Johnny Spectre: Hmm maybe...I'm unsure. Whatever, as you said, it doesn't matter.

Tonlor: Thank you. Really? Wonder why it didn't show up in your alerts...whatever, not that big a deal. Well, here's more. XP

ImmortalComposer: Thank you. Now, as to why I don't watch One Piece subbed...man, I know I'm gonna get a lot of flak for this, but here goes. I cannot stand watching the original Japanese version. I can't understand a thing they're saying, their voices grate on my nerves, and I hate having to look down to read the subtitles, not only because I tend to miss something on the screen but I also just disdain them in general. I mean seriously, I turn subtitles off on everything I watch and every game I play, ninety nine percent of the time anyway, doesn't matter that it's in English and I don't have to look at them, they just annoy the hell outta me. The only time I use subtitles is when I'm playing One Piece games, as well as the new Digimon game, and more recently, when I'm watching the One Piece movies that Funimation has stated all too clearly that they have no interest in dubbing, though I'm only doing that so I have a grasp on them for when I write my versions of them. As far as I'm concerned, the only worse way to watch One Piece, to me anyway, then in Japanese, is 4KIDS's version, which I shudder just thinking about. I mean seriously, they could not have fucked that up more if they tried. Also, don't know why, but I also can't stand the Spanish and German Dubs, to me they're worse than the original Japanese, though not as bad as 4KIDS. No offense intended.

Thankfully I have the Funimation Dub to watch, which is so fricking superb it's near ridiculous. Every time a new character is revealed and I hear their voice, oh man, it's just so good. True there have been a few times that I questioned their choice as far as one character or another goes, such as Kuma, but they always end up winning me over in the end with their spectacular performance. Now with that said, please don't misunderstand, I have nothing against people who do watch it subbed. Whether they do it so they can keep up with where the series is at, or they just don't like the dub, it's fine with me. Everyone can watch One Piece the way they damn well please, as to each his own. I myself just can't do it, at least not for long, as I just don't like it. I don't like it even a little bit. I mean I turn off the voices when I play the Pirate Warriors series and Unlimited World Red. That should tell you how I feel about that. Anyway, as I was saying, I mean no disrespect or offense, I just don't do sub. I've tried many a time, but I just can't do it. And then there's the fact that I also love the Funimation dub, so...yeah.

Now I know when this chapter goes up there are going to be a lot of people who want my head on a platter, as for some reason there are individuals who think preferring the dub is a sin of the highest caliber, which wouldn't matter to me anyway even if it was seeing as I'm kind of an Athiest, but I'm just stating my opinion here. This is not fact, never claimed it was nor will I ever. It is my preference, that is all. Just as everyone else has their way of watching One Piece, I have my own, and that is the Funimation way. So I hope there are no hard feelings over this, and if I did offend anyone, then you have my sincerest apologies.

F-ckthesystem125: Yes they do. Yes he is. No you don't. And thank you, I will.

Lightningblade49: Where will it take place? Well...let's just say it will replace a certain other encounter.

Gmann: Has Luffy gotten around the setbacks of Second Gear and Third Gear? I haven't even revealed whether he's learned how to use them or not, so...no. As for Fourth Gear appearing before the timeskip, I had already thought of that but I'm not sure whether I'll do it or not. I'm leaning towards not, but there have been a lot of times that I've been struck by an idea for an awesome scene or battle to be put in that wasn't originally going to be in while in the middle of a chapter, so you never know. On the subject of safe sex, I have no comment other than this, Chopper will prevent Nami from getting pregnant. To Usopp growing a spine...well I wouldn't say he doesn't have a spine, just that he doesn't use it very often. And whether he will be using it more in my story, yes, but it will be a slow process and his cowardice will take a very long time to fully go away, if it ever does. Haki questions, I'll say this to them, there will be more members that can use one form of Haki or another other than the monster trio, and for Luffy becoming evil, of course not. That isn't to say that he won't become more vicious in combat however... or that his mercy will start wearing thin. After all, someone can only take so much before they get fed up. Lastly, I doubt I'm going to give any member of the crew a devil fruit that doesn't already have one. If I decide to kill off Absalom though, I'll have no choice as it would be very out of character for Sanji to not eat the Clear Clear Fruit.

HP-DG-SB: Can't blame you for that, as thirty million wasn't all too impressive considering who he had taken down. Yes he is, as to when that visit will take place...that's for me to know and for you all to find out, heh heh. As to the sidestories, there will only be two or three chapters dedicated to side stories, in the East Blue at least, one for Coby and Helmeppo, then one for Buggy. The third will be something a little more original. I'll make sure to take you up on that eventually, as I could always use someone to chat with. Glad you liked Garp's inclusion. And thank you for your kind words.

Jaesom: Glad you do. And truly? My story is doing that? I'm unsure of what to say...I'm so very happy my story could do that for you. Really, I am. :) As for original arcs, yes there will be some, I have several planned so far, all to take place before the timeskip. To going into more detail about the timeskip, eh...probably not. When they all start their two year training regimen, I think I'll leave it at that and just continue on. However, if you mean timeskip as in the time between islands, then yes, I will occasionally delve deeper into that kind of thing, as there will be several chapters aboard the ship. And I'll do my best.

Revan3363: Thank you. Yes it does. I'll do my best.

Halfrican18: Really? So do I actually. I love getting lost in a story as well, I really do. And thank you oh so very much, your kind words mean a lot to me. Well I'm glad you decided to review anyway, and you're right, it does feel ever so good to get positive feedback. Addicted you say? Didn't know I could hook someone like that...so very glad I can though! And I eagerly await to write those and a few other events I have in mind. Please don't die, I wouldn't want to lose such a kind reader. The spirit world having computers...well I certainly hope so! XD I will keep writing this, don't you worry. And if I do need help, well I've got a friend or two I can ask, *coughF-ckthesystem125cough*, and now I've also got you as well, that's nice. Though I'm not sure I'll need help...at least not with plot ideas or anything, cause I have a lot of them. So many that I've got five other One Piece stories planned besides this one. And I agree, such a thing is quite heartbreaking, but I don't know if I'd call my story a masterpiece...I mean, we're not even out of the East Blue yet.

Quick note, I watched the first One Piece movie before beginning on this chapter, subtitled since there's no dub of it. Didn't want to, but I had to since I needed to see firsthand what happened. And just let me say this, wow, I didn't know that would be so...so...disappointing. I mean seriously, I'm not quite sure what I was expecting but that certainly wasn't it. Needless to say, I have no intention of recreating that so...don't expect things to follow the same path here.

Another thing, would have had this chapter up a month ago, but a bunch of bullshit kept me from finishing it. Such as being dragged on a shitty vacation and moving, again! Man I am getting sick of moving so much. Anywhore-woops, I mean anyway...moving on.

Now then, the first movie chapter is here! Let me know what you think. Also, last thing, this is even longer than the climax of the Arlong arc. Which means it now stands as the longest chapter I've ever written for any story ever, and the longest chapter for this story. Now with that said, on with the movie/chapter. Don't forget to read, review and enjoy!

Aboard the Merry, down in Nami's room, she tossed and turned in her hammock, unable to enter a state of restful sleep. Beads of sweat had formed and were sliding down her forehead, as she struggled uselessly with a nonexistent entity. "No...no...no..." She mumbled, as her false struggle intensified.

"I'll protect you Nami!"

"No...don't..."

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Protect her? You can't even protect yourself! You stupid, weak, pathetic human!"

"Luffy get away...too strong..."

"I won't let you hurt her anymore! Time to pay Arlong!"

"Kill...he'll kill you...please Luffy stay away..."

"You actually think you can win!? I AM A MIGHTY FISHMAN! I WILL TEAR YOU APART!"

"You're the one who's gonna be torn apart! GUM GUM GATLING!" With a crash and a bang and a flurry of fists, the battle was decided.

"Luffy...?"

"Arlong Park has fallen, it's over!"

"You did it...Luffy I..."

"Strawhat Luffy, surrender now or we will be forced to open fire!"

"The Marines...?"

"That won't work on me, I'm rubber!"

"Draw your swords men!"

"Careful Luffy..."

"You guys can't beat me!"

"Don't let up, keep at him!"

"Luffy you...wait...behind you...behind you Luffy. Look out!" The sixteen year old nearly fell out of her hammock then, trying to jump to the dream Luffy.

"Can't catch me that easily!" Luffy taunted with a cheeky grin, as he tumbled out of the way before springing back up and stretching his leg to Gum Gum Stamp the marine who had tried to get him from behind.

"Damn it! The first tactic failed, initiate the second!" The marine who was in charge barked, the others following his instructions and shifting formation, before proceeding to charge their rubber target.

"I said be careful Luffy...listen to me...already..."

"Don't worry so much Nami! These guys can't beat me!" Luffy assured her, before bowling a couple dozen of them down with a running Gatling.

"Stop letting him clobber you! Get up and take him down!" The marine in charge shouted at his men.

"Hahahah! Try it!" Luffy laughed at them.

Suddenly then, reinforcements arrived, a battleship in tow. "Reinforcements have arrived! We can do this now! Give it all you got and just keep at him untl he cracks! Charge men!"

As over a hundred marines rushed Luffy, the battleship began to fire on Cocoyashi.

"The village! Nojiko...Genzo...Nako...everyone will be killed! Stop it, stop it now!"

"You bastards!" Luffy yelled, before leaping into action to begin intercepting the cannonballs, kicking them back, punching them back and flinging them back with his rubber body.

As he did this, the marines continued to try and get at him, but continously failed anyways. This came to an end however, as one marine in particular got behind Luffy, having been hiding in his blindspot, and proceeded to impale him on his blade the moment his feet touched the ground, the teen having been in between jumps to knock cannonballs back.

"Luffy!

"Wha-ugh!" Looking down he saw the sword that he had been run through with, blood beginning to gather in his mouth, before beginning to overflow and come running out.

"You were so concerned about protecting the village that you let me get behind you, how careless and stupid of you." The marine that had stabbed him said with a smug grin.

"Now's the time, converge on him men!" The marine commander instructed his men.

"No! No...no...no! This can't be happening...! It just can't!"

"This is it for you pirate. You should have seen it coming, after all, your poster says wanted dead or alive." The marine said venomously, putting extra emhpasis on the word or as he did.

"I...won't be beaten...like this!" Luffy got out through gritted teeth, before forcing the blade back out of him, the force of his pushing causing the marine to stumble back with sword in hand. The rubber teen then whirled to face the marine, knocking him out with a stretched out punch, his head hitting the ground with a loud thunk, his eyes rolling back into his head. Just as he did this though, a dozen other marines had surrounded him and had thrust their own swords at him...and...he couldn't hope to avoid all of them with only a moment of time to react.

While he was able to pull his stretched out fist toward them and ram it into the side of some of their heads, it only ended up reducing the damage done, as he was skewered by eight blades. With a cry of pain from Luffy, it was obvious to all he had been seriously injured, blood beginning to ooze from eight other wounds beside the one in his chest. Several of his vital organs had been pierced, which made the blood that was flowing out of his body the least of his worries.

"NO! Please stop! Stop it! Stop it!"

Even with the condition he was in, the straw hat wearing sixteen year old wasn't about to just drop dead, and proved that as he shouted in anger and clobbered the marines, their swords forcibly removed from his flesh as they hit the ground. Hurt, angry and losing blood, Luffy proceeded to do battle with the rest of the large number of remaining marines, regardless of the state he was in. And while it took a good few minutes, he was able to succesfully take them all out, leaving over a hundred unconscious, bruised and bloody marines lying about.

Stumbling about, he turned towards Nami and began to advance. "Now we just gotta...take care of that...battleship..."

"Battleship? Forget that! You need help! You need a doctor!"

"I'm fine Nami...really I am. Don't worry." He tried to assure her with a smile, but as more blood fell from his mouth it failed to have the proper comforting effect.

Before she could retort to that, everything around them went dark. The ground, the marines, the village, even the ocean and battleship in the distance, they all faded away until nothing but pitch black darkness remained. The only things she could see were herself and Luffy, which wasn't good in the slightest, especially since the raven haired boy was so injured.

He faltered then, stumbling more visibly before falling on his face. She moved to try and help him to his feet, as he struggled just to get to his knees, when something emerged from the blackness. She failed to notice it at first, but as she was halfway through helping Luffy, her eyes went to what was ahead of her, her arms still supporting her lover, and she saw it.

It was large, seven maybe eight feet tall, though it was thin, skeletal even, with large baggy clothes. She couldn't make out anymore than that, as it appeared as barely more than a shape in this blackness, blending in very well, looking like it was cut out of this all consuming darkness. No sooner than did she notice it, that it came racing towards her and Luffy, almost flying with the way it seemed to not touch the ground.

Eyes widening in fear, she opened her mouth to warn Luffy, only as the first syllable came out of her mouth, the thing reached them and proceeded to impale Luffy on it's almost sword like arm, lifting him several feet into the air as it did. His cry of pain was pure torture to the orange haired navigator, but even it was preferable to what happened next.

"Nami...I..." The thing, whatever it was, didn't appear to be here for Luffy. And it made this clear as it cut him off, by throwing it's arm to the side, this action causing Luffy to go flying off the blade and to hit the dark ground several feet away, dead on impact with a sickening snap, the teen's neck twisting at a strange angle.

Before she could question how this was possible, as he was rubber and such a thing shouldn't be possible, the creature was upon her. As it was it began to, what seemed like, consume her, the blackness filling her vision. She fought back of course, but her struggle proved uselsss, as it failed to bear fruit and instead caused the darkness to overcome her faster. Even still, she continued her fight, opening her mouth to try and scream as she did, but being unable to voice her cries. This continued until she was completely entrapped, the last thing she saw before being taken over completely being that of Luffy's lifeless corpse.

"LUFFY!" Nami cried as she shot up in her hammock, causing it to swing back and forth violently. Tears were running down her face, her breathing was ragged and uneven, and her mind was struggling to ascertain whether that had been a dream or not.

It eventually came to the conclusion that it had been a dream, as after a few moments her breathing calmed and she began wiping away her tears. "It was...it was just a nightmare." She told herself comfortingly. Even still knowing that, she couldn't quash the overwhelming urge she felt to go see Luffy. It was the middle of the night though, and it wouldn't do to go barging into the boys's room, so she pushed it down as she lied back down.

Closing her eyes, she attempted to fall asleep once more. However, not more than a moment after she closed her eyes, she saw it again, the creature, Luffy with it's sword like arm through him, his lifeless corpse. Her eyes snapped open and they didn't intend to close again, at least not until that image faded, as she just couldn't bare that sight. This left her unable to sleep, so her eyes glued themselves to the ceiling, why there though, she was unsure.

After close to an hour of staring up at the ceiling, Nami was just unable to take it anymore, so she sat up. Climbing out of her hammock afterward, but undecided where she would go, the orange haired girl hesitated once her feet were on the ground. Her eyes wandered her room, taking in it's appearance shrouded in shadows for the first time, the desk, the chest, the couch, even the hole in the wall that Usopp had patched up with some spare boards, and the darkness and silence had her feeling a sense of deja vu, only...unlike most, she was able to place it immediately. It was if she was alone again, under Arlong's thumb, out on the sea to gather berris for him. It made her shudder. And that was when she felt as if she couldn't stay down here any longer, so proceeded to ascend the steps leading to the storage room, opening the hatch and coming out of her room.

Making sure to close the hatch to her room first, she wandered out of the storage room and out onto the deck. As she did the crisp night air hit her and she couldn't help but shiver, her attire of a simple skirt and a short sleeve shirt inadequate considering the temperature. While it wasn't freezing or anything, the chill in the air was undeniable. And as she felt it's effects on her body, she looked up at the star filled night sky, out of habit more than anything else really. However, as she took the time to really observe the night sky in all it's glory, without all of the suffering she had endured and would be forced to endure hanging over her head, she found the sight beautiful, just as she used to nearly a decade ago when she was but a child.

Also, while she gazed upward, she noted that no one was keeping watch. They had yet to assign anyone the task, and anytime someone volunteered it was done rather half-assed. So at some point they decided why even bother, as truly there wasn't anyone who really posed a threat to them, at least not in the East Blue anyway, Luffy had proven that single-handedly. Zoro had put some good effort into proving it as well. When they got to the Grand Line though, they would have to start taking that seriously, they all knew that.

Even with her thoughts centering around such a subject, the blackness of the sky invaded her mind, and even with the light of the stars and the moon, it was almost suffocating, especially so considering the nightmare she had just awoken from and the feelings it had invoked. All of it just made her need to see Luffy grow stronger, so much so that the urge was almost overwhelming. Since that was the case, the navigator finally gave in and moved to the mast, where another hatch lie, this one leading to the boys's room.

Opening it, she glanced down but was unable to see much beside the mast and the floor even with the moonlight and starlight combined. Nevertheless there was enough lighting to see what she was doing, so she began climbing down the handlebar like pegs attached to the mast, which acted like a ladder to get up out of and down into the boys room.

Once her feet touched the floor and she was able to let go of the mast, she turned around and took a moment to take in her surroundings the best she could with the amount of light she had. It wasn't the easiest thing to do, but she was able to make everything out. There was a small round table in front of a couch to her right, further back sat a closet like dresser with a wooden counter beside it, which barrels of water and bottles of different types of alcohol rested upon. To her left was the emergency passage to her room, a laundry basket, a large wooden bucket to put water in, a washboard so they could wash their clothes, a single painting on the wall and the four hammocks that each of the guys slept in.

Turning to face the four, her eyes focused in on Luffy alone, who was sleeping on his back and had his hat halfway off his head, he also had a bit of drool leaking from the corner of his mouth. Not the most ridiculous state she had seen him sleep in, so the sight didn't faze her in the slightest. However she didn't move to wake him, as what reason was there to do that? 'Because I had a bad dream? Great reason to wake your boyfriend up Nami.' She thought sarcastically with a roll of her eyes. 'How childish can you be.' She continued to chide herself. "I'm a big girl, I don't need to be comforted and coddled just because I had a nightmare." She said ever so quietly to herself.

Having managed to talk herself out of it, she turned back to the mast and prepared to climb it back up to the deck, but hesitated to do so for a moment. She had been frightened by that dream, quite a bit actually. She didn't want to be alone, not with the events of said dream still replaying themselves in her head. But neither did she wish to wake Luffy and bother him with a stupid thing like this. She was certain he wouldn't mind, but that didn't change the fact that she was being childish and that she didn't want anyone knowing about it. Besides, Luffy defeated the real monster that had been tormenting her not even two weeks ago, so waking him up now over an imaginary one would seem rather silly.

And she certainly wasn't going to wake up one of the other three, no matter how much she wanted some company right now. She could just hear their reactions now...

Zoro, "You're kidding right? You mean you actually woke me up for that? Go back to bed you big baby." A bit harsh, but considering their relationship that was the response she was sure she would get. Besides, being alone with Zoro, in the middle of the ocean, at night? The thought made her want to gag.

Sanji, "A nightmare? Oh of course I'll keep you company! A woman must be comforted when she is scared! I will stay with you till the break of dawn and forever after Nami my sweet!" His weird heart eyes were certain to accompany that response. Plus he'd end up waking everyone else in the process. And...well, she really did not want to hear his attempts at being charming all night long.

Usopp, "You had a bad dream? Wh-why would you wake me up? I mean wouldn't Luffy or Sanji be better at this kind of thing? Even Zoro-okay maybe not Zoro, but still. Why me? You don't want Sanji waking everyone else up and you don't want to bug Luffy? But I'm sure he wouldn't mi-okay, okay, just don't start yelling. I'll stay up with you. Sheesh. Now, I've heard the best way to deal with a nightmare is to talk about it, so go ahead and tell me what happened." Yeah she could certainly get him to agree, but it'd cause a decent bit of noise and could end up waking one of the other three up. And beside that, well there was a good chance that he'd get scared from what happened in her nightmare as well, even if they were just talking about it. Having someone else with her who was also freaked out really wouldn't be much better in the end.

So she really didn't have any options. Since that was the case, she moved to climb the mast once more, her hesitation gone. But just before she could get her first foot up and onto one of the pegs, a voice caught her attention. "Nami?"

Letting go of the mast, she turned to look at who had spoken her name, to see Luffy now awake. "Are you okay?" He inquired, worry in his eyes.

"Y-yeah, I'm fine. Perfectly fine." She tried to assure him, a small, somewhat forced smile crossing her face.

"Why are you down here?" He asked then, as he adjusted his hat so that it sat on his head correctly, wiping the drool away at the same time as he did.

"It's stupid, don't worry about it." She told him with a slightly forced chuckle, waving it off as she did.

A small frown crossed the rubberman's face as he sat up. "If it was stupid, you wouldn't be down here. So tell me."

"It's nothing Luffy, honestly. Just go back to sleep." She said, trying to get him to drop the subject, as she turned to climb the mast up onto deck.

Before she could make any headway however, Luffy slipped out of his hammock, his feet hitting the floor with a barely audible thud, the fact that he wasn't wearing his sandals attributed to this near silent movement. And while this thud was ever so quiet, since Nami was awake, unlike the other occupants of this room beside Luffy, the small noise amidst the silence easily caught her attention.

Nami sighed then, feeling a twinge of annoyance at both herself and Luffy. The annoyance she felt with herself was from waking him, the annoyance she felt with him was for waking up in the first place. "Look Luffy-"

He cut her off, having closed the distance between them, as he proceeded to poke her forehead with his index and middle fingers of his right hand. As to why such an action caused her to go silent, well, it surprised her first and foremost. Second of all, while it hadn't hurt of course, it was an action akin to her flicking him when he was younger, to stop him from doing something stupid. And as she realized that, she was dumbfounded, as Luffy had never done that to her before, ever.

"Stop it." He ordered.

"Huh?" She questioned, ever so confused, it showing on her face as she stared at him like he had grown a second head.

"Stop hiding your feelings away. You pretend that everything's okay when it really isn't. Stop doing that." He told her, as his eyes stared piercingly into her own. "You finally dropped the act at Cocoyashi, but now here you are doing it again. Why?" He asked simply.

"I-I...uh, Luffy...I just..." She tripped over her words, unsure of how to answer that question.

"Did I do something to upset you?" He inquired further.

"What!? No, of course not!" She whispered harshly.

"Then why won't you tell me what's wrong?" He questioned.

Nami looked away from him at that, unconsciously biting her bottom lip, as she thought over how to answer that. "I just...didn't want to bother you over something so stupid. You've done so much for me, even back when we were kids. You've taken on every problem I've ever had as your own, acting as if it's your burden to carry and not mine. I don't want to increase the weight of that burden any further, I don't want to drag you down anymore." Tears had begun to gather in her eyes as she finished saying this.

"Nami..." Luffy breathed her name in shock, before his gaze hardened and he took a hold of her by her shoulders and made her look at him, his eyes burrowing into hers once more. "I don't know how to use a sword, I can't navigate, I can't cook and I couldn't even tell a lie to save my life. To carry the burdens of my crew, that's all I can do. That is my role as captain." He said this with such conviction and certainty, that Nami found herself unable to respond for several moments.

"Besides..." He continued with a smile. "What are friends for?"

"Luffy..." She whispered his name finally, her tears beginning to fall as she leaned forward to press her lips to his.

Shortly after their lips met however, they quickly pulled back, as they realized the room was full with the sound of sobbing, and it wasn't coming from Nami.

Turning to the others, they saw all three awake. And as for the sobbing, well, that was coming from Sanji. "Why!?" He questioned pathetically, as he stared at them, teary eyed as he sat up in his hammock.

Usopp looked a little indignant. "What did you mean by you can't lie!? Is that all I'm good for to you!?" The long nosed sniper inquired, obviously offended.

"Take your tongue war somewhere else before I vomit." Zoro told them crudely, looking quite aggravated at having been woken up.

Nami couldn't help the red tinge that came to her face, half from embarrassment, half from anger at these comments, Zoro's in particular. Before she could think about hitting him though, Sanji did it for her, kicking him through the material of his own hammock, managing to just not tear as he did. "Hey! Don't you talk to her like that!"

"Did you just kick me!?" Zoro asked dangerously.

"So what if I did? What are you going to do about it!?" Sanji questioned angrily.

"Why you-" Before a fight could break out between the two, Luffy burst into laughter, getting everyone's attention as he did. "Sorry guys, we didn't mean to wake you up." He stated sincerely, a mirthful smirk spread across his face despite that, obviously amused at their antics.

"Yeah, well just get out of here already so we can go back to sleep." The swordsman grumbled.

"Excuse me? No way, that rubber shit head is not leaving with Nami! I won't allow it!" The cook exclaimed, as he prepared to leap out of his hammock to keep said thing from happening.

But unfortunately for him, he was tripped up and fell out of his hammock and face first onto the floor, courtesy of Zoro. "Stupid love-cook." He murmered, as he began to drift off to sleep once more.

"Alright then, let's go Nami." Luffy told her as he chuckled, following after the orange haired cartographer up the mast after she did as he bid.

Before they got fully up though, Usopp had sprung from his own hammock, accidentally stepping on Sanji as he tried to get up, forcing him to the ground once more as the dark haired marksman made after the two lovers. "Get back here! We need to talk about that liar remark!"

He was ignored of course, as the hatch to the room was shut.

Sighing in defeat, the teen turned to go lie back down, to see, just barely with no light, Sanji standing before him. He did not look happy.

"Sorry about that, it was an accident." Usopp told the blonde sheepishly. Needless to say, he didn't seem to care.

The red had almost completely faded from Nami's face as she stepped out on deck, her tears having dried as well, Luffy closing the hatch to the boys room behind her. That is until she turned to face Luffy, who had the tiniest bit of red dusting his cheeks as well, the teen still chuckling regardless, as he spoke to her. "Hey Nami?"

"Yeah?"

"I could see your panties when we were climbing the mast." He said bluntly without a hint of hesitation, obviously finding it amusing.

With that the red returned with a vengeance, as a dark blush near consumed Nami's visage. "You idiot!" She shouted, as she bonked him over the head.

This just caused him to laugh a little more, rubbing his head through his hat as he did. "What's the big deal?" He inquired. "I've already seen what's under them, so it shouldn't matter." He stated matter-of-factly

She was quick to retort, her face growing a tad darker at his words. "That's not the point! You don't just go around telling girls you can see their underwear!"

"But I didn't!" He protested. "I just said it to you."

Nami rolled her eyes at that, as she fought back an exasperated sigh. "That's not what I meant and you know it."

Luffy chuckled at that. "Yeah, I know." He admitted with a grin.

Nami was unable to hold that sigh in any longer, as it came out. As it did, she couldn't help but think to herself, 'Guess it's gonna take a little while to get used to this.' She wasn't honestly angry, as Luffy catching a peek at her panties didn't truly bother her at all, and truth be told, if they hadn't made love back in her village, she'd probably be flashing him peaks like that on purpose every now and then to entice him. After all, how long had she fantasized about being intimate with Luffy? Since she was thirteen at least. Besides, they were pirates, that whole sex after so many dates things didn't apply to them, they broke the rules, that's what they did.

It was more an instinctual reaction than anything else. While she had no problem flaunting her body and using her looks to her advantage, she had been a virgin up until her night with Luffy. No one had even seen her completely nude before him, and many had tried, and while she had exposed herself on a few occasions, really desperate ones, those had been on her terms and she had been prepared for it. Hell Luffy was the first person to ever even kiss her, something she was very grateful for. So in short, she wasn't used to this kind of thing, at all. She was well versed in flirting, arousing and leading people on, men and women, but as for actually being intimate with them, physically or emotionally, well, she was well and truly out of her depth then.

'But back in Cocoyashi it just came so naturally with Luffy.' She reminded herself. 'So why am I reacting like this now?' She couldn't help but wonder.

Noticing his navigator had become lost in her thoughts, Luffy fixed her with a questioning gaze, wondering what she was thinking about.

Shaking her head to clear it of all her thoughts, Nami's attention refocused itself on Luffy, as she came to the decision to push past this silly incident, her blush just about gone at this point.

"Sorry about that Luffy, guess I overreacted a bit." She admitted with a sheepish smile.

Luffy's smile simply widened at that. "No problem."

"But in the future make sure not to say things like that, at least not while we're around other people. And certainly don't say things like that to other girls. Just politely avert your eyes and pretend it never happened." She told him.

"Got it." He said with a nod of his head.

"Good." She replied, her smile warping into a joyful one.

"So...will you tell me what's wrong now?" He inquired suddenly.

Nami rolled her eyes at that. "You're not gonna let that go are you? Fine. I had a nightmare and I wanted you to hold me so I could go back to sleep. There, happy?" She asked, annoyed with his persistence.

Luffy just stared at her for a moment, as if he hadn't heard her, before he broke into a fit of laughter.

Nami's blush returned and intensified, quite embarrassed for an entirely different reason now. And it only grew worse as Luffy fell to the deck and began to roll around, continuing to laugh as he held his sides. Apparently he found it down right hilarious.

"Yeah, go ahead, laugh it up rubberboy. But I told you it was stupid, you just wouldn't listen to me!" She near shouted at him, ever so embarrassed to be laughed at by Luffy of all people.

"No-no-it's not that!" He rasped out between his laughter. "It's-it's just so-so dumb!" He exclaimed, tears at the corners of his eyes as he continued with his laughing fit, quickly running out of breath as he did, as he just could not stop laughing.

"I know that dammit! I'm the one who told you it was!" She insisted, her anger growing.

The sound of banging could be heard below deck then, accompanied by a shout from one of the men below, "Keep it down up there, I'm tryin to sleep!" This was, of course, undoubtedly Zoro. This was mostly ignored by the two however.

"No-no, you really don't get it." The rubberman told her, as he forcibly reigned his laughter in and got it under control, the fit finally coming to a stop as he got to his feet. "It's dumb cause you could've just said that. We could have already gone back to sleep by now. But here we are waking everyone up because you didn't want to admit you had a bad dream. It's just so funny!" He exclaimed, before beginning another bout of laughter.

That took Nami back for a moment, but she was quick to recover. "Oh...so you...you really don't think I'm being silly?"

That got him to cut his laughter off prematurely once more, so he could answer. "Wha-? Of course not. Why would I? The dream scared you right? Everyone gets scared." He stated simply.

Nami wasn't sure how to respond to that simple logic, opening her mouth to say something and quickly closing it a moment after. And while she struggled to find words, Luffy did what he always did and simply took action. Grabbing her by the hand, he lead her into the storage room, opening the hatch down to her room with his free hand, he then began leading her down the stairs, the orange haired girl giving no resistance as she was lead about, still not knowing how to reply to what he had said. She did make sure to close the hatch to her room though, as her boyfriend had neglected to do so.

Once they had descended the steps, Luffy lifted Nami without warning and placed her in her hammock, the cartographer only giving slight protest as he did, before proceeding to climb into it himself. Then he got in position behind her, wrapping his arms around her stomach, without the use of his ability, and pulling her taut against his body, chuckling a little as he did. "See? Now wasn't that easy?" He asked her like one would a stubborn child, a cheeky gleam in his eyes as he did.

She suddenly found her voice at that. "Yeah well...you know...whatever." Her blush had returned after having almost completely faded once again, thought not quite as dark as before. As for why she was blushing again, well it wasn't everyday that someone as childish as Luffy treated you like you were the kid.

The raven haired teen couldn't help but chuckle even more at that. "Nami's embarrassed." He stated simply, his mirth clear in his tone.

"I am not." She contended.

"Yes you are." He insisted, that smile of his widening a little as he did.

"No I'm not." She argued.

"Are too." He persisted.

"Am not." She refuted.

"Are too." He repeated.

"Am not." She rebuffed.

"You totally are." He maintained.

"No I am not." She rebutted, beginning to pout as she did.

This just served to tickle the teenage pirate's funny bone further, laughing a little rather than chuckling. But it did get him to drop the subject at least, as he failed to come back with anything.

Since he didn't say anything, neither did she. And because of this, the room was left in silence for several long moments. That is until the straw hat wearing man spoke up once more, "You want to talk about it?" His smile had fallen away by now.

She understood immediately what he was asking about, her dream, or rather nightmare. Still, she neglected to reply for a bit, before coming to the decision that, yes she did want to talk about it. "We were in Cocoyashi and you were fighting Arlong. I begged you to run away because he was too strong for you, but of course you didn't listen. You then proceeded to prove me wrong of course, taking down Arlong and freeing my village." She began, resting her arms on his, that held her against him.

Luffy just smiled at that.

"But then the marines came. They were a hundred strong and wanted nothing more than to kill you. They even brought a battleship and started firing on the village, hoping to force you to choose between protecting yourself and protecting Cocoyashi, as if they somehow knew you would go for the latter. And you did of course, forgoing your own safety to protect the villagers for me. But they used that to their advantage and one of them snuck up on you. He stabbed you, ran you through and blood began to flow from your mouth as if he had pierced every vital organ you had." She continued, a frown marring her face.

Luffy couldn't help but frown at this as well.

"It only got worse from there. You threw him off and removed the sword, but then you were attacked by another dozen marines. You tried to protect yourself, but most of them still managed to get you with their swords, and while you knocked them out afterwards, you were still bleeding so badly because of the group attack. I began freaking out, but even as I did, you simply turned your attention to the rest of the marines and mowed them all down. After that you talked about going after the battleship, which just wouldn't stop firing. I protested of course, you were in no condition, you needed a doctor. You didn't pay my concern any attention, too busy struggling to go after the ship, but soon enough you collapsed, too weak from you wounds to do anything else other than that." She explained, before taking a brief pause, as to prepare herself for the last part.

Luffy's frown had evolved into a scowl at this point. Not only because of what the marines had done, but also because of what his dream self had done, or rather failed to do. 'How could he let himself go down before Nami was safe?' Needless to say, he was disappointed in his dream counterpart.

"That's when...that's when things got really bad." She started, her breathing hitching slightly because just remembering it upset her. "Everything around us faded into nothingness, before we were surrounded by nothing but pitch black darkness, just you and me, nobody else. Still, while it definitely shook me up, I was more focused on you bleeding in front of me. So I came to your side to try and help you up...but...the-then this thing appeared. I couldn't make out what it really looked like, as it was just as dark as the blackness that surrounded us. It was tall and had what looked like a sword for an arm, but that's all I could really discern." She was fighting back the tears that wanted to well up at this point. 'I went nearly eight years without shedding a single tear, but now, after I've reunited with Luffy, I just can't stop crying.' She thought to herself.

Luffy nuzzled the back of her neck with his nose then, silently telling her to go on. So she did. "I di-didn't even notice it at first. It wasn't until you were halfway to your feet that I caught sight of it. And as I did it came speeding at us, almost flying actually. I tried to warn you but...but I wasn't fast enough. It was upon us and wasted no time in impaling you on it's arm. You screamed in pain, so loudly it echoed throughout the darkness. It was like I was hearing it on repeat. And it sounded so much...so much like your screams when P-Porchemy...when h-he..." She had grabbed ahold of his hands halfway through, and was now squeezing them extremely hard. He was rubber, so it didn't hurt. Even if it had, he still wouldn't have minded.

"Not more than a handful of moments after, though it felt like an eternity, he tossed you off his arm and to the side like a ragdoll, and when you hit the ground, your neck made this sickening snapping noise. It made my heart stop. You had died Luffy." Tears were running down her face at this point, despite her best efforts, the teen choking back sobs at this point.

"But Nami, I'm rubber. I can't die like t-"

"I know Luffy, I know you can't die like that." Nami interrupted, having known he was going to say that. "It doesn't change the fact that in my dream you did. I don't know why I didn't question it, I just didn't. All I could focus on was the fact that you had just died before my eyes. I couldn't-I just couldn't deal with that." She told him between sobs.

He placed his chin on her shoulder, as he turned his head to kiss her cheek, unwittingly kissing a tear away as he did, so as to try and calm her down. And that seemed to be just what she needed, as she began to wipe her tears away shortly after, a small, grateful smile coming onto her face at his actions. "The nightmare ended shortly after that. It came after me next and swallowed me up in darkness and that's about it." She finished quickly, just wanting to be done with it at this point.

Silence gripped the room for the uncounted time, this bout lasting for almost an entire minute before it was broken. "Nami?"

"Yes Luffy?"

"You know you can always run to me, I'll scare all you fears away." He stated this softly, but with so much certainty it was as if he was speaking about a natural law, like gravity, as if it would always happen no matter what or who stood in it's way. And with Luffy the driving force behind it, well...she was inclined to agree.

As he said this though, flashes of when he said something very similar ran through Nami's mind. Back on Dawn Island, shortly after the Porchemy incident, she had awoken in tears. She ran out of her room and barged into Luffy's room, jumping into his bed, waking him up in the process, and hugging him tightly as she cried into him. He had been bewildered at first, but soon after he understood, as Nami explained to him through broken sobs about the nightmare she had about Porchemy getting Luffy and her. He had tried to comfort her, but it only did so good. So, after struggling to find the right words to say for a while, he finally out and came and said that if she was scared, that she just had to run to him and that he would scare anything that scared her away.

Being reminded of this caused her insides to flood with warmth, that combined with the warmth of Luffy's body pressing into her own, well...let's just say it was a very pleasant feeling. "Yeah, I know." She affirmed, showing her trust in him, a very bright smile taking the former grateful one's place as she did.

"Good." He replied simply, placing his hat on her head as he did, having pulled an arm back so he could perform this action. "Now let's get some sleep."

Nami turned her body over so she could face him then, to give him a kiss, only to see that he was out like a light, a little bit of drool leaking from the left corner of his mouth. "Dummy." She whispered affectionately, wiping the saliva away before pressing her lips to his and giving him a chaste kiss regardless of the fact that he had already zonked out.

After pulling back, having been thinking on her lover's words, Nami wrapped her arms around Luffy's neck and pulled herself as close to him as humanly possible, as she didn't want the warmth to fade, as she mumbled, "You're my very own hiding place."

Her eyes closed after that, which was why she missed the closed mouthed smile that crossed Luffy's face, having heard her words. And she would't find out either, as soon both of them slipped into a restful slumber.

The next morning...

Luffy yawned as he trudged up the steps to the storage room, opening the hatch out of Nami's room as he reached the top. "Sanji fo-" He was cut off as the foot, shoe included, of said chef he had been calling out for stuffed itself inside his mouth. "Don't even finish that sentence you shitty rubber bastard. You got to sleep in the same room as the beautiful Nami, there is no higher honor. And you have the gall to ask me to cook for you after having received such an honor?" He knew he would cook for him regardless, as he would never let anyone go hungry, especially not one of his friends, but he was angry dammit and he had to vent it somehow.

"Ves." He responded the best he could with a foot in his mouth, his answer easy to discern despite the foreign object.

Sanji was angered further by this of course, but before he could do anything about it, Luffy removed the foot from his mouth. "Gack! Your shoe tastes horrible!" He exclaimed, pushing it, and therefor Sanji, away as he did, causing the blonde to stumble backwards, trying to catch himself so he didn't fall as he did.

Luffy then proceeded to exit the storage room, going out on deck and greeting Zoro and Usopp, as Sanji managed to catch himself, having been too preoccupied with doing that to stop the rubber teen. Before he could go after his rubber friend though, Nami came up, stretching and yawning as she did. "Sanji could you make breakfast? I'm starving."

"Of course my dear, I'll get right to it!" He replied happily, his eyes having changed into hearts, before dancing his way out of the storage room and into the kitchen slash meeting room, where the rudder was also located to do just that.

"Where the hell are we?" One voice questioned.

"How the hell am I supposed to know?" Another voice responded.

"Where the hell are we supposed to go again?" A third voice inquired.

"Hell if I know." The second voice replied.

"Holy hell, I think this map might be a fake." The first voice said, obviously concerned,

"Oh hell, really?" The third voice asked.

"Hell, the captain will put us through hell if we return with a fake map." The second voice stated.

"Hell? But why? We tried so hard! I don't wanna go through hell!" The third voice whined.

"Calm the hell down! We'll figure this out!" The first voice insisted.

"Bu-but hell! Captain's gonna put us through hell! Don't you understand that!?" The third voice argued shakily.

"Yep, he's definitely gonna put us through hell. If he doesn't just outright kill us that is." The second voice informed.

"To hell with this!" The first voice exclaimed angrily.

"Hey guys, why do we keep saying hell so much?" The second voice questioned suddenly.

"I dunno." The other two voices answered in unison, it obvious from their tones that they had no idea why.

"Geez, you guys are so annoying." A new, fourth voice stated with annoyance.

"Shut up and keep paddling!" The three voices shouted at the fourth in unison.

Needless to say all this noise caught the Strawhats attention, as they all filed out of the kitchen/meeting room to see what all the noise was about. At first they didn't see anything, but as they looked over the railing, they caught sight of a small fishing boat with four individuals in it, three adult males and one child.

Just as they caught sight of them, the four caught sight of them, and the three who had been bickering shared nasty smirks, before they all proceeded to toss hooks tied to ropes up onto the railing, which the three then began to ascend, climbing as quickly as they could.

Anyone of the crew could have thrown the hooks off, seeing as they were barely hanging onto the railing, but none of them opted to do so, curious as to what these three were up to.

Once they reached the railing, they climbed over and onto the deck, allowing the Strawhat pirates to get a better look at them.

The first man had purple hair tied in a short ponytail on top of his head, tanned skin, a scrawny build and stood five foot six. His clothing consisted of a striped yellow shirt with a green vest over it, knee length blue jean shorts with light blue polka dots, simple black shoes and a pair of round black sunglasses resting on top of his head.

The second man had relatively short black fuzzy hair in a weird style, a chin patch, fair skin, a scrawny build and stood five foot five and half an inch. His apparel was made up of a pink disco themed jumpsuit with white flames extending from the bottom of his pant legs and his sleeves and a pair of white dress shoes.

The third man had short pink hair that was parted at the sides, light skin, a scrawny build and stood five foot seven. His attire was comprised of a fancy looking short sleeve white shirt with grey vest over it, black bow tie and a short sleeve black jacket over all of it. He also wore brown shin length pants and black shoes.

Not a moment after the five pirates had taken in the appearance of the trio, they spoke up. "Hello there. It's a pleasure to meet you. Now please, allow us to introduce ourselves. I am Danny." The man with purple hair told them.

"I'm Denny." The black haired man stated.

"And I'm Donny." The pink haired man informed.

"And we are the Hyena Three!" They exclaimed in unison, obviously expecting some kind of recognition.

They received none however. "The who?" All five Strawhats questioned together.

The three face vaulted at that. Scrambling back up onto their feet, they tried to jog their memories, thinking they had to know of who they were. "You know, the Hyena Three, wanted for two million berris a piece, part of the El Drago pirates?"

"Again, who?" All five inquired, never even having heard a passing mention of them from anyone...ever.

All three proceeded to collapse to their knees, tears streaming down their faces, as they lamented the fact that these guys had never heard of them.

"What's a hyena?" Luffy suddenly asked, just thinking of it, turning to Nami so she could explain.

As she did, Danny, Denny and Donny found the strength to pull themselves together, dry their tears and stand once more.

Before they could do anymore than that however, Nami had finished explaining what a Hyena was to Luffy. And as she did, he turned to them and asked, "Oh, so are you three called hyenas cause you look so funny?"

The three proceeded to collapse into a sobbing mess on the deck at that, while Luffy and Usopp laughed. Luffy because he thought they were being funny, Usopp because of what Luffy had said to them. Nami was chuckling, and even Zoro and Sanji wore amused smirks.

The five teens then had there attention pulled to the hook-ropes, as the child who had been in that boat climbed aboard.

He was a small boy with dark spiky hair and tanned skin. He wore a yellow tinted tan shirt with brown waistcoat over it, slightly torn brown shorts, brown shoes and a black and red cape befitting his size.

Once on deck he seemed surprised to see them standing and the three that had been with him on the floor. "Serves them right."

"What's that now?" Nami questioned.

The kid, seeming to think the three had been knocked out rather than having collapsed in tears, proceeded to explain. "Those three jerks kidnapped me, had me rowing their boat for them while they tried to figure out the way to the island where Woonan keeps his treasure." He explained.

"Woonan?" The male strawhats repeated.

"Treasure?" Nami repeated, excitement filling her voice.

"Yeah, Woonan's treasure. They managed to find the map leading to it, see?" He said, showing the map the three had left in the boat as he did.

"That's right. And we'll be taking that map, and this boat to our captain." The three stated, as they rose to their feet behind the others, drawing swords as they did.

"Ahh!" The boy shouted, not having realized the three were still conscious.

The strawhats turned to them at that, quirked brows all around, as even Usopp could tell these guys were way out of their league. Nevertheless, they didn't seem to realize that, as they charged them.

They learned though, the hard way, as Luffy, Zoro and Sanji proceeded to slap them down to the deck with a single hit each, two punches and a kick, knocking them out cold.

"That was just pathetic." Usopp stated, shaking his head as he did. Even he was stronger than these guys, and he wasn't even a physical fighter.

Zoro took the three and tossed them off the ship, the trio landing in their fishing boat and causing it to shake violently from the impact of their landing, though it somehow managed not to turn over. The swordsman then removed their hook-ropes and tossed them back into their boat, before returning to the others.

They all turned to the boy then, "Now what was this about an island?" Usopp questioned.

"And you said something about gold?" Nami inquired, her anticipation all too visible.

"Yeah, the island Woonan The Great Gold Pirate buried his treasure." The boy confirmed almost nonchalantly.

"The great gold pirate?" Sanji repeated.

"Wonder why he was called that?" Usopp wondered aloud.

"Never heard of him." Both Luffy and Zoro said in unison.

"What? You guys have never heard of Woonan!? How is that possible!? I mean you guys are pirates right?" He questioned disbelievingly, gesturing to their jolly roger above as he did.

"Sure are." Luffy confirmed with a smile.

"Woonan..." Nami repeated, a flash of recognition in her eyes as she did. "Now I remember."

"Huh, you know him Nami?" Luffy inquired.

"I know of him at least." She replied. "Decades ago there lived a pirate who resided here in the East Blue, his name was Woonan, but the world knew him as The Great Gold Pirate. He was known as thus for all the treasure he looted from his enemies, of which he had many. Legend has it that the gold he plundered piled up to the size of an enormous mountain and lit up the ocean at night as though it was as bright as day. Because of this, people claim that he amassed nearly eighty percent of all the gold in the entire East Blue, an impressive feat that earned him a bounty of sixty million berris. However, his existence faded over the years, just as the existence of all the pirates that came before him did. In spite of the fact that no one ever saw him again once he disappeared, or the fact that most people couldn't recall just who he was or what he looked like, one thing always persisted about Woonan. And that was the rumor that, before he did vanish, he hid all the gold he had ever stolen on a small island in the middle of the East Blue. Even now, nearly half a century later, that rumor still persists. It's all that's truly left of Woonan, it's his legacy."

"His bounty was even bigger than Luffy's!" Usopp exclaimed in shock.

"Eighty percent of all the gold in the East Blue? That's a lot of gold." Sanji stated.

Nami let that sink in for a few moments, as she thought it over, before continuing, "I always thought it was just that, a rumor. But it's said that there exists a map, hand made by the first mate of Woonan's crew, that shows the location of this island. Supposedly if someone was to ever get their hands on it, Woonan's massive pile of gold would be theirs for the taking." She finished.

"Yeah and I have it right here! You guy can have it if you want!" The boy insisted.

"No way, really!?" Luffy and Usopp asked disbelievingly in unison.

"We're pirates, you know that, so why are you suddenly so eager to shove that map down our throats kid?" Zoro questioned then.

"Well, it's not like I want the treasure. So I figured if I gave you guys the map, then you wouldn't mind taking me along with you." He confessed.

"And why would you want to come along exactly?" Sanji probed.

"Oh, that's an easy one. I want to meet Woonan and convince him to let me join his crew." The kid replied with a bright smile.

"Huh?" Was the general response.

"Well..." The boy began. "...it's just that I...well...I don't wanna be alone anymore." His gaze fell from them, having been looking up at them, as he looked down at his feet, unwilling to meet their eyes, his smile falling away as well. "I'm an orphan...my parents died a year ago. My village is a small one, there isn't even an orphanage for me to go to and no one else can afford to keep me. I didn't know where to turn, but then I remembered a story my mother used to tell me. It was about my grandfather, Ganzo, and his adventures with Woonan. You see, he was his first mate...and I figured if I could find Woonan, I could find Ganzo...my grandpa. So I set out to find him. When I tell him who I am, I'm sure they won't turn me away. They'll let me join their crew, and then...well, then I won't be alone anymore." By the time he finished, he was on the verge of tears.

"But kid it's been fifty years, how do you even know if they're still...alive?" Usopp asked, hesitating only for a moment.

"They're alive! I know they are!" He cried, as his head shot up and his eyes fixed Usopp with a glare. "They...they've just gotta be!" He was fighting back sobs as he made this exclamation, though not very well, the thought of them being dead clearly quite upsetting to him.

The crew was silent at that, said silence lasting for several long moments, before one of them finally broke it. "What's your name kid?"

Said kid looked to the straw hat wearing teen then, who had his head down, causing his hat to shadow his eyes, the one who had spoken to him, as he gave his name. "Tob-Tobio, my name is Tobio."

Luffy raised his head, therefor raising his hat, allowing his eyes to be seen, as a wide smile plastered itself onto his face. "Well then Tobio, how would you like to come with us on a little adventure?"

"R-Rea-Really?" Tobio questioned disbelievingly.

Luffy's answer was to just smile wider. Nevertheless, it got the message across. "Th-thank you so much!" He exclaimed happily, as he began trying to wipe away his tears.

"Alright, then it's settled. Onward to claim that treasure!" Nami proclaimed joyfully.

"AH! She has berri signs for eyes!" Usopp cried in shock and distress, pointing a shaking finger at the freaky sight. And he was right, she did indeed have berri signs for eyes.

"Oh and to help Tobio find his grandfather." She added.

"That's a side note!?" Both Usopp and Zoro asked incredulously in unison.

"Tch, I should've guessed. Damn greedy witch." Zoro remarked further.

Sanji would have been angry at the swordsman for saying such a thing, but he hadn't heard him over his own words. "Ah, Nami's beautiful even when she's ignoring other people's plights!"

"Ah! He has heart eyes again!" Usopp exclaimed in surprise.

Quickly turning away, as the sight still perturbed him, he unfortunately found himself faced with Nami's berri sign eyes. "Ah! Berri signs!" Spinning around he was caught by Sanji's heart eyes again. "Ah! Hearts!" He tried to turn again, only to see Nami's unnatural changed eyes once again, Sanji's own waiting behind him. And seeing as he was caught between both, he had no choice but to cover his eyes to prevent himself from seeing either.

He then began walking backwards, so he could get to a safe place where he would see neither, only to trip over one of Zoro's feet. "Ack!" He grunted as he fell over onto his back.

"You should watch where you're going Usopp." The green haired teen warned him.

"Now you tell me!?" He shouted at the swordsman, clearly annoyed. "Why were you even behind me anyway!? You were on the other side of Luffy, you know, two people away from me!"

Zoro just looked at him like he didn't know what he was talking about, which elicited a frustrated yell from long nosed sniper.

Tobio could only sweatdrop as he watched all of this occur. "Uh...you guys...sure are weird."

"Yeah I guess we are, huh?" Luffy responded, clearly not bothered by the boy's words at all, before proceeding to peel out into a fit of laughter.

Tobio simply had no words at this point.

An hour and a half later...

They had changed their course and were now well on their way to the island of Aurum, which was the name of the island given by the map they had in possession. As it turned out, they weren't all that far from it and would reach their destination, at least according to Nami, within another hour or two from now. And with that having been said, the crew went and did their own things.

Nami continued to analyze the map near the bow, making absolutely sure they were heading in the right direction, using her knowledge of the East Blue to recognize the surrounding area depicted in said map, so she would know exactly where it was. She was even cross checking another map, one of the whole East Blue, so as to make one hundred percent sure they would get to the island no problem.

Luffy was sitting on the Merry's head, her figurehead more specifically, his legs crossed as he stared out at the open ocean. He had taken to sitting here when he wasn't doing anything else and over the past week had grown very fond of the spot. Without a word even being spoken, it was dictated by the entire crew as the captain's seat.

Zoro was sitting up in the crow's nest, keeping an eye out for land, and also catching a little extra shut-eye when no one was looking.

Sanji stood guard over Nami's tangerine trees, as he had caught Luffy trying to sneak one. Neither had said anything and they went their separate ways, but the blonde still stayed in case the rubberman tried to come back.

Usopp sat against the mast with Tobio, the two having become well acquainted since the boy had come aboard, and was talking to the kid. Considering how animated he was being at the moment, it was rather safe to assume he was telling the boy one of his stories.

Not long after Usopp finished one of his tales, Tobio brandished a piece of paper, saying as he did so, "I'm not sure if he still looks like this, but I have an old bounty poster my parents had kept hidden away of Woonan. I figured it would help me recognize him, at least a little." He opened the rolled up piece of paper and showed the marksman the bounty then, the picture old and faded, but still clear enough to discern the appearance of the individual it had been taken of.

Usopp took it from Tobio and examined the man in the picture.

He appeared to be in his fourties, had fair skin with a deep tan, shoulder length scraggly brown hair, and a white tattoo on his face of crossbones, starting just above each eyebrow coming down his cheeks and ending an inch or so below his eyes. He also wore a pirate's captain hat, red and black in color with his jolly roger on it, said jolly roger the standard skull and crossbones with a light red outline in an almost flame like pattern. Anything else was below the neck and wasn't able to be made out, since it was just a picture from the neck up.

"Huh, so this is what someone with a sixty million beri bounty looks like." Usopp remarked to himself. He couldn't lie, he did find the man intimidating, but those fishmen had been scarier, Arlong especially.

"Looks like one tough old bastard. And trust me, I would know." Sanji remarked, thinking of Zeff as he did.

"He looks pretty cool." Luffy stated.

"And dangerous." Zoro added.

"Looks like your typical pirate to me, albeit more along the more extreme end of the spectrum, but a typical pirate nevertheless." Nami commented.

Usopp and Tobio looked behind them then, to see the others all looking over the long nosed teen's shoulder to see the bounty. As they did, the young boy beside the curly haired pirate nearly threw himself back in shock and surprise, "Wh-when did you guys get behind us!?" He questioned incredulously. "You were all over the ship just a minute ago!" He added in disbelief.

The four just shrugged at that, as if they didn't actually know how they did it, which of course they did.

Usopp, who had been a little startled to find them there as well, just sighed at their actions. "I should've seen that coming. Luffy can be quiet when he wants to be, Sanji wasn't far from us, neither was Nami and she used to be a thief so...yeah." He said to himself, but was still heard by the others. "But how the heck did you get behind us Zoro?" He questioned then, looking toward the green haired swordsman as he did. And it was a valid question, as he had been in the crow's nest just moments before.

Zoro quirked a brow at his crewmate's question. "Are you insinuating that I can't be quiet?"

The moment he finished his sentence, Nami gave a rather dramatic gasp, getting everyone's attention on her. "You actually know what the word insinuate means? I'm shocked." She stated, a false look of shock plastered on her face.

It was an all too clear jab at his intelligence, and the swordsman didn't take kindly to it. "Are you calling me stupid?" He inquired, a tick mark present across his forehead as he kept himself from reaching out and strangling the cartographer, as Sanji laughed at the somewhat older man.

"What gave it away?" Nami asked, a rather mischievous smirk crossing her face as she did.

Before Zoro really could strangle the orange haired navigator, Luffy cut in. "What does ins-inseminate-I mean insinuate mean?"

This was echoed by Tobio, "Yeah, what does insinuate mean?"

"Luffy, you have the same intelligence as this eight year old." Sanji remarked with a sigh, while Nami tried to hide her blush at Luffy using the word inseminate.

"Hey, I'm nine!" Tobio yelled, apparently offended at being called an eight year old.

"Jerk!" Luffy shouted at the blonde, just offended in general.

Silence overcame the group for a few moments then, before they all proceeded to burst out laughing.

Two hours later...

"Sanji, I'm hungry. Make me something to eat." Luffy whined for the umpteenth time.

"We just had breakfast a few hours ago!" Sanji protested with a yell. "Wait until lunch like everyone else you rubber pinhead." He told him more calmly this time.

"But I'm hungry now." He continued to whine.

The blonde simply sighed, as he did his best to ignore his captain.

Luffy opened his mouth to whine further, but was cut off as Usopp called out, "I see it! I see the island! I see Aurum!"

All attention went to Usopp who was up in the crow's nest, before going out toward the front of the ship, where they too saw the island, coming up on it fast.

Aurum had lush greenery, more than half the island seemingly covered in a beautiful forest, a small beach front at the side they were approaching with almost white colored sand and rocks littered about, probably washed in by the tide every now and then. A large mountain of roughly a hundred feet, maybe more, stood in the distance at the back of the island, at least the back of the island from where they were approaching. Said mountain was surrounded by bare, rocky land that eventually met with the forest. The top of a small castle could also be seen in the distance, away from the mountain but outside the forest. All of this was noted by Usopp with the spyglass he held, using it from the crow's nest to get the very best look at the island he could.

The ship was a whir of excitement as they settled next to the beach, Zoro dropping anchor as Usopp climbed down and told them all that he had seen, while Sanji furled the sails, Luffy and Tobio jumped about anxiously and Nami confirmed that this was indeed Aurum, taking a short look at the map as she did to double check.

"We're here, time to find Woonan and his gol-" Luffy had started to exclaim, only to suddenly stop, which got everyone casting worried glances at him.

"Luffy, what's wrong?" Was the general response at the rubberman's sudden stop.

The straw hat wearing teen was sniffing the air, each intake of air through his nostrils becoming longer and longer until..."I smell Oden!" He proclaimed delightedly. "FOOD!" He exclaimed with a shout, before leaping off the ship and taking off at high speed, following his nose toward the food.

The rest of the crew, Tobio as well, face vaulted at this. "You've gotta be kidding me!" They near screamed in unison.

Quick to get back up, most of them just sighed. "Luffy and his stomach." Nami remarked with a second sigh, this one of annoyance.

That seemed to be all that needed to be said, as the other three crewmembers nodded their heads in agreement, clearly annoyed as well.

Sighing for a third time, Nami shook her head as she turned away, a smile coming back to her face as she did. "Whatever. Sanji go after him, someone needs to make sure he doesn't get lost."

"Your wish is my command dear!" Sanji replied with a sickly sweet voice, before jumping down to the beach and dashing off in the same direction Luffy had went in, his eyes replaced by hearts the entire time.

Turning around, she spoke once more, "Now, let's start looking for that gold!" Tobio and Usopp cried out their agreement, before they all deboarded the Merry.

The orange haired navigator turned to Zoro then, "Alright Zoro, it'll be your job to keep us safe whi-" Or at least she had turned to where Zoro had been.

Usopp and Tobio looked to Nami then, seeing as she stopped speaking mid-sentence, to see her staring at where Zoro had been just a moment ago. "Wh-where's Zoro?" She finally asked, Usopp echoing her question with a squeak.

"That green haired guy right? He went off that way as soon as we got off the boat." Tobio explained, pointing straight ahead as he did.

The two strawhats looked to where he was pointing, but saw Zoro was already gone, probably in the thick of the greenery already. "That idiot!" They exclaimed together, their voices cracking slightly. Both were thinking along the same lines, "He left us all alone, with no one to protect us!"

Luffy ran through that forest near top speed, leaving a very visible trail of dust behind him as he did. He was quite intent on getting that food he had caught a whiff of. He hadn't had Oden in a while either, so it was nice it would work out this way. Speaking of Oden, Luffy took a sharp right as he closed in on the scent. "Food, food, food, food!"

Another minute of this and Luffy was bursting out of the foliage, as he came out to another small beach side, where what appeared to be a small floating food stall sat, or rather floated, in the water. Said food stall had a sign at the top that read in big bold letters, MAXI'S PLACE.

The man who manned the stall appearedto be in his late thirties, stood five nine, had fair skin, an average build, a small brown goatee with an elongated mustache making it stick out and short scruffy brown hair. He wore tan pants, a brown shirt, plain black shoes and a white apron over it all. And needless to say, when he saw the teen come rushing out of the forest, his nostrils flaring and a hungry look in his eyes...well, he blinked several times in surprise, too shocked to really say anything.

The silence between the two lasted for several long moments, before the brown haired man broke it, "Can I help you?" He questioned a little nervously.

"You have food?" Luffy inquired.

"Food?" The man repeated. "Well yeah actually, I do. This is a food stall after all, and I am Maxi, the owner of Maxi's Place so...yeah, I have food." He answered, the nervousness slowly fading as he spoke. "I'm guessing you must be starving, what with the look in your eyes."

Luffy simply nodded at that.

A small smirk crossed Maxi's face at that, no longer nervous at all. "Well then, take a seat and I'll whip something up for you."

Luffy did so happily, coming aboard the floating stall in a flash, drooling as he did.

"Here, have this oden I prepared. It should hold you over until I've got something else ready." He said, as he handed the pirate a bowl of oden.

Luffy took it and began to dig in with zeal.

"Where the heck am I?" Zoro inquired to no no one in particular, as he looked about.

He was smack dab in the middle of the forest at this point, having been walking nonstop until now.

"And where are the others?" He inquired further, turning to look back to see that no one was behind him, for some reason having thought they would follow him.

After a few moments of thinking it over, he shrugged. "Guess I'll just have to find them." He sighed then. "Why are they always getting lost?" He wondered to himself.

Sanji was walking now, having slowed from his dash when it became less obvious where Luffy had gone. "Where did that idiot go?" He wondered aloud, as he came to a stop, suddenly unsure of where to go from here, as the signs of disturbance in the forest from Luffy running through it had ended here where he stood.

He looked about, hoping to catch a glimpse of Luffy's red vest or his straw hat, or any sign of him really, so he could continue to follow him, even the rustling of some trees would help. Unfortunately nothing close to that happened. So with a sigh, he took the cigarette from his mouth and put it out against a tree. Then he took a moment to breath through his nose, slowly and carefully smelling the scents that surrounded him.

While he couldn't tell you what most of them were, as he hadn't the faintest idea, there was one in particular that caught his attention and that he could most certainly put a name to. "Oden. Huh, looks like Luffy's nose is as accurate as always." The blonde remarked, before following in the direction the scent was coming from.

Nami, Usopp and Tobio walked through the forest, having gone left like the map said to rather than straight through like Zoro, or to the right like Luffy did and Sanji followed.

Nami stood at the front, using the map as a guide as she led the other two, while Usopp stood to her right just a pace or so behind her, looking about as he followed, and Tobio was a little to the left, coming in two or three paces behind the money hungry teen. And while none of them said it, their hearts were beating rapidly.

Tobio because he was so close to finding his grandfather and Woonan, who would keep the loneliness he had been forced to feel for so long away for good.

Usopp because he was very anxious over what might be on this island, as there had to be something here to keep the gold out of the hands of any random passerby, otherwise someone would surely have found the stash of wealth by now, simply by luck and or chance. 'I'm not scared though. Anxious yeah, but definitely not scared.' He thought to himself.

Nami because she was close to having her hands on eighty percent of all the gold in the entire East Blue. That thought was absolutely exhilarating to the orange haired girl. And...also because she was a little scared of what might be guarding the gold. 'I'm scared, I can admit it.' She thought to herself.

The three followed the map religiously, until they bumped into something, Nami hitting it first and Usopp and Tobio a moment later, all crashing into each other before falling back onto their asses.

"Ow." They all exclaimed in unison.

"Why'd you stop Nami?" Usopp questioned, rubbing his behind as he got to his feet.

"Yeah, why'd you stop?" Tobio echoed as he stood up.

"That would be because of me." A voice that was distinctly different from any of their's said then.

Nami, who was already staring up at the man, took in his appearance as she got to her feet, just as Usopp and Tobio did when they looked up at him.

He appeared to be in his thirties, stood six foot six inches, had a mildly muscular build, dark skin, long red hair that reached down to the backs of his knees worn a little strangely, it being loose down to his mid back then below that was all braided in a monk-like ponytail, thick black eyebrows, and a bush like patch of black hair on his chin. He also had two bottom teeth nearly three times the size of his other teeth, which were sharp like canine teeth, then he also had sharp golden fingernails, which looked more akin to claws than anything.

As for his clothing, a white swashbuckler shirt worn open, calf length grey pants with black stripes, black slipper-like walking shoes and golden socks. Over that he wears big golden shoulder pads, a gold waistplate with two pads that extended down his legs to his knees, a light green sash tied around that, and finally, a black cape tucked under his shoulder pads but worn over his shirt.

"A-and wh-who are yo-you?" Usopp and Nami queried.

A toothy smile spread across the man's face at that. "El Drago, captain of the El Drago Pirates."

"Oh." Was the two's only response, as they realized how bad their situation was.

"RUN!" Tobio cried, as he and the two pirates turned to do just that, only to be cut off by two other men.

"You three aren't going anywhere, especially not with that map." One of them said.

"Our captain would like to have a few words with you, so don't try to run off again, or else." The other warned.

The man who had spoken first stood five eleven, had an average build, fair skin and short, somewhat well combed brunette hair. As for his clothing, he wore beige slacks, black shoes, a short sleeve white shirt with a beige vest over it and black fingerless gloves. He also had a bo staff in hand, which he rested against his shoulders, said staff seeming to be as long as he was tall.

The man who had spoken second stood six five, had a husky build, dark skin and shoulder length black hair. He wore a white poncho-like shirt with green embellishments and yellow trimming, loose brown pants and black slipper-like sandals. As well as a white headress made up of feathers with red tips. Weapon wise, he carried a very large, rather wide sword that was a little bigger than he was.

"Samson, Golass, escort these three to the ship." El Drago ordered with a dark smile.

As Sanji finally exited the forest, he came upon another small beach front, where he saw just who he was looking for, sitting in what appeared to be a floating food stall. "There you are Luffy." He spoke, getting the rubberman's attention as he did.

"Hrm? Swaji?" He questioned with his mouthful, turning to look behind him as he did.

"Sorry about my friend, he's a bit of a glutton." Sanji said, looking toward Maxi as he did.

"Oh don't worry about it, those are my kind of people." He replied with a smile.

Sanji smirked at that. "A cook who likes a challenge huh? I can relate. But this guy takes it too far sometimes, he really does." The blonde told the man, as he stepped foot on the stall, before proceeding to take a seat next to Luffy. "Name's Sanji by the way."

"Nice to meet you, name's Maxi, as I'm sure you could guess." The man started. "So then, does that mean you're the one who usually cooks for this young man?" He inquired.

Sanji eyed the dishes Maxi had put out for Luffy for a few moments, who had gone back to eating, the owner of the stall still cooking more even as they spoke, before his eyes returned to the brown haired man as he responded. "Yeah, that's me. I'm his cook."

Maxi quirked a brow at that. "His cook? Like a personal chef?" He asked.

"No, he's the cook on my ship." Luffy explained. "We're pirates." He proceeded to clarify, before diving back into the food that was set out.

"Pirates?" Maxi repeated.

"Don't worry, we're not your typical pirates." Sanji said, trying to ease any tension that might have just been created.

Maxi chuckled at that. "I can see that. Besides, pirates don't bother me, my father was one."

Sanji quirked a brow at that, obviously curious, Luffy the same as he stopped eating for a moment, but neither said anything. Luffy went back to eating and Sanji simply pulled out an open pack of cigarettes and his lighter, before lighting up.

"Not gonna ask me who my father was? Most people are curious when I tell them I'm the son of a pirate." He chuckled some more then. "My guess is they're always eager to know if he was someone famous."

"Curious? Sure. But why bother pressing for it? People's pasts are their own business. Right Captain?" Sanji looked to Luffy as he said this.

"Mhmhhmm." He hummed in agreement, his mouth stuffed full of food as he did.

"Maybe if you were a part of our crew it'd be different. Unless you really didn't want us to know, then we'd leave it at that. Regardless, if you want to tell us, that's your choice. We're certainly not gonna be bugging you to find out." Sanji informed him. "I'm honestly surprised he's even been listening, considering he's got something to stuff his face with." The blonde added, gesturing to Luffy as he did.

If Sanji's words offended the rubber teen, he certainly didn't show it, as he just continued to eat.

Maxi chuckled just a little more at that. "I see." A mirthful smirk was spread across his face at this point.

El Drago and his two cronies had just stopped, Nami, Usopp and Tobio doing the same, as they had come upon another shore, where a large boat with a golden dragon figurehead sat. They, Drago, Nami, Usopp and Tobio, made no move to board the ship, as Golass and Samson moved toward it and started shouting for the rest of their crew to get out here.

As they did that, El Drago turned to the three captives. "Now then, give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you for taking what's mine."

"Y-Yours?" They repeated.

"That map." He gestured to the map Nami held in her hands as he said this. "Is mine. I've been hunting it for nearly a year now, and just when I get word some of my men have found it, some no name pirates come and steal it. That makes me angry."

"Us st-steal your ma-map? No, of course n-not! We would never dare to steal from the great El Drago!" Nami said, trying to appease him.

"Ye-yeah, we found it is all. Yeah, that's it, we found it! It was just lying around near an abandoned pirate ship. I bet the pirates realized who they had stolen it from and fled for their lives, leaving the map and their ship behind, as what are those compared to their lives?" Usopp lied through his teeth. "We're just a couple of small-time treasure hunters, nothing more." He continued. "We didn't realize we were stepping on the toes of someone so great. Please, accept our apologies. And here, have the map back." Usopp finished, taking the map and handing it to El Drago as he did.

Nami opened her mouth to protest of course, but the long nosed teen slapped his hand over it, causing her words to come out mumbled and unintelligible.

El Drago looked quite confused at all this at first, before, after several moments of thinking it over, he realized that made sense. "Is that so? Huh, I see. Alright then, you can be on your way then. Sorry for the misunderstanding."

Usopp stopped fighting with Nami, who was still trying to say something about giving the map to the guy, the orange haired teen stopping as well, both of them looking at El Drago in disbelief. 'He bought that?' They wondered.

"So...so we can just leave?" Usopp questioned.

"Yep." He answered simply.

"J-Just like that?" Nami questioned further.

"You guys said it yourselves, you didn't steal the map. Now get out of here, before I change my mind." He warned them.

Tobio, who had been silent up til this point, debated whether to speak up. 'Do we really need the map to find Woonan?' He wondered.

Before the three could decide to run, Golass and Samson were coming back, the entirety of the El Drago pirates following behind them, there being a hundred of them. Among them were the Hyena Three, Danny, Denny and Donny, who had the back of their heads bandaged up, the light attacks they received from the other three members of the strawhats having caused semi-permanent damage apparently.

"It's you guys!" All three cried. As they did, the three knew they were screwed.

Danny, Denny and Donny rushed over to El Drago, stopping beside him, as they all pointed at Nami, Usopp and Tobio accusingly. "That's them Captain! They're the ones who stole your map!" The trio shouted in unison.

El Drago quickly spun to face them then, having turned away after getting the map back, growling as he did. "What!? So you really were the ones to steal my map!?" The three gulped in fear at that. "And you tricked me on top of that!? Oh I'm going to kill you!" He informed them angrily.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Usopp shouted repeatedly, shaking his hands about in a negatory fashion as he did, obviously not wanting to be killed. "What if we could make up for it?" He asked hopefully.

El Drago paused at that. "Make up for it? How?" He queried.

"What if I told you that I know the location of a treasure even greater than Woonan's? A treasure consisting of mountains and mountains of rubies, diamonds, sapphires and other precious gems that total value exceed even Woonan's stash of gold? How does that sound?" Usopp asked, ignoring the incredulous look he received from both Nami and Tobio as he did.

At these words, El Drago lowered his head, hiding his eyes from view, beginning to tremble as he did.

"Ah, trembling with excitement are we? I can't blame you." Usopp continued, planning to lay it on as thick as he needed to. "No man could resist the allure of such riches. And if you let us go, it's all yours!"

"Excitement? No. I'm trembling with rage!" El Drago cried, his head shooting up to show nearly bloodshot eyes, his abundance of anger all too clear.

Nami, Usopp and Tobio all jumped at that, frightened by the sudden cry and the anger. "B-But why? Is it that you don't believe me? I sw-swear I'm telling the truth! I really know the location of such a treasure! And I'll tell you, I'll even draw you a map!" Usopp insisted, clinging to his lie so that he, Nami and Tobio could keep their lives.

"I don't care! I'm here for gold! Not stupid gems! Why does everyone always say crap like that? I don't care about any of it! I JUST WANT MY GOLD!" He screamed in rage.

The trio of Nami, Usopp and Tobio were blasted to the ground by this, the trees behind them shaking in duress, the bark of said trees continuously cracking under the extent of this scream. And it would have surely continued, if Golass and Samson didn't restrain their captain and get him under control.

"Stop it Captain, you're using your devil fruit powers unconsciously again!" Samson shouted.

"If you don't stop you'll destroy the map along with this forest!" Golass yelled.

That seemed to do it, as he stopped and began to calm down, though his anger was still clear. "Kill them! Kill them and throw their bodies into the ocean! Then we begin our search for the gold!" He ordered.

"YES CAPTAIN!" All one hundred and two, counting Golass and Samson, of his crew replied in unison.

"WAIT! Just wait!" Nami cried, as she pulled herself to her feet, Usopp struggling to get to his own while helping Tobio as well. Though he struggled out of fear rather than pain. "We know where the gold is! We can show you to it!" She proclaimed.

That caused the El Drago Pirates to pause, the captain included. "If you try to do it yourselves, it could take you days, maybe even weeks! But if you let us show you the way, then you could have it in just hours!" She insisted.

Silence reigned for several long moments then...

"Fine. Show us the way. But if I don't like what we find, or I find out your lying to me, I will kill you." El Drago told them, slowly and decisively in a dangerous tone.

"You got it, whatever you say." Nami assured him, looking back at her two companions as she did, her anxiety clear in her eyes. It was reflected it Usopp's and Tobio's eyes as well.

If they weren't scared before, they certainly were now.

As Nami was handed the map, and she, Usopp and Tobio began to lead the way, all three thought to themselves, 'Luffy, Zoro, Sanji, help us.'

"Huh? Wha-what the hell? How did I end up back here!?" Zoro questioned incredulously, having just come back onto the small beach front that the Merry was anchored at.

"I was walking in a completely straight line, so how...just how am I here again!?" The swordsman wondered aloud disbelievingly.

He struggled to find an answer to this question for several long moments, before sighing exasperatedly, remarking to himself afterwards, "Guess Nami's lack of direction is starting to rub off on me. I swear, that girl could get lost anywhere." All the times the cartographer had gotten lost as a child came to the green haired teen's mind as he said this, not realizing in the slightest that he had been the one always getting lost.

Turning back around, he entered the forest once more, intent on not getting lost this time.

Nami, in spite of the situation she was in, leading a dangerous crew of pirates numbering over a hundred, all of whom hadn't a single problem with slitting her throat, through a forest toward treasure, felt her fear fade, as a sense of anger and annoyance suddenly came over her. And oddly enough, it was directed at a certain swordsman. 'I suddenly have this overwhelming urge to kick the crap out of Zoro.' She thought to herself.

She mulled over this for a few moments, before shrugging, the feelings fading. 'Eh, it's nothing new.'

That faded fear slowly began to return, as she, Usopp, Tobio and the El Drago Pirates entered a decent sized clearing that was covered in soft grass and surrounded on all sides by trees, said clearing void of anything but the grass and a large stone whale, which was located dead center of the area. The reason the fear was returning? The map didn't show where one was supposed to go after they got here, and even the grunts of the El Drago Pirates could see that this wasn't where the gold was, as you couldn't bury that much gold in the ground, not on most level ground anyway.

Which meant that, if El Drago's scowling face was anything to go by, they had only a few moments before he exploded in anger. This was all too clear to Nami, and it was just as clear to Usopp as well. That's why the long nosed sniper came to the orange haired teen's side and began to speak with her, doing so in hushed whispers, as her eyes continuously drifted over the parchment the map was drawn on. "Nami, why'd we stop?"

"Because this stupid map doesn't show where to go next!"

"But if we don't start moving soon, that guy will kill us!"

"You think I don't know that!? I'm trying here! I can read the map just fine, the problem is that the treasure's location isn't marked! Meaning all I can do is lead them around! I have no more of a clue to where the treasure is than they do at this point!"

"Well we've got to do something!"

"I know okay!? Just give me a minute here!"

"We may not have a minute! That guy looks ready to kill!"

"Then make yourself useful and stall him!"

"Stall him!? How am I supposed to do that!?"

"Just what are you two whispering about?" Golass asked them in a dangerous tone.

Usopp squeaked in fear, taking a large step away from his crewmate and toward the pirates as he did, putting Tobio behind him as he did, the boy having looked frightened as their anger clearly grew. Even still, he was quite able to speak up, as he did his best to try and distract them from the fact that they weren't going anywhere. "W-we were just discussing you guys is all! You know, the usual, how tough you all are and just how fearsome you can be. No one can stand up to you guys, cause you're just so strong! You in particular El Drago! An-and we were wondering, just why, since you're so strong and all, you would waste time looking for gold, when you could sail for the Grand Line and show the world just how great you are!"

All that sucking up seemed to put El Drago in a good mood, as he was sporting a large, cocky and toothy grin at this point. "Well, since you wanna know so bad, I guess I could tell you."

"Please do!" Usopp said with faux excitement, nodding his head as he did, just hoping against hope he could keep him busy long enough.

"You see, the truth is..." The red haired man paused then, perhaps for dramatic effect, before his eyes lit up and his grin widened to an almost delirious looking smile. "I love gooooooold!" He exclaimed with joy, now positively beaming. "The look of it, the taste of it, the smell of it, the texture! I love it all!" He began rubbing his face against his right hand then, his golden claws gently sliding across his skin with every stroke, somehow failing to nick his skin as they did. "Oh gold, I love you. Gold, gold, gold, gold, gold, gold, gold. Oh how I love gold."

'The taste of it? You mean he's actually put gold in his mouth before, and actually enjoyed it? Man this guy is creepy.' Usopp thought to himself, as he forced himself to smile and nod along, feeling rather uncomfortable as the man began to rub against his own golden nails.

Tobio looked fairly disgusted, but wisely kept his mouth shut. Not that he understood the underlying tones of what the pirate captain was saying.

'What a weirdo.' Nami remarked in her head. She loved gold as much as the next girl, hell a lot more actually, but well, she certainly wasn't going to cream herself over it. Her love of gold, or more accurately money, did not translate to having sexual desire toward it. However, judging by the small bulge forming in El Drago's trousers, it certainly did for him.

She had to stifle her body's urge to shudder, as this man was grossing her out to the extreme. He was revolting in almost every single sense of the word. 'The sooner we can ditch him and his cronies, the better.'

No sooner did this thought pass through her mind, than did she notice that the bottom right corner of the map seemed to be splitting in two, as if two pieces of parchment had been glued together and were slowly coming apart. This of course caught her interest, so she slowly and carefully peeled it apart, making sure not to tear it even in the slightest. As she did, words written in black ink revealed themselves.

Once she was sure the entire passage was present, she stopped pulling at the parchment and began to read. "If the whale faces west, then the tail faces..." She read quietly to herself. 'The rest is smudged, nothing more than a big blot of black ink. Even still, this is the hint I needed.'

The navigator then looked toward the stone whale, running her eyes over it as her mind absorbed every detail. 'The head does face west, so the tail would face east, or so logic dictates.' Her eyes focused in on the end of the whale's tail then, noting that instead of it facing directly opposite to it's face, it was curled to the right a bit, positioned toward the north. 'Logic isn't always right. After all, there are people who defy it all the time, like Luffy.' Her lips curved ever so slightly upward, forming a tiny smile on her face as she thought of him. And suddenly, she wasn't so worried anymore, as an idea came to her. The reason? Luffy was to the east, having run off to the right when they dropped anchor.

El Drago finally seemed to snap out of the gold induced trance he was in then. "Anyway, to answer your question, I first want to acquire all the gold in the East Blue before moving on. Then I will gather all of the gold in the South Blue, then the West Blue, then the North Blue, and then finally the Grand Line. It is my greatest ambition, my dream to possess all of the gold in the entire world! And I won't stop until I achieve this ambition, this life dream!" He proclaimed with passion.

Usopp opened his mouth to comment, planning to stroke the man's ego some more in spite of really not wanting to, but before he could, Nami spoke up, "Alright guys, let's keep moving. We're almost there. The treasure is directly east of here."

Everything went back to the business at hand at that, as El Drago's toothy grin returned. "Right. Lead the way then."

And so she did, Usopp and Tobio quickly catching up with her as she began moving, not wanting to be any closer to all the pirates than they had to. Up at the front of the crowd with her, the marksman immediately noticed her smile. "Why are you smiling?" He asked bluntly, his confusion clear.

"We're heading east. Luffy is somewhere east of here. So is Sanji. Zoro could be as well, but let's be honest here, with his sense of direction he's probably wandered off into the ocean. Anyway, the farther east we go, the greater our chances are of running into them." She explained.

Usopp couldn't fight the chuckle that surfaced, his lips quirking upward in a grin, as the majority of his fear began to fade. If they ran into Luffy, Zoro or Sanji, these guys were history. There was no question about that.

Tobio, having been a few paces to the right of them, was unable to hear them whispering to one and other. But, worried and fearful, he refused to stay out of the loop any more. Closing the distance between him and them, he entered into their hushed conversation, "Hey guys, what's going on? What is all the whispering about? Have you got a plan?"

"Do we ever." They both responded in unison, turning towards the boy as they did, both giving him the thumbs up with mischief gleaming in their eyes as they grinned like mad.

"So this nephew of yours, what's he like?" Sanji questioned, Maxi having just finished telling an anecdote concerning said nephew.

"He's a cute little bugger. Always going on about how he's going to find my father and join his crew. He's always been obsessed with pirates. It's like it just runs in the blood or something." Maxi was smiling like an idiot at this point. "We're really close-er-well, we were. I haven't seen him in nearly three years."

"Why so long?" Sanji inquired.

"Well you see...my family isn't very well off. We're poor as poor can be without actually being homeless. So in order to make some money, I set out with this baby." He explained, rubbing the counter of his floating food stall as he did. "Don't get me wrong, my brother worked his ass off to support his family. It was just that it wasn't enough. His job didn't pay all that well and his wife couldn't get a job since she had to take care of their son. And as for me, well, I tried to be a food vendor back in our village, but it just didn't take. No one had much money, so rather than eat out, they would buy the cheapest ingredients they could and cook their barely a serving size meals." He stopped suddenly then, frowning now.

"Anyway, I've been sending money to them every month since I set out. It's never much, but it's more than I was able to make back in the village, so it's worth it. Since it's not enough to sustain them for long though, I can't afford to go back, at least not yet. So I work myself ragged in hopes that one day I can go back and enjoy being with my family without the fear of us all starving." Maxi's frown had faded, but his smile didn't come back either.

"I see." Was Sanji's only response for a while, Luffy beginning on the last bowl of food beside him before he spoke again. "Maxi?"

"Yeah?"

"This nephew of yours, what's his name?"

"His name?" Maxi repeated, a little surprised. "You mean I didn't tell you? Must have slipped my mind. His name is Tobio."

"Tobio?" Luffy repeated, putting down an empty bowl as he did, finally finished eating. "What about Tobio? Is he here?" The rubberman questioned, taking a quick look around as he did.

"You know Tobio?" Maxi queried.

"Sure I do. He came to the island with us."

"He what!?"

Suddenly a loud crash echoed across the island.

Zoro, hopelessly lost but having no clue to that being the case, was once more smack dab in the middle of the island. However, as he moved to go farther than he had gotten last time, for some reason he pulled a one eighty and was about to walk back toward the part of the coast the crew had dropped anchor. Before he could make any significant progress in that direction though, thankfully, the sound of a loud crash caught his attention.

Changing direction, he headed for where the noise had come from.

Nami, Usopp and Tobio were crouched low with their hands covering their ears protectively, as El Drago went to town on the castle with his devil fruit ability, which they had learned he got from the Shout Shout Fruit. As for why he was unleashing attack after attack on the castle, well, the one with orange hair of the three had said that the treasure was hidden all about in the castle after she was asked where all the gold was. She had waved him off, wished him luck and prepared to make a break for it, Usopp and Tobio coming with her of course. However, El Drago had Golass and Samson keeping them from fleeing, in case they were lying. In which case they would pay with their lives.

They were lying of course, Nami having informed the other two of all the details, so that meant they only had minutes, perhaps only moments, before the man would turn to them and kill them with the same power he was currently using to demolish the white castle before them. This left them silently begging for Luffy, Zoro and Sanji to hurry up and arrive already.

No more than a minute later, the castle lie in ruins, having been completely demolished. There was, of course, no gold to be found in the rubble. Though some of their men sifting through a portion of it did buy them almost another whole minute. Nevertheless, it was abundantly clear there was no gold here, and as the El Drago Pirates realized this, they turned to the three, their rage plain on their faces.

"You lied to me again! You won't get away with it, not this time! You will die!" El Drago yelled, his men roaring in agreement.

Before they could charge however, three figures burst from the foliage around them, said figures were quickly recognized as Luffy, Zoro and Sanji, to Nami's, Usopp's and Tobio's relief.

"What was the loud crashing sound?" Luffy questioned, taking in the scene before him as he did. "Oh, guess it was that castle." He remarked as he took note of the remains of the building.

"So this is where all the racket was coming from." Zoro stated, looking around as he did.

"Nami dearest, are you alright?" Sanji inquired, kneeling before her so they were face to face.

"Yeah, I'm okay." She answered, being helped to her feet by the blonde as she did.

"Hey, aren't you even gonna ask about us?" Usopp asked, as he helped Tobio to his feet.

"You weren't hurt were you?" The swirly browed cook inquired further.

"No, I'm fine." She said, dusting herself off as she did.

"Don't you care if we're hurt or not?" Tobio asked, to receive no answer of course, the blonde continuing to fret over Nami. "You frickin jerk!" Usopp and Tobio proceeded to shout in unison.

"Who are these guys?" Samson wondered aloud.

"The rest of the crew according to the Hyena Three." Golass answered.

"They only have five members? That's pathetic." Samson remarked.

"Indeed." Golass agreed.

"The rest of the crew? Good. I want them all dead." El Drago commented.

"We'll get right on it." Golass and Samson replied in unison.

"You guys are in big trouble! Our captain's here now! And he's gonna kick your asses for messing with us!" Usopp cried, hiding behind everyone else, minus Tobio of course, as he did.

"What are we, chopped liver?" Zoro and Sanji questioned together grumpily.

"Oh, right. Zoro and Sanji will kick your assess too!" Usopp added at the last minute.

The two just rolled their eyes at that.

"Your captain? Which one is he?" El Drago queried.

"That would be me." Luffy answered, popping his knuckles as he did, having picked up on what kind of situation this was almost immediately.

"This shrimp is your captain?" El Drago asked, before he and the rest of his crew, minus the Hyena Three who were cowering away, burst into rowdy, mocking laughter.

Nami looked offended, however no one but her seemed to mind all that much. Luffy, Zoro and Sanji clearly just didn't care. Usopp was too worried about staying hidden behind one of the others to take offense, and Tobio, well he wasn't a part of the crew. Though he did look a little annoyed at the comment, having grown to like Luffy on their journey to the island.

Once their laughter died down, Golass and Samson began moving toward Luffy.

"Alright, well, you guys were good for a laugh, that's for sure. With that said, it's time to die." Samson stated, a cocky smirk present on his face as he did.

"We'll make quick work of you, then we'll continue our search for the gold." Golass remarked.

Before they could reach Luffy, Zoro and Sanji intercepted them. This allowed Luffy to move toward El Drago unimpeded. Luckily for the gold loving pirate, a smile was stretched across his face. He had no intention of going all out, every single member of his crew could tell that by now. That meant the red haired man just might live.

"So you're my opponent then? That's fine with me." Samson remarked after jumping back, beginning to twirl his bo staff as he did, having been cut off by Sanji before he could reach Luffy.

"Good, because you don't have a choice in the matter." Sanji responded.

"Hmph. Whatever you say pal." With that said, he broke into a run, charging straight for his blonde enemy.

Sanji didn't seem to be paying him much attention, as he pulled his open pack of cigarettes out of his jacket, along with his lighter. He had put his last one out before he came running, so it was about time for a new one.

Slipping one of the tobacco sticks out, he placed it in his mouth and lit up, before sliding his cigarettes and lighter back into his suit jacket. As he finished doing this, the other combatant was upon him.

"Just gonna stand there!? Fine with me! Take this!" Samson cried, as he lept at his opponent, his spinning bo staff coming to a stop as he made for a powerful swing toward the blonde's head.

It never made contact, as Sanji side stepped the attack, causing the brunette to hit the ground and stumble forward, trying to regain his balance before he fell on his face. The cook graciously allowed him the time.

Once he had regained his balance, Samson whirled to face the smoking pirate, his staff gripped tightly as he lashed out with it. As he did, he tried to ram the end of it into the taller man's gut, but missed his mark completely, having been side stepped once more.

Before he could retract his staff however, so as to go for another attack, Sanji had brought his right leg up and then down again, ramming the heel of his shoe down into the center of the wooden staff. It met with just about no resistance, as the wooden construct proceeded to snap in half.

When Samson pulled his arms back to find his weapon of choice broken, no longer a staff in any sense of the word, he could only gape at the two halves. "Wha-what? Ho-how?" He questioned simply, disbelieving of what had just happened. 'This staff has held up against Golass's sword with no problem! How could it be broken so easily!?'

"Hate to break it to you buddy, but you need a new weapon." Sanji told him snarkily.

"Grr! Why you sunuva bitch! I'll-"

"Collier!" With a quick turn, Sanji had his shin ramming into Samson's throat, nearly crushing his trachea from the force as he slammed down onto his back on to the ground from the impact of the kick to the neck.

"CKK!" Was what the last of his sentence came out as.

The brunette clutched at his throat in extreme pain, barely remaining conscious as he lie on the ground. He tried to speak once more, but it was garbled and completely unintelligible. Needless to say, he'd need a doctor. Oh and that he was out of the fight of course.

"Well, that was disappointing." Sanji remarked, after exhaling a mouthful of smoke.

Sanji vs Samson

Winner: Sanji

Golass sneered at Zoro, as they crossed blades. "Three swords huh? You must be Roronoa Zoro, the Pirate Hunter. So why have you only drawn one?"

Said one sword was the Wado Ichimonji of course. "Because to beat you I only need one." The green haired man remarked with a confident grin, not bothering to explain he wasn't nor had he ever been a pirate hunter, everyone had just called him that.

"What was that!?" The large man questioned with a growl. "How dare you make light of me!" He shouted in rage, pulling his blade back and thrusting it out at his enemy as he did.

Zoro blocked the sword-jab, stopping it as he did, using the flat of the blade to do so. This effectively killed the momentum of the attack, which left the larger man at a disadvantage. Just as he realized this though, the strawhat swordsman forced him to stumble back, having pushed against the large blade with his own, nearly knocking the big man down completely.

Golass managed to stay on his feet, stumbling as he fought to regain his balance, his opponent eyeing him but making no move to attack further as he did. This only angered the dark skinned man further, as his fellow combatant made it so plainly clear that he was going easy on him by not following through with the advantage he had just gained.

"You dare to go easy on me!? I will make you regret it!" He exclaimed, as he righted his position and prepared to attack once more. "Now..." He began, jumping several feet back as he did, before beginning a dead ahead charge towards his foe. "...you die!" He cried, leaping into the air as he did, lifting his blade overhead before bringing it down with all his might, his descent increasing the power behind the swing.

The green haired swordsman made no move to dodge however, as he took hold of the Wado with both hands, before surging forward at the last moment, at the same exact time Golass landed on the ground, his feet burying themselves several inches into the ground as he did.

Before the large snarling man even realized his blade failed to make contact with it's intended target, the thing fell apart, dismantling into two pieces as it fell to the ground. As much as this shocked him, and hurt his pride of course, what hurt more was the large gash across his sternum, which slowly secreted blood. "Wh-what? Bu-but how!? How could you possibly..!?" He wondered aloud in disbelief, not even finishing his sentence because he was so baffled.

Still, with the last of the strength he had, which was quickly fading, he turned to face his fellow swordsman, who was looking at him as well, sheathing his blade as he did. "You cut through my blade so easily...but...how? I had it specially made, it...it should have been a-as tough as top grade steel. I admit it wasn't quite as tough as the real thing, but it was so close it didn't really matter. So...how? How cou-could you possibly cut through something...that is akin to steel?"

"Steel?" Zoro repeated the word with a quirked brow. "I can cut steel no problem." He informed, lowering his brow as a confident grin crossed his face. "So your imitation of steel didn't stand a chance."

"You...can't...be serious. That shouldn't...even be possible." Were Golass's last words, before he collapsed onto the ground, barely managing to remain conscious as he did.

Zoro scoffed at that. "Amateur."

Zoro vs Golass

Winner: Zoro

El Drago wore a rather arrogant smile, as Luffy came to a stop a few inches before him. "And just what do you think you're going to do?" He questioned the smaller man.

"Kick your ass." Luffy answered bluntly.

"Pfft. Hahahahahahahahaha!" The larger man couldn't help but burst into laughter at that.

"What's so funny about me kicking your ass?" The rubberman queried with a quirked brow.

"The fact that you actually think you can!" The long haired man replied, before continuing on his almost uncontrollable laughing fit.

The strawhat captain's brow returned to it's original position, as a frown took the place of his smile. "Well aren't you a jerk." He remarked.

After a few more moments, El Drago managed to calm down enough to speak again. "Look kid, there's no way I'm letting you get away now, so you're screwed there. But you should know just how in over your head you really are. I've got a ten million berri bounty on my head, I got it for all the damage I've caused with my strength. There's no way a shrimp like you could possibly pose a threat to me." He explained smugly.

"Like I care what your bounty is." Luffy responded with a roll of his eyes. "Besides I've got a bounty too. And if we're going by who's is bigger, then I beat you, by a lot." He informed the dark skinned pirate, his frown fading as a smile once again took it's place.

"You have a bounty? And it's bigger than mine? Yeah right, like I believe that." The gold loving pirate commented.

"Well I don't care if you believe me or not, so nuh!" Luffy shot back, sticking his tongue out at the man as he did.

This action didn't seem to particularly bother El Drago, nevertheless, he dropped into a fighting stance, a ridiculously sloppy one, as he prepared to kill his fellow combatant. "Enough, let's just get this over with. I want my gold." With no further warning, he lunged forward at his rubber enemy, slashing at him with his sharp golden claws as he did.

Luffy sidestepped his opponent, not bothering to do anymore than that as the attack missed him completely. El Drago didn't let that discourage him though, as he swiftly turned to face the straw hat wearing teen, slashing at him with his claws a second time as he did.

This second attack was avoided as easily as the first one was, the sixteen year old stepping out of the way with more composure and finesse than anyone gave him credit for. But again, the golden clawed man didn't let it bother him, as he spun to face his foe and lashed out at him again, trying to claw him with his sharp custom nails.

He failed to hit his mark of course, as the swipe of claws was evaded for the third time all too easily. This time however, when he quickly adjusted his position to attack once more, he didn't stop with a single swipe, beginning to unleash a flurry of claw swipes, aiming to carve his opponent up with the tactic. Unfortunately for him, it didn't work much better than single swift swipes, as Luffy moved side to side to avoid each attack, backstepping and sidestepping when needed, as he proceeded to dodge every move made to do him harm.

El Drago quickly grew very frustrated by this, as his swipes became larger, faster and less controlled. He just wanted to nail the little bastard and cut him up, then he could get on with finding the gold, which was, of course, his top priority.

After nearly a minute of this little cat and mouse, Luffy caught his arms mid-swing, keeping them from coming down at him as he spoke. "Oh yeah, I just realized. You said something about gold right? Does that mean you know where Woonan and his gold are? Cause if you do, then would you mind telling me where? We're trying to help a friend find Woonan and we also want to get our hands on that gold. And Nami wouldn't let me hear the end of it if you knew and I didn't have you tell me before I beat you up." He needlessly explained to his foe.

"You want the gold? My gold? MY GOLD!" El Drago screeched, screaming at the top of his lungs. "YOU CAN'T HAVE IT! THAT GOLD IS MINE! ALL GOLD IS FOR ME! MINE, MINE, MINE! THE GOLD IS ALL MINE!" As he continued to shout so loud, the noise began to focus into power, as his voice slowly became destructive.

It took a few moments for Luffy to notice, as the man was yelling in his face, but the longer he did, the more it felt like he was being pushed back by some kind of force. He had ahold of Drago by his arms though, so he wasn't taken back more than an inch or so. Not only that, but the force slowly became more and more focused, until it began to actually do some harm.

At first it was just a weird sensation across his skin, from his head down to his shoulders, but as each second ticked by, the area of effect grew larger, until the weird sensation covered his whole body. What was this weird sensation? Luffy was unsure. However, as he heard the sound of something ripping, he glanced upward at his hat, to see the rim had been torn a little. "Huh?" His confusion showed, as what could have damaged his hat? It was small and barely noticeable, and he hadn't seen what had caused the damage.

The tear grew by the tiniest bit, but it was still noticed. Then there was the sound of bark cracking and breaking from behind him. "What the?" Looking back, he saw the bark of the trees behind him cracking and breaking off, the leaves rustling and beginning to slowly shred.

What did all these things being damaged have in common? They were all in the path of El Drago's voice. In other words, that weird sensation Luffy was feeling, was his skin trying to be sliced and peeled off.

As Luffy realized this, he let go of Drago's arms and jumped away, pressing his hat to his head protectively as he did. "You have devil fruit powers." It wasn't a question.

"I do." The dark skinned man confirmed regardless, having stopped with the wailing the moment his enemy lept away. "I ate the Shout Shout Fruit, which gives me the ability to turn my voice into destructive force. And what you just experienced was just a sample of it's true power. That was when I wasn't even trying to use it. Ready to to see what it can really do?" He inquired with barely masked anticipation brought on by the desire to kill because of his abundance of anger.

"So you're a shoutman? Huh. I actually ate a devil fruit too. I ate the Gum Gum Fruit, so now I'm a rubberman." He informed, as he grabbed his cheek and stretched it out to prove his claim, before letting it snap back into place.

"Good for you. Now die!" El Drago proceeded to rear back then, before throwing his upper body forward, his neck extended and his head out, as he unleashed a wail of destructive force.

Luffy dodged, leaping out of the way, as the force collided with the close to a dozen trees behind him and shattered them into pieces, sending bark and bits of shredded leaves flying everywhere. "Whoa, that's dangerous." He remarked upon seeing the damage it caused.

"Dangerous? No, it's lethal. Now, just die!" He cried, before throwing his head back and then throwing it forward, as he let out a shout of power.

The rubber pirate once more evaded, leaping out of the way and allowing the destructive force to collide with trees and send little debris flying all over the place. This time though, shortly after the force had been unleashed, Drago reared back and shot another one, which was, of course, dodged.

He didn't stop there, as he went on to unleash shout after shout after shout of force at the bouncy rubber teen, all of which would be eluded. It was beyond frustrating and completely infuriating to the gold obsessed pirate, as only two ever even came close to hitting him, since he had to make sure no one else got caught up in the attack. 'Wait...I have an idea.' Drago thought to himself, as he realized this.

"Fine, if you don't want to stand still, then I have other targets!" With that called out, the red haired man turned to Nami, Usopp and Tobio. Rearing back, he prepared to fire another blast of destructive force, only this time..."I'll show you my strongest attack!" As he prepared to fire the force of destruction, his mouth agape as he took aim, a blue light came into existence inside his mouth. This blue light grew brighter and brighter until it was almost blinding, his destructive force taking an almost laser beam-like looking form. "Shout Shout Beam!"

With that he fired on them. And with Zoro and Sanji surrounded by the other pirates, fighting the entire crew, it might take them a little too long to come to the others aid. Then again, maybe it wouldn't. Nevertheless, Luffy didn't even bother to think about it. "Zoro, catch!" With that call he sent his hat flying like a frisbee towards his swordsman, before dashing to where the attack would impact.

Acting so quickly, Luffy didn't even get to think about how cool the attack was, before he was standing in front of Nami, Usopp and Tobio, arms crossed in a x to block, as the beam collided with him and he was assaulted with pure destructive force.

"LUFFY!" Nami, Usopp and Tobio cried in concern from behind him.

El Drago began to laugh almost hysterically, as the force destroyed his enemy's body. Or so he thought...

When the beam faded, Luffy stood there, arms still crossed and looking barely any worse for ware. He was now sporting a dozen or so minor lacerations, the cuts carved into his skin bleeding a little more than was normal, and he had a bunch of scuff marks spread across his arms and face, but was otherwise perfectly fine. In fact, his clothes came out looking far worse than he did, his vest nearly torn in half and his shorts littered with tears, his sandals though, those were strangely okay.

"WHAT!?" Drago squawked in disbelief.

"You know what, I take it back. That's not so dangerous after all." He remarked, uncrossing his arms as he did. "It was actually...kind of pathetic." He added, sounding a little disappointed as he did, also looking a little confused as well.

The gold fetish having pirate was unable to respond, his mouth agape for a completely different reason than attacking.

"Oh! I get it now!" Luffy said suddenly, bumping the bottom of his fist against his palm, the look in his eyes clearly showing that he had finally figured out something that he had been wondering about. "You're actually a weakling! That's why your attacks suck so much." He concluded, his disappointment and confusion from before having seemingly vanished.

That comment got Drago to pick his jaw up off the floor, his rage overwriting his shock and disbelief. "What the fuck did you just say about me!? DID YOU JUST DARE TO CALL ME WEAK!? WHY YOU PUNY LITTLE-URK!" He hacked up a mouthful of blood then, said red substance splattering against the grass.

"Wha-what? Ho-how!?" He questioned, looking down to see Luffy had closed the distance between them and had buried his fist into the larger man's gut. "I am El Drago, captain of the El Drago pirates...how cou-could I be beaten b-by some runt?" Words failed him then, as he doubled over onto the ground.

Luffy, having pulled his fist back at this point, stood up straight. "Huh, I knew he wasn't all that strong, but I didn't know he was that weak. Eh, whatever."

Luffy vs El Drago

Winner: Luffy

Luffy thanked Zoro as he handed his hat back, the two walking over to Nami, Usopp and Tobio, Sanji on his way over as well. They were no longer being attacked, for as soon as El Drago fell, the rest of the crew came to a stop, staring at the barely conscious pirate with complete and utter disbelief. The fact that ninety percent of them had gone down against the cook and the swordsman in less than sixty seconds also contributed to this.

Murmurs ran through the crowd of almost a hundred men then...

"Captain was beaten with a single punch, how is that even possible!?"

"They took out our three strongest members without even trying!"

"If we try to fight those guys, we'll die!"

"We're so screwed!"

A short ways away, hiding behind a barely intact tree were the Hyena Three.

"Those three...how the hell did they do that? I knew they were strong, but this is just ridiculous!" Danny remarked.

"I don't know, but I think we should run before they see us. I don't wanna die." Denny admonished.

"Those guys are monsters! Absolute monsters!" Donny added fearfully.

"Uh, you guys know we're literally right here right?" Nami said, getting there attention.

As they moved their eyes to the strawhats, they realized they were hiding behind the same tree they were standing in front of and proceeded to squeal in fright, nearly pissing themselves as they jumped back in fear.

"Was I really kidnapped by these losers?" Tobio wondered aloud to himself, feeling quite embarrassed about being captured by such pathetic wimps.

Usopp however, used this chance to assert himself. "Yes, cower before the Great Captain Usopp! Beg for your lives weaklings! Otherwise I shall unleash my three pupils on you!" He told the fearful three in a cheap and clearly fake tough guy voice, gesturing to Luffy, Zoro and Sanji as he did, all of whom were just staring at the Hyena Three like they were possibly the dumbest people in the world. "You call them monsters, good choice of words. For you see you silly fools, you may be the Hyena Three, but my pupils are...The Monster Trio! Mwahahahahahahahaha!"

BONK

"That's enough of that." Nami told Usopp, who was now on the ground, cradling his head, which now harbored a large lump on it thanks to having a fist rammed into it, tears streaming down his face comically as he tried to continue with his semi-evil laughter.

Before anything else could be said, rustling was heard before someone appeared out of the foliage, almost doubled over as they panted hard. It was Maxi, who after taking in several lungfuls of air, stood up and proceeded to call out, "Tobio, are you here Tobio?"

Tobio's eyes widened, as he turned to the sound of the voice, to see Maxi roughly twenty feet from him. "Ma-Maxi...? Uncle Maxi? Is that you?" He questioned, tears building in his eyes as he did.

Maxi turned to face Tobio, tears building in his eyes as well. "Tobio, my little Tobio!"

"Uncle Maxi!"

They both ran toward the other, tears running down their faces. They met and embraced, the man sweeping the boy up into his arms, hugging him close, as if he hadn't seen him in years. Which, in fact, he hadn't.

As Sanji explained to the other three who Maxi was, Luffy smiled at the scene. He knew how much it hurt to be all alone...you would rather endure any pain out there, so long as you didn't have to deal with the loneliness anymore. So to find someone to take that unbearable pain away, it filled you with such joy that it's indescribable.

This touching scene was interrupted however, as the brown haired man, after having made sure Tobio was okay, bonked him over the top of the head. "Ow! Why'd you do that!?" The nine year old demanded.

"Because! You stupid idiot, what do you think you're doing coming all the way out here by yourself!? You could have gotten yourself killed! And what about your parents, how do you think they feel right now!? They must be terrified! You're trying to find Woonan and Ganzo again aren't you!? You-" He was cut off before he could continue any further, by Tobio.

"They don't feel anything." The dark haired boy said, lowering his head, his voice quivering as he spoke.

"What?" Maxi questioned, not sure what his nephew meant by that.

"They don't feel anything, because they can't feel anything. Ca-cause...they-they're dead." He informed his uncle, his tears coming even faster now.

"What?" Maxi repeated, his eyes wide as dread consumed him.

"They died from some kind of sickness. No one knew what it was, no one could help them. Even if they could, we didn't have the money for a doctor anyway." Tobio explained, his voice cracking as he did.

"Tobio...I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I would have come back if I had. I swear I would have, I'd never leave you all by yourself." This remark caused the boy to start sobbing hard, burying his face into his uncle's chest as he did.

"How long have they been gone?" He inquired suddenly, as he realized someone was still getting the money he was sending back to the village.

Before the child even answered, the brown haired man had a sinking feeling in his gut. But when he did tell him the answer, well..."A...a year. They've been gone for a year now." He had spoken these words through sobs.

"A year..." He repeated, his stomach feeling like it was in knots. "No one took you in...I know they wouldn't, but...but what about the money? I've been sending money back every month, you have been getting it right?" He asked his nephew hesitantly.

Tobio shook his head at that, which just made the nonexistent knots in Maxi's stomach tighter. "I haven't gotten anything from you in nine months. The villagers, they...they said you had died at sea. I...I thought I was all alone!" The dark haired boy wailed, his tears showing no sign of stopping. "I'm so glad you're still alive uncle Maxi!"

It was a fairly safe guess that the villagers, who were stricken with poverty themselves, most likely kept the money for themselves instead of giving it to Tobio like they were supposed to. And they fed him the lie about Maxi being dead so he wouldn't question the fact that he no longer received money or letters from him.

Which was why Luffy and Usopp were frowning, while Nami, Zoro and Sanji scowled at hearing this. Maxi on the other hand, well, it wasn't a guess for him, he knew how the villagers were, he knew without a doubt that was what they had done. And that filled him with rage. 'How could they do that to a child!?' He wondered angrily in his head.

"It's okay, it's okay." Maxi told Tobio, comforting him, hiding his newly found contempt for the villagers as he did by not explaining what happened to Tobio. Though, it was a safe bet he knew, now at least. 'After all, he's a smart kid.' Maxi thought to himself.

All eyes then shifted to El Drago, who was dragging himself across the ground toward the wreckage of the castle, muttering aloud to himself all the while. "Gold...gold...it's all mine, the gold is mine, I won't let anyone else have it!" He declared to no one in particular, as he reached the rubble, still not able to summon the strength needed to stand.

Either he forgot that the gold wasn't in the castle, the ruins of the castle at this point, or he thought they had fought to keep him from getting at it, as he seemed to believe said gold was within his reach. "Gold...gold, Woonan's gold, it is mine! All the gold in the world, it shall all be mine!" He shouted, beginning to wobble to his feet finally as he did.

Just as he reached his full height however, "Wrong, Woonan's gold belongs to me."

El Drago looked up at the man who stood half a foot taller than him, who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, with a faint look of recognition.

"Whoa, where did that guy come from?" Usopp questioned.

"He climbed out of the rubble a few moments ago." Zoro answered him.

"I didn't see him among that Drago guy's crew. Wonder who he is? More importantly, how did he get here?" Sanji wondered aloud.

"Who knows and who cares. What matters is the fact that he's after the treasure too! Seriously, how many people managed to find their way to this island at the same exact time as us?" Nami queried rhetorically, obviously annoyed by this new development.

"Guys...is it just me, or does he look familiar?" Luffy asked his crew.

They all glanced at him once more, taking in his appearance as they did.

The man appeared to be in his fourties, stood seven feet tall with a mildly muscular build, had fair skin with a deep tan, shoulder length scraggly light brown hair, and a white tattoo on his face of crossbones, starting just above each eyebrow coming down his cheeks and ending an inch or so below his eyes. He also had the same tattoo across his chest, the ink taking up to the entirety of it. As for clothing, he wore a large black pirate captain's coat worn open with no shirt underneath, raggedy black pants, a red sash, medium length black boots and a pirate captain hat, red and black in color with Woonan's jolly roger on it. He also brandished a cutlass and a flintlock pistol, the sword in his right hand and the gun in his left.

"Th-that's Woonan!" Usopp stated with disbelief.

"What? No way! He really is alive Tobio!" Luffy told the child excitedly, looking toward him as he did.

Tobio was speechless at seeing the great Woonan, eyes wide as he stared at the man. Maxi on the other hand, he looked baffled. "Ho-how is he still alive?"

"Something isn't right here." Zoro said to himself, doing so just loud enough for the others to hear.

"Yeah, no duh! I mean look at him! He looks exactly like he did in the wanted poster!" Nami added.

"And considering how long ago that picture was taken, the guy should be almost a hundred by now." Sanji explained needlessly, just reiterating Nami's point.

"Huh." Was Luffy's only response for a few moments. "Maybe he just aged really well?" He offered.

"Yeah, no. Stop being stupid." Sanji chided him.

No further conversation was had, as they, along with everyone else present, returned their attention to Woonan and El Drago.

"I don't know who you think you are, but the gold is mine! All the gold in the world belongs to me!" El Drago shouted in the taller man's face as he looked up at him, snarling like an animal. He had vaguely recognized him, but before he could make the connection as to who it was, he registered his words and his anger regained it's reigns.

"..." Woonan said absolutely nothing. He just stared down El Drago for several moments, until...

"AHCK!" Drago tried to cry out in pain, but it came out garbled as blood flowed from his mouth and a sharp pain ran through his abdomen. Looking down, he saw the source of his pain, he had been run through with the sword the man wielded, the blade having slid through his flesh like a hot knife through butter, near half the weapon sticking out his back at this point, covered in his blood.

His eyes wide in shock and disbelief, he looked back up at the man to see the flintlock pistol in his face, the barrel placed against his forehead, right between his eyes. He opened his mouth once more, hoping to shoot a blast of destructive force at the man, to knock him away, but nothing more than blood escaped his maw.

Then Woonan fired, the bullet proceeding to rip through the man's flesh, bone and brain tissue, before popping out the back of his head, covered in blood as it fell useless to the ground in the bit of blood that had splattered onto it. El Drago followed soon after, falling back onto the ground with a thud, his eyes wide in fear and his mouth agape in a failed last effort to save his life. Needless to say, as blood pooled around his head, El Drago was dead.

Dead silence. No one so much as let a syllable escape from their lips, too taken off guard by what had just occurred. As for how long this silence could have lasted, no one would know for sure, as it was Woonan who broke it. "The map, whoever has it, give it to me. Now." It was a command, and the repercussions of not following it, well they lie at his feet, in the form of a dead body.

Still, no one, with the exception of Luffy, Zoro and Sanji, so much as twitched, too shell shocked to function, at least for the time being.

Luffy adjusted his hat and prepared to defend Nami, who was clutching the map tightly behind her back.

Zoro flicked one of his blades out of it's sheathe with his thumb, his hand already on the grip, ready to pull it out at a moment's notice.

Sanji stepped to his right, to block the path to Nami with his body.

That was all that took place, before Woonan spoke up again. "The map, give it to me, right now." He said with a growl, his eyes scanning all the people present, searching for it himself as he awaited it to be handed over.

Nami seemed to snap out of it, as she brought the map out from behind her back, her tight grip loosening ever so slightly, as she debated over whether or not to hand it over. Before she could make her decision however...

"This is your last chance, tell me who has the map, now!" He ordered with a bark.

At that the remaining El Drago Pirates, minus the Hyena Three, who were paralyzed by fear behind a tree, pointed to the orange haired navigator in unison, indicating that she was the one who had it. Nevertheless, they made it know verbally as well, just in case. And as they did, Zoro and Sanji regretted not knocking them out.

That was all Woonan needed, as he swiftly turned toward Nami and the rest of the strawhats. Only now, his eyes were narrowed, his anger clear. "Give me my map, now!" He shouted, as he dashed toward them.

He was fast, but Zoro was faster, as he met the man head on, two swords already drawn. They clashed blades, Zoro blocking the way to Nami and Woonan trying to get past.

Woonan pushed forward with all his might, trying to force his way through the swordsman's guard with his cutlass, but the opposing man held strong, keeping the younger than he should be man at bay. Though it wasn't easy for Zoro, as the Wado was still sheathed and it was already clear that this guy was more than a competent swordsman. His physical strength was nothing to scoff at either, the green haired man able to tell by how forceful he was being pushed against with that cutlass. 'Still, I can take him, no problem.' He thought to himself.

The two both pulled back at the same time, before crossing blades again as they began their clash.

This clash lasted barely a minute, but made up for it's short runtime with great momentum and speedy slashes, the sound of metal impacting on metal ringing out with a clang every time one of them blocked a powerful swing. During the course of this little bout, neither man gained the advantage, seemingly deadlocked as each attack was blocked or parried. This equal back and forth wouldn't last though...

Pushing back with all his strength, Zoro was able to force Woonan back a few feet, before he pivoted toward him. The long haired man was ready though, as his pistol was raised and he fired. The bullet's trajectory was the multiple sword wielding combatant's head, but it was sent askew by said combatant, using one of his blades to block it at the last moment, the metal projectile ricocheting into a nearby tree.

The older fighter didn't let that stop him, as he slashed at his foe, aiming for his neck as he did. Zoro saw this coming, as he used his left sword to intercept the slash, before shooting his right one forward and burying it to the hilt in the man's abdomen. Coughing up blood with a katana blade coming out of his back, the impaled man almost doubled over, which gave the green haired teen even more of an advantage. He made the most of it, doing so by pushing Woonan's sword wielding arm away, and then using his left katana to pierce the shoulder of that same arm, running it all the way through.

A strangled growl emerged from Woonan's lips, blood flowing from his mouth and two wounds, as he took aim with his pistol once more. Anticipating the bullet, Zoro pulled back, quickly removing his blades from his opponent's flesh and ducking, just as the man fired, causing the projectile to come barreling out but miss it's intended target and collide with a tree instead.

Zoro delivered a swift slash to each of the man's legs, before returning to his full height to block the incoming swing of his enemy's cutlass, the man wincing as the blades collided because of his wounded shoulder. Capitalizing on that, the dual wielding swordsman pushed his foe back once more, before stepping forward and knocking his blade from his grasp with a strong swing, the older man's grip faltering when metal met metal. He then used his other katana to slice his fellow combatant from one side of his chest to the other, leaving a shallow laceration across it, blood seeping out and beginning to cover his crossbones tattoo.

Acting quickly, Zoro moved to end their little skirmish. With a slight turn and one well placed stroke of each of his blades, he cut Woonan's pistol in half and left a oozing gash on his forearm. He then pulled back, flipping his right sword so he wielded the butt of it rather than the blade, and shot his right arm forward and embedded his fist into the other man's gut, knocking the wind out of him and nearly causing him to double over once again. He then used the butt of his left sword to knock Woonan to the ground, ramming it down into the back of his head to do so, the blow rendering him unconscious before he even hit the ground.

That ended their little tussle, so Zoro turned back to the others and began making his way back to them, giving a single shake to both his swords as he did, causing most of the blood covering them to fly off and onto the ground, before he sheathed them.

Meanwhile, Tobio was dealing with a whirlwind of emotions. Horror, sadness, anger, fear, shock, just too many for him to deal with. Plus he wasn't sure what emotions were related to what events. And as Maxi realized that his nephew was an emotional wreck at this point, he crouched down so he would be eye level with him, having put him down a minute or so ago, and began soothing him. He also tried to keep him from looking at the corpse of El Drago.

"Z-Zoro, yo-you didn't kill him, di-did you?" Usopp questioned a little shakily.

Zoro quirked a brow at that. "Does it look like I killed him?" He queried.

"W-well...yeah, a little bit." Usopp answered him a bit hesitantly.

"No, I didn't kill him. I just knocked him out." Zoro assured the, apparently, squeamish marksman. "Though he'll die from blood loss if he doesn't get patched up soon." He added, his brow having returned to it's original position.

"Oh." Was Usopp's only response to that.

"That's if someone else doesn't finish him off first." Sanji pointed out, referring to the El Drago Pirates, several of who, Golass and Samson included, were crowded around Woonan's unconscious form.

All eyes went to those individuals then, as one of them bared a knife. Seeing what was coming, Maxi made sure to keep Tobio from seeing it, as the pirate that took out the knife used it to slit Woonan's throat, blood spraying onto his chest as he quickly bled out in his unconscious state.

There hadn't been much time to stop him, then again, it didn't really matter to most of them. Though one might wonder why they killed him, as none of the El Drago Pirates seemed particularly fond of their captain. They needn't bother wondering however, as that question was quickly answered.

"I've killed the bastard that did in our captain. With that, I'll be taking his place as captain of the El Drago pirates." The man said, not looking any tougher than the rest of the grunts despite his gall.

There were murmurs from the crew, but no outright refusal. Golass and Samson seemed like they wanted to object, however they could barely stay on their feet. They knew they wouldn't stand a chance against anyone at this point, too weakened from their battles, if you could call them that, with Zoro and Sanji respectively. So they kept quiet. After all, they could always mutiny at a later date.

The grunt looking to be captain stepped away from Woonan's body and began looking around. Not seeing anyone objecting to his proclamation, all eyes on him at the moment, at least among the El Drago Pirates anyway, a smug smirk etched itself into his face. "Good, then it's decided."

Taking several paces forward, he began barking orders, commanding them to get back to work looking for the gold. When anyone objected, he threatened them. When anyone brought up the fact that they had just gotten their asses kicked and that said persons who had kicked their asses were like ten feet away, he demanded they shut up and let him worry about that. As far as he was concerned, that gold was all that mattered. Just as El Drago would have done.

"Another fool comes to take my treasure? You will meet the same fate as the last one." All eyes went wide at hearing this voice, as everyone whirled to face the person who had spoken those words.

They were all taken back however, as instead of seeing Woonan like they had expected, there stood a skeleton built of thicker than average bones. He was devoid of any flesh once so ever, even his eye sockets vacant, at least of eyeballs. There was a creepy red light emanating from said sockets, said lights half the size of irises, these red lights seeming to be his eyes, as they moved about, making it appear that he was scanning the area, before settling back on the grunt who had declared himself captain.

Some of the most disturbing things about this thing? First, the fact that instead of hands, it had a cutlass and a flintlock pistol mounted to it's wrist bones, the same exact models Woonan had been using. Second, the fact that the bones it was made up of were a dull grey with splotches of black and brown spread about the collective structure, said bones obviously decayed. Finally, there was the fact that he wore the exact same clothing that Woonan had been wearing, down to the last detail. Even the tear in the left shoulder of the jacket, from Zoro stabbing him with a sword, was present. The only difference was that it covered more of this thing's form, since it was only six nine, rather than seven feet.

"W-what the hell is that thing!?" One of the Hyena Three cried out in shock and fear from behind the same tree as before. They weren't the only ones, both Nami and Usopp having screamed in fear at the sight of it as well

No one paid them any mind, as the skeleton spoke once more. "Are you all here for my gold?" He inquired suddenly. Without waiting for an answer, he followed that up. "I see. Then I shall kill you all!" He declared, his jaw not moving at all as he did.

Without warning, he fired his hand-pistol, the bullet hitting it's mark and tearing straight through the grunt-captain's cranium and popping out the back, falling to the grass covered in blood, the body of the man following a moment afterward.

Not a moment passed before the skeleton was on to his next course of action, shoving the six men who had been standing near the grunt-captain, Samson and Golass being two of them, toward Zoro. Doing this with his considerable strength, he took the men off their feet and had them damn near flying at the swordsman.

The green haired teen, who had redrawn the two katana he had just sheathed a minute ago in order to combat this skeleton, had no choice but to meet the six men head on, as he didn't have enough time to dodge. Having no real desire to kill them though, and not having enough time to resheath the swords, he turned them so the six would meet the flat of the blades.

As over twelve hundred pounds collided with the flat of his blades, Zoro didn't so much as budge an inch, nor did he seem to exert any real effort as he kept the men from colliding with him. Before he could push them off his swords though, the skeleton took advantage of the predicament he was in, surging forward, cutlass raised, bringing it down with a wordless cry as he passed by the currently occupied swordsman.

In an instant, the damage done became clear. The six men fell apart, blood and organs splattering all over the ground and soaking it in crimson, as the twelve halves of their bodies hit the ground with light thumps. The blades of the two swords broke in half in a jagged manner. And Zoro was left with a medium depth gash across his chest, from his collar bone down to his naval, blood seeping from it and staining his white shirt red.

The cry of pain he gave at the inflicted wound was drowned out by the shouts of, "ZORO!" From Luffy, Nami and Usopp.

The whole clearing was quickly consumed in noise, as Tobio, who had seen this, began wailing in fear, shock and sadness, Maxi fought to keep his lunch and comfort his nephew, the El Drago Pirates slung curses and muttered words of disbelief and the Hyena Three lost the contents of their stomachs across the ground behind their tree.

Nami was horrified, Luffy was caught between rage and concern, Sanji couldn't hide his shock and Usopp was filled with dread and worry, so much so that they overpowered his feeling of being sick at all the gore before him, as Zoro stumbled back in pain, his grip on his now broken katana faltering, what was left of them falling from his grasp before he proceeded to collapse onto his back on to the ground.

The skeleton was now far too close for comfort, less than three feet from the other strawhats. And his intentions were all too clear, as he leveled his bloodied hand-sword toward Nami. "My map...I will have it back! I will get what's coming to me! That gold shall be mine!"

He pivoted forward to skewer her, but was intercepted by Luffy. "Gum Gum Bazooka!" With a slam of two open palms, the skinless and non-muscle having being was sent flying back, coming to a stop shortly after as it crashed into the ruins of the castle, knocking up a whole bunch of dust in the process.

"Wha-what is that thing!?" Usopp queried with incredulity, said thing already getting back to it's feet, rubble rising and falling back to the ground as he came out from under it.

Just like with the Hyena Three, no on responded to Usopp's question. Only this time it was out of not knowing rather than ignoring.

"A-are you alright Zoro?" Nami asked with concern, as said swordsman rose to his feet, not bothering to retrieve his broken and useless blades as he did.

"Fine." He answered nonchalantly, wincing as his hand grazed the slash mark on his torso. "It wasn't a very deep cut." He added. At the same time thinking to himself, 'Though it could have been.', looking at the cut in half corpses of the six dead men as he thought this.

Luffy's rage had fizzled and shrunk away as Zoro showed he was fine, though a good deal of anger still remained, even as he spoke, "Your swords..."

"Yeah, bastard cut through'em." He said, stating the obvious. "To cut through those guys, two of my katana and slice me up? That guy is the best swordsman I've met since I set out from my village." He continued. "I'd say he's almost as good as me." He remarked further, a cocky grin crossing his face as he did.

Luffy, in spite of his anger, couldn't help but grin back at him. If he was making comments like that, then he really was fine.

"You mean you're actually okay? So that cut's no big deal? Seriously!? H-how!?" Usopp questioned incredulously, as perplexed by the green haired teen as he was by the walking and talking skeleton.

Nami sighed exasperatively then, her fear melting away, mostly. "I should have known better than to be worried about you. You're literally too stupid to die."

"Whoa, really? That stupid?" Sanji inquired with mild curiosity.

"Oh yeah. And believe me, I would know. I've seen it first hand more than enough times when we were kids." Nami replied.

"I knew he was stupid, didn't know he was that stupid." Sanji admitted with a mirthful smirk.

"Hey, shut up would you!?" Zoro growled at the two.

"What is wrong with you guys!?" Maxi suddenly inquired, gaining the strawhats attention. "Eight people are dead, there's a walking and talking skeleton about and he's trying to kill you to boot! How can you be so...so...so casual about it all!?"

"Eh?" They all questioned in unison, looking toward the brown haired man with expressions on their faces that clearly showed they hadn't been listening to what he had been saying.

Despite his whirlwind of negative emotions, Tobio chuckled lightly at the pirates antics, unable to help but find them funny. Maxi noticed this of course, since he had him wrapped tightly in his arms. 'Did he just laugh? At a time like this?'

Maxi looked toward the five strawhats then, letting his gaze linger, before returning it to his nephew, who was staring at the five as well.

"What are you crying about Tobio? Everything'll be just fine, don't you worry." Luffy told the boy suddenly, their eyes having met.

"A pirate shouldn't shed tears so easily." Sanji commented.

"So dry your eyes kid." Zoro added.

"An-and don-don't b-be sca-scared, because pi-pirates have g-got t-to be bra-brave." Usopp remarked shakily, the skeleton now standing and glaring right at them, scaring the marksman greatly.

"Don't sweat it, we got this." Nami assured the boy with a confident smile and a wink.

And just like that, to Maxi's astonishment, Tobio nodded his head and began to wipe away his tears, wiping the snot that had been hanging from his nose off onto one of his sleeves as well. 'How could they have such an impact on him in such a short time?' Maxi wondered to himself, as his nephew calmed down greatly before him.

The El Drago Pirates were flabbergasted by everything that had occurred, words failed them and they were rooted to the ground out of nothing more than disbelief and shell shock. First the effortless defeat of their strongest fighters, then the homicidal skeleton, now the casualness of the other pirates about the whole situation. It was too much for them to comprehend.

"You won't stop me...no one will stop me." The skeleton said, his red light-like dots burrowing into Luffy, then Zoro, then Sanji, then Usopp and then finally into Nami. "I've been after that treasure for nearly sixty years. And I'm so close...so very close. No one will take it from me!" The skeleton cried in anger, his body flickering like a light trick, causing Woonan to appear in his place for a few short moments before fading from existence, leaving the skeleton again. His voice also changed in those short few moments, it coming out as Woonan's before returning to it's original, which was slightly deeper and more gravelly.

"What the?" Was the response from just about everyone as this happened.

"Woonan had everything. Women, power, fame, riches! All of which should have been mine! All mine! I wanted them more than he did, I deserved them more than he did! Did I get them though? NO! Did I get anything at all!? Of course not! Everything went to the captain, to Woonan! I was his first mate, and still I received nothing! But finally, FINALLY, I'm on the cusp of getting what I deserve! THAT SELFISH BASTARD! He hid all the gold he had amassed, and he had the gall, the fucking gall, to refuse me my right to have it! But that's okay, IT'S OKAY! Because I made a map, yes a map, my map, to guide me to the gold. All I had to do was wait for the right time to use it. Only, only it didn't go as planned." He trailed off for a few moments then, muttering incoherently about how it wasn't supposed to happen.

It didn't take him too long to pick back up where he left off though. "He was there, waiting for me. He didn't want me to have what I deserve, he wanted to keep me from what is mine, MINE! But I showed him, I SHOWED HIM! I drove my dagger deep into his chest and let him choke on my special poison! He crawled away, not sure where he went, it never mattered since he'd die no matter what. But that was where I made my big mistake, I should have tortured him, should have forced him to tell me where the gold is! I've yet to find it, AND THAT IS UNACCEPTABLE! I searched for years, never did find it. Then I died. But that was okay, IT WAS A-OKAY! Because I could still look, yes, still look. And I no longer had to eat, or drink or anything, it was almost perfect. Except it wasn't. BECAUSE I DIDN'T HAVE WHAT WAS MINE!" He broke into nonsensical muttering again then.

If he had eyes, they would have been bloodshot all to hell and probably popped out of his head at this point, some of the pirates mused. It seriously sounded like he popped a blood vessel, of which he had none, every sentence or so. Quite frankly, he sounded like a babbling madman. He was crazy, everyone could see that, there would be no argument on the subject.

His muttering filtered off, as he continued. "After looking for so long, I forgot where I was supposed to be looking. How silly of me. So you see, I NEED MY MAP! BECAUSE I MUST HAVE THE GOLD, IT'S MINE, IT'S WHAT I DESERVE!"

The whole time the talking skeleton went on his tirade, his body and voice flickered back and forth between his bone form and Woonan. Halfway through his rant though, a new development occurred. He flickered to Woonan, then to skeleton, then to Woonan, then to skeleton, then he took on a new form, his voice remaining the same as it was in his skeleton form.

This new form was of a fourty something man who had fair skin, stood six foot nine, had a mildly muscular build, short black hair, a simple stubble goatee and a scar on his face, trailing down from his temple to his chin. For some reason he retained Woonan's attire though.

When he entered this form, both Maxi and Tobio audibly gasped.

"Father?"

"Grandfather?"

Before the strawhats could question the two at their reactions, the form of the skeleton began to flicker at a quicker pace, as he exploded in an enraged scream. "I WON'T LET ANYONE KEEP ME FROM WHAT IS MINE ANY LONGER! NO ONE WILL TAKE THIS FROM ME! YOU WILL ALL DIE FOR TRYING TO!"

With that he threw himself into the crowd of El Drago Pirates and began slaughtering them, making his way toward the strawhats as he did, more specifically, Nami.

As bodies began to mount and screams filled the air, the Hyena Three decided that they had had enough and took off, sprinting at top speed back toward where their crew's boat was docked. They weren't going to die for gold, no matter the amount.

At the same time, blood beginning to fly as the undead being carved his way through the men, Nami came to Maxi and Tobio, encouraging the two to get moving. "We've got some gold to find after all." She said with a smile, soothing the kid's nerves, as well as exciting herself at the prospect of it. Usopp also tagged along, following behind, back a few paces and glancing worriedly behind him, fearful of the rampaging skeleton.

Despite wanting to protest, Maxi went along with them, after Nami told him the others would handle the crazy skeleton-man that is.

Luffy, Zoro and Sanji stood at the ready, preparing to take the handless skeleton man on. Even as the El Drago Pirates flew into a blind panic and attempted to flee, the ensuing stampede locking the trio in the middle of the clearing, they didn't so much as waver. They were more than ready for this.

Luffy had a different plan however. "Zoro, Sanji, you guys keep the others safe. I'll take care of this guy."

Zoro gave his captain a questioning glance.

"You sure?" Sanji inquired.

"Yeah, I'm sure. I can take him. Besides, he's after Nami, if he manages to slip past us and no one's there to protect her..." He didn't bother to finish that sentence.

"You're right, my dear Nami is defenseless!" Sanji stated, suddenly appalled at himself for not following after her. "I will protect you with my life my dear!" The blonde called after the cartographer, as he spun around and ran after her, shoving as many of the El Drago Pirates out of the way as necessary, and to him, in this situation, that was all of them that were within reach.

Luffy stifled the urge to frown at Sanji's words, while Zoro rolled his eyes at the cook's antics, before accepting Luffy's hat. "Give that to Nami would ya?" The rubberman said as he let go of the straw hat.

"Of course Captain." He replied with a smirk.

Nothing more was said between the two, nothing needed to be. So the swordsman was off, managing to shove his way out of the stampede of men in only moments.

This left Luffy standing there in the middle of the clearing, the stampede finally thinning out to the point where only a few men remained in the area. Only, instead of facing his opponent like he thought he would, he only saw the eight corpses from before, plus nearly three dozen new ones.

Turning around, he saw the stampede coming back at him, as the flickering appearance skeleton had circled around and cut them off. This allowed him to continue his killing spree. The casualties were increased even further then, as with no where to run, most of the men began trying to fight back, beginning to kill one and other in doing so. And when some did manage to get at the skeleton-man, they were simply rebuffed without effort.

Because of this, and the pirates trampling some of their own, the kill count stood at roughly seventy by the time Luffy intervened, doing so by cutting the skeleton off as he tried to follow after the rubber teen's friends, moving to do so after realizing they weren't among the crowd of pirates he had been slaughtering. In doing this, he also stopped several more El Drago Pirates from being killed.

As Luffy confronted this skeleton, the pirates would have ran for it, but they were all either unconscious or too wounded to do so, the entirety of what was left of the crew lying on the ground, scattered about the clearing.

"Look you're really awesome and all, being a talking skeleton and stuff, but I'm not going to let you hurt my friends." The rubber teen told the undead being, putting his dukes up as he did, showing he was ready for a fight.

"You think I care about your friends!? I don't! All I care about is what's coming to me! My gold, MY GOLD! NO ONE WILL TAKE MY GOLD FROM ME!" He shouted at the top of his non-existent lungs, as he pivoted toward his enemy with a slash of his cutlass.

The dark haired pirate sidestepped the swipe of the blade, it barely missing his head as he did, before coming face to face with the barrel of the skeleton's flintlock pistol. As he did, there was not so much as a word spoken, the skeletal man firing on him. Only the result wasn't what he had been expecting, as the bullet came shooting out of the barrel but when it met the strawhats captain's head, instead of the flesh ripping and tearing, it gave, allowing the bullet to push it back a few inches before coming to a stop and then being pushed back, said metal projectile quickly flung back at the one who had shot it.

Skeleton-man didn't even look surprised at this, then again he didn't have any flesh so he probably couldn't, just bringing his cutlass back around for another slash at his much younger foe. Said younger foe caught the attack, stopping it's momentum by grabbing ahold of his opponent's wrist, killing said momentum. Instead of using that as his chance to attack however, like most would, he spoke again, "Before we really get this started, I just gotta ask you something. Cause if I don't get an answer it's going to drive me crazy."

First pausing for dramatic effect, Luffy proceeded to inquire, "How do you poop?"

He didn't receive an answer of course, as the undead man just gave a wordless cry of rage, before lifting his right leg and using it to kick his fellow combatant dead in the chest, the strength behind the blow sending the rubberman skidding back about a foot or so, having not been ready for it.

Not wasting his opportunity like his adversary had done, the body flickering being quickly closed the distance between the younger pirate and him, then shoulder charged him with all the strength he had, feinting for a swing of his blade as he did, just for good measure. He also took two pirates from the ground and shoved them at his enemy, just in case.

It worked like a charm as the hatless straw hat pirate was sent to the ground hard, not able to defend himself with having to dodge the feint and shove the men away. He was sent tumbling back across the ground towards the ruins of the castle, as the attack had a great deal of force behind it.

Now the gold obsessed thing could have followed that up, but chose not too, as it spun around and went dashing after the ones who had it's map.

Nami and the others had just arrived at the stone whale, Sanji and Zoro having joined them shortly before they arrived. It honestly surprised a few of them, Nami, Usopp and Tobio, that they had gotten over here so fast. Then again, one tends to run pretty fast when the threat of a homicidal skeleton has reared it's ugly head. 'Not to mention the fact that we didn't take the long way, like I had those idiots do.' She was of course thinking of the El Drago Pirates.

"Alright, we're back here again." Nami said unneededly, bringing the map close and glancing at it once more, double checking the instructions about the whale as she did. "From here we head North. Let's go." She told the others, adjusting Luffy's straw hat atop her head as she did, Zoro having given it to her when they met up.

Most of them followed her without a word, Zoro did grumble something about her being bossy though. She made a mental note of it, but didn't pay it any real attention, not with a whole bunch of gold on the line.

From there they, of course, went North, Nami making sure Zoro didn't get lost along the way as they moved through the forest.

Before too long they emerged from that forest, coming out into a large rocky plain. It made up roughly a fourth of the island, maybe more. And located at the very back of the said rocky plain was the mountain they had seen from the ship, the hundred foot rock formation, and, according to the instructions on the map anyway, it seemed to be where the gold was located.

"Looks like we have some climbing to do." Sanji remarked, as he sized up the mountain.

"Let's get to it first, then we'll deal with how we're going to get up there." Nami said.

"Who knows? Maybe there's a cave at the bottom and we won't have to climb at all." Tobio put forth.

No one looked all that sure of that idea. But before anymore could be said on the subject, frantic screaming caught their attention. "MY MAP! GIVE ME BACK MY MAP! IT'S MINE! MINE!"

Eyes widening, everyone knew who that was. And just as they turned, there he was, bursting out of the foliage, his skeletal form gone, his body now continuously flickering between Woonan and the other human form. "YOU! GIVE ME BACK WHAT'S MINE!" He cried, charging the orange haired navigator as he did, cutlass raised.

Sanji intercepted him before he could get to her though, kicking the blade, knocking it out of the body flickering being's hand and sending it flying twenty feet away. Not letting that stop him, the undead man took aim with his flintlock pistol, but had his trajectory thrown off as the blonde kicked his arm, the bullet coming out and sent soaring into the sky.

"You guys get going, I'll take care of this uncouth jackass." The cook told them.

There was a moment of hesitation, but it faded and they took off. As they did, the swirley browed teen could hear Tobio asking, "You guys don't think that thing k-killed Luffy d-do you?"

"Of course not. It probably just lost him in the forest." Nami reassured the child.

"How can you be so sure?" Maxi questioned, seemingly thinking the teen had died.

"Because I know Luffy." Nami told him, she was smiling as she did, the blonde could hear it in her voice.

"Yeah, he and this witch have a tendency to get lost a lot." Zoro explained.

"That's you asshole!" Nami bit back at him.

Sanji diverted his attention away from them then, spitting out his cigarette and stomping it out as he did. He would smoke after he dealt with this undead ass. Besides, that one was just about done anyway.

The undead being, which the chef was beginning to suspect was Ganzo from how Tobio and Maxi reacted, flickered to his skeleton form then, his cutlass mounted to his wrist once more. Then he flickered back to Woonan and his flickering came to a stop, and as he did, the teen noted that he held his cutlass once more, the one that had been sent flying now absent.

"OUT OF MY WAY!" Ganzo-Woonan screeched, thrusting his cutlass at his new opponent as he did.

Sanji backstepped the thrust, avoiding being pierced by the tip of the blade as he did. He then ducked, as the deceased pirate fired on him, the bullet whizzing past his head, almost taking one of his hairs off as it did.

But now it was his turn to go on the offensive, so he did. Standing up, he launched a strong kick, aiming for his Woonan looking opponent's side. It was blocked of course, the man bringing his arm down to intercept it and kill it's momentum. Pulling his leg back, he went for the same type of kick with his other leg, but had to pull back before it met it's mark as his foe attempted to sever the appendage with his sword.

Then he kicked straight out with the other leg, the one he had tried to kick him with first, the sole of his foot hitting it's mark as it nailed his enemy's sternum, knocking him back and onto the ground from the force of the impact.

Now that would have taken a normal man out of the fight, what with Sanji's superhuman leg strength and all, and would knock the wind out of someone strong enough to take the cook on, but not this guy. He began getting back to his feet immediately, not any worse for the ware once so ever. 'He's already dead, so I guess it only makes sense that he doesn't feel pain.' The blonde thought to himself.

Since that was the case, he decided not to let him have anytime to attack. Closing the distance between them then, he brought his left leg up and hooked his foot around his foe's neck, said foe having just finished getting to his feet. "Reception!" He shouted, as he used his leg to force Ganzo-Woonan face first down into the ground, his head almost bouncing off the hard surface from the severity of the impact as it smashed into it.

The move busted his head open, blood pouring generously down his face because of it. Even still, he began getting back to his feet immediately, hardly, if at all, shaken by the attack. Hell, he hadn't even let go of his weapons. So Sanji just hit him again, raising his right leg into the air, extending it to the fullest as he did, before bringing it down and ramming his his heel into his adversary's right shoulder. "Epaule!"

Ganzo-Woonan was forced several inches into the ground from that attack, making an impression in the orangish brown rock, but once again, he began getting up again, no sign of slowed movement. Though he did seem to finally be in pain, wincing as he got to his feet once more. 'Okay so he can feel pain. Which means he wasn't acting when Zoro ran him through with those katana of his. But he doesn't actually seem to take much damage. He keeps going no matter what's inflicted on him...and then in his skeleton form, he seems to be devoid of pain, him brushing off Luffy's bazooka showed that. Now how do I use that to my advantage?' He wondered to himself, not sure how to stop an opponent who seemed unkillable.

The blonde noticed then, it pulling him from his thoughts as he did, that the undead combatant had taken aim with his flintlock once again. As he prepared to dodge, to avoid being hit with the bullet, he realized it wasn't aimed at him. Glancing behind him, he saw it aimed directly at the back of Nami's head, the young teen roughly thirty yards away.

Now the chances were slim that the bullet's trajectory would allow it to hit it's target, as it was a pistol not a rifle and the distance wasn't something to scoff at even for a marksman, but the fact it could happen, that was enough to get the chef to act.

As the pistol was fired and the bullet barreled out, Sanji lept in the way of it's path, causing it to meet and run through the flesh of his right shoulder, popping out the back of it soon after, smothered in his blood as it fell uselessly to the ground.

The only sign he gave of pain as his body hit the ground was a sharp intake of breath, even still, his foe used it to his advantage, advancing upon him and driving his cutlass down at him. The cook didn't have time to fully evade, as he was caught by the sword mid-roll to get away from it, the blade piercing his left arm, running through and out the other side of his forearm, pinning him to the ground said appendage. "Shit!" He hissed in pain, as blood ran from his new wounds.

Taking aim once more, the undead being prepared to gun his swirley browed enemy down, his sights set on his forehead, looking for a good headshot.

"Oh come on, don't you ever have to reload!?" The well dressed teen queried angrily and incredulously.

He didn't receive an answer of course, the Woonan looking man just pulling the trigger instead of speaking. Despite having hoped the man would bother to answer, to give him a moment or two to get out of his current situation, the blonde was still able to turn the tables.

He did this by moving his head at just the right moment, allowing the metal projectile to hit the ground and bury itself into it, said projectile taking a few of his hairs off as it did, nearly grazing the side of his scalp. Not wasting time, he took the single second that bought him and took hold of the cutlass by it's blade and forced it upwards and out of his flesh, blood dripping from it as it came out, Woonan-Ganzo unable to stop him as he did.

Jumping to his feet, he brought his right leg careening toward the appearance changing man, but was stopped in his tracks as the man caught it, dropping his pistol to do so. Not letting that deter him however, he took his left leg off the ground and threw it onto his opponent's shoulder, digging the heel of his shoe into the guy's flesh as he kept himself from falling back on to the ground.

The voice changing being let go of the well dressed man's leg then, to grab ahold of his other one, locked behind his shoulder. Taking hold of it, he lifted the cutlass in his other hand, which he still held even after it was forced back up away from the blonde, and prepared to sever the limb. Before he could though, his foe used his now free right leg to kick him in the side of the neck. It caused him to hiss in pain but nothing more really. Except that he decided that, instead of severing his enemy's leg, he would impale him, which he proceeded to do, burying his cutlass to the hilt in the cook's stomach, said cook unable to defend himself in his current position.

Sanji coughed up blood as he was stabbed through the gut, blood oozing from his stomach wound and staining his clothes, even more so when his opponent pulled the weapon back out of him. Even with the pain this caused, the teen pirate still continued to maneuver himself, moving his leg and placing his right foot against the right side of the thing's neck by the heel. He then shirked his left leg from his fellow combatant's grasp and brought it to the other side of his neck, digging his heels into both sides of his neck at this point.

Then, as gravity asserted itself and Sanji's upper body fell toward the ground, he jerked both his legs and feet to his left with all his might, forcing his adversary's head to come along, breaking his neck with a sickening crack as he did.

As he heard the sound of it, he removed his feet and allowed his body to hit the ground once more, Ganzo-Woonan's head hanging to the side limply, his body stock still for a moment or so, before proceeding to collapse onto the ground as well.

Now that should have been fatal, and to just about everyone on the planet, except Luffy since he was rubber, it would be. But since this guy couldn't die...well, Sanji knew it wasn't over yet. So he began getting to his feet, so he would be ready for when the man stood up, whether as a skeleton or Woonan or the other form, who he was pretty sure was Ganzo.

Yet still he was taken off guard, as halfway to his feet, he noticed Ganzo-Woonan was gone. "What? Where did he go!?" He wondered aloud, before a sharp pain flared through his back, as he was impaled on a blade once more.

Hacking up blood, he collapsed to the ground, as the sword was slid out of his back and the sound of someone taking off was heard. Rolling over so that he was on his back, he looked toward the others, to see Ganzo-Woonan sprinting toward them, in his skeleton form once more. "Damn it!" Sanji spat a bit more blood out of his mouth then.

Getting to his feet, stopping for a single moment to make sure he wouldn't bleed out trying to follow them, he rushed on toward them, as best he could in that state.

He needn't have bothered however, as halfway to them, his eyes widening as Ganzo lunged at Nami, he was knocked aside as someone sped past him.

"So...anyone figure out what the hell that thing is yet?" Usopp suddenly questioned the others.

There was only silence for a few moments...until Maxi finally spoke up. "I think that thing is my father, Ganzo. Or at least I think it used to be." He had been holding that in for a bit, felt like it needed to be said, so he just came out and said it.

"What!? That thing used to be Woonan's first mate!?" Usopp asked disbelievingly. "Are you sure that guy or thing or whatever is Ganzo!?"

"I think..." Tobio began, his eyes downcast, his sorrow clear. "...I think he's right. I think...I think that thing really is granddad."

"It makes sense, he did mention in that tirade of his that he had been Woonan's first mate." Zoro reminded.

"Which means Woonan is dead and my grandpa is a monster." Tobio stated, clearly disheartened.

"Well we can't know for sure until we find that treasure." Nami commented.

"Nami, not the time!" The marksman of the group scolded, or...well, tried to scold anyway.

She didn't pay him any attention however. "After all, all great pirates leave notes with their treasure. To prove it's theirs and to pass on a message to anyone who comes to claim it, or to ward off anyone who's trying to steal it by telling them in detail what would happen to them, etcatera ectatera. Trust me, I used to steal from pirates, I should know." She continued, catching Tobio's eyes as she did. She was telling a half-truth sure, but so what? If it soothed Tobio, that was all that mattered. Besides, it wasn't a full on lie, she had found that certain pirates tend to leave some kind of message with their treasure...just not so great ones is all.

"That thing, whatever it was, was clearly insane. For now just take everything it said with a grain of salt, as they could have just been the ramblings of a madman. Or mad-skeleton. Or-whatever, you get it." Nami further remarked.

"Nami...thank you." Tobio said, fighting back tears of gratitude as he did.

Usopp retracted his attempted scolding and offered an apology, but Nami brushed it off. It didn't matter at this point.

That became even more true, as the sound of screaming caught their attention. "YOU WON'T TAKE MY GOLD! IT'S MINE! IT'S ALL MINE! IT'S ALL FOR ME! ALL FOR ME!"

Whirling to face Ganzo, they saw he was in his skeleton form, moving ludicrously fast as he did. Perhaps it was because he had no muscle mass? There was no time to ponder such a thing though, as seeing him coming was all they were able to do, as he was too close for comfort and before any of them could react, he lept forward, cutlass at the ready. His target tried to scramble out of the way of course, but they just didn't have enough time. A cry of intense pain ripped itself out of Usopp's throat as he was run through with the skeleton's cutlass-hand, the blade coming out his chest bathed in his blood, having been stabbed from behind while trying to get away.

"USOPP!" Nami, Zoro and Tobio shouted in concern.

"Hrh!" Ganzo grunted as he pivoted forward and tossed the long nosed teen off his sword into Zoro, the swordsman catching the sniper but then being knocked down from a follow up shoulder charge since he was open.

Not wasting even a moment of this opportunity, the bone-made man turned to Nami then, who was in shock, just as Tobio and Maxi were, all of them completely taken off guard by this, and lunged at her, cutlass poised to strike the killing blow.

Normally she would have tried to dodge or run or duck or something, anything at all so as not to die. However, as he came at her like this, images of her nightmare from the previous night flashed unbidden in her mind. This thing...whatever it really was, it looked frighteningly similar to that monster from her nightmare, and that disturbed her to no end. So she found herself unable to do anything but flinch away as her eyes shut tight, bracing herself for death, completely unable to get out of the way in time even if she had tried. Only...nothing ever came.

Opening her eyes back up, she saw a sight that, while admittedly relieved her, she had certainly not been expecting even in the slightest.

Luffy stood just inches in front of her, the only thing between her and death as the skeletal monster continued to try and get at her, it's bloodlust almost palpable. He held it at bay, his right hand gripping it by the top of it's skull, the bottom of his palm and the thing's eyes sockets having less than an inch of distance between them. With the rubberman having to reach upward to do this, without using his ability, it looked just a little ridiculous. Even still, it somehow worked.

The monster wasn't too keen on being held back in such a way, making that clear by swiping at the hatless straw hat teen with his cutlass-hand, aiming to cut him in half, or at least make him let go since he'd have to dodge so it could make it's move. But neither of those things happened, as the raven haired sixteen year old caught the blade mid swing, stopping it's downward momentum. In doing so his palm was sliced open, blood beginning to run from the wound immediately, said red substance trailing down his wrist and arm seconds later, as the cut was deep.

With a single, fluid movement, the strawhat captain proceeded to tear the blade out of the thing's skeletal structure, it's wrist cracking, splintering and collapsing as he did. He tossed it somewhere to the left, before letting his left arm drop back down to his side, not paying any mind to the blood beginning to trickle down his hand and fingers and drip onto the ground as he did.

From there the violent and enraged undead man began to struggle with the young man holding him back, his flintlock fading and a boney hand materializing in it's place, and his damaged wrist repairing itself, knitting itself together and shifting back into it's proper place as a hand emerged from it as well. Using his new hands, which now made him a complete skeleton, he took hold of the dark haired teen by the head as well, one hand taking hold from the left and the other from the right, grasping the entirety of his skull.

He began digging his fingers into his enemy's rubber skin, squeezing with all his might in hopes of damaging his cranium, even looking to smush his head in with the unnatural strength he possessed, killing him instantly. Only that didn't happen, as while he could certainly do such a thing to a normal man, he hadn't a hope in hell of doing it to this one. Not that he understood that or let himself realize it, even as his fingers began to crack with the amount of pressure he was exerting. He did manage to do some damage though, as with his skeletal and almost knife like fingers, he managed to draw blood as they punctured the younger man's flesh.

Even with that being the case, Luffy didn't pay any attention to the blood beginning to be drawn from him or the pain that accompanied it. Besides, said pain quickly came to a halt, as the young pirate used his incredible might to further subdue the skeletal monster, forcing the thing down with the hand he used to grip his skull, doing so until it was on it's knees. And in doing this, he managed to get the thing to stop burrowing it's fingers into him...or his head at least, as the thing's hands fell to his lowered left arm and took hold of it by the wrist and began piercing his flesh at that location, drawing further blood.

Still, the sixteen year old didn't bother to notice, not even so much as a twitch taking place from the sensation of having ten objects stab into him. And as Ganzo-Woonan noticed this, he felt his burning rage increase even further, as he was being treated like he was nothing, at least in his mind. 'No, no, NO! NO! NO! NO!'

"I AM NOT TO BE TAKEN LIGHTLY PUNK! I AM NOT A NOTHING! I AM POWERFUL! I AM GREAT! I AM A THREAT! STOP TREATING ME LIKE SOME KIND OF LITTLE BOTHER! I REFUSE TO GO BACK TO BEING A SMALL TIME PIECE IN A BIGGER GAME, I WILL BE THE IMPORTANT ONE THIS TIME, NO ONE WILL TAKE THAT FROM ME! IMPORTANCE IS MINE, THE GOLD IS MINE! THIS TIME EVERYTHING WILL BE MINE! MINE, MINE, MINE!" The skeleton screeched as loud as he could.

But he didn't receive much of a reaction, as the rubberman's head was lowered to a degree, strands of his raven hair covering his eyes, shadowing them from view. And he didn't move even a little from that position as he was screamed at.

A heavy blow was dealt to the undead being's ego at that, as he wasn't even being paid attention to. 'It's just like when I was alive...just like Woonan, this man is mocking me. He, just like everyone else, treats me with indifference. And it's because I have nothing...power, riches, women, fame...I possess none of it. NO! I DO POSSESS SOMETHING! Now at least. I am powerful, and once I have that gold, which should have been mine in life, I will have riches as well. I just need...need...I NEED MY MAP!'

Letting go of his opposition's arm, he let his hands drop to his sides. They didn't stay there long, as his left had faded from existence, and his flintlock rematerialized. Swiftly taking aim, he leveled it to the teenage pirate captain's chest, ready to fire. Though no one reacted, not even his fellow crew, who now all stood around watching the scene play out. 'Long nose, blondie and green hair are all watching and aren't doing anything to stop me...they've mistaken who my target is.'

At the last second, Ganzo-Woonan switched targets, aiming for the one behind the young pirate, his navigator. As everyone realized what he was doing, warnings were called out and the swordsman and cook prepared to jump in and stop him, but all of it was unnecessary.

"DIE!"

"I'VE HAD ENOUGH!" Luffy bellowed, seizing hold of the pistol with his left hand and proceeding to tear it out of the skeleton's build, it firing off and missing it's mark as he did. He flung it away not a moment afterward.

It was at this point, where Luffy's head was up and his eyes could be seen, his rage visible in every part of his face, that Ganzo-Woonan realized something was wrong, very wrong.

"You hurt my crew, my friends. Tried to kill them." He stated icily, leaving no room for argument, all the while increasing the amount of pressure he was exerting on the grip of the undead being's skull he had.

After that only silence remained for awhile, no one daring to speak. Until...

"No one hurts my family and lives." The tone of voice with which this was said was more menacing than anything the undead man had experienced in life.

The skeleton didn't get to contemplate that for more than a second though, as without warning, Luffy utilized his superhuman strength and visibly tightened his grip to such a point, that the thing's skull proceeded to shatter into nothing but dust.

As a breeze came by and the dust scattered in the wind, the skeletal frame of the monster fell backward, collapsing onto the ground. And as it did, what happened settled in the minds of the ones who had witnessed it, and left almost everyone stunned speechless

Maxi and Tobio were both shell shocked and unable to form words. Usopp and Sanji both couldn't hide their shock at what they had just seen, despite trying. Even Nami was unnerved by what had just occurred. Then again, she was more concerned with Luffy's eyes, which she could just barely see from her position, as he wasn't directly in front of her, and at this close a distance she could make out one of them. They were dark and unforgiving. Two things that were the polar opposite of the boy she loved.

It seemed Zoro was the only one unperturbed by the event.

A few more moments passed in an almost eerie like quiet, before Luffy turned around with an almost blinding smile. "So then, where do we go now guys?" He questioned them happily.

"Huh?" Was everyone's, discounting Zoro's, response.

"This way." The swordsman answered nonchalantly, beginning to walk the wrong way, Luffy moving to follow.

"Wait, wait, wait. What was that all of the sudden?" Usopp was the one to ask what everyone else who hadn't been going along with the two had been thinking.

"You know, where do we go to find the gold. Wasn't that what you guys were doing?" Luffy queried, misunderstanding the question, coming to a stop and turning to the others to do so.

Zoro on the other hand kept moving, until he was stopped by Nami who came over and dragged him back to the rest of them. As he was complaining about it, the orange haired teen clarified what they were inquiring about. "What Usopp meant was, what the hell was that? You almost looked like a different person a minute ago and proceeded to crush some monster's skull with your bare hands and then you turn around and act like nothing happened!?" She was clearly exasperated.

"Huh? But I only used one hand..." Luffy said, tilting his head to the side as he did, looking more than a little confused.

This, of course, caused Nami to sigh heavily and irritably. Whenever he did this he was either genuinely confused or dodging the question. In this instance, he was clearly dodging the question.

Since this was the case, Sanji interceded on Nami's behalf. "Look Luffy, you know what we're asking you, so just answer the damn question."

The teen looked like he wanted to object, but with a pout he gave in. "Fine. I got mad alright? He hurt you guys, you and Usopp especially Sanji. Then he tried to kill Nami. He would have killed all of you without so much as hint of regret or remorse. And all for a bunch of gold. That pissed me off, simple as that." He explained to them. "We weren't even really trying to fight him, we were just trying to keep him from getting at Nami. We were just trying to protect her. And he used that against us. He didn't want to fight, he wanted to kill. He didn't have any honor or pride, he was just scum." He was scowling lightly at this point. "I didn't want him to get the chance to hurt you guys again, so I...did that." He finished, gesturing to where the skeletal frame was as he did.

His scowl faded and a smile took it's place once more then. "But that's over now, let's focus on finding Woonan's gold like before."

Silence reigned once more at that, lasting for a dozen or so moments. Which caused Luffy to give them a few confused looks, as he didn't understand what was wrong. The he took a good look at their expressions, Sanji's, Usopp's, Nami's, Tobio's then Maxi's. It was then that he realized with a sinking feeling, that those expressions were all too familiar. "Are you guys...scared of me now?" He asked hesitantly, his voice becoming noticeably smaller as he did. His smile was, of course, entirely gone at this point.

"What!? No! Of course not!" Nami replied immediately without even a half second of hesitation, seeming rather offended as she did. Though her reaction was understandable, as she knew how Luffy felt about this. If his friends feared him, it would do irreparable damage to his psyche. Or in other words, it would tear him up inside to an unimaginable degree.

"Me? Scared of an idiot like you?" Sanji scoffed at the notion. "Yeah right." Despite his words, there was no spite or venom in his voice.

"I-I'm not scared!" Usopp proclaimed proudly, puffing his chest up as he did, in spite of the pain it caused him with his wound. "Well...actually..." He deflated at that point. "I'm not scared of you. B-but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't sc-scared at a-all. I mean seriously, the kind of stuff you can do with that strength of yours is frightening Luffy! I am so glad we haven't met anyone who's as strong as you." He admitted with a barely hidden whimper.

Luffy couldn't help it as his smile returned, as he could tell they weren't lying to him. They weren't scared of him, that was a relief beyond measure. He had gotten used to the notion that people would be afraid of him, hell at this point he didn't even care. But if his crew was frightened of him...well, he just wouldn't be able to handle it.

Tobio and Maxi though...well, they were beyond scared, downright terrified of the rubberman. But they kept this to themselves as they protested weakly at being accused of being scared of him. It was discernible on their faces though. But that was okay with Luffy, he could handle them being afraid no problem. Besides, the fear faded from Tobio rather quickly, as the boy reminded himself of just who Luffy was, having gotten to know him for a couple of hours on their way to the island.

"Well alright then! Let's go!" He told them, his smile widening as he turned and began walking in the direction Zoro had led him in a minute ago, the swordsman moving to follow.

Nami quickly dragged them back, so that they didn't wander off and get lost. "That's the wrong way!" She informed them.

"Oh, it is? Sorry, didn't know." Was Luffy's simple reply.

"Yes it is." Zoro argued. "The mountain is straight ahead, so obviously going straight will get us there. A two year old could figure that out." The swordsman added. "Don't you even know how to go straight witch? What kind of navigator are you?" He prodded.

The eighteen year old was right...except for the fact that he had been going right, not straight.

"Oh my god, just what would you idiots do without me!?" Nami cried irately.

Suddenly Maxi wasn't so afraid anymore, as watching the man you're scared of be manhandled by a small, petite girl who looked like she couldn't lift more than a hundred pounds, she could but he didn't know that, had a way of causing that fear to evaporate.

"One more question Luffy, what was that about family?" Sanji inquired.

"That's an easy one." The teen said from where he sat on the ground, Nami having dropped him to it after dragging him back to the others. "You guys are my crew. We live together and I love all of you, if that's not family, I don't know what is." He explained with several lighthearted laughs afterward. Even still, he was completely serious, that was unmistakable.

Nami returned Luffy's wholehearted smile at that. She knew he loved her, both in a romantic and non-romantic sense, but it still felt good to hear it, whichever one it was. 'Both is better though. Much better.' She thought to herself.

Zoro grinned at his captain's words, expecting as much. He might have been embarrassed, but he had gotten used to how affectionate Luffy could be when they were kids. He loved hugs and had no qualms once so ever about letting you know how much he loved you. It didn't matter that it was a purely platonic relationship, if Luffy loved you, he loved you. Whether it be as a brother, a sister, a friend, a parent, or in Nami's case a lover, though she was a friend as well. This fact had of course gotten the two brothers teased when they were younger, but Zoro had shut them up. He was sure Usopp and Sanji wouldn't misconstrue what he meant though, like so many others had overhearing those three words being said.

"Oh, well uh...thank you Luffy." Usopp replied, scratching his cheek self consciously as he did, fighting back the bit of red that had surfaced to his cheeks at the same time. 'Did he have to say it like that?' The long nosed teen wondered to himself. He couldn't help but be embarrassed.

Sanji had been momentarily stunned, too surprised to speak for a few moments. When he did manage to come to his senses though, he took half a step forward and straight up kicked his captain in the face, knocking him flat onto the ground. "Moron. You shouldn't say mushy crap like that to other guys." He chastised halfheartedly, a telltale grin on his face in spite of his actions.

The kick didn't hurt of course, the rubberman popping right back up a moment later with his smile still intact. "Whatever you say." He replied mid-laughter, finding his crews reactions amusing. His tone made it clear that he didn't see what the big deal was.

Since that was the case, the blonde chef just rolled his eyes. He wouldn't bother pressing the issue, Luffy wouldn't listen anyway.

"Hate to interrupt such a touching moment and all, but you guys are gonna bleed to death if you don't get those wounds of yours treated soon." Maxi interjected, speaking to Sanji and Usopp as he did.

Said men in question looked to the brown haired guy, then down at themselves, examining their wounds for a moment.

"Huh, almost forgot I had these." The swirly browed teen commented.

The marksman on the other hand, he went pale and began sputtering unintelligibly. He seemed unable to believe that he had forgotten how serious of an injury he had sustained, beginning to freak out as he did about how much blood he was losing. "I don't wanna die like this, bleeding out on some deserted island with skeleton monsters! I need a doctor! A doctor! Ack-!" He exclaimed suddenly. "I feel so woozy." He stumbled about as he said this, clutching at his chest all the while. "And feel my skin, I'm clammy." He told them, holding an arm out as he did. "And I'm so pale too!" He added, having caught a glance at his skin as he did. "I don't think I'll last much longer. Go on without me, my dear friends." He finished dramatically, before collapsing onto the ground, his tongue lolling out of his mouth and his eyes closing.

He lied there for a few moments, awaiting some sort of reaction. He received none however. Opening his eyes back up, he saw that Zoro and Sanji had taken him up on his offer and continued on without him, while Luffy had his head lowered, looking to be in mourning and Nami, well she was giving him a look that clearly said, 'Really?'. Finally, Maxi and Tobio, well, they were just gawking at everyone in disbelief.

"You jerks, your not supposed to actually leave me!" The long nosed teen cried after the two oldest of the crew. He then shifted his attention to Luffy, "And you stop that! I'm not dead yet ya know!"

"Oh really?" The hatless straw hat teen queried. "That's great!" He replied with a smile.

"Don't be so casual about it!" The liar added with a shout.

"Just get your ass up already. The sooner we get to the mountain, the sooner we can dress your wounds." Nami told the hypochondriac of a sniper.

That certainly got him up, that's for sure, the teen springing to his feet like he was the one made of rubber. "Right!"

As he ran off after the other two of the crew, Nami's gaze wandered to Luffy, to see him taking his torn up vest off. "What are you doing?" She, of course, inquired.

He proceeded to rip it in half, tearing the red fabric into two pieces, giving it to her afterward. "Since the only bandages we have are on the ship, I figured you'd need something to to stop the bleeding." He explained simply.

She smirked at that. "Good idea." As she acknowledged that, she took the two parts of what was once his vest. "You do know that there isn't enough material here to wrap up every injury they have though, right?" She asked then.

"Yeah, but it should be enough to stop the worst of it...right?" He questioned, not a hundred percent sure himself.

Nami nodded her head at that, affirming what he had originally assumed. "Yeah, don't worry."

With that her smile widened and she turned and took off after the rest of the crew.

It was then that Luffy realized Maxi and Tobio were staring at him. "What?" He inquired, quirking a brow as he did.

The two relatives in question continued to stare at him in incredulity. And as they did, the rubberman noticed where their eyes were locked, his torso. "What are you staring at?" He questioned a second time, beginning to feel a little uncomfortable at where he was being stared at.

"How-you know what, I'm not even gonna question it anymore. Nothing really surprises me anymore, not after all this. So just forget it." Maxi remarked, before moving to follow the others, Tobio following along, shaking his head as he did, still unbelieving of everything that just continued to occur.

What had they been staring at? Luffy's lack of muscle definition. He was scrawny with noodle like arms and legs and lacked any noticeable muscle at all, no six pack, no pecks, nothing. And yet he possessed monstrous strength, which the two had witnessed first hand. It perplexed them. But it was, admittedly, one of the least strange things they had seen since having met the group of pirates.

And as they walked off, the teen commented on this, as he had suspected that was what they had been staring at him about. "You have no idea how hard it is to get muscles when you're made of rubber." He grumbled grumpily to himself under his breath. This had been a touchy subject for him since Ace left, since he had been rather muscular at the time of his departure. He hadn't been ripped per se, but he had certainly been chiseled. And no matter how hard Luffy had worked, he had never achieved even a sliver of the same definition. Which was part of the reason he had given up training in the first place. Even to this day, the matter aggravated him to no end.

He muttered under his breath in annoyance a little more, then moved to follow after everyone else, toward the mountain. However, he didn't get more than five steps before he realized something was off. Looking back, his eyes sought out the skeletal form of Woonan-Ganzo, only to find it gone.

Eyes narrowing, Luffy whipped his head to the side, to see the monster there standing by him. Ducking, the teen avoided being beheaded by the powerful swing of the hand-cutlass, only to be caught by the throat, the skeleton having fazed his flintlock out in favor of his hand.

Woonan-Ganzo's grip on the teen's throat was as tight as it could be, the undead being lifting him up to where he stood on his feet, before thrusting his blade-hand at him. The raven haired boy stopped the sword from skewering him of course, killing it's momentum by taking a firm hold of it with his hands, which resulted in his palms being cut up, not that he noticed it too much.

"You. Will. Not. Stop. Me. That gold...belongs to me! ME! IT'S MINE!"

The others noticed the lack of Luffy's presence immediately, at least his crew did. Maxi and Tobio did as well, it just took them a few more moments. So the group of six turned back, ready to call out to him, intent on telling him to hurry up, only to see him struggling against the skeleton monster.

"You. Will. Not. Stop. Me. That gold...belongs to me! ME! IT'S MINE!" They heard him scream, his voice, despite being so deep, almost ear piercingly shrill at this point.

He pulled his cutlass-hand out of Luffy's grasp then, and then thrusted at him once more. It was caught again, obviously, but that didn't deter the undead being. Using it's enemy's lack of usable hands to it's advantage, it used it's strength to toss the teenage pirate captain aside, using his neck as a grip as he did. This caused his hands to sustain further lacerations, as the blade of the sword he held onto was suddenly yanked from his grasp as he was thrown. "LUFFY!" All six shouted. Four of them knew such a thing wouldn't hurt him, but they were a little bit away and couldn't quite see all the injuries he had accumulated, if any, since they had spoken with him a minute or so ago.

The skeletal being, who was whole again of course, didn't bother to try and continue with his opponent. He let him stay where he lie, having rolled across the ground after being thrown, and made a mad dash for the rest.

"Go!" Zoro barked at the others. "I'll hold him off!" He added, drawing his last remaining sword as he did, the Wado Ichimonji.

None of them hesitated, for one reason or the other, either trusting Zoro to handle it, knowing Luffy wasn't down for the count yet, feeling like they would just get in the way if they stayed, or wanting to protect someone in the group, so continued to the mountain, which was only a few minutes or so away at this point.

Nami led them, pressing Luffy's straw hat protectively against her head as she did, clutching the two halves of his vest in her other hand all the while. She wasn't scared, Zoro would hold it off until Luffy got over there, then he would take it out. Though there was something that was bugging her...

And Usopp proceeded to voice it. "How is that thing still alive!?" The sniper queried incredulously. Realizing what he had said though, quickly amended his question. "I mean, not alive since it's dead, bu-but...move. How can it still move after having it's skull crushed into nothing but dust!?" He had a point, that was for sure. "Is there any way to stop it!?" He questioned further, obviously not expecting an answer from anyone, but certainly hoping one of them would have one.

His hopes were dashed of course, as no one spoke up.

That was what had the navigator worried. No matter how many times they took it down, the thing got back up again. 'Even if Luffy could beat it a hundred times, what does it matter if it just keeps getting back up?' She wondered to herself.

Unable to help herself, after her group had reached the base of the mountain, she turned back to catch a glance of what was happening and if her childhood friends were okay.

Zoro was now on his way over, Wado once again sheathed, and Luffy was, as expected, locked in battle with the creature, whatever it really was.

"Get climbing! Luffy won't let that thing get away again, so this is our chance!" The swordsman informed her, the orange haired cartographer nodding her head in understanding.

Turning back to the others, she told them to be careful, and they began to climb. Thankfully there was a ledge they could grab onto, which was connected to a winding path that led almost to the peak of the rock made structure. Once they were all up on said path, Nami took the lead once more and Zoro took up the rear, so as to guard them.

At this point, it was more about getting somewhere safe so they could path up Usopp and Sanji than it was about finding the gold.

It was sunset, the ball of gas and fire sunken so low that it could barely be seen on the horizon, as Zoro ran after the others and Luffy confronted Ganzo for the last time.

"Enough hit and run crap, let's end this." Luffy told him straight up.

No response was given, as the skeleton charged the rubberman. He dodged of course, jumping out of the way, only for the undead being to keep going, obviously having no intentions on fighting him. He still wanted nothing more than to kill Nami and the others, take the map and find the gold.

"Not this time!" Luffy informed him, having thrown his arm out to catch him by the shoulder as he did, stretching it several inches in the process. It snapped back quickly, bringing the monster along for the the ride. And as it was reeled back toward him, Luffy let his grip slacken, letting the thing shirk out of his grasp. But it didn't matter at that point, as he was close enough for an attack and attack he did, slamming his right fist into the back of the skeleton and driving him to the ground, where he ground his knuckles into it's bones, cracking them to a great degree.

It felt no pain as this occurred, invulnerable in this form. Nevertheless, it was not happy. "YOU CAN'T STOP ME FROM TAKING WHAT IS MINE! NOBODY CAN!" Woonan-Ganzo exclaimed enraged, using it's one hand to push itself up and off the ground, the force behind the shove launching it several feet into the air and in turn causing the dark haired pirate to stumble back.

Regaining his footing, the pirate looked upwards to the rapidly descending bone construct. It had taken aim with it's blade and was now currently set to skewer him as it came down, but was denied as it's target rolled out of the way. This, of course, caused the undying form of bones to bury it's cutlass-hand to the hilt in the rocky ground. Not that it slowed it down, ripping it out a moment later and lunging toward the younger man, fixed on impaling him.

Once again it was denied however, as Luffy sidestepped it's advance before ramming his elbow into the side of it's skull, cracking it and causing it to rattle. The teen proceeded to follow that up by taking half a step toward his enemy and strike his solar plexus with a strong knee, sending more cracks through his build as a result. Not yet finished, he then put his hands together, brought them up and shot them down, hitting him in the back with a jackhammer and knocking him flat to the ground, fracturing even more of his's/it's bones.

Ganzo-Woonan was quick to recover, rolling away from his foe, slashing at his legs as he did. He only managed to knick his shins, but the point was it allowed him to put some distance between them. Having bought himself a moment, it lept to it's feet, before hurling itself forward one more time, attempting to run the rubber pirate through.

This tactic, if you could call it that, failed as his sword jab was sidestepped. But, not allowing the teen time to counterattack, the bone-made man spun himself, so as to hopefully catch his fellow combatant off guard and give him a good gash across the chest. For the countless time though, the undead being's plan failed, as his attack was backstepped.

He wouldn't allow his adversary to get away unscathed however, so at the last moment lifted his left leg for a kick, managing to catch the hatless straw hat by the side and knock him to the ground. Capitalizing on this, he jumped at him, blade at the ready. The stab of the sword was evaded of course, but the skeleton had anticipated this, having reached out with his only hand as he did and taken hold of the shirtless man by his right arm.

Grip tight as hell, he had no intention of letting go, turning to the young teen with his cutlass poised to strike. His opponent struggled, but nothing would get him to let go. Shooting his blade forward, he attempted to stab into his enemy's flesh, but failed to hit his mark as the devil fruit user stretched himself out and backwards, effectively getting away from the attack.

Yet, Woonan-Ganzo still had him, as his arm was still locked in his grasp. So he aimed to lop the arm off, and as the rubber boy sprung back to try and prevent the blade from meeting his skin, standing as he did, the skeletal individual switched targets and finally found purchase, as he sunk his cutlass deep into the flesh of his foe.

A pained gasp escaped Luffy's mouth, as the metal weapon went straight into his gut and back out again, the hilt smacking into his abdomen as blood dripped from the coated surface of the blade on the other side. The crimson liquid oozed from the wound, but was made even worse as the monster proceeded to tear it straight out of his enemy, exacerbating the injury in the process.

The now injured teen stumbled back, placing both hands over his wound as he began to exert pressure on it, so as to stop or even just slow the bleeding. As he did, he lost his balance and ended up falling to his knees, managing to catch himself there, so as to prevent himself from actually eating dirt, as he wouldn't go down so easily.

Nevertheless, the bone-made man seemed sure that was the end of it, as he attempted to pass by, to go on toward the others. "You can't stop me...nobody can! Not even the mighty Woonan could stop me now! THAT GOLD IS MINE!" The thing screeched shrilly.

As it attempted to dash away, it felt something tug at it and stop it in it's tracks. Looking back, it saw that it's fellow combatant had stretched and reached out and taken hold of it's wrist, leaving the teen with only one hand covering his stab wound. The undead man tried to shirk out of his grasp of course, but found he could do no such thing, as the punk just wouldn't let go.

Removing the hand he was using to slow the bleeding and retracting his stretched out arm back to it's original length, blood ran openly from Luffy's stomach as he got to his feet, said life substance beginning to soak into and stain his blue-jean shorts. Even still, he paid it little mind, as he lifted his hands and clenched them into fists, showing he was still raring to go. "I can stop you." He claimed suddenly. "I will stop you." He added, his eyes hardening as he did.

"No you will not! I won't allow you to! What don't you understand about that!? I WON'T LET ANYONE STOP ME FROM CLAIMING WHAT IS RIGHTFULLY MINE!" It roared at Luffy.

"JUST WATCH ME!" Luffy roared back, pivoting forward toward his opponent as he did, before breaking into a sprint.

"Gum Gum Barrage!" The rubberman cried, throwing his right arm out toward his opponent as he did.

"Pistol!" His stretched out arm came at the skeleton, the hand curled into a fist, the owner going for a straight punch. Seeing as there was only so much power behind the attack, add in the fact that it was an obvious move, and it equals out to the fact that it wasn't hard to intercept it. And intercept it Ganzo-Woonan did, catching the fist with his single hand, locking it tight within his grip, rendering it useless.

Not that it stopped Luffy, who was still charging forward toward the build of bones, undeterred by the fact that his pistol had been caught. Shooting his left arm back, his fist sideways as he did, he stretched it out a good twenty feet, getting ready for his next attack. Just about to reach the skeletal individual, he let his appendage snap back to him, causing it to come careening toward the bag of bones, his fist aimed straight at his chest. "Bullet!" As he and his fist reached the thing, it lashed out with it's cutlass-hand, stabbing into the rubber pirate's left shoulder at the same time the fist slammed into it's chest and shattered several of it's ribs into pieces.

Wincing in pain, the young pirate captain wretched his arm out of his adversary's grasp and proceeded to jump back, causing the blade to leave his shoulder, the blood from his new wound streaming down his left arm as he prepared to launch his next attack. "Whip!" With a single movement combined with the use of his ability, stretching his leg out a few feet, he brought it racing toward his enemy, nailing him in the side with a bone fracturing kick.

The entity had attempted to catch the attack with his hand, but the force behind it had been greater than the pistol thrown before and had slammed into his hand and then slammed it into his side from the momentum. Nevertheless, it was still able to wrap it's fingers around the stretching man's ankle, keeping the young man's leg stretched out and in it's reach.

Using that to it's advantage, it tried to sever the appendage, but was stopped in it's tracks as a sandaled foot rammed into it's face. "Stamp!" The undead being's head snapped back, new fractures along it's skull as it eyed it's opponent, who's other leg had stretched out, so as to allow him to kick the undead man in the face, which he had. The dark haired pirate had also stretched his arms out and taken hold of it by the shoulders, Woonan-Ganzo noted.

Shirking his right leg out of the skeleton's grasp, the sixteen year old went on to wrap both legs around it, securing himself as he threw his head back and stretched out his neck, extending it by several feet as he did, all the while allowing his body to snap back toward his hands and feet. All this made it clear he was going for a headbutt, so the red eyed entity moved to use his cutlass and turn that momentum against the rubberman, to get him to impale himself, preferably his face, on the blade of the sword.

But said rubberman had been ready for that, as the thing's arms were locked down tight by the legs twisted around it's form. "Bell!" He shouted, as his neck returned to it's original length and his cranium rammed into his enemy's at high speed, making a loud thunk sound as new cracks formed and ran through the bone of said enemy's own cranium.

The force of this attack, which was more than usual with the way it had been performed, had the psychotic bone-man reeling. Luffy didn't allow him to fall back however, keeping him upright with the grip he had on his shoulders, as he unwrapped his legs from around the thing and used them to kick of the ground, sending him a dozen or so feet back, while still retaining his hold on the build of bone.

Once his feet were on the ground once more, he used them to kick the rocky surface again, only instead of using the force to propel him backward, he used it to cause his body, minus his arms, to flip back around itself. From there he continued to do this, winding himself up for several long moments. And when he felt that he had done enough, he kicked of the ground one last time, propelling him forward, as he let his body begin flipping back to where it was supposed to be, unwinding, causing him to revolve in a forward motion, all the while he snapped back toward his hands, toward his fellow combatant.

His body closed the distance in a matter of moments, it revolving until it had returned to it's normal state, and as it did, he threw his head forward and rammed it into the skeleton's skull, putting all the momentum he had garnered to good use. "Buzzsaw!" A loud crack echoed throughout the open almost desert-like area, the sound reverberating despite the lack of an actual echo, as the red eyed being's skull nearly split in two, a large crack ripping through it from the nose socket all the way back to where the skull met the spine. And then there was the countless new fractures developed along the rest of the surface from the attack, as well as the ones which had been inflicted previously. All in all, it was a mystery that the thing's skull hadn't fallen apart or shattered into pieces at this point.

The incredible force behind this attack, combined with the fact that the raven haired pirate let go of his foe's shoulders at the last moment, equaled out to the fact that the fleshless lifeform, if you could call it that, was knocked off it's feet. It would have gone flying, if the said lifeform hadn't grabbed ahold of the teen's shoulder at the last second that is. So, it ended up falling to the ground a moment later as gravity asserted itself.

That worked out just fine for said teen though, as he took advantage of the position that put the bag of bones in. Doing so by kicking his right leg up before it reached the ground, slamming his foot into where the thing's ribs once were, the foot hitting it's spine at this point, and shooting it upward at great velocity, stretching it to do so, taking the structure of bones along for the ride. "Volcano!"

He stretched his leg upward a good fourty to fifty feet, before stopping and allowing it to snap back, while the skeletal frame it had taken up with it continued upward another few feet. It would come plummeting down again in a matter of moments, so now was the time to perform a follow up attack. And with his gum gum barrage complete, he was free to do so.

Moving toward the mountain, he broke into a strong run. As he reached the base of it though, he didn't stop. On the contrary, he kept going, sped up in fact, beginning to scale the surface of the hundred foot rock formation as he did. In his dead run, he ascended around thirty five feet, before looking toward his target and kicking off the mountain, leaping off of it and toward his falling foe.

Ganzo quickly took notice of this, beginning to maneuver his lightweight form to meet his the aggressor head on. "I said I won't let you stop me from taking what is mine...AND I MEANT IT!" With that he lunged forward as best he could mid-air, and the two collided head on, their bodies slamming into each other.

The two met head on, their heads thunking against each other as they grappled one and other. Hand of flesh met hand of bone, and the other hand met the wrist-grip of the cutlass, so as to prevent it from being used. Both using all their might, they wrestled one and other mid-air, attempting to gain the advantage as they shifted and struggled in the wind, continuously trying to either throw the other into the mountain or toward the ground, or lock their foe in a hold of some kind.

Neither was able to gain any ground for several moments, that is until they finally began to descend. Once they did, the momentum shifted and Ganzo was able to free his sword-hand from his opponent's grasp, granting him a single second of opportunity. And he seized it.

Thrusting his cutlass tipped limb forward, he plunged it into Luffy's chest, the blade sliding through him like a knife through butter. The rubberman, unable to stop it at this distance, was able to grab hold of the arm that it was attached to, but was not fast enough to fully stop the forward motion. Nevertheless, as a small cry of pain fell from his lips, he refused to let go of the bone arm, tightening his grip to where there was only one way his hand was coming loose.

Yet still, the undead entity began to punch and kick him, to get him to let go, so that only one of them would fall to the ground. It didn't work of course, and as they came ever closer to the time of impact, it was quickly becoming clear that there wasn't a damn thing it could do about it.

That is until the teenage pirate gave an audible grunt of effort, and proceeded to break the skeleton's cutlass melded arm off, the bone snapping and cracking at the shoulder as it was torn off his build. It was a great inconvenience, but it did give him further opportunity. Taking it, he forced the hatless straw hat to let go of his bone hand, then slammed both of his bone-soles into his wounded torso, kicking him down and himself off of him, regaining upward momentum in doing so and sending himself straight up further into the air.

As Luffy was dislodged, now hurtling toward the ground even faster, he took hold of the arm of bones with both hands and went on to yank it away from him, pulling the blade out of his flesh in doing so. Throwing it aside, not caring about all the blood that was flowing across his torso, he focused on his fellow combatant, who was now sixty or so feet in the air. While he himself was less than fifteen, barely moments away from hitting the ground, not that it mattered since he was made of rubber.

Even still, he threw his arms upward, stretching them as far as needed, and latched onto the bone-made man's ankles with his hands, wrapping his fingers around so he couldn't be dislodged this time. Then, just before he could touch the ground, he snapped upward toward his hands, causing his body to go rocketing skyward.

By the time the red eyed individual noticed his adversary had ahold of him, he had only a moment before impact would occur between their bodies. So as to try and avoid it, he threw himself back, but it was proved to be futile, as the rubber boy's grip allowed him to home in on his target, and in the end, his back now pointed toward the ground, he had just made himself a bigger target.

"Gum Gum Rocket!" The collision was head first on the sixteen year old's part, his cranium slamming up into the bag of bones spine, nearly severing it from the force of impact. Speaking of force, the force of the attack knocked Ganzo-Woonan further upward, taking his rubber enemy along in the process, as he still had ahold of his ankles.

The two were now over a hundred feet in the air, roughly twenty feet above the peak of the mountain, as they were suspended over it as gravity failed to assert itself. It was only a matter of time however, though one of them in particular didn't have to wait.

That was the skeleton monster, who was spun and revolved around in a forward motion as the rubberman flipped forward over and over again, his grip still locked down on the bone construct's ankles. All this motion quickly came to an end, as with one last forward flip, the raven haired pirate let go of the undying man's ankles, tossing him downward toward the peak of the towering rock structure.

As his adversary hurtled down toward the summit of the mountain, Luffy prepared to deliver one final blow. Kicking his right leg at an awkward angle, he began to twist it around itself, his rubber body allowing him to wind it around to the point where it looked akin to a corkscrew. From there, he let gravity do it's thing, as he began to come down at the creature he had been combating.

Quick to recover, Ganzo brought his momentum to a halt just before he could make contact with the peak of the mountain, doing so in a way that his body faced upward toward his opposition. Defying gravity for a minute, he retained that position as he wailed at the top of his nonexistent lungs. "I WILL NOT BE DENIED! NOT THIS TIME! I REFUSE TO BE DEFEATED BY ANYONE! THIS IS MY TIME! YOU HEAR ME!? IT'S TIME THAT I FINALLY GET WHAT I AM OWED! WHAT I DESERVE!"

"The only thing you deserve is defeat!" Luffy hollered back, as he forced all his mass downward, increasing his already rapid descent even further, allowing him to slam his twisted up right leg into the epicenter of Ganzo's skeletal form. "GUM GUM DRILL!" As the rubber teen's leg rammed into the skeleton, and rammed it into the peak of the mountain, his leg began to rapidly unwind, drilling his foot into the undead man's form at an ever increasing velocity.

As a result of this, the force began to drive Ganzo down into the mountain, breaking the peak into rubble and onward, the two breaking and crashing through level after level of the rock made construct until there was no footing for them left and they crashed down into a certain level where a room-like space resided, where they once again broke through the floor and proceeded to crash hard to the rock floor of a certain den-like area below it.

The result of this had Luffy lying on the floor away from Ganzo, a bunch of dirt and dust obscuring the entire area and his vision. Nevertheless, the hatless strawhat got to his feet and let his eyes wander the location, until they caught sight of Ganzo...or rather what was left of him.

Stepping towards him, the teen could see that he was nothing but a pile of severely fractured bones, some broken into little pieces. No part of him was held together anymore, his skull was in four parts, his legs were dislocated from his hips, his feet the same for his legs, one arm wasn't even present and the other was in ten pieces. Then there was his spine, which had cracks running all along it, not to mention the fact that it was broken into thirds, and his ribs...well dust was all that was left of the ones that had still been attached to him before that last attack.

All in all, he was honestly nothing more than a mess of decaying bones at this point. This fight was over as far as Luffy was concerned, whether he managed to pull himself back together or not. After all, defeat couldn't be more obvious than this.

Luffy vs Ganzo

Winner: Luffy

"Tight, too tight!" Usopp gasped out, fighting for breath as he did.

"Oh stop being such a baby!" Nami chastised, as she made sure the half of Luffy's vest she had dressed his wound with wouldn't come off if the sniper moved around too much. "There, that should do until we get back to the ship." She told him.

Finally managing to get in a large lungful of air, the marksman gasped as his breathing began to regulate. "Oh man, I thought I was going to die for a moment there."

"Stop being such a hypochondriac and be glad that such a beautiful woman deigned to help you at all." Sanji admonished.

"Shut up! She ties it too tight and you know it! I mean look at you, you look like you're struggling with it too!" Usopp shot.

And he was right, as the blonde, who had the worst wound he had sustained bandaged with the other half of Luffy's vest, seem to struggle for air, though he did so subtly. "That doesn't matter. What does is that such a vision of perfection-"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Now let's find that gold guys!" Nami exclaimed excitedly.

"Ah! She has berri signs for eyes again!" Usopp shouted in distress.

"Right away Nami dear!" Sanji replied, his heart eyes coming out as he did.

"Would you two stop it with the eyes already!?" The long nosed sniper queried incredulously.

"Yeah, like those two will ever stop being annoying." Zoro remarked gruffly, only to have Nami and Sanji get in his face and start shouting at him.

As those three engaged in a shouting match, Maxi and Tobio sweatdropped. "So...are they always like this?" The brown haired man questioned his nephew.

"Well...not always. But most of the time, yeah." The nine year old answered.

"Huh." Was his uncle's only response.

The six had traveled the winding road up the mountain until they reached a cave near the top, which they were in right now. After having arrived, Nami had set to dressing Usopp's wound and Sanji's worst wound. Now that that was done, they intended to find the gold, and hopefully a note explaining what this was all about. First the arguing had to stop though.

"Look, we should-"Maxi began, only to be cut off as Nami growled irritably, then took hold of Zoro and Sanji and hauled them behind her, barking at Usopp to follow as she did.

Not wanting to receive the same treatment, the uncle and nephew quickly followed along as well.

From there the six explored the cave until the found a way further down, to a passageway leading to different caverns. They searched most of these caverns until coming to the final one, only it, just like the others, held nothing of value or interest. Just rocks upon rocks and more rocks. There were also some stalagmites and stalactites, but still, just rock.

"But...but there has to be something, right? Then why can't we find it?" Tobio inquired to no one in particular, as a sinking feeling began to set in his gut.

"Just give me a minute. I'll try and figure this out." Nami told the boy, bringing the map close to examine it once more. She was perplexed as well, 'Just where is the gold? Was there really any to begin with?'

She examined it for several moments before returning her hands to her side, shaking her head as she did. "There aren't any further instructions." She informed them, frowning as she did.

Silence reigned in the cavern among the six for a dozen or so moments, until Usopp opened his mouth to finally break it. Only before he could utter a syllable, the sound of a loud crash was heard, and everyone looked upward, as that was where they had heard it come from. "What was that?" Maxi wondered aloud.

The stalactites began to shake then, looking ready to come down, as the noise continued and grew louder and closer. Eyes widening, they all prepared to leap out of the way, but just before anyone could shout to do so or actually do so, the ceiling caved in on them, something breaking through down into the cavern. Everyone was knocked to the floor, but had no chance to try and get up, as the floor beneath them quickly caved in as well, dragging them down a level further, into a den-like cavern with stone walls and floor.

Anymore than that was obscured form vision from all the dirt and dust that was kicked up because of all the mountain destruction that had taken place. Said dirt and dust also caused several of them to engage in coughing fits, as they got to their feet.

"Is everyone alright?" Zoro questioned between coughs.

Confirmation that they were okay came from the other five, and as the smoke and dust cleared, they found they were pretty close to each other.

"What just happened?' Usopp asked the others.

"No idea." Maxi replied.

"Beats me." Sanji responded.

"I have a pretty good idea." Nami told them, looking to Zoro as she did, who nodded his head in agreement.

"What?" Usopp questioned.

"It was Luffy." Nami and Zoro answered in unison.

"Uh, g-guys...loo-look." Tobio spoke shakily then, getting everyone else's attention as he did.

Shifting their gazes, they saw Luffy, wounded and bloody, crimson streaks down the side of his head on both sides, while it streamed from his torso wounds and trickled from his hands as well as slowly draining from his shoulder. He stood over a pile of bones, as said bones began to shift and sift through each other, slowly trying to reform as they did.

"I-I wo-won't b-be beat-beaten, I-I-I can-can't be. I wai-waited so lon-long for my time to sh-shine, and it sti-still ended up a-all for noth-nothing. Wh-why? Why? WHY!?" Ganzo squealed angrily and sorrowfully. If skeletons could cry, he would be doing so at this point. "

"I-I just wanted some-something of my own. He got every-everything. Fame, power, women, respect, even the gold. It was all his. I wan-want to kno-know why, why coul-couldn't I have anything. I admit...I admit it. I was jealous of him, I was jealous of my captain, of my best friend. I wanted all that he had. No body had to ge-get hurt." As the skeletal entity continued to speak, he finally began to resemble his original form, as his bones pushed together and began locking in place. doing so ever so slowly. Even still, all the fractures failed to heal.

"I was th-the first mate, woul-wouldn't it make sen-sense for me to have at least a sliver of the fame, power, respect and riches he possessed? I deserved at least a little bit of all that, did-didn't I? So...so why, why did this all have to happen!? Why couldn't I just have what I was owed and be done with it!? Why did he get to have everything I wanted!?"

No one spoke as the undead man lamented his fate, simply watching him silently as he tried to put himself back together again. It was a slow and arduous process that failed more often than not, yet still he persisted, beginning to take his original structure as he did.

That was when the skeleton-man looked toward the others, his eyes locking on Maxi and Tobio specifically. "You two...don't...don't you look at me. My family shouldn't see me this way!" He cried in distress.

"Father..."

"Granddad..."

That was when he, along with everyone else, noticed the other aspects of this man-made room in the mountain. The stone walls had writing carved into every inch of them, forming a single long passage, and then there was a stone throne-like chair located in the center of the room, where another skeleton lie, wearing the same exact clothes Ganzo did. Only this one was far less animated, slumped over in that stone seat.

"Woo-Woonan?" The talking skeleton spoke that name hesitantly and disbelievingly.

"What is this place?" Usopp wondered aloud, looking about as he did.

"Some kind of tomb?" Zoro offered.

"That's certainly what it looks like." Sanji admitted.

Meanwhile, Nami was eyeing the characters that made up the longwinded passage, Luffy's eyes were glued to his downed adversary, and said adversary and his two relatives had their eyes locked onto the bones of the clearly deceased Woonan.

"Guys, you should see this." Nami told the others, getting their attention on the writing all over the walls.

"What does it say?" Several of them queried.

"It's a bit hard to make out, but I believe it's some kind of message from...Woonan." She informed them, sounding a little grave as she did.

"Read it, please!" Tobio practically begged.

So, she did. "To the people who came here for the gold-my name is Woonan. Formerly known as 'The Great Gold Pirate'. But now I am just a man waiting to die. All the gold I've gathered over the years is buried at the very bottom of this mountain, several levels below me. But please, read all that I have written before you rush off to claim it." Nami stopped there for a moment, daring to glance back, only to see no one, not even Ganzo, had moved an inch.

Since that was the case, she continued to read the passage aloud. "The riches I attained, the fortune I gathered, it was all simply a part of my childhood dream, to amass a pile of gold the likes the world has never seen. But as I sit before it now, slowly fading from this world, all I feel is emptiness. The thing I devoted my entire life to was gold, or at least that's what I would have said if I'd been asked before today. The truth is, the adventure to claim the gold, that's what I was truly living for, I just never realized it. Because of that, every time I got my hands on more of this shiny thing everyone seems to desire, I was left unfulfilled. And every time I would think to myself, 'It's not enough, I must get my hands on more.' Only that wasn't it. The reason I always felt hollow when I claimed my newest sum of gold, was that getting there, fighting everyone who got in my way with my crew by my side, that's what truly made me happy. Not the booty that lie at the end, but the adventure that led to it, that's what really made my heart race. My friends and the voyages we went on, those were what life was about, I just wish I would have realized it sooner."

Nami paused then, as she read the next few lines silently. Casting a apologetic glance toward Tobio, the cartographer continued to read the inscription. "It really is a shame that it took until now, sitting here, dying as poison eats away at me, to understand that. To make matters worse, it was one of my own crew who did this to me, sticking me from behind with a poison laced dagger. My very own first mate, Ganzo, my closest friend and confident. We've known each other since we were children, and he stabbed me in the back. And for what? Some stupid, useless gold. He wanted it all for himself. Even still, I cannot bring myself to blame him. I've seen many a men and women, both good and evil do anything for money. Mothers selling their children, father's whoring out their daughters, brothers selling out one and other, sisters abandoning each other. Money, gold more specifically, will drive a person insane with greed. And in turn will lead them to do absolutely anything to get their hands on it."

The young navigator came to a halt, as the sound of Tobio sobbing from behind her could be heard. Frowning, she picked back up where she left off, as no one made any attempt to stop her from continuing. "So you see...gold isn't the treasure here. It is nothing more than a curse. The real treasure, one that is infinitely more valuable than any gold could ever be, is the bond one shares with their friends. So embrace that bond before it is too late, and you end up like Ganzo and I, willing to kill the one closest to you simply for a hunk of pretty metal."

Stopping one last time, her frown deepening, she awaited anyone to say anything. When no one did, she finished the passage. "Now that you know my tale, I implore you, leave the gold where it lie. No matter who you are, surely you can understand the evil this useless junk brings about. Just leave it buried, hidden away from the world, so that no friends will ever be torn apart by the greed it induces ever again. Please, I beg of you, don't let anyone meet the same fate as Ganzo and I did. As I die here, all I can do is lament the fact that I can never see my best friend again and let him know that he is forgiven, and that I love him like a brother. I don't care that he's the one who did this to me...he's my best friend, I want him by my side. I do not wish such emotional and psychological agony on anyone. Please, heed my dying wish."

"I-it...it stops there." Nami informed the others.

A dead silence descended upon all of them then, the only sound being Tobio's sobbing. That is, until the sound of sobbing was heard from another source.

Everyone turned toward the second source, to see actual tears spilling out of Ganzo's eyes sockets. "Woonan...my friend...forgive me for being so foolish." His bones rattled, his form fully complete at this point, as sobs rocked his build. Still, he made no move to stand. "I'm so very sorry...I can't believe all that I've done for such a thing as bars of gold...I'm so pathetic. I had always been jealous of you, everything you had, I had always wanted. I felt like I deserved it all, if not more than you did, than at least as much as you did. Now I realize, I deserve nothing. You have always been the better man, I realize that now. Thank you, for being such a good friend to a wretch such as I."

Suddenly, Ganzo's form shifted to that of human, the one he held when he was alive, before fading out of existence entirely, not leaving even a tidbit of evidence that he had ever even been there in the first place. And as he parted from this realm of existence, he bid farewell to Tobio and Maxi. "My kin...know that you can at least be proud of the fact that I followed a great man, since there is no reason to be proud of such a fool of a man that I am...I was."

And with that, he was gone. Leaving the seven in Woonan's tomb, speechless and unsure of everything that had occurred.

The day after...

The crew was gathered at the table, as Sanji served breakfast. They had set sail minutes ago and were now following their original course, that they had been following before all of the drama with Tobio happened. They had said their goodbyes and wished the boy well, as he had found what was left of his family, even if it wasn't the one he had set out to find, it was certainly better than nothing. Besides, he was happy and that was what mattered after all. And on top of that, he wouldn't have to go back to living in poverty, as traveling with his uncle he would have more than enough to eat and the money they made would be more than enough to take care of the two of them.

Even still, that whole adventure had left a bad aftertaste in the mouths of the crew. Nami understood such corrupting greed, she also, the rest of the crew as well, understood such profound loss. And yet, as they sat at the table, now properly bandaged and waiting to eat, things returned to normal fairly quickly.

"Whatcha doin?" Luffy questioned his girlfriend, leaning over to look at the fancy looking black leather book she was writing in.

"Starting on our crew's logbook. I've got a bunch of stuff to get down before we enter the Grand Line, including the events I wasn't there for. Which is why I could use your help."

As the two talked about Luffy's departure from Fusha, Zoro, Usopp and Sanji bickered as the blonde cooked.

"I'm telling you, it had to have been a curse! How else could a walking and talking skeleton go wandering about killing people and screaming about gold!?" Usopp asserted.

"Come on, a cursed island, really?" Sanji inquired skeptically.

"How else would you explain that crazy skeleton we saw huh!?"

As the chef seemed to think that over, Zoro interjected with, "Who cares?"

"I care!" The sniper insisted. "I want to know the reason I got impaled by a freaking skeleton dammit!"

The swordsman snorted at that. "Yeah, as if that wasn't self explanatory. You weren't fast enough to dodge, simple as that."

"He's got a point there." Sanji admitted.

"You assholes! Don't you even care how badly hurt I am!?" The marksman shouted indignantly.

"You've got no room to talk blondie, you got cut up even worse than he did." The green haired teen pointed out.

"I was defending the beautiful Nami! I couldn't let him get past me, I had to take his attacks!" The cook argued.

"Yeah, sure, whatever you say." Zoro responded with a roll of his eyes.

"Oh you're one to talk, Mr. I got my swords cut in half and taken down with one blow like a chump!"

"What'd you just say!?"

"You heard me!"

As Zoro and Sanji snarled at each other, Usopp fretted over all that had happened and the fact that no one seemed to care, and Luffy and Nami wrote the log together, the less educated of them just relaying what had occurred before they met up, things really did seem to go back to normal. And really, it was no surprise. After all, no one could keep the Straw Hats down.

To Be Continued...