Straw Hat's Guardian

Chapter Twenty-Four: Sanji and the All-Blue! Here Comes Five-Year-Old Lambo!

Lambo has no idea how long he was gone.

He just knew that his Dying Will Flames have just saved him from death by poison gas, and he was in someplace that looked like dark murky smoke, like cloud, a storm cloud if he was being more specific, he wasn't all that sure. And then the next minute, he was stumbling on the deck of the Baratie, Zeff walking into the restaurant.

Lambo looked around to see that everything seemed to be all wrapped up.

If Creed's bloodied and unconscious body embedded into the deck was any indicator. Lambo stared at the body in disappointment. He really wanted to watch Luffy kick Creed's ass.

"What'd I miss?", Lambo asks, a little confused on what's going on despite his deductions, causing Zeff to halt and turn to Lambo with a raised brow.

"There you are.", he said stoically, "We've been wondering what happened to you."

"Yeah, still not all that sure myself about what happened.", Lambo says with furrowed brows as he stared in space in thought for a moment before coming back to the present, "But besides the obvious, what the hell did I miss?"

Before Zeff could answer, Lambo heard a loud gasp from behind him, causing the young teen to whirl around to see Sanji swimming in the water while holding on to an unconscious Luffy.

"Hey, Chore boy.", Sanji calls out worriedly, "Don't you die on me!"

Lambo stiffened as he stared at Luffy's limp form with wide eyes.

"Sanji!", Lambo shouts, gaining the cooks attention as he waved wildly at him.

Sanji eyes widened at the sight of Lambo, the young teen looking just as he did before Sanji saw him disappear in a flash of green lightening, the kid's face looked unsure, even scared, before he disappeared. It honestly worried him when he didn't come back after the poison gas was gone.

"Where've you been!?", Sanji shouts as he swims towards Lambo and Baratie's ruined deck, "Are you okay!?"

Lambo grabbed Sanji's hand and helped pull him and Luffy up on to the deck with a small grunt.

"No idea, my Dying Will Flames saved me at the last second.", Lambo replies as Sanji sat down with a huff and Lambo laid Luffy down next to him.

"Well, warn me next time your Dying Will Flames decide to do something like that, will yah?", Sanji says exasperatedly.

Lambo sweatdrops at the cook.

"Sure, yeah, I'll let you know when my Flames start to act freaky and will do something that I will absolutely be unable to predict.", Lambo says, his words dripping with sarcasm before turning to Luffy worriedly, "Is he okay?"

The two hovered over him worriedly, both afraid that the Straw Hat wearing Captain may be dead.

Sanji kneeled over Luffy and began to shake his shoulders in hopes of waking him up.

"Chore boy! Chore boy, can you hear me!", Sanji calls out urgently, "Don't die. You still have a lot of things to do with your life. Get up right now! Please. Please!"

Lambo wanted to say something too. To scream at Luffy to get up, push Sanji out of the way and shake him like a madman until he woke up. The fear felt like a bucket of ice-cold water was poured down his back. He has no idea what to do!

"Just open your eyes.", begged Sanji, "Please don't die!"

Sanji paused, waiting over Luffy. And that's when Lambo heard it.