Title: Zoan
Author: ZOroronoaRO
Fandom: One Piece
Pairings: nearly gen, but with pairings hinted at and/or mentioned.
Timeline: After Ennies Lobby before Florian Triangle Series.
Spoilers: Do not read if you care about spoilers and are not up to date to Ennies Lobby.
Summary: At the newest island, Zoro's strength is admired…a bit too much, and he is now the next target of an X-world government scientist.
Zoan – Chapter six
[Hit And Run]
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Rika blinked slowly, awaking to a dark room that was lit by only a small candle. He sat up and winced, his injuries were still hurting. He then remembered the pirates arriving and looked around quickly; he wasn't in the house anymore.
He was in his underground lab, which used to be a bomb shelter for a church, but it was abandoned long ago. He got out of the sad excuse for a futon and went to the desk. The shelter wasn't very spacious but it had enough room for a few pieces of was basically a square room, with one stairway leading up to the surface.
He scanned the desk for the papers on Roronoa, but they weren't there. He flipped through the other papers in search for it, but still had no luck.
Rika stopped when he heard the sound of footsteps heading down the stairs and drew the pistol he kept in one of the drawers.
The sound got louder and a slender figured woman emerged from the darkness. "There you are. Chris told me you were in here." She eyed the pistol in his hand.
Rika exhaled and replaced the pistol. "Sorry. I'm a little jumpy right now; things aren't going quite as planned."
She walked over and sat in a nearby chair. "So I've heard."
The woman was tall, and had wavy dark brown hair that came down just past her shoulders. She wore tight, black, leather clothing with gloves and boots to match.
She smiled. "So what's the job this time?"
Rika grabbed a bag and filled it with various items from around the room. "Nakiami, my dear friend, we are going to go meet the new and improved Roronoa Zoro."
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Zoro left the kitchen, still pissed about his tail, and went to get the others. He paused before going below deck, looking out into the ocean. He never really noticed its calming beauty before now. He let out a small sigh and leaned against the railing. His whole body felt weird: his legs felt like jelly, but they didn't hurt and they walked just fine, despite the unusual appearance. The tail was odd, too; he swayed it back and forth, not totally believing that it belonged to him.
He looked in the mirror when he put on a shirt, and saw that his hair was longer and black, topped with cat ears. His arms and chest were covered with a light coating of black hair, which seemed like a lot because Zoro was not a hairy guy. The black claws and rows of sharp teeth didn't make things any better. The lower half of his body was completely cover with black fur, which sat uncomfortably underneath his pants. It was all just so strange. If he did eat a devil fruit, wouldn't he be able to change back? He tried, but he couldn't, even though he really didn't even know how.
He cracked his neck and sighed with a frown. He was going to make that guy who did this pay! With one last look at the twinkling ocean, he twirled around and headed below deck.
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Rika looked through a pair of binoculars as Zoro disappeared below deck. That was a problem; he needed him alone and in sight.
He turned to the man beside him. "Bane, where's Chris?"
A blonde man handed something to Nakiami, then turned to Rika. "He's getting one, last ingredient for the thing you need."
Rika nodded approvingly. "Oh, and just because you two were off on a recon mission for our next target doesn't mean you can slack off on our current target."
Bane smiled. "Yeah, this guy seems very special; this is the longest anyone has ever lasted."
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Luffy's stomach sounded like a stampede of elephants.
"Ah…." he moaned. "Nami, when are we going to get back to the Sunny? I'm hungry."
Nami rolled her eyes. "We'll leave in a little bit, just wait until Robin gets back."
They had stopped back in town to grab something; Robin said that Chopper would probably need it, so no one objected.
Luffy's stomach growled again. He would usually pat it and will it to try and last a bit longer, but his arms were full of papers. Not just the ones they found about Zoro, all of them. Not only did they obscure his vision, they hampered his movements as well.
Robin emerged from the store with a small, white bag in her hand.
"I got it." She smiled, holding it up with three fingers.
"Great!" Nami smiled. "Let's get back to Sunny. Most likely stage two has happened by now…." She trailed off.
"Yes!" Luffy cheered. "Food!"
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"Hey, Sanji has some food if you guys are hungry," Zoro said to the two busy inventors, working on something crazy and new.
"Yeah! I'm starving!" Usopp said, putting down a funny looking tool and starting for the kitchen.
"Super! What's on the menu tonight?" Franky drew a couple more lines on his blueprint, then got up and followed Usopp.
Zoro shrugged, "He said something about appetizers."
The two joined Sanji in the kitchen and started to eat the snacks.
After a couple bites, Franky turned to Sanji. "Hey, what happened to the door?" He pointed to the now nonexistent door for the kitchen.
Just then, Zoro walked in and Sanji did a cutting motion across his neck with his whole hand.
Franky blinked, and then took the hint, as Zoro sat down on the couch.
Sanji piled a couple things on a smaller plate and headed to the infirmary for Chopper.
Zoro sat on the couch in silence, watching the carpenter and the sharpshooter talk about building something. It was quite unentertaining.
Deciding he had better things to do, he got up and headed to the back of the upper deck. He found a nice spot to nap against the main mast, next to Robin's flower bed.
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Chris exited the store and almost ran right into Luffy. He quickly backed away and melted into the crowd. He watched as Nico Robin joined them and departed.
This isn't good! he thought. I've got to get back to tell Rika!
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Rika and Nakiami took their position in the small rowboat, waiting for Bane's signal.
"That idiot had better get this right, that stuff is expensive," Nakiami grumbled.
Rika smiled. "Don't worry. I have full faith that his eyes will not fail, that's why he's such a good spy…." He paused. "Though his marksman skills I'm still not so sure of."
Nakiami frowned. "Thanks. That really boosted my confidence."
Rika let out a quiet chuckle, but was cut off by a small snapping noise followed by a long, shallow whistle.
"That's it! Let's go!"
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Sitting in a tree along the shore, Bane pulled the crossbow's string back and clicked off the safety. This was going to be tough.
He closed his eyes and focused. Distance, distance. Zoom in. Target. His eyes snapped open, changing from bright blue to a dark purple. He readied the special arrow with a pink ball for a tip. This had better work like Nakiami said it would! He'd worked with her dozens of times, but this was the first they had ever used this thing. He put the crossbow up to his eye and his vision zoomed in. He smiled as Roronoa Zoro snored unaware- so careless.
He pulled the trigger, letting out a quiet snap, and the arrow zoomed through the air with a small whistle. He watched as Roronoa woke up right before it hit and tried to dodge, but it was too late. As soon as the small ball tip hit the mast, it exploded with gas, engulfing the swordsman. Bane smirked, quickly packed up his gear, and sprinted towards the ship to regroup with the other two.
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Zoro's instincts kicked in, his eyes flashed open to see something flying right at him. He jumped to the side and turned to see what it was, but a pink smoke engulfed him. He gasped, inhaling a big mouthful of the pink crap and staggered back.
Today was not his day.
His mind was fuzzy, but he didn't feel like passing out. He waved the smoke away and looked up to see a man and a woman standing before him.
"Hello, Roronoa Zoro, my name is Rika." He smiled.
Zoro? Was that his name? He couldn't really remember, and the funny thing was, he really didn't care.
"Hi," he said back with a cough.
Rika turned to the woman. "Wow. I'm impressed, Nakiami, it really worked. Your nickname, 'Lady of ten poisons,' is no laughing matter."
She smiled. "It is eleven now, and you'd better hurry, it's really easy for the body to become immune to it."
"How long do I have?"
"Three minutes, give or take."
"Excellent." He turned to Zoro. "Mr. Roronoa, would you be so kind as to hold out your arms?"
Zoro lifted his arms parallel to the ground with no argument.
"Thank you."
Rika pulled out a tape measure and began measuring different parts of Zoro's body and scribbling down something on a clipboard.
Bane crawled up over the side of the deck and joined the others.
"You're late," Nakiami smirked.
"Yeah, yeah. Shove it."
She smiled. "Just keep an eye on the others. Two are in the infirmary and two are in the kitchen." She pointed at the ground in two places.
"Gotcha." Bane's blue eyes shifted to a bright yellow as he looked at the ground.
Zoro grew tired of standing. Why was he doing this? He couldn't remember. He tried to think, but his memory came up blank.
"Hey, where exactly am I?" Zoro asked no one in particular.
Bane looked up, eyes turning back to blue. "Ha ha! You're on a ship in the Grand Line! I still can't believe that pink stuff worked!"
"Of course it worked! I made it!" Nakiami fumed.
"That's exactly my point," he mumbled, looking back to the ground with yellow eyes.
"What's that supposed to mean? This is highly complicated stuff! When inhaled, the particles in the gas make it to his thought process, cutting off access to the memory part of the brain. It also creates a calming chemical to make him not care about pretty much anything! Its only flaws are the amount of time it works, its cost to make, and the immunity to it after only one dose."
"Mmmhmm…" Bane continued to watch the ground.
"Hey! Are you—" Her sentence was cut off by a ringing baby Den Den Mushi.
She picked it up. "Hello?"
"Hey, Nakiami? I ran back to the lab as fast as I could." Chris inhaled deeply, trying to calm his panting. "The three other straw hats should be there shortly."
Bane looked towards the horizon, eyes purple.
"Yup, they're about a minute away; they could notice us at any time. Straw hat has a lot of papers in his hands, and Nico Robin has Zoro's other two swords. Other than that, I don't see anything worth mentioning."
Rika, who had completed all but a couple tests and measurements while Nakiami and Bane were arguing, had an idea.
"Mr. Roronoa, I have two more tests for you."
Zoro snorted, something started to not feel right about this; he started to get some memories back, and they didn't match up to what was happening here.
He shrugged. "Sure."
Rika picked up the white sword that was leaning against the mast; this made Zoro freeze and tense.
"You see over there?" He pointed to three people on the island heading towards them. "Can you see who they are?"
Zoro shook his head.
"Try; cat's eyes are far better than a man's."
Zoro squinted and, sure enough, the faces came into view. He blinked and everything was back to normal.
"Did you see them?"
"Briefly," he said.
"Now close your eyes and smell."
Zoro did what he was told. After a brief second, he smelt the scent of steel, sweat, and a slight smell of a girl. He opened his eyes to see the sword held up to his face.
"Do you like this smell?"
"Yes," he said.
"Did you see that one of those women had your other swords?"
Memories of the two other swords came back. He nodded.
"Close you eyes and smell again. You'll smell your swords. That woman stole them."
A chill ran down Zoro's back. Someone stole my swords? Memories of his swords flashed through his mind, training with them, how he earned them.
Zoro frowned; he was angry at this woman. How dare she!
The wind whipped by Zoro and he smelt them: steel, sweat, blood, and rust. All familiar, and all his.
Rika watched as Zoro's eyes flashed open, glowing yellow with anger.
The scientist turned and motioned for the other two to leave.
"We have what we need; lets go and prepare for the final test."
Zoro's whole body shook with anger and he let out a loud, panther roar.
The sound ripped through the air with amazing ferocity, alarming both the crewmates below deck and the ones approaching.
Thanks for reading everyone! i love to hear your comments! :)
BTW, ZeldaAddict42 is AWESOME with editing skillZ! :) yayz!
also, if i haven't explained this yet Rika means science in Japanese and Nakiami i got from the anime Xam'd (weird i know) i think it means "no more tears" and it sounds really cool :D
I named Chris his name because Chris is a common name and Chris is like the little erran boy that does everything. Yeah, my logic is wack. Then i named Bane his name cuz i got it from the Batman villan and thoght it would be cool for a tough guy :D heehee.