Hello everyone! Hope you enjoy the new chapter!
I'm a little more interested in this story than "A Different Take" at the moment. I think it has something to do with where the story is right now in that one. It's kinda boring to me because I can't really change much about it. On the other hand, this one is just me doing whatever. I'm not even sure if I want it to be heading in this direction, but I'll wait and see how it turns out.
As a side note, I really hate Usopp's name. Freaking misspelled it 7 hundred times or something.
I do not own One Piece as that belongs to Eiichiro Oda, Toei, and whomever else it belongs to.
With hazy eyesight and a fire in his head, Luffy woke up. His memories were blurry, but he thought he had passed out on the sofa, not the bed.
"Robin? Are you here?" His question went unanswered, so he got up and started to search the apartment.
She wasn't in the shower, he had checked twice, and she wasn't in the living room. Being sure to check everywhere, he made sure she wasn't in the fridge. He did take the opportunity to take some left over meat to chew on while walking around the apartment.
"Robin?" Voice muffled by his chewing, he had an epiphany.
"Ah! Maybe she's at work! Hm..." With a little meat sticking out of his mouth, he tried to think, "Where does she work again? I can't remember." Speaking aloud, he took out the cellphone Nami gave him.
On the screen was a custom background that said, "Only press this button."
"Understood!" He exclaimed, pressing the button. It didn't take but a few seconds for him to receive an answer.
"Luffy?! Are you alright?! Where are you?!" Nami's worried tone came through the receiver.
"Hey, Nami? Do you know where Robin is?"
"Robin? Who's that?"
"Gah! I mean, never mind." He caught himself. The man had never told his friends about Robin at her request.
"Luffy...are you alright? We thought you would have taken out Buggy and his henchmen, but we only stopped them from stealing the goods. We-" He could hear Zoro yelling in the background how she had meant "him", "looked for you for hours. This idiot here got lost, so I had to take him back to the Going Merry."
"Yeah! My head started hurting, so I just went home!"
"Where exactly is your home, Luffy?"
"Um..." He had forgotten that he never talked about where he stayed for the night. He used to sleep at the Going Merry, but after he had gotten an apartment with Robin...
"That's a secret!" Luffy decided that was the best answer.
"You idiot! This is no time for jokes!" Nami's voice hurt Luffy's ears, "Since you don't want to tell me, fine! But Shanks is coming over today, so hurry back, you understand?!"
"Yes! Yes! I understand!" He pleaded over the phone. When Nami got angry, it was best to surrender to her, lest you wanted to experience pain.
Nami hung up on him, so he closed the phone.
"Alright! Time to go see Shanks!"
He left the apartment, being sure to lock it like always. And as he left, he turned the wrong way.
They laughed together as they walked to school. Kaya usually had different classes from him, so they always took the time when they could meet up to talk.
"Is that really true, Usopp? Did you really expect me to believe that you defeated your "enemies" with the power of gas?"
"It is! It is I tell you! Never underestimate the power of a strong-"
"Oh! Hey, Usopp!" Luffy said as he passed the two.
"Luffy! Nice to see you! Now, where was-" Usopp turned his head so fast, Kaya thought he might have been part owl.
"U-U-Um, excuse me Kaya! I just remembered that there's a chest that only I can open that will allow the brave adventures to defeat the evil Demon King!" He ran after the other man who had greeted them, his words getting softer as the distance became greater.
"See you later then, Usopp!" Kaya waved goodbye, hoping they could speak more during lunch.
"Luffy!" Usopp grabbed his friends shoulders to stop him from walking away and turned him so they were facing each other.
"Hey again, Usopp! Why are you breathing so hard?"
"That's because you didn't answer me the first, second, or third time I told you to stop!" Usopp looked at their surroundings and became frightened.
They were almost in the center of the city! The one place they were never supposed to go! Hell, he only came here because the school was closer to the center, but this was getting too close!
"You were calling me?" Luffy had a questioning look on his face, "Don't you have school right now? Are you on a field trip?"
"No, I'm not on a field trip! What's wrong with you?!"
"I'm heading towards Merry! This doesn't look like the right place though..."
"That's because it's at the edge of the city, Luffy! You have to take a train to get there!" Usopp started to think that this guy was an imposter. Luffy surely knew to take the train to get to the Going Me-
"Eh? But that's boring! I wanted to walk!" His friend, also known as a level-headed young man that was almost always calm, whined loudly. He caught the attention of a few people and Usopp thought that they would even attract the attention of the police.
"C-Come on, Luffy! I'll take you to the Going Merry!" Usopp, pushing Luffy to the nearest train station, was already beyond the point of paranoia.
"Don't you have school?"
"Class is the least of my concerns with you walking into a death trap!"
"Oh hey, you two! Usopp, how are classes going?" When they entered their usual meeting room, Usopp was surprised to see Shanks reclining on the sofa, and Benn was busy working on a laptop on the kitchen table.
"S-Shanks?! What are you doing here!? Classes?! O-Oh! They're going fine!" Usopp had beads of sweat rolling down his face.
"Dahahahaha! The look on your face is priceless!" Shanks laughed loudly at him, pointing a finger at his face.
"Hey, Shanks!" Luffy smiled widely and waved, which the red-haired man returned.
"Yo, Luffy! Did Buggy really give you a beating?" Shanks smirked, expecting some sort of reaction from Luffy.
"Nah, I just got food poisoning or something." Luffy sat down next to him, still keeping a smile up.
Benn looked over from his laptop, but had to return his gaze to the screen.
"Food poisoning-? Don't tell me you ate one of the fruits I sent to Crocus!" Shanks yelled in surprise.
"Nope! It was something Robin got for me!"
"Robin?" Shanks looked carefully at the younger man, "Who's that?"
"Um...no one! It's no one! Forget I said anything!"
"Luffy..." Shanks wanted to say more, but the younger man was already looking away.
He giggled, "Is it a secret girlfriend, Luffy?"
"Yeah! She is-" Luffy put hands over his mouth to stop him from speaking.
"W-Wait, you have a girlfriend, Luffy!?" Usopp, not being used to so many surprises in one hour, shouted.
"Luffy has a girlfriend?" The door opened, Nami and Zoro walked inside holding some drinks.
Zoro had to dump the drinks on the table while Nami still held hers.
"Here you go." He told the red-haired man bluntly.
"H-Hey! Don't shake them up like that!" Complaining, he still took one of the drinks and noticed it was mostly juice and soda.
"Where's the alcohol?"
"Tsk." Zoro looked the other way, "I didn't have enough on me, and I didn't want any loans from the money demon here-"
Zoro had to hold his shin in pain after Nami kicked him.
"Is it true?" Nami asked Luffy, "Do you really have a girlfriend?"
"...Yes..." He muttered in defeat.
"Why? Were you interested?" Shanks asked, a mischievous glint in his eyes.
"Whoever it is must have the patience of a saint." Nami sighed, "I wish them luck, but Luffy? Don't you think you're acting a bit...odd?"
Luffy, who was staring blankly at a wall, suddenly looked at her.
"No? I feel kinda normal."
"Really?" Nami put a hand on his head and took it back in shock, "You're burning up! How are you even walking around like that!?"
Shanks put a hand on the younger man's head, and noticed that she was right. With a fever like this, he should be incapacitated.
"But I feel fine!" Luffy protested, but Usopp put a hand on his shoulder to stop him from getting away from the couch.
"Luffy...don't take illness so lightly."
"Ah...sorry, Usopp." The long nosed man's mother had passed away due to what many had said was a "small cold".
"Luffy, I'm going to ask you again. Are you sure you didn't eat any of the fruit that I sent you guys to take to Crocus?"
"Um...it was purple..."
Shanks smacked his head, and Benn hunched over more in his chair.
"Damn it, Luffy! That was a very stupid thing to do!"
"What? What's wrong?" Nami, sounding even more worried, looked to see their boss starting to sweat.
"Nothing. Nothing's wrong." It took a moment for Shanks to answer, but he sighed and told the group.
"Luffy, you have to be a bit more careful next time, alright?" He gave a small, subdued smile to Luffy, "Don't eat strange things from now on."
"Alright, Shanks! Sorry for eating that purple fruit!" Luffy still smiled brightly at the older man.
"Anyway, I was just worried when Nami told me you were missing. It's good to see that you're all okay. Lucky's already checking out the Baratie to see if everything's okay there."
He pulled a slip of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Nami.
"You've got new orders I want you to work on right away. It's really nothing, but some people decided it would be a good idea to peddle things I would much rather not be peddled in my neighborhood. I hope you guys can get started?"
Nami looked at the small slip, noted the places, and sighed.
"You two!" She pointed at Luffy and Zoro, "Time to get to work! There's a lot of places on this list, and it might take us all day to cover every one of them."
"Hey now...you don't have to get it done in one day, but if you really feel strongly about it." Shanks said with a hint of caution, but he knew that Nami would feel strongly about this. She had gone through things that nobody else should have to experience, and this probably had something to do with it.
"Is there any chance for a bonus if we do finish them all~?" He looked back at Nami and saw her eyes shining with the chance for more money. Maybe she only wanted this...
"...Hm, sure. Why not?" He grinned, ignoring how Benn glared at him.
"Alright! Let's go- Usopp? You're still here?"
"Yeah, but I think I'll just head back to school. It might take another hour to get back, but I might be there before lunch."
Zoro smirked, "Here we were talking about Luffy's secret lover while we forgot you had one of your own."
"L-Lo-Lover?! No! No way! Impossible! And don't ever use that word again!" Usopp exclaimed loudly as the group left the room.
"See ya, Shanks!"
"Later, everyone! Stay safe!" Shanks smiled at them, until the door closed. He then got up and went over to Benn to see what he was working on.
"How are things here?"
"Terrible." Nobody had really noticed it, but Benn's fingers were a blur as they typed silently on the keyboard, "Whoever this is, it's as if I'm fighting ten people or something. I don't think we're going to get this server, Boss."
"It's alright if we don't. I only wanted it to warn the old guy up north, but I've already heard that one of his men has disappeared."
"Marco, wasn't it? Shame that is. One of that guy's intelligence officers disappearing like that? That's a huge loss to him." Benn looked up from the keyboard for a few seconds to see that his leader had a regretful look.
"Yeah..." Shanks muttered until he looked at the screen a little closer. Then he started to laugh loudly.
"Huh? What are you-" Benn found his answer when he saw what was displayed.
"Oh wow, Benn. You know there were children in the room? Doing this sort of thing here..."
"What the hell?! Damn it!" He turned the computer off as quickly as he could.
"You were bested?"
"Yeah...I didn't think they could actually manipulate the data on my hard drive. Tch...having me focus on my hacking attempts while aiming at me?"
"You weren't careful, Benn..."
"I was a lot more careful than you think. It's not that I didn't have any defenses, they were stripped away so fast and before I knew it, they got in."
"Did they get any info from us?"
Benn, taking a deep breath, turned his laptop back on and quickly started to check if it was compromised.
"No...not from what I can tell. I don't have anything worth noting on the laptop itself, but they put...those pictures on this comp. It seems as though it was only a warning."
"A warning? That's a strange thing for the government to do."
"Yeah, but this person I'm trying to hack has actually contacted me."
"Really? What did they want?"
"They told me that I was the first one to ever get so far, but that I was fighting a losing battle. Looking back, I think they were right."
"So, the smartest person in the South East District has been bested?"
"I wouldn't say bested, but yeah. I got my ass handed to me there." Turning off the laptop, Benn relaxed for the first time in a few days. This person was always on, and never gave him any ground, so it had taken a lot from him for nothing.
"This news about Luffy is troubling though." Benn started, knowing that his boss wouldn't want to talk about it.
"...Yeah, you're right. He's been cursed, which is just shitty luck for the poor guy." Shanks, now uninterested in Benn's laptop, took his seat on the couch.
"It's strange though. Didn't Crocus say he received the four fruits as promised?"
"...Yeah. He did."
"So how on earth did Luffy get a hold of one?"
Shanks took out a cigarette, handing one to Benn, and lit them both. He knew Nami would complain, but he needed this now.
"I don't know...but that girlfriend of his...Robin was her name?"
"You don't really think it's that Robin, do you?"
"I'm afraid I don't want to know." Shanks took a long drag before letting a large cloud of smoke to escape his lungs, "But I really wish that it isn't true. If it is..."
"We're going to have to do something about it, aren't we?" Benn spoke, feeling the same amount of tension as his friend.
"Let's hope that it's not what we think it is."
Kureha typed away on her computer, hoping to get more information about the man called "Lucy". Hiluluk had gone away, saying he needed to get more supplies, but she deduced that he went out drinking.
That bastard. He should have invited her.
Even after a hour of searching, she never found the name of Lucy, the man, but she did discover that certain government officials who had been cursed have gone missing.
Two of them in fact. She didn't know what happened, but she had a small feeling that they were no longer of this world.
She sighed and leaned back in her chair. Kureha thought for a few moments before she decided what to do next.
After getting back onto the computer she deleted all traces of her searches and inquiries. She also deleted the patient file she had labeled as Lucy.
Knowing the government might snoop around, looking for any information on injured individuals with curses or anyone else that had come in with the symptoms of "adjustments", she saved some important data (pictures of her beloved son) and reformatted the hard drive.
In the back of her mind, she thought that Robin owed her one for covering this up.
Hope you all enjoyed! I might actually update "Tales of a Sinner" next, seeing as I've had an idea of what the next chapter should be, but, as always, no promises!