"This way, moron!" Usopp tugs harder, though it doesn't (and never will) make much of a difference. He's like a man pushing a mountain. No, some men can do that kind of thing, like emperors and Shichibukai and Luffy. A better analogy would be a devil fruit user trying to move a seastone wall.
Though a good analogy for his intent is to instruct a South bird to fly North.
"It's this way! You're giving me the wrong directions!" Zoro barks, and again forges ahead stubbornly. Nami could make a lot of money if she hooked him up with some plowing equipment and sent him hiking. Guy could build a road on an evening stroll.
Usopp grunts and readjusts his grip, still foolishly trying to deter Zoro from walking in the opposite direction of the docks, which they can see from here.
"No, Zoro, the Sunny is in the ocean, at the docks, which are this way." He weedles and pulls and manages to turn the swordsman in the right direction for about five paces before a side alley draws him the the left. Shoot.
His grip slips loose and Zoro slides free, trudging on down the alley like he hadn't just made a ninety degree turn, was he even more directionally challenged than usual today?
Usopp lets out a frustrated noise and traipses after the green haired behemoth, dragging his feet as he tries to work out a better method of transporting the unswayable mountain than just telling him where to go; he should have known, Zoro never gets somewhere that easily, just getting told where to go.
"Zoro-o-oh!" There's a hand on his shoulder, but not to catch his attention, he's being used as a base to push off of and in the resulting spin he catches the blur of red and the exuberant giggle as Luffy swings his arms around Zoro's neck and pulls him forward with him.
"Sorry Zoro, I'm glad you're okay. You're pose was really cool but I'm happy you're not a statue!" The words gush and Usopp doesn't catch the meaning until Luffy's started jabbering out a new sentence. "Look it, Zoro, look at the mountain! It's exploding, cool huh? Come on, I wanna see!"
Zoro just kind of grunts and let's Luffy pull him along, like letting a puppy lead him with the leash (except the leash is a rubber arm. Man he's rocking these analogies/similes).
"Hey wait!" Usopp calls when he manages to catch his balance, they're already halfway out the other end of the alle- oop, no, they're all the way out the alley and around the corner. Usopp sags despondently, no one listens to him…
"What are you waiting for, go after them!" A shrill voice scolds and orange hair whips through his vision as Nami sprints past, her face alight with anger and exasperation. "Come on! He's getting ahead!" He stumbles into a run beside her, tripping forward for several steps before locating his rhythm.
"Nami…"
"You had a lead and you lost it moron!" Her fist seems to be impending but she turns the corner first, and Usopp catches the end of Zoro's sword disappearing around yet another corner, redeeming himself by pointing at it and yelling:
"There they are!"
Nami lunges toward the road they'd turned onto, hurtling across a market square paved with obsidian and smelling of fish, Usopp treks doggedly behind her, trying to fit the pieces together into a picture that doesn't resemble an okapi with two heads. Or a jackelope with eight legs. Or a platapus. Something not mixed up.
~6~
Usopp clings to the wall with all ten fingers and curls his toes inside his boots, anything for a little extra grip. Luffy is moving above him doggedly, reaching up, pulling up, stepping up, repeat. His limbs don't even shake as he scales the rock wall, inch by inch. The only reason he's going so slow is because Nami is above him, she demanded she climb first so that Luffy could catch her if she fell. It was an easy wall after all, but also atall and steep one, Usopp can feel the strain in his arms especially.
If Zoro were still here he'd have just hitched a ride on his back. Zoro wouldn't mind, heck, he'd thank him ( not really) for giving him extra weight training! Yeah…
But reality persists. Zoro got lost. So now it's just the three of them. Climbin' a wall. Yup.
Luffy starts chattering and releases one hand from the wall to point at a globule of lava that has spurted from the cone of the volcano and is flying through the sky, possibly frying a few birds in it's flight. Nami shrieks at him to stop letting go of the wall and he reluctantly reattaches his hand to a rock. Usopp watches the globule drop out of the air and fall into the forest, smoke trailing.
"H-Hey, you don't think one of those things is gonna hit us do you?"
"Don't be stupid, Usopp." Nami hisses, reaching upwards, "With him here we're guaranteed our own personal lava shower."
"Wow Nami!" Luffy jabbers "You can predict that too? I knew you were the best navigator!"
"Well I can't navigate if I'm dead so you ought to stop putting us in these situations, idiot." She brightens as her hands reach flatter ground, she's reached the top! Usopp heaves a sigh of relief as she struggles to scrabble over the top, it's a weird overhanging edge, so he's happy Luffy is going to be able to pull him up. He may have beefed up his arms but that doesn't mean he likes using his strength to dangle by his fingertips.
"I guess you can't," Luffy muses, and Usopp looks up as he hears his captain's voice quiver. It's small, Nami doesn't catch it, but Usopp does, and he's got a dreadful feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"Luffy, you all right up there?" He calls, timid. Luffy doesn't answer, just shivers and... lets… go? Shoot! Shoot he lets go and he's falling and shoot.
~6~
Just a little further, he knows it's right there, just a little too far for him to reach with one more pull. Cold nips, no, cold rips, no, cold nudges with a sort of disappointed howl against his numb skin, distressed that the muscles are too tense, to strained, already too stiff with tension and ice for it to sink it's fangs into. Luffy grits his teeth harder, tastes the fabric of Sanji's coat and the blood from his lips that have seeped into it. The next grasp brings a fresh lance of pain gallivanting into his fingers, through his wrist, up his arm, it shocks his body every time, that he can still feel pain when he is so numb.
"Doctor…" his voice cracks, though he's not surprised, every part of him would shatter at the touch of a hammer, he's so cold…
But Nami is a warm weight against his back, the only source of warmth for miles (down that is, probably side to side too) but he can tell she's too warm, he wishes she were colder, she's burning with fever, not with natural warmth.
He needs to get them there faster, but already his muscles protest at the prospect of moving no less moving quickly. He's always been too slow.
"Doctor…" He no longer recognizes that he's speaking, it's just a voice in his head as air rushes around Sanji's coat, and the sound is whipped away by the eager jaws of the cold gales that bound around all three bodies.
The instant his hand touches snow, snow, not rock, the world lurches into a different, clearer sort of focus. It is gone, the snow is gone and he gasps, then grasps for Sanji's coat because he's going to fall! But there's nothing there either, no weight on his back, they're gone he must have dropped them, they're falling.
It's easy, disturbingly easy, for him to let go, for his sore and shaking fingers to unclench and drop away from the rock wall that seems to be significantly less sheer than it'd been a moment ago.
"Oh my- no stop- Aghk!" Luffy isn't sure who it is that says these things, his ears are numb, but the fact that another body is here means that it must be Sanji or Nami, so he reaches out and wraps himself around them, in some effort to shield them from what is going to be an exceedingly hard fall.
He's tumbling, it's just as he thought, he's so cold his skin is brittle, the rocks jutting from the mountain slice long swathes of scratch marks into his skin and he tightens his hold on the body he clings to.
The ground arrives all too soon and he yelps as the first impact surely marks bruises into his skin, though he has to be thankful, had he not been rubber it would have been much more than a bruise. He rolls, leaves whisk across his face and branches snap dully against his skin until he rolls with a heavy thump into a tree, the bark digging through the skin and his shirt.
He breathes for a moment, numb in more ways than one, then uncurls.
Usopp springs away the second Luffy's arms loosen, rubbing his arms and chattering his teeth as the temperature of Luffy's skin brings goosebumps and a cold so chilling it burns.
"Why the heck are you so cold!" He gabbles, turning in an instant to help Luffy, who seems more than a little dazed, to his feet.
Luffy stares at him for a moment, blinking rapidly as his eyes skitter over the things in his view. The tree, with green leaves, not pine needles, the ground, the missing snow, the man in front of him with the long nose.
"Usopp?" He ventures, though not because he's unsure it's Usopp, more like he's unsure if Usopp is really there because he's fairly certain that he only climbed the mountain with Nami and Sanji. Also, he's quite sure it was winter, so something's wrong with the picture anyhow.
"I mean, what the heck! You knocked me right off the wall! What's the big idea? Jumping off a rock face like that? Oh, okay, never mind." He sighs as Luffy gives him a blank, confused, almost tragic look. "Alright Luffy, umm, here, sit tight and I'll go tell Nami what happened…"
"Nami?" Luffy tenses, lurching forward on unsteady feet. "Nami's sick, she needs the doctor, the doctor's on the mountain, I gotta get her there, and Sanji, Sanji needs help!" Usopp caught Luffy's arms before he could move past him, backed him down slowly but forcefully.
"Jeez! Luffy, you're an icicle, Nami's fine, I'll explain in just a minute, promise."
"Promise?" Luffy repeats.
"Promise." Usopp nods and releases him, backing a few steps into the tree line and then turning and running back toward the wall they'd been scaling, Nami was standing at the top, yelling both of their names in various tones of exasperation, worry, and anger.
"Usopp!" She exclaims when he bursts out, gasping "Where's Luffy, was it…?"
"Yeah, another lapse." Usopp admits. "Drum I think."
"I should probably come down then…" Nami shoulders her backpack and turned around to start climbing down "You'll have to catch me if I fall," She calls and Usopp cringes.
"Actually, he's pretty riled up, I think it's better if you don't," He yells up and she twists around to glare.
"He's worried about me, right? That's not very fair, I could probably solve this a whole lot faster than letting it take it's course."
Usopp hesitates, she's right after all. If Luffy saw her then he wouldn't be so worked up about the memory he'd been in and they could explain things to him and two people usually worked better than one… But then he considered the red coating that had Luffy's skin looking more like a victim to extreme sunburn then what had to be frost bite, and his panicked tone when he asked where Nami was. No, Nami didn't need to see that. Besides, Nami had had to catch Luffy up three times already, and it hadn't gone over particularly well any of those times, maybe Usopp could make a few tweaks to, um, tailor it.
"Yeah, but I think you'll upset him more, he's all up about Sanji too!"
"Sanji?" She repeated, "What about Sanji?"
"Beats me!" He shrugs, "But let's just see if I can handle it kay? We'll meet you at the peak!" She looks at him suspiciously but meanders away from the edge, giving him one last stern look.
"You take care of him, Usopp. I'm holding you entirely accountable if something happens."
He salutes and smiles thinly at her back. "Yes Ma'm!"
"Don't call me Ma'm!"
~6~
He really shouldn't have expected anything different, particularly since this was an anxious Luffy being considered, though that was specifically why he'd hoped Luffy would actually stay put.
Instead he finds a marginally trashed path into what is seemingly the thickest part of the jungle from this particular point.
He sets out at a jog, because even if Luffy is frostbitten and injured from whatever he'd been doing in the memory if he was fueled by the desire to help a crewmate, he could be halfway across the island by this point.
Okay, so he wasn't quite that far.
"Ahhh," He groans, taking a high step over a miraculously undamaged fern. "You're ridiculous…"
Luffy grunts in his sleep, twists slightly toward Usopp, but his body nudges closer to the edge of the incline he's laid down at the top of.
"Oh, no no no, don't roll over!" Usopp instructs, doing his best to step lightly so as not to startle the sleeping man. "I swear, you must do this on purpose." He reaches out and wraps an arm firmly around Luffy's midsection and tugs him away from the ravine carved into the bedrock by a steady stream of lava which courses down the mountain in this particular spot. Luffy grunts and flails for a moment as Usopp rubs his forehead to check if his eyebrows are still there or if they got incinerated by the heat rising in waves from the depths of the thin ravine.
"'Sopp?" He mumbles as he rolls free of Usopp's grip long enough to move back to the heat source so that Usopp has to snatch him again before he dumps himself into a shallow stream of lava.
"Yeah, it's Usopp," He grumbles "Wake up now, before you try and kill yourself."
Luffy shivers and opens his eyes, looking up at Usopp with bleary eyes that don't focus immediately. He blinks, then smiles thinly.
"This is a cool island," He tells him cheerfully "It changes seasons really fast."
Bless Luffy's logic. Usopp thinks and grins at his captain.
"It is a cool island, heck, it changes time too!" He explains. "You like my hat? I got it two years in the future!"
"No way!" Luffy laughs with him and Usopp feels a surge of pride that this is probably the quickest any of them have managed to right Luffy's memories since this whole debacle started. "But Usopp, what about Sanji and Nami? I thought I was at the top…"
"You were!" He nods "And as soon as you got there the island switched times! Nami got better at super speed!" He laughs and Luffy laughs too. "You fell though, that was stupid," Usopp scolds, then hesitates at the touch of Luffy's frigid fingers against his sunburned arm. "You're really cold."
Luffy shrugs, finds his footing and Usopp pulls him up. "It was snowing and I gave Nami my jacket. What about Sanji?"
"He's better too,"
"Good."
Luffy seems content after that, as though his mission in life has been fulfilled (which it hasn't Usopp hasn't seen the crown of the pirate king placed over top of that Straw hat yet) and he trails along as Usopp leads him through the jungle, chattering about meaningless stuff that he's hoping will rile the man enough to make him stop staring so aimlessly into space.
"So after I defeated the lightning monster with my greatest rubber band shot ever," Usopp continues "all the people of the island made of clouds came and thanked me with many gifts, seashells and strange fruits and gold! They even erected a statue of me, it still stands today!" He finishes proudly, glancing back to see Luffy's reaction.
It was sub par. He nods and hums in appreciation, a semi loopy smile flickering across his face as some thought in particular appealed to him.
"I bet you got a feast, with a lot of meat."
"Oh-ho! You've never seen a feast quite like this one! The table alone was miles long! And the plates stacked several meters high! The delicacies, oh, the succulent smell of roasted cloud fish, the flaking skin of breaded sky salamander, the hard shell of that-weird-fruit and the taste of its thirst quenching juice that left my tongue tasting sweet for days, the pumpkins." He nods knowledgeably as an earthquake trembles through the ground, shaking the bedrock as the volcano spurts and red goes hurtling overhead, sizzling through the air.
Usopp told Luffy earlier he didn't mind it, that it was just a volcano and he'd faced down a tidal wave in a metal train once, that a volcano was nothing.
Course, Usopp's a liar, so there's that.
He doesn't care that numerous locals told Robin, Chopper, and Nami that the volcano had never truly caused problems, it was too slow, lava dripped down the sides in gooey, slow motion waves, and the lava that went flying wasn't as frequent as it seemed. The fact is that he is hiking to the top of a volcano that is erupting and he rather dislikes the notion, no, he finds the notion terrifying. Luffy doesn't even know he wanted to see the volcano, he's in a post frostbite haze, heck, Usopp wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't realize that there's even a volcano on the island. He could/should just turn them around and bring them back to the Sunny so Sanji can make his shivering captain a mug of hot chocolate and Chopper can freak out and smother the guy's skin with salve.
Problem is he told Nami he'd meet her at the top, he doesn't dare take them on the wall again, Luffy can hardly hold something in his hands, he keeps shivering, despite the fact that he's warming up. Besides, he isn't so desperate that he'll take advantage of his captain and wimp out on taking him to something he wants/wanted to see.
An earthquake rumbles through again, and it's echoed by Luffy's stomach. Usopp glances back and finds the loopy smile looking loopier, and drool gathering in the corners of his mouth.
"Roasted cloud fish…" Luffy repeats, and Usopp laughs freely. It might be because he's addled with cold, but it's nice to see Luffy more at ease, the last couple days have been something like problem to problem to situation to disaster to problem, most of them centered around Luffy. His captain deserves the lull.
They hike and Usopp gabbles, Luffy's hand begins to warm slightly in his, the pace remains unpressured, things are looking good.
Until Luffy's grip tightens in his hand and the warmth begins to flood back in full force.
Luffy gasps and stumbles, free hand pressing against his head as he hisses.
"Owww, head rush…" He blinks and looks up at Usopp, a befuddled frown settling into place. Then an almost hesitant grin. "Hey! I'm warm again!"
"Are you really?" Usopp blinks, and leans over, puts a hand on Luffy's cheek, then his shoulder. He's right, the frigidity is gone, Luffy feels fine, normal temperature. He looks at the hand he's still got trapped in his own and inspects it, noting that the nails are no longer cracked and the fingertips no longer ripped open. "Huh."
"I guess it's cause of the time island," Luffy decides, patting the ground fondly, "You said it's a time island, right?"
"Uh, yeah, time island." Usopp nods and then yelps as Luffy heaves himself up with the help of Usopp's arm; without warning, of course. "Watch it!"
"Ah, sorry." Luffy brushes himself off and helps Usopp up with a heave, beaming. "Where are we going again?"
Now or never. "The top of the volcano, up there." Never.
"Whoa! A volcano! So cool!"
"No, it's hot." Usopp jokes halfheartedly as Luffy's pace picks up exponentially and he quickly falls behind. And so the true climb seems to begin.
"Usopp, you said Nami and Sanji are alright, right?"
"Yeah, they both got better like that," Usopp snaps his fingers, gasping for breath.
"Good," he breathes again and Usopp shoots him a look, wondering.
"Nami was sick, what happened to Sanji again?" Usopp asks and Luffy blinks at him, as though he should know.
"Sanji fell off the log." He tells him matter-of-factly. Usopp stares for a moment before nodding slowly.
"He fell off the log." He repeats, tasting the words and trying to understand in some capacity how that makes sense. Problem is that it doesn't. "That makes no sense at all!"
"Sure it does!" Luffy frowns. "We were going up the mountains, and then there were rabbits and then there was snow, and then there was a log and then Sanji fell off." He nods somberly. "The snow got him."
"Not the rabbit's?" Usopp jokes but Luffy doesn't seem to get the joke.
"No, Sanji was better than the rabbits. The snow was all over the place though, and Sanji fell off our log."
"He lost his balance?"
"No he fell off." Luffy repeats heatedly. "What's it matter anyway?"
"I just want to understand," Usopp waves his hands, "Uhm- Sanji was all fixed up when I saw him so I don't know what happened to him, I'm just curious."
"Oh, well he broke a few bones or something like that," Luffy answers evasively and Usopp wonders what he did to cause the sudden defensive attitude.
"I'm happy he's okay then," He says and stays silent so Luffy can do with it what he wants, he can be so unreasonable.
"Me too, I don't like it when my nakama get broken." Luffy sniffs and pounds one fist into his palm and turns back around, his gait has shifted into more of a march, or even a stalk. "I should have kicked that snow's butt while it was still around, no one breaks my naka-" Luffy stops, stops walking stops talking, Usopp's over-reactive imagination screams for a minute as he considers the likeliness that Luffy has stopped breathing. He's not he's breathing, Usopp checks, but he's entirely still, a confused and surprised and slightly hurt expression constraining his usual smile.
He pokes him a few times to try and see if he'll move and he does, his head drops down to his chest and his breathing turns ragged in under a second as his body shivers for a short stretch.
"Luffy! Hey, now what happened, are you feeling alright?" He reaches out for his hand but Luffy puts a stop to that plan pretty quickly, he lifts his head with an almost audible snap of is neck and gives Usopp a look of such contempt that it takes all his willpower not to stumble backward.
Though it's more the guilt that shines there than the anger.
~6~
"If you don't like it then you can just pack up and-"
He's grateful. He's so hopelessly grateful that Sanji realized what he was saying before he did himself. He couldn't have handled it, saying that. Finishing that sentence, saying those words, and knowing he was the reason Usopp left. Because he'd told him to.
But Usopp had known too, and now Usopp was leaving, going, going, gone. And it didn't matter if he hadn't actually said it, for just a few seconds he'd meant it, and Usopp had understood those few seconds if nothing else he'd said in that argument. It was enough to make him wish for regret, to soothe the pounding guilt and the searing disbelief. He can't regret it, because it was a captain's decision and if Usopp truly wasn't going to deal with his decisions than it was the right thing to do. But that didn't make it hurt any less. That didn't mean Usopp deserved to have it yelled in his face. That doesn't mean Luffy had the right to say it like he did.
Just pack up and-
"Leave" He says to himself, scowling, rubbing his fingers over his ankles as he sits cross-legged on Merry's head. He should leave, really, he's a horrible captain for saying that, for agreeing to fight him. He's bad for agreeing because he'll beat him. He'll beat him, and Luffy can't do anything about that, because Usopp will know, and that will just make everything worse.
He grits his teeth and ducks his head, squeezing his ankles now, repeating it "Just leave, leave." He's always been so careless he's known that. He was angry and upset but that doesn't change anything, absolutely nothing.
It's his fault and his alone.
He feels himself begin to shudder and he hates it because he's supposed to be strong, and what better way to be weak than to cry because he can't be responsible and watch his mouth? What better way to proclaim his incapabilities other than shouting to the rooftops, I've lost my archaeologist, my ship is dying, and I've kicked my best friend and sniper out on the street!
What better way than to cry?
And as the first tears dribble down his cheeks he shudders, letting his posture fall as that weight becomes just too much for one ma-
"Luffy! Hey, now what happened, are you feeling alright?"
He hadn't realized, that he'd moved, that the ground was sandy and riddled with tangled tree roots. He hadn't realized that Usopp was here.
He stares down at his hands for a moment, steeling his resolve, because as much guilt as he feels, there is no regret, and Usopp i-was on his crew. He can forgive, but he can't forget, and he can't take back, not now, not when they're all hurting like this and Usopp has only made it worse.
So Luffy raises his head and glares.
Usopp steps back, hands shooting into the air in surrender, and Luffy has to notice the changes, but he doesn't dwell, the moments spent steeling his resolve have done their job, he's angry now, angry all over again.
"What the heck do you think you're doing here?" He spits out, and it washes over him how similar this anger is to the anger he'd felt just an hour ago, how nothing has changed, how it seems that he's working against himself here. He doesn't care.
Usopp sputters for a moment and when he seems to be finding his words Luffy interrupts, pushing himself to his feet with a hard thrust, and leaning closer to his sniper, hissing his words.
"You left, you said you were leaving and I'm not going to take that lightly. You said you were going to do something, do it already." The pang catches Luffy off guard and just as Sanji's kick had, he feels the perspective snap and the guilt floods him again. Luffy can't swim.
He retreats but won't show his remorse, he won't he tugs his hat down, turns away, pain lacing his voice as he leaves his crew mate behind in… a jungle apparently. Whatever.
"I guess you were the best crewmate I had, you followed me down to the last order."
He storms away, because if he couldn't cry before than crying now is something irredeemable. He can't and he won't. He won't. He pushes away a few leafy fronds and forges a new path through the trees, leaving Usopp behind.
Usopp stands for a moment, staring after him, confusion and anger and hurt warring through his chest. Finally he sighs and rubs a hand over his face.
"Crap."
~6~
"They're not back yet," Franky observes as he marches up from below-deck carrying a bundle of steel balanced on one shoulder, he turns to observe the docks and the protruding metal nearly knocks off Brook's block as he turns. "Oh, sorry Brook."
"Not a problem Franky-san! It wouldn't be the first time I was decapitated!" Brook waved his hand, violin bow held carefully between the finger bones. "And, no, Nami-san hasn't returned with Luffy-san, and Usopp-san hasn't returned with Zoro-san."
"I'm not surprised about that second one, with the crappy sense of direction our moronic marimo has he won't be back aboard the ship for another month." Sanji strides out with a tray full of treats and a folded table under one arm, he sets it up with a flourish and sets down the tray, almost growling as Franky reaches with his huge hand for one of the dainty cupcakes.
"Oops, sorry Cook-bro," The small yellow hand pops out of his palm and picks the blue frosted cupcake up with his pinky sticking out daintily. Sanji grumbles before turning with a flourish to address Robin, who is perched on the edge of her lawn chair, arms crossed and eyes closed.
"Robin-chan! I brought you a delicious snack to please your palette of exquisite taste while you so elegantly gather information from neighboring ships!"
"She's eavesdropping," Chopper says glumly, seated next to her, his medical bag laid out on the lawn chair as he sorts through materials. "Luffy's isn't back and it's almost lunch."
"I'm rather certain that Zoro-san and Usopp-san have joined up with Luffy-san, otherwise he would be back by now surely." Brook consoles as Franky sets down the metal with a loud clang. "They had a lunch packed just in case, isn't that right, Sanji-san?"
"Yeah," Sanji grunts, still circling ardently with a new try in his hand, this one with a more select array of food items.
"If they're together I don't think there's anything to worry about." Franky munches on the cupcake, sucking a few licks of icing off his metal fingers and Sanji throws him a disgusted look before pulling a bottle of soap out of his pocket.
"Tell me you wash your hands, tell me you do." He emphasizes at Franky's bashful stutter.
"I can't! Metal rusts you know!"
"I don't care, I live with pigs! Pigs! Except for you and Nami-san, you ladies are exquisitely salutiferous! I learned that word from you, Robin-chan! So intelligent!" Sanji cooes for a few moments more while Franky grapples with the soap which slides through his fingers with ease, Chopper interrupts.
"Sanji can I take your blood pressure?"
Sanji pauses in his worship to acknowledge the reindeer with confusion.
"What for? You're always worried about my lungs, not my blood pressure," He waves around a cigarette for emphasis.
"I want to make sure my equipment is working correctly," Chopper clarifies, "When I took Luffy's blood pressure earlier it had changed between the different memory periods, and I want to make sure it wasn't caused by flawed instruments."
"Sure, I guess." Sanji sits down and rolls up his sleeve, allowing Chopper to wrap the material around his bicep.
"I thought it was just marginal error," Chopper explains as he works, "But everytime I took it it went lower, so it can't be fluctuating that much so consistently.
"Sure it can, his bodies all crazy right now, things are bound to be up and down." Franky disagrees. "Besides, this is medical science, don't you know about the law of conservation of mass?"
"Well, vaguely but it doesn't really apply…"
"Sure it does!" Franky slaps his knee and pulls over Nami's lawn chair, sitting on the end and holding his hands out, ready to explain. "Now, Usopp bro does this stuff more often then me with all his chemical attacks, but when I'm working with reactions as a fuel, and for my beams, I've got to know my fair share."
"That law I mentioned is all about the mass, the idea is that no matter what you do to substances in an experiment, mass can't just up and disappear, or disappear. Look at Luffy-bro, there's nowhere for this stuff to go once he's shrunk, so his blood pressure has got to be majorly high thanks to all that matter squished down to kid size."
"As he got bigger there was more space and less condensed parts of his body," Sanji realized, nodding along. "He must have had a lot of pressure in his system with all that body pent up…"
"I'd been thinking it might be stress," Chopper murmured, "but this makes a lot of sense…"
"It could be both, Chopper-san," Brook offers, "There are many kinds of pressure, perhaps both have been affecting Luffy-san."
"But, but that's ridiculous!" Chopper huffs, exasperated. "The human body can't handle that kind of pressure, er, either kind of pressure in such huge amounts! They have coping mechanisms and, shrinking doesn't just happen!"
"It does for Luffy, he used to use third gear all of the time and he always shrunk." Sanji taps at the dial on the pressure gauge to indicate it's done and Chopper jots down the number, unwrapping the mechanism. "And Luffy isn't really human, is he?"
"Sure he is!" Chopper argues, "He has all the same parts, the same systems."
"Chopper-san, I think that what Sanji-san means is that the devil fruit changes things, Luffy-san is the only rubber man in the world. We already know this allows him to do things that normal people can not, doesn't that same principle apply to things being done to him?" Chopper doesn't seem to get it so Brook thinks for a moment before elaborating again, this time with an example. "Chopper-san, am I human?" A nod "But I have no nervous system, no lungs, many of the normal human parts are missing. Ah, except the skeletal system!" He laughs and Chopper frowns for another moment before realization dawns.
"So, being rubber, his body can handle the pressure of being scrunched down to that size, but there are other kinds of pressure, and his body can handle that kind too, or at least it should." He pulls out a notebook and compares the numbers of Sanji's blood pressure to previous readings, nodding slowly. "My equipment is working right, so it has to all be natural, in a sense… You don't think… You don't think this is because of his devil fruit do you? I mean it's because of his devil fruit that it's possible, but could it be that his devil fruit is somehow the cause?" Chopper's voice has climbed in volume and jumped upward an octave.
"I believe it's plausible," Sanji cooes as Robin opens her eyes and joins the conversation, leaning back on her hands. "Perhaps if we consider more the effect of pressure on rubber, if Luffy were a bouncy ball that you threw against a wall…"
"He'd bounce back," Franky grunts, pondering. "And if you threw it too hard…"
"It'd break." Robin agrees, smiling pleasantly.
"Ehhhhh?" Chopper gasps, "No! We can't let that happen!"
"Perhaps a different analogy?" Robin muses "A rubber band?"
"Pull it too far and it snaps." Franky shrugs. "How about a balloon?"
"Blow it up too much and it pops." Sanji answers, monotone. Chopper is beginning to shake.
"But, that hasn't happened, right?" Chopper jumps to his feet, raring to go, "We have to go check on Luffy! We can't let any of that stuff happen to him!"
"I think that perhaps Luffy is making sure that doesn't happen to him," Robin hums, considering. "Some part of him anyhow, his subconscious, or just motor functions built in with the devil fruit."
"What are you implying, Robin-san?" Brook presses curiously.
"Perhaps this shrinking and regrowing is a coping method?" She replies, "He mentioned earlier that he cried about Sabo's death for a week, clearly it was jarring for him, but we have seen no evidence of the event now, so it must not have stayed with him as some of the events we're seeing resurface now."
"You think Sabo's death doesn't mean anything to him?" Franky yells, getting to his feet as tears start to sprout and fall in waterfall mode.
"Not at all, I think he has made his peace with it, that it no longer plagues him as these memories seem to. After these events that he keeps triggering, that clearly upset him, did he ever seems to release the anger? His emotions?" She directs the question at Sanji who thinks carefully for a moment before shaking his head.
"No, other than finishing the job he never brought stuff up again, I always thought he just took his anger out on the brutes that caused the whole thing."
"It would seem that is not the case," Robin stands and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, turning to regard the mountain calmly. "However, we have a more pertinent issue on our hands, our dear friends the marines have decided that the best way to recapture Luffy is a surprise attack, a mass ambush of sorts. Supposedly he's hiking to the top of the mountain with Nami and Usopp." The group stiffens at her words, considering the vulnerability of not only their captain but of Nami and Usopp as they're saddled with trying to protect him. And if another lapse were to strike in the middle of the fight? Chopper shudders and Brook's fingers crick dangerously tightly on the violin bow.
"Oh, well then." Franky stands and picks up one of the bigger pieces of metal from the pile he'd carted up from below-deck. He turns and his mechanical eye flickers to a reddish hue. "I think we need to pay our marine friends a visit."
~6~
Usopp has been following him for twenty minutes. He doesn't think Luffy knows this and that's good, but if this fight goes on much longer he'll find out, because like heck he's gonna sit here and let some stupid lava spider kill his captain just because Luffy's mad at him and he's mad at Luffy. Which he's not, not really, what are you talking about, it's not his fault, he didn't mean a word of it, you know that- Okay, yeah, he's mad. Distressed, maybe. But that doesn't matter.
"Gum Gum Gatling!" Luffy calls and sends a rapid barrage of punches against the man-sized spider, which clacks its mandibles and retreats a few steps before scuttling forward again. Usopp clenches his fingers around the pellet loaded into his slingshot as Luffy rolls to one side, sloppy, the spider is quick on its (many) feet and it snatches Luffy up by his ankle as he tries to get back to his feet. Usopp lets the pellet fly.
Foam erupts from the pellet and fizzes up around the spider's body, capturing its (many) legs and drawing a yell of outrage and surprise from Luffy.
"Special Attack: Liquid Cotton!" He drops from the tree branch (not too high) and held out his kabuto, knowing he was going to get punched for this later. "Don't think you can attack my captain and get away with it!"
"Shut up!" Luffy strains in the flailing leg, clearly livid as his forehead creases and his body flails.
The spider hisses and flings Luffy to the side, the boy thuds into a tree and then stumbles back into a fighting position. With a sudden haze of heat the foam melts away and the spider clambers free of the remains of the hardening shell, spitting mad now as it scuttles toward Usopp, eight eyes gleaming with malice.
"Get away!" Luffy roars and Usopp doesn't know if he's yelling to the spider or at him. It doesn't matter anyway, he's not leaving, and neither is the spider.
"You're crazy!" Usopp bellows, raising his kabuto and loading in a new projectile, not sure which one but it's from his 'attacks' pocket, so if he'd organized things correctly it wouldn't be a banana boat or something. Luffy gets in the way of his shot before he can let loose, throwing himself onto the spider's abdomen and sliding down to cling to one of the legs, Usopp sees it when a suicidal plan takes root.
"Gum Gum… Wind-up...!" He stretches out a leg in a high kick and pulls it back down, wrapping it several dozen times around the joint of the spider's leg, and then with a roar he pulls loose, his leg follows him as he jumps away, and as it pulls away from the spider's body so does the spider's leg, twisted into an unnatural angle and then a sickening crack, the spider rears and screams.
Luffy thuds down a few feet away, looking a little winded, but he pushes himself up and goes to run at the arthropod again, Usopp shoots before he can. The projectile lands true, between another joint of another leg, and javelin bamboo springs to life from all sides of the joint, growing more when the bottom stalks strike ground and take root.
Bamboo, what can he say? An invasive species if there ever was one.
"Get out of here!" Luffy blusters, stalking over like he's leading a storm to rain down on his head, Usopp stands straighter. "This is my fight, you're-, you're not even on my crew anymore!" He clenches a fst and looks away for a few seconds before his anger seems to flare again. "You're going to get yourself killed." He says, cold.
"Hate to say it but you're wrong on all three counts," Usopp replies brazenly. He shouldn't, he can see Luffy getting riled by his fighting words as his body grows tense and his hair practically stands on end. He's like some kind of animal. "I may have left your crew for a short while, and it was the biggest mistake of my life, Luffy. I'm a Straw Hat through and through." The spider has thrashed enough to break of most of the bamboo and is advancing again, Usopp pulls another pellet out, this time aware that it is a kind of discus plant, with very sharp edges, he fires and shaves off the leg Luffy had nearly detached, the limb thuds to the ground and the spider screeches again, Usopp is getting a headache. "I won't get myself killed, because as you can see my ammunition is pretty darn awesome and holding up much better than your punches. As for this being your fight? Nami entrusted you to me, and there is no chance between Fishman Island and Skypeia that I'm going to go back to her and tell her I let you die."
"Bull." Luffy snarls but the conversation is cut short as a long black leg with glowing red veins smacks down between them, they jump apart and Luffy jumps to thud a kick into the spider's underbelly.
"I know-" Usopp dodges "You're upset, I am-" Duck, shoot. "Too. This is pretty confusing but-" Luffy darts forward and gatlings the spider's underbelly again, searching for a kink in the armor, he injured and missing leg aren't affording them much of a handicap advantage. "This is two years in the future, something made you shrink- Euch!" at the punches the spider spins around to face where Luffy had emerged on the other side, and from its spinnerets came a steady stream of white spider's silk, especially sticky edition. It wraps around Usopp in a gloopy mass that he immediately tries to pull off, as he feels it hardening as it dries. "And now you keep lapsing into the past and you have to get me out of this before it dries!"
"Stop lying," Luffy grumbles as he sprints past, pulling Usopp out of the sticky mass on the way. "You left, because you were mad and because I was mad. I told you to go, and you decided to go, you didn't come back."
"Luffy, look at my face, do I look like the same Usopp that you know?"
Luffy gives him a square look that shifts into a glare and snarls:
"Your stupid nose is the same!"
"Oi!" Usopp rubs the offended appendage. "I thought you liked my nose!"
"I do, I'm just mad!" Luffy stomps a foot and turns back to the spider without so much as another half glance, yelling as he charges, his fist swinging.
He's running away. Usopp realizes with a shock, He's upset because I left and he doesn't know how to deal with it because beating me up isn't going to solve anything, for once. He snorts, shakes his head, watches Luffy run a right hook into the spider's face. Stupid Captain, if you wanted me back you could've just told me… He thinks back, remembering how adamant he'd been not to return to the crew, not to face his mistakes, he'd created Sogeking, he'd faced down enemies he'd have never dreamed of fighting had he not been so determined to remain clicks into place. Maybe luffy couldn't have just asked; maybe it's his fault Luffy was still caught up in this whole stupid argument two years later. No, it is his fault, because when he thought he'd been having his pride degraded by a stupid fight Luffy had suffered a blow to his confidence and respectability as a Captain, and Usopp had done that to him.
Maybe Usopp had apologized, and maybe Luffy had accepted, but that doesn't mean none of it happened, and Usopp is struck by the sudden realization that that is something Luffy acknowledged that he never truly did.
"Awchk!" Usopp snaps back into the present to see Luffy's shoulder speared by one of the spider's large mandibles; it's just the tip, but it has enough of a hold for it to toss Luffy up into the air and watch him fall eagerly, eyes glimmering and red lava veins pulsing with heat.
Enough playing around.
Usopp slides his goggles over his head and fishes three pop greens from his bag, sliding them into the slingshot and firing them with confidence and efficiency.
"Trampolia, Rafflesia, Impact Wolf!" The stench of the rafflesia fills the clearing instantaneously and the spiders rears in surprise and distraction, allowing Luffy a clear fall to the ground where he bounces off the trampolia and safely to the side as the impact wolf charges across the distance between him and the spider, bowling the thing over with its power.
Luffy's on the ground, his hand shifting between putting pressure on the wound oozing blood from his shoulder and pinching his nose shut, which leads to disgusting red smudges on his nose and cheeks.
Usopp bounds across the battleground and grabs Luffy's arm, dragging him with him into the treeline, the boy sputtering in confusion and anger as his rubber body bangs into various obstacles that Usopp doesn't bother to try and let him avoid.
"Usopp, let go," the words ring like an order and Usopp drops Luffy's arm, better to not antagonize him anymore, they're far enough away from the spider to prevent problems, probably.
"Are you going to listen to me now?" He asks, leaning his back against a tree and watching as Luffy pants for a few moments, rubbing at thin scratches he gained from running into rough bark.
"I don't want to," Luffy crosses his arms and pouts, looking the other way, wincing as the movement pulled at his shoulder. Usopp rolls his eyes, rummages through his bag.
"At least let me bandage it before you go aggravating it." He finds the roll and steps toward Luffy who blinks once before scowling and going to undo the buttons on his shirt; it was nostalgic seeing him in it, being the same kind of vest he used to wear every day two years ago, they'd had him change after they got him back from the marines.
As he'd said Luffy doesn't want to talk and he shows it by remaining silent as Usopp wraps up his shoulder with sloppy, winding motions (What? Chopper's the one who does this!). Admittedly he does squirm, as is customary, he's incapable of remaining still, especially when someone is prodding at an injury.
"You should be more careful," Usopp chides, just to fill the silence, "Spiders can be poisonous." He almost expects Luffy to blow him off, saying that he's immune to poison but then he remembers that Luffy wouldn't know that yet, he briefly wonders if Luffy's bdy still has it's antibodies if the events that caused them haven't happened yet.
"And honestly, did you think I was going to run in there if I thought I was gonna die?"
"Sure," Luffy answers, gruff, "You fight people all the time and they always almost kill you."
"I don't usually have a choice with them," He argues "And besides, you're not one to talk!" Luffy grumbles and looks away, still petulant. Usopp sighs and knows there's only one way to get through this.
"I'm sorry."
Luffy straightens and tilts his head back to look at Usopp, a look of judgement coming across his features.
"I'm sorry that I said what I did, and that I went against you like that. You didn't deserve to be treated like that, I was just mad, and I'm tired of being pulled into these crazy situations and fights that I don't stand a chance at winning." He laughs lightly, tying off the bandage and stepping back. "But we make it through, we always do, and we come back to our home, to Merry, and then we rest up and it's all better. And now you thought that it was time to let her go? You wanted to give away the home we've had, the haven that I'd always taken care of, and Kaya gave her to us, Luffy." He holds out his hands, palm up, 'what can I do?' shakes his head. "I shouldn't have done any of it, and you were right, of course you were." He shakes his head again, rubs his nose, tries not to think too much of when Merry burned.
"No," Luffy's voice is hard and Usopp looks up surprised, "I didn't want to let her go, I didn't want a new ship, I wanted Merry. I argued with the shipwrights and they all told me, she's broken, and nothing anybody does can fix that. No one wants to hear that Usopp, no one, but I'm Captain so I have to and then I have to tell all of you…" He closes his eyes, rotates his newly bandaged shoulder. "I feel the same way, it's just what has to happen." Usopp nods, slow.
"I know."
They sit for a moment, Luffy's leg jiggles as he tries to stay still, but clearly the animosity has passed, their normal dynamic is returning. Usopp's shoulders sag. He may have rejoined the crew over two years ago but he feels the same relief as though he's been accepted all over again.
"You want to hear what I was trying to say? It's pretty cool, time travel and stuff." Luffy perks up, an eager grin spreading from cheek to cheek.
"Sure! Time travel is cool, there's usually robots. Are there robots?"
"Umm, just one." He thinks of Franky and grins, then is struck by inspiration. "You've got to remember though Luffy what I'm telling you is true, and I have something I want you to do for me when I'm done telling it. You remember dials from Skypeia, don't you?" Luffy nods.
"Yeah, so?"
"Well, those are useful little buggers. And this one is it's own sort of time traveler…"
~6~