Let's see now… It's Friday, after school, which means it's now weekend. I'm currently playing Skyrim. I am in Helgen.

Lamest pun ever: achieved.

I would like to start this chapter by thanking Sharkteeth, who greatly inspired me with his/her fic Ten Tailed Strawhat, and my good friend Marcus, for enduring my endless chattering about plot ideas.

Chapter 2

In which Zoro might be hallucinating

"Say, Rika?"

"Hm?"

"Is Zoro really evil, like everyone say?"

Rika shook her head furiously. "No, he isn't! It's the Morgans who are the bad guys!"

The Morgans. That is, Lieutenant Morgan and his son, Helmeppo. The corrupted duo was pretty much ruling the whole island with an iron fist. Or an axe fist, if one was going to be literal.

"Everyone's afraid of him, but he's real nice. See, Helmeppo had his pet wolves running free all over town. No one could stop them, or they'd be killed!" Rika explained, spontaneously bursting into story-teller mode. "One day, the wolves attacked me, but then, Zoro-nii-san was there! He saved me!"
Rika shook her head sadly.
"Helmeppo blamed me and my mother, as there was no way he could take Zoro down in a fair fight. Onii-san took the hit for us. It's all my fault…

The little girl paused here, biting her lip while hugging herself slightly for comfort. Coby, on the other hand, didn't know what to say, so he remained silent, waiting for the girl to continue her story.

"They tied him up to a pole," she said after a while. "They tied him up in the execution yard for all to see, like he was some kind of battle trophy! They gave him no food, no water, nothing! They promised! They promised they'd let him go if he survived for a month!"

"A month!" Coby exclaimed, horrified. "No one would survive that!"

Rika gave him a small 'hum' of agreement. "I… I managed to sneak out some food to him a few times. He… He survived. Somehow. A whole month of no food, no water and all of the humiliation from that bastard Helmeppo and his cronies! And they broke their promise! They didn't let him go!"

"But that's terrible!"

"That's not all! See, Zoro wasn't exactly happy when they broke their promise to him, so he broke loose from those ropes like it was nothing. Despite starving for a month! But still, he wasn't strong enough to escape. They threw him into the dungeon, chaining him down like some kind of murderer! It… It's been over a month since then, and I haven't been able to send down any food. I thought he was dead!"
But then, she brightened up. "But now he's gonna be ok, ne? I'm so happy!"

Whatever reply Coby intended to come with, he didn't get the chance to utter as a massive explosion racked the town. Pandemonium followed. Most of the town dropped whatever they were doing and ran head over heels, either away from or towards the source. That is, the now burning marine base. Rika and Coby were among the latter group.

What met them was chaos, pure and simple. Half of the marine base had been reduced to smoldering rubble and the rest stood alight in tall, red flames, eagerly licking at the sky. And from the rubble, akin to a duo of war heroes, strode Luffy and Zoro, the latter heavily leaning on the former. Luffy, carrying three rather humongous bags of something, and Zoro, in very tattered clothing, munching on an onigiri while drinking from a bottle of what seemed to be some sort of alcoholic beverage. They seemed to be having a rather joking conversation about something, but they were too far away to make out any words.

The sight was enough to raise a shocked kind of morbid joy throughout the crowd.

But their joy was short lived. From the fires, like an army of the undead, rose the marines with vengeance.

One loud, commanding voice rose up above the roar of the fires, immediately dousing any joy that had lit up amongst the gathered crowd.

"Don't let them escape! Men, FIRE!"

Meanwhile, with the two pirates

"Did I tell you, Luffy; you're the craziest damn guy I've ever met."

"I honestly don't understand why people keep telling me that…"

Zoro just laughed out loud at his new captain and took another bite of his onigiri, all the while shamelessly letting said captain support most of his weight. There was no shame in just having survived over two months of starvation, after all.
"Seriously, though. Burning down the whole place? Overkill, much?"

"Maybe," Luffy grinned, supporting his companion without any complaints. "It was part four of my plan, though."

"Really?" The swordsman gave the large bags a sideward glance. "Which part was 'Raid the kitchens'?"

"Part three."

"Oh."

Crickets would have chirped, had not any chances of there being any present been quite literally eaten away by fire.

"I wasn't even serious about that..."

"You weren't? Well, it was."

As you can see, the two pirates were merrily chatting along as if they had been companions for as long as they could remember, completely and utterly ignoring the quite intense fire behind them as well as the crowd a few tens of meters ahead of them. Perhaps they should have been a bit more attentive.

"Men, FIRE!"

As if a switch had been flipped, all sense of glee was gone from the air and Zoro cursed himself for letting himself be so careless. With a half-turn, he reached for his trusty swords as the sound of gunfire rang through the burning yard.

Only for him to freeze up at the sudden lack of support.

Between him and the bullets stood Luffy, shielding him from the bullets while grinning like a maniac. The world seemed to slow down.

Only for Zoro's brain to freeze up as well as he was forced to do a double-take of what had just occurred. His captain had just been peppered by a multitude of bullets and was decidedly not lying in a bloody heap on the ground. No, the bullets had decided that the laws of reality was a boring and utterly worthless thing to take into consideration and had bounced right back. It took a few seconds for the poor swordsman to gather his wits enough to even say anything.
"What the hell was that?"

The red-head just chuckled, smiling like the sun, like he did not just get shot at by half an army.
"I ate the Gomu-Gomu no Mi."

Zoro found that his brain had grown rather fond of this newfound level of slow best described with the word 'derp'.
"Wait, let me get this straight… You… are like me…"

"Yes."

"And you ate a Devil's fruit?"

"Yes. Thought it was a snack, but yes."

"… I seem to be having trouble convincing myself I'm really not hallucinating."

So did the soldiers, apparently. It dawned on Zoro that confusion was a surprisingly effective battle tactic. Perhaps he should try it too when he had the chance. Judging by the way that the marines were still a bit too stunned to do much more than sputter gibberish it could make a lot of battles a lot easier.

Hum. Seems like the derp was wearing off.

"Zoro," Luffy said, having dropped down on all fours somewhere along the line. His previous happy smile had been replaced by a look that could only be described as dead serious. "Can you fight?"

That one short sentence blew away the last of his confusion like dry leaves in the wind. This was battle, where confusion got you killed. He smirked, which despite his starved form still managed to be quite menacing.
"Swords at hand, heart still beating. I can fight."

A few days later, with Coby

Coby realized later on, that what he had witnessed that day was the birth of a legend. Luffy, taking the shape of a red, majestic fox, covering the field in playful flame, claws and tails striking down his opponents like a storm of feral fire, while Zoro struck from above, swords dancing in rhythm with the flames, dealing swift death from above like a harbinger of battle. The fight lasted no longer than two minutes.

Now, this description might seem a bit superfluous, and to be frank, it most certainly was. In reality, the battle was crude and not much more than a warm-up meant for them to test how their different styles meshed together. It had been a better match-up than either had anticipated and they ended up cracking jokes to one another through the whole thing.

Nor was there any dealing of "swift death" either, since the two had a silent agreement to only kill if necessary. The one exception was the Prick, who most referred to as Lieutenant Morgan.

Lieutenant Morgan, or the Prick, as Ruffy and his First Mate insisted upon calling him, had been their prio one target from the get-go, for obvious reasons. Even if neither of the two pirates were aware of the Prick's oppressive regime, he was the undeniable leader of the pack.

They had not expected the remaining marines to drop their guns and rejoice a lot the moment their leader fell. It was, however, not unwelcome. Zoro still needed a proper meal, after all. And a shower. And clothes that weren't halfway torn to shreds. And a shave, according to the man himself.

The local ladies, however, did not agree. In the end, Zoro was pretty much bullied into neither shaving nor cutting his hair back to his preferred length. That day, Roronoa Zoro got to know the true level of scary that feminine fanaticism could reach. He was almost happy when the marines demanded that they leave.

Ruffy just laughed his ass off at his partner's misfortune.

It was, however, in that gracefully deadly and overly superfluous manner that Coby remembered them as their little dinghy slowly disappeared beyond the horizon. He and Rika sat by the docks, watching the small speck grow smaller and smaller, further and further out of reach, each left to their own thoughts.

In the span of only a few days, Coby had his beliefs utterly and completely shattered and utterly jumbled up until he didn't know up from down. His greatest hero was now a carefree redhead of a fire-throwing pirate, and a marine officer was the most evil and corrupt man he had ever been unfortunate enough to encounter. It had always been his great dream to capture bad guys, but what if that bad guy was a marine? If he was a marine as well, he couldn't do that without having to go through a bucket load of bureaucracy, which could take months, if not years! And all the while, the bad guy would be left free to do whatever he pleased. Just like Morgan had.

Worse yet, if he signed up, he might be forced to follow the orders of such a person. And even if a pirate was a kind and just person like Luffy, he'd still be forced to arrest them. The world just didn't make sense anymore.

Rika, on the other hand was gazing at the sea with a determined flame burning steadily in her eyes. While her body-language suggested otherwise, curled up, hugging her knees tightly to her chest as she was, her face was set in a mask of solid steel.

"Coby?"

"Hm?"

"I've decided."

"Oh?"

"I'm gonna become a bounty hunter."

"Eh?"

"And not just any bounty hunter! I'm gonna become the best bounty hunter the world's ever seen!"
She stood up, turning towards the now very much stunned pinkette. "What do you say, Coby? Want to come with me?"

Coby just stared at her outstretched hand, at loss for words. Was it really that simple? All of his life, he had been dreaming of becoming a marine, and now, the very moment he began to doubt that dream, this brave little town girl pulls out a sudden, unexpected solution out of nowhere. The world made even less sense.

Bounty hunters didn't exactly carry much better of a reputation than the criminals they hunted, but they were free to make their own decisions. They picked out their own targets and since they were freelancers, they didn't answer to any superiors, unless forming a syndicate, of course. And if they were sneaky enough, they could probably put a corrupt marine or two in their place.

It was so simple and the timing was so ridiculously perfect that it was outright stupid. But then, he was starting to get kind of used to that kind of stupid. His answer?

"Hell yes!"

Somewhere, where things are overly blue

A few days later, far out at sea, our two heroes were facing a minor crisis. They had started off with three humungous bags of food, and now, only a few days later, they were all out. And that was with Luffy actually holding back his usual appetite to allow Zoro to eat enough to recover from his somewhat ridiculous leave of absence where food was concerned. Being the stupidly sturdy-ass bastard that he was, he was pretty much recovered by the second day. Which meant that Luffy could resume his usual pace.

At the beginning of the third day, they had two bags left. By nightfall, they were fresh out. Well, except for a few bottles of booze, which Zoro fiercely protected with a level of ferocity preceded only by the Balrog of Morgoth regarding the mines of Moria.

That day, Luffy learned that Zoro was very, very fond of his alcohol.

The facts remained, however. They were completely and utterly out of food and Zoro was down on his last bottle, which he didn't let out of his sight. To avoid wasting energy, the two instead decided to bond over a shared pastime of theirs.

Napping.

Luffy napped away somewhere within a large pile of pillows that he had conjured out of nowhere, somehow, while Zoro was perfectly content sleeping wherever there was enough space. One time he had tried taking one of his captain's many pillows, only to quickly learn that that was a very, very bad idea. He soon found out, however, that the redhead had no problem with him borrowing his pillows, just as long as he didn't remove them from the pile.

This is how we now find our heroes. One lying somewhere in a large pile of pillows with the random tail sticking out from a few places, and the other leaning his head on one of the soft, stuffed squares while clutching a bottle of beer somewhat like how a child would a teddy.

The two were half-asleep until a loud 'caw' echoed through the waters. Zoro, being the First Mate, was the first to stir.
"Oi, Luffy."

"Hmmnn?"

He pointed at the source of the caw. "Bird."

"Food."

They shared a quick glance, before breaking out in a short battle of rock-paper-scissor. Luffy somehow won all three rounds. The trademark cry of the Gomu-Gomu-no -Rocket cut through the air, which was shortly followed by a startled cry. Unfortunately, this startled cry did not hail from the bird.

After a loud and highly colorful string of curses befitting a sailor such as himself, Zoro took to the skies in pursuit of his wayward captain, but only after seeing that the large pile of pillows had mysteriously disappeared and grabbing his precious bottle.

Why did his captain have to be so damn careless?

Otherwhere

Following the direction that our two protagonists were travelling, there was a modestly sized port town. However, there were no people to be seen. No children playing on the streets, no bustling marketplace, no fishermen down by the port. There weren't even any people to be seen within the homes. It was, simply put, a ghost town. Well, except for a small dog, valiantly guarding a pet food store, and a cat-eyed ginger girl on one of the main streets, who was running for her life from a number of thugs.

And then, of course, there was the inn at the middle of the town, filled with a multitude of rowdy men. About a third of them were specifically perched on the roof. They were also aiming a rather menacing-looking cannon at our swiftly approaching heroes.

Not overly good...

A bit short, but sufficient. I hope you enjoyed it and I'll see you all next time!