OP Exchange Halloween Fic
Oct. 31st, 2006 02:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dethoratsPrompt: Someone telling ghost stories and someone getting scared
Title: Sprouting Up Like Mushrooms
Rating: PG
Pairing: None/Gen
Word Count: 4,712
“And that is how the Great Captain Usopp saved an entire island from a horrible plague of zombie marines from the deep.”
Usopp crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back from the mood-appropriate hunch he had taken over the fire for the telling of his story, waiting. Right on cue, exactly five seconds had passed, just long enough for his amazing heroics to sink in, came the amazed gasps and adoring sighs of his public.
“Really? You beat all those fishy marine guys? You’re so awesome!” Luffy grinned at him from through the flames, his eyes bright with what Usopp knew had to the power of his story.
“So awesome,” echoed the little reindeer doctor after he finally worked up his nerve to lift his head from where it had been buried against the captain’s side. Sparkles, fewer than normal but Usopp supposed it was because his tale had just been that scary, surrounded Chopper’s face as he beamed.
“Let me get this straight. You defeated a ravenous rampaging horde of undead marines who’d previously just been shuffling around on the ocean floor by making the evil zombie admiral swallow a firebird egg. That you just happened to have on hand.” Sanji, lounging indolently next to the sniper on another of the logs around the campfire, raised his lone and curly visible eyebrow. “I thought zombies only ate brains.”
The Great Captain Usopp never backed down to a challenge, especially not one to his story-telling prowess. “Shows what you know,” he said scoffingly. “Of course they ate brains. I didn’t say he ate the firebird egg. I just said the nasty, dripping, seaweed-covered admiral swallowed it. I shot it into his mouth right when he’d opened it to moan for my tasty brain meat. The firebird egg only has to be swallowed, surrounded, it doesn’t have to actually be eaten in order for it to work.”
“I’ll tell you all the incredible story of how I climbed Mount Pyroia and braved the dangers of the Tinderkin forest to get the firebird egg later,” he added, turning to smile at his attentive audience of two. Predictably Chopper and Luffy gazed at him starry-eyed and he smirked at the chef.
“Fine, fine.” A smoke ring drifted lazily up to merge with the thicker streams coming from the fire. “So, we ready to decide the winner?”
Camping on a Fall island and having to pass an entire week while the log pose set had quickly found the Straw Hat crew with little to do. The only town on the small dot of land was mostly deserted. Only a few old people clung to their lives, passing their days with beet farming and remembering the good old days. After a few hours, it quickly became apparent that the good old days meant bigger beets and a pig fair. Not much happened on the island and, after a beet blight, most of the natives had left in search of better things, like turnips.
Even the most patient of the young pirates had tired of beets, always beets beets beets, by the third day. And thus they were camping for the remainder of their imposed shore leave. There was only this last night left before they could continue on their way and they had reached the culmination of their contest. That first evening in the woods, high spirits had infected the male portion of the Straw Hats and they’d made something of a ruckus until Nami stuck her head out from the newly sagging - thanks to a gomu attack gone wrong - tent she shared with Robin and threatened to beat them all within an inch of their lives if they didn’t shut up and let her sleep. The archaeologist had made an appearance as well, smiling calmly and inscrutably as she studied the mess of sleeping bags and the leaves stuffed down the front of Usopp’s overalls and peaking out beneath Luffy’s hat.
Her suggestion was for the telling of ghost stories, a challenge to see who could tell the best one. Of course competitive instincts had kicked in and the boys had agreed without any hesitation beyond Usopp’s feeble protests that he was allergic to being scared. A few verbal jabs against his courage and his skills, though, and even the sniper was gung-ho. And so the gauntlet had been thrown and each of the boys vowed to tell the best story. A pile of leaves had snored through their declarations of prowess and Robin hid a small smile behind her hand as the cook kicked Zoro awake and Luffy pounced on him and made him agree to participate too.
The great scary story contest began the very next evening, Luffy going first because he was the captain after all. Unfortunately Luffy’s relatively short attention span and general attitude of laughing in the face of dangers that made most mortals tremble meant his spooky narrative skill was somewhat lacking. His yarn about a town that had to go an entire week without meat ended with all the townspeople dying and haunting any traveler unlucky enough to stumble into their clutches with ectoplasmic demands for roast beef and venison and all other manner of tough protein. While the captain had certainly managed to scare himself with the story, even Chopper had survived the recounting unscathed. It was generally agreed upon that Luffy would not win this challenge.
Chopper was to tell his story the next night but the poor doctor only managed to squeak out a few words about a dark and freezing castle before the quaking in his limbs overcame him. Despite all efforts, Chopper spent the remainder of the evening huddled under a blanket up against Zoro’s side. The doctor’s story, if a couple of sentences could be termed such, was also pronounced a failure but everyone reassured the reindeer boy that they believed it really would have scared them out of their wits if they had heard it. Sanji took up the task next since it was still too early to go to bed.
The cook spun a story full of cobwebs and creaky floors, of knives on a stormy night and skeletal hands. Of course, being told by Sanji, the tale also had beautiful women in distress and a quite a lot of detail about the food. When he finally finished, it wasn’t hard for the very active imaginations of certain pirates to see bony fingers reaching from the bushes or the eerie glow of demonic eyes shining out of the banked fire. When Zoro woke up the next morning, it was to find a reindeer curled against his stomach and a sniper huddled up along his back. The captain had joined in for good measure, mainly because he thought it looked like fun, and the swordsman had to kick his way free of the rubber grip. Sanji’s prospects had been looking pretty good.
But this last night had belonged entirely to the master, to Usopp himself. And if his long and complex accounting of his zombie fighting days wasn’t exactly quite as scary as Sanji’s story, it was definitely more exciting. Besides, zombies were cool. Would the sniper win or would the cook take his title as best storyteller away? As Luffy looked avidly between the two rivals, Chopper finally pulled away from the captain to sit nervously on his own. This ghost business made him jumpy and he didn’t really want to listen to any more gruesome tales but it wouldn’t be fair to stop now.
“W-what about Zoro? Shouldn’t he tell one?”
Four heads turned to stare across and around the fire. Zoro was where he’d been for the previous three nights; stretched out alongside one of the logs that surrounded the fire pit, mug in hand, eyes closed, and low snores occasionally issuing forth, usually at a most inopportune time in the various ghost stories. The swordsman hadn’t seemed very interested in the challenge from the very beginning but if nothing else they might need him to cast a tie-breaking vote. Sanji stubbed out his cigarette in the dirt and moved down his own wooden seat. A swift kick to the stomach did the trick, Zoro jerking upright with a glare that promised death.
“Oi, shitty marimo. It’s your go. Hurry up and tell your stupid story so we can decide who’s the best.”
“Yeah, Zoro,” Usopp chimed in, not wanting to let the cook have the upper hand. “Hurry up so I can win. Zombies,” he added, presuming the swordsman had slept through his awesome adventure, “are the coolest so you don’t have to worry about trying hard or anything.”
The sleepy pirate yawned, gazed blearily around at the expectant faces, turned a hopeful eye towards his mug. It was empty though, and Zoro slumped back against the log in disappointment.
“I don’t know any ghost stories,” he muttered, wanting nothing besides some more booze and a chance to go back to sleep.
“None?” Chopper and Luffy spoke in tandem, a sort of dismayed pity coloring their word.
“None,” the swordsman confirmed, stretching a bit and rolling stiff shoulders. “Don’t know anything about ghosts or zombies or skeletons or meat demons or anything like that.”
“But you’ve got to know something scary. Didn’t you ever see or hear anything weird when you were a pirate hunter?” Now Usopp added his two beri, disbelieving that, with all the things he’d seen since sailing off on the Going Merry, Zoro had never known a single moment of fear or the supernatural.
“If the seaweed head is too dumb to be able to make up a story that’s his problem.” Sanji held a new cigarette out carefully towards the flames and smirked at the swordsman. “Whatever he could come up with would suck anyway so why bother listening to him?”
It was just the goad Zoro needed and he sat up all the way, reaching over to bat at the cook’s hand. “Shut up dartboard brow. I can too tell a good scary story.”
“Tell tell!” Luffy bounced in his seat and Chopper quickly picked up on the chant, adding his high voice. Zoro, realizing he’d been duped, scowled at the grinning chef and sighed.
“Fine. Fine. This is something I heard once from some old guy in a bar and had to go check out for myself…”
The swordsman propped an elbow on the log behind him and let his voice drop to low rumble so that it slithered through the crackles and pops of the burning campfire. “I was in this mining town about halfway up a mountain range. The place was kind of like this island, not many people and the ones there were old and just wanted to keep repeating the same stories over and over again. But it wasn’t quite as dead as things here; they had a vein of some kind of expensive ore or whatever that could only be mined by a few people but apparently it was valuable stuff. They’d been having bandit problems and there was a rumor a head worth a million or so beri was in the area too. I had gone to see if I could hunt him down.”
In the firelight, Zoro’s green eyes caught the light and changed, took on a weird yellow cast that made his already unusual coloring look faintly sinister. Even though nothing had happened yet, Chopper had moved back against Luffy’s side, peering out with one eye to watch the swordsman speak. “I hadn’t had any luck after three days of tramping through the forests around the town and I finally ended up back there at the bar. It was late and raining and most of the miners were worried about flooding in the mineshafts. But that wasn’t my problem and I ended up with just this really old man with a beard that came down to his knees for company. We didn’t speak all night and I was just ready to go find some place to sleep when he reached over and grabbed my arm with his gnarled hand.”
Zoro made a clawing motion and Usopp jumped, scooted closer to Luffy all the while scowling at the openly grinning chef. “Boy, he said to me. Boy, I hear you been stompin’ all around our mountain. You see the temple yet? Well, I hadn’t seen any temple. I hadn’t found much more than a few abandoned shacks and a particularly tasty still. Which was what I told him. He laughed then, a really nasty laugh that was more like the coughing of a dying man. I went to shrug his hand off and leave but he had a good grip for an old man and I didn’t think I could pull away without hurting him. And before I could open my mouth to tell him to let go, he leaned towards me and told me that I was a lucky man.”
The story trailed off as Zoro let his words sink in and silence rested over the group of pirates until Luffy broke the moment with a demand to know what happened next. “I asked what the hell he meant and he told me that the place was evil, haunted. He said the temple was up at the top of the main peak, had been set up years ago by some wandering group of monks. They’d believed the mountain was holy and lived there in harmony with nature until the mine opened. There’d been trouble between the mine’s original owner and the monks. No one owned the mountain, or so the monks claimed. And certainly they’d been there a lot longer and would know. But the mine owner said it was all his and that it was only because he was a generous man that the monks hadn’t been run out. And that would’ve been okay except the monks didn’t like what he was mining.”
Even the chef looked interested now, ash clumping on the end of his cigarette, and Zoro smirked inwardly. Ha! He could too tell a story. “Like I said, I don’t know what the hell they were taking out of the ground but whatever it was, it was valuable. The old man said the monks got really mad and something, presumably them, started sabotaging the mines at night. Tools went missing, cart tracks were pulled up, and finally an entire shaft was collapsed. Well that was the end of that. The boss’s son had been in that shaft and he died when it collapsed. The owner went nuts and led the whole mining town with him up to the temple and they killed every single monk that night so that the temple grounds ran red with blood. He was going to burn it to the ground but as he went to kill the head monk, the man put a curse on the temple so that if it was destroyed, all the mines would collapse and the veins of ore would sink deep into the earth beyond the reach of men.”
Chopper was firmly buried into Luffy’s side and the captain had an arm slung around his shoulders. Usopp was clinging to the other one, eyes wide with anxiety as Zoro finished his tale. “Well I wasn’t planning on destroying any temples and I told the old man so. It sounded like the perfect hideout for bandits too and I decided to go find the place the very next day. The geezer must’ve realized what I planned to do because he finally let go of my arm and laughed his awful laugh again. He told me I didn’t know what the hell I was doing because the holy blood of the monks had placed its own curse on the temple. Hands, he said to me, horrible pasty hands and arms would spring up from the blood-soaked ground and drag anyone stupid enough to enter the temple to a horrible death. Well that was even more reason to go. If everyone was afraid to venture close to the temple, bandits surely would use it as a base.”
Zoro grinned, one of his dangerous deadly smiles that usually only his enemies saw before steel bit into their flesh. “So I went out the very next day and – “ He stopped, leveled a warning glare at Sanji that said he would brook no petty interruptions or jibes about his ability to find things. “And I found it right around sunset. The old place was falling apart, vines over most of the walls and the entrance choked with brush. It didn’t look like anybody was there but it could’ve been camouflage so I pushed past the brambles and the bushes and stood beneath the wide black lintel that capped the open gateway. In the failing light it was hard to tell what I was looking at, but I know what human bones look like. Not fifteen feet from where I stood was a grinning skull and it was then that I noticed the strange greenish glow coming from the ground. I swear it looked like hands, pale glowing hands rising from the ground, and I decided that I didn’t particularly want to wander around an old abandoned temple in the dark. So I camped outside the walls and when I went back to check the next morning…”
“Yes? Yes?” Luffy was jiggling in his seat, jarring the clinging reindeer and ignoring the sniper’s quiet hisses to shut up. Zoro shrugged, settled back more comfortably against his log. “It was mushrooms. Just mushrooms. The skull was real enough but it probably belonged to one of the murdered monks. And I never did find bandits I was looking for.”
“M-m-m-mmmmmushrooms?” Usopp worked himself out of his terror as he stuttered. “They were just mushrooms? Ha, I’m not scared of mushrooms!”
“Oh no?” Sanji blew a perfect smoke ring and turned to stare at the younger pirate. “Then you won’t mind if I start putting them in your food?”
“Hey, I didn’t say that! I said I wasn’t scared of mushrooms, not that I wanted to eat them.”
In the midst of the brewing argument, Chopper scurried away from Luffy’s side to burrow in next to a grudgingly permissible swordsman. “Were they really just mushrooms, Zoro?”
“Yup. Just mushrooms. Nothing to be scared of.”
“Heh. That’s right. And that’s why I win.” Usopp broke away from his staring contest with the cook to puff out his chest. “Zombies always beat mushrooms.”
“And murdered ghosts who come back for gruesome revenge beat zombies.” Sanji wasn’t going to be outdone.
“Zombies!”
“Ghosts!”
“Zombies!”
“Ghosts!”
“I think being without meat is the scariest thing of all.” Four heads turned to look at the frowning captain, one rubber limb stretched out and searching through the provisions for a piece of comforting jerky.
Teeth bared, Sanji and Usopp shouted, “Only you would think that!” And for a moment it looked as if a repeat of a past evening was about to occur. But a warning “Shut the hell up!” came from the girls’ tent and Sanji immediately turned into a heart-eyed creature of obedience. The rest of the boys were too tired to resist beyond some grumbling and soon they were all dozing around the dying flames of the campfire.
It was some hours later that Usopp woke suddenly with a start, his breath coming in gasps and his ears straining to hear the smallest of noises. The fire was gone, only sullenly glowing red embers remained to cast glimmers of light that didn’t reach beyond the fire circle. He didn’t remember his dream, only the terror, and suddenly the weight of the darkness beyond was oppressively heavy. It was nearly impossible to see through the heavy curtain of night shadows but as he checked for each of his nakama, he could swear he saw a flicker of pale movement from beyond the protective wall of the campfire ring. He told himself it was just his imagination but as minutes passed with the thickness of coagulating blood he couldn’t get back to sleep. And when he rolled over to fight down the urge to move closer to one of his nakama, he saw motion again.
“Zoro!” The swordsman swiped a hand across his nose and went right back to snoring, Chopper safely sleeping in his arms. “Zoro!” Usopp hissed and poked the swordsman more forcefully in the head. “Wake up Zoro!”
“Hnuffwha…what?” Zoro opened one green eye, regarded Usopp with it balefully. “What the hell is it, Long-nose? ‘m tryin’ to sleep.”
“Th-there was a, a hand. I swear! I saw a pale hand just like in your story.”
“A dream.” Zoro waved his own hand dismissively and closed his eye. “Go back to bed.”
“C-can I sleep –“
Zoro cut off the rest of Usopp’s question. “Whatever. Just shut up and leave me alone.”
After a few moments of rustling and scootching, Usopp managed to get himself turned around so that his head rested only a few inches from the top of the swordsman’s. It wasn’t perfect but it was more reassuring that how he had been sleeping. And he was nearly asleep, eyes mere slits as they gazed at the remnants of the fire, when he saw it again.
“Zoro!”
“Usopp, I swear I’m gonna…” Zoro trailed off as he caught sight of what had the sniper so agitated. Indeed there was a hand. A pale hand attached to an abnormally long and stretched out arm that he could follow from their stores all the way back to Luffy’s snoring, drooling form.
“You idiot, it’s just Luffy trying to sleep-eat again. See?”
Zoro pointed and Usopp sheepishly had to admit that the swordsman was right as the ghostly arm of the captain snapped back to normal and he chewed on yet another piece of jerky, eyes firmly closed. “Now go to sleep.”
The sniper tried. He really really tried. But it was hard to find sleep when his thoughts were filled with phantom limbs and ghostly blood and zombie marines who demanded meat brains. Usopp just couldn’t get his mind to settle down and he’d resigned himself to a sleepless night of watching the fire when he saw motion again. He bit down hard on his tongue to keep from calling for the swordsman and stared at where he’d seen the movement. But there was nothing there and he had almost convinced himself it was just his imagination when it happened again. This time it wasn’t just a single white hand but two and they weren’t anywhere near the food.
Usopp had to clench his jaw to keep his teeth from rattling out of his skull as he slowly turned to look at Luffy. The captain had one hand beneath his head and the other resting on his stomach and most certainly not resting calmly amid the piles of leaves around the camp. Dread filling the pit of his stomach, Usopp looked back at where the hands had been but there was nothing but darkness waiting for him. Convinced now that he was either going nuts or letting his imagination get the better of him, the sniper inched even closer to the swordsman until he feel the top of Zoro’s head brushing his own and huddled deeper into his sleeping bag. And he even managed to convince himself that everything was okay until three pallid arms and hands slowly inched there way up onto the log behind the captain and the middle one crooked a beckoning finger at him.
“ZORO!” The shriek jolted the swordsman upright so quickly that his head snapped into Usopp’s chin and made the younger boy yelp.
“What? What is it?” Chopper was a tiny furry bundle of anxiety as he gazed up at the muttering swordsman and the cowering sniper.
“Hands! Three of them right over…there.” Usopp trailed off as he pointed towards the still-sleeping captain. There was nothing on the log now. No sign of the three hands. “I swear, they were right there! One of them even waved at me!”
“Oh my Go-“ Zoro tightened his grip on the doctor before the reindeer could get himself too worked up. At this rate he wasn’t going to get any sleep.
“It’s nothing Chopper. Usopp just had a nightmare from all the stories. See? There’s nothing there.”
“A-are you sure?”
“Do you see any hands?”
“N-no.”
“It’s fine. Just go back to sleep.” Zoro awkwardly patted him on the head before leveling an irritated glare at the sniper. “And you. Keep it down before you bother Chopper again or I’ll be introducing you to MY two hands.”
The extremely disgruntled swordsman settled back down and the shaking sniper slowly followed suit. When a hand crept slowly through the leaf litter, he just shut his eyes. And when he peeked again and there were five hands wavering slowly around the fire, he squeaked, clenched them shut even more tightly, and buried his head inside of his sleeping bag. But when his terrified need to know got the better of his again and he opened his eyes to stare at a hand slowly snaking closer and closer to the sleeping captain with what seemed like purely murderous intent, he couldn’t keep silent.
“Z-Zoro. Wake up. You gotta wake up.”
“Do you want to die?” Zoro didn’t even bother to open his eyes, just let the threat rumble out of his mouth.
“No. And I don’t w-want Luffy to die either.”
At that the reluctant swordsman cracked an eyelid and then promptly opened the other one. “Shit!”
“I thought you s-said they were just m-mushrooms.”
“They were.”
It was hard to believe the sight before him but there was no denying the single ghostly limb gliding towards Luffy, the fingers opening and closing ominously. Zoro carefully hefted the dozing reindeer, passed him over to Usopp. And then he got to his feet and grabbed a sword, padding around the fire ring to nudge the cook when more and more pale arms appeared about them.
“What is it, asshole? You scared?” Sanji’s lone visible eye peered up at Zoro through the fall of his hair, a promise of amused violence in his voice.
“Just shut up and look.”
“Shit! Thought you said they were just mushrooms.”
“They WERE! But do these look like mushrooms to you, moron?”
Usopp watched with wide eyes, arms tight around the still sleeping Chopper, as cook and swordsman squabbled in whispers before getting down to business. The hand was only a foot from Luffy now and more and more were moving with deadly slow intent towards the campfire. And just as Sanji’s foot came up to strike and steel slid from its sheath, all the limbs disappeared and Nami toppled out of her tent, a stream of nearly-hysterical giggles coming from her.
“Y-you! You should have…Oh god. The looks on your faces! Thanks, Zoro, for making this all too easy”
“Witch!” Zoro spun around with his sword raised only to have it kicked aside by the chef.
“Nami-san is so lovely when she’s playing practical jokes,” the cook crooned, falling all over himself to reach the navigator and help her up.
“You’re going to hell, woman. You and that other one both.” Zoro stalked back to his bedroll in a decided funk. Next to him, Usopp chuckled nervously. “I-I of course knew it all along. The Great Captain Usopp would never be afraid of some pansy demon hands OR mushrooms.”
At all the noise, Chopper woke up and blinked owlishly. “What’s going on?”
“I won the contest.” Robin’s mellow voice carried smoothly over the campsite, the older woman appearing at the tent flap to smile serenely at her nakama. “Sorry if I gave you too much of a fright, Long-nose-kun.”
And as their voices grew louder and louder, Robin and Usopp explaining what happened to a confused reindeer and Zoro and Sanji arguing while Nami tried to stop laughing, the sleeping captain’s arm again went seeking precious meat but came back empty. Luffy sat straight up, eyes wide with horror. “No meat! Aaaaaaaah! Scary!”
And in unison five angry voices responded while a sixth merely chuckled. “ONLY YOU THINK THAT!”
Title: Sprouting Up Like Mushrooms
Rating: PG
Pairing: None/Gen
Word Count: 4,712
“And that is how the Great Captain Usopp saved an entire island from a horrible plague of zombie marines from the deep.”
Usopp crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back from the mood-appropriate hunch he had taken over the fire for the telling of his story, waiting. Right on cue, exactly five seconds had passed, just long enough for his amazing heroics to sink in, came the amazed gasps and adoring sighs of his public.
“Really? You beat all those fishy marine guys? You’re so awesome!” Luffy grinned at him from through the flames, his eyes bright with what Usopp knew had to the power of his story.
“So awesome,” echoed the little reindeer doctor after he finally worked up his nerve to lift his head from where it had been buried against the captain’s side. Sparkles, fewer than normal but Usopp supposed it was because his tale had just been that scary, surrounded Chopper’s face as he beamed.
“Let me get this straight. You defeated a ravenous rampaging horde of undead marines who’d previously just been shuffling around on the ocean floor by making the evil zombie admiral swallow a firebird egg. That you just happened to have on hand.” Sanji, lounging indolently next to the sniper on another of the logs around the campfire, raised his lone and curly visible eyebrow. “I thought zombies only ate brains.”
The Great Captain Usopp never backed down to a challenge, especially not one to his story-telling prowess. “Shows what you know,” he said scoffingly. “Of course they ate brains. I didn’t say he ate the firebird egg. I just said the nasty, dripping, seaweed-covered admiral swallowed it. I shot it into his mouth right when he’d opened it to moan for my tasty brain meat. The firebird egg only has to be swallowed, surrounded, it doesn’t have to actually be eaten in order for it to work.”
“I’ll tell you all the incredible story of how I climbed Mount Pyroia and braved the dangers of the Tinderkin forest to get the firebird egg later,” he added, turning to smile at his attentive audience of two. Predictably Chopper and Luffy gazed at him starry-eyed and he smirked at the chef.
“Fine, fine.” A smoke ring drifted lazily up to merge with the thicker streams coming from the fire. “So, we ready to decide the winner?”
Camping on a Fall island and having to pass an entire week while the log pose set had quickly found the Straw Hat crew with little to do. The only town on the small dot of land was mostly deserted. Only a few old people clung to their lives, passing their days with beet farming and remembering the good old days. After a few hours, it quickly became apparent that the good old days meant bigger beets and a pig fair. Not much happened on the island and, after a beet blight, most of the natives had left in search of better things, like turnips.
Even the most patient of the young pirates had tired of beets, always beets beets beets, by the third day. And thus they were camping for the remainder of their imposed shore leave. There was only this last night left before they could continue on their way and they had reached the culmination of their contest. That first evening in the woods, high spirits had infected the male portion of the Straw Hats and they’d made something of a ruckus until Nami stuck her head out from the newly sagging - thanks to a gomu attack gone wrong - tent she shared with Robin and threatened to beat them all within an inch of their lives if they didn’t shut up and let her sleep. The archaeologist had made an appearance as well, smiling calmly and inscrutably as she studied the mess of sleeping bags and the leaves stuffed down the front of Usopp’s overalls and peaking out beneath Luffy’s hat.
Her suggestion was for the telling of ghost stories, a challenge to see who could tell the best one. Of course competitive instincts had kicked in and the boys had agreed without any hesitation beyond Usopp’s feeble protests that he was allergic to being scared. A few verbal jabs against his courage and his skills, though, and even the sniper was gung-ho. And so the gauntlet had been thrown and each of the boys vowed to tell the best story. A pile of leaves had snored through their declarations of prowess and Robin hid a small smile behind her hand as the cook kicked Zoro awake and Luffy pounced on him and made him agree to participate too.
The great scary story contest began the very next evening, Luffy going first because he was the captain after all. Unfortunately Luffy’s relatively short attention span and general attitude of laughing in the face of dangers that made most mortals tremble meant his spooky narrative skill was somewhat lacking. His yarn about a town that had to go an entire week without meat ended with all the townspeople dying and haunting any traveler unlucky enough to stumble into their clutches with ectoplasmic demands for roast beef and venison and all other manner of tough protein. While the captain had certainly managed to scare himself with the story, even Chopper had survived the recounting unscathed. It was generally agreed upon that Luffy would not win this challenge.
Chopper was to tell his story the next night but the poor doctor only managed to squeak out a few words about a dark and freezing castle before the quaking in his limbs overcame him. Despite all efforts, Chopper spent the remainder of the evening huddled under a blanket up against Zoro’s side. The doctor’s story, if a couple of sentences could be termed such, was also pronounced a failure but everyone reassured the reindeer boy that they believed it really would have scared them out of their wits if they had heard it. Sanji took up the task next since it was still too early to go to bed.
The cook spun a story full of cobwebs and creaky floors, of knives on a stormy night and skeletal hands. Of course, being told by Sanji, the tale also had beautiful women in distress and a quite a lot of detail about the food. When he finally finished, it wasn’t hard for the very active imaginations of certain pirates to see bony fingers reaching from the bushes or the eerie glow of demonic eyes shining out of the banked fire. When Zoro woke up the next morning, it was to find a reindeer curled against his stomach and a sniper huddled up along his back. The captain had joined in for good measure, mainly because he thought it looked like fun, and the swordsman had to kick his way free of the rubber grip. Sanji’s prospects had been looking pretty good.
But this last night had belonged entirely to the master, to Usopp himself. And if his long and complex accounting of his zombie fighting days wasn’t exactly quite as scary as Sanji’s story, it was definitely more exciting. Besides, zombies were cool. Would the sniper win or would the cook take his title as best storyteller away? As Luffy looked avidly between the two rivals, Chopper finally pulled away from the captain to sit nervously on his own. This ghost business made him jumpy and he didn’t really want to listen to any more gruesome tales but it wouldn’t be fair to stop now.
“W-what about Zoro? Shouldn’t he tell one?”
Four heads turned to stare across and around the fire. Zoro was where he’d been for the previous three nights; stretched out alongside one of the logs that surrounded the fire pit, mug in hand, eyes closed, and low snores occasionally issuing forth, usually at a most inopportune time in the various ghost stories. The swordsman hadn’t seemed very interested in the challenge from the very beginning but if nothing else they might need him to cast a tie-breaking vote. Sanji stubbed out his cigarette in the dirt and moved down his own wooden seat. A swift kick to the stomach did the trick, Zoro jerking upright with a glare that promised death.
“Oi, shitty marimo. It’s your go. Hurry up and tell your stupid story so we can decide who’s the best.”
“Yeah, Zoro,” Usopp chimed in, not wanting to let the cook have the upper hand. “Hurry up so I can win. Zombies,” he added, presuming the swordsman had slept through his awesome adventure, “are the coolest so you don’t have to worry about trying hard or anything.”
The sleepy pirate yawned, gazed blearily around at the expectant faces, turned a hopeful eye towards his mug. It was empty though, and Zoro slumped back against the log in disappointment.
“I don’t know any ghost stories,” he muttered, wanting nothing besides some more booze and a chance to go back to sleep.
“None?” Chopper and Luffy spoke in tandem, a sort of dismayed pity coloring their word.
“None,” the swordsman confirmed, stretching a bit and rolling stiff shoulders. “Don’t know anything about ghosts or zombies or skeletons or meat demons or anything like that.”
“But you’ve got to know something scary. Didn’t you ever see or hear anything weird when you were a pirate hunter?” Now Usopp added his two beri, disbelieving that, with all the things he’d seen since sailing off on the Going Merry, Zoro had never known a single moment of fear or the supernatural.
“If the seaweed head is too dumb to be able to make up a story that’s his problem.” Sanji held a new cigarette out carefully towards the flames and smirked at the swordsman. “Whatever he could come up with would suck anyway so why bother listening to him?”
It was just the goad Zoro needed and he sat up all the way, reaching over to bat at the cook’s hand. “Shut up dartboard brow. I can too tell a good scary story.”
“Tell tell!” Luffy bounced in his seat and Chopper quickly picked up on the chant, adding his high voice. Zoro, realizing he’d been duped, scowled at the grinning chef and sighed.
“Fine. Fine. This is something I heard once from some old guy in a bar and had to go check out for myself…”
The swordsman propped an elbow on the log behind him and let his voice drop to low rumble so that it slithered through the crackles and pops of the burning campfire. “I was in this mining town about halfway up a mountain range. The place was kind of like this island, not many people and the ones there were old and just wanted to keep repeating the same stories over and over again. But it wasn’t quite as dead as things here; they had a vein of some kind of expensive ore or whatever that could only be mined by a few people but apparently it was valuable stuff. They’d been having bandit problems and there was a rumor a head worth a million or so beri was in the area too. I had gone to see if I could hunt him down.”
In the firelight, Zoro’s green eyes caught the light and changed, took on a weird yellow cast that made his already unusual coloring look faintly sinister. Even though nothing had happened yet, Chopper had moved back against Luffy’s side, peering out with one eye to watch the swordsman speak. “I hadn’t had any luck after three days of tramping through the forests around the town and I finally ended up back there at the bar. It was late and raining and most of the miners were worried about flooding in the mineshafts. But that wasn’t my problem and I ended up with just this really old man with a beard that came down to his knees for company. We didn’t speak all night and I was just ready to go find some place to sleep when he reached over and grabbed my arm with his gnarled hand.”
Zoro made a clawing motion and Usopp jumped, scooted closer to Luffy all the while scowling at the openly grinning chef. “Boy, he said to me. Boy, I hear you been stompin’ all around our mountain. You see the temple yet? Well, I hadn’t seen any temple. I hadn’t found much more than a few abandoned shacks and a particularly tasty still. Which was what I told him. He laughed then, a really nasty laugh that was more like the coughing of a dying man. I went to shrug his hand off and leave but he had a good grip for an old man and I didn’t think I could pull away without hurting him. And before I could open my mouth to tell him to let go, he leaned towards me and told me that I was a lucky man.”
The story trailed off as Zoro let his words sink in and silence rested over the group of pirates until Luffy broke the moment with a demand to know what happened next. “I asked what the hell he meant and he told me that the place was evil, haunted. He said the temple was up at the top of the main peak, had been set up years ago by some wandering group of monks. They’d believed the mountain was holy and lived there in harmony with nature until the mine opened. There’d been trouble between the mine’s original owner and the monks. No one owned the mountain, or so the monks claimed. And certainly they’d been there a lot longer and would know. But the mine owner said it was all his and that it was only because he was a generous man that the monks hadn’t been run out. And that would’ve been okay except the monks didn’t like what he was mining.”
Even the chef looked interested now, ash clumping on the end of his cigarette, and Zoro smirked inwardly. Ha! He could too tell a story. “Like I said, I don’t know what the hell they were taking out of the ground but whatever it was, it was valuable. The old man said the monks got really mad and something, presumably them, started sabotaging the mines at night. Tools went missing, cart tracks were pulled up, and finally an entire shaft was collapsed. Well that was the end of that. The boss’s son had been in that shaft and he died when it collapsed. The owner went nuts and led the whole mining town with him up to the temple and they killed every single monk that night so that the temple grounds ran red with blood. He was going to burn it to the ground but as he went to kill the head monk, the man put a curse on the temple so that if it was destroyed, all the mines would collapse and the veins of ore would sink deep into the earth beyond the reach of men.”
Chopper was firmly buried into Luffy’s side and the captain had an arm slung around his shoulders. Usopp was clinging to the other one, eyes wide with anxiety as Zoro finished his tale. “Well I wasn’t planning on destroying any temples and I told the old man so. It sounded like the perfect hideout for bandits too and I decided to go find the place the very next day. The geezer must’ve realized what I planned to do because he finally let go of my arm and laughed his awful laugh again. He told me I didn’t know what the hell I was doing because the holy blood of the monks had placed its own curse on the temple. Hands, he said to me, horrible pasty hands and arms would spring up from the blood-soaked ground and drag anyone stupid enough to enter the temple to a horrible death. Well that was even more reason to go. If everyone was afraid to venture close to the temple, bandits surely would use it as a base.”
Zoro grinned, one of his dangerous deadly smiles that usually only his enemies saw before steel bit into their flesh. “So I went out the very next day and – “ He stopped, leveled a warning glare at Sanji that said he would brook no petty interruptions or jibes about his ability to find things. “And I found it right around sunset. The old place was falling apart, vines over most of the walls and the entrance choked with brush. It didn’t look like anybody was there but it could’ve been camouflage so I pushed past the brambles and the bushes and stood beneath the wide black lintel that capped the open gateway. In the failing light it was hard to tell what I was looking at, but I know what human bones look like. Not fifteen feet from where I stood was a grinning skull and it was then that I noticed the strange greenish glow coming from the ground. I swear it looked like hands, pale glowing hands rising from the ground, and I decided that I didn’t particularly want to wander around an old abandoned temple in the dark. So I camped outside the walls and when I went back to check the next morning…”
“Yes? Yes?” Luffy was jiggling in his seat, jarring the clinging reindeer and ignoring the sniper’s quiet hisses to shut up. Zoro shrugged, settled back more comfortably against his log. “It was mushrooms. Just mushrooms. The skull was real enough but it probably belonged to one of the murdered monks. And I never did find bandits I was looking for.”
“M-m-m-mmmmmushrooms?” Usopp worked himself out of his terror as he stuttered. “They were just mushrooms? Ha, I’m not scared of mushrooms!”
“Oh no?” Sanji blew a perfect smoke ring and turned to stare at the younger pirate. “Then you won’t mind if I start putting them in your food?”
“Hey, I didn’t say that! I said I wasn’t scared of mushrooms, not that I wanted to eat them.”
In the midst of the brewing argument, Chopper scurried away from Luffy’s side to burrow in next to a grudgingly permissible swordsman. “Were they really just mushrooms, Zoro?”
“Yup. Just mushrooms. Nothing to be scared of.”
“Heh. That’s right. And that’s why I win.” Usopp broke away from his staring contest with the cook to puff out his chest. “Zombies always beat mushrooms.”
“And murdered ghosts who come back for gruesome revenge beat zombies.” Sanji wasn’t going to be outdone.
“Zombies!”
“Ghosts!”
“Zombies!”
“Ghosts!”
“I think being without meat is the scariest thing of all.” Four heads turned to look at the frowning captain, one rubber limb stretched out and searching through the provisions for a piece of comforting jerky.
Teeth bared, Sanji and Usopp shouted, “Only you would think that!” And for a moment it looked as if a repeat of a past evening was about to occur. But a warning “Shut the hell up!” came from the girls’ tent and Sanji immediately turned into a heart-eyed creature of obedience. The rest of the boys were too tired to resist beyond some grumbling and soon they were all dozing around the dying flames of the campfire.
It was some hours later that Usopp woke suddenly with a start, his breath coming in gasps and his ears straining to hear the smallest of noises. The fire was gone, only sullenly glowing red embers remained to cast glimmers of light that didn’t reach beyond the fire circle. He didn’t remember his dream, only the terror, and suddenly the weight of the darkness beyond was oppressively heavy. It was nearly impossible to see through the heavy curtain of night shadows but as he checked for each of his nakama, he could swear he saw a flicker of pale movement from beyond the protective wall of the campfire ring. He told himself it was just his imagination but as minutes passed with the thickness of coagulating blood he couldn’t get back to sleep. And when he rolled over to fight down the urge to move closer to one of his nakama, he saw motion again.
“Zoro!” The swordsman swiped a hand across his nose and went right back to snoring, Chopper safely sleeping in his arms. “Zoro!” Usopp hissed and poked the swordsman more forcefully in the head. “Wake up Zoro!”
“Hnuffwha…what?” Zoro opened one green eye, regarded Usopp with it balefully. “What the hell is it, Long-nose? ‘m tryin’ to sleep.”
“Th-there was a, a hand. I swear! I saw a pale hand just like in your story.”
“A dream.” Zoro waved his own hand dismissively and closed his eye. “Go back to bed.”
“C-can I sleep –“
Zoro cut off the rest of Usopp’s question. “Whatever. Just shut up and leave me alone.”
After a few moments of rustling and scootching, Usopp managed to get himself turned around so that his head rested only a few inches from the top of the swordsman’s. It wasn’t perfect but it was more reassuring that how he had been sleeping. And he was nearly asleep, eyes mere slits as they gazed at the remnants of the fire, when he saw it again.
“Zoro!”
“Usopp, I swear I’m gonna…” Zoro trailed off as he caught sight of what had the sniper so agitated. Indeed there was a hand. A pale hand attached to an abnormally long and stretched out arm that he could follow from their stores all the way back to Luffy’s snoring, drooling form.
“You idiot, it’s just Luffy trying to sleep-eat again. See?”
Zoro pointed and Usopp sheepishly had to admit that the swordsman was right as the ghostly arm of the captain snapped back to normal and he chewed on yet another piece of jerky, eyes firmly closed. “Now go to sleep.”
The sniper tried. He really really tried. But it was hard to find sleep when his thoughts were filled with phantom limbs and ghostly blood and zombie marines who demanded meat brains. Usopp just couldn’t get his mind to settle down and he’d resigned himself to a sleepless night of watching the fire when he saw motion again. He bit down hard on his tongue to keep from calling for the swordsman and stared at where he’d seen the movement. But there was nothing there and he had almost convinced himself it was just his imagination when it happened again. This time it wasn’t just a single white hand but two and they weren’t anywhere near the food.
Usopp had to clench his jaw to keep his teeth from rattling out of his skull as he slowly turned to look at Luffy. The captain had one hand beneath his head and the other resting on his stomach and most certainly not resting calmly amid the piles of leaves around the camp. Dread filling the pit of his stomach, Usopp looked back at where the hands had been but there was nothing but darkness waiting for him. Convinced now that he was either going nuts or letting his imagination get the better of him, the sniper inched even closer to the swordsman until he feel the top of Zoro’s head brushing his own and huddled deeper into his sleeping bag. And he even managed to convince himself that everything was okay until three pallid arms and hands slowly inched there way up onto the log behind the captain and the middle one crooked a beckoning finger at him.
“ZORO!” The shriek jolted the swordsman upright so quickly that his head snapped into Usopp’s chin and made the younger boy yelp.
“What? What is it?” Chopper was a tiny furry bundle of anxiety as he gazed up at the muttering swordsman and the cowering sniper.
“Hands! Three of them right over…there.” Usopp trailed off as he pointed towards the still-sleeping captain. There was nothing on the log now. No sign of the three hands. “I swear, they were right there! One of them even waved at me!”
“Oh my Go-“ Zoro tightened his grip on the doctor before the reindeer could get himself too worked up. At this rate he wasn’t going to get any sleep.
“It’s nothing Chopper. Usopp just had a nightmare from all the stories. See? There’s nothing there.”
“A-are you sure?”
“Do you see any hands?”
“N-no.”
“It’s fine. Just go back to sleep.” Zoro awkwardly patted him on the head before leveling an irritated glare at the sniper. “And you. Keep it down before you bother Chopper again or I’ll be introducing you to MY two hands.”
The extremely disgruntled swordsman settled back down and the shaking sniper slowly followed suit. When a hand crept slowly through the leaf litter, he just shut his eyes. And when he peeked again and there were five hands wavering slowly around the fire, he squeaked, clenched them shut even more tightly, and buried his head inside of his sleeping bag. But when his terrified need to know got the better of his again and he opened his eyes to stare at a hand slowly snaking closer and closer to the sleeping captain with what seemed like purely murderous intent, he couldn’t keep silent.
“Z-Zoro. Wake up. You gotta wake up.”
“Do you want to die?” Zoro didn’t even bother to open his eyes, just let the threat rumble out of his mouth.
“No. And I don’t w-want Luffy to die either.”
At that the reluctant swordsman cracked an eyelid and then promptly opened the other one. “Shit!”
“I thought you s-said they were just m-mushrooms.”
“They were.”
It was hard to believe the sight before him but there was no denying the single ghostly limb gliding towards Luffy, the fingers opening and closing ominously. Zoro carefully hefted the dozing reindeer, passed him over to Usopp. And then he got to his feet and grabbed a sword, padding around the fire ring to nudge the cook when more and more pale arms appeared about them.
“What is it, asshole? You scared?” Sanji’s lone visible eye peered up at Zoro through the fall of his hair, a promise of amused violence in his voice.
“Just shut up and look.”
“Shit! Thought you said they were just mushrooms.”
“They WERE! But do these look like mushrooms to you, moron?”
Usopp watched with wide eyes, arms tight around the still sleeping Chopper, as cook and swordsman squabbled in whispers before getting down to business. The hand was only a foot from Luffy now and more and more were moving with deadly slow intent towards the campfire. And just as Sanji’s foot came up to strike and steel slid from its sheath, all the limbs disappeared and Nami toppled out of her tent, a stream of nearly-hysterical giggles coming from her.
“Y-you! You should have…Oh god. The looks on your faces! Thanks, Zoro, for making this all too easy”
“Witch!” Zoro spun around with his sword raised only to have it kicked aside by the chef.
“Nami-san is so lovely when she’s playing practical jokes,” the cook crooned, falling all over himself to reach the navigator and help her up.
“You’re going to hell, woman. You and that other one both.” Zoro stalked back to his bedroll in a decided funk. Next to him, Usopp chuckled nervously. “I-I of course knew it all along. The Great Captain Usopp would never be afraid of some pansy demon hands OR mushrooms.”
At all the noise, Chopper woke up and blinked owlishly. “What’s going on?”
“I won the contest.” Robin’s mellow voice carried smoothly over the campsite, the older woman appearing at the tent flap to smile serenely at her nakama. “Sorry if I gave you too much of a fright, Long-nose-kun.”
And as their voices grew louder and louder, Robin and Usopp explaining what happened to a confused reindeer and Zoro and Sanji arguing while Nami tried to stop laughing, the sleeping captain’s arm again went seeking precious meat but came back empty. Luffy sat straight up, eyes wide with horror. “No meat! Aaaaaaaah! Scary!”
And in unison five angry voices responded while a sixth merely chuckled. “ONLY YOU THINK THAT!”
