"You've all lost your minds. Fortunately, I have them right here, in jars."
Above quote from "The Order of Odd-Fish," by James Kennedy, which is a hilarious and random book. ^^
Title: Chili Powder Star
Theme: Slingshot
Claim: Sanji
Words: 548
Rating: G
Warning: None
Disclaimers: Still don't own.
“The fabulous Captain Usopp was now surrounded by three hundred, no, three thousand armed bandits, and I was almost out of ammo, with a sheer forty-thousand foot drop to the sea behind me and only my trusty slingshot left!”
“Whoa!!!”
“Were you scared!?!”
Sanji rolled his eyes from where he was checking his sauce. It was a dreary day on the Grand Line, and when the rest of the crew wasn’t out following Nami’s orders, they would retreat to the inner bowels of the ship. Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper had made the dining room their hangout, which Sanji pretended to mind a lot more than he really did, and Usopp was currently entertaining the other two with a typical story of daring-do.
“Hahaha!” Usopp rose from his seat and struck a heroic pose on the table. “Anyone else would have been terrified, but I was calm as a cucumber!”
Sanji snorted in subdued laughter and left the sauce simmering to work on the stir fry.
“So what did you do?” asked Chopper quietly, awed.
“I pulled out my trusty slingshot,” he did so to demonstrate, “and reached into my ammo pouch. All I had left was…” Usopp trailed off as he searched his pocket for something, then held up a small, bright red pellet. “A Chili Powder Star, like this one, made from the spiciest peppers on the Grand Line.”
Chopper oohed while Luffy tried to snatch the pellet and eat it. It took some arguing and kicking to dissuade him, and at this point Sanji tuned out the younger men’s bickering.
“Now, as I was saying,” Usopp panted, Luffy now sitting obediently in his chair, “a Chili Powder Star was all I had left. I loaded it into my slingshot, took aim, and fi-LUFFY!!!”
Luffy had lunged for the pellet again, whining about tasting it, and as the harassed sniper beat him back he loosed the slingshot’s band, sending the Chili Powder Star flying. Chopper made a strangled noise, and Luffy and Usopp abruptly stopped to watch its trip. It landed with an ominous “plop” in Sanji’s sauce.
Sanji was still focused on his stir fry and hadn’t noticed it over the sizzling.
Usopp was the first to skedaddle, making a hasty retreat further into the ship. Chopper was hot on his heels, Luffy following last and wondering loudly if they were playing Follow-the-Leader now.
Sanji glanced over his shoulder as the door slammed behind them. That was… weird. Not overly worried about their strange behavior, Sanji checked on his sauce. It smelled… off. Like chili peppers. But that was impossible; he hadn’t added any chili peppers. Just to be sure, Sanji did a taste test.
His mouth was instantly set on fire, tongue incinerated, eyes watering, throat burning. In his scattered state of mind, he found that the most immediate solution was to dunk his entire head into a barrel of ale in the corner, sucking down as much as he could to cool his mouth. After a minute he needed to breathe, and he yanked his head up and gulped air.
“And you said I drink a lot,” Zoro taunted from behind him, leaning against the doorway.
Needless to say, the sauce was discarded and Usopp thought twice before using his slingshot in Sanji’s galley.
The End