Chapter Text
Condoriano Shepard Academy. Bosom of the elites, where the rich dumped their babes to be weaned only to grow into man-children still fully dependent on them. The classical-styled, red-brick-and-white trimmed edifice crowned the top of a lush knoll, overlooking rows of arborvitae hedges, splotches of star magnolia, and a man-made lake. At its front, pristine marble steps led to a portico adorned in lavender wisteria. At its sides flanked longitudinal walls scored top-to-bottom in lattice windows. Its central courtyard even boasted a campanile.
But all of this extravagance was lost on the two dubious figures bumbling about just outside the gymnasium. Dressed head-to-toe in suits, paired with dark sunglasses and conspicuously fake facial hair, the duo sidled close to the building's corner, where they had clear vantage of the descending steps and all those who might leave or enter the premises.
“There he is, right on time.” The mustachioed one smirked, almost predatory, as he watched a lone figure depart from the school.
“Yeah, but we almost weren't!” his bearded companion chirped, peaking his head around a brawny arm, only to be shoved back, closer to the wall, out of view. “Why'd I let you convince me to follow you anyhow?”
“We got here, didn't we? Loitering around before the capture will only draw unwanted attention.”
“You say that like you intended it that way.” The bearded one was unperturbed, digging a pinky into his nose.
“Give it a rest already! Hurry and get into position!”
His partner obediently dashed off, but not before getting a childish word in: “Zoro's dumber than a south bird~”
Zoro felt a forehead vein throb in irritation. He quashed the feeling, focusing on the task at hand. Snatching one last look at their idling getaway vehicle, he lackadaisically made his way down the steps, trailing after the solitary student. Gradually, he picked up his pace, timing it so he overtook the target at the final step.
“Oi,” he called out, “You shouldn't smoke at school.”
“Hah?” The answering voice was belligerent, acerbic. The student swerved around, features curled into a snarl, fingering a freshly drawn cigarette— altogether it was a look that belied his prissy boy image. “I just got off the premises, dumba— ”
Zoro wouldn't let him finish. In a single fluid motion, he drew one of his katanas and pressed its tip to his prey's throat. “Shut up. Don't do anything stupid and start walking.” He indicated the direction with his chin.
The only reaction he got was a crinkled brow. If the student was frightened, he didn't much show it. In fact, he had the audacity to finish lighting up his smoke. “Just my luck. A triple-sword-wielding maniac. Not enough machetes in Looneyville?”
Zoro raised an eyebrow. “You're sure cocky in a life-and-death situation.”
“Whose?” The abrupt taunt was succeeded by an abrupter flash of movement. The student fell back, flipping onto his hands to launch a vertical shoe, knocking the sword away but not out of grip. In the instant it took Zoro to regain control of his weapon, his prey had somersaulted out of reach.
Well, temporarily. With no obstruction between them, it would be easy to reclaim the distance. Still, for an operation that had been expected to be seamless, the nimbleness of the target was a surprise.
The student slowly rose to his full height, expression cool but stance guarded. “Surprised? That's what you get for underestimating a guy because of clothes on his back, shithead.”
“You're right.” He smirked, enjoying the challenge as he withdrew his remaining two blades. “I won't make that mistake again.”
A scoff. “You missed your chance. I don't care to know what you're planning, and I don't intend to find out.”
“Oh? I think you'll find out really soon,” he said, looking past him.
Too little, too late, the student made to dodge, but the one who had crept up on him from behind was faster.
Wham!
A sandled foot to the groin was all it took for the target to crumple to the ground. Zoro winced at the force of it. The boy wasn't even allowed the chance to curl protectively in on himself before Luffy had a knee on his abdomen, pinning him in place. He was quick to join him, once again using a sword to threaten obedience. “I told you not to do anything stupid.”
Thus incapacitated, Vinsmoke Sanji could only curse.
“You let him get away, Zoro!” teased Luffy, peering up at him from over sunglasses and under wide-brimmed straw hat.
He tsked. “I drove him in your direction. That was the original plan, wasn't it?” He stepped back, sheathing his blades, as Luffy hauled their capture upwards, forcing him in the direction of a rapidly approaching, beaten-up jet van. “I thought his hobby was cooking, not self-defense acrobatics. What kind of surveillance did Nami do?”
Luffy brightened. “So he's strong?” The back door flew open, and a thin pair of arms emerged to assist in propelling Vinsmoke inside. They clambered after him.
Usopp lurched the dial-powered vehicle into motion before Zoro had his other leg inside. Bam. He slammed the door and assisted Nami in binding Vinsmoke's hands behind him. The back seats had been removed, allowing breathing space to maneuver as well as making available a track system to anchor the rope restraint on.
Only after the process was finished, dropping against the moving frame, admiring their handiwork, did Zoro answer: “Looking at him now, not strong enough, I'd say.”
Vinsmoke coughed, slowly straightening. Zoro guessed he was still adjusting himself from all the manhandling. Wary eyes darted all over, hastily taking in their surroundings, scanning each of their faces in turn. Their group watched on with mild interest. Nami climbed into shotgun.
“Do you think anyone noticed?” Usopp asked.
“Probably,” said Nami.
“Yeah,” Luffy echoed, chucking his facial disguise without a care where it went. “We were pretty obvious.”
“And the school's on a hill,” Nami added, “You look out the window, and you can see the whole neighborhood.”
“Well, that could be good for us,” Usopp noted.
The van sped steadily and carefully on. The troublesome part was over now. Usopp only had to ensure they weren't pulled over by traffic patrol.
Nami turned in her seat to address their captive. “You're awfully quiet. No freaking out? No questions?”
Vinsmoke cleared his throat. “None, Milady. It's obvious I've been abducted in a very premeditated manner. I doubt you wish to tell me much more than that.”
Nami shrugged. “Suit yourself.” And faced back towards the front.
The start to all this had been with Ace and Sabo. A low profile gang for thefts and other petty crimes, eventually developing into a kidnapping for ransom operation to scam noble families. Both men had since gone their separate ways, joining bigger and badder organizations. (Whereas Ace had assimilated into the Whitebeard crew, a vigilante group policing the lawless land of Sphinx, Sabo had gone into politics, quickly climbing the ranks of a terrorist organization internally christening themselves the “Revolution”, last heard to be based in the hidden town of Baltigo.) Three years later, and the group was reborn as the Strawhat gang, boasting twice as many members.
Thanks to careful planning and tedious surveillance, even paying off an insider from the household staff, their first capture has now gone off without a hitch. He was the third son of Vinsmoke Judge, head of the tech giant, Germa 66, secured on his way home from a rich private school, targeted precisely for this careless gap in security. Though they did what they did for the money, and wouldn't pretend otherwise, they chose the Vinsmokes particularly because they knew them to be fraudulent and corrupt. The unsavory rumors they unearthed in their research abound, ranging from knowingly putting untested products on the market to threatening their competition to stealing trade secrets to conducting secret cloning research in the basement of Germa 66 headquarters. Yeah, that last one wasn't very believable. But it wasn't their job to verify the information; they just needed to know enough to stuff a profitable body into Ace's hand-me-down, midsize Flame Wagon.
The rest of the ride to their base was quiet and uneventful, no one wanting to make conversation over a prisoner's extra pair of ears, much less those belonging to one so privileged, so foreign. Midway, they blindfolded Vinsmoke to obscure their route.
Then they were there. The abandoned sector of the city's pier. Rows of derelict sailing ships slumped against skeletal docks that could barely contain them. Boats hung on by the bare threads of their mooring. Splintered planks sagged in their own weight. Rust coated hulls and seeped into the cracked paint of wheelhouses. It was both graveyard and junkyard, ribbed with naked masts for bones, festering in the smell of wet decay, decomposed with gaping sores. The perfect place to stowaway undetected.
Usopp parked them at the edge of the stone quay near their dock of interest. Still blindfolded, Vinsmoke was untethered and dragged from the van. There, he was wedged between Nami and Luffy. The only words they spoke were in order to guide him over the wooden water-bridge towards their ship— a caravel called the Going Merry
Intended to be a personal pleasure vessel for family day trips, Merry had been forsaken shortly after construction. This was because its owners, the parents of Usopp's rich childhood friend, Kaya, had passed away unexpectedly three years ago. Kaya could neither bear to use it nor part with it all this time. She had no knowledge they were using it now for underhanded dealings, but that was more for her own sake than theirs.
Fortunately, it wasn't as in sorry of a state as its neighbors. The sails were missing and the cabins stunk of must, but they had been airing it out for the past two days, which seemed to help a lot. Vinsmoke was promptly roped to the mast. Then, without prelude, all four of them dipped inside the storage room to type up the ransom note.
“We're still going for seventy-seven million?” Usopp asked, once he was situated with his forty centimeter, triple-type-dial-based laptop. He was sitting atop a propped barrel, one of the few intact items left on the ship. The rest of them huddled around him to watch him work, kicking up some of the dust at their feet.
“Like I said, we should round up and make it one hundred million!”
“Does anyone have any input who's not Nami? Ouch!”
“They're rich and corrupt! We have Vinsmoke Judge's son! Let's milk him for every belly he's worth!”
“Not anyone can liquidate their assets in the time frame we're giving them.”
“I could do it for them!” Usopp gave her a look. Nami huffed. “Fine. But we better get it in three days tops.”
“Make it tonight!” Luffy— technically the leader of their gang— demanded.
They ignored him. “Okay, I'll say that, but there's a good chance it'll be longer depending on how the negotiations go. What pic are we using?”
“Here.” Nami slid out her smart den den mushi (aka smushi) and swiped a few times across the shell screen. “I snapped some shots on the way over.”
“Couldn't they recognize the vehicle model from that? Not many jet vans have detachable back seats.”
“Then we'll use the shot without the tracks. Just his face. Taking a picture in this location is riskier.”
“True, though we might need to do it eventually.”
“Shouldn't he look a little more roughed up?” Zoro asked, speaking up for the first time since they started on the snail-mail. He placed a hand on the hilt of a sword in a knowing gesture and smiled.
Nami sighed. “Barbarian.”
“What, witch? I'm not going to maim him. We should show them we mean business.”
“And what if they reduce the price because of that, hm?”
“They won't have the luxury. We're threatening death.”
“Threatening. We're not committing to murder here. The money is the most important thing.”
“Then we should make it believable!”
“It's more believable if we can show we have restraint and can keep our word. We could even ask for a higher price for keeping him in an almost pristine condition!”
“I agree with Nami,” Luffy said, interjecting, “I like him.”
“Luffy, you don't know him. Don't make friends with our captures,” said Usopp, hitting a final key, “Okay, done. How does it look?”
Nami peered over his shoulder. “That'll work. Are we sending it from his smushi? I have that too.”
“Yeah, it's powered to sleep, right?” Usopp accepted the device as he stood, keys in hand. “I'll head out to pick up some supplies and send it while I'm away. We told them a time to respond by, so one of us we'll need to go again then.”
“That's sure inconvenient.”
He shrugged, stuffing both laptop and smushi into his satchel. “Everything's traceable. Even if you turn off SPS and Sni-fi, if you make or receive a call, you're a moving target. Better to be cautious. You guys have fun babysitting.” Then he was off.
Luffy was soon to follow, heading right toward their charge. Zoro went too but only as far as just outside the door. He dropped to the deck, swords carefully laid over his lap to grab at a moment's notice, hands going behind his head. He didn't yet close his eyes but watched carefully.
Luffy squatted in front of Vinsmoke to examine him. The latter raised his head at his approach. “This a boat? Am I tied to that sail thing? The mast?”
“Yep,” Luffy admitted easily.
Nami appeared then, whacking him over the head. “Don't answer.”
“But he already knows!”
“Yeah, and let's keep it at that.” She looked to the prisoner. “Listen closely, we've taken you for ransom. If you behave, and if your family's quick on payment, you'll get out of this unharmed and can be on with your merry life.”
Vinsmoke seemed to consider that carefully and took his time to respond: “And if things don't go to plan?”
“Don't count on it. We can get away in a pinch, but we can't guarantee your safety.”
He shut up at that.
“Glad you understand.” Nami took Luffy by the collar of his shirt. “You're coming with me.” And dragged him away with her back inside.
Zoro tuned them out and went to sleep.