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Title: Vengeance on the avenger
Theme: Set #3 - Surprise
Claim: Zoro
Words: 1398
Rating: PG
Warnings: Continues directly from this fic. Read that first, if you haven't already.
Disclaimers: I don't own One Piece.
Acknowledgments: Continuation of a fic inspired by this Mind Control pic by sybile. If you hated yesterday's cliffhanger, thank zelda_addict for beta-ing this so quickly! For my part, thanks for all the advice! :-)
Zoro's eyes snapped back open when he heard the clash of metal against metal, and he watched as Wado Ichimonji went spiralling away, piercing through the deck and embedding itself up to the hilt, and sighed.
"I told you you were holding it wrong." Then he looked towards his saviour. "Thanks, Brook."
"I am deeply honoured to have been of service, Zoro-san!" the Strawhats' musician and second swordsman bowed.
"Better take care of him before he gets you too," Zoro advised, a hint of urgency in his voice, as he looked across at Silvertongue, who was gibbering as he gawked at the skeleton.
"What the hell are you?" he stammered, as Brook advanced on him, sword at the ready. He made a desperate grasping motion with his fingers. "Stop! Just stop!"
Still Brook kept walking towards him.
"No! Why don't my powers work on you? Why can't I control your brain?" Silvertongue shrieked.
Brook paused, looking thoughtful, then he grasped his afro and pulled it to the side, revealing his empty skull. "Ah, that might be because I don't have a brain. Yohohoho!"
Silvertongue crumpled into a heap, gazing up at the towering skeleton despairingly. "No...this can't be...there's no way anyone in this world can withstand my..." Then he swallowed, and seemed to collect himself. "All of you, get him!"
"Behind you!" Zoro warned, seeing the rest of his nakama accelerate towards Brook.
"Leave it to me, Zoro-san!" Brook leapt lightly behind Silvertongue, grabbing him by the collar, skipping out from under Robin's many-handed grasp, over to the hatch that led to the aquarium below, flipping it open and dunking Silvertongue inside. Immediately the others sank to the deck, as if the spark that animated them had gone out.
Zoro blinked, as Silvertongue burst out of the hatch, gasping for air, and Brook flipped the trapdoor shut, pinning the man's head to the deck while his body remained trapped underwater.
Zoro gaped for a moment at the speed of the operation. Less than a minute ago he'd been staring death in the face, and now the tables were completely turned. He made a mental apology to Brook, for arguing that a walking skeleton did not belong on their crew, and to Luffy, for doubting his judgment. How Luffy could predict the utility of such a crewmate, he didn't know, but he was glad now for his captain's instincts.
"Brook, do me a favour, will you?"
"Yoho! Of course, Zoro-san!" Brook agreed readily.
"Don't tell Sanji or the others about the whole...killing me thing."
"Ah," Brook said, looking thoughtful. Zoro-san certainly was a man with many secrets. "Very well, it will be a secret just between the two of us."
Zoro's face cleared. "Great. Now, if you could get the key to the handcuffs..."
"Handcuffs, of course!" Brook began diving into Silvertongue's pockets. "Not in this one! Hmm, not in this one either! What about here?"
"Quickly!" Zoro hissed, but it was already too late. The others were already coming to, and as their heads cleared, their eyes immediately swung to the injured swordsman in their midst.
"Ahhhhh! Zoro, how did you get hurt?" Chopper wailed, rushing over to examine him.
"And why the hell are you half-naked and in handcuffs?" Sanji asked, eyeing him suspiciously.
"Chopper, I'm fine. Just get me out of these..."
"Who's that?" Nami interrupted, having spotted Brook's prisoner.
"Allow me to explain, Nami-san! This man apparently has a Devil's Fruit that allows him to control minds. You were all under his spell for a while."
"A Devil's Fruit that can control minds? Wow!" Luffy exclaimed, fascinated.
"We were under...you mean we did this?" Usopp asked, pointing at Zoro in horror.
"It's okay, Usopp," Chopper said, breathing a sigh of relief as he finished checking over Zoro. "He's not hurt. Not by Zoro's standards, anyway."
"That's what I've been trying to tell you! Now take off these..."
"He also made you tell Zoro-san your most negative thoughts about him, to psychologically hurt Zoro-san," Brook reported.
Zoro's jaw dropped. "Just how long were you watching, anyway?" he demanded. Damn it, if he'd known Brook had seen that too, he'd have included it in the promise...
"Ah, I apologise, Zoro-san! I was waiting for the right moment to intervene, you see!"
Brook was narrowly spared Zoro's wrath by Chopper's indignant interruption. "You mean, we hurt Zoro's feelings?"
Sanji snorted. "That's the dumbest plan I've ever heard. It's not like the marimo has any feelings for us to hurt."
"Oi."
"You're calling my plan dumb?" Silvertongue bristled. "It's worked plenty of times before, and it almost worked this time too! I was so close to having him killed!"
Sanji's eyebrow coiled into a tight spiral. "What's he talking about, marimo?"
"Nothing," Zoro replied curtly, carefully avoiding Sanji's eyes.
"Of course it was a dumb plan! Why would we say anything bad about Zoro? We don't think badly of him," Chopper said loyally.
"I dunno, some of you were pretty mean," Zoro said with a mock pout.
"We were? Oh no! What did I say?"
"That I was a really bad patient, always taking off my bandages."
"Well, that's true enough!"
"Ow, Chopper..."
"The effective course of action would have been to hurt one of us while Swordsman-san couldn't help us. That would have psychologically hurt Swordsman-san the most," Robin suggested.
There was a stunned silence. "Wow, Robin, that's really evil," Nami said, sounding impressed. "But you're right! That's what he should've done!" Everyone nodded solemnly.
"Robin's scary," Chopper squeaked, hiding the wrong way behind a furiously blushing swordsman.
"Will you just take off these handcuffs already!" Zoro demanded, desperate for a change of subject.
Nami produced a key from her pocket, and Zoro wondered just when she'd managed to filch it off Silvertongue. "For 10,000 beli, I'll remove them for you," she grinned impishly at Zoro.
"Witch!"
"Watch your tongue around Nami-san, shitty marimo!" Sanji lashed out with a kick.
"Bastard, just wait till I get these handcuffs off!"
Silvertongue was staring at the crew as if he'd just realised that yes, he'd chosen the wrong strategy, and his best revenge against Zoro would have been to leave him to the tender mercies of his own nakama.
Finally he found his tongue. "You mean...you all genuinely love this man?"
"I wouldn't go so far..." Sanji began, before being interrupted by an enthusiastic "Yep!" from Luffy.
"But he's a demon! A monster!"
"So what? I used to be called a monster, too," Chopper pointed out.
"So was I," Nami said, remembering the villagers' shock when she joined Arlong's gang after Bellemere-san's death.
"My bounty poster still calls me the Demon of Ohara," Robin added.
"See? In this crew, it's okay to be a demon or a monster," Luffy grinned.
"Don't call the ladies monsters, Luffy!"
"Ow...Sanji...you're mean..."
Everyone looked around as Zoro's handcuffs clattered noisily to the deck, and Zoro stood up, massaging the feeling back into his wrists. "Luffy's right, though," he interjected. "On this crew, it doesn't matter what your past is, so long as you're nakama."
Sanji lit a cigarette and took a long drag on it. "You're going soft on us, marimo," he said, but he was smiling in agreement.
"Waaaaaah! I love you guys so much!" Franky bawled. "GROUP HUG!"
"Franky, no! Argh!" Zoro groaned, as he and Sanji were enveloped in Franky's huge arms. "Leggo, dammit!"
Silvertongue just stared in disbelief as Zoro extricated himself from Franky's embrace, his brain working overtime as he tried to reconcile this Zoro with the Demon of East Blue. Finally he came to the only possible conclusion. "This was all a mistake. I must have got the wrong person. There's no way you could be Roronoa Zoro."
Zoro walked up to Silvertongue, cracking his knuckles as a feral grin spread across his face. "Unfortunately for you, I most definitely am."
.....
On to the epilogue.
Theme: Set #3 - Surprise
Claim: Zoro
Words: 1398
Rating: PG
Warnings: Continues directly from this fic. Read that first, if you haven't already.
Disclaimers: I don't own One Piece.
Acknowledgments: Continuation of a fic inspired by this Mind Control pic by sybile. If you hated yesterday's cliffhanger, thank zelda_addict for beta-ing this so quickly! For my part, thanks for all the advice! :-)
Zoro's eyes snapped back open when he heard the clash of metal against metal, and he watched as Wado Ichimonji went spiralling away, piercing through the deck and embedding itself up to the hilt, and sighed.
"I told you you were holding it wrong." Then he looked towards his saviour. "Thanks, Brook."
"I am deeply honoured to have been of service, Zoro-san!" the Strawhats' musician and second swordsman bowed.
"Better take care of him before he gets you too," Zoro advised, a hint of urgency in his voice, as he looked across at Silvertongue, who was gibbering as he gawked at the skeleton.
"What the hell are you?" he stammered, as Brook advanced on him, sword at the ready. He made a desperate grasping motion with his fingers. "Stop! Just stop!"
Still Brook kept walking towards him.
"No! Why don't my powers work on you? Why can't I control your brain?" Silvertongue shrieked.
Brook paused, looking thoughtful, then he grasped his afro and pulled it to the side, revealing his empty skull. "Ah, that might be because I don't have a brain. Yohohoho!"
Silvertongue crumpled into a heap, gazing up at the towering skeleton despairingly. "No...this can't be...there's no way anyone in this world can withstand my..." Then he swallowed, and seemed to collect himself. "All of you, get him!"
"Behind you!" Zoro warned, seeing the rest of his nakama accelerate towards Brook.
"Leave it to me, Zoro-san!" Brook leapt lightly behind Silvertongue, grabbing him by the collar, skipping out from under Robin's many-handed grasp, over to the hatch that led to the aquarium below, flipping it open and dunking Silvertongue inside. Immediately the others sank to the deck, as if the spark that animated them had gone out.
Zoro blinked, as Silvertongue burst out of the hatch, gasping for air, and Brook flipped the trapdoor shut, pinning the man's head to the deck while his body remained trapped underwater.
Zoro gaped for a moment at the speed of the operation. Less than a minute ago he'd been staring death in the face, and now the tables were completely turned. He made a mental apology to Brook, for arguing that a walking skeleton did not belong on their crew, and to Luffy, for doubting his judgment. How Luffy could predict the utility of such a crewmate, he didn't know, but he was glad now for his captain's instincts.
"Brook, do me a favour, will you?"
"Yoho! Of course, Zoro-san!" Brook agreed readily.
"Don't tell Sanji or the others about the whole...killing me thing."
"Ah," Brook said, looking thoughtful. Zoro-san certainly was a man with many secrets. "Very well, it will be a secret just between the two of us."
Zoro's face cleared. "Great. Now, if you could get the key to the handcuffs..."
"Handcuffs, of course!" Brook began diving into Silvertongue's pockets. "Not in this one! Hmm, not in this one either! What about here?"
"Quickly!" Zoro hissed, but it was already too late. The others were already coming to, and as their heads cleared, their eyes immediately swung to the injured swordsman in their midst.
"Ahhhhh! Zoro, how did you get hurt?" Chopper wailed, rushing over to examine him.
"And why the hell are you half-naked and in handcuffs?" Sanji asked, eyeing him suspiciously.
"Chopper, I'm fine. Just get me out of these..."
"Who's that?" Nami interrupted, having spotted Brook's prisoner.
"Allow me to explain, Nami-san! This man apparently has a Devil's Fruit that allows him to control minds. You were all under his spell for a while."
"A Devil's Fruit that can control minds? Wow!" Luffy exclaimed, fascinated.
"We were under...you mean we did this?" Usopp asked, pointing at Zoro in horror.
"It's okay, Usopp," Chopper said, breathing a sigh of relief as he finished checking over Zoro. "He's not hurt. Not by Zoro's standards, anyway."
"That's what I've been trying to tell you! Now take off these..."
"He also made you tell Zoro-san your most negative thoughts about him, to psychologically hurt Zoro-san," Brook reported.
Zoro's jaw dropped. "Just how long were you watching, anyway?" he demanded. Damn it, if he'd known Brook had seen that too, he'd have included it in the promise...
"Ah, I apologise, Zoro-san! I was waiting for the right moment to intervene, you see!"
Brook was narrowly spared Zoro's wrath by Chopper's indignant interruption. "You mean, we hurt Zoro's feelings?"
Sanji snorted. "That's the dumbest plan I've ever heard. It's not like the marimo has any feelings for us to hurt."
"Oi."
"You're calling my plan dumb?" Silvertongue bristled. "It's worked plenty of times before, and it almost worked this time too! I was so close to having him killed!"
Sanji's eyebrow coiled into a tight spiral. "What's he talking about, marimo?"
"Nothing," Zoro replied curtly, carefully avoiding Sanji's eyes.
"Of course it was a dumb plan! Why would we say anything bad about Zoro? We don't think badly of him," Chopper said loyally.
"I dunno, some of you were pretty mean," Zoro said with a mock pout.
"We were? Oh no! What did I say?"
"That I was a really bad patient, always taking off my bandages."
"Well, that's true enough!"
"Ow, Chopper..."
"The effective course of action would have been to hurt one of us while Swordsman-san couldn't help us. That would have psychologically hurt Swordsman-san the most," Robin suggested.
There was a stunned silence. "Wow, Robin, that's really evil," Nami said, sounding impressed. "But you're right! That's what he should've done!" Everyone nodded solemnly.
"Robin's scary," Chopper squeaked, hiding the wrong way behind a furiously blushing swordsman.
"Will you just take off these handcuffs already!" Zoro demanded, desperate for a change of subject.
Nami produced a key from her pocket, and Zoro wondered just when she'd managed to filch it off Silvertongue. "For 10,000 beli, I'll remove them for you," she grinned impishly at Zoro.
"Witch!"
"Watch your tongue around Nami-san, shitty marimo!" Sanji lashed out with a kick.
"Bastard, just wait till I get these handcuffs off!"
Silvertongue was staring at the crew as if he'd just realised that yes, he'd chosen the wrong strategy, and his best revenge against Zoro would have been to leave him to the tender mercies of his own nakama.
Finally he found his tongue. "You mean...you all genuinely love this man?"
"I wouldn't go so far..." Sanji began, before being interrupted by an enthusiastic "Yep!" from Luffy.
"But he's a demon! A monster!"
"So what? I used to be called a monster, too," Chopper pointed out.
"So was I," Nami said, remembering the villagers' shock when she joined Arlong's gang after Bellemere-san's death.
"My bounty poster still calls me the Demon of Ohara," Robin added.
"See? In this crew, it's okay to be a demon or a monster," Luffy grinned.
"Don't call the ladies monsters, Luffy!"
"Ow...Sanji...you're mean..."
Everyone looked around as Zoro's handcuffs clattered noisily to the deck, and Zoro stood up, massaging the feeling back into his wrists. "Luffy's right, though," he interjected. "On this crew, it doesn't matter what your past is, so long as you're nakama."
Sanji lit a cigarette and took a long drag on it. "You're going soft on us, marimo," he said, but he was smiling in agreement.
"Waaaaaah! I love you guys so much!" Franky bawled. "GROUP HUG!"
"Franky, no! Argh!" Zoro groaned, as he and Sanji were enveloped in Franky's huge arms. "Leggo, dammit!"
Silvertongue just stared in disbelief as Zoro extricated himself from Franky's embrace, his brain working overtime as he tried to reconcile this Zoro with the Demon of East Blue. Finally he came to the only possible conclusion. "This was all a mistake. I must have got the wrong person. There's no way you could be Roronoa Zoro."
Zoro walked up to Silvertongue, cracking his knuckles as a feral grin spread across his face. "Unfortunately for you, I most definitely am."
.....
On to the epilogue.