Chapter 10: Black Cats and Voodoo Dolls
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, I have also decided to leave the decision on the pairing up to the readers.
Please not that chapter 6 (or chapter 7 if you count the prologue) had three paragraphs added on to the end of it. I forgot all about something and had to add it in.
The massive edit that ran from 4/4/09 to 4/7/09 is finished. All the chapters from here on out are knew (unless I do another edit... but I doubt that will happen.)
Now, before starting this chapter, I think people should know that I made Kaede want to be an aquatic engineer for a reason. It wasn't because it would help everyone in the one piece world. I did it because it's something I actually want to do my self. I want to design a propeller system that wont harm whales and other marine life. If you look up 'manatees propeller' on Google images, you'll know why.
'thoughts'
"Words"
(inner Kaede)
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To say Luffy had gotten up fast would have been an understatement, maybe even the understatement of the year. The moment the poll was jammed into his ass he was jumping around screaming out in pain.
It was funny as hell.
"Hay look, it's a Luffy on a stick." I said, pointing my thumb at him while smiling at the others, only to get hit over the head with my own mallet by Nami, while Lil, Choco, Zoro, and the three kids just stared at the scene before them in horror.
Once Luffy finally managed to get the stick out of his ass, he promptly turned on me, planning to kick my ass.
"Why did you do that?!" He demanded, glaring at me with his big round eyes.
"Hahaha... Because I thought you were dead?" I said weakly, backing away as he started advancing on me slowly.
He didn't get a chance to beat the crap out of me as Nami promptly took her stick from him and started whacking me over the head with it, being sure to use the side that had been in his butt to hit me with.
By the time she was done with me, I knew why Usopp and Luffy ever tried to cross her in the anime. The black and blue lumps all over my face made it even harder to recognize me then the new look did.
"Tharmy wani" (Translation: Sorry Nami) I said through lips that were so swollen that they could have been used as pillows. Nami hadn't let me off easy as she wanted to make sure that I never did something like that again with her fighting poll.
"Good, now that we under stand each other, why don't we ask Luffy why he was sleeping like that." She said, walking back over two where Luffy, Zoro, Lil, Choco, and the three kids were sitting.
"Hey, Luffy just got done telling me what he heard, it seems that-" Zoro said, stopping when he got a good look at my face. "What the hell is that?!" He demanded, thinking I was a monsters of some kind.
Nami opened her mouth to point out that he was stupid but was stopped when I hit him over the head with my mallet.
"If ma, ub junk!" I said, growling in frustration when I couldn't even understand my own words through my beaten and battered face.
"What was that?" Nami asked, unsure of what I said.
"She said, 'It's me, you jerk!. " Lil said, somehow able to understand me.
"Ab'th dite, und im undredy nob wob dab duy ib plabingb." I said, hoping she would be able to translate for me again.
"Um? Translation?" Nami asked, looking at Lil for a translation, just as I was.
"She said, 'That's right, and I already know what that guy is planning'." Lil rolled her eyes at the fact that she was now reduced to translating for me until my face went back to normal.
"You knew this whole time and you didn't tell us?" Zoro asked angrily, glaring daggers at me for not telling them about it sooner.
"Please tell me you didn't decided not to tell us because you wanted to shove my staff up Luffy's butt that much?" Nami asked, her glare returning as she waited for an answer.
Luffy and Zoro didn't seem to be that happy either and were waiting for an answer. The look I was getting from Luffy said quite plainly that I had better not ever try something like that again, or he was going to kick my ass.
"Nob, I dib ib because peoble wouldb dieb if ib told youb guys sooner." I said, happy when I realized that I was starting to make since again and that the swelling was already going down.
"Oh? So does that mean people wont die now?" Nami asked, hoping that this time wasn't a trick.
"Nope, everyone will live." I said, jumping up and down for a second when none of my words had the b sound stuck at the end. "But, we well hab a few problems still."
… OK, one b sound wasn't that bad.
"Like what?" Luffy asked, starting to get over the torture I had put him through.
"Well, Firstly, their's the fact that Kuro, that's the butlers real man, anyway, Kuro has a move called 'pussy foot'. It's really fast and annoying, then there are the kids here." I said, turning my attention to them.
"What about us?" They asked in unison, clearly offended that I was saying that they would be a problem.
"What ever you do, if you show up, don't hit the butler in the face, even if he looks like he's knocked out." I said, looking down at them for a few moments, hoping that they listened to me.
"Are those the only problems? Kuro's speed and the kids hitting him in the face?" Zoro asked, clearly thinking that those didn't really sound like very big problems.
"No, there's also the problem of your stupidity." I said, glaring at him for thinking that I didn't know what an actual problem was.
"What did you say?!"
"Hey! Cut it out you two! No fighting! We have enough to worry about as it is." Nami said, breaking up the fight before it even got started.
"Hmf." Zoro said,folding his arms while still glaring at me.
"Well, like I was saying. Zoro here would have thought that these two dumb looking guys would be a piece of cake to beat, and then he would get his ass kicked." I said, ignoring the fact that I was stretching the truth a bit.
While he didn't really get his ass kicked in the anime, he had nearly lost at one point while fighting Buchi and Sham. He had only barely beaten them, and only because of Nami's help.
"They'd have to look pretty wimpy for that to ever happen." He said, not really believing me.
"Fine, but when you get your swords snatched from you, don't come crying to me." I said calmly, standing up from my position on one of the large rocks.
"Well, at any case, the black cat pirates are planning to attack at down tomorrow, so we should all be ready for them when they get hear." Lil said, arching her back as she stood up as well, having been trying to sleep through out most of our conversation.
"Wait, black cat pirates?" Nami asked, raising an eyebrow and narrowing her eyes at me, clearly making a false connection with the name.
"Hey, black cat's? Do you know them Kaede?" Luffy asked, his large round eyes staring at me with curiosity.
"Stop looking at me like that, it's giving me the creeps!" I said, speaking mostly to Nami and Zoro, as well as the three kids. "Believe it or not, I've never met them before. I hadn't even ever met Kuro or Jango until earlier to day when we were sitting on the road. And for your information, I'm actually kind of offended that they all try to imitate cat people." I said defensively, offended at their accusatory looks.
"So you've really never met them?" Nami asked, still not fully believing it.
"Hay, just because I have a black cat and am a cat girl, that doesn't mean I know the Black-Cat Pirates." The annoyance in my voice seemed to convince them, though Zoro still looked like he was adding another reason to his 'reason's to keep an eye on the weird girl' list.
"That I foresee? No, but I still need to buy some stuff in town, but I guess I'll have to do that sometime tomorrow, after we kick there asses."
"You still want to buy more clothes??" Zoro asked, clearly thinking I was just a crazy clothes shopper like Nami.
"No! I need to buy some stuff to build crap with, that's kind of my thing. I build and engineer!" I said, reaching into my backpack and pulling out my half ruined engineering book, showing it to them. "I might be a witch, and I might be a Ctarl-Ctarl, but what I really want to be, is the world greatest aquatic engineer!"
I think it might have been the way I said it, as I had said it the same way that Luffy always talks about being the Pirate King, but when I finished my statement, everyone simply stared at me.
It took everyone several minutes to finally react to what I had said, and it was the three kids that commented first.
"What's an Engineer?" Carrot asked, wandering if I was crazy or something.
"You idiot, It's someone that makes trains!" Pepper said, whacking his brother upside his head, shocked at his stupidity.
"Huh? She wants to be the worlds best train builder?" Onion asked, just as confused as carrot was.
"You want to be an engineer?" Nami asked, wandering if I was crazy, just as carrot had wandered the same thing. "But, isn't that a step back for a witch?"
"Yeah, can't witch's already do anything? Why do you need to build stuff?" Zoro asked in his suspicions tone again, making me want to hit him.
"Hey, just because a witch can use magic, that doesn't mean we can do anything! There are limits you know." I said, wishing they would leave my goal alone. "Besides, it's what I want to be, so my dream alone!"
"Yosh! The Pirate King wouldn't have it any other way! The best of the best!" Luffy laughed, saying a sort of prelude to what he was going to say when he heard Zoro's goal.
It must be a Luffy thing, always happy when people try to be the best at whatever they want to be.
"Fine, fine. So you want to be an engineer, we get it. " Nami said, waving me off while ignoring Luffy's shouts. "So, what do we do now? Shouldn't we go find Usopp?"
"Yeah, he's probably trying to worn the villagers!" Carrot said, running off and up the path around the cliff.
"Yeah, the captain's probably trying to get everyone to safety!" Onion shouted, running after his brother and following him.
"Yeah! Come on guys, we've got to hurry and catch up with him!" Pepper told us before following after onion and carrot.
"Great, we're being ordered around by vegetables." Lil said as we all took off up the cliff, following the kids so that we could find Usopp.
When we were about half way to the town, we saw Usopp walking along the road, hanging his head in despair.
"Captain!" The three kids shouted in unison when the finally saw them.
Usopp looked up at the shout, did something with his arm, then turned and smiled at us. The smile looked so fake that I was extremely surprised when the kids fell for it.
"Hay guys!" he said in an equally falsely happy voice.
"Yo!" Luffy said, waving at him over the kids' heads, causing Usopp's jaw to drop.
"Hay! Your still alive?!" He asked in shock, running up to Luffy to get a good look at him.
"Alive?" Luffy asked, momentarily forgetting that he had fallen down a cliff. "Oh! Yeah, I just woke up." He said inadequately.
Luffy, such a gift for words...
"Yeah, he was sleeping this whole time!" Pepper explained, knowing that his captain would need a bit more information then Luffy seemed to be giving.
"Anyway captain, we heard everything!" Carrot said, moving on to the topic at hand, though Usopp didn't seem to happy about this little fact.
"Yeah!" Onion said, adding in his own comments to as he didn't want to get left out. "We need to hurry and warn the villagers about the pirates!"
Covering up his horror at finding out that the rest of the Usopp pirates all knew about what was going to happen, Usopp quickly put a smile on his face and pretended that everything was just a joke.
"Warn everyone? Hahaha! Hahaha! Hahaha! That was just a joke!" He said with a laugh. The laugh didn't sound natural, and it kind of hurt my ears. It was one of those falsely happy laughs that make you sick when you hear them.
Like someone who wanted to cry out in misery, but was trying to cover it up with laughter, and wasn't doing a good job.
"Hahaha! I was so pissed at that butler that I went around town and told everyone he was a pirate!"
The kids seemed to believe him, which really surprised me. It had to be one of the worst lies I had ever heard, and I have told some pretty lame ones in my life. It was even worse then the time I told my teacher that the fish in my fish tank ate my homework while I was asleep. She hadn't believed me then, and I didn't believe Usopp now.
"Hahaha! Oh, I get it!" Carrot said, laughing with his brothers when he heard the explanation, though the way he said it didn't sound that truthful to me either.
"Yeah, I get it too! The straw-hat guys were all fooled by the captain too!" Onion said, though his comment somehow sounded just as fake as his brother's had. He clearly wasn't really buying it either.
'OK, that's definitely different, didn't they really believe Usopp in the anime?' I thought as the kids walked past Usopp, wandering if this was my fault. The giant sign over my head that was being held up by Lil said that it was. If I hadn't opened my big mouth earlier, they would have believed Usopp's words, at least until the morning.
As the three kids walked past their captain, their expressions all seemed to change slightly, though I couldn't actually see their faces. What I could see, however, was their body language, which was saying that they were all annoyed about something.
"Captain, if you didn't want us to show up tomorrow, you should have just said so." carrot said, turning to look at the man that he would always call captain.
"But that doesn't mean," Onion said, turning around and doing the same.
"That we wont come." Pepper finished for them, mimicking his two brothers by turning around and looking at Usopp.
Yep, this was definitely my fault.
"The psychic told us everything!" The each said in unison, pointing at mean as I hung my head in despair.
OK, this was REALLY my fault. If the little brats got killed, I would never forgive myself.
"She told you?" He asked, taking a moment for that fact to sink in. "You're a psychic?! And you told them what was going to happen?!" he asked in shock and horror. He was shocked at finding out that I was a psychic, but horrified at finding out that I had told them.
"Hey! I'm just a psychic! I can only see one version of what's going to happen!" I said defensively, though I was silently agreeing with his horror. I should never have told them. "I didn't know telling them would be a bad thing, I didn't see that in the future! I just saw them going home and leaving the fight to us, then showing up in the middle of the fight tomorrow and causing us problems! I thought that if I told them, then they wouldn't show up!"
Zoro and Nami slapped their hands against their faces, wishing I had thought it out more before telling them, and I kind of had to agree.
If I had really thought it through before telling everyone that I already knew about Kuro and his pirates, then I would have realized that, in the mind of a child, that meant that they should help us.
Bad idea.
"Next time, think before you go telling kids stuff like that." Zoro said in his 'You're an idiot' sort of voice.
'Great, I got clubbed by Nami, and given a lecture by Zoro, all in the same day.' I thought, hanging my head at my own stupidity.
"Well, what did you expect. She can't think AND know the future at the same time, her brain isn't big enough." Lil said, causing me to start trying to strangle her.
"What was that?! You fuzzy-bitch-from-hell-with-a-hand-basket!" he growled, still shaking her little fuzzy ass as hard as I could. "Who the hell are you calling stupid?!"
"I think she was calling the girl that's arguing with her own cat stupid." Nami said deviously, causing me to drop Lil and hang my head in despair again.
"You too, Nami?" I asked, large anime tears running down my face in despair. They all thought I was stupid. Wah!
"Hahaha!" Luffy laughed, clearly thinking my face was funny.
"Look, you guy's aren't showing up tomorrow!" Usopp said, ignoring us and addressing the three kids.
"Yes we are!" They yelled back, none of them wanting their captain to have to fight alone.
"We might be kids, but we love this village to!" Carrot said, pleading with Usopp to let him fight to.
"Yeah! And we don't want to see anyone get hurt!" Onion added, wishing they could help us fight.
"Yeah, and We want to fight to!" Pepper said, begging all of us to understand.
If they had been older, then I might have been on their sides, but as they were kids...
"You are not fighting with us!" I said in a commanding tone, my years of babysitting finally coming in handy. "Now go home, eat dinner, and leave tomorrow to us! If you show up tomorrow, then I'm going to make sure your parents ground you for the rest of your lives! Do you understand me?!"
Grounding, it was the one thing that all children feared, that and their mothers wrath.
The kids clearly understood me as the quickly took off for home, running with such speed and agility that, for a second, I thought I was seeing things.
"Not our parents!" The shouted in horror as they disappeared off into the distance.
"Yep, like always, worked like a charm." I said, grabbing Usopp's arm and heading back to his cliff. "Come on, Nami will patch your arm up while we think of a plan." I said as everyone followed me, clearly agreeing with me that we needed to come up with a plan of action.
Once we got to the cliff, we waited for Nami to bandage Usopp up, but only because the conversation during that time was mostly from her as she continually bitched at us about how stupid we were for not knowing how to doctor a wound.
"Really, how did you survived all this time as a pirate?" She asked as she finished bandaging up his arm, clearly annoyed at us for our ignorance.
"Easy, we try not to get cut." I said, causing her to glare at me. It was a good point though, if you didn't want to deal with wounds, just avoid them all together.
Nami simply rolled her eyes at me and ignored my comment, choosing instead to stay quiet as she wasn't really sure she would be able to keep her self from killing me if she opened her mouth.
By the time she finished bandaging him up, we had already gotten the conversation about why Usopp had tried to lie to the kids over and had already worked out a plan to take care of the pirates.
"Great, so we'll just use the oil to make it hard for them to get up the path on the cliff, but we might want to head to the other cliff before we get started, since that's the one they'll be showing up at." I said, causing Nami to freak out.
"The other cliff?! But that means they'll see my treasure!" She shouted, horrified at the vary idea of someone taking all her treasure away.
"Yeah, so let's go get that oil barrel Usopp was talking about and get it over there." I said, getting up and walking up the road.
If they wanted a fight, then we would give them a fight.
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OK, I know, this is a really short chapter, but I had to end it here. XD I know how much you guys wanted me to update, so I did. :3
read and review, ------------ (and check my profile for polls, there's always one up,)