"Soge- Usopp! Got any clues as ta whut da hell dat was?"
Usopp shook his head as he kept his eye on Kabuto's scope - a minuscule pinprick of green light helped him to mark and measure off distances. Ahead of them, they could still hear the Luffy-yet-not-Luffy voice screaming its challenge.
"Sorry, Luffy, I haven't a clue! We've never faced anything that...weird. At least, not yet we haven't. How's it looking back there, Franky?"
"Long-nose-bro, I'm not sensing any movement behind us," Franky replied as he agilely ran backwards while staring intently into the darkness; on his back, Robin's leaves rustled as she tried to sense any contrary movement.
"Captain, maybe we can take a break and let the others catch their breath?" she suggested gently, noting how winded the gnoll and the reindeer looked.
"Fine by me!" Luffy crowed as he pulled up short at the dryad's suggestion. Usopp gladly slipped down the rubber man's back onto the unseen floor as the others drew to a halt nearby.
Giggling, the Cajun cook exhaled large puffs of hot air and Mad Bomber smoke - the deep, incense-like scent was already beginning to make Usopp feel a bit light-headed. The Duck was high as a kite, judging from the way he was leaning against the conjoined triplets - fortunately, Zoro and his brothers were far too winded to care at the moment. Nami's fur was plastered against her body as she and Chopper teetered on all fours before slumping into a sweaty pile that took B. Bones and Franky down with it. Robin leapt clear of the pile.
"So, Captain," Robin began as she negligently put the now-hallucinating Sanji's head between his knees before the smoke could act any further on his brain. "Exactly why are we still in the cavern? Other than the fact that we cannot go back very easily. And why is your voice constantly echoing throughout this place?"
Luffy groaned, clutched his empty stomach and moaned about rad scorpion kebabs and pig-rat chops.
"I see," Robin nodded wisely before throwing her captain a length of old jerky that had somehow gotten lodged in her leather vest's pocket. As he fell on the length of hardened meat like a jackal on a corpse, she turned to the sniper, who had rolled onto his back and closed his eyes.
"Sogeking? Or should I say, Usopp?"
Slowly, the marksman's eyes opened and turned to the dryad. Even through the slight frown, Robin could see a key difference - a great deal of sanity.
"It is a pleasure to meet you, Usopp - even if the situation could be better. Do I need to make introductions?"
"No, that's alright, Robin," he mumbled as he pushed himself upright using his elbows and forearms, then pulled himself closer to shake her outstretched branch. As he did so, Wadou's light (for the sword had begun to glow even brighter) fell on his legs - or lack thereof.
Plainly visible to all was the mangled, useless state of his lower appendages - blood-encrusted, with toes badly bent backwards or snapped completely off. Bone was sticking out through what would normally have been his shins and lacerations had exposed the hard-earned muscles in his thighs. Before Usopp could squeak out an objection, Robin had him in the woody embrace of several branches while she stalked over to Doc Chop.
"Doc, look at his wounds! That fall must have-! And crawling in this cavern-! Is there any hope he can walk again?" she hissed in her deadly quiet leaves-and-twigs-scratchscratchscratching-in-the-wind voice. Her branches were as dry and creaky as the trees on Thriller Bark, which only served to make Usopp panicky because after Thriller Bark had been Shabondy and after Shabondy had been...had been...
Doc Chop frowned as Usopp's eyes clouded up and gained a sheen of terror. The look was a wholly strange combination on the dark face that was more prone to battle-lust and a disturbing desire to die. Picking himself up tiredly, the reindeer trotted over to the sniper with a slightly revived Zoro in tow.
"Uh, Usopp is it?" the reindeer began nervously as Zoro helped him to pop some Rad-X and counteract his current shape. "You don't appear to be in any pain at the moment-"
"Can't feel," Usopp muttered, suddenly clawing the ground as Doc Chop's voice drifted into the background, swallowed by rushing air - rush rush rushrushrusing past the sniper's ears. "Sky...sea...flying..can't feel! Luffy, where is..Luffy where- whereishewhereishewherearetheywhereishe- !"
Zoro smacked him. Twice for good measure. Usopp drew in a sharp breath and the familiar weight of murder came back in his eyes - just briefly - before they became unfamiliar again.
Okay, maybe not as much sanity as Robin'd thought. Her musings were pierced by Chopper's continued visual analysis.
"This is horrible - beyond horrible! These wounds - your back! - crippled for life, even if I had a way to save your legs!"
Franky dragged himself from under Nami and B. Bones to conduct his own examination. His probing orbital units and digits found little to work with.
"Ain't no nerves in the back workin' 'nuff ta make a prosthetic worth it. I'd hafta attach wheels 'n' controls 'n' a whole load of stuff we ain't got, Doc-bro.
"Fuck a duck - no offense, Sanji - but what the hell did you do to Sogeking's body?" Doc Chop whimpered in sympathy as he carefully and tentatively probed the now-pulsating flesh.
"Other dan hijack da merde out uh it 'n' try ta kill our gunner?" Sanji growled menacingly, his head now clear of the drug's effects. "I've a mind ta carve ya up, 'ceptin' ya saved da Capitan's life."
Usopp growled himself, even while he marveled at his lack of fear - probably because he'd already met Death and found out that it was a withered man that looked a lot like Brook's former captain, carried a massive scythe called The Grim Reaper, was a bisexual pervert with a crush on Robin and liked a lot of liquor.
"It was your fucking gunner and my goddamn twin who locked me in a shitty as ass rad-mask with that stupid...stupid prayer-magic of his! And he's busy leading my crew to my Luffy with my almost perfectly fine body, so why don't you go chew his ear off when we get there, huh?"
That got them to stop talking real fast - the silence was only broken by snatches of - the other Luffy? - telling something to bring back someone. D. Luffy was the only one moving as he snorted and brushed some dust off of his vault-suit with jerky-stained fingers.
"Whut he's sayin' is dat he was tryin' ta save his captain's life - Monkey D. Luffy was it? - not so much mine. Seems like t'ings get a li'l...mysterious...when a person dies."
The other Vault-suits remained silent as they considered their simple-minded captain's serene smile and easy ability to accept such a complex thought. The Vault-suit leader approached Usopp where he laid on the ground and crouched by his head.
"Maybe's jus' better ta tell'em on the run liken' whut ya did ta me, huh 'Sopp?"
The sniper snorted, closed his eyes and grasped D. Luffy's strong, rough hand as the rubber man pulled him and Kabuto onto his back once more.
[~~~]
As they ran, the air around them became positively alive with Usopp's story-telling. The weaving of his words brought shadows of despair and epic victories to the same startling, nigh-tangible brilliance (why, they even saw their own battles cast side by side with the not-Sogeking's own in the very darkness around them!), but there was a thread that ran through it all that the Vault-suits had never thought of before that day.
Teamwork. Unity. Strategic joint attacks. Combined defense. And, apparently, a bit less sex between the four younger males and Nami, with a lot more sexual escapades amongst the three older members.
Robin was fairly certain that the sniper wasn't projected those salacious images. At least, not consciously.
D. Luffy looked at his gang as understanding dawned on them as it had for him. Whoever these Straw-hats were - even if they were just copies - they were light-years ahead of the Vault-suits on being a real gang. They'd never make it to Brazil if they couldn't even work with each other. That fact became even more apparent as Usopp's story changed to one of mental breakdowns under stress, fatigue, and guilt. Luffy's face hardened as he pointedly looked at each gang member. This was where they could be in a few hours - hell, a few minutes - if they didn't continue to learn to work together. Even he had seen that.
"So you believe that Death has lured your group here to take your captain and his brother, correct?" Robin summarized after the sniper finished his tale.
"Yep," Usopp confirmed, glad to see that someone in the gang might understand what was going on - Luffy had simple declared it all to be super mysterious. "See, me and Sogeking think that if certain people die in one dimension, it kind of...ripples out...to all dimensions. Some sort of balance. And if Death is telling the truth, Ace is only alive in this dimension-"
"Nuh-uh," Luffy broke in with a firm voice. "Ace's alive in our dimension too. He's my cousin - I'd know if he was dead."
Behind him, Sanji elbowed Zoro and Nami fiercely glared at the others. No need to bring back up that argument. If it kept their captain's sparse sanity to believe that the decapitated, executed body they had buried was not his cousin, so be it. Usopp missed the signs, his thoughts spinning out wildly.
"That might explain why you guys got dragged into this too. Death wouldn't let any of Ace's versions off the hook, I bet. Plus, it looks like he was out for you for some reason, what with that tornado and...hrm, maybe that's why he dragged in my Luffy...?" the sniper murmured distractedly before pounding the Vault-suits' captain on his shoulder. "Hey, Luffy! Maybe your Ace is in here t-"
B. Bones suddenly screeched to a halt, his bony hands to the withered skin flaps that were his ears. His hearing was well-acknowledged as being the sharpest in the gang's, with Doc Chop's a close second. It was easy for the ex-lieutenant to distinguish unique sounds, even through the racket that Usopp's captain was making.
"Mierda!" the ghoul hissed as his ears went tracking. "I think something's going to blast past us, captain. Something muy grande y muy, muy rapido. I think it's traveling near the sound barrier."
"He's right," the doctor confirmed with a nervous squeak after a few more seconds. "Smells like the predator I was talkin' 'bout before too."
"Y'shittin' me, Bones-bro," Franky muttered as he ate one of Sogeking's clips to load his shoulder guns and repositioned Robin on his back. "If it's that fast, wouldn't that mean that by now it's in fron-"
Usopp's hiss cut the android off as he dragged his twin's rifle onto Luffy's shoulder frantically. The marksman's eye was soon stuck to Kabuto's scope.
"Just saw something," the dread-locked man gritted out from his clenched teeth. "Blur - black on black. Half a knot - er, one klick in advance."
"Sneaky, sneaky my bit- my laddies," Luffy mumbled as he crouched low and began to run on tiptoe. The others quickly followed suit, lowering themselves and slinking forward like ghosts in the dark. Still, it was slow going, even with Wadou still raised high. It took ten minutes of spurts and stops to get half that distance, then Usopp was flagging them all down.
"Zoro, wrap that blade in your kilt or something! I need lights out!" he hissed, even as his eye retrained itself on the distant, nigh-invisible target in the scope. Grumbling about whiny snipers, the tribal acquiesced to the demand, smothering the greater majority of the brilliance to the mere incandescence of some mosses.
"My captain - my Luffy - is definitely up ahead. Seems like all of his yelling's gotten the attention of that...thing...that zoomed past us. We're going to do it like this," Usopp continued as his tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth. "When I pull the trigger, Sogeking and my crew will start running in to save my captain. We'll do the same and pincer that prick in between us."
"'S good plan," Nami approved while drawing her staff, "But how'd ya know where everyone is in the dark? 'N' how're ya supposed ta shoot the target with no light?"
"That's easy," Usopp muttered as he drew in his breath and visualized the bullet in the chamber. "I can feel them in my heart - my eyes aren't for shooting, they're for quick spotting - Sogeking'll tell you the same thing. See, most of us close our eyes when the actual shot goes off, because we already know whether it's a miss- "
Usopp's breathing halted, air trapped in his ballooning lungs. Nobody noticed that they'd stopped breathing as well while the sniper became the bullet. Unawares, his voice dropped to the merest sliver of sound - virtually inaudible to their ears.
"or a-"
The hammer clicked loudly in the dead-quiet chamber. Somehow, like his twin's prayer-magic, Usopp made the moment draw out for far longer than it should have. The tension had built to a fever-pitch in every gang member's body by the time Usopp's rushed exhalation beat the report of the gun to their ear-drums.
"Hit! Let's go in hot!" Usopp screamed. With a roar, the Vault-suits took off like arrows from a bow, ready to jump into the fray ahead. As they pounded around the corner, Usopp let fly one of Sogeking's custom bullets from his twin's spare pistol, causing light to flood the room.
But the light was far more than it should have been.
"Heads up! Meteorite Shower Flare!"
"Swallowtail Butterfly Meteor!"
All hell was on the verge of breaking loose.
"San Tou Ryuu Rashomon!"
"Three-Man Vault Door Opener!"
Even in the middle of attacking, bewilderment flooded them.
"Diable Jambe Frit Assorti!"
"A Side Of Cajun Fries!"
Their minds were momentarily detached from the battle as they were struck nigh-dumb, their Waste-hardened bodies moving on autopilot.
"Thunderbolt Tempo!"
"Lightning Storm!"
Despite the calling of each deadly attack, both Straw-hats and Vault-suits were only one thing.
"Coup de Vent!"
"Air Cannon!"
It was an impossibility come true - something that Sogeking and Usopp had told them about - warned them about. It had not truly been believable until it was finally seen with their own eyes.
"Three-Verse Humming Arrow-Notch Slice!"
"Six-string Guitar Strumming Pick-Slash!"
Every mortal there could only wonder at how alike, yet dissimilar, their dimensional twin appeared as they all performed virtually the same moves on the shadow-wrapped, malevolent largesse that had trained its wrath on the small, stretchy human that dared to stand firm in the face of any and everything.
And then, there was nothing but stasis.
[~~~]
Usopp's mind snarled futilely as he watched Death descend from on high, two ethereally beautiful women flanking him. If he could not see his captain tangled in the elastic limbs of his doppelganger, he would be howling in rage and anguish - he could sense that the attack that had been aimed at Luffy was meant to obliterate its intended target in one swift move.
"Damn you, Death! Why can't you just leave us al-"
"Usopp, what the hell did you do to my body?" Sogeking roared in his mind. The twins were now locked with their fingertips barely grazing, which allowed the Wastes-born marksman to squirm partially back into his own body. "Fuck me, I can't feel half of it!"
"Uhm, hello, we jumped off a bloody cliff, in case you forgot while prancing around in my body!" Usopp snarled back as he shoved himself partway into his own form. "What'd you think was gonna happen? It was higher than the tower in Enies Lobby, y'know!"
"Oh can it, both of you," Death muttered irritably while flicking his wrist. A great blanket of lassitude soon covered both factions' minds, forcibly quelling their growing questions and panic.
Thereby sticking the two snipers' partway into each other's physical container.
"Oh joy!" both men sighed disconsolately before snorting at their similar mental gestures. Resigned, Usopp took the opportunity to scan his crew and see how they'd fared since he'd last been with them.
He tried hard not to tear up as he saw both Zoro and Sanji at full strength, muscles rippling in their arms and legs respectively as both men consciously tried to test their invisible bonds. Franky seemed to be enraged by the paralysis - he was trying his best to glare balefully at Death, which made the sniper wonder what exactly the entity had done now to piss his cyborg buddy off so badly. Brook looked nearly as resigned as himself, but there was a pinch of sadness deep in his empty eye sockets. Robin and Nami were both darting glances over the other crew - assessing weaknesses and strengths, no doubt. Chopper was trying his best to scan Luffy - both of them - for any injuries.
A flicker - two flickers - caught both marksmen's eyes. One was a brilliant orange glow, distinct in the darkness as it grew larger and larger. The other one was a sickly green that burned like the strange sky-lights he'd heard tales about from Sanji. The other light bobbed and weaved like a will o' wisp, chasing the orange glow that was hurtling towards the murky opponent that had yet to be revealed.
"Dude, do you think-?" Sogeking asked, his eyes widening minutely as the orange fireball became visible.
"That Ace can save us?" Usopp replied hopefully. "He's just about the only person who can."
And then Death cut that possibility off too.
[~~~]
"What a friggin' kill-joy," Sogeking muttered nastily as Ace was carried into the vicinity of the battle on the tip of the Grim Reaper, two unfamiliar figures following Death and the female entities that had tagged along. Usopp could only agree as the enraged being waved his withered hand and life returned to his limbs - only to have his body crash to the ground.
"Yes, of course, be gentle with the cripple," Sogeking grumbled as he tried to push himself upright. Usopp frowned and ignored his doppelganger - he had far more pressing issues to deal with, such as the remaining paralysis of his legs.
"Sogeking, I think we have some feedback," the pirate alerted his raider double. "I'm having trouble controlling my-"
"Let's go now, chop chop! Death's quite cranky today, poor boy," a serenely menacing female voice boomed in both marksmen's brains. It was one of the beauties that had accompanied Death - the colorless, rainbow-clad woman known as Fate - who was speaking to them. She laid a cool, dry hand on each of their brows in a gesture that was so maternal that both young men were briefly reminded of their respective Banchinas.
Then the blinding, withering, agonizing, heart-stopping rhythm of pain pounded on them both.
"Oh, darn it. You're both twined around each other so tight...oh. Oh dear. Looks like this one won't make it if I force you two apart. You're currently the only strength he has, pirate."
Usopp couldn't respond other than to shriek into the dark, the full weight of Sogeking's wounds being shared through their link. His twin screamed at the same time, unable to compensate for the fire sizzling through his formerly dumb nerve-endings.
"Apologies in advance - try not to go mad or die before I'm done."
And then, with only a slight shifting of her fingers, it all became far, far worse.
[~~~]
Author says:
Editted for formatting failures, missing lines and minor grammar.