Chapter 5: Bugging out.
Summery: I may never know how it truly began, but I do know that I never truly had a choice in the events that led me here. I am in one piece now, and have unwillingly left my own world behind. That is all that matters, and all I need to know.
Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with any legal rights to one piece in any form, I do not own one piece or any part of the merchandising, gaming, manga, anime, characters, or anything of the sort. Please do not sue me as I do not have any money. The only things that I own from this fic are my own original characters.
A/N1: I KNOW ZORO IS ALSO CALLED ZOLO,
A/N2: I HAVE DECIDE TO LEAVE THE PAIRING UP TO THE READERS.
Please note that this chapter was edited on a massive scale one 10/30/09.
'thoughts'
"Words"
(inner Kaede)
-------------
Luffy had just finished telling us about why his hat was so important to him when Zoro decided to comment on the fact that we were pretty much just floating around in the middle of the ocean.
"I can't believe none of you knows how to navigate." Zoro said, annoyed at the fact that we were all stuck out in the ocean with no food or water.
Well, we didn't have any food, but Choco did, and I wasn't letting anyone near it either.
"I'm a cat girl, Do you really expect me to know how to navigate a giant puddle?" I asked sarcastically, glaring at him slightly.
OK, so I hadn't always been a cat girl and I actually loved water, but he didn't know that, so he should have just assumed that being on water was new to me.
"And I'm a magical talking cat, not a compass. Just be glad I can talk." Lil said, striking a pose to show how great she thought she was.
"How is you being able to talk something to be happy about?" I asked sardonically, glaring at her.
We had been on the ocean without food or water for almost two days, and the lack of food was starting to make me very crabby, then again, if I was in my world, I would have been hospitalize from starvation already.
Lil turned and glared at me, apparently not liking my comment at all.
"Do you want me to give you cat scratch fever?" She asked threateningly, brandishing her claws at me.
She wasn't exactly happy about the no food problem either, Choco was the only one with anything to eat and we were all starting to get a little grouchy.
Choosing to ignore her, I decided to turn and stare at the ocean again for the hundredth time in just over an hour. Boredom had already set in, and I was just to seconds away from going for a swim, even with the giant monsters in the water.
"I usually just get from place to place by just floating around." Luffy said, looking over at Zoro.
"I can't believe that none of you know how to navigate." Zoro said again, laying down on his back to take a nap.
"Don't even start Luffy." I said, knowing that Luffy had been about to start playing twenty questions again, a game that I now hated with a passion. Normally I was a very patient person, but the lack of food was starting to get to me.
For the past two days we had been sitting on the boat with nothing to do, nothing to eat, nothing to drink, and no land in sight. And to top that off, Luffy had been grumbling about being hungry the entire time. If he didn't stop it some time soon, I was going to push him overboard, captain or not.
"Luffy, if you don't stop complaining about food, I swear to what ever deity is out there that I will drown you." I said, looking over at the captain in question, wandering what would happen if I stuck his head under water. No one would know, not with Zoro sleeping anyway... OK, so Lil and Choco would know, but I doubted they'd be very angry about it.
Luffy simply looked at me with big sad eyes that made me want to hug him to death. Have you ever seen a five year old get hurt and start crying? It was kind of the same thing. He looked like a five year old that was hurt, and it made me just want to squeeze him to death.
"Fine, I'm sorry." I said after a minute of looking at those big round eyes, finally giving in to the sad look.
Happy that I was no longer threatening to kill him, Luffy went back to his complaining about being hungry, completely ignoring the fact that we were all hungry.
"Huh. A bird." Zoro said suddenly, apparently unable to sleep with all of Luffy's complaining.
Everyone looked up at the sky, wandering if the bird meant that we were getting close to land.
"Ug, looking at that thing is making me even more hungry." Lil said, lowering her head in despair. Being a cat, birds tended to do that to her.
"I know!" Luffy suddenly shouted, causing Choco to jump into my lap in fear. He wasn't the worlds bravest bird, but being a hatchling, that was understandable. "Let's eat it!"
"How do you plan to catch it?" Zoro asked as I simply sat there and stared at it stupidly.
'For some reason, that damn bird looks familiar.' I thought, staring up at it and wandering if it would taste good fried.
"Yeah, I might be a cat, but that's a bit out of my reach." Lil said, looking up at the bird with a look in her eyes that said clearly that she really wanted to eat the bird.
"I know!" Luffy shouted happily, stretching his arms and grabbing onto the dinghy's mast, preparing to use it like a sling shot.
'Pink bird, why does a pink bird seem so familiar?' I thought curiously, still unable to think properly thanks to the hunger.
It wasn't until Luffy launched himself into the air that my brain finally decided to work again.
"Luffy wait!" I shouted, jumping up in an attempt to stop him, only to find that I was to late and that he was already flying through the air.
"What's your problem?" Zoro asked, sounding a little confused and wandering why I was so freaked out.
"That bird's going to carry him off!" I said frantically, dancing around on the boat like an idiot.
"Huh? What are you talking about?" He asked, making remember that I shouldn't have known about that.
"Um, I just remembered seeing that kind of bird before, and while it may look small from a distance, that bird is big enough to eat him." I said, still dancing around like and idiot.
While I should have remembered what the bird did, I was still suffering from the effects of starvation and my brain still wasn't working properly, so I didn't remember that this was a good thing, lucky for me, it didn't matter.
"What?!" Zoro shouted, looking up at the bird in question, only to see that Luffy was hanging from it's mouth by his head.
"Someone Help!" Luffy shouted, trying to get the bird to let go of him.
"Damn it all! Why didn't you tell us that before?!" Zoro demanded angrily as he started rowing after Luffy, following the bird as it flew off.
"Sorry I forgot! Hunger tends to do that to me!" I said defensively, still just dancing around like an idiot.
Just like with diets, the first thing to go when you loose weight is brain mass.
"Well don't just sit there, grab an ore and start rowing!" He ordered, causing me to jump over to him and and start rowing as well.
While me and him continued rowing the boat, following the bird as it flew off with Luffy, Lil was busy trying to calm a frantic Choco as he ran around on the boat, apparently convinced that Luffy was going to be eaten.
"I am telling you he isn't going to die, now calm down." She said, still trying to catch the bird as it ran around in circles.
It was during our rowing and Lil's attempts to calm Choco that we heard a couple of voices calling out to us from somewhere in the water.
"Help! Help! Hey you there! Man overboard! Help!"
Both Zoro and I looked behind us, somehow managing to continue our rowing without a problem.
The moment I saw them, I recognized them. It was the three guys that had ended up getting their boat stolen by Nami at the start of the Buggy arc. They were all floating in the middle of the ocean, right in front of our path, waving at us frantically. Apparently they needed our help.
"Great, I can't believe we're finding ship wreckers at a time like this!" Zoro said in an annoyed tone, and I couldn't help but agree with him.
"You guys are going to have to hop on! Sorry, but we can't stop right now!" I shouted, mentally smirking at the thought of what Zoro was going to do to them in a few minutes.
'Serves them right, attacking the people that saved them. What kind of a jerk does that?' I thought viciously, my half starved mind getting the better of me.
"What?!" The three guy's yelled in shock as the boat came flying at them. Somehow, each of them managed to get on without a problem, something most people wouldn't have been able to do.
"I'm actually impressed that you made it on board." Zoro said while we continued rowing as fast as we could.
"Hey, aren't you three from Buggy's pirate crew?" I asked, trying to seem like I was very knowledgeable about other pirates.
"That's right little boy, now stop the boat, we're taking over!" the one in the middle said, causing my right eye to start it's twitching dance again.
It took me less then half a second to pull out my trusty mallet and smash it against his face, as well as against his friends faces too.
A few minutes later, and the three of them were rowing the dinghy, leaving the rest of us to sit back and glare at them.
"Hahaha, sorry ma'am, we had no idea you were a girl." Said the one that had called me a boy, who was currently having difficulty trying to see through his swollen eyes.
"Yeah, yeah, just keep rowing." I said, still holding my mallet menacingly.
"Hey, what's with the mallet?" Zoro asked. Apparently he hadn't see me pull it out of the froggy bag back when we were in the restaurant, though I wasn't really sure how that was possible.
"Huh? This? Oh, I just keep it in my bag." I said, holding up my bag to show him.
"The magic one? How does it work?" He asked curiously, still not really believing that it was a witch's bag.
Taking the froggy bag into my hand I showed him how it worked, letting him look into it.
"See, it goes on forever on the inside." I said, sticking my arm in the bag, my whole arm. Let me remind you that this bag is about six by four inches. It was very small and yet I was putting my whole arm inside it.
It was as I was pulling my arm back out of the bag that the bag decided to regurgitate something for the second time since I had gotten it.
My arm was pushed out completely of the bag by whatever was trying to get out. When it had finally come all the way out of the bag and had fallen into the ocean, somehow managing to not sink the boat, I was a little surprised to find that it was a statue of liberty, making it the fourth one in existence.
"OK, now that was just weird." Lil said, looking at the massive statue as it sank to the bottom of the ocean.
"IT TALKS!" The three Buggy lackeys shouted, rudely pointing at my cat and somehow managing to be more shocked about her being able to talk then they were about the stature coming out of the froggy bag.
"It has a name you know." She hissed angrily, glaring at them for referring to her as an 'it.'
"OK, you see a massive statue come flying out of my bag, and a little talking cat freaks you out?" I asked, wandering if the three of them needed therapy.
It takes a special kind of person to not freak out when a massive statue comes flying out of a small bag, only to turn around and freak out when a cat starts talking.
"huh?" One of them said stupidly, only for all three of them to suddenly shout: "YOU MEAN THAT WAS REAL?!!"
Rolling my eyes at their delayed reaction, I decided that I should probably try and figure out why my froggy bag had just tried to kill me with a statue of liberty.
"And by the way, Fuzz-bucket," I said, not bothering to look up from my search. "What do you mean 'that was weird'? Are you saying live bats flying out of it isn't weird?" I asked, still trying to figure out why my backpack had thrown the statue at me.
"Kweh!" Choco said, jumping into my lab and sitting down.
"Fine, you're both right. That was just as weird, but the bats were no where near as dangerous." She said, glaring at us as we both smirked at her.
Well, I smirked at her, and Choco smiled, but it's close enough.
"Land!" one of the Buggy pirates shouted, pointing at an island out in the distance, correctly deciding that it would be best to ignore me and Lil's argument.
Once land had been sighted, Lil decided that it would be safer for her and Choco in my froggy bag as the stuff in it didn't seemed to get hurt whenever something hit it. It took her a second to convince Choco that it would be safe, but once she finally managed to do it, they both jumped into it, with Lil telling me to tell them when the cost was clear.
It took us about half an hour to reach the shoreline of the island, and when we got there, we ended up witnessing what I knew had to be a buggy ball.
"The boss must have used one of his beloved buggy balls." one of the three buggy pirates said, confirming my suspicions.
Every building in the Buggy ball's path had been completely destroyed, leaving almost nothing behind. It destroyed everything, there wasn't even enough left to call ruble. The fact that all this damage had been caused simply because Buggy thought it was fun made me hate him even more then I already did from watching the series.
"A buggy ball?" Zoro asked curiously, staring at the destruction just like the rest of us.
"Yeah, it's this giant exploding cannon ball that Buggy the clown pirate uses. I've heard about it before, but this is the first time I've seen it in person." I whispered sadly, knowing that many people had just lost the homes they had worked so hard to build. "Damn him. Buggy is such a monster."
I almost wished I didn't have any of my memories from my old life, that way I would have to deal with the knowledge that there had been so many wrongs done to the people that lived in the town. It was one thing to see it as a cartoon, but it was a completely different thing to have to live through it and see the aftermath.
While I continued looking at the wreckage, Zoro looked at me oddly for a second, clearly wandering how I knew so much about Buggy. After a minute though, he headed off toward the location of where the Buggy ball had come from, knowing that Luffy would probably be somewhere near where it came from.
Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I ran after him, only to have Lil stick her head out of the froggy bag a second later, telling me that Choco had found something.
"Yo, remember those impact things from that sky island place?" she asked as I jumped onto the roof of a house. (A/N: I think I should point out that I am NOT going to make Kaede supper powerful, the impact dial wont be as great as you think, just read and find out more.)
"Yeah, what about them?" I asked, not really paying that much attention to her at the moment.
"Well, Choco found something that says that there is one inside one of the mallet." she said, almost causing me to miss the building I was jumping to.
"That's impossible, I've used the mallet a couple times now, and it hasn't hurt me at all." I said as I jumped to the next house, remembering that the impact dials tended to hurt the people that used them.
"Well, the Mallet's handle apparently absorbs the backlash so that you don't get hurt. Anyway, the paper said that the blue side of the mallet absorbs energy, while the red side gives it off." She replied, grimacing slightly when I nearly jumped right into a wall.
"Blue side? Red side? But the mallet's all black and white," I pointed out in a confused tone, wandering what the hell she was talking about.
I had used the mallet so much in the past few days that I knew how it looked by heart. It was mostly black but the flat parts of the head of the mallet were white, with a few diamond shaped white spots on the rest of the head of the mallet. The flat part of the mallet's head, or the faces as I had started to call them, had large black stars on them, giving them a black and white pentagram appearance.
There was no red or blue anywhere on it.
"Yeah, but like I said, it says 'in side one of the mallets', meaning that there is probably more then one mallet. I think there might be another mallet or two in the bag, so Choco's checking for them now." she said, only to hiss out in pain a second later.
Apparently Choco had bitten her on the tail.
While she was busy talking to Choco, I continued jumping from roof top to roof top, wandering how Zoro could be so much faster then me. It was as I was almost at the end of the houses that Lil stuck her head back out of the bag, bringing with her the unmistakable site of a handle of a mallet.
This one was white.
The moment she poked me in the side with the mallets hand, with most of the mallet still being in the bag, I stopped in my tracks. I was already holding the mallet that I usually used, and it's handle was black, so there was no way it could be the same one. It was definitely a new one, thought it seemed to be the exact same size as the other one.
"Choco says that he thinks this one is it. And I kind of have to agree." She said, watching as I pulled it all the way out of the bag and examined it. "It's head has a red and blue side like the note says, plus the blue side has a plus, and the red has a minus, so I am pretty sure that it is the right one."
"Wow." I said, remembering what she had said about the impact dial and the handle. If I was right, then this thing was going to be a really awesome weapon.
Realizing that I needed to continue running as I still had to catch up with the others, I put my old mallet into the froggy bag, careful not to smack Lil or Choco with it, and started running again, remembering to tap the blue side continually as I continued running, not realizing that I was adding weight to it every time.
"Thanks." I told Lil and Choco when they both stuck their heads out of the bag before reminding them that there could be dangerous stuff in it. Please don't go digging through the bag again, we still don't know what's in it, for all we know there might be a monster in it just waiting to kill anything they come across."
in answer to my statement, both Lil and Choco dove back into the back, clearly choosing to ignore my comment. Sighing heavily, I decided that it would probably be best if I just kept my mind on everything that was about to happen instead of thinking of all the things that could be in the bag.
When I finally cleared the last house, I was extremely relieved to see Zoro's back again, and even happier when I saw that he hadn't been stabbed yet.
'Good, I still have time to stop buggy from stabbing him, and I now have two trusty mallets, a normal one and a magical one.' I thought as a small smirk made it's way onto my face. 'Maybe my situation isn't so bad after all.'
Or so I thought.
When I finally landed on the large landing where Buggy and his men were, I found that the clown pirate was just about to stab Zoro in the back, literally.
As it turned out, there was a drawback to filling the impact dial up so much. When I went to try to smash Buggy's hand with it, I found that it was to heavy for me to lift. Meaning that Buggy managed to stab Zoro, and all I managed to do was look like an idiot as I tried to lift a mallet that was clearly to heavy for me.
"Zoro!" Luffy shouted in horror.
"Uh! Buggy's still alive!" Nami shouted in surprise, having thought he was dead just like Zoro and Luffy.
"OK," I said, finally giving up on trying to lift the mallet more then an inch or two off the ground. "That might be a problem." I added as Zoro knelt on the ground in pain from being stabbed.
"What the hell? Why didn't you stop him?" Zoro demanded when he saw me, apparently not understanding that I couldn't lift my mallet. "And why is your mallet a different color?"
"Sorry, it's a new one, and I'm having trouble lifting it, but for now, if you can blow Buggy up with that Buggy ball, I'll free Luffy." I grunted, as I lifted the mallet an inch off of the ground.
The moment Zoro nodded his head in understanding and went to work with the cannon, I started dragging the heavy ass mallet towards Luffy's cage while ignoring the pain in my arms.
I don't know why I had been able to jump around while holding the damn thing, but now I couldn't even lift it.
"Zoro! Kaede! Just run!" Luffy shouted, not realizing that me and Zoro were way ahead of him, which was good because if he had known what we were up to, then that would have meant that he, Nami, and bozo-the-clown had over heard what I had told Zoro, and that would have been bad.
"Just run? He came to save you and you're telling him to just leave?" Nami asked in surprise, unable to believe what she was hearing.
Ignoring Luffy's orders to run, me and Zoro simply continued on with my plan, which was just a slightly modified version of Luffy's plan from the anime.
Once I got the mallet to the cage, which just happened to be when Zoro told Nami to light the cannon, I set the red side of the head next to the cage, preparing to hit the cage with it.
OK, so I was actually planning to tap the cage with it, but with the impact dial, it's the same thing.
"What are you doing? There is no way you can get him out of there with a mallet! Hehehehehehahahaha." Buggy laughed, causing me to shoot him smirk of defiance.
That was when Buggy saw Nami lighting the cannon at Zoro's orders.
"NO! Please don't! It's still loaded with one of my special buggy balls! You'll kill us all! Have mercy!" He started pleading, begging for us to spare him.
"Have mercy? Like you gave mercy to this town?" I growled viciously, glaring at him with malice in my eyes.
He had no right to ask for mercy when he had destroyed the homes of so many people with out showing them any. He didn't deserve mercy, and as cruel as it might sound, there was no way I was going to give it to him.
"Yeah! Suck it big nose! Take it like a clown!" Lil shouted at him, popping her head out of the froggy bag to shoot him a glare of her own.
"The cat talks?! And What's with the bag?!" Nami exclaimed, wandering why Lil could talk and how a cat who's head was bigger then my froggy bag could fit in said froggy bag without a problem.
"Big nose?! What did you just say about my nose?!" Bugging screeched in anger, right before the cannon went off in his face.
The moment the cannon went off, I used all the strength I could muster to tap the mallet against the side of the cage.
"Four!" I shouted as the mallet's power sent the cage flying, remembering some guy from a movie saying it when he hit a golf ball.
The power of the impact dial inside the mallet wasn't as strong as I had been expecting it to be, but it was strong enough. It was strong enough to send the cage flying through the air, but not strong enough to shattered it when it connected with it, though the cage did break when it hit the ground.
'OK, that's not good. It couldn't even break the cage on it's own, and I can barely lift it as it is.' I thought, trying to jump off the roof with the mallet, only to find that it didn't hinder my jumps at all. 'well, I guess that's a plus' I thought, though the fact that I could barely swing it was still going to be a problem. It was definitely a draw back.
Nami and Zoro just stood there staring after me, shocked at seeing what I had just done. When I finally realized that they weren't following me, I turn around and reminded them that we had to get moving.
"Don't just stand there!" I shouted at them. "Let's get out of here"
The moment the words left my mouth, the two of them finally seemed to get over their surprise and started moving, prompting me to do the same. When I finally got to Luffy and the cage, I dropped the mallet and started rubbing at my aching arms. The mallet didn't stop me from being able to jump, but my arms were still hurting from having to carry it. It was like trying to carry a two hundred pound weight around with you, you might be able to walk, but your arms are going to hurt like hell.
"That, was totally awesome!" Luffy shouted, punching the air with one of his fists and grinning like an idiot as he slowly got out of the cage.
The moment he was out of the cage I fell to the ground in pain, unable to move. My limbs all hurt like hell. It was true that the handle of the mallet absorbed all the backlash from the impact dial, but the weight of the mallet was way to much for my muscles to handle, meaning the mallet had practically destroyed all of my muscles.
It was official, I was useless.
"No, that was stupid." Lil corrected Luffy as she crawled out of the froggy bag with Choco following close behind.
"How did you do that?! And how did you survive?! And why can that cat talk!? Explain yourselves!" Nami demanded when she and Zoro finally caught up to us, freezing in horror when she saw me laying on the ground unable to move.
"Kweh!" Choco kwehed sadly, pushing against my side with his feathery head, his big blue eyes tearing up when I wasn't able to move in response.
"Are you alright?" Nami asked worriedly, surprise evident in her voice.
Her worry was probably for my health, and her shock was most likely thanks to the fact that I had done something very self sacrificing, something that most pirates didn't do.
Then again, she might just be shocked by the fact that I could use half tone crate as a golf ball and that my cat could talk. Those were both things that would normally scare the hell out of anybody.
"Firstly, my name is Lilfoot, but you may call me Lil. Secondly, My feathered friend here is called Choco." Lil said, starting to explain things. "As for the talking thing, all witch's familiars can talk. As for how Kaede sent the cage flying..." Lil said, stopping only for a moment to think up the best explanation. "That's because she's a witch and that mallet is one of her magical weapons."
"A witch?! That's impossible! Witch's don't exist." Nami exclaimed in horror, apparently not believing a word that came out of Lil's mouth.
Don't ask me how she got over her shock at Lil's ability to talk so fast, but it didn't even seem to really faze her all that much this time. It was as if she had processed the information and simply decided that getting over it as fast as she could was better for her sanity.
"Ug, if I could move, I'd prove it to you." I groaned, trying to move again and finding that I couldn't even twitch my legs. "But as it is, I'm in to much pain to even lift my hand. That mallet takes a lot out of me." I explained weakly, struggling with all my might to move my arm enough to pull the upset chocobo over to my head so that I could use him as a pillow, which he didn't seem to mind at all.
It actually calmed him down.
'A living chocobo-down pillow.' I thought happily as I slowly drifted off to dream land.
---------------------- about thirty minutes later. ------------------------
"Boom!"
To say I got a rude wake-up call would have been an understatement. Some idiot cat had let them put me into the mayor's house with Zoro, something that I would have to kill her for later. Lucky for me cat's have nine lives, and as a cat girl that must have meant I did to, though I wasn't to happy at the fact that I had just lost one.
When the house got hit with one of Buggy's Buggy balls, I was lucky enough to be near Zoro, who woke up before it even hit and got us out of the way.
"GA!" I coughed out painfully, choking on all the smoke and debris from the blast as I sat up.
Unfortunately for my attempts at sitting up, the idiots had left my froggy bag, belt, and backpack on me, which got caught on some debris, which meant that it took me a minute to get them unstuck enough for me to sit up.
"Are you alright?" Zoro asked once I was no longer stuck, somehow unaffected by the debris.
"Zoro! Kaede! Are you Alright?!" I heard Luffy shouting, though we were still berried under ruble and wood.
"I can't believe that -Cough- idiot let me -Cough- get put into a house -Cough- she knew would -Cough- get blown up." I choked out angrily as Zoro pushed a large board off of us.
Once we were both out of the remnants of the destroyed house, Zoro turned to me, apparently wanting some answers, and unfortunately for me, everyone else heard his question.
"You knew the house was going to blow up? How?" He asked, and with the tone of his voice I had a feeling that he though I might be a spy for Buggy.
"What? You knew?" Nami asked, apparently thinking the same thing.
Lucky for me, the mayor came to my rescue.
"That's not possible, Buggy shoots his Buggy balls off at random, no one knows where they're going to strike, not even Buggy." He pointed out, which was enough for Nami and Luffy as they had both been there when Buggy had shoot one off earlier, though Zoro didn't seem to believe it.
"Then how did you know?" He asked again, glaring down at me with those damn suspicious eyes of his.
God damn him for those damn eyes. No one should ever be aloud to have gray/white eyes, they just look way to creepy when you are on the wrong side of them, though they aren't as bad as yellow eyes.
"Maybe she just guessed." Luffy said stupidly, shrugging his shoulders at Zoro while walking over to us.
"And how does that make any sense?!" Zoro asked him, annoyed at his stupidity.
"Does it have something to do with being a coral-coral witch?" Nami asked, causing me to blink at her stupidly for a few minute, though not for the reasons she, or Luffy, thought.
"I kind of told her your secret. Crew members should always tell each other everything." Luffy pointed out, smiling at me like an idiot, only to get smacked in the face with my normal mallet.
If I could have found my other mallet, I would have used it instead, but lucky for him, I couldn't.
"It's Ctarl-Ctarl, not coral-coral, idiot. I'm not a lowly Fishman." I said in an annoyed tone, turning my attention back to Nami. "Sorry about that. And yeah, it has something to do with being a Ctarl-Ctarl witch." I explained, happy that she had given me the best excuse possible.
Luck, don't you love it?
"Yeah, they can sometimes see the future." Lil said as she and Choco walked over to me. "And by the way, your other mallet is over there." She said, pointing over to the spot where I had dropped it when I passed out. "No one was able to move it." She added.
"So cool!" Luffy shouted happily, through his fist up in the air at the thought of how awesome his crew already was with just the five members he had.
"Huh, so if you can really see the future, then what do you see in mine?" Zoro asked suspiciously, still not all that convinced.
"I see you, sliding down a hill covered in oil." I said, walking past him while trying not to laugh and trying to ignore the pain in my arms and throat.
Zoro raised an eyebrow at me as I went by, still not convinced but letting it go because he knew that it was pointless. He'd find out eventually if he kept an eye on me, and that was good enough for him for the moment.
On my way over to my impact mallet I paused for a moment, coughing again from all the debris I had inhaled. When I looked up again, Zoro was standing next to my mallet, looking down at it with an inquisitive look on his face.
"Huh, so no one could move this thing, huh? Doesn't look to heavy." he said, bending over to pick it up, wanting to see why no one had been able to lift it.
"No! Don't!" Luffy and Nami shouted in unison.
Sadly, their shouts landed on deft ears as Zoro simply ignored them and tried to pick it up. That's how the two of us found out why the others hadn't been able to pick it up.
It explodes.
"BOOM!"
Unfortunately for me, I had been way to close to him and the mallet to not get hit by the explosion. It sent both of us flying through the air several yards, which meant that it was a relatively small explosion. It hadn't really hurt, but I was sure I could smell burning hair, which I was NOT happy about.
"Zoro! Kaede!" Luffy and Lil yelled in horror, running over to us to see if we were OK.
"Don't worry, it doesn't hurt much. It just kind of makes you let go of it." Nami said, causing me to notice for the first time that there was a dark spot on her t-shirt.
"Let me guess, you tried to steal it?" I asked as I stood up, smirking at her evilly while dusting myself off.
"Hey! What makes you think I would do something like that?" She asked, trying to act as though she was offended by my accusation.
"Because, you're a thief that steals from pirates and a magic mallet would probably sell for a high price." I pointed out knowingly, waving a finger at her to show that she couldn't lie to me.
By the look of guilt on her face, I could tell I wasn't wrong.
"That's what I thought." I said while Zoro straightened up, just as unhurt as I was.
"What the hell was that?!" he demanded, turning to glare at my while dusting himself off.
"A security feature." Lil said, smirking at them. "But it seems that me and Choco can touch it without a problem, so I guess it has certain... allowances." She said, giving me a look that I understood very well.
It probably only let people touch it if they were from a different world, making it a security system, just like she said.
While Zoro continued to glare at me, I took the froggy bag from my waist, opened it up, and set it on the ground. I then grabbed the impact mallet's handle and lifted it with all my might before lowering it over the froggy bag's mouth. Once I was done, I put the froggy bag back on my waist. I left my other mallet out because I knew that we were going to have to fight buggy soon, and I didn't want to have to worry about grabbing the wrong handle by mistake.
While I had been putting the mallet into the froggy bag, Nami had simply stared at what I was doing with a look of shock on her face.
'Oh yeah, this is the first time she's seen it.' I thought when I realized she was staring at me, smiling at her for a minute.
"It's my magical witch's bag, it can do just about anything." I explained, trying not to laugh at her reaction.
It was at that moment that another Buggy ball went flying through the air, missing us completely but destroying several buildings about twenty yards away from us. Looking at the damage, I couldn't help but wander about what kind of monster would destroy so many homes like that. What kind of a person took away all the things so many people had worked so hard for.
"I refuse to let him get away with this." The mayor said, gritting his teeth in anger. "I can't let him destroy everything all my towns men have worked so hard to build over the years! I'm the mayor of this town! I will protect it and it's inhabitants! I swear!" he shouted, heading off toward Buggy and his men, only to be stopped by Nami when she grabbed him from behind.
"Stop! You can't beat Buggy! He'll kill you!" She said, trying to talk some sense into him.
"I know! But there are some fights you just can't run away from!" He said, struggling to get out of her grip.
"That's right old man!" Luffy cheered, causing Nami to turn her head and glare at him.
"Don't egg him on Luffy!" Nami shouted at him angrily. "He's going to get himself killed!"
"I know it's dangerous, but I've got to do this!" The mayor shouted, finally managing to get out of Nami's grip and running off. "I'm coming for you Buggy the clown!" he shouted, raising a spear as he ran off towards where Buggy and his men were.
"I think he was crying." Nami said, a little confused about why he would run off to get him self killed when his people were safely out of the village.
"Really? Huh, I didn't notice." Luffy replied, though it was kind of clear that he had noticed.
"Looks like the party's getting more exciting." Zoro said, walking over to where me and Luffy stood with Lil on my backpack and Choco in my arms.
"Don't worry Nami." I said as she opened her mouth to say something. "We like that old guy, we aren't about to let him get killed." I said walking past her and heading for a building I had just spotted.
The entire time we had been on the island, even while I was unconscious, there had been an issue that had been plaguing me, an issue I really wanted to get rid of.
My hunger.
I had been incredibly hungry for a while now, and I finally found a way to get rid of that little problem. Next to the pet store, which I was happy to find hadn't been completely destroyed since Luffy hadn't been in the cage this time, I spotted a grocery store. Even though I knew that most of the food in it was probably bad by now as the store owner had probably left with the rest of the town, I still wanted to try to find something to eat as I was pretty sure they would have bread, dried food, or fruits still, which don't usually go bad that fast.
Plus, it never hurts to try.
While I was heading over to the shop, Luffy asked Nami if she was going to join the crew or not, though I didn't really pay all that much attention to them as I pretty much already knew what she was going to say and was about to step out of earshot of them anyway.
Walking into the shop, I wasn't at all surprised to find that it was incredibly dark inside. There wasn't any lit candles or actual lights, though I wasn't even sure if a town of this size would even have light bulbs in this world.
Once my eyes adjusted to the darkness, though it was actually super dark thanks to the light flowing in through the front windows, I started looking around while sending Lil to do the same.
"Lil, see if you can sniff out some good food." I told her, letting her jump off of my backpack and onto the floor.
As soon as she hit the ground, she ran off in search of food, just as she had been ordered to do. While she was busy doing using her nose to find food, I made my way over to some sacks sitting on the floor, knowing that most sacked foods take a long time to go bad.
The first few I found were rice, which I ignored because I would never be able to make them on our small boat anyway and wasn't about to waist time looking at any of it. It was while I was checking the fourth large piles of bags to see what they were that Lil came running over to me, having found something that was edible.
"Kaede, there's a bunch of dried fruits and nuts over there in a tub. Kind of like a trail mix." She said, causing me to blink stupidly at her for a second.
How the hell did she know what trail mix was?
Deciding that it was probably best not to question it, and having already realized that she was always going to know about stuff that she shouldn't, I simply ignored the trail mix comment and thanked her.
"That will work." I said, following her over to where she had found the 'trail mix' tub.
When we reached them, I found that there was a lot more then what I had been expecting. There wasn't only one jar of 'trail mix' or a single tub of it, there were dozens of them, and there was one more thing about them that surprised me as well.
They were huge.
The containers were all huge. They were made of clear glass and came up to my knees. They were two feet in diameter and and filled to the top with dried fruits, nuts, and pretzels or crackers of some kind.
Seeing just how many of them there was and knowing that one or two jars wouldn't be mist, as well as not wanting to go another couple of days without food on the dinghy again, I took two whole container and shoved them into my froggy bag, pausing for only a minute to eat a large handful of the contents.
If I had been a regular girl and not in an anime world, it probably would have taken me a few minutes to chew and swallow that much, but as I was in an anime world and wasn't a normal girl, it took me less then a few seconds to swallow it, and I didn't even have to chew it either.
When I finished stuffing my face and had put the two jars into the froggy bag, still kind of amazed that the frog's metal mouth had stretched out to let them in, I turned around, fully intent on searching for more food to... barrow, only to see Luffy, Nami, and Zoro running by the front window.
Not wanting to miss another fight, I grabbed Choco, let Lil jump onto my backpack, and took off running after them, running out of the shop and down the street, happy when I finally caught up to them.
It took us only a few minutes to reach buggy and his men, but when we finally got there, the mayor was already there with Buggy, yelling at him at the top of his lungs.
"You idiot, this town is no treasure." Buggy shouted back angrily, unable to see how anyone would consider a town a treasure. "Treasure is gold, silver, and jewelry. So cut the crap old man and get out of here before I kill you."
Not wanting to see the mayor get strangled again, I quickly walked over and stood next to him, speaking before he got a chance to.
"Looks like you need an English lesson." I said, glaring up at the big, red nosed clown. "Treasure refers to anything that is precious to someone, or coveted. This town is precious to the mayor, so therefor it's his treasure."
Every time I saw the Buggy battle episode, I always wanted someone to pop up and point that little fact out to him. He was such a freakin idiot and it annoyed the hell out of me when he said that stuff was treasure unless it was made out of gold or jewels.
While I was still glaring up at the big nosed clown, an armless hand suddenly appeared in front of me, about to grab me by the throat. Lucky for me, the hand was snatched out of the air by a very angry Luffy.
'Note to self, give that kid a cookie.' I thought, happy that my throat wasn't getting crushed.
Smiling weakly, I backed up so that I was standing with Zoro at Luffy' flank, just like how it's supposed to be. The leader stands in front, the crew flanks him. That's the rule.
"That straw hat! Not again!" Buggy shouted, trying to recall his hand, though he Luffy's grip on it made that impossible.
Smirking at him from behind Luffy, I couldn't help but feel a little excited at getting to see one of Luffy's fights in person. When I had watched the episodes with the fights, I had always thought that it would be cool if they were real, and now I was getting to see them in person.
My life rules.
"I'm here to kick your ass, just like I promised I would, Buggy." Luffy said, still holding onto the severed hand, unwilling to let it go yet.
While Buggy started making his complaints about Luffy interfering with his plans, Nami turned to the rest of us to inform us of her intentions, which was kind of pointless as Zoro seemed to be able to tell that she was just in it for the treasure, and Lil and I had already known it from watching the anime.
"Listen, all I want is the chart and the treasure, then I'm out of here." Nami said sternly, wanting to make sure that we all knew that the treasure was her and her being with us was only temporary. "Got it?"
"Yeah I got it." Zoro said, not really caring what she did.
"Fine by me." I said, not wanting to seem to interested, though it was only because I already knew she was in for the long hall, weather she realized it yet or not.
"What are you kids doing? Get out of here! This isn't your fight!" The mayor said angrily, cutting into our conversation and demanding to know why we were there.
As soon as the mayor stopped talking, Luffy slammed Grey haired head into a wall, knocking him out instantly.
"AH! What do you think you're doing?!" Nami demanded, horrified at what Luffy had just done. "Why'd you just knock out the mayor?!"
"Because." Luffy said simply, as though it was obvious.
"It' wasn't a bad idea." Zoro said, understanding Luffy's train of thought, something that should have been impossible for anyone to do as there wasn't much thought to Luffy's train of thought.
It's kind of hard to read when there's no letters.
"Yeah, If he had continued fighting, he would have just gotten in the way, or gotten himself killed." I explained, finishing for him, much to his annoyance.
"Well you didn't have to hit him! I'm sure we could have thought of a more humane way to deal with the situation!" Nami said angrily, continuing to lecture Luffy as though me and Zoro had never spoken.
"When? After Buggy killed him?" I asked sarcastically, only to get glared at by her.
"Hey, Buggy. I've been meaning to ask you something." Lil said, causing several of Buggy's men to stare in shock, though oddly enough, buggy didn't seem to even notice who it was that was talking...
"Whatever it is I don't care, I don't have time for your silly questions." Buggy said, causing Lilfoot to glare at him.
"All I wanted to know was why you destroyed all the towns peoples homes." She asked in an annoyed tone, causing an evil gleam to appear in my eyes.
"Oh! That's easy, he's confiscating for something." I said, before turning an evil smile in Buggy's direction. "Can't Buggy a girl, so you Buggy a town? That's pathetic, you big nosed freak."
I'm usually one of the nicest people you will ever meet, but I can be the meanest bitch in any world if you piss me off, and I really didn't like Buggy.
"Ah! Why'd you have to go and say something like that?!" Nami demanded, knowing that something really bad was going to happen now that I had pissed off the idiotic clown.
"Why you flashy freak! I'll kill you!" Buggy shouted angrily as he turned to his men and barked a new order at them. "Fire the Buggy ball!"
realizing that Buggy was about to send one of his buggy balls at us, Zoro and Nami started backing up. As far as they could see, if Buggy fired a buggy ball at us, we were going to die.
"Ah! Why'd you have to say that?" Nami asked again, turning around and running a short distance away before ducking into an alley, hoping that she was far enough away to survive the buggy ball.
"Come on guys, we've got to go." Zoro said, trying to get me, Luffy, and Lil to run for it.
"Nope, I don't see that in our future. The only thing I foresee is a fat man acting like a catchers mitt and a cannon all in one go." I said, standing my ground and causing Zoro and Nami to stare at me, though Nami did it from her position at the entrance to the alley while Zoro did it from right next to me.
"Fire it now!" Buggy shouted angrily, completely ignoring our conversation while his men fired the buggy ball.
"Gum gum balloon!" Luffy shouted, sucking in as much air as he could and puffing up like a balloon.
Fat man, check.
The Buggy ball hit Luffy in the gut and was held there for several seconds.
Catchers mitt, check, check.
Just as all of Buggy's men started freaking out over Luffy catching the buggy ball, Luffy sent the Buggy ball flying back at him and his men, blowing them and the house there were standing on up.
Cannon, check, check, check.
"Alright, I got him!" the rubber man shouted proudly, acting almost as though he thought this was a game.
Really, it was as if he was celebrating a home run or something.
"You could have warned me." Zoro said, slapping a hand to his face in embarrassment at what Luffy had just done as well as at the way he had panicked. (A/n: I keep reading this line over and over again, and it seems ooc, but it is in the anime, so it's not.)
"I did warn you, I told you what I saw in the future." I pointed out cheekily, turning around to smirk at him while ignoring the fact that he had actually been talking to Luffy.
Just as Zoro was about to open his mouth to say something to me, Nami came out of the alley way and started demanding to know what was going on. All of us were just not normal, and it was really starting to freak her out.
"What the hell kind of monster are you?!" Nami demanded, horrified at what she had just seen.
"I think you freaked her out." Zoro commented as he walked back over to where Luffy and I were standing.
"That's an understatement." I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes at his statement.
She was more then just freaked out, she kind of looked like she was about to have a nervous breakdown or a heart attack, and I couldn't really blame her either. She had just seen something that was supposed to be impossible, plus I had had a similar reaction when I woke up in the crystal hall. Everything was OK for the first few seconds before my shock wore off, then it was time to freak out.
Then again, she had already met my talking cat and had already seen my magic froggy bag, so she shouldn't really be freaking out over what Luffy could do. What he did was only a little weird, it was nothing compared to the froggy bag.
Ignoring Zoro's comment, as well as mine, Nami continued demanding to know what was going on, still freaking out over what she had seen.
"I knew that something was weird after you survived the fight with that lion! No human being can do what you do, now explain yourself!" She demanded, still unable to believe what she had just seen.
'My cat can talk, I'm a witch, I see the future, and my magical bag can fit anything into it, and Luffy is what finally freaks you out?' I thought in exasperation, wandering how she could be so calm over my magic crap, but so freaked out over Luffy's abilities.
"What the hell was the balloon inflatie thing you did just now?!" She demanded, continuing on with her barrage of questions.
"The gum gum balloon." Luffy stated plainly, not really explaining it at all.
"I don't care what you call it, I want to know how you did it!" Nami demanded again, wanting a better explanation then that, sadly however, she didn't get one.
Before Luffy could even open his mouth to give her a better explanation, a loud voice called out, cutting into the conversation.
"How dare you try to flashily do me in?!"
It was Buggy.
Standing just a few yards away on the ruble of the destroyed house was none other then Buggy the clown himself. He was holding up two of his own men, both of which looked as though they had been used as shields.
"Unreal, using his men as a shield." Nami said, crossing her arms in anger at seeing what Buggy had done, forgetting all about Luffy's freaky abilities almost instantly.
Just as Buggy was about to say something to Luffy, Mohji the beast tamer appeared out of the rubble of the broken house and warned Buggy about Luffy's devil fruit powers, telling him that he was a rubber man.
"A rubber man?" Nami asked Luffy, wandering if it was really true.
"Yep, see." I said, grabbing onto Luffy's face from behind and pulling on it, stretching it as far as it could go before letting it go back to normal.
Nami jumped back in surprised, shocked at what she had just seen. She had always thought that the devil fruits were just stories that sailors told, but now she had met two devil fruit users in one day.
While we had been able to hear Mohji's shouts about Luffy, we weren't able to hear anything else they said as none of them were really talking loud enough for us to over hear it. Luckily, I had seen the anime and already knew what most of it was about, though it didn't really mater because they didn't actually say anything useful in the anime anyway. The only thing that happen that was of any importance was Cabaji throwing Mohji.
"Ah! Out of my way!" Mohji shouted in horror as he came hurtling through the air towards us.
Luffy didn't even flinch as Mohji got closer and closer to us. Instead, he simply lifted one of his legs into the air and got read, preparing to send the idiot flying into a wall.
"How about, out of my way!" He shouted once Mohji was close enough, swinging his leg and kicking the extremely hairy man out of his way and into a wall.
Almost as soon as Mohji hit the ground, bug sent out one of his men to deal with us.
"You may call me acrobat Cabaji, captain Buggy's chief of staff." Cabaji said, raising a sword and wheeling towards us as fast as he could on a unicycle. "You will pay for your insolence!"
As soon as the swordsman unicyclist was withing range, Zoro blocked him with one of his swords, causing the rest of us to stare at him in shock.
Yes, that means I was shocked to. I knew he was going to block him, but I hadn't been expecting him to move so quickly. Zoro had been standing next to Luffy one minute, and had simply appeared in front of Cabaji the next. I had never seen anyone move like that before. To say I was impressed would be an understatement.
Almost as soon as Zoro's sword blocked Cabaji's, he used his sword to push the unicyclist away, causing the man to nearly fall right off of his bike.
"I'll clash swords with you." Zoro said, smirking at Cabaji's surprised, and slightly annoyed, expression.
"It's an honor, Roronoa Zoro. As a swordsman myself I relish this chance to slay you." Cabaji stated cockily, sending Zoro a smirk of his own.
"Hey Zoro, you really should get some rest, let me handle this guy." Luffy said, worried that Zoro might open up his stab wound.
"Just stay back." Zoro said, causing Luffy to take several steps back in order to give him some room to do his thing.
Unfortunately, before Zoro even got the chance to do anything, Cabaji attacked, using one of his lame moves.
"Arsonist's technique!" Cabaji shouted, spitting fire in Zoro's face.
I had tried to warn him, but I hadn't managed to get even a syllable out before Cabaji attacked. He was such a dirty fighter, though I knew I couldn't exactly hold that against anyone in a real fight, especially not with us being pirates. Everyone knows that most pirates fight dirty, even Luffy did sometimes, like when he held Helmeppo hostage. It was a dirty thing to do, but as a pirate, or someone fighting the bad guys, fighting honorably all the time will get you killed.
While Zoro was busy trying to not to get set on fire, Cabaji took the opportunity and kicked him in the side, the same side that had been stabbed by Buggy earlier in the day.
Crying out in pain, Zoro fell over, clutching at his now reopened wound while glaring at the bastard acrobat.
"What's wrong? I didn't kick you that hard, did I?" Cabaji asked menacingly, smirking at the pain he had inflicted upon the swordsman, causing the rest of us to glare at him.
"Hey, he fight's dirty! Going after his injury like that, is a dirty trick!" Nami said angrily while I started looking through my froggy bag for something that might be able to take care of Zoro's wounds.
Unfortunately, I didn't find anything helpful. The only thing I manage to find was a jar of cream that had this written on it:
'Mermaside: Does your fin have worms?
Do your scales have rot?
Try Mermaside, the deworming anti-fungal agent.
Mermaside, for healthy fins.'
Rolling my eyes and knowing I that I would never have any need to use it, I throw the merman medicine back into the bag in annoyance. The one time I actually needed to find something in the bag, and it didn't even help me a little.
Looking up at the fight, I found that Zoro was once again on the ground, moaning in pain.
"What's this? It's such a disgraceful sight to see a grown man moaning." Cabaji said vindictively, rolling back and forth on his unicycle while looking down at Zoro with mirth in his eyes. "I suppose now you see how foolish it was to make an enemy of the Buggy pirates."
"To keep fighting with a bad injury like that, he's crazy." Nami whispered in amazement, getting mine and Luffy's attentions. "He's hurt so bad, I don't know how he's managing to stay in the fight." She said, turning her attention to Luffy. "Hey, why are you just standing there watching him? He's going to get himself killed you know?!"
"Because," I said, causing her to turn her attention towards me. "Because he doesn't need our help. Watch, you'll see." I explained, knowing that Zoro would kick Cabaji's ass, something I knew even without seeing the anime.
It was just so obvious that it was ridiculous. Zoro was definitely going to kick his ass, and there wasn't a thing anyone could do to stop it.
"You annoying little bastard." Zoro finally said, standing up and waiting as Cabaji came back for another attack. "Are you having fun poking at my wound? Then go ahead!" Zoro shouted, just as the acrobatic idiot stabbed his wound again as he went past him.
"Is poking at my wound the best you can do?" Zoro asked mockingly, turning around and facing Cabaji. "Let me show you what real swordsmanship can do."
"You've made a vast error in judgment." Cabaji growled back, glaring at Zoro angrily. "I wont be mocked."
Zoro simply smirked at him in reply, not caring if he pissed off the idiot or not. He was going to end the fight with one final attack, so it didn't really matter either way.
"My swords aim to be the world's greatest." He said, raising one of his swords and putting it into his mouth. "I refuse to loose even once to anyone who calls themselves a swordsman."
It was at this point that Nami started heading for the alley, fully intent on going after Buggy's treasure. She really didn't want to see any more of the fight as she was pretty sure that Zoro was just going to get himself killed.
Seeing that Nami was heading for the alley, Lil hopped off of my backpack, caught up to Nami, and clawed her way up Nami's leg and on to her should, much to Nami's discomfort.
"What do you think you're doing?" Nami demanded, eying the little fuzz bucket..
"Somehow, I think it would be safer to go with you and steal Buggy's treasure then it would be if I stayed here and fought." Lil pointed out, much to Nami's annoyance.
"Hey, who said you could come along?" The red head demanded, not liking the fact that Lil had simply invited herself to tag along.
"I did, now let's go get your treasure." Lil stated, rolling her eyes at Nami's objections while smiling at Nami's reaction to her last comment.
"Well, as long as you know who's treasure it is." Nami replied, smiling as she started walking off down the alley way.
Not wanting Choco to get hurt in the fight either, I called after the two of them.
"Wait." I said, walking over to her and handing her Choco. "Choco's just a baby, he could get hurt if he's here while everyone is fighting."
"But what am I supposed to do with him?" She asked indignantly, clearly not wanting to take care of the over sized baby chicken.
"Just carry him around until the battles over, then bring him back, OK?" I told her, turning back around to watch the fight just in time to see Zoro preform Oni Giri on Cabaji.
'How did Rosoku put it? Badassity?' I thought in amazement, remembering what one of my favorite fanfic authors had said about Zoro, completely agreeing with her statement.
Zoro had a huge amount of badassity and there was no way anyone could deny it.
"I can't believe the Buggy pirates," Cabaji said as he fell to the ground. "were defeated by petty thieves." He finished as his head connected with the ground.
"We're not petty thieves, we're pirates." Zoro said, falling to the ground from exhaustion as well. "Luffy, I'm going to sleep." He added before finally passing out.
"OK." Luffy said as he turned his attention back to Buggy, knowing that the swordsman needed to rest.
This was it. It was the fight I had been waiting for.
It was time for Luffy to kick some ass.
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