Numbers Game

Author's Note: Naturally I make no claim of ownership on One Piece and am using this property purely in a fair-use capacity. However, there is another acknowledgement that needs to be made: the plot idea for this story is not my own, indeed the idea for the story, the concept of placing it in "Acts" rather than chapters, and much of the sequence of events are based off something out of another series. Guess it (specifically) and you win a cookie!

PS: I normally don't beg for reviews, but a one-shot of mine that I tagged improperly largely went ignored. Please read "A Pirate Lives Free". It's short!

Act One:

The cannonball arched through the air, zeroing in on the mast of the Thousand Sunny. Roronoa Zoro leapt into the air, slashing Sandai Kitetsu right through the missile. Or at least, he thought he did. Boom.

"Zoro!" came Chopper's panicked shout, though Zoro could not hear it over the ringing in his own ears as he fell back to the Sunny's deck. Nothing was hurt, except his pride. How had he botched that slash? Cutting cannonballs was almost routine for him by now.

"A little off your game, eh, marimo? Guess I'll have to pick up the slack." Sanji leapt into the air to intercept the next cannonball that flew towards them before Zoro could fire off a biting retort. Sanji zoomed towards the cannonball and readied a haki-powered kick. Boom.

"Sanji too?" Nami yelled incredulously.

"What was that about picking up the slack?" Zoro mocked.

Now it was Sanji who did not have time to reply before Usopp stepped forward as five cannonballs flew towards them. "Hissatsu, Pop Greens!" He fired off five shots in rapid succession, each of which formed itself into a venus-fly-trap, each of which prepared to eat the cannonballs.

Zoro strained his senses this time. Something was going wrong here: no way could he and Sanji both screw up something so simple. As the Pop Greens neared their targets, a subtle noise was audible: snap snap snap snap snap. The sound of someone rapidly snapping their fingers, and then the Pop Greens changed their trajectory in mid-flight, just missing the cannonballs, which flew on, over the three crewmates' heads and exploding against the Sunny's invincible Adam Wood decks.

"Oi oi!" Franky roared. "Aren't any of you interested in protecting my Sunny?"

"We're trying, damnit!" Usopp shouted back. He too seemed at a loss as to how his sniping skills had failed him. Surely the sharp-eyed sniper had seen what Zoro had seen, the impossible trajectory-change. The swordsman instead glanced at their erstwhile enemies, a pirate crew with a pair of dice under the skull and crossbones of their jolly roger. The apparent captain was a man in a tacky leather longcoat with messy, long blonde hair and a pompadour. A pair of dice dangled from his necklace. He seemed all too pleased with himself. He had started the fight after chasing the Sunny for about twenty minutes, introducing himself as Jimmy Troy and declaring himself as affiliated with Big Mom.

"Whatever, just take the fight to them!" Nami urged.

"Yosh!" Luffy replied, taking the gap between the ships in one leap. The other ship's thuggish-looking crew rallied to meet the rubber man, and Luffy prepared his standard response for a large crowd. "Gum Gum Gatli-wha!?" Zoro saw it this time, distinctly. Troy snapped his fingers, and then the first punch of Luffy's barrage went wild, causing Luffy's extended arm to wrap around his torso, ending with the rubber man punching himself in the side of his head.

"Bring her around!" Sanji barked at Franky. "We gotta help him!"

"Go for Troy!" Zoro added as he, Chopper, and Sanji jumped over to the other ship. Franky was following, while Usopp, Nami, and Robin held back to provide ranged support. "He's doing something weird!"

"Treinta Fluer!" Robin called, following Zoro's advice immediately as thirty arms sprouted all over Troy's body, grasping him tightly. Troy simply grinned, and snapped his fingers just as Robin barked "Clutch!" She twisted his body, not doubled-over-backwards as she usually did, but to the side, and instead of the usual sickening crack, there was a subtler popping sound.

"That felt really good, Neechan!" Troy said mockingly. "My back needed a good cracking. You really know how to make a man happy."

"Don't say anything like that to my Robin-chwan!" Sanji roared, running towards a burly enemy pirate that stood between him and Troy. He raised his leg for a powerful kick, but Troy snapped his fingers again and Sanji's grounded foot slipped, seeing him fall right on his butt.

The sight diverted Zoro's attention for a mere moment, wherein a pirate wielding a large club approached, read for a downward strike. Zoro raised two arms to block the attack, then he heard that snap again and he suddenly sneezed, interrupting the blocking motion and guaranteeing that the club-blow landed square on the swordsman's skull.

Now this one hurt a bit more, and Zoro saw stars for a second, but now he had it figured out. As weird as they had been, the other mistakes were at least possible, but Zoro had his reflexes down to the point that he would never sneeze in the midst of wielding his swords, not unless he was exposed to some sort of potent allergen.

"He's snapping his fingers!" Zoro shouted to the others, all of whom were engaged fiercely with the enemy. "That's messing us up!"

"And here I thought you'd never figure it out!" Troy mocked. "Even the best fighter in the world screws up once in a while. The odds are damn low, but not when you're playing with loaded dice." He grinned broadly.

The Straw Hats fought, but it was hard going against a crew that should have been easy pickings for them, as they made many errors, but soon enough Nami's clever mind turned the tide.

"Weather Sorcery: Pea Soup!" The clima-tact spewed forth a mass of impenetrable fog that rolled low and thick amongst the combatants. None of them could see more than a few feet in front of them, and Zoro struck back against the club-wielding goon, dispatching him effortlessly. Without being able to see the fights, Troy couldn't impact the outcomes. The other Straw Hats had it just as easy, and when the fog cleared, Troy was the last man standing.

He tried, he really did, and Zoro had to respect him for that. With six of the Straw Hats advancing on him, his fingers worked faster than anything Zoro had ever witnessed: punches, slashes and kicks went wide, Franky singed his own hair with Fresh Fire, but the Straw Hats' assault pushed him back, step by step towards his own mast. When Troy stood just in front of the mast, Zoro swung fiercely, aiming for the tendons in his forearm to stop that damn snapping, but he was a step too slow. Snap. Zoro's slash went wide and clipped the mast, but Troy jumped backwards to put space between them, readying his fingers as Zoro prepared another slash. Crack. Troy's skull bashed into the mast, and he went down.

"Boo," Luffy pouted, looking at the unconscious Troy. "That was boring."

"Did you get everyone?" Nami asked from the other ship.

"I think so," Brook said, as he observed a group of unconscious pirates. "They spared no effort in trying to defeat us."

"Is everyone all right?" Chopper asked. "Zoro, I saw you get hit on the head."

"Eh, I'm fine," Zoro said, rubbing his head nonchalantly. It did feel a little tender, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Chopper then examined Troy. "He might have a concussion," the reindeer concluded. "We shouldn't leave him here."

The Straw Hats proceeded to despoil the crew of the Lady Luck, an effort largely led by Nami as she plundered their hold (with Sanji in tow to do the heavy lifting, of course). Usopp and Luffy were fascinated by the gambling paraphernalia, dragging off a roulette table, several sets of die, and a blackjack table for their amusement. The others locked up the rest of the crew below decks, to awaken from their defeat while Chopper kept Troy for observation.

"Sanji, make us a victory feast!"

Luffy demanded a lunch-party, and so the Straw Hats launched into yet another ad hoc celebration. Sanji served fish rather than red meat, to Luffy's dismay, but Luffy quickly got over it as he busied himself with trying to snap his fingers like Troy (a skill he had never acquired) while Usopp watched in amusement. The aquarium room was filled with the normal sights and sounds of a Straw Hat feast: Brook's guitar music, Chopper and Franky making a spectacle of themselves as they danced on the table, Sanji fawning over Nami as he gave her the choicest servings of food and Zoro drinking to his heart's content in the corner. "By the way," Sanji asked Nami after handing her a fruity-looking drink. "Where is Robin-chwan? I made one for her, too."

"She found a book on Troy's ship," Nami said. "She's reading in the library."

"Then I shall deliver!" Sanji declared. He danced out of the aquarium with a tray of food, moving nimbly between Luffy and Usopp, the latter of whom was demonstrating the elusive finger-snapping skill. Zoro took a deep draught of ale.

When he set his mug back down, Robin was there, seated next to Nami as Sanji served her a drink. Zoro blinked, but she didn't go away, though Sanji had retreated to the galley.

"Is something wrong, Kenshi-san?" Robin said with a slight ring to her voice. She had noticed him staring.

"Weren't you reading some book you found on the other ship?"

Robin arched an eyebrow. "How did you know I found a book on the other ship? But no," she added, "I decided to save it for later."

"Nami was talking about it."

"Huh?" Nami queried, "I didn't know about any book."

"Sanji!" Luffy called, holding up a plate. "More meat!"

"You just wait!" Sanji yelled back.

Meat? It had been fish, hadn't it? Zoro reached up and rubbed his head again, feeling the minor swelling under his hair. He set down his mug. "I'm gonna go train." He said shortly.

Training was Zoro's salve for whenever the world got a little too weird; the gym in the crow's nest was his sanctuary from insanity. Today's cure for the crazies was a long set of leg curls.

294… Maybe those damn women had just been playing a prank on him, though what was the motive? Had they been trying to mislead Sanji instead?

295… And when had the red meat been introduced to the equation? Surely he would have remembered Luffy's jubilation at the preparation of meat.

296… This was all getting him nowhere. Weird stuff happens all the time on this ship, and a few small inconsistencies were nothing to lose his mind over.

297… Then again, Robin had to move awfully fast to… "Oi! Tanooki-san! Is our Captain okay?"

Clang. Zoro dropped his legs suddenly, letting the weights fall noisily back into place. He went over to the window to investigate the strange voice he had heard down below. Down on the Sunny's grassy deck, the entire crew of the Lady Luck, short of Troy himself, was assembled.

Zoro scrambled into action immediately, dropping through the gym's trapdoor and swiftly descending the mainmast, drawing one sword on the way down. "We've been boarded!" Zoro called loudly. "Enemies are on the ship!" He drew his other swords, advancing on the gang of pirates.

"Whoa whoa whoa!" one of the enemy pirates swore in alarm, "what the hell are you doing?"

"That's what I should be asking you," Zoro grunted dangerously around a mouthful of Wado Ichimonji.

"Help!" another pirate yelled. "Your swordsman's gone crazy!" The other Straw Hats assembled rallied onto the deck as Zoro continued to stalk towards the enemy pirates, now assembled in a frightened huddle.

"Oi, what the hell are you doing, Zoro?" Luffy shouted as he bounded towards the swordsman.

"These guys broke free! They're attacking the ship!"

"Some attack," Nami said sarcastically, looking at the enemy pirates who were, to a man, sweating in abject terror of the swordsman.

"Did that knock on the head scramble your moss-brains?" Sanji asked.

"What do you mean?" Zoro asked.

"Troy's crew surrendered after he got knocked out," Brook said. "They wanted to make sure their captain was okay after Chopper said he might have a concussion. It really warmed my heart, even though I don't have a heart, yohohoho!"

"They've been on the ship waiting for Troy to wake up," Chopper added. He turned to address Troy's crew. "He seems to be okay, but he's still asleep. I'll have to wait until he wakes up to make a better diagnosis."

"We locked them up!" Zoro insisted. "We beat them all up and locked them up!"

"Marimo-san is scary…" one of the pirates whispered to Usopp. Usopp nodded emphatically.

"Uhh… Zoro… have you been having other memory lapses?" Chopper asked tentatively.

Memory lapses? Was that it? But he didn't get hit on the head that hard, did he? He could explain away the other little things, but he couldn't explain this one.

"Kinda…" he conceded.

"Come on to the infirmary," Chopper said. "I'll take a look at your head."

They went to the infirmary, where Zoro could see Troy, his messy blonde hair concealed by bandages as he slept. He shifted around a little in his sleep.

"He seems to be sleeping lightly," Chopper said, noticing Zoro's observation. "There's a possibility that might be a bad sign, but it's more likely a good thing. Anyway, can you explain your other memory lapses?"

So Zoro told Chopper about the inconsistencies he had noticed since the fight against Troy: Robin's sudden appearance at a meal she had been skipping, the sudden change in menu, the apparent re-writing of the entire aftermath of their battle with Troy's crew. As Zoro spoke, Chopper carefully ran his cloven fore-hooves through Zoro's mossy hair, running against the small swelling.

Chopper clambered off of Zoro's shoulders and sat in his chair, deep in thought for a moment. "Ah-hah!" he said finally, clapping his hooves together in triumph.

"What?" Zoro asked. "Does it have to do with my head wound?"

"Head wound?" Chopper asked. "You have a head wound? Did you get hit in the head during the fight?"

"Of course I did!" Zoro spat. "That's why I'm here!"

"Zoro, you came in because you said the cut in your leg was bothering you."

"When did I get cut in the leg?"

"During the fight."

Zoro lifted up the hem of his green coat. His leg was all bandaged up.

"What the hell is going on?"

End Act One.

Author's note: this will be a shorter one, 4 acts, maybe only around 10,000 words all told? I really swore to give up writing fan-fics, but the inspiration for this one came to me. From where? You can tell me that if you can figure out what I'm ripping off to make this story. Again, cookies are to be had. Cheers!