I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack. And I bring the next chapter of my story with me.
Ready, Steady, Go!!!
The name of the island literally translated to Mountain Island, and for good reason. With the exception of the perimeter of the island, which consisted of a sandy beach and about a kilometer of forest, the entire island was basically a giant mountain that rose seemingly past the clouds. It was a strange sight to behold indeed, but as this was the Grand Line, quite possibly the strangest sea in the world, it wasn't all that strange to the ones who braved its ever changing waters. This island in particular was once revered as a perfect rest and relaxation stop to those who had made it this far on this sea.
However, today the base of this mountain would be used as an ideal battle ground.
"Peacock String Slam!" The blue haired princess turned pirate brought her string down hard on her opponent, causing a cloud of dust to rise from the impact. She let out a slightly cocky but supremely confident smile, however it quickly faded when the dust settled, and her opponent was nowhere to be seen. She retracted her string and scanned her surroundings quickly. "Where did you go this time? Where are you going to attack from now?"
"Gomu Gomu No….." She turned towards the direction of the voice, and saw her attacker set up his attack in the last place she expected it to come from; above her. "Ono! (Axe)" Luffy brought his leg down hard, aiming his foot straight for her. "Peacock String Snake!" Thinking quickly she shot her string straight at his foot. Then, with a small twitch of her hand, she caused the string to coil and wrap itself along the length of Luffy's stretched out leg. Vivi then pulled down hard, causing Luffy to drop like a rock.
Luffy, however, recovered quickly, using his free leg and arms to stop himself from slamming into the ground. Then never skipping a beat, stood up and shot the leg that was still wrapped up straight back, causing Vivi to get thrown straight towards him. He then seamlessly transitioned to the attack. "Gomu Gomu No……" Vivi already knew what was coming. She also knew that if she was going to escape from this, she was going to have to act fast and pray that she was still as lucky as everyone said she was. She shot her string straight backwards and hoped that this worked in time.
"Stamp!" Luffy shot his foot forward and aimed straight for Vivi's face. Vivi felt her string dig into a large bolder and was momentarily relieved. With barely a second to spare, she pulled back hard on the string, and with her body moving forward as it was, caused her upper body to bend backwards, letting Luffy's sandaled foot to pass just millimeters above her face. Another slight hand movement and the string unwrapped itself from Luffy's leg. She then rolled to the side, pulling her second string back to her, stood up and stared her opponent in the eye.
'Nami-san was right. He may act foolish most of the time, but put him in a tough fight and he turns into a genius. He used my own string to pull me towards him, and then attempted to kick me while I was flying to him. It was pure luck that I was able to dodge it. Half a second later and… well, I don't even want to think about how that would feel.' She refocused her attention on to Luffy and prepared her next attack.
Luffy, believe or not, actually had similar thoughts going through her mind. 'I knew that she had gotten way tougher since we left Alabasta, but man, even I'm having a tough time against her.' Of course if he had been fighting her seriously, like he had against Crocodile, he no doubt would have had an easier time against her. However, he was completely oblivious of his restraint towards her. Vivi, on the other hand, was completely aware that the only reason that she wasn't face down on the ground right now was that Luffy didn't really see her as an enemy. She couldn't blame him, though. She understood that even if it was training, and even if she had asked him to come at her with everything that he had, it was impossible for the captain to ever hurt any of his crew.
She was just about to attack again when another familiar voice reached her ears. "Luffy, Vivi, lunch is ready!" It was the voice of the ship's doctor, Chopper. He appeared near the tree line exhausted. He had run all the way from the ship.
Vivi turned back to her ship's captain and training partner, expecting him to want to head straight back to the ship. The words that escaped his lips made her check to see if her ears were still attached to her head correctly. "Hey Vivi, you wanna go back, or do you wanna continue training?"
"What? You don't wanna go?"
"Well, yea I do. But if you want to continue training, then it isn't really that important."
Before she knew it, Luffy was flying straight into a large boulder. Right where Luffy was standing was a shiny black boot, and connected to that boot was the extremely well built leg of the ships cook. "You miserable little shit! How dare you call my cooking unimportant! I should make you starve from now on for that!" he yelled at Luffy while still holding the pose he was in when he kicked Luffy.
Vivi was still standing off to the side and sweat dropped when Sanji finished speaking. "Unbelievable. He heard Luffy all the way from the ship."
Luffy sat up from the pile of rock that he was buried under and rubbed his head. "Sanji, that wasn't what I meant. You know that I always love your cooking. I meant that Vivi's training was more important than me eating your food right now." That promptly got him yet another shiny black boot to the face.
"Oi, you had better watch what you say about my cooking from now on, asshole."
"Um, Sanji-kun, could you please just bring our lunches out here? And please make sure to bring extra for Luffy. The way things have been going so far, his stomach is probably going to be like a black hole." Vivi said, hoping that she could keep Sanji from beating her training partner up too badly.
And as to be expected from the slightly perverted cook, he turned to Vivi with hears gushing out of everywhere that they could. "Hai, Vivi-chwaaaaan." And leaving a trail of hearts in his wake, he dashed back through the forest to the ship, with Chopper close behind.
Vivi giggled a little, and then turned back towards Luffy. She smiled at him, still somewhat surprised that Luffy was willing to give up lunch for her. But then again, when she thought about it, it shouldn't have been all that surprising when she considered everything that had happened ever since that night.
She had stayed with him the entire night after they had kissed. He had perched himself back on his seat, and had pulled her up with him so that she was sitting in his lap. He kept his arms wrapped protectively around her while they sat and looked out over the sea. After a while they had fallen asleep. She woke up a little early the next morning, and silently slipped out of Luffy's grasp to avoid the rest of the crew for finding them like that.
Ever since then he had acted different whenever he was around her. Examples of this included every meal when he would just randomly grab whatever food was on the table, even if it was on someone else's plate. He would always deliberately miss her plate. He even offered to let her sit in his special seat, and according to Nami, that didn't happen.
So this was just another small piece of him letting her know just how much she meant to him. "Ok, Luffy, ready to start up again?" She raised her strings and prepared for battle.
Luffy had finally emerged from the second pile of rubble and was shaking off his arm. "Yea, let's get back to work. Gomu Gomu No……"
"Peacock String………"
"Pistol!"
"Slasher!"
The Going Merry)))
Sanji had just jumped back on the ship and was walking to the kitchen, getting ready to prepare another 20 plates of food.
"Oi, Sanji-kun, where's Vivi and Luffy?" Nami looked up from her lounge chair on the bow of the ship. She was sunbathing in her green bikini. This obviously got a reaction out of Sanji.
"They are still out training, my beautiful megami (goddess)."
"Nani???!!!" She nearly jumped right out of her seat. "Luffy actually denied food? What the hell is going on?"
"I don't know, but I hope Vivi-chwan kicks that ungrateful little shit's ass."
Nami sighed deeply. It was obviously that Sanji couldn't believe that Luffy didn't want to eat either; however he was in so much denial that he made up a reason for Luffy not to eat his food. Though, she couldn't really blame him. She was still having a hard time believing this as well.
Sanji took a quick look around. "Did everyone already finish eating?"
"Yeah. Chopper was tired out from all the running around that he was doing so he has already passed out in the boy's room. I made Usopp get back to work on my weapon, Zoro has already gone off to start his own training, and Robin is in our room getting ready to head out. She saw a bunch of old structures from the crow's nest and well you know how she gets when she sees a bunch of ruins."
"Ok well I'm going to deliver Vivi and that asshole's food and then start looking around the island for a few good cooking ingredients, so you and Chopper will be alone on the ship."
"Ok then Sanji-kun. Have fun and hurry back. I might get lonely here," she added in her most innocent voice, getting the desired response from Sanji.
"Hai, megami-swaaaaaan!" And he ran to the kitchen and ran out with about twenty plates balanced perfectly. Nami just shook her head. "Ah, I love how easy it is to get men to do what you want."
Later that day, at a ruined city)))
Robin walked through the giant stone threshold, obviously the entrance to the city, and looked in complete indifference at the decrepit stone city. It was nowhere near as impressive as most of the other ruins that she had seen. In fact, compared to those, this was by far the most primitive set of ruins that she had ever seen. She looked at the stone buildings that made up the city in mild disappointment. No hieroglyphics, no markings, nothing. There were absolutely no carvings on any of the stones.
She began to search through the entire city, looking through each and every building that made up this completely empty city. By empty, she didn't mean the lack of humans. In just about every other set of ruins she could almost feel the history radiating out of them. It was almost as if the ruins had a life of their own. However, these were just as cold and desolate as they looked. Each house, each building, everything had nothing to be found, nothing to be discovered With each building that she passed, her disappointment only grew and grew, and after a while this disappointment turned into anger.
She walked up to the tallest building, deeming it to be the one where this village's leader lived, worked, or both, and was disappointed to find that the only real difference between this building and the others was the size of it. This was the last straw for her. She kicked the giant building once then began to walk away, fuming. After a few steps, there was a small rumble. She turned to the direction of the rumble, which oddly enough was coming from the large building that she had just left. It rumbled for a few more seconds before finally collapsing in on itself.
Something strange happened to Robin then. Usually when some ruins would fall like this, she would grow remorseful, or angry if someone had caused it. So she should have become at least angry with herself for what she had done. However, the complete lack of information that this particular set of ruins held had made her so angry the sight of the building falling actually caused a smile to creep across her face.
Willing to push this new found development further, she crossed her arms. "Cien Fleur." One hundred legs suddenly sprouted from the ground in front of every single stone building. "Kick." All at once, her legs kicked each stone building. She then dispersed her legs, walked to the center of the ruins, and waited.
The rumble returned, this time even bigger than the last, and from all directions. She watched with mild amusement as the entire set of ruins started to fall in on itself. One by one, each of the buildings fell, leaving nothing but a pile of rocks where the buildings once stood. As each building fell robin felt her anger disappear more and more and more, until finally, with the last building falling, there was nothing but absolute bliss within her. Though the simple smirk on her face was all that she would show.
She began to walk towards the exit of the ruined city, thinking to herself, 'Well, at the very least no one else will have to go on the fruitless journey of going through these ruins. As she walked through the giant threshold, promptly remembering to knock it down as she left, she looked up to see Vivi and Luffy looking at her, both with stunned looks on their faces. "Hello sencho-san, hime-san."
Vivi was the one who spoke first. "Um, Robin, you know that those ruins are destroyed right."
"Of course I do. I'm the one who did it." She didn't have even a tinge of regret in her voice.
It was Luffy's turn. "Nani??!! But why? You always talk about how important they are and everything and then you turn around and destroy one yourself." He pointed an accusing finger at the archaeologist. "You are a hippo."
Vivi sweat dropped. "I think he meant hypocrite."
He kept his finger pointed at Robin. "That's what I said; a hippo."
Robin was barely able to hide her real laughter behind her giggle. She then collected herself, and then explained her. "I do not care about the ruins themselves. I care for the history that is contained within them." She raised her hand at the fallen ruins. "These ruins held no history to be discovered; therefore their fate mattered not to me."
Luffy looked at her with his blank stare. Then suddenly he cried out, "Hippo!"
Vivi proceeded to burst into laughing while the archaeologist merely giggled. Then Vivi collected herself and addressed the archaeologist. "Oh, I almost forgot. Nami-san was looking for you. She said she had something that she wanted to ask you, but she wouldn't tell me what."
"Ok, I am on my way back to the ship, anyway. How was your training session with sencho-san, by the way?"
"Oh, it was great. Now I know why so many other pirates fell to him. He is a really strong fighter."
"You are actually a very good fighter yourself Vivi. I bet you could probably beat Zoro with that Spider thing you have."
Vivi blushed slightly at his compliment, and the archaeologist caught it. She was still the only crew member who knew about the relationship between the captain and the princess, and she had been tempted numerous times to expose it. However, up to now she had kept it a well guarded secret. However, that didn't mean that she couldn't torture them a little. "My, my, the way you two talk to each other, one would think that you two were a couple." She said the last part of that silently and raised her pinky finger slightly, and then she started walking back to the ship, while Vivi stared at the woman, wondering just what she knew, and how much of it she knew.
"Oi, that doesn't change anything, Robin! You are still a hippo!"
Vivi was about to turn to Luffy and correct him once again, even though she knew that she would be basically wasting her breath, but was cut off when she saw that Luffy was no longer standing there. Instead, once again, there was a shiny black boot connected to the cook's leg once again. "Oi, you had better watch what you say about my sweet Robin-chwan."
Vivi sweat dropped just like last time. 'How does he do it?' She turned back to see where her captain landed. Unfortunately, her captain was no where to be seen, with the exception of his straw hat which was floating slowly down from the sky.
'So Luffy gets angry when you badmouth his dreams or his crew, Sanji does so when you talk about his cooking or the women. I wonder what makes the others lose their tempers?" she pondered, hoping that she wouldn't have to find out first hand.
Nearby)))
To say that Zoro was just a little put off by what he had just heard would be a bit of an understatement. He had just finished his latest training session and was heading out to look for another good spot to continue. He felt a slight rumble while he was walking and went to investigate it.
He came up on a set of bushes and saw that just beyond them were three figures. Upon closer inspection he saw that they were Vivi, Luffy, and Robin. Behind Robin were a set of ruins that had apparently fallen, which explained the rumble that he felt. The thing that confused him the most was that Robin had a very content look on her face, even though on of her precious ruins appeared to have recently fallen, probably while she was there.
He was about to ask her about this when something that Luffy said caught his ear. "I bet you could probably beat Zoro with that Spider thing you have." Zoro froze and stared at Luffy, and found that he was looking at Vivi. He really thought that she could beat him?
Normally this wouldn't have meant much to him. After all he was confident enough in his own skills to know whether or not she could beat him. However, he had not actually been there to see her battle, so he wasn't sure just what the woman was capable of. Besides that, ever since his battle with Krieg, every training session he had left him feeling like he hadn't really improved his own skills. Some even left him feeling like he was getting worse.
So Luffy's words, harmless as they were, were more of a challenge to him than anything else. "So, you think that the princess actually stands a chance against me?" He placed a hand on the Wado and smiled. "We'll see."
Ok a couple of notes that I would like to make.
Damn it feels good to be back. I have been away for far too long. For those of you who wish to know, I am currently deployed to Iraq right now. Needless to say, internet time out here is precious. That and for a while I had hit a writers wall. You have heard of writers block, well this is a writer's wall. I didn't even have a decent idea as to what I wanted my next chapter to be about. Then, all of the sudden it hit me. This was the end result.
No, Zoro is not turning evil.
I am going to try to keep this wave of inspiration going so keep an eye on my story and I'll update this as soon as I can. Till then, R&R& have a nice day.
