A/N: Hmm, what can I say? You guys are awesome for faving, following and reviewing!
My love of two of the best series ever helps me want to write and create something new, but it is you guys who are enjoying this fic that is my true motivation to continue. So a big, fat thank you goes out to everyone.
Chapter 13: The Flat Lands
**Countdown: Two Months, 19 days left**
Early the next morning, the ship's occupants were woken up by excited shouts.
"Land! Land! There's an island! I smell adventure!" Luffy was running back and forth on the deck, successfully forcing everyone to awaken. In his excitement, Luffy tripped and crashed into Zoro, who in turn let a series of curse words fly and smacked Luffy across the head. That didn't deter Luffy's excitement, because he only seemed to smile bigger. "You must be pretty excited too, waking up this early."
"I'm up because of you." Zoro said flatly, and he shoved Luffy off of him. Luffy ran to the front of the ship and jumped onto the Sunny's lion head so that he could get a better look at the upcoming island. The land was long and flat, with strange-looking trees. There didn't seem to be anything on the island that would be worth any value or interest, but Luffy insisted that "he could smell adventure" on the island.
Sanji dutifully began to prepare breakfast for everyone, and made a large helping of rice balls and fish for the picky Heart captain, and was tempted to add some umeboshi into the mix just for kicks. Sanji resisted playing any pranks, as it was still early and would be in bad taste. Along with preparing breakfast, Sanji prepared a few adventure bentos for those who would be going onto the island.
At the table, Momo decided once again to settle on Law's shoulder and nimble on the sliced fruit that Sanji had prepared just for him. Law made no reaction to this and ate his breakfast in silence. The others made no note of it either, although Toph joked that Momo had found himself a new owner to give Aang a hard time.
"So who is all going to the island?" Sanji asked, making conversation.
"Oh, me!" Luffy said through a mouthful (well that was obvious, of course).
"I'm going," Toph replied. "One day on this ship is a day too long. I really need the feel of land underneath me again."
"I guess I'll go too," Katara said, "and what about you, Aang?"
"Sure!" Aang looked at Katara with a smile and a gleam in his eye that showed he was hoping the two of them could sneak off together, just to have some time alone, even if it was for a few minutes.
"Even though there doesn't look like there's much to this island, it's probably an interesting place." Usopp commented.
"Maybe there will be some plants that have medicinal properties!" Chopper replied in excitement.
"I suppose I'll go too," Robin said, with her classic smile. "What about you, Nami?"
"Sure, anything to get off this boat for a while," Nami responded with a shrug.
"There doesn't seem to be any people on the island from what I could see," Sokka replied as he helped himself to another serving of bacon and eggs. "Are we even going to find anything useful? I imagine we'll explore for about ten minutes before it becomes boring."
"You're no fun, Sokka." Luffy said flatly.
"Hey, I'm just being honest. It doesn't look like there'll be anything of interest on the island, so I'm just going to stay on the ship."
After breakfast, Luffy, Toph, Aang, Katara, Nami, Robin, Usopp, Chopper, and Momonosuke decided that they would head to the island, while the others stayed behind on Sunny. Momo was content with simply staying on Law's shoulder, and Aang didn't mind, as Momo was in good hands on the ship.
Katara made an ice path for the group to cross on, and they made their way to the island. Sokka had been right about the island being boring right away, as there didn't really seem to be anything here. The island was long, wide and flat, and the group could clearly see the ocean against the horizon on the other side of the island. The trees, plants and rocks were also flat, in the sense that they looked like cutouts instead of the normal scenery nature usually offered up.
They could see a forest a distance away, and while trees and rocks dotted the landscape where they were, there didn't seem to be anything on the island that would be of either interest or use. Chopper had looked at the strange, flat plants and decided to at least give it a shot of studying them. Maybe even Law would like to have a look at the strange plants as well.
Toph "looked" around the island using her seismic sense, and found that there was no movement on the island of any sort, save for her companions. No animals or people inhabited the island, not even a cave or underground tunnels were present. She also noted that the island itself in its entirety was only about four feet thick. Luffy, Chopper and Usopp eyed the strange, flat trees and rocks. Usopp picked up one of the rocks and found it to be just as heavy as a normal rock its size would be.
"There's literally nothing here," Nami said with a pout. "I was hoping for treasure or at least something to be here."
"I wonder if we stayed here long enough, would we eventually flatten out like the rocks and trees." A thoughtful Robin said with a finger to her chin.
"Let's hope we don't." Usopp responded. He didn't protest her remark because he was actually sort of wondering the same thing himself.
Aang was about to ask Katara if she wanted to take a walk with him, when Toph suddenly spoke up.
"Hey, I need to pee. Katara, would you take me back to the Sunny?"
Katara gave Aang a silent look that said, maybe later, and she lead Toph back to the ship, leaving the others to their own devices on the island.
Back at the Sunny, Zoro, Law, Sokka, Franky, Zuko, Sanji, Brook and Kin'emon lounged on the deck and a few of them took notice as the Waterbender and Earthbender made an unexpected return. As if she knew the men were giving her and Katara questioning looks, Toph said bluntly, "I had to pee."
Toph went to the bathroom, and Katara approached the men, and asked, "So, what's going on here?"
"Nothing much," Sokka said. "What's the island like?"
"It's big and flat and empty. There's nothing there. Not even animals, although the trees and rocks are flat; sort of like those carved wooden props they use in plays. And with that, I've just told you all there is to this island."
"Told ya," Sokka responded with an I-told-you-so smirk.
Suddenly, Zoro and Sanji jumped up and began looking at the surrounding area with suspicious looks on their faces.
"Who's there?!" Zoro demanded, with a hand on his Wado Ichimonji, ready to draw his sword.
Law, Kin'emon, Brook and Franky also stood, ready to attack or defend.
"What's going on?" a concerned and frightened Katara asked. Sokka wasn't sure what was going on, but since the guys were looking as if they were readying for some type of confrontation, he pulled out his boomerang ready to fight whatever enemy there was.
Zuko had left his swords in the men's quarters, and he mentally slapped himself for it. But he readied a Firebender stance, waiting for whatever, or whoever seemed to be attacking them.
"We aren't the only ones here, Katara-chan." Sanji stated simply.
"Hey, what are you guys doing?" Toph asked, as she exited the restroom and came out onto the deck. She had heard their shouting, and even though the vibrations were light, she could still feel their sudden movement.
"There!" Zoro shouted, and ran towards the bow. He drew two of his swords to attack the unknown enemy. It was then the Sunny shook, knocking nearly everyone off balance, and the ship began to rise out of the water, shaking terribly as it did so.
"Is it a Spirit?" Toph called, trying to maintain her balance.
A voice unwittingly answered Toph somewhere up above the ship.
"My, oh my," a cold sounding woman's voice said. "We were only passing through, when it just so happened that one of my men spotted your ship. We thought it looked rather familiar, and sure enough, it was the Straw Hats' ship."
A woman was floating above them on a strange looking pink umbrella which was long and thin, with an "L" shaped handle for one of her feet to rest on. The umbrella was taller than she was, with two small wings near the bottom. She had her dark red hair in a bun which had some sort hair pin that looked more like a weapon than it did an accessory. She wore large pink earrings that had a swirl pattern on them, a thick, long red scarf that came down just past her hips, along with a revealing brown dress made of some sort of thick material. Since the dress showed off her breasts, a tattoo depicting an upside-down arrow piercing a side-facing skull was evident on her left breast.
"Hm, I spy "Surgeon of Death", Trafalgar Law, with a bounty of 440,000,000 belli. "Pirate Hunter" Roronoa Zoro, with a bounty of 120,000,000 belli. "Black Leg" Sanji, with a bounty of 77,000,000 belli."
Sanji grinned like an idiot as he had hearts in his eyes. "Hey, she knows me!"
This only caused Zoro to glare at the cook, but he quickly turned his attention back to the woman who had ignored Sanji and continued as if nothing had happened.
""Skull King" Brook, with a bounty of 33,000,000 belli. "Cyborg Franky" with a bounty of 44,000,000 belli. And it seems you have some new faces in your crew as well. Tsk, tsk, tsk. I didn't know you pirates were recruiting children now. Especially little girls, what a shame. And oh, I don't see the rest of your crew. Are they on the island?"
She then moved towards the ship again, a persistent small smile on her face, making her ill intentions all the more obvious. As soon as Zuko saw it, he pointed to two strange looking black cords that were wrapped around the pole of the woman's umbrella, and another was attached to her waist. The others hadn't seen the cords right away due to their attention being on trying not to topple over, along with registering that a woman was floating around in the sky above them. The cords lead to a small boat a little ways higher above the woman, and in the boat sat a man with long, curly black hair, a shiny black top hat, and a white mask that was a little too big for his face covered his eyes. He had a thin mustache and beard, and wore fancy attire, with a jewel on his collar that shared the same symbol that the woman had tattooed on her breast.
A few hundred feet above the pair high in sky was a galleon that had large wings attached to its sides. The shock of seeing a flying ship left Katara, Sokka and Zuko staring, mouths agape.
"It's a flying ship!" Sokka called out in shock.
"That's super craftsmanship," Franky said, a bit of admiration evident in his voice.
"Don't be complimenting them!" Sokka called out.
While the shock lasted only for a moment with the others, they acted quickly to defend the Sunny from her attackers. The woman only smiled at them, and disappeared somewhere around the front of the ship, and that was when the man in the boat suddenly yanked on one of the black ropes, and the Sunny began to tilt backwards, causing everyone to lose their footing and fall, crashing into the wall of the cabin and each other.
Everyone quickly scrambled out of the way as best they could to avoid being crushed by Franky's falling form. "Not super at all," he mumbled as he rubbed his head. The ship continued its journey backwards, and Sokka shouted the obvious, "We're being pulled upside down!"
Toph began to panic. "I can't swim, you guys!"
"Well a few of us can't swim either," Law said dryly. Momo had wrapped himself tightly around his neck, and he glanced around with wide, startled eyes.
"I can probably create a pool to catch us," Katara said, trying to formulate some sort of plan. Devil Fruit users can't swim… She thought to herself. That would be Law, Brook, and Kin'mon. Toph can't swim either… that leaves me, Sokka, Franky, Sanji, Zoro and Zuko to rescue them. We shouldn't have to worry about anyone drowning.
The ship was now nearly all the way upside down, and the unfortunate passengers could see that the ship was also slowly ascending higher into the air.
"Get ready," said Zoro, and since he was the closest one to him, Zoro grabbed Law's collar, ready to pull the man to land after they fell into the ocean. Brook clung to Franky, while Kin'emon grabbed onto an annoyed Sanji for dear life. (He had wanted to hold onto Toph, not the shitty samurai). Toph clung to Zuko in fear, and Katara readied herself to waterbend once they neared the ocean.
The inevitable moment came when they were forcibly dumped from their ship, down towards the water. As they fell, Law shouted a warning to Zuko, "Burn-ya! Behind you!" but the warning came too late and the woman floated towards the pair gracefully and quickly, and simply gave Zuko and Toph a quick tap on their bodies, and tied the black cord around them. Zuko and Toph quickly stopped falling, and instead floated up and out of sight.
"ZUKO! TOPH!" Katara called out, and she gasped in fear as the woman was suddenly by her side. The woman reached out and tapped Katara on her shoulder, and Katara felt a sense of weightlessness come over her. The woman tied the black cord around Katara, and she felt herself being pulled up. The others quickly went out of sight, and Katara heard faint shouts coming from Sokka and another voice which she believed belonged to Sanji.
The woman floated towards the men of the crew, but Zoro slashed at her with one of his swords using his free hand. Kin'emon also tried to fight back, and the woman gasped and quickly back away as Kin'emon's sword released flames in her direction. She stopped smiling at them momentarily, before disappearing somewhere high up above them.
The men hit the water, and quickly swam for shore. They hacked and spit out the bitter taste of sea water, and Sokka was the first to speak up. "What was that?!"
Everything had happened in a matter of minutes, giving no time for the others to react to the attack. Plus the fact that they had been on the Sunny, and that the woman had used the ship as shield caused difficulty in properly defending themselves.
"This is terrible! Toph-chan and Katara-chan have been kidnapped!" Sanji cried with tears in his eyes.
"They weren't the only ones kidnapped you know! Zuko was with them! Why are you only concerned about the girls?" Sokka said angrily, wanting to punch Sanji. Even if it didn't help, it probably would have made him feel better.
"We need to formulate a plan of counter-attack," Law interjected before Sanji could respond. He was trying to distract Sokka from actually going through with punching the chef, along with alleviating his worry.
"This isn't good," Zoro said, staring up at Sunny which had righted itself, and was now slowly floating up to where the galleon was. "And look, they want us to come right to them."
He pointed at the boat which was floating down towards the forested area of the island. The signs of a fire were present as smoke slowly floated up into the sky.
"Then let's go rescue them!" Sokka said in a determined manner.
"This isn't something you can rush into, you idiot!" Zoro said firmly. "Don't you get it? They want us to come to them! Otherwise, they would have floated up to that galleon out of our reach, and just left."
Zoro sighed heavily, and continued. "Besides, that was the leader of the Defying Gravity bounty hunters, Leyla Gravitz."
"How do you know such a beautiful woman?!" Sanji demanded, but he was ignored.
"I first heard of them back when I first became a bounty hunter. I recognized that symbol, and I had heard that the leader was a woman with crimson-colored hair, who was able to make things and people float. She's also killed people with that ability of hers, by crushing them, I think. Although, I don't fully know what her ability is. She is known as the "Crimson Masochist". Anyway, they're notorious for going after high-ranking pirates and being very successful in doing so." he sighed heavily once again. "And they are also known for being associated with slave traders. They'll more than happily give the government the pirates and criminals who have bounties, but when it comes to the no-names of a pirate's crew they'll sell them off into slavery. There's a profit to be made anywhere they can find it."
"Alright, so what's the plan?" Sokka, asked desperately.
"First, let's meet up with the rest of our crew," Zoro said, "and that should be just a few minutes from now." He motioned with a jerk of his chin, and sure enough Luffy was leading the way to where his allies were standing.
"What happened?!" Nami asked, in a panic. "We saw the Sunny float out of the water… Where is everyone else?"
"Over there," Zoro pointed to the forest. He then relayed what he knew about the Defying Gravity bounty hunters, along with Leyla Gravitz and what they had seen of her ability.
"Luffy, Franky, Aang, Brook, and Nami, we'll be the ones to retrieve the Sunny." Zoro said, "And the rest of you go get our companions back. And be careful. These guys are dangerous. So no messing around."
"But," Aang said in protest, "Why do I… what about Katara?"
"It's because you can fly," Zoro explained. "The more people we can get up there on that ship, the better."
"Yosh!" said Luffy, "Time to go wild, guys! Don't worry Sokka and Aang, we'll get our friends back!"
The way Luffy said those words made both Sokka and Aang believe without a doubt that they could do it. Sokka turned to the others, and asked, "So, what's the plan?"
Next time… The Straw Hats and their allies split up to retrieve the Sunny and save their friends... Please look forward to it!
