Ellis stood in the cool salt water. Waves crashed against her legs in the ebb and flow. Even though she was trying to relax, she was worried. The village behind her was too quiet.
She looked out to the horizon. There hadn't been a ship in sight for a while. There was no traffic coming to or going from the docks. She had yet to see anyone since arriving here, before dawn. It had to be late morning, if not midday. She turned to look back at the buildings. Maybe she should check things out . . . ?
At a strange, scream-like call of a bird, she headed back to the sand where she left her bag and shoes. The sand was hot from the sun as she bounced from foot to foot, minimizing contact with the heated ground. After putting her black slippers on and grabbing her bag, she paused to enjoy the salty sea breeze, blowing her brown hair with it. She let her legs dry a bit before unrolling her dark pants. Then she headed to the dock ramp leading to city roads.
Once she turned, walking away, the silhouette of a ship peeked over the horizon.
The town itself was gorgeous. Medieval-style houses lined the grey-stone brick streets. The bricks themselves were laid in a shell pattern. There was vegetation everywhere, from trees on street corners, to homes lined with flowery window sills. There were a few small parks and city squares scattered about.
The town's silence made her uneasy. What port town doesn't have sailors? Fishermen? Even trade ships? It's not like the place was blockaded. She did note there were a couple of pirate flags with the same jolly roger, but pirates in a city aren't exactly unheard of. It's not typical of an antagonistic crew to linger without razing the place down, or holding it hostage. Usually they created a ruckus; it was way too quiet for that.
Though the soil for the many pots and plants was running dry, there weren't many weeds, if any, and the vegetation was clearly cared for. No pests or plant diseases. Whatever's been happening, it didn't start all that long ago. The place wasn't abandoned. Shops were all closed, but the windows weren't boarded up. The houses she peeked into weren't messy. No signs of looting, anyway, and no one appeared to have left in a hurry.
There weren't any animal sounds. No birds, squirrels, rodents, or pets. Not even the whisper of a person. The unsettling atmosphere set her on edge.
As she walked around, she kept her eyes moving without lingering for more than seconds. Checking for movement, anything unusual or out of place. She checked entrances of side streets, windows, any open doorways, roofs; there was nothing at all.
Until she came across a line of destroyed houses.
It went on for blocks. In one direction, it led to the outskirts of the town. The path widened the farther it went; whatever caused it had a huge blast radius. In the opposite direction was a bar, loudly occupied, with the jolly roger from the docks.
She decided she valued her life and kept walking.
Ellis roamed until she spotted the dog. It was a little thing, dusty white and sitting silently like a sentinel. It was facing a street opening on her right, in front of a shop named 'Pet Food,' and she slowly approached. As she got closer (she leaned down to check . . . ), he turned his head to face her. She crouched down and held out her hand, knuckles skyward. He sniffed, nudging her with his wet nose (he's been well cared for). She turned the hand she held out to lightly scratch the top of his head, and he momentarily closed his eyes.
"What are you doing out here all alone? Poor guy." He wagged his tail, and she moved from crouching to fully sitting down. He leisurely continued his wagging. "Are you waiting for someone?"
He opened his mouth, sticking out his tongue and panting.
"Or are you guarding the store behind you?"
He barked twice.
"Well, you're doing such a good job! Would it be okay if I go in and buy you something for all your hard work?" Ellis praised.
The dog barked again, ears twitching and wag accelerating.
"I'll be right back!" She got up and moved to step on the porch. The white front doors had handles in a cute paw print shape, and had a sign that said 'closed.' But, having the dog's permission, she entered the building.
Ellis later exited the store to a man in a cage, and another man bleeding out next to him. Both in the middle of the road, and mid-conversation.
She was only gone for a minute.
She stepped down from the porch, passing the injured man, cautiously approached, and crouched between the two.
The cage, on its side so the bars went horizontal, looked worn. The top and bottom of the cage (now on the sides) were squares of concrete, with metal bars all around it. The concrete was cracked and uneven, but unstained. Its edges were chipped and weathered. There was no moss or mildew, but the bars had rust, or chipped paint. It was hard for her to tell. The scrawny man inside, while curled into himself, didn't look uncomfortable; he had room to move around.
The man that was bleeding out was still conscious. He gripped his side, the source of the blood. He glanced in her direction, sizing her up, but looked away. Ellis wasn't much of a threat (or much of anything, really).
The two men continued their conversation as if she hadn't shown up. She wasn't sure what she expected from the first people she's seen here.
It definitely wasn't this.
Sighing, she just took her backpack off, opened it, and put the box of treats inside. She'll give it to the dog later. Then she put the bag back on.
"Doggy . . . !" The caged guy exclaimed softly, pulling the cage closer as if it weighed nothing. He and the dog had a stare down. He then pinched the sides of his face and pulled, stretching a little too much. Uncannily, so.
The dog remained stalwart and stoic.
Ellis glanced between him, the bleeding guy, and the dog. She didn't know what to do.
"Zoro, it looks like this dog is frozen!" The man, Zoro, seemed to find some strength, and got up enough to drag himself closer. He settled against one of the store's porch columns.
"I don't give a damn," he stated, "it could sit there forever, for all I care." What is up with these people? Where did they even come from?
Wait, never mind. There was a trail of blood, going down the street perpendicular to them.
In the voice one would use to tell a scary story, the man in the cage replied, "I wonder if it's dead!" Then he reached through the horizontal bars to poke the poor dog on the forehead. His arms were longer than she expected, to reach as far as they had.
Then the dog bit him. On his face. He swung his face around. Ellis didn't even know faces could be bit at that angle. Then, not only did the man in the cage not scream in pain, he was only shouting at him to get off.
"Luffy!" The injured man (Zoro?) yelled, "Please, quit goofing around and get serious!" There was a shift in his expression, then he started looking pallid. He then groaned in pain, body tilting over, and proceeded to collapse on his back.
The dog released the caged man from his jaws, causing him to fall back. The dog walked back over to Ellis and sat down, resuming his guard.
"Dumb dog," the caged man (Luffy?) whimpered.
"I don't feel good," the bleeding-out man, Zoro, responded. Should . . . should she help them?
The sound of heels closed in on the eclectic group, and Ellis turned to see what new tomfoolery approached.
"Hey, Ellis! Fancy seeing you here," a familiar red-haired woman greeted.
"Oh, hi, Nami," Ellis replied.
Ellis has run into Nami a handful of times throughout her travels. Enough to help each other out a few times, in an 'enemy-of-my-enemy' way at first. They were on friendlier terms now, but their encounters are few and far-between.
"Oh, hey, navigator!" Luffy(?) chimed in, sitting up, causing Nami to turn to him. She got recruited as a navigator? Since when did she want to sail with a crew? Doesn't she have some goal she desperately needed to reach, alone?
"I guess you could have this," Nami pulled something from her pocket and tossed it. "You got me out of a pretty sticky situation." It clattered on the ground by the cage, and Ellis saw it was a key.
"Great! The key to the cage! Did you go steal it for me? Thanks, Nami!" These guys didn't seem to be the type of people she would hang around, but what would Ellis know? Today was turning out to be such a weird day in general, so this might as well happen.
"I only did it so we'd be even, and now I don't owe you anything, so we're square. Okay?" She replied. Luffy reached through the cage for the key, only to grasp at air.
The dog swallowed it.
"?!"
They all stared in shock, including Ellis, not even daring to breathe. That can't be healthy for a dog. Then Luffy acted.
He gripped the dog's throat with both hands, launching at such a force that the bars of the cage bulged out with him, causing Ellis to fall back startled. The dog whimpered and cried out in pain, as Luffy growled, "Stupid, stupid, stupid dog! Give it back! It's not food! Give me my key!"
Then Ellis began fumbling for her pouch. Sorry dog, but there was no way in hell she would get in between that. But Nami teamed up with them, and if he needed a key . . .
C'mon, where did she put them? She patted her pockets. Not there either.
"Hey! Stop that!" A new voice interrupted. "Stop picking on poor Shushu! Leave him alone!" Ellis paused to look up, seeing an old man with poofy white hair, round glasses, and improvised leather armor.
They all turned, Luffy stopping his assault and Shushu quieted down.
"And who might you be, old man?" Zoro piped up.
Didn't he pass out?
"Old man? Why, I'm the mayor of this town, who are you, and why are you hurting Shushu?!" The mayor paused to look at who spoke, gaze lingering on the bloody injury. "My my, that's quite an injury you have there. I take it that you had a run in with Captain Buggy. We need to get you to a doctor."
Captain Buggy? So the town is like this because of a pirate? Great. Well, that explains why Nami's here.
The man, now revealed to be the mayor, helped Zoro up. Zoro leaned his weight on him, and they stumbled to a house across the street. It was to the right of the store, the two buildings were each on the corner of their own respective blocks, diagonal from each other.
As they left, Ellis moved to search her backpack. Maybe she left them in her other pants?
They all sat in silence for a moment, before Ellis paused, looked up, and asked, "So, have an exciting day?"
"Oh, be quiet. I was stealing a map from some pirates, but I ran into some complications," Nami replied.
"I'm gonna hazard a guess that those two are the complications," Ellis replied, pointing her thumb at the cage.
"Yeah, pretty much."
Luffy looked back and forth between them as they conversed.
Nami continued, "Say, Ellis, once I'm all finished up here, want a ride? Last I remember, your dinghy was on the verge of death, and things are a bit too crazy to stay here."
"Yeah," Ellis replied, "I was just going to nab a new one, but stuff keeps happening and I haven't had a chance." She wasn't about to deny a free ride.
Luffy looked back and forth between them as they conversed.
"Cool! If we get separated, meet me at the edge of the docks. I pulled my boat ashore, so it's in the sand."
They continued chatting until the mayor returned. The front door of his house creaked closed. Ellis turned to the noise to see him carrying a dish and a yellow box.
"How's Zoro?" Luffy asked
"I told him he really should see a doctor, but he insisted he didn't need to and just wanted to sleep it off," he replied, perplexed.
Shushu yawned, looking roughed up from his earlier ordeal.
Nami crouched down, sitting on the other side of the dog. "So, this dog's name is Shushu?" she asked, petting him.
Luffy laughed, "Why is he just sitting there like that? He sure is a lazy dog."
"He's guarding the store," the mayor firmly corrected.
"He's guarding it?" Nami repeated.
"Yes," he replied.
"Huh?" Nami turned to the building behind them. "Oh, I see! It's a pet food shop!"
"That's right, and the man who used to run this store was a very close friend of mine." The mayor walked over to Shushu with the bowl, containing bone-shaped dog food, and placed it on the ground in front of him.
Shushu started eating the food as the mayor continued, "There you go. When he passed, I assumed the responsibility of taking care of Shushu."
"He died?" Nami asked softly.
"Yes, three months ago, after fighting his illness for a very long time," he replied wistfully. Poor dog. Three months ago? That's pretty recent, in terms of grief. Ellis sighed sadly, running a hand through Shushu's fur.
"Don't tell me he's been waiting for his master to return all this time," Nami spluttered.
"That seems to be the consensus," the mayor replied.
"Huh." Then the mayor sat down on the porch, pulling out a dark pipe to smoke.
Ellis turned to the woman, softly interjecting, "Sometimes dogs can tell when someone's sick; if he's been fighting it for a long time, Shushu likely knew it was getting worse." She looked at the dog. "Even so, dogs can tell if their owners have passed. They can sense the distress in the people around them."
"Shushu's a smart dog. He's probably known for a while that his master isn't coming back." Shushu licked the bowl clean, ignorant of their conversation.
"Then, why does he stay here at the store?"
"I guess, because he has a connection to it. It's his . . . treasure. He's guarding it." He took a drag from his pipe, then exhaled. "His master left him with his shop and that's why he protects it. I've tried to bring him back to my place, so he won't be out in the elements, but he won't take so much as a step away from here." Shushu let out a big yawn, then picked up the empty bowl, and brought it back over to the mayor. He placed it down before returning to his post.
Then the dish clattered; the ground quaked, and Ellis had to brace herself on the ground to keep herself from falling over. Then there was a roar, and another shake. Another roar. Another shake.
Nami stood up, startled. "Huh? What's that sound?"
The mayor jumped up from his seat. "It's him! It's Beast Tamer Mohji!" He up and down the sidewalk, arms flailing. "We gotta go! Run!"
"What do you mean, beast tamer?!"
The two of them fled past the mayor's house, thus leaving Ellis with the dog and the man in the cage. His back was to her as he looked in the direction the others fled.
Then she remembered, she put the picks in her shoes before going into the water. She didn't even need a minute.
"C'mon, puppy, something's here," Luffy pleaded. "Why don't you just give me that key back."
Ellis kicked off her shoe and dug them out. As the ground-shaking footsteps got closer, she fiddled with the lock. Push the pins like that . . . Twist the lock a little to get a better grip . . . There!
The lock sprung open, and the man was freed. At the noise, he turned to her, startled. She unhooked the lock and swung the cage door open. He gave her a blinding grin before crawling out and standing straight.
He stretched up his arms, groaning, "Ahh, that's much better!" Ellis returned the lock before standing up next to him. Ellis was almost a whole head taller than him; he has such a large presence, she didn't expect to be taller than him. She slid her shoes back on before turning back to him.
It was only when warm, and noxious air enveloped them, and a large shadow came over her and Luffy that they turned around, only to see a lion the size of a house standing right over them.
"I see that your friends have deserted you," a mid-pitched, gravelly voice called down to them. "And after you just escaped!"
"Who the heck are you?" Luffy quizzically responded.
"I'm known as the beast tamer, Mohji. A member of the Buggy Pirates!" He proudly proclaimed.
Beast Tamer Mohji, in all his fur-crop-top glory, sat on a lion with a baby pink mane. He had on jeans, a brown belt, fur shoes, and a . . . hat? A 'hat' with tiny bear-like ears. He also had eyeliner on his lower lid and some scruff that comes with forgetting to shave for a few days.
"Woah, that's a weird animal suit you got on–"
The lion shrieked as the beast tamer cried, "That was rude!" He then pointed to his head, "This is manly hair!"
"Okay, that's even weirder."
Shushu growled, in an aggressive stance, inching closer to the threat. "You must not know of my terrifying skills!" He then boasted. "There is no animal in this world that Beast Tamer Mohji can't bend to do his bidding!" The lion knelt down as he said this, allowing Mohji to step off and stand before them, and over Shushu. He bent over and held out his hand, ordering, "Shake."
Only for Shushu to bite the man, reaching past the hand and up to his wrist. Mohji danced in place, flinging the poor dog around as he cried out in pain. Shushu kept growling as he yelled, "Why does it hurt so bad?!" He swung the dog around a bit more before Shushu loosened his bite and was flung in their direction, and landed on his feet.
Ellis felt hands grasp her shoulders and pull her back. Luffy then moved to stand ahead of her, releasing her from his grip but extended his arm in front of her.
"You nameless thief, I have no interest in killing you, but tell me where Roronoa Zoro is before I change my mind," Mohji, now back on his lion, threatened.
"No way," Luffy sternly answered. Right now, Luffy needed to beat the shit out of something, and in front of him stood the perfect target. He deepened his stance, ready to protect the woman and the dog behind him.
"Richie!" Mohji screamed. "Attack!"
Until he got slammed into a building several streets away.
"Nice work," Mohji praised, "Good boy, Richie! Now let's go find Zoro, so I can defeat him and strengthen my reputation!"
However, Richie had another idea.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––
A/N: I have the whole story planned out, including a 46-page outline :)
Feel free to comment even if you hate the story, I accept pretty much any feedback.
This chapter was 3.2k words.
