To Raise a Vampire

First Nightmare

Around noon, with most of the Spades asleep, the second very strange event occurred. It wasn't like the previous one where the whole ship turned into a very detailed castle, each room affected. This time, it wasn't just startling, but a bit frightening. Screams and shouts of confusion or horror filled the Moby Dick. Marco was walking down one of the hallways, heading to the kitchen for some blood, when he saw the first person running past him.

He paused, and then heard the shouts of alarm. The man sprinted down the hall towards the shouts and came to a sudden halt in front of a figure that clearly wasn't human. Marco felt no presence from it, like it wasn't even there. As some pirates ran away from the sight, Marco slowly walked closer.

The figure was all black except for a white face, with no face on it. It was much taller than any of the normal human sized pirates. It did nothing but stand there and face Marco, like it was staring at him, but had no eyes.

To say it was creepy would be an understatement.

"Commander, what are you doing?" a man from the second division asked when Marco reached out a hand to touch it. Surprisingly, Marco's hand went right through it. Previously, Luffy's dream creations had been solid. His powers really were a mystery, but these were clearly nightmares, even if they did nothing hostile and were just creepy.

Marco calmly and quickly turned around and headed to the Spades' room, passing more of the tall figures, who didn't move. They just stood there. It didn't make Marco the least bit afraid. He did wonder where such a creepy concept had come from in the innocent little boy's head. Marco was positive his brothers would never read Luffy any scary stories.

The phoenix vampire reached the Spades' room and slowly opened the door without knocking. They were all asleep, so no one saw one of the creepy figures standing in the room. It would be best that none of them woke to that, and Marco walked to the bed and reached over Sabo's side and gently shook Luffy awake. The moment his eyes opened, the disturbing figure vanished.

"Hey, Luffy, you okay?" Marco asked quietly. Luffy sniffled, clearly remembering the scary dream, whatever it had been. But the boy nodded. Ace and Sabo both woke up, wondering why Marco was there. Ace got defensive, glaring up at him, irritated someone got that close to them without either of them waking up immediately.

"What are you doing here, commander?" Sabo asked curiously, sleep still thick in his voice. Marco leaned back and now stood next to the bed instead of over them. Marco didn't know if he should explain what had happened or not with Luffy awake.

"Bad dream," Marco hinted, his eyes flicking to Luffy, who was hugging his stuffed animal tightly to his chest, wobbly bottom lip and teary eyes present. Sabo understood what Marco was trying to say, and looked worried and guilty. The worst thing had happened that they were nervous about. Luffy had unknowingly projected whatever nightmare he was having on the ship.

Marco seemed to understand what Sabo must be thinking, and said, "Don't worry, no one got hurt." He gave the brothers a reassuring smile. Ace's cheeks turned red again, and he looked down at his hands irritably. Sabo saw this out of the corner of his eye, and held in an amused smile.

"Thank you, commander, for waking Luffy up when we didn't know. Sorry to cause any trouble because of it," Sabo replied.

"It's fine. Get some more sleep. I'll see you later," the vampire phoenix said. He closed the door quietly behind him and Luffy shimmied back under the covers and fell asleep. The sun was still up after all.

Sabo smirked. "Marco is attractive, isn't he?" Sabo teased. Ace's face turned dark red and he glared hatefully at Sabo. He turned onto his other side, reminding Sabo of a child. Sabo snickered behind Ace, but didn't say anything else on the subject. They both fell asleep again in the silence of the room. Neither noticed the others in the room who silently laughed at Sabo's words. They weren't brave enough to tease their captain, though.