Chapter 28: Wax, fire, and burnt up panties
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.
Note: You can look at artwork for the story by going to my profile and clicking on them the links.
And just so you know, we will be seeing the missing numbers. I mean, in the anime and manga, there were 3 Mr. ?'s that we didn't get to see as well as 4 Miss. ?'s as well.
Mr. 6 : Miss. Mother's day
Mr. 10 : Miss. Tuesday
Mr. 12 : Miss. Saturday
and Mr. 11's partner, Miss. Thursday
Since we have no idea what they can do, send in suggestions. :3
In case anyone is wandering, I am currently writing a book (My first one, OMG, I'm going to be an author! IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD! XD), and I've been drawing the creatures in it (Which I do for my own reference). So that's why I haven't been updating as fast for the past few chapters.
'thoughts'
"Words"
(inner Kaede)
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I can't remember when I passed out, but the last thing I do remember was some strange man I had never seen standing over me just before everything went black. He didn't look familiar at all, not even a little. He had simply appeared out of nowhere to stand next to Mr. 3, and then nothing.
And when I woke up...
When I woke up there was nothing but darkness, just a simply blackness that was impossible to see through. The blackness, as it turned out, was caused by the fact that I was currently stuck in a tiny little ball of wax, unable to move thanks to the fact that my arms and legs were actually in the walls of the wax-ball. My body and head were in and open cavity in the wax ball, and while the space seemed to be perfectly round, it was incredibly small.
The cavity was so small in fact that the walls were up covering my arms up to my elbows and knees, a fact that gave a whole new meaning to the words 'claustrophobic'.
Which I just happened to be.
Which meant that I almost instantly started hyperventilating the instant I realized how small the area was and that I couldn't move. It was like being stuck in a round coffin.
Or a really small bowling ball.
It also didn't help that I had an impossible feeling that I was completely and utterly alone, which meant that Lil wasn't with me.
"Lil!?" I called out in a panicky voice, praying that I wasn't alone in my own little prison of hell. "Lil...? God, please answer me!"
The more and more the silence answered me, the more and more frightened I got.
Being alone in a tiny closet... Unable to move... unable to see...
It was a memory I didn't want, one that was now covering every inch of my mind, leaving no other thought but the terror I had felt that day. A terror that had left me unable to stop crying, both then and now. A terror that I hadn't ever wanted to remember, one that was built out of a moment in time that I couldn't even completely remember. It was only blotches and splotches in time, only a few strands of information that never really seemed to want to go away, but yet never really seemed to want to show itself completely.
"Fire..." I whispered weakly, trying feebly to block out the thoughts and memories with anything.
Warmth.
"Fire..." I whispered again, feeling the warmth that emanated from my left hand, which was still berried deep withing the wall.
A strong warmth.
"Fire..." I whispered again, this time with just a hairs width of more energy, slowly letting the anger and rage that came with fire slowly roll over the fear in panic that I was feeling.
"Fire." I said, no longer whispering as both my arms were now getting really warm.
It was working. The wax was heating up from the spell and melting.
It was working.
"Fire! FIRE! FIREFIREFIREFIREFIRE!" I shouted, finally just rolling the words together as I started pumping more and more anger and rage into the spell, stringing the words together and calling them out. "FIRE!"
Fire.
The burning, blazing, sweltering heat of fire. The gloriously happy moment of having both arms freed from the steel like wax in a blaze of fire, accompanied by the suffocating feel of the air being used by the flames, causing the oxygen levels to drop dangerously.
I didn't care, and I wasn't going to care. If I could get free, if I could get out of the wax, then the lack of air didn't matter.
"FIRE FIRE FIRE FIRE FIRE!" I shouted over and over again, now fisting my hands and letting the flames on them grow, melting the wax an an alarming, and yet relieving rate.
-------- Same time, outside of Kaede's waxy prison ----------
Zoro, Nami, Lucian, and Nichi were all standing on what appeared to be a giant Halloween birthday cake that was completely made out of some kind of wax that was so hard that Zoro's swords couldn't even cut through it.
They had been Placed there by Mr. 3, Mr. 5, and a large, bulky man with orange and white hair named Mr. 6.
Zoro had just been about to cut his own legs off to get free when Choco appeared out of nowhere, dragging Luffy, Usopp, Vivi, Carue, and something else with him.
"Huh?" the green haired man said stupidly, wandering what the yellow blur had been.
"KWEH!" Choco said angrily, coming back and dropping the yellow clad lump of scratches onto the ground.
It was Miss. Valentine.
A very beat up miss valentine, who looked as though she had been on the wrong side of Choco during some point in the day.
"KWEH!" Choco said again, scratching at the ground angrily and preparing to charge.
"Let's do it Usopp! Bird! Chicken! Vivi!" Luffy called as he and the others stood up.
"Mer, what about me?" Lil called, running out of the forest with the Froggy bag on her back and jumping onto Choco's back.
"Lil?" Everyone from Vivi's group and the strawhats called, wandering what she was doing there and why she wasn't back at the ship, watching over Kaede.
"Aren't you supposed to be watching over Kaede?" Nichi called down from the giant wax cake, wandering why the big black cat was there.
"Is that the white haired chick's name?" Mr. 6 asked, catching everyones attention and causing the others to look at him in horror.
How the hell did he know what her hair color was?
"Yeah, I was watching her, but then she woke up and we came looking for you guys, then that idiot and Mr. 3 got her." Lil said, pointing Mr. 6 when she said 'that idiot'.
"What?! Then where is she?!" Nami shouted in horror, while Luffy and Usopp seemed to get even angrier.
Zoro seemed to be getting angry to for some reason, though not even the cosmos would ever dare to wander why.
"Hehehe." Mr. 3 laughed, getting everyones attention instantly. "Why, she's right above you, of course."
Everyone looked over Nami's head, only to see the spinning pumpkin head like top of the cake.
"Huh? But I don't..." Lucian said, stopping when he finally got it.
She was in the pumpkin head.
"When Miss. Friday and Mr. 13 told the boss about what they saw, he sent me to deal with the witch. Said he couldn't trust any of you to actually get the job done." Mr. 6 said, causing the others Baroque Work members to stare at him in horror while the others all continued staring at the top of the cake in horror.
The Baroque Works members were staring at Mr. 6 in horror because if what he was saying was true, then that would mean that the boss was considering promoting him, and demoting someone else.
And a demotion in Baroque Works was an execution or assassination.
"And when I found out who this witch was and what she could do, I decided that it would be much safer if I put her in a little cage to keep her from getting free and helping the rest of you." Mr. 6 said, smirking as he thought about how the white haired chick was probably suffocating to death in the Pumpkin shaped top of the cake. "This way, she can't zap us and she'll get to die along side her friends, though I'm betting she's already suffocated to death by now."
"You bastard!" Luffy shouted angrily while the look on Lil's face went from being horrified to being even more horrified.
"NO! That's bad! She's afraid of small places!" Lil shouted in horror, causing everyone to turn and stare at her.
"It talks?!" The Baroque Works members shouted, unable to believe there ears.
"What do you mean, 'she's afraid of small places'?" Usopp asked, picking Lil up and shaking her slightly, unable to believe that a witch with that much power could be afraid of anything.
"Just what I said! She REALLY doesn't like small and dark places!" Lil said, struggling to get out of his grip and running over to the large wax-shaped cake, only to be stopped half way by a bunch of wax that rapped around her paws.
"Hm, even better." Mr. 6 said, causing Luffy and Usopp to turn and glare at him.
"BASTARD!" Luffy shouted again, this time charging at him with his fists held back, planning on slamming them into him with a Gum Gum bazooka.
About half way through his charge, Luffy stopped, having been hit on the back with a large glob of half melted wax that was now hardening again at an alarming rate.
The fact that the huge glob of wax hadn't come from Mr. 3, and had instead come from somewhere over head had caused everyone to look up in slight curiosity and surprise.
The wax pumpkin was melting.
"What the? That's impossible!" Mr. 3 and Mr. 6 said in unison as they and the other Baroque Works members all started backing up and away from the large wax statue.
The speed at which the wax pumpkin was melting was increasing at an alarming rate. It had started to melt little by little with just drops of wax sliding down it's sides, but it was now loosing giant chunks, which were falling down it's sides as it continued to spin.
"FIRE!" They all heard someone shout, causing the none-Baroque Works members to look up at the pumpkin happily. "FIREFIREFIRE FIRE!"
Fire was an understatement. What was coming from the the inside of the pumpkin wasn't fire at all, but was instead a blazing inferno that was clearly being powered by a very pissed off witch who wasn't to happy about being locked up inside a ball of wax.
I was busting free, and no one was going to stop me.
"FIRE!" I shouted one more time, poring every little drop of energy I had into the flames.
A white explosion.
That's what. The last bought of fire had caused the inside of the wax ball to heat up so much that it had exploded, sending giant chunks of wax flying all over the place.
Freedom. Cool air and freedom.
That was what I felt when I was finally released from my incredibly small and dark prison.
I was able to breath fine again, I was able to see again, and I was able to feel the immense amount of cool air that came from having almost no fabric remaining on your clothes once they had been burned away by a large fire that you had created.
But let's pretend like that wasn't happening, OK?
"Kaede! You're alive!" Usopp shouted Vivi shouted happily when they saw that it was me.
"And you're practically naked..." Mr. 6 said, his head going straight to the gutter, much to my annoyance.
My annoyance ended up having to sit tight on the back burning though as I almost instantly collapsed out of exhaustion, falling down from the ruined remains of the pumpkin and down on top of Zoro.
Who's had unfortunately been positioned in such a way that, when I landed on him and we crashed to the ground, one of his hands ended up in a very privet area.
"Hands! Hands!" I shouted in surprise, causing him to instantly move his hand out of the way as his face started turning into a tomato.
Rolling off of him, I quickly tried covering my self up as best as I could, a little annoyed by the fact that my top was now chard and was barely covering my chest, and my pants were so badly burned that my underwear were the only things covering anything down there.
And they weren't granny panties either.
Luckily, Choco was extremely fast and was able to rip off some of the fabric of Brogy's giant clothing and bring it up to me in less then three seconds. In an instant, I turned the fabric into a noted skirt that managed to cover up everything from the waist down that I wasn't to happy about showing, which just so happened to be the same stuff that Zoro had been touching on accident just a few seconds before.
A bra and a skirt...
Let's just pretend it was a bikini and a skirt, OK? That's a lot easier for my brain to live with.
The fact that there were quite a few red faces that were currently not looking at me made me want to die, but the fact that I was barely able to move and my arms felt like they had been badly burned helped me pretend like I didn't notice.
God hates me. She really does.
Sighing when my more sensitive parts were finally covered, I simply sat back and tried not to pass out from all the energy I had used up during my escape. There was a fight that was going to start, but I wasn't able to really do anything to help.
Or at least I hadn't thought I would be able to help, that was until Mr. 6 decided he wanted to have a few words with me.
With a large pointy red thing.
"Kaede! Look out!" Nami shouted, seeing Mr. 6 appear out of nowhere right above me.
Looking up for a split second, I realized almost instantly that I didn't have time to move out of the way, meaning I was about to get speared by the pointy red thing. I closed my eyes and waited for the blow to come, only to be very relieved when nothing happened.
Opening one of my eyes ever so slightly, I peaked out and looked up to see what was going on. The battle had started in more then one places. Luffy was fighting Mr. 3 down below, Vivi and Carue were kicking Miss. Goldenweek's ass, and Zoro was bending over backwards with his three swords and was currently holding off Mr. 6's attack.
The battle had started.
"Move!" Zoro growled out, still clashing swords/red thing with Mr. 6.
Diving out of the way as best as I could, which wasn't very good because I was still incredibly weak from the fire spells and my arms and legs were still stinging from the heat of the flames.
"I guess one more spell wont be that bad." I said weakly, sticking my hand on the wax between Zoro's legs and calling out the spell.
For some reason, when I was trying to get out of the ball of wax, the spell had destroyed my clothes, but oddly enough, Zoro's clothes didn't even get singed.
…
…
Anyway, the fire did the trick and Zoro's legs were freed. The moment he was able to move again, he pulled his legs out and quickly rushed Mr. 6.
The clang of steel against the orange thing made me realize that it was definitely made out of some form of metal. I couldn't quite place it, but I was sure I had seen something that looked just like it. It was a golden orange color and kind of see through like amber, but the clanging sound it was making whenever one of Zoro's swords struck against it was definitely metallic in nature.
The shape of it was kind of odd as well. It was shaped like an anchor, but was being used like a sword. Whatever it was, it was a lot stronger then it looked because the metal seemed to be damaging Zoro's swords.
"Kaede!" Usopp called, dragging me out of my thoughts and staring as he went running around me on Carue's back.
Turning to see whatever it was that he wanted, I instantly saw that he had already wrapped the entire cake like wax statue with an alcohol soaked rope.
"Right!" I said, already knowing what he wanted.
"Wait, what are you planning to do, baby?" Lucian asked, causing me to smirk evilly at them, something that made the others pail in horror.
"Why'd he have to call her baby?" Nami asked in despair, hanging her head and knowing that something bad was about to happen.
"We're doomed, aren't we?" Nichi said in agreement, knowing that I was planning something very very dangerous for them, something that would probably hurt a lot.
In answer to her question, I simply stuck out my hand, aimed it at the rope, and called out my spell.
"FIRE!"
In an instant, the rope caught fire and spread it across the entire wax statue, causing it to all go up in a blazing flame that was incredibly hot.
The moment the wax caught fire, everyone managed to get them selves free of it and jump down from it and onto the ground, rolling around slightly to get rid of the flames that had managed to attach themselves to their clothes.
"Hey, where's Zoro and Mr. 6?" I asked, looking around and seeing that the two fighters weren't anywhere to be found.
The moment the fire was out on everyones clothing, they all started looking around as well, wandering the same thing as I was.
"Look out!" Nami called, right as Mr. 6 came flying out of the flaming statue, heading straight for me with the strange, amber like anchor raised, ready to strike me with it.
Having had a second to breath before he came at me, and with a new wave of adrenaline rushing through my system, I simply stood up and held both my hands to my sides, as though I was going to clap them together, and then did just that.
"SHOCK-WAVE!" I shouted, doing the same experimental move that I had been tempted to use on Lucian.
The attack was basically a two handed thunder spell that was slammed together, causing a huge electric shock wave to emanate from my hands, kind of like that chick in X-men 3, though her's was made out of sound, and mine was made out of electricity.
I had gotten the idea for the move from a comment that Lil had made about Zoro's Hawk-wave move. She had said that the fact that the attack was simply an extremely powerful swing of his blade was kind of cool.
And from there, my mind had taken over and had gone onto one of it's long winded connections and theories, which ended with me figuring out that I could get the same kind of effect if I slammed to lightning filled hands together.
Pretty cool, isn't it?
Caught in the blast of my attack, Mr.6's form was momentarily held motionless in mid air as the attack barreled right into him, keeping him airborne. As the attack reached it's strongest point, Mr.6 slowly started getting pushed backwards in mid air, and then was practically thrown back into the fire statue behind him, only to get sliced in the back by Zoro, who just happened to come flying out of the flames at that very moment.
If it hadn't been for Zoro's timing, Mr. 6 probably would have simply stood up right after the attack was over, as it was actually like a extremely strong wind with a little bit of electricity in it.
Basically, it might give you a little bit of a shock, but all it really did was blow a lot of air at you.
"Nice timing." Nami said as I fell back and hit the grass in exhaustion.
"Thanks." Zoro said simply, walking over and joining the rest of us.
"Mr. Bushido." Vivi said thankfully, bowing her head to him as she walked over to us.
"Mr. 3 and the others?" I asked, wandering if the others were done fighting with them or not.
"Luffy took care of them." Usopp said, coming over to us and looking down at me in curiosity. "Didn't you say something about a parasite before?"
"Shut up." I said miserable, rolling over and trying to ignore the fact that there was probably a worm making it's way through my body.
Ick-factor, ick-factor, ick-factor, ick-factor!
"Ug, make sure we get as much of that wax as possible." I said, trying to change the subject to something that didn't involve one of my three biggest fears.
Great, in one day I had already dealt with two of my three major fears. Claustrophobia, the fear of small spaces, and Helminthophobia, the fear of being infested with worms.
"Huh?" Vivi asked, slightly confused as to why I would want some of the wax.
"It might only be wax, but it's still the hardest substance known to man. I might be able to make something out of it." I explained, rolling over and informing the others that I was going to be taking a nap for a while.
Two and a half hours later, the others and I were on the Going Merry and on our way to the next island. Everyone was a little shaken up by the fact that we had just gotten away from a giant Koi by the skin of our teeth, thanks to the wonderful save from Dorry and Brogy
"Hey, Kaede." Nami called, catching my attention just as I was starting to head into the storage room and down to the girls room.
"Hm?" I asked, pausing in my path and turning to look at her, wandering what she wanted to talk to me about.
"Didn't you say something about a parasite?" She asked, wandering if I had caught it or not.
"I don't know if I have it, but there's a good chance I do. Like I said before, anyone that wasn't mostly covered up is vulnerable to it." I confirmed, causing a worried expression to make it's way onto her face. "Don't worry, the next island we'll be coming to has a doctor on it that can take care of it. Anyway, make sure Sanji puts the claws, fangs, horns, and plank into the storage room for me."
"Sure thing." She said, turning around and heading off to tell Sanji what I had just told her.
When we had gotten back to the ship and found the two dinosaurs that Sanji and Zoro had gotten during their little 'mine's bigger then yours' competition. When I saw that it was a T-Rex and a triceratops, I promptly asked Sanji to get me the claws, horns, and fangs from them, as well as the three horn's plank.
I was planning on make something with them, just like I was with the ammonite shells and the metal-wax.
As it turned out, Nami's worry about me being infected with the parasite turned out to be valid. I was definitely infected, because I didn't wake up for two days after my nap, and even then I was only awake for a few minutes, and then I was out of it for another half day, and when I woke up, albeit for only a few minutes again, I found myself in a house that had a huge mound of snow outside of it's window.
Talking, that was all I heard when I came too. A small argument about someone had broken out, and it had gotten so loud that it had actually been able to wake me from my parasite induced coma.
"And anyway, her temperature is 6 degrees above normal!" A voice said, and through my delirium and pain, I was able to tell that it was Usopp that had made the statement. "Don't you get it?!"
If it wasn't for the fact that I was sicker then a dead dog, I probably would have figured out what was going on just from that statement, but as it was, I was lucky I could even understand him.
"Yeah, Kaede can't handle a climb like that in her condition, what do you plan to do, carry her up the mountain?" Another voice called, one I recognized as Sanji's.
"If you try to take her up the mountain, you will be killed." Nichi's voice said, causing me to finally understand what was going on.
Hey, don't look at me like that, you aren't the one that's dieing, now are you?
"The doctor, a pulley..." I said, trying to remember something that I knew would help me out, only to pass out a few seconds later.
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And yeah, I'm extremely claustrophobic, and since it's a fear I completely understand, I decided to make her claustrophobic too, as well as giving her the same reason for the claustrophobia...
The pairing poll is now up, you can go and vote on it now. (47 voters, Zoro has 24 votes, ace has 24, vote or you might not get who you want for the pairing!)
read and review, ------------ (and check my profile for polls, there's always one up,)