abandoned when the Blackbeard raiders roared through.
Wapol. There was an interesting fellow. He'd been born with no mouth, so they'd fashioned him a metal set of jaws, which he used to eat anything - he had no mouth but he had a cast-iron stomach.
Wapol and his advisors thought to themselves, "Hey, let's go attack our former citizens while a group of no-name raiders are in town just to impress them with our strength!"
That wasn't how it worked out. What happened instead was, "Hey look! Injured no-name raiders and a reindeer throw Wapol's ass to the Lapins and scrap his snow-mobile for parts!"
The gang took a real shine to Chopper. The three year-old (about fifteen human years) was naive and sweet and so loving, even though his background was no better than theirs - chased out of his herd as a runt, into the heart of the radiation on the mountain, where he mutated rapidly into a humanoid. He was small, but he sucked up radiation and knowledge like a sponge, with some useful transformations as a result.
So when Kureha wisely chased them all out, they held out their hands to carry him along.
[~~~]