Firestorm (Ace x OC)

Chapter 8: Scorching Heat

The next morning Ryoko awoke a bit before the others, knowing that Sanji would likely be getting up shortly in order to cook some breakfast before the daylight scorched again. "Why can't we just travel at night and stay in the shade during the day?" Ryoko muttered to herself as she began to coax the embers of the previous fire back into flames. "Sleeping during the heat would probably suck anyway though..." 

The sounds of someone getting up in the guy's tent made her snap out of her thoughts and smile warmly, turning to see the blonde-haired cook stepping out. When he saw Ryoko up he was filled with an energy that Ryoko had no clue how he had. "Good morning Ryoko darling~" he coos, "I'll have breakfast ready shortly." 

Ryoko sighed and shook her head a bit at the cook's antics as she sat down to watch him work, she pulled her bag out of the tent she had slept in and began to root through the items within. Her eyes landed on the book at the bottom of her bag, before the glint of metal in the firelight was seen. She sighs and pulls the fabric over the top of the book along with the metal items and spare clothes. Once everything was secure she looked at her rifle case and groaned, "I wish I knew when we were gonna have to fight something, it's not the easiest weapon to pull in short circumstances." she whined mainly to herself.

"Don't worry Ryoko, my sweet, I will happily protect you until you can assemble your weapon," Sanji says sweetly while working on the presentation of the food he would be serving while letting some of the other pieces of the meal cook.

Ryoko forced a convincing smile onto her face, "Thank you Sanji." She says internally she couldn't help but feel he was really missing the point. In fairness to him, she was uncertain herself as to what was the main point.

It had been a bit of time since Luffy, Chopper, and Usopp had gotten up and were running around the camp before the daytime heat. "I found a shrimp!" Luffy exclaimed holding up a strange creature.

"You sure it's a shrimp?" Chopper asked looking at Luffy who was holding the creature by its tail. Ryoko took out her scope from her bag and glanced across the camp over to the boys to get a better look at this so-called shrimp. "That's neat!"

Usopp hurried over curious as to what the creature was, "Shrimp don't live in the desert." He says looking as the young captain hopped around in his spot to show him the creature. "I stand corrected it's a desert shrimp."

Ryoko felt her stomach churn as she listened to the boys plan to eat the thing only for a startled scream to erupt beside her causing her to flinch, "Luffy are you crazy?! Get rid of that thing quick!" Vivi cried causing the redhead to look up at her.

"nuh uh. That would be wasteful," Luffy responds looking at the princess.

"That is a scorpion, don't let its small size fool you, its sting can kill in seconds!" Vivi stressed in fear clearly at the sight of the thing.

"Really? I guess I don't want it then." Luffy says with a pout of being unimpressed. "You?"

"Keep that away from meee," Usopp exclaimed.

"I'd like it, Captain!" Ryoko says getting up from her spot and quickly hurrying over as to avoid him tossing it over to her. Upon getting over there she grabbed the tail just below Luffy's fingers and hummed as she wandered off away from the camp with her new little friend. Once she was away from the immediate eyesight of the group she set the scorpion on a rock, still holding onto the stinger. With her free hand, she brought out a vial of sorts covered with a piece of cloth and carefully set it over the scorpion's stinger before using a stick to poke its back causing some yellowish liquid to spray into the vial. "Thanks for this little one." She shuttered at the hissing sound that came from the scorpion and she kept it pinned down with the stick while she quickly released the tail and backed up before running back to camp. She stopped and let out a sigh of relief as she noticed it hadn't followed her. However, she then noticed the wind had seemed to pick up and was pushing towards them.