Road Trip Part II:
"Painting the Town Red Strawhat Fashion"
Robin tapped her fingers on the hotel room end table, waiting for someone to answer on the other line.
"Hello?"
Oh good, it was Chopper.
"Hi, Chopper, sweetie," she said. "How are you doing?"
"Oh hi, Robin! I'm doing great!"
"Good, good. Is Grandpa Brook there yet?"
"Yeah, he arrived just last night! He's a lot of fun!"
Robin chuckled softly before responding, "Oh that man! So is everything ok over there?"
Suddenly a blood curdling scream was heard in the background on Chopper's end, followed by, "OH MY GOD I'M ON FIRE!"
"Yohohoho! Someone should help the young chef-san."
"Quick! Call the fire department!"
"Uhhh," Chopper stalled, sounding shaky, "yeah, every . . . thing's just f-fine . . ."
"Honey!" Franky called from the bathroom. "I don't think I'm doing this right!"
Robin sighed. "Chopper, is everything ok over there?" she said more sternly, ignoring Franky's mutterings of irritation.
"Y-yeah. . . we're just practicing . . . what to do in case Sanji were to burst into flames! Yeah! Just practicing! Heh heh heh."
"Stopdroproll, stopdroproll, SANJI! STOPDROPROLL!"
"Maybe it's too small." Robin looked up to see Franky suddenly standing before her in a French-maid outfit. . . backwards.
She chuckled at her husband's predicament and said back into the phone, "Chopper, honey, I've got to go. Now make sure no one gets hurt in your . . . practices."
"HAHA! Of course, Robin!"
"Oh and Chopper?"
"Y-yes?"
"The fire extinguisher is on the back porch."
"Thank you, Robin! Th-that is if we need it."
"Uh-huh, I understand. Send everyone our love! Bye!"
Click.
Robin hung up the phone and went to go attend to more . . . pressing matters.
"Ok, we'll meet you here for your matches this afternoon. Don't leave this building." Nami added threateningly.
"Yeah, yeah." Zoro responded as he got out of the tiny red car. He had to ride in the cramped back seat with Luffy as Nami drove through the psychotic city traffic.
She slammed the door shut and peeled off to the museum.
"I'm looking forward to helping you with your paper, Nami," Vivi said as they cruised through the museum parking garage. "What class did you say it was for?"
"A history class. Well, more of an Anthropology class to be exact."
"AH! Nami! There's one!" Luffy shouted pointing at an open parking space.
Once parked properly, they all piled out of the car and began heading into the museum. Nami paused at the entrance to address Luffy.
"Luffy."
"Huh?"
"You need to stay by me at all times, got it? No wondering around by yourself, okay?"
"Geeze, Nami, I get it," Luffy drawled, index finger digging around in his nostril.
They finally marched into the museum, Nami mumbling something about the museum having leashes for miscreant children. Nami did a good job of keeping Luffy in tow, despite his constant complaining of being hot, being hungry, being tired, being bored. The girls did a good job of tuning him out without losing him. However, as we all know, this museum trip was not going to end without something going wrong.
"Oooh, this will be good for my paper," Nami said while jotting down notes furiously in a notebook.
"Umm, Nami?"
"In a minute."
"Nami!"
"What?"
"Luffy's gone."
"HE WAS RIGHT BEHIND ME! I TOLD THE IDIOT TO STAY RIGHT THERE!" Nami raged, disturbing many other groups of people she passed as she tore through the museum.
Suddenly Nami skidded to a stop and backtracked to re-examine the sign pointing to one of the exhibits.
PIRATES
"Vivi, in here."
The two girls marched through the exhibit hastily searching for Luffy. They looked through the mock pirate ship, behind the fake trees, around some of the rum barrels. Right when Nami was about to scream in frustration, she heard a hissing perked her head up to look around for the source of the sound, but found none. A few minutes later she heard it again. Finally she looked straight ahead to see a strange looking pirate manikin with a wide goofy grin and lanky limbs behind one of the glass display cases. Wait a minute . . .
"Pssssst! Nami!" the manikin whispered, breaking pose for just a second.
"LUFFY!" Nami screamed, slamming herself up against the glass.
"Hi, Nami! I'm a pirate!" he whispered excitedly, then snapped back into a serious face.
"LUFFY! GET OUT OF THERE RIGHT NOW!" Nami screeched, pounding the glass with her fist to punctuate each word.
"Ma'am," a gruff voice said behind her.
"WHAT?" she yelled, whipping around to be inches away from a very angry, bristly browed security guard. "Oh, sorry officer. There's just . . . um, someone got stuck in this display case—"
"Spare me, Miss. I'm gonna have to ask you to leave if you keep acting like this."
"No, officer, it's just—one of the pirates, he's real—"
"Miss, there's nothing wrong with this display. These are all manikins."
"No, you don't understand!"
"Alright, Miss, you're going to have to leave now. Come with me."
"NO WAIT! LUFFY!"
Luffy waved happily as the officer dragged Nami out of the pirate exhibit and Vivi followed worriedly.
Zoro took a deep, cleansing breath. He eyed his roid-pumped opponent: Daz Bones. This wasn't going to be a cinch, Zoro was in the semi-finals, but it wasn't something Zoro couldn't handle. He grinned wickedly to himself, ready to taste the blood this fight would inevitably produce. Sure he was just using wooden swords, but since they weren't wearing any padding, any hit with one of those swords could still draw blood.
Before stepping onto the mat, Zoro quickly scanned the crowd for his companions. Vivi's flowing blue hair was easy to spot, especially since she was waving and cheering at Zoro. A very pissed off Nami steamed beside her and . . . was that Luffy? Why the hell was he dressed like a pirate? Zoro shook his head and refocused on the man in front of him. They were face to face in the center of the mat, waiting for the ref to blow the starting whistle.
"Not even one swordsman has been able to hurt one hair of mine."
Zoro smirked defiantly back at him. "Well I don't know what kind of swordsmen you've fought before me."
TWEEEET!
Zoro wasted no time, and neither did his opponent, before their swords were thwacking away, each hungry for a piece of the other man. Early on, Bones tripped Zoro causing him to land flat on his back, a sword inches from his eyeball. Zoro allowed himself one breath before he grabbed Bones' wrist, swung his legs in an arc beneath Bones, knocking him off balance and freeing Zoro from the pin.
"YEEEYAAAAHHH ZOROOOOO!" pirate Luffy hollered from the stands, echoed by Vivi and even Nami.
Bones licked some sweat off his upper lip, grinned, then bolted at Zoro, attacking fiercely. But Zoro held his own, matching Bones' moves evenly, not allowing him to touch him. They went back and forth like this for a while, the crowd enthusiastically investing themselves in the fight. Soon both men were covered with sweat and blood trickles here and there from a few stray hits.
They backed off for a quick breather, planning the next attack method. Their feet moved so fluidly in time with each other's that it looked like an intricate dance. In fact, both men probably considered it like a dance, a high art form requiring years of training and hard work.
Zoro took stance once again, prompting Bones to do the same.
"Shishi Sonson," Zoro mumbled before leaping like lightning at Daz Bones and then seeming to be casually strolling past him, sheathing his wooden sword in his belt.
The crowd remained silent as Bones was frozen in his fighting stance behind Zoro, unmoving, eyes bulging.
"Thank you," Zoro said, low. "I can still become stronger."
The crowd erupted in wild cheering as Daz Bones crashed to the mat, holding his stomach and writhing in pain.
"WOW ZORO YOU WERE AMAZING!" Luffy praised on their way to the car.
"Che, that guy was just a roidal wannabe swordsman." Zoro put his hands behind his head in a cocky manner as he followed behind Nami bee-lining it for the car. "But Luffy, why are you dressed like a pirate?"
Luffy took a deep, happy breath to explain the whole thing to Zoro, including his adventurous escape from the glass case, but Nami stopped him short by grabbing his lips and menacingly addressing Zoro, "You don't want to know."
Meanwhile back at the house . . .
"~Oh Sanji! Come out to plaaaay~" sang Grandpa Brook while looking under the dining table. "Now where did that boy get to?"
Suddenly the doorbell rang, distracting him from his quest to find Sanji.
"How may I help you?" he cooed in a grandfatherly way as he opened the door.
"Hey mister, we live down the road and our mama sent us to borrow a cup of sugar," rattled off a small child with bright red hair and pale blue eyes. He was accompanied by what seemed to be a younger sister gripping a security blanket in her small fist.
"Why of course youngsters! It'll be just a moment!" Brook left to go locate the sugar in the kitchen, the front door only slightly ajar.
The young girl tugged on her brother's overalls and pointed at the large picture window a few paces down from the front porch. Face pressed up against the thick glass was Sanji wrapped in the cream drapery and mouthing the words, "Call the police."
"Here you go children!" Brook chimed, suddenly appearing and causing the kids' heads to snap back at the open front door.
"Th-thanks mi-mister," the boy stuttered before breaking off at a full sprint down the gravel driveway.
To be continued . . .
A/N: The conversation between Zoro and Daz Bones was taken from their actual conversation in the manga Chapter 194. Just thought it'd be awesome ;)