Damn Cold Night-Chp6

CHAPTER 6: ADVENTURE

The Going Merry crew sailed their boat to find a less conspicuous spot before stopping and getting off. They found an underground cave and sailed into it, hoping no one noticed them. They gathered as much seaweed and rags as possible and covered the boat. They even lowered the sails and hid it in the cabin and smeared mud and goop over it to make it look like a useless boat just in case someone catches a glimpse of it and decided to haul it away.

“Stick together,” Zoro said as he scouted to see if the coast was clear. “We don’t want to lose each other. We’ll split up as soon as we reach the tunnels. Nami, lead the way.”

So, with Nami the navigator as the guide, they trotted their way around the island. When they hear footsteps at a distance, they sneaked quickly in the shadows or behind the rocks and held their breaths until the person passed by. As they continued their way, they suddenly saw someone at a distance. Instinctively, they crept into a narrow cave on the wall of the hill and kept their mouths shut.

Zoro took a peek and was shocked to see that it was Tashigi, wearing her usual leather coat covering her marine uniform. Her glasses shone under the moonlight, and Zoro had to admit that she looked like a real male marine crew, minus the slightly formed breasts, that is. He noticed that, under the moonlight, she had dyed a long blue streak across the middle of her head. Probably to make herself even more masculine. She had her sword ready by her side.

All of a sudden, Usopp felt ticklish on the nose by Chopper’s fur. He let out a sneeze. Though not too loud to cause an avalanche, but it was loud enough to let someone nearby hear. And that’s what Tashigi heard.

“Who’s there?” The Going Merry crew cringed. They hissed silently at Usopp and clasped his mouth shut with all of their hands to keep him from sneezing again. Tashigi walked closer towards their hiding place. The Going Merry crew was in the verge of panicking. Zoro gave them the signal through eye-contact that if she comes too close, they’ll have to make a dash for it. Everyone got ready. The atmosphere was tense. They held their breaths as Tashigi moved closer and closer towards the narrow cave. She brought out her sword and peered into the dark cave. The crew held their breaths. Though dark, they could make out the outline of Tashigi incoming closer towards them. The tense silence was deafening. Tashigi reached her hand out and was almost touching Chopper’s wet nose. Her fingers were getting closer and closer. Chopper held his breath, not wanting to breathe on her fingers and alert her. Everyone had their feet ready to run for it. Her hand was almost touching Chopper’s nose now…

“Miss Tashigi! Miss Tashigi, where are you?” Someone called from a distance.

“I’m here!” Tashigi replied as she moved out of the cave reluctantly. “What do you want?”

“Colonel Smoker called for you, miss,” a man in marine uniform replied.

“Didn’t you tell him I’m on a look-out?”

“Yes, miss. But he insisted to bring you to him. He said it’s urgent.”

Tashigi stared at the narrow cave for a while and said, “Alright. Take me to him. And alert the force to increase the security grounds.”

“Yes, miss!” the man saluted her and led the way.

After Tashigi and the junior were finally out of sight, the Going Merry crew fell out of their hiding place and caught their breaths. It felt like eternity and they were pretty surprised that they were able to hold their breaths for so long. Sanji aimed his foot on Usopp’s face, “You bakero! You almost got us caught back there! What were you thinking?!”

“Well, I can’t help it if my nose was tickled by that idiot reindeer’s fur!!” Usopp protested, aiming his fist at Sanji’s face.

“Oh, so it’s my fault, huh?” Chopper growled and chucked Usopp on the ribs.

“I’m surrounded by idiots,” Zoro groaned as he walked on his way, leaving the rest of the crew behind.

“Urusai, three of you! We got a mission to finish here!” Nami stopped the fight with a blow on the three bickering people’s heads. “Matte (Wait), Zoro, matte!”

The Going Merry crew continued their journey, evading more incoming marine soldiers along the way. Finally they reached the tunnels where Nami had mentioned in the blue prints. There were only two tunnels, and they led up towards the huge building towering over them: the Marine Force Centre. Zoro stood there for a moment to admire the building.

“We are finally here,” Zoro muttered to himself, fascinated at the monstrosity of the building.

“Alright, we’re here,” Usopp said, his knees begin to knock at each other. He tried to sound brave. “Now what’ll we do, Nami?”

“We go according as planned,” Nami said, taking out her blue prints to check if they were at the right track. “We split up into groups and we go through both tunnels. Wherever it ends up, we’ll still be inside the building. We’ll all meet at the kitchen entrance. Alright, who will go with whom?”

Usopp decided to stick with Chopper as he trusted Chopper would morph and fight better when the situation gets tough. Sanji opt to go with Zoro, as they make quite a good team, what with one who had great swordsmanship and one had a strong foot. Nami refused to be in the same team as Usopp and Chopper because to her, two bakero-s are enough to create total disaster, so she voted to go with Zoro’s team.

After sorting out the groups, Usopp chose the left side of the tunnel. He insisted that Chopper go in first before him, because he didn’t want to risk any booby traps in there. Zoro took the right tunnel and climbed in before Sanji. When it was almost Nami’s turn, she noticed something glimmering under the moonlight. She went to investigate and saw that in was a ladder leading to another tunnel. Since all of the Going Merry had their go in trying both tunnels, she might as well try this tunnel alone. Without further hesitation, she climbed up the ladder and slipped into the tunnel.

Zoro and Sanji’s tunnel pretty much led them safely into a garbage chute in the Centre’s kitchen. They peeked in to see if the coast was clear. Obviously not. They had to kidnap two of the cooks, who looked pretty thin and under-fed (obviously they are the inmates of the Centre) and wear their clothes and tried to blend in with the surroundings. Sanji couldn’t help cooking up a storm at the sight of the kitchen. Who could blame him? He’s a cook and being in a kitchen triggered his natural instincts. Zoro had to drag him by the collar before he blew everything they’ve planned out the window.

Nami’s outcome was quite unpleasant. Her tunnel led her to an underground drain that was infested with rats, dead or alive, and loads of rubbish. She grimaced and forced herself to wade through the murky drain, trying to avoid from at least touching those dead rats that were very bloated and very decaying and trying her luck on choosing which detour to take. She sighed with relief when she saw the end of the tunnel at a distance. She rushed towards it and sweatdropped when she saw that the drain ended in a shower room. It was quite full and packed with naked men washing themselves off grime and dirt. Doggan did mention about how cruel the marines treated him during his time in here, so she was positively sure that the people taking their baths were definitely not the inmates. She had to crouch on the dirty drain floor and wait until everyone left (and got showered by dirty soap water in the process *GROSS*!) before she could get into the showers. She jumped into the showers at a thrice and let the water run down her icky body, washing all the dirtiness.

Usopp and Chopper’s luck were even terrible. Their tunnel was ultimately stinky and foul, and they had to climb upwards to get to the end of the tunnel. Suddenly they heard a flushing sound and smelly water showered over them, accompanied by terrible foul-smelling goop. When they struggled their way up to the tunnel exit, they found themselves coming out of a toilet bowl! Which means someone actually flushed and sent shit covering all over their bodies (*DOUBLE GROSS*)!! Chopper glared at Usopp and growled, “Some tunnel we took, huh?”

“Well, you chose this tunnel! I just came after you!” Usopp said as he waited for Chopper to clamber out of the toilet bowl. The smell was worse than ever. They quickly rushed out of the toilet before other people who were ‘doing their business’ smelt them.

They came across Nami on their way to the kitchen entrance. The way Nami pinched her nose showed that they definitely do not smell pleasant at all.

“What? It’s just a couple of shitheads walking beside you,” Chopper said sarcastically. “There’s nothing to be disgusted about!”

The next minute, they found themselves standing under cold running water, forced by yours truly—Nami.

After Usopp and Chopper were quite clean (and less stinky) and quite dried up, they rushed towards the kitchen entrance, where they were supposed to meet. They saw no sign of Zoro or Sanji around. When they were about to split up and find them, they were suddenly pulled into a janitorial room, where the brooms and mops were. Luckily they heard Zoro and Sanji’s hush, or they would probably howl the whole place down.

“What are you guys doing here?” Nami hissed, removing Zoro’s large hand from her mouth.

“We had to hide here,” Zoro replied, peeking out to see if the coast was clear. “Us standing out at the entrance posing as inmate cooks are definitely too conspicuous.”

“Although it’s a shame Zoro didn’t let me try out my specialties,” Sanji replied, popping another chewing gum into his mouth.

“You baka! This is not the time for one of your cuisines!” Zoro growled. “So, Nami, where do we go now?”

“Well…the blue print was kinda soaked after clambering through gross-out tunnels infested with dead rats,” Nami said in grimace, “but I have an idea where we’re going to go. Since we’re near the kitchen entrance, then we are getting closer to the marines’ territory. All we have to do now is try to go as high as possible to find the exhibit centre. My guess is that since it’s an exhibit and we are talking about major valuables that worth a hunk of fortune, so it has to be in a highly-secured spot on the highest floor, wherever it may be. Each of us will have to try out different floors for this.”

“Alright, you heard what Nami said,” Zoro turned to the rest of the crew, “we’ll go to the lift and see how many floors this building exactly has. Then we’ll split up into groups again and choose which floor—or floors—we want to scout.”

“But how do we know who reached the exhibit first?” Chopper asked.

“I think I have a way for that,” Usopp said as he rummaged through his handy pockets on his overall. He took out 5 mini-beepers and passed one to each. “Whoever finds the exhibit centre, he/she can press the button under this device and the rest of the beepers will beep simultaneously. The speaker will also be activated when the beeper button is pressed. That way we’ll all know where the exhibit centre is and get there as soon as possible.”

“You are good!” Sanji said, clapping Usopp’s back.

“OK, this is it. On the count of three, we’ll make a dash for it. Let me check if the coast is clear,” Zoro said, then stopped in his tracks and asked, “What reeks? Phew!”

“Don’t even ask!” Chopper growled, glaring at both Usopp and the snorting Nami.

At the count of three, the Going Merry dashed as silent as possible out of the janitorial room and crept to the hallway towards the lift. They saw that there were 15 floors altogether. Each of them took 3 floors. Sanji took the first 3 floors. The lift needed a pass to open, so Zoro took out a pass card he got from one of the cooks he kidnapped and slipped it into the slot on the lift door. The door opened and they parted with Sanji. Nami took the second 3 floors. Chopper took the third 3 floors and Usopp took (or rather forced to take) the fourth 3 floors. Which left Zoro with the last 3 floors. He got off at the 13th floor (totally unlucky number) and started searching. He noticed that this was the place where the highest classed marines hung out. There were the meeting rooms and conference centres at the 13th floor, the security lines on the 14th floor and more important rooms on the 15th floor.

Zoro was about to stop searching this 15th floor and look for the others when he saw two guards guarding a door which he had not entered yet. He walked up to them slowly, refusing to answer their bombarding questions and, within seconds, slit the guards’ chests, making them fall down to the floor. Zoro rummaged through one of the guards’ pockets and found a pass card. He slotted it into a machine beside the door and the door slid open.

He had to cover his eyes a little when he entered the room. There, right in front of his eyes, the thing he and the Going Merry have been risking their lives for. Piled up comfortably on the exhibit stand was the one and only One Piece! Zoro gazed at the treasure dearly and thank the gods and Luffy for giving him and the crew strength to go this far. He wanted to just fall on the treasure and weep in joy but it wasn’t the time. Besides, no one is dumb enough to lie on the treasure when it could be covered with booby traps (except Luffy, obviously).

Zoro was about to take out the mini-beeper when he noticed a small cylinder-shaped metallic container somewhere behind the treasure. It was almost as tall as he was and there were sounds of bubbling inside it. Zoro stuck his ear close to the cylinder and he could hear a distinct breathing inside it too, accompanied by rhythmic bubbling of water. He searched and found a card-slotting machine right on the rims of the container. He tried his luck and slotted the card in. He was surprised at his dumb luck when the metal covering of the cylinder slid upwards.

What he saw next almost gave him a heart attack.