Chapter Thirty-Five: Chopper

Chopper was scared to death. Against his better judgment he was in the orphanage that the man called Crocodile ran. If that wasn't bad enough, he had heard the crack of a gun go off not too far away. Worse still, he had been separated from Nami. Granted that last part was his own doing, but Chopper had not wanted to follow her into the room that smelled of so much death.

So now, he quietly walked through the orphanage that was oddly empty of children, trying to catch Doctorine's scent. He knew that the children were out in the playground, but none of them were playing. It was weird. The children gave off a weird vibe as they had passed them. But that was another thought. Right now, he was listening for footsteps headed his way. So far there were none, but that could change at any moment.

Chopper passed rooms that had unfamiliar scents. He guessed they were the children's rooms. So far, none of the rooms had smelled of any of the unsavories he had run across. He guessed that they didn't live here with Crocodile then. Lucky them.

Finally, he found a familiar scent. It was Nami's. It was in a room that shared someone else's scent as well, but Chopper didn't worry about that. He nosed his way into the room and sniffed around to see if he could find anything helpful. He found her school bag, a duffel of her clothes, and a notebook with a messy scrawling about a Nefeltari heir.

Nothing that could help him. Damn.

Chopper's ears perked up. He could hear Nami's voice, but it wasn't coming from the hallway. It was coming from outside. Chopper trotted to the window and glanced outside. Nami was walking towards one of the children. She bent over and picked up a little girl and walked to the front gate of the orphanage to converse with a blonde man.

"So, I don't have a lot of time," he heard Nami say to the blonde man, "but these kids need to go to 11 Cocoyashi Street. All of them."

Fear went through Chopper's stomach. No! She couldn't leave! Not without him! She couldn't have forgotten about him, could she?

"I'm not a taxi service," the man replied snappily, but Nami didn't give in, so the blonde shook his head in defeat. "What's at 11 Cocoyashi Street?"

"Ice cream," Nami answered. The children all began to titter amongst one another, looking excited. "Everyone gets a scoop."

The blonde didn't look convinced. "Ice cream. Great. Just great. What about you? Are you coming too?"

"I might," she answered. "Can you get every single kid in this yard to Cocoyashi Street?"

Suddenly, Chopper knew what Nami was doing. She was taking the children away from the danger. As the blonde sighed in exasperation and complained, Chopper felt guilt at thinking so poorly of Nami. She had likely not forgotten about him, and was trying to get every innocent life as far away as possible. But Chopper had left her side, and in that decision, had put himself in his own care, no longer in hers.

"What about Mr. Crocodile," one of the children asked, looking perturbed.

"Mr. Crocodile said it was okay, just this once," Nami assured them, elbowing the tall boy from before (Doctor Water's son, he thought). "Didn't he?"

The tall boy sighed in annoyance. "Sure did."

"Anything else? Since you're demanding the world again," complained the blonde. Nami put down the child she held and whispered to the blonde. The blonde made a chagrined face. "Never going to live that down, am I? I'll work on it."

As the blonde got back on the phone again, six cars pulled up and created a line down the street. Chopper watched as Nami corralled the children towards the cars.

"Let's load up," Nami called to them. "Four to a car. Better hurry, or that ice cream will melt."

And the children were moving swiftly towards the cars. It took probably half a minute for them to load into the cars. In the meantime, Nami got into the first car with the blonde, the tall boy, and the little girl. All settled, the cars began pulling away, to 11 Cocoyashi Street apparently.

Chopper watched the street long after the cars had disappeared from them. He was trying to will himself to come up with some courage to leave Nami's room and resume looking for Doctorine. He was not very successful.

After a minute or two of unsuccessful willing, Chopper heard footsteps that were coming down the hall quickly. Two pairs. Chopper reacted out of fear and scrambled underneath the bed. He peered cautiously out from under the bed as two unsavories walked quickly by.

"They said meet in the mess hall a.s.a.p.," one of them was saying. "I don't want to be the last ones there."

"I don't want to be the bitch they eviscerate," the other one said.

"Well, if we're the last ones there, then we might get that punishment," the first commented, "so move your ass!"

"I'm going, I'm going!"

Chopper squirmed his way out from under the bed and peeked down the hallway where the unsavories had gone. He could still faintly hear them arguing, and despite the butterflies in his stomach at the thought, he knew he should follow them. He had a feeling the "bitch" they were referring to was Doctorine.

'You can do this,' he told himself. 'Just start walking, one hoof at a time.'

Timidly, Chopper began making his way down the hallway. He wasn't worried about keeping up with the unsavories; he had gotten a good whiff of their stench and could smell the trail their scents left for him. But he was slow moving nonetheless. Courage was not something Chopper lacked, but common sense was something he had an overabundance of, and common sense told him not to go towards the room full of assassins.

One small step at a time, Chopper made his way toward the mess hall. Soon, he could hear more voices, and among them, Doctorine's shouting a negative. Well, a colorful negative. Chopper didn't believe he'd heard the word fuck come out of Doctorine's mouth before, but he sure heard it a lot as he approached the mess hall. As he approached one of the open doors, Chopper listened to the conversation being had.

"If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred fucking times!" Doctorine yelled. "I will not be used in this way! So you might as well kill me."

"You think this is a joke?" a male voice asked. "You think we won't kill you?"

"Your kind, I have no doubt will kill me," Doctorine returned. "So get on with it, if you've got any balls on you."

Chopper took in the scene that was before him. It was a nightmare. Unsavories everywhere. And all of them surrounding Doctorine. Chopper could literally do nothing but hide behind the nearest table and watch.

"Listen, old woman—"

"Who the fuck do you think you're calling old?" Doctorine barked back. "I'll have you know I'm at the ripe young age of ninety-five!"

"Someone shut the old bat up," commanded the tall guy as his cell phone went off. "I gotta take this call."

Despite Doctorine's protesting fists and feet, she was subdued by the sheer number of people in the room and a slap of tape went over her mouth. Soon her wrists were bound behind her and her ankles as well. She was completely immobilized, though she still fought hard against her bindings.

"Alright," said the tall guy. He was done with his phone call apparently. "I want all the Billions to take up defensive positions and the Millions in the cars. Weekdays and Numbers are to head to the school. We're about to do something no other organization has ever done: we're going to attack the Dragon's Brood."

The room grew still. The tall woman with the blue hair was the only one willing to speak.

"Crocodile-sama has lost his damn mind," she denounced. "Why would a group of assassins attack a group of terrorists?"

"Apparently they are all sitting in cars like fish in a barrel waiting for the operatives to get ice cream," the tall man explained. "The operatives are going to practice a lesson seven and the Millions are going to put holes in everything not flat on the ground. The Billions are going to protect the orphanage from retaliation and the Weekdays and Numbers are going to finish out our mission at the school."

"I still say it is insanity," the blue-haired woman complained. "But I'm not about to disobey Crocodile-sama."

That seemed to be the consensus of the room. Bodies began moving and clearing out of the mess hall. Only two were ordered to stay behind and guard Doctorine. Chopper felt a little better about those odds. Two people, he could probably manage. Maybe.

Chopper waited until he heard the car doors slam outside of the building and the sound of the engines grow quieter before he moved from his hiding spot. He silently made his way around the tables, staying as low to the ground as he could as to not be seen by the two guards, moving around on silent hooves. Doctorine, bound and lying on her side on the ground, had no trouble seeing him though.

Her eyes grew wide at the sight of him and then narrowed, and Chopper could imagine the tongue-lashing she was giving him in her head. Chopper settled next to the end of the table closest to Doctorine. Now that he was here, he didn't know what to do. How was he supposed to immobilize two humans? Ones that were belonged to a group of assassins and probably had weapons on them?

Chopper considered what his advantages were. He was small and quick, meaning he could evade capture. His hooves could break bones if he kicked hard enough. And, though he didn't want to think about such an act, Chopper knew that his antlers were pointed enough to pierce a body given enough velocity.

Disadvantages included being outnumbered and the threat of weapons. Calculating his odds in his head, Chopper estimated that he had about a thirty-eight percent chance of succeeding. Not very good odds. But the probability that Doctorine would be killed if he didn't do something was one hundred percent. So he had a choice: to act and possibly not succeed at rescuing Doctorine or to stay in hiding and have no chance of saving Doctorine.

Thinking about all of the years together with Doctorine, it was hardly a decision at all.

Chopper ducked under the table and slowly crept towards the group of three. One of the humans was facing away from him, but the other was facing him. He would see Chopper as soon as he got within a few feet of the end of the table. He would have to be immobilized first then. The second human would be the danger.

Chopper prepared himself, crouching until he was almost lying on the ground and bunching up tight. He would only get one shot at this. He sprang out from under the table and headed for the abdomen of the first human. The man squawked a little in shock before Chopper's antlers impaled him. Immediately, Chopper began kicking his back feet as hard as he could in attempt to ward off any attack from the other man.

One thing Chopper hadn't counted on was his antlers getting stuck. The first man was now a heavy burden on his head and Chopper wasn't strong enough to shake him free. The weight of the first man toppled down onto Chopper and he was pushed to the ground.

As predicted, Chopper knew he had failed. He didn't manage to save Doctorine and had only managed to take down one of the two humans guarding her. Any minute, the second guard would shoot him or call for reinforcements or—

Chopper felt the heavy burden lifted off of him. He gave his head a small shake and his antlers slid free of the first man. Chopper looked up to see what had happened. The second human was looking down at him half in curiosity and half in shock. The second human had a gun out and in his hand, but with both hands full with the first human, he was not in a position to fire at Chopper.

Doctorine made her move then. Still on her side on the ground and bound up in tape, she jerked her body around sharply and kicked the feet out from under the second man. He lost his balance and went down, the first human flopping lifelessly onto him this time. Chopper wasted no time and scrambled up. With a fierce kick to the head, the second guard was knocked out cold.

Chopper was shaking with adrenaline. It took him a good ten seconds of heavy breathing to recollect himself and head over to where Doctorine lay. With his clumsy little hooves, he picked away at the tape around her wrists and finally got it off of her. Doctorine did the rest herself.

As she freed herself, Chopper stared at the two prone bodies on the floor. One of them was dead. Dead because of him. The other would probably be killed as soon as it was found out that he had let Doctorine escape. So two people were going to be dead. All because of Chopper.

"Now, now," Doctorine chided, wiping the tears from his furry face and the blood off his antlers. "None of that. We've still got to get out of here alive before we can feel remorse for what we've done. Ya happy?"

Chopper sniffled and stood. "How do we get out of here?"

"That's a good question," Doctorine agreed. "For now, let's go somewhere less open. Do you know of anywhere we can take cover?"

Chopper decided the best place for them to hide would be Nami's room, for no other reason than it smelled of Nami and that was comforting to him. He led Doctorine back down the hallways to Nami's room. What Chopper hadn't counted on was for the room to already be occupied.

"Now what?" Doctorine complained, taking in the scene of Nami's room. A girl, probably Nami's age, was frantically looking around and rummaging through drawers while the man from earlier, Smoker, Nami had called him, lay bleeding in the lower bunk bed. He looked bad. Real bad.

"Why the fuck doesn't the bitch I live with have anything of use?" cried the girl in frustration. She had not seemed to notice them yet. She finally did when she turned to leave the room and nearly ran straight into them. She looked suddenly on defense, but with one brief look behind her at the invalid, she stole around them and ran down the hall at a feverous pace.

Left alone with them for the moment, Smoker assessed the two of them. He raised an eyebrow at Doctorine, but frowned at Chopper.

"Fuckin' deer," Smoker wheezed. "This is all your fault."

Chopper failed to see where any of this was his fault, but knew that the foul tempered man in the bed was dying quickly. Chopper had only seen one person die today, but it was enough for him. He looked at Doctorine and did what he'd never thought he'd do in front of anyone outside of his comfort zone (which was Doctorine and Nami, at the moment).

"Please," he pleaded, "help him. He's not an unsavory."

"I gotta be fuckin' delirious from blood loss," Smoker spoke up. "Now the fuckin' deer is talking."

"Shut your damn mouth," Doctorine snapped at him. "I should just let every cretin in this building die, but for this little deer that wants your life saved. Ya happy? You best not bad mouth him anymore."

Smoker grunted, but whether it was in submission or pain, Chopper couldn't tell. What he could see was that Smoker paled visibly and began breathing heavily. Chopper's sharp hearing could pick up the stuttering of the man's heart as it began to fail.

"He's dying!" Chopper whined, hiding his face in Doctorine's leg. If she let him die, Chopper did not want to watch it happen.

"Not on my watch, he's not. Ya happy?" Doctorine declared before moving forward to the bed and diving in. In moments, she had Smoker's torso prone and his feet elevated. "Chopper, I need whatever you can get me in terms of medical supplies. You may not be able to find a first aid kit, and likely it would be useless, but I need at minimum something mesh to hold his insides together and something to sew him up with. Now be useful and find me these things. Go!"

Chopper hopped out of the room and ran through the halls on a mission. His first thought was the kitchen and he sniffed it out. He was looking for something specific: cheese cloth. It was the next best thing to internal mesh that he could think of. The problem was, not all kitchens would have that. But he was hoping that a kitchen that served the large capacity meals would have some on hand.

He got lucky. He found a drawer that held all sorts of cooking apparatus, and at the bottom shoved in the back, a package of cheese cloth still wrapped in its plastic packaging. He clamped it in his mouth and went to the bathrooms next. Doctorine was right; a first aid kit wouldn't be much help, but it was something. He hoped it would be near the bathrooms, maybe in a supply closet or something. He struck out.

At a loss and running low on time, he ran back to Nami's room and dumped the cheese cloth package at Doctorine's side. The girl from before was there and it looked like she and Doctorine may have had some words while Chopper was away. The girl had a red mark on her cheek and looked much more subdued. Still, she gave Chopper a wary look as he approached the bed.

"He's tame," Doctorine said to the girl. "Ignore him."

Chopper backed away from the bed and towards the corner of the room. Now that his mission had been (halfway) accomplished, he realized that he was acting a little too clever in front of someone who would not dismiss his actions as delirium.

"Come back here, Chopper," Doctorine instructed. "I want you to hold something."

Chopper stayed where he was, eyeing the girl as warily as she eyed him.

"Chopper! Do you want this man to die?" Doctorine snapped at him. It broke both his and the girl's stares.

"You said he wouldn't die," the girl accused. "You said—"

"He won't die. Ya happy?" Doctrine declared. "If my little assistant here will get his furry butt over here and hold this kit so I can sew up this poor sap."

Chopper slowly and chagrinedly approached. He sat obediently at Doctorine's side as she balanced the first aid kit—the girl must have found it—on his antlers. Chopper became as still as possible as she worked on the man and rummaged around in the kit.

"What's with that deer?" the girl wondered aloud. Chopper didn't move, but inwardly he cringed. His cover was blown.

"He's been with me for years," Doctorine spoke as she unpackaged the cheese cloth and cut it with some scissors from the first aid kit. "He knows certain commands, but is afraid of new people. So don't do anything to spook him."

Doctorine worked in silence for a few minutes.

"Do you have a way out of here that won't get us killed?" Doctorine asked the girl. "This man is going to need a hospital, very soon. I can stop him from dying right now but these are only temporary fixes. He'll need a proper surgery and at least one blood transfusion, probably two."

The girl became agitated. "This building is under guard by the Billions. We'll have to fight our way out."

That wasn't good news. Doctorine, while in possession of a mean fist, was going to be little help in terms of fighting, and though Chopper was fast and could probably dodge a few human attacks, bullets were out of his league to dodge. The girl, well she had a sword at her side that she kept stroking absently, but the same problem persisted: you don't take a sword to a gun fight.

"We just need this," Smoker spoke up, surprising them all at his consciousness. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key fob. Chopper eyed it suspectly. How did he expect to be able to get to his car?

"I fail to see how a car starter will save your ass," Doctorine said, speaking Chopper's thoughts.

"It's not a car starter," Smoker replied. He pressed the little red button; the one that usually set off the car alarm. No alarm went off, but the key fob began blinking. "It's a wire. It's been broadcasting directly to my associates since we walked in this building. If I say the word, Garp would be here in five minutes flat."

Chopper had no idea who this Garp person was. But apparently he was going to save the day? Chopper still had his doubts. So did the girl, apparently.

"But the Millions will be back any minute," she told them. "He'd be up against both the Millions and the Billions. That's over five-hundred operatives to deal with. Is Garp ready for those numbers?"

"You heard Crocodile," Smoker responded. "He attacked the Dragon's Brood. They'll be coming too. We just need to be out of here before they decide to blow up a building."

The girl didn't look any more comforted by those words. Truthfully, Chopper wasn't comforted by those words either. Doctorine was her usual, unfazed self.

"What's so important about the school?" Doctorine wanted to know. "Some of the unsavories, the Numbers and Weekdays if I recall correctly, were headed there to finish a job."

Both Smoker and the girl looked perplexed. Neither could answer Doctorine's question. Chopper thought he knew someone who might know. But Nami was nowhere near the building at the moment.

First things first. How to get them out of the building before it came down around them. Chopper mulled it over in his head and came up with nothing. Not that he would have a way to communicate it to anyone but Doctorine, and he didn't think that he'd be alone with her anymore. She needed to stay with Smoker to keep him alive.

"Tashigi," Smoker spoke up again. The girl came to his side. "The operatives here don't know you're a double agent yet. You need to get down there and create a diversion so we can exit the premises. After that, you'll have to say you were called off by the Numbers or something and meet up with us. Do you think you can do this, Tashigi?"

The girl, Tashigi, pushed her glasses further up her nose and heaved a deep breath. When she let it out, there was a determined look on her face.

"I will do my best," she vowed. "I will call everyone to the front gates, in preparation for the Dragon's Brood to arrive. That will hopefully leave the entrance near the kitchens unguarded. The best I can offer is maybe a thirty second blind spot. You'll have to be out of the building by then. Is there any way that you can have a car waiting there for you?"

Smoker looked at the key fob and then at the rest of them. "If this thing is working as it should be, Garp should be able to get us a car. Give or take five minutes."

"We don't have five minutes," Doctorine announced, looking out the window. "These, I presume, are the Millions returning."

Chopper and the rest looked out the window to see a slew of cars pull into the parking lot. Dozens upon dozens of men exited the cars and began gathering in the schoolyard. Tashigi's face fell.

"There goes that plan. I had a chance with the Billions of getting them all to gather," she said. "The Millions won't give me the time of day."

"We're going with the first plan," Doctoring declared. "I'll help the invalid and Chopper and young Tashigi will provide protection. Is that understood?"

Tashigi and Smoker both protested, but Doctorine talked over them.

"I'm the doctor, so I make the decisions that give the patient the best chance of survival," she spoke. "You said your man will have a car waiting for us. Well, let's presume that car has some sort of armed protection as well. We will go with this plan and that is the end of it, unless you'd rather lay here and die. Ya happy?"

No one looked the slightest bit happy.

.o0o.

It took much moving that was probably detrimental to the patient, but the four of them finally made it down to the unloading docks next to the kitchen. Chopper could see out the windows that it was a straight shot from the dock to the street, probably a hundred meter dash, but there was no cover to be had whatsoever.

Worse, there were two unsavories guarding the dock area. Chopper's stomach turned at the idea of harming another human. Doctorine must have read his thoughts in his expression.

"We just need to incapacitate them," she whispered. "No need to kill them. The Dragon's Brood is likely to do that for us. We just need to knock them out."

Chopper relaxed slightly. He could easily knock someone out with a kick of his hooves. But how to get that close when the targets were armed? He tried to puzzle it out, but became frustrated when his brain failed him again.

"Easier said than done," Tashigi whispered back. "The best I can do is get their attention and bring them to us. The rest is going to be up to you."

Doctorine propped Smoker up against one wall and grabbed a meat tenderizer from the kitchens. Yes, that would do the trick for one of them, but Chopper knew she wouldn't get the drop on both of them. He thought about what he could do.

He could get under foot and trip one of them? That may work, as long as they didn't have their guns in easy reaching distance, and he could knock them out when they were on his level.

Well, it was a plan. Sort of.

Tashigi waited by the door, peering out surreptitiously. Chopper didn't know what she was looking for, but eventually, she stepped through the door and he could hear her conversing with the men outside. Doctorine was at the door next, meat tenderizer cocked to strike a blow.

Suddenly, she struck out the door and Chopper followed close behind, knowing it was time to make their move. Doctorine had chosen the nearest target, so Chopper dashed towards the legs of the second man. He moved out of the way too quickly, but Chopper bucked his back hooves and caught the man's knee. He fell to the ground with an agonized cry and was reaching for his gun. Chopper kicked the hand that grasped the gun, causing the gun to drop and discharge when it hit the ground.

"Run!" Tashigi commanded, having already retrieved Smoker. "The gunshot will alert everyone to what's going on!"

Chopper, the fastest of all of them, could have made it to the street in a few seconds flat, but he knew that the others would be slow moving targets. He made a bold choice.

Chopper ran behind Smoker and Tashigi and ducked his head, sweeping between Smoker's feet. The man grunted painfully as he lost his footing and fell hard onto Chopper's back. Chopper stumbled at the added weight but pressed forward as fast as he could with the burden. At any rate, they made it to the street faster than if he hadn't taken Smoker's weight.

Miraculously, there was a car waiting for them as shouts could be heard behind them. The crack of gun fire was quick to follow, but Chopper couldn't worry about that with the patient needing assistance. He surged on, hoping Doctorine and the girl were not struck in the crossfire.

The door to the car was open and arms were reaching out to them pulling them into the safety of the cab. Smoker went first, then Doctorine, and then Tashigi.

But that was it.

The door closed and the car sped away, leaving Chopper behind amidst rapid gunfire. Terrified, Chopper started running blindly away from the orphanage without a purpose in mind. Honestly, at that point, did it even matter? He just needed to get away from the guns.

But then what?

Where was he to go? Doctorine's house was no good; the unsavories already knew of it. The school was no good; the Numbers and Weekdays had gone there. Where could he go that he wouldn't put himself in clear and present danger?

A voice popped into Chopper's head. I don't have a lot of time, but these kids need to go to 11 Cocoyashi Street.

Nami had taken the children to a place she thought they would be safe. That was enough reasoning for Chopper. He stopped running (thankfully, there were no more gunshots to be heard) and reassessed where he was. He made a course adjustment and began running again. He didn't know how long Nami would stay at this 11 Cocoyashi Street, and he absolutely wanted her to be there so he could pull her aside and tell her what he knew.

Because somehow, Chopper knew that Nami needed to know what he knew.

A/N: Well, I'm finally back at it. Been a rough Covid life. Most people got laid off; I got busier at work. But I digress. Please let me know your thoughts on this addition. Cheers!