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Luffy's breathing came in quick, shallow gasps. He could feel a cold sweat all over his body, threatening to freeze him solid.

"Luffy-kun? Luffy-kun!"

Slowly, he began to peel apart his sticky eyelids.

"Luffy-kun, wake up!"

He smacked his lips together. He didn't know why, but he had the oddest feeling that something horrible had just occurred. A blurry shadow began to take shape before his sleep-filled eyes, slowly but surely coming into focus. A pair of black eyes, filled with concern, stared into his own.

"Oh, thank God," the smooth and feminine but panicked-sounding voice breathed.

By now, he could clearly see the tall, black-haired woman who stood in front of him, her snake-shaped earrings shaking visibly.

"Mmm... Hanmock?"

"You were tossing and turning in your sleep!" the Shichibukai Boa Hancock said, pressing her forehead against Luffy's. "Oh, God, you're burning up!"

Luffy couldn't think of an appropriate response, so he let Hancock carry on. "What happened?" the "Pirate Empress" asked at last. "Did you have a bad dream?"

Anyone else would have balked at such a childish term, let alone admit to it, but Luffy wasn't anyone else. "Yeah... I think."

"What was it about?"

Luffy struggled mentally as he racked his brain for memories of what had just happened. Usually, he wasn't all that good at remembering dreams, as they mostly came to him a few hours after he had awoken (and been fed), and even then, they were but dim memories.

This time, however, it all came to him in a flash: his nakama... they had died... and he had been responsible for it.

He inhaled sharply, and his eyes opened wider than a normal human's eyes should have been able to. Hancock, startled, stumbled back. "Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah."

No matter what he often told Sanji about the missing food supplies aboard the Thousand Sunny, Luffy was not a liar at heart. It wasn't in his nature to lie about things like this, so why did he do it just now? He didn't know.

He closed his eyes, trying his hardest to go back to sleep, but the enormous fireball... the mere thought of his nakama being burned to cinders, their limbs thrown haphazardly over the Grand Line... they would not let him rest. He told himself over and over again that they were much too strong to meet such a demise, but it was still a long time before his emotion-overloaded brain finally relaxed.

----

Boa Hancock, the sole female Shichibukai, could be many things. She could be seductive. She could be (and often was) cruel. She could even show kindheartedness every now and then that she was sure had perished during her years as a slave to the Tenryubito.

But she was not stupid.

No matter what Monkey D. Luffy told her, he was most certainly not okay. Whatever nightmares he had just had were not your run-of-the-mill nightmares about being chased by wild animals or falling off a building. It had to be much deeper than that.

His body language told her everything; he was not the kind of man to be terrified of being chased by wild beasts (hell, he knocked out a panther the size of a house in a single punch!), so what could have possibly made him break out in a cold sweat and twist and turn like that? The only times that she had done similar actions were when she had nightmares about her days as the Tenryubitos' slave. Those dreams, she did not confide in anybody. Not Elder Nyon. Not Sandersonia or Marigold.

What could have frightened this fearless man so badly?

Oblivious to the fact that she was still in her pajamas, the "Pirate Empress" of the Grand Line made her way to the door of her cabin, hoping to get some answers. In truth, however, she didn't even need to walk outside to learn the truth behind the whole ordeal.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU MIXED UP THE EXPERIMENTAL DRUG WITH THE CHAMPAGNE CASKS?!"

Boa froze in her tracks, and behind her, Luffy stirred a bit. The tall woman rushed to the door, pressing one ear against it. She couldn't afford to miss out on a word of this.

"I-I must've been..."

"Drunk? Distracted? Half-asleep?" Momonga barked, fury dripping off of every syllable.

The owner of the stammering voice (probably a marine recruit; Boa didn't bother to remember them by name, so she couldn't tell which) began to say something else, but Momonga cut him off.

"Do you have any idea," he said in a much quieter tone, but just as enraged-sounding as his previous one. "How much you've screwed up? The drug was developed by the top researchers of the World Government themselves! It took them years to create!"

"U-um, with all r-respect, s-sir..." the marine stammered. "Wh-what does it do?"

"Exactly what I'm about to do," Momonga said, his voice now laced with a sadistic edge. "Bring your worst nightmares to life."

"Uh, what...?"

"In other words, you dimwit, it was meant to mentally cripple pirates and other lawbreakers by transforming their dreams into their worst nightmares!"

"... oh."

"What do you mean 'oh'?! Not only have you wasted a potential weapon to be used against Whitebeard's forces, but you've used it on one of our most powerful allies! If we're going to stand a chance in hell against the man who went toe-to-toe with Roger himself, we're going to need all the help we can get!"

By now, Hancock was seething with rage. It was all the fault of those dimwitted marines that her poor Luffy-kun was now a snivelling wreck. She had never like the World Government and their stooges to begin with, but this really took the cake.

If they thought they could get away with this, they had another thought coming.

With that, she cleared her throat and screamed in as high-pitched a sound as she could muster so early in the day.

"KYYYAAAAAAAA!!!"

In an instant, she heard the pounding of a dozen pairs of boots against the deck of the ship. She flung open the door, closed it (it wouldn't do for the marines to see Luffy, after all) and leaned against the wall, panting heavily and doing her best to look terrified.

"Hancock-san!" Momonga cried in alarm, as if his worst fears had been realized. "What happened?"

"Oh... I had such an awful dream..." Hancock sniveled. "I... I dreamt that I was one being swallowed by an enormous Sea King... and all around me, the marines were cheering it on..."

This act produced the exact intended effect; Momonga threw a look toward the marine recruit standing beside him that made the young man wince as if burned.

"There, there... It was only a dream, now..." he stated awkwardly. It was clear that, despite his battle experience, he had little knowledge in how to soothe someone in distress that he couldn't just order to suck it up.

Hancock sniffed again. "But... it seemed so real..."

"We're... terribly sorry for this inconvenience," Momonga stated at last after a moment of slience. "You feel free to get as much sleep as you like, now. We'll be stopping at an island shortly for supplies. Anything you want, it's on me, alright?"

Hancock raised a hand to her eye and wiped away a (nonexistent) tear. "O-okay..."

With that, Hancock went back in and closed the door. Outside, she could hear Momonga verbally tearing the marine a new one.

"Latrine duty. Tonight. And every night after that! For ten years! Or until you've died! Whichever comes first!"

In spite of herself, Hancock smiled. It was nice to know that she could do something for her soulmate besides simply giving him a ride to Impel Down.

End

Okay, you guys are probably going to want to tear me a new one now for using such a cliched ending, but I've actually had this ending in mind for quite some time now. If you think about it, everything being a (drug-induced) dream is probably the only one that makes sense.

The inaccuracies about the Strawhats in the last chapter were meant to foreshadow the fact that the entire story had been a dream, but I'm guessing that that wasn't exactly a success. If you're still curious, here are the inaccuracies:

Luffy swimming (Devil fruit user, remember?)

Chopper's nose being black

Brook actually taking the fact that somebody damaged his afro without tearing the guy to pieces.

Technically, this "epilogue" could count as another chapter of Troper Tales, covering the "All Just A Dream" trope. As such, there won't be a chapter starring Boa in that story.

Well, now that I've finally got this story out of the way, expect many more updates for Troper Tales and Laugh it Up. One week after July 7, of course, because I'm going to be travelling to Yellowstone in a few short hours. I wanted to finish it before I go, but make no mistake: I did not make this ending up on the fly.

Well, good night, everybody!