Chapter 3: Conflict With Buggy

Chapter 3:

Conflict with Buggy

Monkey D. Luffy was seated at a table in an abandoned house in Orange Town, an empty plate sitting before him. Across from the rubber-man was Nami, the orange-haired thief he was trying to recruit to be his crew's navigator.

"Join my crew."

"I told you; I am not a pirate, I hate pirates, and I will never be a pirate."

"Come on. It'll be fun."

"No. Now listen here-"

"I want you on my crew, so you're on my crew."

"That's not how it works!"

"Come on!"

"I! Said! No!"

"Fine," Luffy huffed, sitting down. "Your loss." Nami walked over to the window. Outside, some men were arguing about finding a thief. A plan started forming in her head, one that might just rid her of this idiot pirate and get her away from Buggy along with all of his treasure.

"How about this?" she began slowly. "I'll agree to be your navigator if you agree to certain conditions..."

"What have we here?" Buggy the Clown questioned. Before him stood the woman who had stolen his stolen map of the Grand Line, said map clutched in her hand, and a black-haired boy tied up with rope and wearing a familiar straw hat. "What are you doing?"

"I'm tired of working for this guy," the girl answered, giving the boy a hard shove and causing him to fall on his face. "He's childish, immature, and treats the world like it's a game. I want to work for you instead."

"Really now?" Buggy's facial expression was unreadable. "What do you call yourself?"

"I'm Nami."

"Well... I guess this calls for a celebration to welcome our new member Nami!" The next few minutes flashed by far too quickly for Nami to follow. Music was played with off-key singing, food and booze were passed around, and the teen in the straw hat was thrown into a cage. The party stayed that way for a good ten minutes more before something truly interesting happened.

"Let's get this party amped up!" Buggy called. "Bring out the cannon!" The pirates cheered as a trio of them wheeled out a larger-than-average cannon from one of the crew's tents. They aimed it out over the town and loaded a red ball with Buggy's symbol on it into the weapon.

"Now bring out the idiots!" Next, the three men Nami had knocked unconscious when she'd taken the map were pulled out in a cage not unlike the one Luffy was currently in. They were placed in front of the cannon, their pleas for mercy unheeded by Buggy or his men. Nami waited as one of the crew lit the fuse with a match. They backed away and covered their ears. The girl from Cocoyashi Village could only watch in absolute horror at the destruction caused by the Buggy Ball.

One second there were three caged men and a row of houses. The next, nothing but rubble remained.

"W-what was that!?" she cried out.

"One of my special Buggy Balls," Buggy the Clown explained with a cruel smile. "With these and my Devil Fruit powers, I will flashily concur the Grand Line!"

"No way!" Luffy whined from his cage. "I'm the one who's going to concur the Grand Line! And then I'm going to become the King of the Pirates!"

"Bwahahaha!" Buggy laughed. "Not if you're dead. Now, Nami, fire the next one at your ex-captain. Kill him to prove your loyalty to me." The terrified thief was handed a box of matches as the oversized weapon was reloaded and repositioned.

"Fire!~ Fire!~ Fire!~" the crowd chanted.

"What are you waiting for?" Buggy prodded.

"Go on," Luffy ordered, startling the shaking teen. "Do you have the pirate's resolve?"

"To do what?" she demanded. "To kill without giving it a second thought?"

"No, to put your life on the line for your dreams and your morals." There was a tense silence between the two while Nami debated with herself internally. A greasy-looking pirate snatched the matches out of her hand, his patience for waiting gone.

"Here, little girl," the pirate smiled suggestively. "Let me show who how to have fun." He lit the match. Time seemed to slow down for the navigator. In an instant, she made her decision, pulled out her personal weapon, a bo staff, snapped all three pieces together, and slammed it into the top of the man's head. He went down, stars clouding his vision.

"So you chose your old captain after all," Buggy growled, not surprised but disappointed all the same. "Fine then. I'll just kill you both. Or, I'll just kill you. Your captain is done for anyway. Bwahahaha!" True to his word, the pirate had lit the fuse before Nami's surprise attack.

"Are you going to save me then?" Luffy perked up.

"Don't be stupid," the girl replied. "I'm not doing this for you. I just won't lower myself to the level of these inhuman pirates. Pirates took the life of someone I cared for; I'll never forgive them and never join them.

"Get out of the way!" a gruff voice ordered. Nami chose not to question it and dove away from the lit cannon. A second later, a slash of air cut through the fuse, leaving it to burn out on the ground harmlessly. The pirates and thief turned to the origin of the attack to see a man with short green hair and three swords, one of which was out, and a boy with short pink hair and a white and blue shirt standing on the edge of the building.

"See?" the man questioned, showing that he had given the order, "I told you we would make it in time."

"You started out going the wrong way!" the younger of the two shouted back.

"Zoro!" Luffy called, the name causing whispers in the crowd. "You made it!"

"Did he say 'Zoro'?"

"The Pirate Hunter?"

"Is he here for the captain's head?"

"It can't be that. He'd never win against the captain's Devil Fruit power."

"Girl, are you hurt?" Zoro asked.

"N-no," Nami responded.

"Good. Luffy, what did you do? I thought you were smarter than to get stuffed into a cage. Of course, you did get carried off by a bird first." He began walking over to Luffy's cage before the voice of a clown stopped him.

"So you're the infamous Pirate Hunter Zoro. If you're here for my head, you have quite a struggle before you."

"No thanks," Zoro waved off. "Not interested."

"Oh, but I am. Killing you would boost my reputation."

"L-let's just grab Captain Luffy and g-get out of here," the pink-haired boy stuttered.

"Shrimp," Zoro ordered, "grab Luffy and pull him through the bars. Buggy the Clown, I'm warning you. Back away now or I will kill you."

"Funny. I was going to say that last part." The two men prepped themselves for combat.

"Be careful, Zoro," Coby warned. "It's said that Buggy the Clown has Devil Fruit powers that make him immune to swords."

"Good to know, Shrimp." Zoro placed his favorite sword, Wado Ichimonji, in his mouth and put himself in a loose, offensive stance. Buggy sprung forward with a cry of "Die!" and Zoro lunged. They were frozen for a second before the pirate captain split, his right arm and leg separating at the joints and his body cut horizontally. He fell.

"Well that was boring," Luffy commented. Coby ran over and began yanking on the rubber-man, pulling his head out easy enough. "He was really weak."

"I don't think it's over yet," Zoro started, keeping his guard up. "Shrimp seems to know more about these pirate captains than I do. He recognized Buggy's name when I didn't." Zoro turned on a dime, blocking a knife with the sound of metal-on-metal contact filling the air for half a second. The knife spun away, taking with it the floating hand of Buggy the Clown.

"What the-" Zoro questioned before coming to a realization. "Oh, I get it. You ate a Devil Fruit, didn't you?"

"How very observant of you, Roranoa Zoro," Buggy commented, his body fusing back together. "You are correct. I ate the Chop-Chop Devil Fruit, so now I am a Chop-Chop man. Since I can separate parts of my body, I cannot be bested by the sword!"

"We'll see about that." The two collided in a flurry of blades. It was obvious that Zoro was better with blades and had the longest reach, but the clown's ability nullified both of his advantages. They separated when Buggy actually managed to get a hit on Zoro, a shallow but rather painful gash on his left side.

"Zoro!" Luffy called. The swordsman glanced at his captain to see that their other crewmember had pulled most of his body out of the cage and was yanking on his shoulders to get his pelvis to bend. "The cannon!"

"Aye, captain." The green-haired man ran at Buggy who swung, but the man ducked under his attack and kicked him in the back. Buggy was thrown into the crowd as his opponent was propelled past the cannon. The man made his way underneath its barrel and began lifting, making his wound worse, but not life-threatening.

"Nami, matches!" Straw Hat called as he was finally pulled out of the cage by Coby. The girl grabbed the box the other pirate had dropped when she attacked him and made her way around as Zoro flipped the cannon with a burst of strength. She struck a match and lit the fuse, which had been shortened considerably when Zoro had cut it.

"No, wait!" Buggy cried. "That still has one of my special Buggy Balls in it!"

BOOOOOM!

End of Chapter 3

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-SwordOfTheGods