-DMTwins-

This wasn't good. Luffy frowned at his first mate, who had been drifting in and out of consciousness. He gingerly grabbed the swordsman's good arm and used it to keep the man balanced as he hauled him onto his back, intent to take him back to camp.

After he was sure that he wasn't going to be jarring either of the man's injuries too badly, Luffy stood and turned in the direction of camp, completely ignoring the raptor. It would be a good source of food, but there was no way that Luffy could carry Zoro back to camp while dragging the mother behind him as well. There were more important things to deal with.

He began heading back to camp as quickly as the swordsman on his back would allow, praying that he had not gotten turned around in the fight. His head slumped forward against his shoulder as he began to move, which Luffy was thankful for as well. If he could not feel the brief warmth from his breathing, Luffy probably would have thought that Zoro was dead. But he wasn't dead. Dying maybe, but not dead—because Zoro had a dream to fulfill, and there was no way in hell a stupid blue thing would keep him from his dream.

Thankfully, Luffy had chosen the correct direction to walk, as the distance from camp to the second ring of trees really wasn't that far and he quickly came up on the camp. He set the swordsman down by the fire pit—which had burned out sometime last night. The beach was oddly quiet, even the waves seemed to sense that their noisy crash-slap against the shore would be unwanted noise.

He quickly tore away the tattered shirt, which had since begun to stick to the edges of the wound as the blood dried. He grabbed one of the pots that had been filled with water the night before, and tore off a piece of Zoro's shirt to run carefully around the edges of the bite, cleaning away dirt and dried blood.

The sun was beginning to set by now, but Luffy continued to wash the wound on Zoro's shoulder. He didn't really know what he was doing—he'd only ever practiced tying bandages on himself when he didn't have a doctor to turn to. And those wounds were nothing like this. Not to mention the fact that he had no idea what to do about poison. All he knew was that a person could die of poisoning if they didn't get to a doctor as quickly as possible. Biting his bottom lip, Luffy tried to remember what Chopper usually did when Zoro got sliced open.

Well that was obvious. He sewed him up—but Luffy didn't have a needle… or thread. So that wouldn't work.

The bleeding was beginning to slow—which was good. He considered simply bandaging the wounds without sewing them up. It was the best he could do, really, as he tried to tear strips from the table cloth they'd found in the crate earlier.

He tried to wrap the shoulder wound, but decided that it was too dark for him to be doing anything, and he grabbed the metal fork, turning to look for the rock Zoro had used to start a fire earlier. He found it lying a few feet away and tried a few times to get a fire to light. At first, his efforts didn't even produce sparks—which was enough to send the already stressed captain into near hysterics, he finally managed to figure it out, just as he was considering wrapping bandages in the dark. Zoro'd made it look a lot easier than it was.

After getting it started, he threw three logs on the flame to make sure it didn't go out, and almost smothered the fire in the process. Frantically, he pulled one of the logs from the fire, and made certain that it was going to burn before replacing the log again. He turned to Zoro and was shocked to see that he was awake and laughing at his antics, all the while trying vainly to sit up.

Placing a hand on the older man's chest, Luffy gently urged him to lie down.

"Don't," Luffy said. Zoro frowned at the hand on his chest, fixing unsteady eyes on it as though he weren't entirely sure what it was. After a moment he moved to grab Luffy around the wrist with his good arm.

"…m'…fine…" He mumbled, his frown deepening at every failed attempt at speaking coherently. He tried to get up again, but Luffy forced him back.

"Don't be stupid!" Luffy snapped, "Lay down." The swordsman's eyes moved slowly from his wrist to rest lazily on his captain's face. He must have decided that it would be in his best interest to listen, because the swordsman relaxed slightly under his touch and heaved a ragged breath.

Luffy tensed as he realized that even the small amount of movement had jarred his wounds, and that blood was running freely from the wound in his shoulder once again.

He grabbed Zoro's shirt, which was torn and ruined anyway, and pressed it to the wound, willing the bleeding to stop. As soon as Luffy did so the swordsman's hand shot out, clenching onto Luffy's forearm with surprising strength as he tried to pull away the offending pressure. His eyes were clouded over from the pain, and Luffy was pretty sure that he was just barely hanging onto consciousness, if he was still awake at all. Despite the obvious pain, Zoro didn't cry out, and Luffy almost wished he would. Because if he didn't cry out—when he obviously wanted to—it probably meant that he couldn't cry out.

Carefully, he pulled Zoro's hand away and, for all that he was clenching onto Luffy's arm pretty tightly, the action was met with little resistance.

"Stop dying," Luffy said through clenched teeth, even as he tried to keep the swordsman from bleeding out. His mind went momentarily back to that morning, "Captains orders—you can't die."

This comment earned the phantom traces of a smirk on the swordsman's face, though it quickly vanished beneath a pained grimace. He might have even seen an affirming nod—though it may have just been wishful thinking—as it was apparent that the swordsman was no longer conscious, his face more-or-less expressionless and his skin sheet white in color. If it weren't for the haggard breathing, he would have looked dead.

He let up the pressure on the first mates shoulder slightly and, deciding that this was the best it was going to be, he quickly wrapped the shoulder and leg wounds, and then proceeded to wrap the less-threatening cut on his hand. A drop of blood fell from Luffy's arm onto the clean bandage, startling the captain. That's right—he'd been bitten too. But if that was the case, shouldn't the poison have affected him as well? Unless it wasn't poison… but poison was the only thing that made sense! Not that it made sense for Zoro to be affected, and not him. Was it because he was a rubber man?

He frowned, tearing off another strip of the tablecloth to wrap tightly around his arm. He was so stupid! If he'd known that the thing's poison only affected Zoro, he would have fought it alone. He could have stabbed the thing in the eye just as well as the swordsman could, and then Zoro wouldn't be dying from some mystery-poison that only worked on him!

It was almost entirely dark by now, with the last traces of the sun vanishing quickly below the horizon. Luffy sat in the sand, at a loss as to what to do, before he realized that he really didn't want to just sit around and do nothing, hoping that Zoro would get better on his own. He also realized that there was really nothing else in his power for him to do—he wasn't a doctor, and it wasn't like he could just make an antidote.

So Luffy grabbed the pot of water that he'd been using to clean their wounds—which was muddled and un-drinkable—and walked a few feet away to dump it out on the sand, if only to give himself something to do. He wasn't hungry any more—not that they had any food to eat anyway, since the only rat they'd managed to collect had been swiped by Meat.

Stupid Meat. He should have listened when Zoro said to leave it alone—Zoro'd know that there was something wrong about it, but he'd ignored him entirely and had even gone so far as to name the damn thing. If he ever saw it again, he'd kick it's ass—especially if…

But that wouldn't happen. Zoro wouldn't die so easily… now if only the rest of their crew would hurry up and find them. It had only been a day, but they needed Chopper or, more specifically, Zoro needed Chopper. Luffy had no doubt that the little doctor could quickly make an antidote for the poison out of some kind of plant that he'd bought or collected and dried himself.

Collected and dried himself…

Luffy dropped the pot in the sand, hurrying back to the pot he'd stuffed a bunch of mint plants in earlier. He pulled the lid off of and pulled a leaf off one of the plants and held it out to the fire. It was more-or-less unremarkable, but the more he looked at it, the more he though that that was definitely where he'd seen the plants before. Chopper had been drying them on the deck a couple weeks ago—he was sure he'd recognized it.

When he'd asked Chopper what they were for, he'd said that it was a sort of natural something-or-rather that absorbed toxins in the body…

He whirled around to face the sleeping swordsman. That was why the poison didn't affect him when he was bitten. He'd been eating these leaves like candy since he'd first found them. It made sense... besides, Luffy had just managed to find a stray piece of hope to cling to, and there was no way in hell he was going to let go of it so easily.

Luffy grabbed hold of the swordsman's uninjured shoulder and gave him a little shake. No response. He needed to be awake, after all, since stuffing leaves into his mouth wouldn't do much good if the swordsman didn't chew or swallow them.

"Oi, Zoro… wake up." He shook him again, a little harder, and still earning no response. The swordsman's breathing was harsh and uneven, and he refused to be stirred.

"The island we're going to is called Peperi. It was the leading base for a study on genetics, at least, until the scientists disappeared. That was five years ago, according to the lead scientist's journal, which was recovered after the disappearances began." she motioned to the book she's been reading. "There's an epilogue after the last entry that goes on to say that, ever since that last scientist's disappearance, everyone who stops on that island vanishes as well."

"Vanishes?" Usopp squeaked, "b-but if everyone vanishes, we can't go there."

"We can't be a pirate crew without a captain, either." Sanji said, effectively shutting the sniper up. Nami nodded in agreement, and began rolling up her map.

"Sanji's right. We'll set course for Peperi… at this rate, we should arrive tomorrow afternoon." She grabbed the eternal pose labeled Peperi and headed for the door, ignoring the cooing coming from their cook. Franky followed after her to help turn the ship, leaving the rest of the crew to continue their business as best they could, anxious as they were.

Robin picked up the journal, intending to re-read it once more. Something about it was troubling her. Towards the end of the journal the writing became less and less coherent, as though the author was in a state of great stress, but she couldn't seem to figure out why. His studies, or so he had written, had been going very well up to a certain point, and he'd been getting ample funding from a private investor as well.

She opened the book to the point where the entries began getting less coherent and began to read. She really wished that she could have a talk with the person who'd been funding the project, or, ideally, the head scientist himself. Although the latter was likely impossible, as it was apparent that the head scientist had long since become unreachable. Then again, nothing was impossible on the Grand Line, even talking to the dead.

Zoro had been fading in and out of consciousness for so long that he'd lost track of what was real and what was a dream. He distinctly remembered being woken by Luffy in the middle of the night, and being told to drink a green-pulp that he called "medicine", but looked suspiciously like a bunch of leaves stuffed into a cup of water.

He'd done so, if only to humor his captain and get him to stop talking. His entire body was aching, and his head felt a lot like it was under attack by an unseen force with a very large hammer. He remembered lying in the silence, which was still too loud for his tastes, until he'd fallen asleep—or lost consciousness, he wasn't sure which. After that, he didn't remember anything else. All he knew was that it was dawn, or close to it, anyway, and that he was all alone on the beach. Last night's fire had nearly died out.

Luffy was gone, with only his hat to show that he'd even been there in the first place. It was sitting just at the edge of camp, a little ways away. He could very vaguely remember Luffy telling him to keep it safe for him, but he'd been so out of it he'd though it was a dream at the time. He considered grabbing it, but it was sitting just out of reach, and he didn't really feel like getting up to go get it. He did, however, feel well enough to sit up, which was a start.

He still felt like shit, but at least now it was bearable. He doubted Luffy's ability to actually produce something that could be called "medicine", but stranger things had happened. With a grunt, he laid back down, deciding that it would make more sense for him to wait for Luffy to come back, and hope there weren't any more raptors.

He shut his eyes, listening to the water crashing against the shore, and trying to will himself back to sleep. He'd almost succeeded, when a strange noise caught his attention. His brows furrowed, and he sat up to look out to sea, trying to identify the source of the noise. At first he didn't see anything, but then the noise came again from his left, only much louder this time. His head snapped around in time to see the baby raptor from earlier dart into the bushes.

It was scared of him, and the trees were too thin to hide another adult if there was one, so Zoro decided to try and scare the thing off. After all, its teeth were wicked-sharp, and he didn't want to have to deal with it if at all possible.

Grabbing a rock, he hurled it at the bush, causing the leaves to rustle and snap as the thing shot out and into the trees. It paused as it ran to look back, cocking its head curiously to the side, and Zoro froze as a feeling of dread washed over him. There was something in its mouth. A quick look around confirmed his suspicions.

Luffy's hat was gone, and that thing had it.

He was on his feet in a second, which was a bad idea on two counts, both because it startled the baby into a run, and because it caused a wave of dizziness to wash over him that nearly made his eat the sand. Ignoring the dizziness, he took off after the raptor, only slightly irritated that it appeared to be playing with him—running just to the point where Zoro might loose track of it before stopping and waiting for him to catch up. It cocked its head to the side cheekily, hat clamped in its jaws. If it had wanted to, it could have easily gotten away—the little bastard was fast—but it seemed just as content to continue it's little game of follow the leader.

Meat led him directly to the entrance to the catacombs that Luffy and Zoro had used earlier. It paused one last time before disappearing inside. The swordsman ran up to the entrance out of breath. It was much harder than it should have been for him to keep up with the damn thing, and it was going easy on him, for god's sake.

A quick scan of the cave confirmed his expectations: he couldn't see a god-damn thing. Not that it mattered. Luffy had trusted him with his hat, and there was no way in hell he was going to let that stupid raptor eat it. He walked boldly into the cave with hopes that he would either find the raptor with the hat still intact, or that the raptor would grow bored of its game and abandon the hat somewhere in the caves. He could faintly hear the sound of claws clicking on the stone floor as it echoed down the tunnels and bounced off the walls.