Gamble! Pirate Trap

Summary: A bizarre storm engulfs the Sunny. The Straw Hat crew are stranded and split into groups on Cool Gaming Islands-along with thousands of other pirates from every era. In order to reunite, they join the islands' Gamble competition. A competition they cannot possibly win without losing.

AN: This very long story would take place just after Fishman Island, but as though Punk Hazard never began (manga readers know). It's a New World story.

This is pure, 100% unadulterated Straw Hat crew nakamaship. I try to be fair and include all of the crew on an equal basis. Each to their own moment. Any characters of my invention involved will stick to their jobs—supportive roles, in order to fulfill the necessary plot structure. So in summary: No limelight stealing. Limelight is shared. And no OCs. Also, meat.

On the other hand, you can expect all the usual things you find in the One Piece anime/manga/movies. Dramatic fights, kick-assery, hilarity, pain/hurt/comfort, shock and awe...but mostly, nakama bonding.

...this is the longest, probably only Author's Note you have to deal with. If you read this far, have some meat. Now go enjoy the story!

Chapter One: A Beautiful, Sunny Day

A typical day on board the Sunny Go was indescribable. One day, there could be a spur-of-the-moment fishing tournament. The next day, it was a five-hour-long competition of hide-and-seek, and the next it was just a day when Luffy slept all day long and the rest of the crew had peace and quiet. The day after, of course, would be a Feast day to satiate their captain's intense hunger from resting too much.

Today, it was a card game. Robin and Franky were clearly long-term winners and not sharing any secrets to their success, while Luffy has spent the first two rounds trying to understand the rules. Then he started to invent them. This had earned him several goose eggs and many laughs.

Usopp was unsuccessfully trying to bribe others to not 'attack' him with their best cards, Nami was hoarding her winnings and sneering at Brook, who was tall enough to every once in a while attempt to peek at her cards. He had also been gifted with several goose eggs of his own.

Zoro was fast asleep on the grass—he'd given up after the first round, claiming cards were no longer a man's game when greedy women were involved. Sanji was on Nami's 'team', mainly because she had him wrapped around her finger and wouldn't let him play against her. Chopper wasn't playing, but he was still having a blast as he ran in circles around the group, giggling every time he saw what move his nakama were planning next.

It was a beautiful, sunny day.

"Queen Play!" cried Nami, breaking the tense feeling over the group. "This round is mine! Pay me!"

Brook's jaw dropped; nearly everyone else groaned, and Usopp looked down at Nami's hand in shock as she thew it on top of their berri pile. "H-H-Hey, Nami, that's just ruthless! I didn't get to take a single turn this time."

"Too bad, baka. That's what you get when you gamble with the best," she retorted. Then, much colder, "Luffy, I saw you take that berri!"

Luffy froze in mid-grab, and was rewarded by having his head smacked down, crashing on top of the heap of money.

"I have already bet everything I have and lost," Brook lamented, gazing at his worthless cards with empty sockets. "Robin-san, Nami-san, you've stripped me down to my bones...ah, though I was just bones to begin with. Yohoho!"

"That's my Nami-swaaan!"

As the Sunny cut through the ocean, its sails full and the rudder locked, the squabbling sound of the crew sounded faint against the creaking of the hull and the hiss of the waves. There was an unusual rattling of the pulleys and ropes in the breeze, an odd, brusque pattern that no one else seemed to notice other than Sunny itself.

"Eh?" Usopp was looking at Luffy's cards, now that they were scattered on the grass. He sounded confused. "Luffy, you had a really great hand. You could have beat Nami if you'd called it first!"
"Nyah?" Their captain sat straight up, and blinked at the faces of the cards. "Really? I don't get this game. Can we play hide-and-seek again?"

The sniper heaved a sigh that could only belong to an I-give-up-on-my-idiot-captain-diseased man, and started to collect the cards.

Robin chuckled behind her hand. "Who wouldn't want to play the game you're best at?"

"Franky? What are you..." Nami looked up as the cyborg suddenly stood, and lifted his shades to peer at the sky. This was the point when their navigator snapped to attention and truly began to listen. Then she leaped to her feet, startling everyone else. "Sanji! Protect my winnings!"

Usopp climbed to his feet and was about to ask what was wrong, when the wind abruptly changed directions with a thunderous clap of the ship's sails. The sudden jerk and sideways tilt of the ship threw them off balance, and being the lightest, Brook ended up tumbling over several times to crash into the wall. Franky seized the ship's wheel and turned the rudder to prevent a capsize while Usopp stumbled his way to the ropes to adjust the sails.

Amidst the chaos, the green-haired swordsman sat up from his nap, scratching his head and frowning. He opened his eye to glare at Franky's back, and was going to rebuke him when he saw the dark, rapidly expanding splotch on the horizon. "What the hell...?"

"Tch, the weather in the New World is even more unpredictable than the first half of the Grand Line," said Sanji, though barely audible over the sound of the wind. The playing cards were scattered across the deck now and he had already secured the paper berri winnings before it could share the same fate.

"It's moving so fast! This is so sudden!" Chopper wailed, standing up on the side of the ship.

Whatever the dark clouds represented, they were indeed approaching far too quickly for it to be just any normal storm. Nami stood on the bow, trying to gauge their next best move, but there was clearly no chance they were going to be able to steer clear in time. Their only hope was to batten down and fight for the safety of the Thousand Sunny.

A storm was nothing new to the Straw Hats and in the end, a storm was better news than a hostile pirate ship or sea monster. However, there was something about those clouds that made Nami feel queasy. There was no cooling of the air, no scent of rain, no sudden drop in pressure...what kind of weather were they sailing into, exactly?

"Less than five minutes before it hits!" she yelled at the crew.

"What?" growled Zoro.

With Robin helping, they weren't having any trouble pulling up the sails in the very brief moments before the storm struck. Franky was at the wheel, keeping the Sunny's nose pointed at a 40 degree angle to the cloud formation's eastern side, just as their navigator has instructed. They were going to try to skirt it and avoid the worst of the monster's belly, even if they couldn't dodge it.

Luffy was laughing, naturally, and racing to perch on the very top of Sunny's figurehead. He grinned into the wind, clamping a hand down on top of his head to keep his hat.

"Sunny-go! Let's go!" he howled into the open sea.

The wind screamed at them and slammed the ship with one swell after another, but the crew long-learned expertise with storms held out. As the black clouds rolled overhead, they were ready to break through.

Usopp ran from the foremast, down the stairs to grab one of the pulley ropes, and noticed that their navigator was standing at the railing with a taut expression. "Oi, Nami, what's wrong?"

"There's no rain,"she said, and grabbed the railing to steady herself as the Sunny heaved sideways. "I don't smell any moisture, like the clouds aren't normal...everything is wrong about this storm! I...I don't..."

Usopp's eyes widened; even their weather expert was struck helpless at a time like this? A familiar sense of panic began to broil in his gut.

Suddenly, Nami squealed and lost her grip on the rail as Sunny pitched forward down the slope of an aggressive wave. Her arms flailed as she teetered backwards over the stairs. A pair of bony hands caught her by the shoulders and gently pushed her back on deck. She breathed a sigh of relief, looking around to see Brook towering over her. "Thank you, Brook."

The skeleton inclined in a ten degree bow. "You're welcome, Nami-san. Would you perhaps show me your—"

"Now's not the time!" Nami snapped, lashing out with a hand. She left the beaten pervert skeleton in a quivering heap and returned to her post.

The shadows that played across the deck were getting darker, as the clouds stopped getting darker and started to grow brighter, instead. It was an eerie glow engineered from seemingly nothing, as if the air had begun to absorb light and intensifying it. Then, without warning, there was a flash and forked lightning leaped from the black globes to strike the ocean's surface not a hundred feet off the bow. A sharp crack split the air.

Nami, who had ducked behind the side of the ship, slowly stood up again, slack-jawed. "G-G-Green...lightning?"

She was answered by another flash; this time, it struck the top of Sunny's main mast. Zoro, who had been standing directly below it, looked up with wide eyes. The green electricity sizzled along the wooden post, ignoring the 'path of least resistance' rule, and nearly touched the swordsman. He growled furiously, leaped backwards and flipped onto the top deck with Franky.

"That was so cool!" laughed Luffy, jumping up and down on top of Sunny's head. "Nah? Zoro, did it get you?"

"Tch, that was close," muttered Zoro, as if that were a real reply. "Oi, Nami. What's up with this weather already?"

Their navigator screamed again and threw her arms around her head when another bolt struck the water behind her. In a fit, she barked, "How am I supposed to tell? Nothing about this storm is normal!"

Zoro may have been about to reply, but another loud cracking sound made him jump sideways, out of the path of yet another, much more precise bolt of lightning. It struck the planks paces from Franky, but didn't leave so much as a scorch mark. "What the hell?" bellowed the swordsman.

Sanji, holding a cigarette up to his lips, stepped up behind the swordsman and said evenly, "The lightning is green. Maybe it's attracted to your hair, marimo."

"Shut up, curly cook!"

Another crack and flash of green struck, but this time it was Chopper who cried out. The little doctor was racing up the stairs to reverse-hide behind one of Franky's legs. More of the strange electricity was crackling in the grass where the reindeer had just been standing.

"Everyone should go inside where we can be safe," Robin pointed out, as she looked up to the deck with her arms crossed. "Franky, you should come, too."

"You guys go on inside. Someone has to protect Sunny while this is going on," the cyborg called down to the rest of the crew, and reached down to pick up Chopper. His nakama clung to his massive arm, and he had to carefully pry him off so he could steer. "Go on!"

"B-But Franky! You could get hit, too!" Usopp stammered.

"Baka. This new body of mine can handle three times the power of lightning! Super defense mode activate-mecha." The shipwright flashed a grin right after that, making the stars in Chopper's eyes grow larger at the robot impersonation.

That was seconds before Sanji picked up the reindeer by the back of his shirt, and jumped down to where the kitchen door was; Robin followed. With some reluctance, the remaining crew members fought the rocking movements of the ship and ducked into the mess. Luffy stood where he was, looking confused.

"Oi, oi, what about Franky?" he asked, when Zoro stopped to grab him by the shirt, too. He kept asking in bewilderment as he was half-dragged downstairs, "Zoro? Where are we going? Why does Franky get to stay and watch?"

The door closed behind them, cutting them off from the eerie light and the green flashes. Inside, the metal pots were clattering loudly, and were the plates, as the Sunny pitched and dipped over the rough sea. Usopp and Chopper were clinging to each other; the other Straw Hats were gathered around the table. The light inside the mess dimmed and flickered briefly, and cracks of lightning filled the air as they futilely struck the deck above.

"Will he really be all right up there?" Usopp questioned, gazing at the door.

"If he says he's fine, he's fine," the blonde cook answered for him. "Right now, we need to focus on our top priority." After a dramatic pause, in which he removed his cigarette and exhaled slowly, he said with relentless adoration, "Protecting Nami-swan and Robin-schwan from the storm!"

Zoro sighed heavily.

"Ah, this reminds me! I did hear rumours about the New World many years ago, during some of my travels," Brook spoke up suddenly. Everyone looked at him expectantly. "There were tales about how many strong pirates disappeared right after entering the New World. Their ships were found, but without trace of their crew on board."

Balling her fists, Nami growled, "Why are you telling us this now?"

Sheepishly, Brook looked down at his hands, which were folded on top of his cane. "My apologies. I had forgotten. So many years have passed, and I never thought I'd see the New World with my own eyes..."

A silence fell over the room. The absence of the expected skull joke made everyone awkwardly guilty, especially Nami, who bit her lip and wished now that she'd kept control of her temper. Now wasn't the time to blame anybody, and definitely not time to reopen old wounds.

"Maybe we should—"

Deafening noise interrupted her, a noise not unlike five cannons being fired at once. Everyone stared at the door in shock, when the unmistakable sound of wood snapping and splintering soon followed. Brook, worried about the safety of their shipwright and closest to the door, turned to open it.

"Wait! Stop!"

Usopp's warning came too late—of course he knew what that sound was, and in his negative mind he could imagine what was going to happen. The skeleton turned the handle. The door creaked open, and its frame was filled with the sight of the Sunny's foremast toppling towards them. A shadow fell on Brook, who despite his talent for speed, did not react in time.

"Brook!" Luffy's voice and body intervened at the same time. He landed a punch on the skeleton milliseconds before the mast crashed through the ceiling, and Brook went flying. The sturdy upper deck and lower deck railing shattered, but were not flattened; the mast stopped on a narrow angle in the door frame.

Luffy, on the other hand, was standing right under it. His head looked nearly pancaked to his body—he stood perfectly still, arm still outstretched from his saving punch. Then, with a squawk, he teetered backwards and fell.

An instant later, he started rolling over and over, gripping his head dramatically. "Ow ow ow ow ow ow!"

Nami put a hand over her eyes and sighed in relief. "That was too close...Brook, are you hurt?"

The musician struggled to escape from the trash bin in the kitchen, where he had unfortunately landed. He brushed himself off politely and gave a thumbs-up. "Yohohoooo, thank you very much, Luffy-san."

"Oi!" Franky's voice called through the blocked door frame. With a loud groan, the mast began to rise skywards again. Their shipwright appeared as he hoisted the heavy log in his arms. He then braced it on one massive shoulder, lifting his sunglasses briefly to look at them. "You all right in there?"

This was when Luffy surged to his feet and threw his arms up in rage, screaming, "Freaking mast! I'm gonna beat the shit out of you for that!"

"Luffy, now's not the time to act stupid," Sanji warned.

But the captain wasn't listening, the bump on his head combined with the recent threat to one of his nakama having put him into a familiar state of blind violence. Were there time to discuss the philisophical aspects of Monkey D. Luffy's mood swings, one might have suggested that his real anger was directed towards the strange, unexplainable weather and his powerlessness to keep it from harming his ship and crew.

It was a part of their captain that would never get ironed out, no matter how many years passed.

Stomping towards the doorway, Luffy drew back a fist, teeth bared, growling—

A sudden flash of light and a bolt of electricity struck the foremast. Hissing and spitting, it converged on Franky's arm, and surrounded his body in a cage of green, crackling light.

Luffy stopped dead in the middle of the doorway, still holding one arm back. But his eyes widened at what he saw. He couldn't believe it.

Franky didn't react with pain or shock, but he looked down at body in obvious confusion. The lightning didn't burn him; in fact, it seemed to be barely touching him at all. "Eh? What's this supposed to do?" he asked, adding a smirk. Was this what they were all scared of? A little harmless light show?

Then the lightning contracted like an imploding sun. Franky was turned into a silhouette of green light, and then he was simply...gone. The whole ship shuddered as the mast fell to one side and landed on the deck.

In stunned silence, the crew stared out the doorway at the place where the cyborg had been standing. Luffy slowly dropped his arm to his side and stood perfectly still, not blinking. "Franky..."

"Franky!" cried Chopper's voice from behind him, and it broke the trance for the rest of the crew. Sanji shoved past his immobile captain and ran out onto the grass, clenching an unlit smoke between his teeth with seething rage.

"Where the hell are you, hentai bastard?" he yelled at the ship, as though it would answer him.

"Sanji—" Luffy said, voice choking. A horrible gut instinct overtook him. Like a nightmare awakening into reality, part of a dark memory starting to repeat itself.

It was as though the electricity from the storm had been lurking in wait. A bolt shot from the sky and struck the grass, then simply jumped over onto the blonde cook. The soggy cigarette dropped from his lips, and though he couldn't feel anything, Sanji looked down at the green tendrils encasing his body with rising alarm. "Shit..."

He spun around wildly to face his crew, shouting, "Don't—"

With another flash, he too, was gone.

"Sanji!" Luffy bellowed. Now he was trembling all over. Two of his nakama had vanished in front of his eyes. He didn't know why. Why was something like this happening? He had worked so hard for two years to better protect his precious nakama. They couldn't disappear anymore. He was their captain, and he was strong enough to face any threat that would harm his crew.

Right?

He took two, involuntary, feeble steps through the kitchen door, when Nami's yelp of surprise made him spin around, his heart pounding. Green lightning had surrounded her, too. How did it get inside? They were supposed to be safe inside. His other nakama looked on in horror as their navigator struggled to swat away and escape a prison of living energy.

"S-Stop..." Luffy's voice cracked; he was clenching a fist so hard that his arm was shaking. "Stop. Stop!"

Nami's eyes met his; she had become frozen in fear. Usopp, who was nearest to her, made a futile attempt to lurch forward and grab her, but she disappeared just as his fist closed on empty air. A cold shock ran through his body.

"Dammit," stammered the sniper. He was panicking, relinquishing what little reserve of bravery he had left. "What the hell is going on? What kind of storm is this?"

Two more flashes of green, and bolts of electricity lit up the room, passing through the ceiling without leaving a mark. Brook and Zoro were engulfed by the green light at the same time, but on opposite ends of the room.

Screaming nonsense, Luffy launched himself at his nearest nakama, Zoro, and seized the swordsman by the front of his coat. "Don't you dare disappear!" He twisted his head around to roar at the skeleton inside the kitchen, "Brook, you can't disappear, either! I'm your capt—"

Zoro vanished in an intense flare of light. Luffy's hands closed on nothing. He opened his fists, looked at his palms as though they were his new enemy. Stiffly, the captain turned his body and watery gaze towards Brook, just as the skeleton became just another vacant spot.

It hurt. It was hurting Luffy, and he couldn't stop it. It was happening so fast. There was no enemy to fight, no Marines to beat up, no Pacifistas to destroy, no special moves or Haki that could make it all stop.

"Chopper!" Usopp cried, pulling him back out of the darkness. This time Luffy didn't even look; he reacted on instinct and dove for the place where Chopper stood. Except his legs had become jelly, and he tripped and crashed to his hands and knees. His reindeer nakama's crying, his terrified plea for help and the sudden flash of green light was all he heard and saw. Someone could have cut him in half right then. The pain wouldn't have compared to how he felt now.

Through the black locks of hair above his face, and the beads in the corners of his eyes, he saw the room filling with green light again. In a trance, he jerkily climbed to his feet and raised his head to look at his two remaining nakama.

"Not again," he swore. "Stop it. Not again!"

Luffy roared the last word and, still screaming, charged blindly at Robin. He launched himself, arms outstretched to pin her down—

—and sailed right through open air.

By the time he got back up, Usopp had already disappeared. His last nakama. All that remained behind was the empty mess, the creaking of the ship and pounding of the waves against Sunny's hull. It was hopelessly dark, and he was alone.

The second time around, he felt senseless. Hollow. Empty. Blankly, the last remaining Straw Hat took short, lurching steps to the doorway and out onto the lawn deck. The sails rattled and squeaked in the storm, the salty sea spray was hitting him from all sides, but he could barely hear it. Barely feel it.

He stepped on a single playing card. All the others had blown away in the wind. Luffy looked down at the card's face.

It was a King.

When the green lightning struck him, he was staring flatly into the smiling face of the playing card. He didn't know why, but he wanted it. Just before his fingertips could snatch it up, one last flash of light carried him off into sleep.

TBC