Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“47… 48… 49… 50!”

I let out a huge sigh relief as I flopped over onto my back. The tricep pushups were the last thing in my current workout routine besides cool down stretches, and 50 was a huge milestone. A month ago, I would’ve been proud of 10 of each kind of pushup, and while 50 each wasn’t anything spectacular for where I was now, it was still a testament to just how much effort paid off in shonen manga worlds.

While it kind of sucked that I’d gone a full month without seeing hide or hair of any straw hats or wacky antics, most of my brain was confident that it was only a matter of time; I wouldn’t have gotten into a text argument with an omnipotent fuckhead about how much people were going to hate me if I wasn’t going to be involved in something big and cool.

Yeah, a part of me was still anxious about the whole thing, and what I’d do if I HAD missed my one-way ticket to adventure, but that was because I had Issues, and the less time I spent letting my thoughts go on weird tangents in a hostile pirate town, the better. After all, despite the fact that routines are kind of boring, the extra month in Loguetown was honestly a total boon; my physical state before getting shipped off was questionable at best for my world, so if I had been sent straight into the action, or left on a deserted island, or something, I probably would’ve died in ten minutes or less.

The extra time wasn't my only, boon, though; as far as I could tell, each Self Insert is allowed either two or three, depending on the size of the boon in question. After marveling for the twelfth day in a row at the fact that I could finally touch my damn toes, I stood and reached out my hand — it was time to practice with my Devil Fruit.

It had shown up alongside me when I was tossed into this world, taking the form of a banana, and eating it was… indescribable. It wasn’t just the taste, the texture was all wrong, too… ugh, it’s tough even to think about.

The name of the fruit? Copy-Copy, though I’m sure it would’ve been Mirror if Oda hadn’t already used that one, because Mirror-Mirror sounds cooler. I reached out my right hand, and silvery material flowed out from it. Despite the fact that the power was directly tied to my life energy, it was also somehow soothing, presumably because it was a place to focus and I was usually bad at that. I waved my hand slightly, and the material flowed into the shape of a sword, specifically a katana.

I could probably do it faster, but I didn’t want to be careless; the thing ran off of my life energy, for crying out loud, and I had nearly passed out trying it out my first day. My stamina had obviously improved, I had been practicing, but I definitely didn’t want to overdo it; the only reason I hadn’t been accosted that first day was because the almighty dickhead in charge of the whole affair had dumped me into the bar of an inn that was both not very busy and also run by someone relatively friendly.

That was the past, though, and getting caught up in my anxiety wasn’t going to help me in the slightest. Luckily, the one good thing about my powers draining my life force is that I always had something to focus on and ground me. You take your wins where you can get them in situations like this.

The material — I had taken to calling it Copy Essence, because References — expanded to form a sheath, and when I held it to my hip, more wrapped around my belt to attach it. It was kind of shiny and conspicuous, but it wasn’t like it was worth anything, and I could defend myself as long as I had it or any other weapon manifested, so long as I didn’t go too crazy with it.

I had to change my shirt, because I had gotten dressed before exercising, but I didn’t tend to put much effort into my wardrobe in most cases anyway, and my budget wasn’t exactly huge. It was enough, though, and it wasn’t like I had much else to spend time on — I missed my video games, but it was probably for the best that I didn’t have them, addicted as I was to the damn things.

I decided I felt good about a vest today, specifically my black one, and a red shirt to match my headband. I felt a little emo, but the fluffy brown hair kind of threw that whole idea out on its own, even if my general attitude didn't. I had already told Iwai-san that I’d be there to help him out today, and the sun was getting pretty high, so I grabbed my room key and hurried out the door.

Iwai-san’s shipyard was where I had spent the largest amount of time working, mostly because I had certain Plans and Ideas surrounding a certain ship that would hopefully be coming around soon. I had seen exactly one fic explore the idea that the birthplace of the Pirate King, you know, a famous pirate town, which also happened to be right on the Grand Line, might have a pretty decent ship market, and I was determined to take advantage of this opportunity. If I could manage to get Merry in here, get her reinforced before the Grand Line started eating her alive…

Working in a shipyard also helped me learn the basics of how ships actually worked, which was good, since the only boats I had ever been on back home were motorboats, and since most of the work involved hauling wood or similar manual tasks, it was also a decent workout!

The wood hauling had only started recently, though, now that I was actually strong enough to. The reason I had a job at Iwai’s shipyard and not one of the other two in town was because Iwai had connections to a couple of the gangs in town, and I managed to save him from a scuffle almost completely by accident with a lot of luck and my anger issues actually coming in handy for once. I told Iwai I needed money and was good at math and he gave me a few jobs figuring out measurements and finances, until I was actually strong enough to lift heavy things. My other job around the city was actually by his recommendation, a bar run by a delightful woman named Lala, who was also connected to the town’s underground.

They do say that it’s good to have friends in low places, and they were both exactly as awesome as their reference-y names made them out to be.

So, my typical schedule was to wake up with the sun, go to one of my jobs for a few hours, wander around town, then work more if they needed me. It paid enough for my room and food and a small stockpile of clothes, even if it didn’t leave me too much to spare.

During my midday wandering excursion, I went through my usual route; first the market, then the food stands, then the execution ground, then wherever. The market was probably my favorite, just because I loved the ambient noise of a crowd and the various smells, and the fish were all kinds of fun to look at. There weren’t any blond idiot cooks arguing over huge rare tuna, though, so I was a little disappointed, but there was plenty of time for them to show up without it messing with anything too much.

The execution ground was also empty of any loudmouths causing a scene, sympathetic or otherwise, and my anxiety started to kick in a little bit, before I managed to remind myself that it would probably be even better if they took more time to arrive, given how much I’d need to bulk up to stay on par. Besides, I still had an entire city to patrol. I decided to double back to the food stands because my stomach was starting to get my attention, and I actually didn’t realize until I was passing him that the presiding Marine Captain was walking the same way I was; he was surprisingly easy to get used to when he was one of your favorites and you weren’t a troublemaker. Sure, he was kind of terrifying, but I was kind of terrified of a lot of things, so it’s not like it was that different from usual.

I paused as I heard someone yell “Watch it, kid!” and I turned out of reflex. There was a girl with an overly large ice cream cone about to run into Loguetown’s resident scary logia and she had also nearly bumped into a blond guy who looked somehow extremely familiar but not in an instantly recognizable way, and —

Oh hell. Here we go.

This really wasn’t where I wanted to be when the events of the show actually started happening, and I definitely didn’t want Smoker to get suspicious of me before I had actually become a pirate, but I had to work with what I had. Somehow, I managed to blend into the crowd that ended up forming around the large, intimidating man offering a girl money for a replacement ice cream, and tried to think about how I could manage to get the Merry into Iwai’s shipyard with enough time, until I saw Smoker walk past the blond guy I had noticed before, who happened to also have a grey snail on his —

Wait.

Waaaaaiit waitwait wait.

…Was this really what was happening? Had the me in the alpha dimension honestly stooped so low? It wasn’t as though I had never considered the possibility or like I never had my OCs interact with fan fictions in my mind, but this was…

Ugh, actually, you know what? Who fucking cares, this is what I had to deal with, and I was going to fucking work with it. If I let my thoughts go wild I was going to miss my chance and that is not something I wanted to do.

It was time to tail a man with a snail.

… Of course, there was a good chance the snail would immediately know I was tailing them, but it’s not like I didn’t want to be noticed. I wasn’t even really trying to be stealthy, I just didn’t really want to interrupt, for some reason.

When we got to the docks, the man with the snail whom I had been tailing looked exaggeratedly confused for a second before slapping his forehead. I hadn’t really watched the One Piece anime, but I remember him mentioning filler episodes in the fic, so —

My thoughts were interrupted by Smoker beating the crap out of some two-bit criminals. Seeing smoke beat things up was arguably less weird than it had been the first time I saw it (I had happened across a very similar scene in the execution ground my first week here), but the difference wasn’t much. I didn’t blame the snail for calling it scary at all.

Someplace in my brain registered this as an opportunity, and I came up next to the guy I'd been tailing, saying, “You can say that again. Glad I’m not on his bad side.” Yet, anyway. Although, if this guy with a snail was who he most likely was, then that would hopefully be a temporary hostility, as long as I didn’t somehow fuck it up.

The guy looked supremely surprised by my presence, and he shot an accusatory look at his snail before glancing around the area quickly.

Before he could say anything, I quickly shot into an apology. “Sorry for following you!” I gave a quick half-bow, out of habit more than anything else. “You looked familiar, but also busy? I didn’t want to interrupt but I did want to be noticed and wow, I really could’ve thought this through better…” Shit, I was starting to mumble and ramble! I felt my body slump over slightly, and tried to think about how to recover, when I was saved by a most surprisingly helpful distraction.

“Hey Cross! Who’s this lady?”

Welp, there was confirmation, courtesy of a certain rubbery straw-hatted protagonist popping out of nowhere. I made a very undignified squeak, whereas Cross jumped a few inches in the air yelling some kind of gibberish sound.

“L-Captain!” Cross said, his correction enviably discreet. His facial control was pretty good, too, maybe I could ask for advice?

Ah, no wait, he’s still talking!

“Where the hell did you come from?!”

“Heh, I got lost!”

Monkey D. Luffy didn’t exactly strike fear into the hearts of men, expressing his idiocy while cheerfully rubbing under his nose. It was a good thing I knew better, or I might have totally written him off.

“Where are you headed?” I asked, because even though I probably knew, I wasn’t good at staying out of conversations. “I’ve only been here about a month, but that’s enough to know the city fairly well. I could probably help you get to most places.”

“Oh, nah, I’m good, that guy gave me directions!” I followed his point to the resident Marine Captain and the moderate quantity of smoke that currently surrounded the area. “Cross, I’m gonna go see the execution platform! Wanna come?”

Well, shit, if he went there my options for getting Merry reinforced were severely limited because there was no way it wouldn’t be a mad dash, fuck, what was I supposed to do here?

Somehow, I found words.

“Um, actually, I would avoid that area if I were you,” I said, not having any idea how I sounded convincing, other than maybe Cross and Luffy both giving off passive miasmas of confidence and applied bullshit. “I passed it earlier on my walk, and I saw, like, this huge bunch of circus freaks, or something. They seemed real angry about something, so I’d avoid the area for a bit until they clear out if I were you.”

For a second, Luffy looked honest-to-Arceus thoughtful, before saying, “Nah, I can take ‘em,” and running off.

I sighed. Worth a shot, right?

“Sorry about him,” Cross said, laughing a bit and rolling his eyes fondly. “He’s what you’d call a ‘piece of work’.” He looked in Luffy’s direction for a minute before his eyes flew open in realization. He gave his snail a quick look before yelling, “Be back on the ship by sundown or Nami’ll have both our heads!”

Luffy’s only response to that was laughter as he ran off. I found myself smiling, at least until I heard another voice from behind us.

“A piece of work, huh?”

Well, shit, so much for “not on his bad side yet”.

Cross and I both turned towards Captain Smoker, poker faces in as full effect as they could be; I technically had more experience with his presence, but I knew from experience that I was only good at improv for so long, and my anxiety sensors were going completely nuts. The only thing keeping me from screaming or seizing up was the fact that I knew Smoker was a good dude who probably wasn’t going to hurt us unless we gave him a very good reason or he found out Cross worked with Luffy.

I decided my best bet would be to play the fan card, and so I cheerily said, “Hello, sir! Impressive work, always great to see you in action!”

I didn’t think I came across as too fake, anyway, so that was a plus, even if it didn’t really seem to please Smoker that much, at least going by the large cloud of smoke he exhaled.

“Is there a problem, officer?” Cross said, the picture of innocence and humility, somehow.

“You’ve both been following me for the past thirteen minutes,” Smoker said flatly, and wow, I had not realized it had been that long.

A very large part of me reared up to say that, actually, I had just been following this guy, because I knew him from an alternate universe, but that particular instinct and habit of mine was not at all what I needed right now, so I fought it with every fiber of my being that I had to spare.

“Would you like to explain yourselves?” Smoker continued, the only change in his expression being a raised eyebrow.

Cross took a second, looked at me, then looked back and Smoker and said, “Actually, I was trying to find someone to get this stalker off my tail, and I wanted to make sure that’s actually what she was first.”

Aaaaaaand… there went my facial control and filter.

I whirled on Cross in a rage. “Excuse me, what the fuck?! I only followed you because you were following him, and who the hell follows someone to figure out if someone is following them? Especially for thirteen minutes, holy fuck! You didn’t even notice I had been following you until I came up to you to apologize for it!”

Oh, and my volume control was gone too, wonderful, this was really helping my case.

“Who the hell throws someone under the bus like that, what the actual—”

“Ah-hem.”

“… fuck,” I finished, slowly turning back towards the scary dangerous Logia that I had somehow managed to forget completely. I straightened up, and clarified matter-of-factly, “Anyway, yeah, I only followed him because he looked familiar but I didn’t know why he was following you and didn’t want to interrupt him.”

“Familiar?” Cross said, an eyebrow quirking with genuine curiosity, before he realized that Smoker’s ire was now directed almost solely at him, and his expression shifted to match that situation.

“Um, okay, sorry for lying,” he said, his gaze shifting around a bit. The gears whirring in his head were nearly audible. “See, the real reason, is, well…”

He took a breath and made eye contact with Smoker. “I wanted to see if decent Marines actually existed, or if they were a myth.”

Holy shit, and with no preamble, either. I mean, I knew that he was going to say something like that, but it was kind of different being in the blast radius of Smoker’s possible rage, which was actually visibly affecting his face now.

“Would you care to elaborate on that statement?” he said, his tone indicating that Cross was currently in the process of giving him a good reason to hurt us and therefore indicating that I had a very good reason to be afraid for my life at that moment.

That didn’t seem to register with Cross, though, because the fucker decided now was a good time to start grinning, resulting in my fear levels at least doubling.

“Actually, I’ve got a question of my own, first,” he said, then pointed to his snail. “Do you know any shops that sell Transponder Snails and their equipment? My little buddy here’s wild, needs a rig.”

The snail looked absolutely flabbergasted for exactly half of one second before recovering, matching Cross’s grin. “Howdy!”

The voice clip threw me off for a second, because I was fairly certain it was Tom Hanks as Woody from Toy Story, but I remembered quickly that Soundbite spoke in his namesake, not the stereotypical jester voice I often heard in my head when reading the fic.

My brain quickly reminded me that Soundbite’s voice was the last thing I needed to be worried about right now, and I decided that looking at Smoker’s small company of Marines would be a good idea, to judge their potential actions, or something. Their expressions read exactly how you would expect; some angry, most shocked, a few confused.

“I know where one is,” Smoker was saying to Cross as I turned my attention back towards them. Smoker’s face had shifted from pure intimidation to what I, at least, perceived as suspicion; I had no idea what Cross was getting out of it. “What of it?”

And now Cross was smirking, and I was honestly shocked about how much being in a potential rage blast radius negatively affected the amount of charm his actions had.

“I propose a trade,” he said, as though that was a thing that made sense to say in a situation where your conversation partner could feasibly kill you. “Show me where the shop is, and I’ll tell you what I meant. How does that sound?”

Honestly, if I was in Smoker’s position, with his powers, I would have probably have beaten the crap out of Cross already, so that deal sounded pretty flat and useless to me. From what I gathered from the other Marines’ expressions, they probably thought similar things. Luckily, the rest of the area seemed to be clear; people could probably sense the angry Captain from a good few yards away.

The only thing this conversations was doing so far was making me appreciate Smoker’s self-control more than I already did. The comment against the Marines was the only thing to get a real reaction out of him; after that, the only thing that betrayed his anger was the sheer amount of smoke around him, and he hadn’t moved much at all.

That was, until he snapped around to his company. “Petty Officer!”

… Damn. Either I have a higher resistance to the Charisma stat than Smoker does, because of my anxiety, or… no, stop, that’s someone else’s gimmick. Focus.

The Marines looked about as confused and disbelieving as I felt, but the man Smoker was addressing still snapped into a well-trained salute. “Y-yes, sir?”

Smoker gave a sigh, sounding almost resigned, and I thanked the Self Insert gods that cigarette smoke didn’t actually smell bad or really have any adverse effects in this world.

“Have the men patrol the docks,” Smoker ordered, “Keep your eyes peeled for Monkey D. Luffy.”

Somehow, some part of my brain decided that this was some kind of opportunity, since I hadn’t said anything in a while, and took the chance to make everything worse.

“Monkey D. Luffy’s here?” I blurted, regretting it almost immediately but unable to stop myself from continuing. “Dude, didn’t he beat up, like, all the biggest names in the East Blue?”

And now I had everyone’s attention, because why wouldn’t I, and my face was instantly one of extreme panic. “Uh, I’ve only heard rumors, of course,” I tried to salvage, presumably floundering miserably, “I work at and spend a lot of time at bars, and a lot of people have mentioned him.” I shrunk in on myself, my eyes going to the ground and my voice going tiny and squeaky. “I’m sorry.”

I was vaguely aware of Smoker staring at me in my peripheral vision, but I was not risking making eye contact to add to the pile of anxiety I was already feeling. My sword even stopped being a comforting focus and felt more like a hook in my gut, dragging me into myself. I only didn’t let it dissolve because I didn’t want Smoker more suspicious of me and there was no way to know what would make him more or less suspicious at this point so it was better to just. Not.

“You’re coming with me,” I heard, causing me to jolt and then wilt even further. My only hope was that Cross wasn’t laughing at me internally or something, my anxiety was already making me more hostile towards him that I would otherwise be just because he was causing it and I didn’t want to hate him more before I actually even met him. I think I heard Smoker say something else to the officer he had addressed earlier, but I was too busy trying to not go into full breakdown mode, because that was notgoing to help me here, dammit.

… Shit, he was talking to me again. C’mon, Amanda, you can do this!

“I’m not convinced you both aren’t somehow working together for something, and you both are going to be very busy explaining while we walk, in order to lessen that suspicion. Let’s go.” He turned and started walking, and I managed to raise my eyes above ground level to try and make eye contact with Cross, though I was ignored, as he just got straight to following. Feeling another gut punch of anxiety, I followed as well.

“So, should I start, or do you want her to?” Cross asked, his hands in his pockets casually like Smoker wasn’t a super dangerous Logia user that could kill us squishy Earth Humans in two minutes.

“Since you’re volunteering,” Smoker said, almost sarcastically. “Your general opinion of the Marines.”

Cross finally looked back at me, just for a second, then shrugged and smirked a little again. “Well, how much is there to say? The Marine Corps is an unscrupulous, morally bankrupt military organization that keeps people in check through terror and brute force. Pretty simple, really.”

“Is that so?” Smoker said, and I only barely noticed his increased smoke output because Cross’s comments were only making my anxiety go even more crazy, like what the actual fuck, asshole, I’m here too and I REALLY don’t want to die today! It didn’t matter that I knew Smoker wasn’t really the kind of guy to do that or that he hadn’t yet or that I knew Cross was probably capable of pulling it off, what if my being here made it worse somehow, or —

I was thankfully saved from going too far into the pit of anxiety by realizing Smoker was looking at me expectantly.

“Sorry!” I yelped, “Um, well, frankly, I’m kind of freaking out because I have anxiety so I might talk a little too fast, but, uh, I obviously understand the idea the Marines rule by fear and brute force, although you’ve struck me as a perfectly morally upstanding human being the entire time I’ve been here, even though I’m also terrified of you? Ugh, I’m not making any sense, give me a second,” I took a deep breath, forcing my muscles to shudder to expel as much excess energy from my body as I could in a short motion that wasn’t breaking down into tears. Cross seemed slightly concerned, but Smoker was miraculously patient. My solution wasn’t perfect, but it was enough to form complete thoughts, so I continued. “Okay, in terms of the Marines as a whole, any organization, or any group in general, is going to have both bad and good people in it. My own personal experiences have come mostly from you and your unit, Captain Smoker, and I respect the fact that you seem to be fair. I’ve heard plenty of horror stories and hate the idea of Marines who use their title as an excuse to not care about human life in general, but I respect anyone putting in the time and effort to try and make the world a better place. I promise I’m not doing anything suspicious, and I don’t know this guy, I only followed him because he looks like someone famous from back home—” wait shit why had I said that oh well run with it there’s no time to lose “and I wasn’t thinking about it too hard and I’m sorry. Can I please leave you to your conversation about ethics in nautical combat now? Please? I really need to go for a run to work off my fight-or-flight reaction.”

I really hoped my jitters and whatever my face was doing sold it, though Smoker hadn’t slowed down or looked at me so they probably hadn’t. Cross was looking at me in a way that was, what, concerned? Suspicious? Some expression that wasn’t helping my anxiety, anyway.

Smoker let out a short huff that I think was actually a laugh, and said, “What, you don’t want his autograph?”

“Not if he’s needlessly antagonizing perfectly decent Marines, no,” I said with more anger and bitterness than I actually meant, though the forcefulness of the comment actually helped alleviate my tension a little, so that was good.

“Perfectly decent?” Smoker said, and my tension was back as I realized what I had said. “As opposed to what?”

Oh come on! Just let me leave!

“As opposed to the Marines who don’t care for human life, like I just said!” I snapped, my tension too high to recognize the things I was yelling as anything other than a relief of said tension. “Just like pirates who are only in it for adventure are perfectly decent compared to the ones that kill and pillage!”

Smoker stopped, turning to face me, and what I just said came crashing back down on me. I buried my face in my hands and groaned, feeling tears right on the verge of happening. “Uuuuugh, look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap like that, give me a second—”

“Here, let me,” Cross said, putting his hand on my shoulder, causing me to jerk; I had almost forgotten he was there.

He gave another smirk and addressed Smoker. “Let me guess, you’re thinking, ‘perfectly decent pirates, how is that even possible,’ right?”

Smoker’s glare switched targets and gained intensity, and Cross just grinned wider. “Thought so. Luckily, I just so happen to have two big examples of just such a thing. For starters, how about Fishman Island, huh? I’d say Whitebeard protecting that place from slavers and whatnot is a pretty demonstrably good thing to do.”

That actually got a surprisingly visible reaction out of Smoker; he straightened up, looking actually tense, and his next words were delivered with a barely-disguised sense that he was saying them because he had to.

“Neither King Neptune nor any noble of the Ryugu Kingdom has asked for support from the Marine Corps, nor has the World Government ordered us to send troops to provide support.”

I grimaced, because Smoker’s position as a decent person in a corrupt organization was actually super pitiable, and my tension made my emotional state very fragile, so I didn't exactly react well to Cross’s response to Smoker’s rote remark.

In a sickly sweet voice, Cross said, “Oh, I get it! You mean that the Marines won’t do their jobs unless they’re outright ordered to, and the World Government couldn’t give a flying fuck about giving orders to, you know, protect the civilians of a member nation of their system, because that would interfere with the place’s status as their personal aquarium, right?”

Like, seriously, yeesh. Even if it was true, the guy didn’t deserve to be smacked in the face with it like this was some comedic skit and the fact that he works for a corrupt government was some kind of giant sassfish.

It occurred to me much later that I could’ve totally escaped during this period, because Cross almost certainly had all of Smoker’s ire trained on him, but at this point I was super emotionally invested in the conversation on at least three different fronts, one of which was kind of wanting to punch Cross in the gut for being such a dick (seriously, Jeremiah, “government’s bitch”?), and so running away wouldn’t have resolved all of my tension, if it resolved any at all.

Before I could say anything, though, Smoker beat me to it. He loomed over Cross, having turned most of his torso into smoke to do so, because clearly he wasn’t big enough already, and said lowly, “You said you had two examples, so I’d appreciate it if you’d get back to your original point instead of giving me an excuse to commit assault.”

Cross’s second example, of course, was personal experience, accompanied by an even bigger grin than usual.

“You talked to my captain earlier, did he seem particularly malevolent?”

Smoker didn’t really move, except to make more smoke billow around the area and make it clear that he was very unamused, but he let Cross keep talking.

Cross, by the way, was maintaining eye contact in a way that I found incredibly enviable, and the grin had left his face. “Including myself and my snail buddy here,” he said, “my crew consists of exactly seven members. We haven’t pillaged, looted, ransacked, etc, any place we’ve been to, and as far as I know none of my crewmates have ever hurt any civilians, at all. All we’re guilty of is flying a Jolly Roger and exchanging money for goods before heading off towards the Grand Line. But hey,” Cross interrupted himself with a dramatic shrug and held his arms in front of himself, displaying his wrists. “I guess none of that matters. Definitely not to the Marines, or the Government. Our flag is black, so we must be evil!”

My tension level had been growing throughout Cross’s entire little tirade, this time directed not as fear but as anger, and that was about where it snapped again.

“What exactly are you trying to accomplish?” I asked, again more forcefully than I really meant to come off as. Cross and Smoker both looked at me like I was butting in where I shouldn’t have been, which I probably was, but whatever! Butting in was my defining character trait half the time! I shook my head. “No, actually, I know what you’re trying to accomplish. Hell, I appreciate the point you’re trying to make, because I agree with most of it! But here’s the thing,” I clapped my hands together and then gestured forward with them, every word and action channeling the sheer amount of tension I felt. “your point has been made.” I sighed. “I’m kind of a fucking hypocrite for saying this, but pushing too hard is only going to make people hate you, so let me go ahead and tell you that your point has sufficiently come across so that you can quit while you’re ahead and go do whatever it is you needed to do. Snail shop, right?”

I looked around, trying to get a handle on where I was to see if I could remember how to get there, when I actually saw it a ways down the street. “There! It’s right there,” I said, grabbing Cross by the shoulders and pushing him in that direction. “so your deal with the good Captain is done and you can stop antagonizing powerful Logia users now. Okay?”

My heart was still pounding, especially as Cross looked between me and Smoker in confusion, but as he actually took the chance and walked away, my body actually let itself relax a little bit, and I let out a sigh unconsciously. Then I turned back to Smoker, remembered he was still strong and scary and probably still angry, and hastily bowed at the hip.

“I’m really sorry to interrupt like that!” I said as I did so, “I’ve seen more than my fair share of arguments gone bad, though, and there wasn’t any way that conversation could go from that point but down. I probably should’ve said or done something earlier, but, well… I’m sorry, basically!”

I straightened, and Smoker’s torso stopped being made out of smoke, his expression changing to one I couldn’t read very well due to the tension still thrumming through my body. I could tell that it wasn’t the same as the “you’re only alive because I’m a good person” face he had been making earlier, but that was all I had.

“… You went from snapping at me to defending me, and then pushing around someone you said was a famous person…?” he said, and I realized he was actually confused.

“The human brain is complete nonsense and anyone who says they understand it is a liar,” I said flatly, the tension starting to fade into a mildly annoying thrum I’d have to work out later. “I said he looked like a famous person, and fame on its own isn’t going to stop me from telling someone off if they’re being an idiot about something.” I sighed. “I was mostly giving into my anxiety, though. I’m not good at thinking straight when I feel emotionally attacked or when I feel someone else is being emotionally attacked, unfortunately. I’m working on it.” I gave a small chuckle, and looked to make sure Cross was actually walking away. He was, but his pace was visibly slower than it probably should’ve been, so he was presumably eavesdropping using Soundbite’s powers.

Smoker kept the same look of confusion, but gave another short-huff-that-was-actually-a-laugh. “What’s your name? Where are you from?”

Oh, thank god, a question I was actually prepared to answer. To make matters better, Cross was almost sure to hear it! My anxiety warped rapidly into excitement, which I was much better at keeping a poker face in the midst of, and I introduced myself.

“My name’s Hijiri Ami, and I’m from a really isolated place you’ve never heard of called North Carolina. Its isolation from the rest of this world is one of the reasons I’m such a colossal wimp, though the physical side of that has been getting better in the month that I’ve been here.”

And in my peripheral vision, I could see that Cross had gone stock still. That felt surprisingly cathartic for some reason, but I didn’t want to analyze it right at that moment.

Smoker seemed… Arceus, somehow someone that intimidating can express genuine curiosity on their face, how about that. “How did you get here?”

I put as much effort into releasing energy as I could as I made one of the most over-exaggerated shrugging motions ever conceived, complete with loud noise to accompany it. It helped a lot, and hopefully managed to actually convey a point instead of making anyone concerned? Anyway, I said, “I’ve honestly got no clue. One minute I was taking a walk, and the next, boom, bar in an inn in a pirate town, complete with Devil Fruit access. I’m not convinced it’s not a dream or that some kind of bizarre higher power didn’t kidnap me or something, who knows.”

Smoker raised an eyebrow, but before he could say anything, I preempted him. “Sir, you turn into smoke for no reason. There are a lot of strange things in this world, and I’ve decided to work with what I have rather than question it.”

“Fair enough,” he said, giving another laugh-huff and shaking his head.

I took the chance to actually fully look at Cross, and to my immense joy (for some reason), he had almost completely turned around to openly stare, because who cares about subtlety when you find out you’re not the only Self Insert in a situation, right? His face honestly reminded me of when I discovered Magic Faucet Fountains.

I made eye contact, and managed not to smirk as I yelled “Weren’t you going?” at him.

And then, before you could say “Shave,” there he fucking was, grabbing my arm and applying force.

“Clearly, you and I still have things to talk about,” he hissed, glaring for some reason.

Unfortunately for him, excitement was still tension, and his hold on my arm was quickly removed via the twist trick I had learned from either my dad or the internet, I couldn’t remember which. I wasn’t really mad, but I figured a little snark wouldn’t be too bad, so that’s what I went with, saying, “You’re not wrong, but I need just one more minute, alright? I’ll be right behind you after I’m done talking with the nice Marine Captain you were sassing earlier,” I gestured backwards with my head, only smirking a little bit, and Cross’s eyes went a little wide before he smiled widely (and fakely), spun around, and started walking back to the snail shop.

I turned back towards Smoker and bowed again. “Thank you for your time, sir, and I’m sorry for the confusion and inconvenience. See you again!”

And then I turned and ran after my fellow Self-Insert, catching him with street to spare.

I kept my voice as light as possible as I addressed him, saying, “So, yeah, funny how this world works, huh?”

Cross’s head snapped to the side, fixing me with a glare that somehow also managed to convey confusion. “How the hell are you here? Why? This kind of crossover nonsense never works, and it’s way too early, and you don’t even look like anyone I know, so what the actual fuck?”

Well, honesty is the best policy.

“I’m from the future, actually,” I said matter-of-factly, keeping my voice low. “2017, just after your story crossed the million word mark by a few ten thousands and was widely known as one of the most popular One Piece fan fictions of all time, let alone in terms of Self Inserts.”

Cross’s look flattened. “You’re kidding.”

I shook my head, my mouth pressed thin in a “what can you do?” expression.

Cross looked at the ground, then the sky, then looked back at me, his face shifting from disbelief and suspicion to general dumbfoundedness as he went. “Wait, so this isn’t just some crossover, but…”

I fixed my gaze on the snail shop, determined not to look like an idiot as I said these damning words. “It’s probably exactly what you’re thinking. I was a huge fan, some version of me decided this was a good idea, and presumably that world’s version of yougave his consent, because I can’t picture doing this otherwise, and so, here we are.” I sighed, but kept my gaze fixed. “I’ve never been the most original person, there’s a reason why the power I always give myself is fucking copying, for crying out loud, but I’ll be the first to admit that this is kind of ridiculous. It’s out of our hands, though, really.”

“You’re actually from almost two years in the future?” he said, “So you know not only the events of the actual manga, but how my presence changes them, too?”

“Eeeeyup. I probably know your version better, I mean, why else would I be put into your version, right?”

Cross looked at his hands, then put his face into them. “God, I’m not even being written by myself…”

“Let’s not get too meta, but not only is the alpha me probably freaking the fuck out about possibly getting you wrong, one of your cowriters has an entire separate collection of fanfiction about your fanfiction by other authors,” I patted Cross’s shoulder, and his face as he looked up at me was almost like he’d been crying, even though he hadn’t been. I nudged him, because we had arrived. “C’mon, let’s go inside.”

As we did so, he straightened up like he had remembered something. “Wait, did you say that you have copying things as your power?”

… Actually, wow, my Devil Fruit was a safe topic for public conversations, did he do that on purpose?

I closed the door behind us and gripped the luminous sword that I had managed not to let disappear during the long discussion. “Don’t tell me you thought this was real,” I said with a bit of humor in my voice. “Basically, I can copy any skill or weapon or ability that I’ve seen and have a decent amount of understanding of. This stuff—” I let the sword lose shape and swirl around my hands, “turns into things based on what I’m copying, and they work as conduits, so the more there is, the more energy it takes to use that ability.”

Cross put his hand to his chin, looking at the Copy Essence flowing around my hands with scrutiny. “It tires you out? Like the Op-Op fruit?”

I nodded, smiling. “Yeah, exactly. Basic weapons like the sword are pretty easy, especially since I’ve spent the month practicing keeping them manifested for long periods of time, but more complicated stuff drains me really fast right now. Eventually I should be able to copy, like, whole skillsets, or something, but for now…” My sword reformed, “… swords.”

It felt like I was forgetting something, but the clerk of the store we were currently standing in cleared his throat to get our attention, interrupting us very effectively.

“Are you here to buy anything?” he asked, an eyebrow raised in either curiosity or concern.

“Oh! Sorry, got caught up,” Cross said, smiling. “Devil Fruits are fascinating topics, aren’t they?”

He gave Soundbite a wink, to which the snail responded, “Oh, YOU’RE TOO KIND!”

The clerk recoiled slightly before understanding the implication, and he and Cross started talking about Soundbite’s transponder rig. The tension had faded into an annoying undercurrent, so I stretched to alleviate a bit of it, then let myself space out a bit. The sword kept my focus from going too far away, but it didn’t stop me from staring blankly at a few of the snails while actually trying to remember what I had forgotten. The tension in my gut was only going to get worse if I had failed to express some concept wrong…

Oh! I had forgotten about one of my ability’s most important restraints, no wonder I was starting to feel bad. Luckily, Cross had just handed Soundbite off to the clerk and was turning back to me. “Hey, so,” he said to me, “I heard your name via snail eavesdropping, and I assume you know mine already, too?”

“Yep! Oh, but Hijiri Ami isn’t my real name, my real name just doesn't translate to this world super well so I’m using a Japanese name that means similar things to my real one. I should be calling myself Ai, but I’ve actually gone by Amy, so Ami works a little better.” I rolled my eyes a little at myself, “I know, I’m a total weeb, but hey, what can you do? Anyway,” I said, putting a hand to my Copy Sword as I got back to business, “I actually forgot something about the Copy-Copy Fruit; see, what it copies is technical skill and muscle memory, along with elemental affinity if it’s applicable. My body doesn’t become any more durable or flexible or anything like that, unless that’s the specific thing I copy, and I can only copy one thing at a time. If I copy something that involves acrobatics I can’t actually do, I can really easily hurt myself, heh,” I scratched the back of my head, then leaned forward in a typical anime anticipation pose. “So, how do I do, does it pass?”

Cross closed his eyes and shrugged. “Seems like it could be a little overpowered, but not for a while, and everyone else is going to be improving over that time too, so it doesn’t seem TOO disproportionate or anything. Hell if I know, I’m not running this show.”

“Yeah, but hopefully, a version of you’ll be reading it, and I don’t want to piss him off,” I said dryly. “Let’s not get too meta, though, that’s another SI’s gimmick and I don’t want to copy more than one at a time.”

Cross blinked, his expression going blank. “Seriously?”

I shrugged. “Eh, she makes it work. Makes a lot of things work better than I’d expect, honestly, it’s kind of nice. Anyway, I’ve gotta find a way to get on that ship now. Any ideas? I had one, but I don’t think I managed to catch the situation in time.”

“Oh?” Cross leaned to the side a bit, his hands going to his pockets. “What was your plan?”

“It was probably poorly conceived, in hindsight…” I sighed. “Basically, in between the bulking up part of my stay here, I’ve been doing odd jobs to earn my keep where I’m staying. Sakura-san is a great guy, but he’s got a business to run and all. Sakura Sojiro,” I clarified at Cross’s confusion at the name, “he runs an inn and a bar, it’s a nice quaint little place. Anyway, I wanted to try and get some work at a shipyard, get in someone’s good books, so that I might be able to call in a favor and get Merry reinforced before setting out, because I figured that since Loguetown was pretty famous for pirate-y things and was right on the mouth of the Grand Line, its ship market had to be at least decent, right? And they probably knew how to make an East Blue ship at least a LITTLE more capable of taking on the Grand Line? But as soon as Luffy gets nabbed and put on that execution block, it’s just going to be a mad dash!” I threw my hands up in the air in frustration. “Especially since Smoker is now suspicious of both of us, so I can’t even function as a suitable distraction unless something really out of left field happens…”

I blinked, registering that Cross was now leaning against an unoccupied wall, though he was clearly paying attention. “Sorry,” I said, making a nervous gesture with my hands. “I tend to talk a lot, and I’m still a little tense from the encounter earlier which only makes it worse, so… Sorry.”

“Eh, it’s fine, I followed most of it,” Cross said, waving a hand and smiling. “Reinforce Merry early, huh?”

“Yeah, I’m honestly surprised so few people seem to have thought about this,” I said, my arms crossing again. I let my eyes close, shifting to one side. My head was starting to hurt, I had forgotten to bring water with me, and there was no way I wasn’t overstimulated, even if I was managing to calm down now. “Well it’s a moot point now, since the only way to pull it off would be to go into hiding or some… thing…”

My eyes shot open, and I blinked a few times before burying my face in my hands. “I’m an idiot. I just remembered—”

“I HAVE returned!” came a shout from a snail.

“Here you go!” the clerk said, holding out a well-polished and snazzy-looking Soundbite.

“Looking good, little guy!” I said with a wide smile, unable to help myself. Soundbite seemed a bit surprised that I commented, but it quickly turned into pride.

“So, how do you feel?” Cross asked, taking Soundbite and putting him in his proper place on Cross’s shoulder. “The transponder working properly?”

Before the clerk could offer to test it, Soundbite’s face shifted into a strangely familiar wily grin, and a young woman’s voice came out of his mouth, making us all jump a little bit.

“How’s this?”

Soundbite’s face morphed into a wide, cheesy grin. “You look stunning, milady!”

The clerk stood up a little straighter, his eyes widening as he let out a surprised exclamation. Soundbite continued, though:

“And this?”

“So elegant, madam!”

The clerk finally managed to formulate a full sentence: “Holy hell, that’s Cintre, from the Rebecca Hanberg!”

That store name sounded vaguely familiar, and it was clear from the feed that it was a clothing store, the district for which was a sizable distance away.

I whistled and commented on the distance, to which the clerk replied, “Yeah, that’s about a mile away!”

Cross’s jaw honest-to-Arceus hit the floor, making me glad that I saw this world through a slightly cartoon filter, because that would’ve given me the heebie-jeebies if this place was realistic. He let out a yell of “WHAT?!” causing Soundbite to cackle with pride.

“I can see FOREVER!”

“Hiheehehehe!” I giggled, unable to help myself. “Not bad, little dude!”

“Is it the transponder?” Cross said softly, almost to himself, “I figured his species improved his hearing, if the transponder accentuates that…”

“Seems as likely as any other explanation,” I said, though Cross wasn’t really paying attention. He slipped on his headphones and started having a conversation with someone I knew to be Nami. I only half-listened to his side of the conversation, instead going over a few things in my head, like whether or not my realization could actually pan out into a new and actually good plan, only interrupted by Soundbite blaring a guitar solo. I gave him a glare, but he only barely met my eyes before whistling innocently for a few seconds. I stuck my tongue out at him while Cross was turned away to pay the clerk for his new snails and bag, and when Cross turned around to leave, I continued right where I had left off in our conversation before, because my new plan hinged on Soundbite’s cooperation.

“Okay, so, what I was chastising myself for was that I forgot the only reason I even work at the shipyard I work at is because it has ties to the criminal underworld…”

Chapter Text

I was set to explain my plan to Cross, but that had to wait, because my words hadn’t changed the situation enough for Smoker not to be waiting for us as we left the transponder shop.

“Oh, sir, you’re still here?” I said, trying to keep a handle on the tension that was bubbling up in me again.

“Why pirates?” Smoker asked, like I hadn’t said anything. He didn’t make eye contact, either, just kind of stared at the ground in our general vicinity.

“Hm?” Cross and I made similar questioning noises at the same time, and probably had similar expressions — it probably would’ve been funny if anyone had seen it.

“You both seem like smart enough kids —” and because of that, neither of us corrected him on our adult ages — “and there are plenty of ways to get your kicks without committing to a life of crime.”

I managed to push down my immediate instinct to correct him with something about it being a life of freedom, because wow would that be unhelpful and it honestly even sounded stupid to me after giving it two seconds of thought.

My pause luckily gave Cross a chance to answer, and I knew enough to know that he was generally better at talking than I was.

“It’s because of my dream,” he said, his face open and not snarky at all. His head tilted a bit as he continued, saying, “Well, at first, anyway, but…” He scratched the back of his head a bit, then put his hands in his pockets and looked… thoughtful? It was a bit difficult to read. “When my captain told me his dream, well, it’s kind of hard to describe.”

Cross’s expression was too, really. I realized as he made eye contact with Smoker that thoughtful wasn’t the right word at all; there was so much more in that expression that it was a little overwhelming for someone like me who wasn’t good with expressions.

“He may not look like much at first,” Cross said, “but that dream of his… there’s just no way he’s not achieving it, and there’s no way the path to get there isn’t going to be epic as hell.” He shrugged, but that deep emotion never left his face. “I want a front row seat on that wild ride, is all.”

It was then that I realized I was staring, and that my tension had been totally forgotten in that moment. I sighed and smiled a bit, then turned to Smoker. “That’s kind of what I want to, though mine’s a little different.” I looked to the side, trying to figure out how to word this, and I spoke carefully; I didn’t want to screw this up. “I want to see the world change. I want to be there when it does, to stand beside those who would change it, and deserve to stand there.” I smiled a bit wider. “I want to experience the dreams and adventure the Grand Line is known for, and the only way to do that is with a crew you can trust, and a flag you believe in.”

I made eye contact with Smoker again, and I could tell by the way his eyes moved from side to side that Cross was probably doing the same, maybe even with the same expression, though I had no idea for sure. I could read his face even less that usual; it wasn’t a glare and he wasn’t confused, but there was still something there that wasn’t in his usual expression.

I have no idea how long the staring match lasted, but eventually we won or something, because Smoker sighed and directed his attention to me. More specifically, it was to the shimmering Copy Sword attached to my hip, or at least I assumed, since his question was “Devil Fruit?”

I nodded with a brief affirmative sound. My brain fed me the most likely scenario for where this was going, and I was honestly a little relieved; Cross needed this, and a lot more than I would.

Smoker gave an increasingly confused Cross an appraising look, then grabbed a small metal object out of a coat pocket and tossed it, Cross barely managing to catch it.

Cross turned it over in his hand a bit, then flicked his wrist, which caused the object to extend.

“This… is a tactical baton, right?” he said, looking it over a bit more.

“Standard issue in the Marine Corps, meant to handle civilians in a nonlethal manner,” Smoker said with a small nod. “It’s not much, but if you’re careful it should be enough to keep you alive for a little while, at least.” 

He made to leave, but Cross was quick to recover from the brief bit of staring he’d been doing.

“Wait, hold on!” He said. Smoker turned, looking vaguely annoyed, but Cross continued quickly, “Why did you give me this? I have done basically nothing but piss you off, and I said outright that I was a pirate. Not beating me up is one thing, but giving me a weapon? Why?”

Smoker gave one of his huffs — I think this one was a sigh? — and said, “I guess I’m trying to make a point. Prove you wrong.”

Cross shook his head, his face still twisted in confusion. “I’m fairly certain locking me up would have proven a point pretty effectively.”

“I don’t think that’s the point he means,” I said a bit hastily, nudging Cross’s shoulder. “You know, or else he would have done it?”

“Damn right,” Smoker said, eyes narrowing. “I could have. Probably should. It’s what a good marine would have done, but…”

He trailed off, then shook his head and turned back around. “You insulted the Marines, and I gave you a reason not to. It’s that simple.”

The tension in my gut made me incapable of stopping myself from giggling a bit. “Sir, we said from the start that you weren’t a typical Marine. I’ve always held you specifically in very high regard.”

Cross nodded, though Smoker was still turned away and couldn’t see that. “I don’t like the current definition of a ‘good marine.’ Right now there’s a big difference between a good marine and a decent one, and it’s decent ones that feel like a myth sometimes.”

There was a moment of quiet, then Smoker gave another huff and walked away.

Cross and I both exhaled in relief quietly as he exited our vision, and I turned towards Cross, steeling my nerves.

“Okay, there’s not too much time, so I need you to grab your whole crew via snail so I can explain the plan all at once, okay?” I said, leaning forward a bit.

Cross blinked a bit in surprise, but recovered quickly, looking to the snail on his shoulder. “How ‘bout it?”

“10-4, good buddy!” Soundbite said, concentrating for a minute. Then, his face changed to an irritated grimace, and a voice I wasn’t familiar with came out of his mouth.

“Cross, your snail better have a very good reason for talking to me via mannequins.”

“WHAT, besides your reaction?” Soundbite replied, grinning widely.

“Ha. Ha. Seriously, though, what’s the deal?”

“Yeah, Cross, we don’t have a lot of time, so get to the point,” said a voice I recognized from earlier as Nami’s.

“Wah! Nami?” The first voice yelped, and I realized that it was probably Usopp.

“Soundbite got an upgrade, it’s not really important if we’re on a time crunch,” Cross said. “Nami, what’s the issue?”

“There’s a big storm brewing,” Nami responded, and I felt like I heard a bit of bitterness in her voice. “We need to get going so we don’t get stuck in whatever trouble Luffy’s no doubt going to cause.”

“I shall start bringing my supplies back to the ship immediately, Nami-swan~!”

Oh god. Well, at least that voice was easy to figure out, even if I had no idea how to deal with his nonsense right yet. There was time, though.

“Actually, Nami, we might not have to be breakneck about this,” Cross said, and I envied the lack of panic or rush in his voice. “I met, uh, a friend in town who offered to help us out.”

“… A friend from the Red Line?” Nami said, rightful suspicion oozing from her voice.

Cross sighed. “Okay, so I don’t know her personally, she’s not from the exact same place as me, but her situation is alarmingly similar to mine. Trust me, it was a surprise for both of us, too.”

“And she can help us how?” Said the only voice I hadn’t heard yet, which meant that it was Zoro, unless things were even weirder than just Cross being involved.

Cross nodded towards me. “Go ahead.”

WaitshitfuckIwasn’tready okay focus

“Um, hi!” I said, waving pointlessly in a bit of panic. “I’m Hijiri Ami, um…” Shit, where was I supposed to start again? “Well, basically, I’ve been working at a shipyard for a while, and we can harbor your ship through the storm!”

Arceus, that was such a mess.

“…Cross, did you…?” Nami trailed off, and it took me a second to figure out why. My brain connected a little too quickly, though, and my response was spluttered and stupid.

“Oh, um, I totally know that you’re pirates, but it’s not a big deal, my boss is part of the criminal underworld and honestly, I was kind of hoping you’d take me with you?” I forced myself to stop and deflated, my head hanging. “Okay, I am royally fucking this introduction up, can I start over?”

Cross was holding in laughter, and I hated him for it.

“Well?” Nami sounded impatient, and while I didn’t blame her, it really didn’t help my mental state. I managed to take a breath deep enough to focus myself, and I started over.

“Basically, I need passage on a ship, and I’m willing to help out in return, which is why I even have this job, so I can call in favors. I’m also willing to help out on the ship itself, to earn my keep and whatnot. The reason I don’t care that your pirates is because the people I go with have to be pirates, because, well…” I lowered my face into my vest collar a bit as I paused, then took another breath and continued, putting as much determination as I could into the words I spoke next. “The place I want to go is Raftel. I want to see One Piece.”

There was a bloated silence, and I realized what my statement implied, rushing to correct myself.

“I don’t want the throne for myself,” I said, trying not to sound too panicked, even though I was waving my arms in front of me like an idiot, “But… I want to see the throne claimed.” I found myself smiling. “I only met your captain for a second, but he doesn’t seem like a maniac, at least not in a bad way, and your… communications officer?” I gave Cross a questioning look, and he nodded, “Okay, thought so. Anyway, he seemed fiercely loyal and absolutely sure that your captain would be the one to seize the throne. I desperately want to be there when the King is crowned, to see the world change. I promise that I won’t be a burden.”

There was another solid period of silence, which I fought my nature desperate not to break.

Eventually, Zoro spoke.

“It’s up to the captain.”

Right, that made sense. My face fell a bit, but I didn’t let myself sigh, because that would be admitting defeat.

“Actually,” Usopp said, “Where is Luffy?”

“He said he was going to the execution platform, right?” I asked no one in particular. “Soundbite, can you not hear him there?”

“How do you know how Soundbite’s powers work?” Nami said, clearly still suspicious of me.

“Oh, we traded Devil Fruit talk,” Cross said, saving me from trying to explain myself. “Hers lets her copy things, which is far cooler than that basic description probably makes it sound.” He looked at Soundbite. “Any luck?”

Soundbite’s focus showed on his face. “Hmm… WELL, there are a couple of places that are just BIG PILES OF NOISE, so I might have LOST HIM in there somewhere?”

“Are any of them giving the vibe of the execution plaza?” I asked, trying to figure out when a good time to contact Iwai-san would be and how much time we actually had.

“… One of them has a loudmouth MONOLOGUING, which I’d argue is PRETTY SUSPICIOUS?”

“Give me a listen,” Cross said, slipping his headphones on. He just barely winced as Soundbite started feeding him noise; I could vaguely hear the din even through his headphones, so it must’ve been super loud. He was focused, though, and as he parsed what was being said, he started to grimace.

“Does the name ‘Buggy’ mean anything to you guys?” He asked, the both of us sharing a look.

Everyone was quiet for a moment, then Zoro said what we all were thinking.

“Crap.”

“Everyone get to the plaza! Now!” Nami shouted, almost frantic, and I know that it was now or never.

“Uh, wait!” I said, just as Cross was getting ready to run.

I didn’t give anyone any opportunity to stop me; there really wasn’t time.

“You guys are going to need to either make a getaway or hide, and the storm’s going to be too bad by the time we’re done for a getaway to be a good idea, but I can help you guys hide if you follow my directions,” I said, doing my absolute best not to go full motormouth. “If you can get me in contact with my boss he can help a couple of you move your ship into his place while the rest of you bail out your captain, and I can lead that team back to the shipyard. I promise Iwai-san will ask exactly zero questions about the pirate flag.”

There was another tense moment of quiet, but Nami responded fairly quickly. “…Fine. I’ll go back to the ship. If this is some kind of trick…”

The threat was given a moment to sink in, and even Cross carried that threat in his eyes, even though he knew I had no reason to do anything like that.

Honestly, that just gave me more confidence in my decision. That’s what loyalty looks like.

I nodded, scared but smiled. “Of course. Let’s go.”

“Usopp, you go back to the ship too,” Sanji said, and it was nice to hear him talk in a way that I could take seriously. “I need to be there to bail out our shitty captain, and Nami-swan shouldn’t go alone.”

“Wait, you want me to carry this thing by myself?!” Usopp said indignantly.

“JUST GO!” Everyone else yelled, startling me just a bit. I recovered, though, steeling myself.

“Okay, let’s run and talk!” I said, looking around and finding the way to the execution plaza. “My boss is Iwai Munehisa, he should be in your range!” 

I started running, Cross followed, and Soundbite got to work.

As I hoped, Iwai-san was remarkably cool about the whole thing; I kind of felt bad, since I didn’t want to take advantage of a life debt that was basically a fluke, but he took it very seriously, and most people probably wouldn’t put up with me for very long without something like that.

… I was really banking on the idea that the Strawhat Pirates weren’t normal people.

Cross and I, weak Earth humans that we were, heaved with the effort of our dash as we reached the execution plaza — thanks to my childhood asthma, even a month of training had only boosted my cardiorespiratory strength to “average” for Earth standards. Luckily, we managed to get to the plaza at about the same time as a certain idiot cook that was going to be a struggle in general and miraculously on-target shrubbery.

Cross wheezed as he greeted his crewmates. “Hey… cough… hey guys!”

“You need to exercise more,” the shrubbery said, relaxed enough to be condescending but serious enough not to dwell on it. 

Cross mumbled some kind of miffed reply, but then the blonde idiot caught sight of me, and I had to brace myself not to grimace too hard. I mentally thanked the perception filter I’d been blessed with for making the heart eyes not look too ridiculous.

“Ah, is this adorable specimen the lovely lady we spoke with before?” 

Oh, god, it was worse than I was expecting. Thankfully, Zoro shut him up fairly quickly with a blow to the back of the head with a sword hilt. 

“We don’t have time for that, idiot,” Zoro said, indicating the tall platform with a meaningful look. 

Atop that platform were a flashy clown and the single most underestimatable person in the world.

The reality of the situation didn’t really hit me right away, even as I managed to parse a bit of Buggy’s monologue. It was far away, without any framing that would give me tension in a story, and I’d never seen anyone die in front of me before, or even get that badly wounded.

Still, intellectually, I knew time was of the essence. “So what’s the plan?” I asked. “I have to lead you guys out of here, but the best getaway route is on the other side of the plaza, and it’d be easier to get in close if we split up…”

“That guy seems like the type to go on for a while,” Cross said, somewhat sardonically. “I mean, just listen to him. Getting in close probably won’t be too difficult as long as we stay quiet, and Soundbite and I can sow some chaos once we spring Luffy, so as long as you make yourself easy to find for the rest of us, it should be fine.”

“I guess that works for me,” I shrugged, but part of me felt awkward. I looked to Zoro and Sanji, nervous about sorta ordering them around, but while Sanji looked somewhat torn, presumably for misguided chivalry reasons, they both nodded, and we began to work our way through the crowd.

As I worked through the crowd, I looked up at the sky, which was already darkening with clouds. Part of me felt bad that I probably wouldn’t get to catch Dragon on the way out or anything, but Luffy’s survival came first, and my plan really didn’t allow for detours.

The tension in me started boiling up again as I got closer and the situation started sinking in more. I kept my focus on moving forward through the crowd and muttering apologies to anyone I accidentally elbowed in the gut, but I tried to make sure I could see at least one other member of the group; I hoped that Cross was talking to Bartolomeo like he had been in his story, because that was the start of my favorite side plot and one of the two big awesome changes his presence brought, but I had no way of making that happen besides letting things play out. I did vaguely recognize Barto’s giant haircut in the crowd from the few times Iwai-san wanted me to do underground work for him instead of lifting or calculations, so I knew that the chance was there, as long as Cross seized it.

The getaway route I had in mind took us through a few alleys and was notable for being on the opposite corner from where I could see Marines watching the situation. I had the feeling at least a few of the people I was shoving my way through were Buggy Pirates, but I was thankfully unassuming at a glance, so they probably thought I was just an overeager observer. 

I started to hear small thunderclaps from the storm, and I realized that the speech was reaching its climax. I managed to sneak as close to the platform as the crowd went, and just as I looked up at Luffy in that moment…

“HEY! LISTEN!”

I was frozen in place.

“I AM THE MAN!”

Okay, you’re going to have to roll with me on this, because the feeling here is literally indescribable unless I want to delve into YA fantasy territory, but…

When you hear this kind of declaration, made with this level of certainty…

“WHO WILL BE KING OF THE PIRATES!”

Depending on the situation and who you are and who’s talking, your entire worldview can change.

This probably sounds utterly stupid, but in that moment, it felt like literally nothing else existed. It felt like the world stopped and restarted with some kind of weird new gravitational pull towards that one declaration.

And I wanted, more than anything, to let go and let that gravity take me wherever the hell it wanted. 

I had already known what I wanted, had already seen and even heard that declaration, and I’d felt things when that happened, but…

I had honestly consigned myself, due to my sexual and romantic orientation, mental illness, and personality defects, to never feeling this strongly about a person, or this certain about anything, ever in my life.

Loyalty at first sight is way cooler than love at first sight.

I didn’t hear Buggy’s outrage, didn’t hear Luffy’s cheerful declaration of his own mortality. I didn’t really see the sword coming down — I definitely didn’t process it.

In that moment, there was nothing but absolute certainty, with no room for doubts, which was a startlingly new and amazingly wonderful feeling to have.

I looked out into the crowd and I saw the others break away, saw their panic, and I honest-to-god felt a laugh bubble up from inside me.

Someone like that, die like this? Yeah, right.

I hadn’t realized that I was running forward too until I processed that I was right next to something that lightning was striking, and my eyes managed to focus again as I searched out the man who would hopefully be my captain soon, though he wasn’t hard to spot.

“Hey, I’m alive!” He said, happily surprised, like there was a chance of anything else. “That’s nice!”

In the crowd, I hear Cross yell in relief, and I raced forward through the rubble and shocked or confused pirates to grab Luffy by the arm.

“Sorry about this,” I said, holding my other hand in front of my face in a gesture that hopefully came off as apologetic as I meant it, “but I need you to come with me, I’m with your friends.”

I hadn’t really had any time to think of signals, and the pirates were starting to recover, and though I could hear some of the chaos Cross had been talking about sowing, the Marines were still starting to work their way over. I couldn’t really focus, so I just did the first thing that came into my head: I stuck my finger and thumb into my mouth and whistled as loudly as I could. It cut through the din relatively effectively, and then the chaos in the crowd redoubled as another whistle played from the other side of the crowd, and then voices from other directions, and Cross managed to elbow his way out of the crowd, Zoro and Sanji managing as well. A few of the closest pirates tried to sound the alarm, but the two heavy hitters silenced them quickly, and Cross and I shared a grin and I turned and started running. “Follow me!”

Before we could get far, Soundbite yelled out in a vaguely familiar voice. “Hey! Wait! Guy! Wait up!”

We kept running, because Cross was on top of this. “I can hear you, buddy, my snail’s got a few tricks up his sleeve.”

“You’re with your captain, right? Straw Hat Luffy? Can I talk to him? Please?”

My grin grew so wide my face hurt, not that I really noticed that or my screaming lungs in the moment. I heard Cross hand Soundbite over to Luffy, and Luffy questioning what was going on, and I was just so happy I’d managed not to screw this part up.

“St-Straw Hat Luffy! The… the reason you can face death in that awesome way, with that huge grin, is… is that because you’re a pirate?”

My heart was pumping like mad, I was already tired from earlier, my lungs were screaming, and I couldn’t stop running if I tried. As we turned a corner into the alleys, some part of me suddenly registered that I had missed something, or that I’d seen something suspicious, but I didn’t really register the cloaked figure I passed that caused that feeling, so it was quickly overwritten with more glee as Luffy’s conversation with Barto continued.

Luffy’s encouragement caused Barto to loudly declare his intentions to be a pirate, and some part of me questioned why no one had caught up to or noticed us yet, but something about the way the wind and rain were hitting my face as we ran made me forget any worry I had — I had always liked storms, so with everything all together, I was having way too good of a time right now to question good luck.

Luffy laughed at Bartolomeo’s declaration, and Cross took the opportunity to cut in, saying, “Don’t just half-ass it, though, you hear? Get a real ship, and a real crew, and put the damn effort in! Set out to sea with the intent to risk your life doing your best!”

“And don’t kill or pillage anyone who doesn’t deserve it!” I yelled, unable to stop myself. “That’s not what a real pirate does, you know!”

“Huh? Who are — wait, you’re Hijiri, aren’t you?”

A jolt rushed through me. “You recognize me just from my voice?” I shook my head. “Look, I’d love to catch up, but we’re kind of on the run here, you know how it is!” I laughed a bit. “We might see each other later, though, so I’ll be seeing you if we do!”

“Hey, but — wait — … ah, fine! Straw Hat Luffy, wait for me, okay! We… We’ll meet again! In the Grand Line!”

“Shishishi! See you there, Barty!” Luffy sounded almost as happy as I felt about the whole thing.

“Until next time, buddy!” Cross chimed in, just as cheerily, then the line cut off.

“Always fun to have fans,” I said happily, looking behind me quickly to make sure everyone was still there; luckily, no one had gotten sidetracked.

As I met Luffy’s eyes, though, he spoke to me. “So who are you supposed to be, anyway?”

It gave me pause, though I quickly remembered I was running and snapped my head forward, just barely not missing the next turn. There in the distance, through the storm, I saw a remarkably clear alley and a swinging sign that indicated our destination: Escargot Lala’s Crossroads Bar.

“My name’s Hijiri Ami,” I said, smiling again as I focused on our target, “and I’ll explain in a minute — our destination’s right up ahead.”

I nearly did one of those skidding stops in front of the door and had to fight myself not to fling it open, I was so excited.

“Lala-san!” I happily exclaimed as I attempted to restrain myself from full-on running inside.

“There you are, darling,” she said, turning and catching the hug I may as well have leapt at her with. I could barely get my arms two thirds of the way around her, and she gave the best hugs, even when she was wearing a fancy kimono.

As I let her go, she pushed a full glass of ice water into my hands, which I eagerly snatched. “You are the best, Lala-san.”

I gulped down nearly the entire glass, soothing the burn in my throat that I had only just recovered enough from my adrenaline high to notice, then let out a nice satisfied sigh.

“Iwai called,” Lala-san said, confirming what I’d expected — we hadn’t had time to contact her too, but she and Iwai kept in pretty close contact, especially about me, for some reason. “You know where to go. Your new friends aren’t going to get you into too bad of trouble, are they?” She raised an eyebrow at my companions, and though said companions may have been giving Lala-san weird looks or judging her for her choices, I was in a good enough mood to forgive them, this once. Maybe.

“If they do, they’ll also be the ones getting me out of that trouble, hopefully,” I said, putting my glass down. The bolt hole for Iwai-san’s place was in the floor on the far side of the bar, usually covered by crates or barrels; Lala-san was excellent at making such clutter look natural. I was able to push aside today’s barrel fairly easily, which gave me a small ego boost. “This way, please shut the trapdoor if you’re the last one through!”

Now that we weren’t running anymore, the part of me that was worried about how well things were going starting to rise up again, but the run had diffused most of my tension, and I was mostly just grinning and happy. I climbed down the ladder with a confidence I don’t normally have climbing down things, and as I looked down the tunnel, I thought about lighting; the tunnel was kind of long and there wasn’t really a reason to keep too many lights in it.

I figured out an idea decently quickly, and I let my sword deform, guiding and creating Copy Essence until I had a few basketball-sized orbs that glowed warmly. I vaguely wondered what I was going to do about calling my attacks, since that was a thing that was just going to have to happen at some point, but I could probably worry about it later.

I heard a thud from behind me, and I turned to see Luffy staring at the Copy Lanterns, as I just then decided to call them. I really envied his lack of fall damage… wait, his eyes were sparkling.

“HOWAREYOUDOINGTHATTHAT’SSOCOOL!”

His excitement startled me a bit, which caused the light to flicker, and the others paused in their descent, or at least the ones on the ladder did — it wasn’t a very long way down.

“Oh, um, my Devil Fruit lets me copy things I’ve seen and understand,” I said, recovering a little bit. “I was copying a sword a minute ago and now I’m copying lanterns.”

“That’s so cool! Hey, join my crew!” Luffy said, his eyes still sparkling.

There was a brief moment of quiet as we all processed, then Cross burst out laughing, and Zoro gave one of the most tired-sounding sighs I had ever heard, and I’d been challenging Smoker’s worldview earlier that day. 

“Don’t know why I even doubted…” Zoro muttered.

I giggled a bit myself, joking, “No fair asking before I could!”

“Wait, really?” Luffy actually seemed surprised, which was even funnier. “Huh, it’s not usually that easy.”

Cross’s laughter turned into indignant splutters. “What am I, chopped liver?”

My laughing intensified, and I found myself unable to stop, which happened to me more often than I was happy to admit.

“HEEheeheeheeheeheeheeheehee!” I struggled to keep my lanterns stable as I found myself nearly doubled over. “I’m sorryeeheeheehee! Give me just a-hahahee, a second…”

“Ah, but Ami-chan, your laugh is as adorable as you are!”

Oh, god.

“Aaaand…” I sighed. “My laughter’s gone. Does that usually work? I’m not exactly an expert on flirting, but that really doesn’t seem like something that would usually work.”

Sanji and I blinked at each other for a good few moments while Cross struggled to stay upright and control his own rejuvenated laughing fit.

Luffy seemed to find it pretty amusing, too, as he laughed his signature laugh before asking where the heck we were.

I jumped in realization, a small and ignorable jolt of anxiety going through me. “Sorry, this is our getaway tunnel. Iwai-san’s place is at the other end, so follow me!”

I turned and started walking, keeping one lantern next to me while letting the others drift behind. Luffy poked one, and I twitched a bit. I couldn’t really feel it in the traditional sense, but it did affect my focus, sort of, so I knew that it was happening.

The walk was straight, but a bit long, and I found myself whistling. It wasn’t anything recognizable, just something off the the top of my head. It was catchy enough, though — I liked whistling. The tunnel made it echo in a kind of weird way, but the fact that it probably sounded kind of creepy didn’t hit me until Soundbite started playing some kind of ambient scraping noise, and I had to stop, because you can’t whistle when you’re scowling.

“Hilarious,” I said sarcastically. The scraping stopped, replaced with multi-toned laughter that scraped my anxiety nerves. “You could’ve just said something if you didn’t like it.”

“Aw, but I did like it!” Luffy said. “Are you a musician? We really need one of those!”

I snorted, and I think I heard the others groan a little. Maybe if I was a Self-Insert circa the mid-2000s, but… “Nah, I’m mediocre at singing and I haven’t played an instrument in years. Whistling’s easy to practice, is all, so I’m pretty good at it. I do like music, though, obviously. I mean, who doesn’t, right?” Wow, that was stupid. Great job, Amanda.

“Ah, beautiful and modest!” Oh, god. “Truly, your radiance knows no bounds!”

I stopped walking abruptly, spinning around to look the swirly-browed idiot in the eye.

“Look, I’m sorry,” I said, gesturing a bit, “I may not have made myself clearly earlier when I snarked at you, so I’ll be as clear as I can be now. That’s annoying, and I’m not interested. Okay?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Zoro scoffed, grimacing.

“It’s just kinda something he does, you know?” Cross chimed in, giving me a subtle knowing look. “You’ll get used to it.” He shrugged.

I directed my gaze, raised eyebrow and all, squarely at my new communications officer. “I’m afraid that as a person with a Y chromosome and thus not someone on the receiving end of this nonsense, you’re not really in a position to judge may reactions to said nonsense.” I sighed and turned back around. “Now’s probably not the time, though. C’mon.”

At the end of the tunnel was a rotating door that only opened from the side we weren’t on. There was a specific knocking person the person on the tunnel side had to do the let the people in the building know they were supposed to be there, and Iwai-san changed it every couple of weeks. At this point we’d had so many of the damn things that I had to use both hands to execute the rhythm, and I took a bit of pride in how little it hurt to hit the stone slab hard enough that it would sound on the other side.

As we waited for someone to answer, I saw Luffy giving me a comically suspicious look. “Uh, is something wrong?”

“Are you sure you’re not a musician?” He asked, his eyes narrowing even more than they already were, which was impressive.

I snorted. “Look, rhythm is like whistling; it’s easy to practice and once you learn how anyone can do it, provided they actually know how and don't just think they know how.”

The door opened right as I finished saying that, and I turned to smile at the person who had opened it. It was Kaoru, Iwai-san’s son and right-hand-man, which was almost exactly what I expected. His face was serious at first, but he smiled when he saw me, looking almost relieved, for some reason. 

“There you are!” He said, also sounding relieved, which was just ridiculous. “Dad was worried, you know.”

“Oh come on, I didn’t even take that long,” I said, rolling my eyes as we all exited the tunnel. The rotating door was attached, as narrative precedent dictated, to a bookshelf. Our reference section being hidden away in the back of the building had never been questioned, so Iwai-san’s group was doing something right.

“Woah, secret door in the bookshelf?” Cross said, running his hand along the side of the door. “Seriously?” He raised an eyebrow at me, but it was paired with a grin.

“C’mon, it’s a classic!” I said, joking right back. 

I pressed the switch to close the door, and Luffy’s eyes shone a bit again as it swung shut.

“So where’s our ship?” Zero said, bringing us back on topic.

“Ah, my apologies,” Kaoru said, adjusting his glasses a little bit. “Please, follow me.”

The reference room was at the end of a decently long hallway, though if you compared it to the large docking and work area, it probably seemed tiny. There were a couple of different boats in here, and while Merry was probably the smallest, she was also the easiest to spot. Her mainsail had been furled and her flag hidden, so that anyone passing by wouldn’t be able to tell from a glance they place was harboring pirates; we’d done it before. She was raised out of the water on slings, and a couple of guys were hanging down measuring various parts of her.

“Alright!” I said, punching my palm. “Where’s Iwai-san? I’m ready to get to it!”

“Oh, the office has some stuff set up already.” Kaoru said. “I think he said something about stress levels for maplewood and some screw and rope specs, but it’s all basic stuff for now; he was measuring the interior last I checked.”

I nodded. “Alright, I’ll get right on it!” I pumped a fist in the air a bit, then ran off. My shift was technically over for the day, but it was going to be my ship once we left, so I should at least help with the work on it some, even if I wasn’t actually the most qualified. The office was on the same hall as the reference room, and so was a break room. I jogged up to the door and opened it, only to meet the eyes of the Strawhat navigator as she looked up from the papers on the desk.

“Oh. Um. Hi?” She said, at least having the decency to be embarrassed. She scratched the back of her head a bit and forced a smile. “I don’t suppose you’d believe I’m allowed to be here?”

“I work here, so no,” I said, crossing my arms. “Especially not when you word it like that.” I made sure to remind myself that I hadn’t met Nami face-to-face yet, and most people weren’t capable of recognizing people based on voice alone, so I had to be careful about how I acted. With that in mind… “Mind telling me who you are and what you’re doing in our office?”

“Um, well, you see…” She looked around, presumably for an excuse, but, obviously, came up short. Then, her eyes focused on me and she frowned, reaching down towards her leg — wait, that’s where she keeps her — “Sorry about this!”

Nami lunged forward, her staff coming together too fast for me to see, though I saw the attack coming well enough to jump backwards back into the hallway. As she came at me again, I reached out my hands, forming the first weapon I could think of — the one being swung at me.

My arms vibrated as I managed to block the blow, and I grimaced as I pushed her away. My head pounded, reminding me that I’d been copying things for longer than normal; those lanterns were pretty big, too, so they’d probably taken more out of me than I realized… Not that now was the time for my mind to wander!

Nami was only thrown off a little by my deflection, but my weapon itself had definitely caught her attention. She stayed in a ready stance, but took a step back from me.

“What the hell?” She muttered to herself. “Man, what was I thinking? The idiots must be rubbing off on me…”

“In case you’re curious, I ate the Copy-Copy Fruit,” I said, unable to help a smirk. I’d honestly been looking forward to announcing it like that at least once, though I wasn’t expecting it to be against a crewmate. Not that allies never fought in One Piece, but that wasn’t really relevant.

“Copy…?” Nami said to herself, her eyes narrowing in concentration before widening in realization as another wobbly smile came across her face. “… Your name wouldn’t happen to be Hijiri Ami, would it…?”

“Yep, that’s me, though I dunno how you’d know that.” I shrugged to hide any possible tells that I knew exactly why she knew that. “I’m not exactly a difficult person to remember, though, so it’s not that surprising. My own memory isn’t always that good when it comes to people, though.” I glared a bit, hopefully not overselling it. “So who are you?”

Nami lowered her staff and waved wildly with her free hand. “I’m Nami! We talked earlier, I’m the navigator!”

“Oh,” I said, lowering my Copy Staff a bit, though not totally relaxing. “Why are you snooping around then? We’re helping you. I know you’re pirates and all, but you guys all seemed cooler than that.” I was probably not being tactful enough, what with the pounding between my ears.

Nami huffed, her eyes narrowing. “I just wanted some idea about what you’re doing to our ship. This could still totally be a trap.”

And that’s when my headache and fatigue boiled over into ire. “Would we have let you wander around unsupervised if you were trapped?” I snapped, then recoiled immediately as I realized that I was being stupid. 

“Ugh, sorry,” I said, letting my staff dissolve and rubbing my head. “Look, we don’t keep money in the office and we’re still figuring out measurements right now, so we won’t know exactly what we’re doing with your ship for a little while either. If you want, the reference room has some info on the Grand Line you can read up on in the meantime, it’s down the hall. Oww…” I pressed my ever-cold hands to the back my neck and massaged there a bit, which helped a little, but not that much.

“Are you okay?” Nami said, her expression softening.

I felt my stomach start to complain at me, just to make the situation worse, and I grimaced widely. “My powers take a lot out of me, is all. I’ve got pain meds in the office, but now I need foooood…” I made a long noise of discomfort.

Nami’s eyes narrowed for some reason I couldn’t be bothered to care about in my current state. I rubbed my head and neck a bit more and sighed. “I’ll show you to the info you’re probably going to be most interested in, just… give me a sec…”

I turned, thankfully not feeling too dizzy, though I could feel a bit of shaking in my body. I moved slowly and carefully to not aggravate my headache any more, first making sure all of the papers and charts were in order, then opening the drawer where the writing utensils and my pain meds were kept. I grabbed a couple of pills, then walked back to where Nami stood waiting.

I beckoned as I turned down the hall, and the footsteps told me Nami was following. The break room was actually between the reference room and the office, so I asked Nami to wait while I grabbed some water out of the fridge and some crackers out of the pantry. I went ahead and took the pills so I wouldn’t forget. The food and water helped my state, too, so I’d probably be able to do my job again in a few minutes.

“Here’s the reference room,” I said as we arrived. “The Grand Line section is in the back, on the left. If you touch anything that does something suspicious, usually touching it again will fix it. Also, forget you saw it afterwards. You’re free to look at whatever, I know we don’t always keep this place organized the best.” I took a deep breath at the end to try and get my head back into the game fully, rubbing my temples a bit too.

It mostly worked, and I figured I could at least do some of the easier formulas by that point, so I turned back around, popping a few more crackers into my mouth.

Time to get to work.

Chapter Text

I wasn’t really an engineer, or a carpenter, architect, anything like that. I was barely a sophomore in college, so while I could make sense of the formulas I was using in terms of what everything meant, it wasn’t like it was easy, and I had to constantly double check with the other workers to make sure I was getting the variables and units right. 

Algebra and math were something I could do from the start of my time here, though, and I was actually pretty proud of my abilities to work math problems out. As long as I could picture things decently well, I could usually figure them out, and I learned through examples and repetition pretty easily. 

Of course, I was actually strong enough to lift and climb things now, which helped my usefulness. I’m still pretty sure that if Iwai didn’t have the whole “life debt” idea in his head I would never have been able to make this work. Still, the multi-area practice and experience was really helpful considering how versatile my powers were, so I was totally happy for this past month.

According to my calculations and the ones Iwai-san made on his end, we determined that if we worked quickly and efficiently we’d be able to get the ship done and out by tomorrow night, which would hopefully be fast enough to avoid Smoker. 

As I went out to the main area to deliver my last few calculations, I saw that the sun was starting to set. The rest of the crew had dispersed, besides Usopp and Luffy, who were staring around curiously but miraculously hadn’t gotten into trouble yet. 

“Yo!” I called out, my eyes wandering around the area. My eyes met Usopp’s for a second and I remembered that I hadn’t actually met him yet either, and I had to swallow a bit of anxiety. “Hope I didn’t keep anyone waiting!”

“Oh, Ami!” Luffy was next to me faster than I was ready for, because he ran on cartoon physics, and I started a little. “Where’d you go?”

“I work here, remember?” I said, unable to keep from smiling as I smacked my stack of papers on his head lightly. In a moment of realization, I tapped the edge of the stack on the side of my head. “Or, well, I do until we leave, anyway.”

Usopp made a questioning noise, with a face to match.

“I’m Hijiri Ami,” I said, pointing at myself and smiling. I gestured a bit with my pointer finger, continuing, “We talked earlier?”

“She’s on the crew now,” Luffy added, and while I was thankful he mentioned it, his bluntness caught me off guard. The excitement in his voice as he continued was nice, though.

“She’s got this totally awesome power that lets her copy things with shiny stuff!”

… Well, I guess that wasn’t inaccurate?

“Unfortunately, I’m mostly at my limit for demonstrations today, sorry,” I said, waving the papers a bit. “My powers take directly from my stamina, and I just got over my headache, so I probably shouldn’t push myself until I get a real meal in me for the night. I look forward to working with you, though!”

I gave a quick bow, then ran of to find Iwai-san.

 I gave Iwai-san the papers, and as he looked over them, he let me know that everyone else had gone off to the break room, or the reference room in Nami’s case. My shift had technically ended a few hours ago, so he let me go get actually acquainted with the people I’d run across town with. I went to go and grab Usopp and Luffy, too, but I was stopped by and unexpected and familiar voice.

“Ah, there you are.”

I spun on my heel, and when my eyes confirmed what my ears heard, I burst out, “Sakura-san? What are you doing here?”

As I was saying that, I had a violent moment of realization and devolved into a cartoon ball of flailing limbs due to the sudden onset guilt.

“Ohmygod I totally forgot to call I’m so sorry oh my god—”

“It’s fine,” Sakura-san laughed a little. “I figured you’d be here, and it’s not like I’m your minder or something. You’re fine.”

I blinked, tilting my head. “Why are you here, then?”

“Well…” He moved his arm a bit, causing me to realize he was currently dragging a wheeled insulated delivery case oh hell yes. “We were slow, so I figured I’d check on you and see if you needed feeding.”

I let out a huge whoop, startling a few of the workers who didn’t know me very well.

“Sakura-san, you rock!” I said, jumping up and down a little. “I hope there’s enough, I don’t know how much my new crew eats…”

That wasn’t technically a lie, since I had no idea how big the appetites of anyone besides Luffy were.

Speaking of which, a hand came down on my shoulder from behind, causing me to freeze up. I whipped my head to the side, and my blood went even colder as I met my captain’s wide grin.

“Fooooood?”

I have no idea how a grin so blank and happy can be so terrifying, but I had already had one intensely irrational emotional reaction to this guy that day, so I wasn’t about to question it. 

I bolted, food in tow.

I have no idea how, but I managed to get to the break room before Luffy caught me. As I slammed the door behind me and looked for some way to bar it shut, I saw Usopp sitting at the table with everyone else, not even out of breath.

“Wha…?” I pointed, unable to find words.

“What?” He said, his tone as casual as his body language, and I took that as my cue to sigh, deflate, and give up.

I couldn't find anything to bar the door with, since all the chairs were in use, but I locked it at least and resolved to just hurry, or something. 

“Captain’s reaction to food was subliminally terrifying,” I said, pulling containers out of the case and mentally thanking Sakura-san for including dinnerware, “so I’d suggest eating fast. The owner of the place I’ve been staying at made this, and it’s easily the best curry I’ve ever eaten.”

“Is Luffy just not eating then?” Cross said, his expression concerned even as he grabbed a generous serving.

“We can save him some,” I shrugged. “Something tells me it’ll be a lot easier than making sure everyone else got some if he was involved.”

“This probably qualifies as mutiny somehow, but you’re not wrong so I won’t push it,” Cross said, gesturing a bit with his spoon before digging in. He made an appreciative noise around the mouthful, which made me proud even though I hadn’t actually done anything to make the food; naturally, realizing that made me feel bad instead.

I waited for everyone else to grab some before serving myself, making sure there were still at least three normal person servings for the bottomless pit outside… wait, why was he scraping at the door and not just coming in? 

I debated with myself for a bit, but decided it was probably better to let him in than risk mutiny allegations, even if I’d only joined the crew a few hours ago.

I opened the door to find my captain sprawled on the floor, clawing weakly at the space in front of him. Standing on top of him, cool as a cucumber, was none other than Iwai Munehisa, who gave me a slightly accusing eyebrow raise as our eyes met.

“This is yours, yeah?” He said. “I’d dock points for endangering my place of work, but I caught him, so I’ll let it slide this time.”

He then kicked one foot up in the air slightly, causing a shape I barely managed to register as chain-like to flip up through the air. He snatched it with ease, then had the gall to wave what could only have been seastone handcuffs in the air a bit before tucking them away and walking off. “Safehouses are empty, pick whichever you want.”

The instant Luffy didn’t have someone standing on him, he bowled straight past me to the food, and I was lucky I didn’t crack my skull open.

“What the hell?!” I said, standing back up.

Sanji, naturally, kicked Luffy in the face for me with a similar accusatory yell, which I was both irritated and thankful about. I really needed to think about what I was going to do with him…

At the very least, it left the plate I’d made for myself intact, so I dug in before Luffy started getting ideas.

“Can snails eat curry?” I wondered absently, realizing I hadn’t thought about Soundbite.

“NEVER TRIED! As long as there’s no meat, IT’S WORTH A SHOT!”

Cross put Soundbite on the table and held up a piece of carrot with his spoon. “Ami, I’m blaming you if my coat gets covered in snail vomit.”

“That’s completely fair,” I nodded. I hummed around my next bite. “Man, I never get tired of this stuff.”

“It’s pretty delicious, yeah,” Nami said, and Luffy said something vaguely affirmative with his mouth full. 

“Who was that guy, again?” Usopp asked. “The one who gave this to you?”

“Oh, right, yeah,” I gave a hesitant laugh, running my free hand through my hair a bit. “He’s the owner of the place I’ve been staying at. The curry’s his specialty, I eat it almost every day.”

“Every day? You like it that much?” Sanji perked up, his face serious, which was always a pleasant surprise. “I’ll make sure to keep that in mind…”

And then he pulled a notebook and pencil out of his jacket and started scribbling notes, fending off Luffy’s wandering hands with what looked like no effort, all while mumbling to himself like a cute nerd.

… Curse the duality of man.

 After the food had been thoroughly consumed, I realized proper introductions would probably be a good idea.

“So, like I said before, I’m Hijiri Ami.” I bowed. “Thank you for offering me a place on your crew. I promise I’ll do everything I can to help you guys reach your goals.”

“Bleh, you don’t have to bow, you know,” Luffy stuck his tongue out. “I’m your captain, not your boss.”

“It’s called being polite, thank you,” I laughed. “So, I obviously know Monkey D. “Straw Hat” Luffy, worth 30 million, and Cross and I are already acquainted, and I met Nami earlier…” I pointed to each person as I went over them, then pointed to Zoro, attempting to play up how well I normally remembered names. “I know I heard about a guy with three swords somewhere in the papers, but I’m not as good with names as I’d like…”

“Roronoa Zoro,” he said, thankfully not seeming upset. “I was a bounty hunter for a while, so that’s probably what you heard.”

“Oh, right, “Pirate Hunter”!” I paused. “…Actually, no, I’m not going to ask how that happened. Nice to meet you!” I smiled widely, then turned to Sanji and Usopp. “And you guys?”

“My dearest Ami-chan, I would be happy being addressed however you see fit~”

Oh god.

“Your name is fine,” I deadpanned.

“Then it’s Sanji, sweet Ami-chan!”

He was going to absolutely ruin my childhood nickname for me if I didn’t do something. I really needed to figure out what the hell I was going to do with him.

“I’m the great Captain Usopp, commander of over 3000 loyal followers!” Usopp said, nose high and fist on his chest.

“Sorry, I’m gullible, but not that gullible,” I shrugged. He deflated visibly, which got me laughing. “Sanji and Usopp, got it, I’ll remember.”

“So how did you and Cross even end up hatching this plot of yours anyway?” Nami said, making to grab the plates and containers. I started a bit and grabbed them myself.

“Sorry, I got it,” I said. “As for your question, it’s… kind of a long story.”

“A LONG STORY THAT INVOLVES THE ACTING MARINE CAPTAIN OF LOGUETOWN!” Soundbite announced far too proudly, causing Cross and I to give him shocked and accusing glares. “WHAT?”

I sighed a bit. “Basically, I thought Cross looked familiar, so I followed him a little, but he was following Marine Captain Smoker, and we ended up in a long and drawn out conversation about world politics.”

“It’s probably best Ami and I don’t go out into town again before we leave,” Cross said, guilt and nervousness marring the grin he tried to put on his face.

“…You are both so lucky we aren’t stuck here for longer than a day,” Nami said, going back to the papers and books she’d gotten out of the reference room. I really hoped I wasn’t going to have to warn Iwai about needing to replace any of his references… 

Oh, wait, that was an opportunity. 

“Come on, you wouldn’t have access to all that lovely information if I hadn’t gotten dragged into you guys’ nonsense, right?” I said, still nervous but at least making an attempt at lightening the mood.

“You’re walking a very thin line, but so far so good, I suppose,” Nami said, huffing a sigh. “Why have I never heard about this ‘Log Pose’ thing until now?”

“Because there’s only one newspaper, probably?” I said, not really sure. “I mean, I think Iwai-san has to pay a premium to keep up with the Grand Line news, though, so it probably is different, depending, and… Well, basically, nobody talks about the Grand Line in the East Blue, not even the Government.” 

I put the dishes back in the case and dried my hands, pinching my expression a little. “Sorry, that probably didn’t make any sense. I think part of me is trying to tell you about how the government is evil and trying trying to keep people in the dark or something and the other part is trying to warn you that going in knowing nothing is way too easy and way too dangerous, neither of which is probably helpful or relevant.” I looked up at the ceiling and sighed a little. “All I can say is that I know Iwai-san’s been to the Grand Line before, and he wouldn’t put any false information in the hands of his subordinates.” I met Nami’s eyes and smiled. “That’s why you can be sure your ship’s going to be as ready as she can be.” 

Nami blinked, but then smiled herself and nodded. “Alright, I’ll take your word for it.”

As she went back to a book, though, she gave me a bit of a glare through her lashes. “If you’re wrong, you owe me big, I’ll have you know.”

I gulped. “Noted.”

Then I had a moment of realization that I totally hadn’t even glanced at the paper today, even though Iwai kept a whole stack of newspapers in the break room going back about a week. If I had been paying attention, maybe I would’ve remembered that the Strawhats got to Loguetown right after Luffy got his first bounty poster and I could’ve been prepared, sheesh…

I bit back another sigh and skimmed through the topmost paper, barely noticing the yawn I gave off. This was the Paradise edition, so Luffy’s poster wouldn’t have even been in here, but the thought still mattered…

Wait, what did that article say?

“Holy shit, I can’t believe it,” I couldn’t help but say aloud.

“Huh? What is it? Something bad?” 

For some reason Usopp being the first to respond surprised me. I shook my head and then came back to the table with the paper. “Just a nice example I can make.” I laid out the paper and pointed to the article I’d seen. “See here? The Grand Line has its own cultures and even its own nations that are part of the greater World Government. Alabasta’s one of the biggest in Paradise, but it’s been suffering from some bad times recently, and according to this, their crown princess has even been missing for two years as of today.”

“Seriously?” Cross burst out, and I once again envied his ability to blurt the least incriminating response seemingly without thinking.

“A missing princess…” Nami muttered, and her eyes seemed to glint a little bit. “The reward money for that’d be a big payday…”

“Right, because we’ll totally run into her,” Usopp scoffed, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, that’d be a pretty big long shot, huh?” I said, trying not to laugh or look at Cross in any way that might be suspicious.

Another yawn hit me, big enough that everyone wound up looking at me, and I realized that yes, actually, I was really fucking tired. 

“Sorry about the noise,” I said, stretching my arms over my head. “I have an early morning, technically, so I should probably show you guys where we’re sleeping.”

I ended up folding the newspaper up and putting it in an inner pocket of my vest. Hopefully Iwai-san wouldn’t miss it too much — I felt like I needed it more than he did.

I left the food container by the door — Sakura-san knew where to look, he’d fed us enough times — and led the way back to the reference room.

The safehouses were actually other offshoots behind bookshelves. I asked Iwai-san once how secure that was, and I think the classification for his argument was Refuge in Audacity; it was ridiculous and cliché enough that no one would expect it once, let alone three or four times.

Either way, if any of my new crewmates had any thoughts on the matter, they didn’t share, apart from a well-meant eyeroll or two. Oh, and staring from Luffy, of course.

This tunnel was much shorter, and it ended in stairs rather than a ladder. It kind of reminded me of a garage from back home in how it was connected, but that was probably me being weird. 

I wasn’t sure exactly how the exterior looked from the street; probably like one of those RPG houses you kind of glance over without noticing they don’t have doors because you’re too busy looking for the important stuff. The inside, though, was pretty simple; there was a small kitchen and a lounge, then three bedrooms on this floor, and there were four bedrooms upstairs, plus a few assorted bathrooms. Each room had two beds, so it was way more room than we probably needed, but not only was this the only safehouse I’d actually stayed in before, but I also knew for sure that at least a couple of people on this crew snored, and I was going to need time to adjust if I wanted to get any sleep on this journey at all.

Mostly, though, I was just a fickle creature of habit. Brains are weird, after all.

“There’s no direct exit to town,” I said as everyone looked around, “and only a couple of windows on the upper floor. Strictly speaking, no one besides Luffy and probably me and Cross are prohibited from going out into town as long as they’re careful, but…” I scratched my head a bit as I thought. “Well, I was going to be working anyway, and I’m not in charge or anything, so as long as you don’t blow my wonderful plan I’ll be good with whatever.”

I stretched again. “Well, see you guys in the morning, I’m gonna go conk out.”

Everyone else gave their own variations on “good night,” and I went up the stairs and all the way down the hall to the furthest room. I dropped my vest on the floor, remembered the newspaper and set it aside on the room’s table, and then flopped onto the bed, barely even registering the process of kicking off my shoes.

As I curled up into a comfortable position, I wondered absently if Sakura-san was going to bring over my clothes or if I’d have to ask someone to get them. Either way, I drifted off to sleep relatively easily.

I woke up four hours later with a full bladder, a crippling sense of uselessness, and insomnia.

Wonderful.

 Whoever had brought my clothes had gone through the trouble of leaving them by the foot of my bed in a duffle bag, ready to ship out whenever for tomorrow, which was nice, and nobody was next to me sleeping, which was even more nice, and made the prospect of getting back to sleep in a few hours actually somewhat feasible.

As soon as I opened the door, I did hear snoring coming from downstairs. My brain was loopy enough to thank soundproofing, even though I had no idea what these doors and walls were made of.

After I went to the bathroom, I went back into my room and tried to get comfortable again, even doing my usual stretches to try and relax, but even beyond my usual insomnia, something was just… eating at me.

It was like some supernatural conflagration of every doubt I had ever had crashing down on me all at once, combining into a torrent of terrible feelings that made no sense because yesterday had gone pretty damn fantastic, all things considered.

(Unless it didn’t, said my anxiety.)

(It probably shouldn’t have, said my anxiety.)

Fucking hell, this was bad. 

Welp, time to stay up until I couldn’t anymore and regret every life choice I’ve ever made in the morning. 

I reached for my vest and grabbed my phone, thankfully not integrated into any snail phones, and saw to furthering my reread of the source material. I was unfortunately not the most avid rememberer of details that I wasn’t interested in, and I actually was more familiar with Cross’s version of the story than the actual facts of the matter, not to mention the parts that I’d totally missed because I got fed up at one point only to come crawling back. The omnipotent fuckwad that sent me here had been gracious enough to let me read the manga fully and give me infinite magical internet and battery life, but time didn’t flow so I couldn’t contact anyone, and the manga was the only resource I had — no wikis, no analysis, just the source material and, for whatever reason, fanfiction. I had been pretty busy, too, so there weren't a lot of times I could pull out my inter-dimensional technology.

I was currently in the middle of the Foxy nonsense, and Cross is probably the only person who could make me like that stupid arc in any way whatsoever, so it really wasn’t helping my mood. I didn’t feel right skipping over it, either, but the possibility would weigh in my mind making me feel even worse.

So reading was probably out for now, but I still got up out of bed just for lack of anything else to do. I went downstairs and found the place empty, as expected; I was glad they weren’t suspicious enough to have anyone on watch, it would’ve sucked if they were still suspicious of me.

I wandered down the downstairs hall to see who had taken which room — the loudest snoring was coming from down here, and I wasn’t surprised to see that Luffy was the source. It looked like somehow everyone had ended up in their own room, which seemed slightly antithetical to the entire way the Strawhats worked, but it was early enough on that it wasn’t really that weird. Even with my family, it felt kind of weird for me to sleep in the same room as someone, plus if you usually have to sleep with a lot of people it’s probably sort of a relief to be able to sleep alone? Who knows.

Sanji was in the closest room to the kitchen area, obviously, and I was surprised he left his door open, though I wasn’t sure why. It probably made some kind of sense in that it let him know when people were starting to be awake so he could be up, but he would probably need to be up before anyone else anyway, so that didn’t quite add up…

Anyway, the last room on the floor rounded out the monster trio, which was amusing to me for some reason. It was also kind of weird to see Zoro sleeping in a bed instead of sitting against a wall, but that was probably due to the way the narrative was presented, rather than actually having anything to do with his real habits. That was the kind of thing I had to keep in mind…

What I usually did when I couldn’t sleep was dance around to music, but since I didn’t have headphones it was even more dangerous and loud than usual — I wasn’t good at moving quietly while dancing. My other go-to was snacking, and I knew we kept crackers somewhere in the pantry at least, so that was what I was going to go with.

I pulled the manga back up on my phone to at least make an attempt, and plopped down on the couch to munch. I ate when I was bored more than was probably strictly healthy, but I’d been training and exercising and whatnot while maintaining an actual good diet on the side, so I wasn’t going to get obese just because I ate some crackers.

I ended up failing to make traction with the manga and going over to read fanfiction. I probably could’ve been training or something instead, but honestly at this time of night anything other than sleeping was probably unhealthy. 

I always end up losing track of time when I read, even when the clock is right at the top of the screen, so I have no idea how long it took for my eyes to start getting really heavy again. I only even realized it was happening because Vinsmoke motherfucking Sanji came out of his room with no warning and scared me half to death.

I stuck my phone in my pocket as fast as humanly possible, and spun around to look over the back of the couch, my power pooling in my hands instinctually. When I saw it was Sanji, I just got confused and honesty a little more anxious; I had no idea how to handle him when fully awake, let alone in the middle of an insomnia episode.

“Ami-chan?” He said, mercifully without any swooning. “I wasn’t expecting to see you up at such an hour.”

“Insomnia’s a bitch,” I said, and I knew my tone was shitty and I knew I shouldn’t have let my tiredness come across so much, but it was too late now and I really didn’t care enough right now, especially for this doofus in particular. “I was about to try sleeping again.” Not technically a lie, since his presence had made me make that decision. “What about you?”

“Oh, well, I didn’t get the chance to grab my things last night, so I gave myself a bit of time this morning to grab them before preparing breakfast,” he said, pointing at the way back to the shipyard a little bit, and I had a vague realization that I may have made him sleep in a full suit last night.

Either that, or he was up and full dressed in a full suit at what couldn’t have been later than 4am, presumably as part of a habit, but that was way less likely.

Even if this doofus was a cute doofus sometimes, he wasn’t that cute.

“Did you have any preferences for breakfast, Ami-chan?”

His tone was just on the edge of insufferable, but he wasn’t noodle-ing, and instead of stupid heart eyes I think my exhausted brain actually supplied some of those flower-shaped cuteness sparkles, which was just unfair.

“Large quantities or proportions of pork or eggs aggravate my stomach, so I mostly stick to, like, toast for breakfast.” I sighed a bit, for a variety of reasons, and bit back the yawn it caused. “I’m admittedly not the easiest person to cook for, I’ve got problems with texture and strange things like that? So I’m probably going to make your life pretty difficult.” I scratched the back of my head, meaning to seem apologetic but probably just demonstrating my drowsiness. “Sorry… I’m gonna go try to sleep again. Thanks for not being weird this time.”

Shit, fuck, there went my lack of brain-to-mouth filter when I’m tired again. Sanji didn’t even get a chance to respond, because I was already ambling past him to the stairs. The only reason I was able to make it not bother me was because it was something I probably would’ve said anyway…

Well, at least I was tired enough for the worry not to matter.

I had to be awake again only a few hours later, and I definitely regretted my life choices the second I was jolted from my snooze button half-asleep mode into full awareness by the sheer force of a hungry rubber man’s screaming… wait, hadn’t I just praised the soundproofing like 5 hours ago? …Sheesh, like my ears weren’t already damaged enough from being a millennial listening to loud music.

I tried to take a few breaths to calm my hyperventilating and maybe wake up properly, but I almost flopped right back over to sleep out of frustration before I remembered I actually had a job to go to. I clawed and hauled myself out of bed and managed to let my head clear at least a little.

I had slept in my clothes, but breakfast smelled vaguely familiar and really delicious, so I almost wanted to just go down and change later… But I really didn’t know these people yet, it’d probably be weird. Changing didn’t take too long.

My style choices are pretty simple, so I really just changed colors; yellow shirt, blue vest. I kept the same jeans because obviously. I wondered vaguely if the excess blue had anything to do with my slight depressive episode last night, but color theory was subjective and nonsensical, so who knew. 

As I stepped out into the hall, I realized the smell I recognized was bacon, which made me sigh, probably a little over-dramatically. I really miss bacon, because the effect of pork on my stomach has only gotten worse with time, or maybe I’ve just gotten less able to ignore it? Either way, even a few slices of bacon is bad news for me at this point.

Presumably the bacon was for Luffy, carnivorous vacuum that he was, but I still felt kind of upset just because the topic had directly come up earlier.

Obviously Sanji would never directly contradict someone’s dietary needs that way, especially if they lacked a y chromosome and were somewhat traditionally attractive, but some part of my brain still fed the rest of it that I was going to be fending for myself in terms of breakfast, like I did back home.

All the more pleasantly surprising, then, when I exited the stairwell and entered the main area of downstairs to be greeted with the sight of rice balls and miso soup.

The weeb in me was suddenly and absolutely elated.

Everyone else was actually already awake and at the table, which told me a lot about my life choices. Nami and Cross both had omurice, and Usopp was consuming a fair amount of bacon considering that Luffy was also at the table. Zoro was munching on one of the rice balls and defending the rest from Luffy’s wandering hands, and Sanji was leaning against the counter next to the stove, drinking soup out of a bowl and keeping an eye on things.

That, of course, meant that he saw me pretty quickly, and announced my presence.

“Ami-chan!”

Thankfully, there wasn’t any swooning this time either. Maybe my efforts yesterday had sunk in somewhere? Or was it what I said a few hours ago?

Luffy yelled a greeting through the all the bacon in his chipmunk cheeks, and everyone else gave their own greetings too. Sanji handed me a bowl of soup and Zoro held out the plate of rice balls he’d been playing keep-away with. It was a bit of effort to balance the bowl in one hand without splashing everywhere, but I had enough practice from all the ramen I’d eaten back home to make it to the last free chair at the table.

Breakfast was pretty much exactly what you’d expect; I discovered that rice balls with filling were exactly as delicious as I’d hoped they would be, Luffy snagged one of my rice balls when I was talking to Nami about the reinforcements, and I copied a throwing knife to give him a warning shot. It wasn’t mutiny if it didn’t hit, right?

…Alright, it was pretty lucky that it didn’t. I hadn’t practiced small hand motions much so the knife moving how my brain suddenly wanted to make it was all luck, really.

Halfway through my bowl of soup, I remembered I was technically on a time crunch, and I nearly choked trying to finish as quickly as possible before remembering rice balls were portable and just running off with a few.

Having calluses on my hands was honestly pretty irritating at first, but I liked being able to climb ropes and handle unpolished wood without worrying too much, so I got used to it.

Honestly, my calluses were barely even noticeable compared to the other guys working here — that was mostly due to the fact that I’d only recently been able to consistently climb the ropes without getting paralyzed by the height. It was really just that I was better at finding something to focus on besides the possibility of falling, though,

The reinforcements were based mainly on the joints and keel, but we were also giving special attention to the steering system. We couldn’t rework it too much on such a short time budget, but we needed at least something stronger than a measly wood pole to control our rudder in what would inevitably be crazy seas.

I was not having our steering mangled before we even got to the start line, for Arceus’s sake.

Nami had come in pretty early on to get a rundown of the improvements, but when she realized she wasn’t going to have to haggle because of my involvement, she went straight back to the reference room, happier than I think I’d ever seen her. 

I really needed to make sure Iwai-san knew about the kleptomania.

Other than a few calculations that needed redoing, the changes went pretty smoothly. As expected, they took almost the entire day, with various members of the crew milling in and out. Sanji cooked up his elephant tuna for everyone, including a few of the other workers and Iwai-san, who avoided the topic of the seastone handcuffs just as much as he avoided every other detail about his backstory beyond “went to the Grand Line at one point and obviously knows what he’s doing.” Roger would be the safe connection, but he’d died more than 20 years ago now, and Iwai was barely pushing 35, so any connection there would be slim. It probably wasn’t really worth thinking about anyway, since he was literally just a character pulled from another franchise just so that I had some way to get onto the crew that made sense and would definitely not play a role in anything in the future.

… Yeah, like I was actually that dumb. The truth was that I could just call him if it became an issue and whatever importance it did have was at the very least unlikely to come soon.

As expected, the sun was just starting to set when Iwai-san declared the changes good to go. All that was left was to move anything from the safehouse back to the ship and hope to Arceus Smoker hadn’t decided to stake out the harbor.

Arceus fucking damn you, Murphy, must you attack me so violently so soon?

Well okay, it wasn’t a total Murphy middle finger, but it was arguably even worse.

Smoker wasn’t staking out the harbor, no.

Smoker came into the shipyard with a warrant for inspection.

And somehow, due to every single ounce of comically bullshit luck that I had in my otherwise completely ordinary body, me having wound up at this specific shipyard saved our asses again. Somehow, Iwai-san not only had a getaway route planned and set up already, and had every other employee in on it, he also managed to, according to Soundbite eavesdropping (sue us, we were curious) hold Smoker in a politely threatening conversation about customer and shipwright relationships and confidentiality, among similar topics, for the entire time we were in range.

The second Soundbite reported that he couldn’t hear them anymore, Cross and I burst out into relieved laughter.

“We did it!” I yelled, jumping for joy.

“PFHAHA! Man, I wish I could’ve seen ol’ Smokestack’s face!”

“WELL I SURE DON’T!” Nami screeched. “That was already far closer than I will ever be comfortable with!”

“If I never see that woman again for the rest of my life it’ll be too soon,” Zoro huffed, leaning against a railing, and I realized that I had totally missed my other favorite occupant of this world (not character, these are real people, Amanda) in the escape and he’d actually seen her.

“What did you even do to that poor woman?!” Oh, god. I guess that answered my question about Sanji improving — it was a fluke. “She barely even saw us and she glared at you the whole time!”

“For the record, SHE GRUMBLED ABOUT HIM THROUGH THE WHOOOLE CONVERSATION between Smoker and Iwai.”

I face-palmed. “You are not helping.”

The stupid invertebrate just grinned wider. “Do I ever?”

I sighed and walked across the ship I now got to call home, letting the sound of the wind and waves reclaim my senses from the fight behind me.

Despite the annoyance at Sanji’s antics, the excitement quickly washed back over me as I looked out in front of us.

Out at the black horizon that threatened to swallow the sun.

I’m here. I’m really really here.

The wind in my hair and the sway under my feet felt strangely refreshing, even though I’d never been on a wooden boat going this fast over the ocean before. The noise behind me had faded from annoying to charming somewhere during my short steps forward, and the way the mountain range was visibly getting closer…

Excitement is tension, too. I could feel my blood thrumming with it in every part of my body until I literally could not take it anymore.

I ran to the very front of the ship and yelled from my gut with as much force as I could manage.

After a solid ten seconds or so, I turned around to face my crew’s confused stares with the widest grin I could manage.

“Sorry!” I almost chirped. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this excited before, is all!”

“Oh, is that all?” Luffy laughed. “That’s normal, then.”

“Sheesh, don’t scare me like that!” Usopp huffed, resting his hand on his chest.

“Yeah, THAT’S MY JOB!”

“WHAT WAS THAT, YOU GLORIFIED APPETIZER?!”

This time, I laughed right along with my captain at the antics before turning to face our goal again.

The sun fell below the peak of the range, casting its great shadow over us. In response, the lighthouse started up with a flicker, and I shot my hand out to point.

“There!” I declared. “That’s the start line!”

I heard the sound of a door closing behind me and spun to see Sanji lugging a barrel out onto the deck. I made a squeally intake of breath and I knew my face probably looked stupid but holy fuck it was time and I was there, okay, you would be exactly that excited.

“Hope you don’t mind,” Sanji said, his determined grin suiting him much better than a stupid swoon, thank you very much, “but I prepared this for the occasion.”

Luffy and I whooped, so synchronized it would’ve worried me if I’d been in a mood to care.

Cross laughed at us, adding a “hell yeah!”, and Soundbite chimed in with a triumphant horn fanfare.

Zoro said nothing, just shifted his weight and grinned, and Nami and Usopp both nodded firmly, game faces firmly in place.

Sanji stood the barrel up in the middle of our impromptu circle and raised his leg to rest his heel on the edge.

“I’m going to the Grand Line! To find the All Blue!”

My heart was going to explode.

“I’m going to be King of the Pirates!”

Nothing else matters.

“I’m going to be the world’s greatest swordsman!”

I was here.

“I’m going to map the entire world!”

This was my crew.

“I… I’m going to be a-a BRAVE WARRIOR OF THE SEA!”

This was our journey.

Cross and I locked eyes, taking a glance at the barrel and back in almost perfect sync.

He gestured a bit. “Ladies first?”

I laughed and shook my head. “No, I insist, Sen~pai.”

I winked quickly, and he rolled his eyes. He started at barrel for a second as though organizing his thoughts, then grinned madly.

“I’m going to travel the seas! I’m going to see everything this fucked up, crazy beautiful world of ours has to offer!”

“HELL YEAH!!”

My grin got so wide it was a struggle to keep my eyes open.

No hesitation. No doubt. I barely even thought about how cool it was that I could stretch my leg this high.

“I’m going to stand side by side with the King — my King! And we’re…”

Seven people, one snail, and one tiny ship. That’s all anyone looking at this would see, if they were normal people.

“WE’RE GONNA TAKE THE WORLD!”

But standing there with my captain, my crew, all together as we raised our legs above our heads in unison…

“TO THE GRAND LINE!”

I knew this was the start of our legend.

Chapter Text

“Okay, so we all know the plan, right?”

Nami’s tone was expectant and full of authority, and we all would have nodded even if we didn’t remember the drawn-out explanation — Luffy had been stuffing his face the whole time during lunch today when we’d gone over it.

With the resources and time Nami had gotten from my connections to Iwai Shipyard, she’d put together how Reverse Mountain worked with exceeding efficiency, and I’d even managed to use my Copy Essence to help demonstrate the ideas about currents and flow so that most of the others had a vague understanding of the idea, too.

That meant that instead of leaving no one outside to watch the deck and the rest of the sea in the middle of a storm and meandering into the Calm Belt like idiots, we were all in position the whole time to direct Merry up the mountain.

“Item Copy: Searchlights!” I called out, holding out my hands. I stood on the raised back deck, leaning back against the mizzen mast, and called Copy Essence into my hands. Orbs formed and then gave off bright beams of light that I directed straight forward in front of us, towards our goal.

The stars and moon were bright enough that it wasn’t close to pitch black, and of course we had a lighthouse to light our way too, but getting a ship into a canal, especially with strong currents, required precision, and precision required maximum visibility. It was nice to have a pretty defined role, even if it was a bit more passive than I preferred, but I probably wouldn’t have too much opportunity to get bored during this event.

I mean, gaping up at the giant stone face we were sailing towards was pretty much all I was going to be doing anyway.

The canal was getting close enough to be visible at the edges of my provided lights, and the currents were starting to pick up. One wrong move and we were sunk, but even with the danger, it was hard to be anything but awed and excited at the prospect of sailing up a mountain.

… Okay, my gut was totally churning, but that was almost certainly more due to the anticipation of the fall I knew was coming. I hated falls.

… Okay, I was worried about the whale, too. My only ideas were risky, and while it’d probably work out if I didn’t interfere, I really didn’t relish the idea of being eaten, even only temporarily and in a very non-standard way.

… Alright, fine, I was having a full out mild anxiety attack, but I knew what I had to do, and my anxiety was usually easier to manage when I had something to focus my attention. Plus, this was an actually dangerous situation, with no room for apathy or inaction, and provided I actually gave a shit (which I very much did) I always seemed to do better in those. 

Most of all, I could be confident in the others to pick up my slack. I didn’t want to be a load or useless, but I could be confident in not being one, at least right now, so they had no reason not to cover for my blunders.

I could see Cross’s shoulders shaking slightly with the beginnings of his soon-to-be-trademarked laughter as he helped align the sail, Soundbite holding tight to his shoulder, and his anticipation somehow made me feel excited, too. Nami stood on the other side, eyes sweeping back and forth analytically, and I couldn’t help but feel secure in her expertise. 

“A little to starboard!” She yelled as the canal and its archways became fully illuminated. I felt the boat jerk a little as the current fought with our rudder, but I knew Iwai and his work and I knew the reinforcements would hold, and Zoro was manning the damn thing so there was no way it wasn’t going to move the way we wanted; like hell he’d let himself get beaten by some stupid ocean current.

Usopp looked exactly as terrified as I felt, and he had arguably more reasons to, so if he could hold everything together, what excuse did I have not to do my job? Lack of stamina?

Someone had to help Sanji deal with his special brand of Issues, and no one else seemed to care about them besides me.

And, of course, the rubber idiot wrapped around the masthead, grinning his head off at the prospect of anything new and different, always gave off that wonderfully strange sense that things were going to work out, no matter what.

I took a deep breath and focused the searchlights on our target.

We had this.

We were picking up speed, finally closed enough to see the foam on the rapids as they slammed against and up the damn mountain, and though it probably would’ve looked cooler in full daylight, the minimal lighting didn’t make it any less formidable or mind-blowingly huge.

“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio!” Cross’s voice carried over the waves, and I snorted.

“Is now the time for a literature lesson, Cross?” I shouted, grinning.

“Yeah, you can get philosophical after we ride the rapids up the mountain,” Nami yelled, far less pleased. “More to starboard!”

It was a close thing, I could feel it. I had no idea how larger ships had ever made it up this thing; maybe they could just ford the currents more easily?

Anyway, we came dangerously close to the arch on the side of the canal, but thanks to having an actually working steering system, we managed to squeak by without any rubber-based course corrections or near-drowning experiences, which was a huge relief.

The boat shook yet again as the current started pushing us up the canal, climbing at a speed that pushed me back against the mizzen mast as I tried to brace myself. Wind whipped at my hair and face, and though the back of my head filled with dread for the coming drop, I would never complain about a kick-ass ascent into the sky.

In front of my, Cross had long since burst out laughing lout enough to wake the dead, only enhancing that roller coaster feel.

“WE’RE IN!” He shouted, and I realized he and the others had mostly abandoned the rigging to hold on and enjoy the ride. Soundbite cackled right along with him and Luffy as they all hung just far enough over the edge to be worrisome, but I sighed to stem it as much as I could. I had to make sure we weren’t veering at all, and the only way I could do that was to keep our way lit.

As we hit the peak, I felt that weightless feeling, but somehow it felt less awful than usual, more like the top of an arc of a swing as opposed to falling to my death. Maybe it had something to do with the visibility or the atmosphere, but those were not important thoughts right now, so it didn’t matter.

I was tempted, oh so sorely tempted, to turn around, to shine my light over the other side of the mountain to see if I could spot where Raftel lay. I gathered as much of my restraint as possible to keep my brain and the light focused on the here and now, rather than the literally unseeable future, because we had way bigger problems ahead of us.

Our first (and arguably most literal) obstacle was going to appear in front of us any second now, and I was so tense trying to come up with some kind of idea of what power to copy that I could sustain long enough for us not to get eaten by a giant —

Shouldn’t we have been able to hear him by now?

My eyes felt like the refocused as that realization came to me, and I adjusted the lights a tiny amount back and forth, scanning as much as I could…

But no, there was no great shadow, no second peak waiting for us at the bottom of this drop.

Where the hell was Laboon?

Naturally, since the mind I had giving me ideas was my own mind, it immediately fed me the worst possible answer to that question:

I’d fucked up, the omnipotent fuckbag had been lying, and the timeline had gone to complete shit, and Laboon was dead and Vivi was out of our reach and therefore in danger and Drum and the giants and —

And then we hit the bottom of the canal, and Merry’s underside hit something in the water. We bounced slightly then skidded forward, a low grinding noise echoing over the rapids of Reverse Mountain as we slowed and stopped, Merry far higher in the water than she should’ve been.

“What the hell was that?” Cross and I said simultaneously. The light had faded from the Copy Essence in my hands, and it trembled a bit as we endured a prolonged moment of silence, but then…

“BAAAAAAAOOOOO!”

Yeah, you didn’t need to speak whale to understand that particular sentiment.

We suddenly sank into the water, bobbing from the shift in height, and then the colossal mass that was Laboon the Island Whale rose above the surface, fast enough that we were all genuinely paralyzed with fear at his sheer size.

But he wasn’t just rising, oh no, this was a giant predator that could eat a giant squid as an appetizer who had just been rudely awakened by a ship-sized noogie, and he was hell-bent on revenge.

As we all stared, bodies almost entirely shut down in terror, Cross, the absolute madman, had the fucking gall to laugh shakily and say:

“So this is what Jonah felt like!”

Now okay, on the one hand, that little comment managed to break the spell of fear at least a little, but on the other hand, what we decided to do with our last ten seconds of life was…

“SOUNDBITE!” I shrieked, barely audible on the scale of human hearing. “TELL IT WE’RE SORRY!”

“Wh- WHAT? WHY ME?!” Soundbite screeched back, ensuring lasting ear damage on everyone present.

“DO ANY OF US  LOOK LIKE A CUTE BLUE FISH WITH SHORT-TERM MEMORY LOSS?”

Cross snorted in spite of himself at my strange train of thought, but Nami and Usopp just let out tortured yells of “WHAT?!” and I had to blink and shake my head.

“DO ANY OF US LOOK LIKE WE SPEAK WHALE?!”

And then the shitty rubber ringleader of this ship-sized circus of stupid piped up, gracing us with the most fantastically stupid line of the evening.

“Oh, speak whale? I heard about that once!”

He proceeded to take a giant, dramatic gulp of air —

CHOMP.

“I DIDN’T SIGN UP TO BE PART OF THIS EPISODE OF THE MAGIC SCHOOL BUS, GOD DAMN IT!”

“PFFTHAHAHAHAHA! SPEAK FOR YOURSELF!”

Pitch-black water slides were very rarely a thing I enjoyed even back home, and knowing that the water was actually gastric juice and knowing that I’d be super screwed if I fell in made it even worse.

The jackass laughing his head off was really not helping, to be honest.

“WHY THE HELL ARE YOU LAUGHING?!” Nami yelled to prove my point, somewhere in front of where I clung to the mizzen mast.

“Huh?” Cross cut himself off, seeming genuinely confused, but before he could voice what could only be a revelation about his adrenaline fetish, the slide turned into a short full drop, into what could’ve only been the stomach.

We all took a little bit to collect ourselves, then I stood and prepared to make another light source, but I needn’t have bothered; the minute I started preparing the Essence, light flooded the space we were in, temporarily blinding me and presumably everyone else. 

“WHAT IN ALL THE SEAS IS THAT RACKET?!” We all jumped despite (or perhaps slightly because of) the inhibited vision at the unexpected and very grumpy voice. “WHAT KINDS OF IDIOTS CROSS REVERSE MOUNTAIN AT NIGHT?!”

My vision was still totally shot, but that didn’t inhibit my instinctual bristling at insults towards my competence at all.

“I’ll have you know we planned for this crossing very thoroughly and made sure we could see, so can it!”

“YOU THINK I GIVE EVEN ONE SOLITARY — ZZZ”

… Nope, I needed my eyes back now, there is no way I was letting that go without visual confirmation. I rubbed at my eyes and forced them open as much as I could handle, and yep, there was an old man in pajamas with a flower around his head, sleeping standing up.

“Well. Alright then,” I sighed. I could dwell on it, but I had no idea how to process it and getting out was more important, so I looked around instead. The painted sky really was surreal, though how much of that was because of the contrast with the pitch-black waterslide and the knowledge that we were definitely in a stomach was up for debate. It might’ve just been the fact that the clouds weren’t moving… but fuck, those were really not the thoughts I needed to be having, dammit!

Alright, the exit, I knew there was an exit around — oh, there, it was pretty easy to see, actually. Of course, considering Laboon had been underwater before, he was probably trying to get back to sleep, which would make us attempting to leave slightly less than a good idea.

Not that getting digested was any better, of course, and I wasn’t seeing any other options… Well, that’s what nakama were for.

“Anyone else’s eyes working?” I asked, hoping for a few affirmations so I could ask about options.

“Um… can we get back to you on that?”

I spun around to look fully at my crewmates, who were all staring around at the walls in shock and confusion (unless they were giving that look to the old man instead).

“We… we got eaten, right?” Nami asked shakily.

… Wow, okay, yeah, if I was shaken even though I knew what was coming, imagine being completely unprepared… okay, gotta reassure my crewmates somehow, since I’m not as freaked out…

… But I can’t give away the fact that I saw this coming.

Joy.

“This is definitely the most ornately decorated stomach I’ve ever seen, yeah.” Please let levity work. Please make it seem like I’m coping for shock with jokes. Please. “Not that I’ve ever been swallowed before, obviously, but none of the diagrams or health classes mentioned murals and old people.”

“WHO ARE YOU CALLIN’ OLD?!” We all jumped at least a few inches at the sudden revival of the old man. “I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW THAT — ZZZ”

…Ah, so this was to be the running gag.

“So, anyway,” I said, trying to redirect the conversation, “I think I see what would ostensibly be a way out, but the whale is probably back underwater, so I’m mostly out of ideas. Anyone else have any?”

“Are you seriously going to ignore the yelling old man?” Cross snarked, still squinting a bit but with an eyebrow raised anyway.

“I’m very good at ignoring people that interrupt me when I’m trying to make a point, actually,” I shrugged. “Besides, we can’t exactly apologize and make him stop yelling without waking him back up.”

“Is that a house?” Usopp asked, apparently not concerned with my question, which bugged me slightly. He was also rubbing his eyes a little more vigorously than necessary, so he probably was still in shock… Alright, I’d forgive him this once.

“Is that old man a flower?” Sanji said, pointing.

“Idiot,” Zoro scoffed. “Flowers don’t snore.”

“I mean, you do pretty well at it for being a ball of moss.”

Zoro, naturally, took offense to that admittedly clever roasting, but as amusing as their fights could be…

“Not the time, idiots!” Nami yelled, sparing me the trouble. “Ami, what did you say you saw?”

“It looks like a big metal door, basically,” I said, pointing. “It’s waaay over there.”

“On the sky?” Nami said, clearly still frazzled. Cross immediately took advantage of the opportunity.

“I mean, we’re in a stomach, it’s not the real sky,”

This brilliant little correction caused Nami’s expression to turn very close to violent, and I really didn’t want to deal with the consequences that would entail right this second, so I hastened to redirect the conversation.

“Do you think we could get it open? I mean there’s no guarantee it’d even be the way to go but it’s better than waiting to digest, so…”

“AND WHAT’S WRONG WITH WAITIN’?!” We all jumped again, some more violently than others, and okay, this was just getting old. “YOU KIDS THESE DAYS AND —”

“Alright, it was funny the first time or two but now it’s just agist,” Cross interrupted, holding up a hand to cut the old man off.

“WORK ON YOUR GAGS, BUSTER!” Soundbite supplied.

The old man blinked a few times, then yawned.

“You rudely awaken both me and my friend Laboon by causing him bodily harm due to incredibly poor decisions, not only making my life as his doctor more difficult, but also trespassing into my home, and have the nerve to believe I would care even the smallest amount about your taste in jokes?”

Not even Cross knew how to respond to that right away. He opened his mouth for a second, then closed it, thought for another few seconds, then cleared his throat.

“Dear sir, could you perhaps assist us in escaping this stomach so we could be on our way?”

He even gave a little bow, how cute.

“Wait, did he say home?” Usopp said, apparently not caring about Cross’s attempts at bargaining. 

“Is Laboon the whale, then?” Zoro said, seemingly fully recovered already judging from his casual lean against one of the railings.

“Guys,” I said, holding my head with one hand. “Is now really the time to be asking for exposition?”

The old man cleared his throat, and we all snapped our attention back to him. 

He looked us all over just long enough for me to get a little irritated and worried about dealing with the canon running gag before he sighed. 

“First, do no harm…” He muttered, and his weariness was palpable. “First of all, my name is Crocus. Secondly, yes, Laboon is the name of this whale. I’ve been looking after him for a variety of reasons, and you’ve just made my life as his doctor more difficult, so if you want me to help you get out of his stomach, you’re going to have to make my life a lot easier tomorrow. Understand?”

“You’re a doctor?” Oh, good, Luffy was at least paying some attention. “You should come with us, then!” Oh, okay, not that much attention.

“You idiot kid!” I feel like if he was any closer to us, he’d have punched Luffy. “I just said I have to take care of this whale, didn’t I?”

Luffy tilted his head. “He’s really huge, though, can’t he take care of himself?”

Crocus sighed. “To put a long story very short, no. He’s been hurting himself for a while now, and I’m the only one who can take care of him. Even if he could, I’m old, and I don’t want to be dragged around on your kiddy adventures.”

“Hurting himself?” Why was Sanji the one who — oh, wait. Yeah, okay, never mind.

“I guess you wouldn’t have seen the scars…” Crocus crossed his arms. “He charges into the Red Line every day, trying to break it, and obviously only ends up hurting himself.”

“Misery’s a hell of a drug,” I sighed. I’d never self-harmed, not really, but I knew or knew of plenty of people with similar issues to mine that did, and the weird feeling all of that gave me combined with the tension from the earlier wild rides was… less than pleasant, to say the least. 

“Now’s not the time for details, though,” Crocus said, thankfully bringing my back to reality. “Not if you want to get out of here before Laboon falls all the way back asleep again, anyway.”

“He’s already back underwater, right?” I said, my curiosity getting the better of me. “How do you go about getting him to surface?”

I was honestly thankful for the distraction from Laboon’s plight and also I was genuinely curious; I may not have signed up for a firsthand episode of the Magic School Bus, but symbiotic relationships were one of my favorite parts of science, and I may as well take advantage of the opportunity presented to me.

Crocus gave me a bit of a look, and I flinched back a bit, but he shook his head. “You’d have to see it, it’s a bit odd to explain.”

“May I?” Shit, I could feel my eyes shining. That level of excitement isn’t going to help right now, self, calm down…

“Are you a doctor, too, Ami?” Luffy asked, tilting his head. “You said you weren’t a musician…”

“Oh, no, I’m definitely not a doctor,” I laughed a little, waving my hands to accentuate the ridiculousness that idea instilled in me. “I thought about it when I was a kid, but I’m a little too squeamish and it’s all the wrong kinds of stressful. I love science and anatomy, though, at least in theory.” I laughed again, nervously this time. “Like I said, I’m a little squeamish sometimes, it depends on a lot of factors. But I love learning about how things work, so I really am interested in how this whole symbiosis works.”

I shifted my focus back to Crocus, only to find him just… staring.

Have I mentioned I really didn’t care for his original running gag?

“As long as you don’t make my job more difficult, sure,” he said, and I couldn’t help my sigh of relief.

Crocus jumped into the drink and started swimming for the giant doors, and we all scrambled a bit to get into position to row Merry over to them too.

Crocus had already gotten halfway up the ladder by the time we got over there, and I hurried after him. I sort of wondered in the back of my mind why no one else was interested… But none of them were really the anatomy type, were they? Whatever, then. 

“You kids better be ready when this opens,” Crocus shouted down as he went to open the human-sized side door.

“Oh, that shouldn’t be a problem,” I said as I got to the top of the ladder. “Soundbite!” I shouted down, “Keep an ear out, okay?”

“Snails don’t have EARS!” He responded, cheekily.

I stuck my tongue out at him, then turned to follow Crocus.

“Devil Fruit?” He asked as we entered the long series of tunnels.

“Yep!” I nodded. “He can project sounds and voices he’s heard anywhere within a range he can hear, which right now is about a mile. So they’ll totally know when to be ready, don’t worry.” I shifted my attention to the long tunnels, illuminated by dim florescent tubes. “Man, this is intricate. I’m surprised any animal can survive being this full of holes…” Ugh, fuck, don’t think about the phobia, don’t think about it. “How long did it take to make these?”

“… Well, I’ve had fifty years,” Crocus said, “And he wasn’t always this big, of course.”

“Fifty years?” I already knew the story, so there really wasn’t a reason to ask for clarification… I really didn’t want to cry tonight, but the rest of the crew was almost certainly listening, and they would want to know, at least. “I didn’t know whales lived that long.”

“You’d be surprised,” Crocus said, and he had a point; whales were never something I actively researched. “Laboon is special, though, in a lot of ways.”

“No kidding,” I said, looking around at the tunnel again. With as expansive as these systems had to be, how did Crocus know where he was going? I looked for some kind of differences, but all I could see where the occasional slight variation in coloring, probably due to different types of metal, or something. “I did a bit of research into the Grand Line, but I didn’t hear about anything like this.”

Was that line okay? God, prodding conversations was stressful. It’s not like I hadn’t done it SOME before, but my only experience with it was with my dad, so there was nothing but stress in that connection… ugh, anyway.

“Laboon’s not from the Grand Line, though he’s far from the strangest thing you’ll see on it,” Crocus ran his hand along the wall closest to him as he spoke — maybe he could tell where he was going based on the different material? “He’s an Island Whale from the West Blue.”

Crocus looked back at me and gave me a look that somehow assured me that he knew the others were listening just as much as I did. How did he even do that, was it just me being paranoid? God, my anxiety was going nuts…

“If you wanted the story, all you had to do was ask,” Crocus said, shifting his gait slightly. “As long as you don’t make our lives any more difficult, like I said.”

I gave a short laugh. “I’m that easy to read, huh?”

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing, so long as you keep a handle on it. Up here.”

He gestured to a ladder and began to climb up, and I followed. I was really bad at keeping track of distance or time without benchmarks, so I had no way of putting together which way we were going.

“Laboon was the pet of a group of pirates from the West Blue, and followed them over Reverse Mountain. The pirates knew the Grand Line was too dangerous for him, especially since he was a baby at the time, and they had originally intended for him to stay in the West Blue, but, well.”

“Never underestimate what bonds make people do, I guess,” I smiled sadly. “But… you said fifty years, right?”

“It’s probably what you think,” Crocus nodded, running his hands over the wall again and drumming his fingers lightly. “Laboon still thinks that his friends are coming back, even after all this time.”

“Poor thing…” I reached out to touch the walls too, lightly. “Even after 50 years… He has nothing else to hold on to, even though he probably knows…”

Shit, there were the tears. I sniffed, rubbing the edges of my eyes; now wasn’t the time.

“No matter what, nothing good could’ve happened,” I finished.

“They abandoned the Grand Line,” Crocus said, matter-of-factly. “I have it from a reliable source.”

“… So this sea is that brutal, huh…?”

“That’s right.”

I was silent for a little while after that, just watching Crocus tap the walls and occasionally shuffle his feet as we walked down a few halls and climbed another ladder. He might’ve thought I was shocked to silence, and that was part of it, but… Brook’s crew hadn’t abandoned the Grand Line, had they? They’d all gotten sick, right? Or the Florian Triangle got to them? Crap, okay, I didn’t remember the details, but that final performance scene would never leave my mind, and it totally implied something different! And where did Crocus get the information from, anyway?

I sighed as we reached the top of the ladder; those weren’t important questions.

I shifted my focus to the walls again, for lack anything better to do. How exactly was Crocus going to coax Laboon up, anyway?

… Wait, now that I looked at it… He was specifically tapping on places where the metal was a specific bluer shade of grey.

“Are the tunnels made out of more than one material?” I asked, unable to help myself.

“Good catch,” Crocus replied, tone a bit less serious, thank goodness. “Some of it’s steel, and some of it’s just iron.”

“How different are the densities of steel and iron?” Yeah, I could’ve waited and looked it up later, but it would’ve had to have been way later and I liked knowing things, sue me.

“Steel’s denser by a few percent,” Crocus answered, and I was glad the oppressive atmosphere from earlier seemed to be going away.

“So they would vibrate at different frequencies even at the same thickness, then?” I went on, and Crocus gave a short laugh.

“Smart kid.”

“I’ll actually be twenty-one in December,” I corrected, though I tried to keep my tone as pleasant and conversational as possible as I did so. “I don’t blame you for the confusion, though; I sometimes forget my own age, because time is weird.”

…Wait, this world did have the Gregorian calendar, right? I did remember seeing other people using it, right?

“We’re almost there,” Crocus said, thankfully not indicating that I had said something wrong, thank goodness. At the end of the tunnel we were currently walking down was actually a big door, with one of those big crank handles. As Crocus opened the door up, I cringed a bit at the sound of metal on metal before stumbling as the ground — wait, no, as Laboon shifted and moved.

“That is awesome,” I said as I regained my balance. “I kind of feel bad because I know how awful it is when you can’t get comfortable, but it’s actually a pretty non-intrusive system and it totally works!”

“He won’t stay surfaced for too long,” Crocus said, mostly ignoring me. “I’m going to open the doors remotely, so tell your friends to be ready.”

“You can do that?!” My eyes sparkled a bit before registering the other half of what he said. “Oh, right. Soundbite, you heard that, right?”

“OBVIOUSLY!” I heard from the center of the room.

“Rad! Is everyone ready, then?”

“Message recieved, don’t worry,” Cross replied, and I could almost picture him giving a mock salute.

“See you guys in a hot minute, then!” I said, almost laughing for some reason. It was a really weird time to be so excited, but I did always feel pretty excited when I managed to figure out a thing, so that was probably why.

“Useful little bugger you’ve got traveling with you,” Crocus raised an eyebrow at me, causing my excitement to pinch into guilt a little. He didn’t press the issue, though, instead moving over to the mechanism in the center of the room. It looked like another big crank, but it was on the side of a machine with some screens and dials and buttons on it. Crocus checked a few of the dials, pressed a button, and then turned the crank, causing pistons I hadn’t noticed to move and things to light up.

After a few cranks, he let go, but the machine continued to run — was the crank just a startup mechanism, or — focus, Amanda!

“Should close by itself in a few minutes,” Crocus nodded to himself. “There’s a hatch in the hall outside, but be quick.”

I went for the door, but turned and bowed before going through. “Thank you! See you tomorrow!” I jogged through the corridor, tapping a few of the panels that were the duller color I’d seen Crocus tap before along the way as I searched for the hatch. Time sensitivity thrummed in the back of my mind, but I was able to find it without passing over it because of brain weirdness, so that was good. 

I most certainly did not scramble up the ladder or with the hatch, but I most certainly did take a nice big gulp of the real night air as I climbed out and started to shut the hatch.

The only problem was that even in the low lighting, I could clearly make out the ship I needed to get on.

And it was way too far away for me to get to without water being involved, especially since Laboon was starting to sink back down again.

“Uh, guys?” I called out, tension morphing into full panic. “Guys! Little help!”

I thought I saw some silhouettes of people turn and flail around, but the important thing was the rubber arm that shot straight towards my face. I flinched out of the way a bit out of habit, but shook myself.

“This is gonna suck,” I muttered as I grabbed on — 

And then there was nothing but screaming.

Luckily Luffy was smart (caring? whatever adjective fit this situation) enough to put his rubber body between a speeding friend and a wooden ship, so it wasn’t as painful as it could’ve been.

The bad news was that that meant I ended up kind of splayed out on top of Luffy, and, well…

Okay for my reaction to make sense you have to understand that my asexuality actually makes me more self-conscious about whether something could be perceived as sexual because I want to avoid any and all such things.

So when that combines with the fact that I was in panic mode and also the sudden and violent trip, my immediate reaction was…

“OH MY GOD WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK” as I scrambled off of Luffy and over to a solid wall I could curl up next to for a few deep breaths.

By the time I’d calmed down and apologized (and flicked Sanji for attacking Luffy in my defense, because he had saved me, my god Sanji), the others had already parked Merry near the lighthouse on this side of Reversal Mountain.

And since it was late, I was coming off of an anxiety attack of sorts, and neither of those things helped with my filter or restraint…

“You know, I actually wonder, why is there a lighthouse here?”

“To light the way?” Usopp said in a tone that grated right on my ‘this person things you’re an idiot’ nerves. “I mean, that’s obvious, right?”

“Yeah, even I knew that,” Luffy chimed in.

I twitched.

“Alright then, smartasses, why the hell would this side of the Red Line need to be lit up?”

Both of them opened their mouths, but I wasn’t particularly in the mood to give them a chance.

“It can’t be to illuminate Reversal Mountain, it’s way too fucking huge and it’s a one-way canal anyway,” I pointed for emphasis. “And the Grand Line is one-way, too, thanks to the way the ocean and wind currents work. So unless you’re really desperate you’re not going to be coming here from the other direction, and you wouldn’t be able to do anything if you got here anyway!”

I crossed my arms. “So as I was saying, what actual reason is there for that lighthouse to exist?”

“Why does it matter?” Nami snapped, and my anxiety flared again. “Hurry up and help us set up for the night!”

“Yes ma’am!” I yelped, swearing mentally. I was going to have to be sure to stretch before trying to sleep tonight…

Actually, fuck. Where was I sleeping? I feel like I remembered there only being one bed in the room usually claimed as “Ladies’ Quarters,” and I could barely share beds with people I knew well…

… Maybe if I added a few jumping jacks or pushups to the stretches I’d be tired enough not to notice.

Morning came abruptly with the sound of… well, not a dying whale, but a crying one sounds just as bad, especially when you have a very loud snail privy to the emotions of those around him.

Said snail had only wailed along for a few seconds, though, presumably out of surprise, and had switched to muffled sobs by the time the crew convened on the deck, grumpy and thrown together. We couldn’t really help glaring at him, and whether that upset him any more was up in the air, but once we actually heard the full force of Laboon’s cries… Well, it was hard to stay mad at him, at least in my case.

Loud thuds echoed underneath the wails as Laboon slammed against the giant wall of rock over and over, and I could see as I looked around that no one else could keep their glares in place, either.

“I know Crocus said so, but… he really is hurting himself?”

For some reason, my brain decided to ask itself if Nami had ever hurt herself, given her past, but that was a super un-okay train of thought especially right this second.

Bad train of thought. Bad brain.

“Compared to this, I don’t see why the old man was so angry at us,” Sanji huffed. 

“And he won’t let us leave until we help him, right?” Usopp scratched his head before gesturing wildly at Laboon. “What are we supposed to do about something like that?”

“Well, there are a few ideas that might work,” I sighed, “but matters of emotions are never simple, even for animals that people might perceive as less than smart.”

“Hmm… yeah, this’ll work,” I heard behind me, and I whirled before all of the circuits in my brain connected to tell me why I was suddenly super worried.

Our dear idiot of a captain had his arms around Merry’s mast and was shifting his feet to make sure he achieved maximum leverage.

Fuck.

“With all due respect, what the actual fuck are you doing?” I said hastily, before he could apply any force.

“Oh, I’m just going to take Merry’s mast and stab Laboon in the head.”

There was a moment of silence (even Laboon seemed to stop for a bit) as I sighed and the others processed, and then…

“WHAT?!”

Thank you, Nami.

As our navigator went through the motions of throttling our captain to what effect it actually worked (and wow was that a weird thing to see in person), and Usopp stood behind her with an expression that rivaled hers, the rest of us all turned back to each other.

“Any other ideas?” Cross asked.

“It wasn’t that bad of a plan,” Zoro said, and everyone not currently occupied with pseudo-mutiny gave him Looks. He was quick to correct himself, though indignantly. “Besides breaking the ship, assholes! The idea of getting his attention is a good idea, shut up!”

“So, I’ll ask again: any better ideas?” Cross gestured a little.

“I mean, the world’s most vocal gastropod is sitting on your shoulder,” I pointed, and both Cross and Soundbite actually seemed surprised for some reason. “He works as an amplifier. What options do you think that gives us?”

Everyone looked at Cross, who looked at Soundbite, who was still pretty choked up, not that I blamed him.

“What exactly would we say?” Cross raised an eyebrow. “I’m not exactly a therapist.”

“As the world’s most aggravating GASTROPOD, I TAKE OFFENSE TO THE VERY IDEA!”

I snorted in spite of myself, but as funny as it was, we really did need a plan. I put my hand to my chin as I thought aloud on this dilemma.

“Well, in situations like this, the despair comes from the hyperfocus on the event… Laboon doesn’t have anything else to think about.” This was sort of talking out of my ass, because like hell I was a therapist either, but i’d had similar experiences and I like introspection and analysis, plus I had the canon events to work off of. “If we give him something else to latch onto, some other promise, and then we make sure to make good on it, that could work?”

“Well, duh,” Luffy said, sounding very strange through Nami’s throttlehold. Nami was mostly paying attention to us, but it was still questionable how Luffy was getting any oxygen. “We won’t die or leave the Grand Line before I become the Pirate King, so Laboon can wait for us without worrying. What did you guys think I was going to say to him?”

Nami shook him violently once as an answer, then spoke to me.

“Whatever you’re going to do, do it now. The poor thing’s started bleeding.”

I turned back towards Laboon to confirm, and yep, that was the sound of my heart breaking again.

“Shit, alright, let’s —” I cut myself off as motion caught my attention. “Uh, wait, do you guys see something over there next to him?”

Usopp stepped up next to me, pulling down his goggles. “Hey, yeah, it looks like a small boat or something.”

“What kind of idiot approaches a rampaging whale?” Nami said, moving closer to try to see. She smartly kept her grip on Luffy’s throat, bringing up multiple questions but at least keeping him away from his plan for a minute.

“Should we, like, help them then? Or something?” I ask, vague realizations starting to form about who was probably on that small boat.

And then the occupants shot highly visible and highly ineffectual bazookas at the thick hide of the thrashing whale, and my suspicions were confirmed. I reached into the pocket of the vest I’d thrown on…

Awesome, same vest as two days ago, excellent. Not exactly a good thing to do most of the time, but in this situation it was very nice.

“Think getting rid of them would make the old man let us go?” Zoro said, hand over his swords.

“Worth a shot,” Cross grinned. “Soundbite, hook us up.”

“AYE-AYE!” Soundbite focused for a second, then a slightly bratty look came over his face as a feminine voice said, “Drat, looks like it really won’t work after all.”

Soundbite’s expression didn’t change much, but the voice did. “Relax. Remember out intel? We just have to find that old man, or one of the ways in.”

Cross cleared his throat with purpose and conviction, and we all got a chuckle out of seeing the boat nearly capsize with its occupants’ shock.

“W-who’s there?!” The man nearly shrieked, and Cross’s grin only widened.

“And if you look to your left,” He said, in an masterful tour guide impression, “you’ll see a pirate ship full of people who owe that whale’s caretaker a favor and are all grumpy to boot! If you act any further on your current idiotic and violent path, those people are incredibly likely to fuck your shit up, so be very careful!”

There was a brief moment of quiet; even Laboon was calming down, meaning that Crocus had either gotten to the sedatives or he had heard the commotion.

Then the idiots in the boat shot grapples from their bazookas somehow, latched onto the top of Laboon somehow, and basically nyoomed up the side of a giant whale, somehow.

“Welp. Guess that answers that, then.” Cross sighed.

“Do we go after them?” I asked. “There’s a technique that I might be able to work with, but —”

I didn’t get the chance to finish the explanation, because I was suddenly pressed into the sides of my crewmates thanks to a rubber arm, another of which shot out and grabbed the lighthouse.

And then we were falling.

And then swinging.

And then we paused just long enough at a perfect angle towards Laboon for us to all have a realization —

And then we were all flying Rubberman Skylines.

Later on, I’d think back on this moment and appreciate Luffy’s skill and practice that allowed us to land properly on Laboon’s back, but at the moment I was too busy mentally blue-screening. 

And if I was surprised, you can only imagine the reactions of the two people currently climbing down Laboon’s back hatch; this is one of those times when ‘scared half to death’ is factually accurate, considering the fall they ended up taking. Admittedly, given the higher level of durability, it probably didn’t mean as much as it would back home…

Case in point, Luffy, after releasing the rest of us, just jumped straight down after them, although since he was a literally shock absorber, he was probably an outlier and shouldn’t be counted.

My brain wasn’t in perfect working order immediately, or I probably would’ve at least spared the others a glance, but I was conscious enough to realize that if my little idea was going to work, I’d need to get down that hatch as fast as possible.

I could only hope the trick I had up my sleeve worked.

The only real issue was where to start, what the first connection would be… I couldn’t remember, did they have the duck with them right now?

Oh, crap, Luffy was already intimidating them, quickly now.

“What are you doing to this whale?” Luffy demanded as I hopped off the ladder, the two would-be poachers nearly frozen by the sheer tone of his words.

“W-we’re just trying to feed our town!” The man spluttered. “Y-you can forgive a bit of whaling, right?”

I sighed to insert myself into the conversation. 

“Now, I’m not a health expert,” I said, noting that no, the duck was not there, “but you two don’t seem quite on death’s door just yet, certainly not bad enough shape to hunt down a rare displaced whale with a very determined caretaker.” As I spoke, I pulled out the newspaper anyway, hoping that maybe the resemblance was strong enough to make this work without supporting evidence.

Hm, she was wearing makeup that made her look a good bit older, wasn’t she? And, of course, the hairstyle was different, she wasn’t stupid… Still, it was somewhat similar, right? I might just be seeing what I wanted to see, but either way, it was too late now.

“Hey, Luffy, before you beat them up,” I said, and the intruders gulped. “Could you look at this for me?”

“Hm?” Okay, that was a little too close in my personal bubble, but I could deal. I turned the picture towards him. “Does that girl look like this picture? Or am I just going crazy?”

Luffy squinted and put a hand to his chin, and while I saw the two wannabe whalers try to slip away, our crewmates had started coming down the ladder, so no matter what there was no way they’d get anywhere. Without looking up from the picture, Luffy reached and grabbed the girl’s arm, then turned towards the ladder.

“Hey, does this lady look like this picture?”

I held the paper out to Nami, who turned out to be the first one down.

“What? Why — is that the article from the other day?” Her face was entirely disbelieving as she glanced at the article, then the girl, then back at the article briefly. “What would a princess be…”

She paused, squinting at the girl, then looked between them again, slower this time. She grabbed the paper out of my hand, her look of disbelief only intensifying. I let her have the paper and stepped back to wave at Zoro and Cross as they came down the ladder.

“What’s the holdup?” Cross asked, looking between the various parts of this situation.

Nami squinted, muttering to herself, and the girl — alright, we all know her name is Vivi, let’s just call her that — looked more concerned with every passing second of scrutiny.

“The makeup makes it a little hard to tell, but the resemblance is definitely there…”

“Resemblance?” Cross looked over Nami’s shoulder, then gave a little ‘oh’ of realization, looking between the picture and Vivi herself a few times. “How fascinating.”

“PRINCESSOFALABASTASAYWHAT?” Soundbite yowled.

“There’s too many people here, that gag won’t work,” I said, though I laughed a bit anyway.

“What’s going on?” Usopp said, finally climbing down the hatch.

“See?” I gestured with my thumb, giggling a little more. “Anyway, we’re trying to figure out if this particular poacher is actually a princess.”

“A PRINCESS?!” Oh god. I almost took solace in the fact that it had been a while, but no, that would be admitting defeat. I refused. “I KNEW THERE WAS A SPECIAL SHINE TO YOUR BEAUTY!”

I covered my face with my hands and sighed heavily. “We aren’t sure, first of all, and secondly you have looked at her for less than one full minute, so please calm the fuck down so we can actually make sure, alright? I’d really fucking appreciate it.”

“Ah…” Sanji froze awkwardly for a moment mid-twirl, but recovered (if that’s what you want to call it) fairly quickly into a ‘Not a problem, Ami-chan!’ and then managed to actually shut up and look at the photo along with everyone else.

Everyone’s faces ranged from thoughtful to disbelieving, aside from Luffy, who just looked impatient, and Vivi herself, obviously.

“So, do we have a verdict?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“It seems like there’s no way this would happen, but…” Usopp trailed off. “I really can’t deny the possibility.”

“I don’t buy it,” Zoro said simply. “Just because she looks kind of similar doesn’t mean anything.” 

“Yes, but if she is the princess, imagine the possibilities!” Nami said, Beri signs quickly forming in her eyes.

“Whoever she is, we can’t very well let her and her little cohort over there hurt Laboon,” Cross said, nodding to himself. “So, either way, we’re going to need them to come with us to go see old man Crocus, right?”

“How’sabout it, Captain?” I asked, bouncing forward a few steps to make eye contact.

He nodded. “Let’s go.”

The intruders attempted to go for their weapons and fight us off, but Usopp had already started inspecting one of them, so they were far outside of their reach. Usopp even had a bit of rope to tie their hands tucked away somewhere, which was rad. I decided to direct everyone to the big room with the crank from yesterday, since that was close enough I could actually remember how to get there; Soundbite was more than capable of calling Crocus up, so it wouldn’t be an issue.

I was walking next to Vivi to make sure that she wouldn’t run off, and Cross ended up next to us, too, giving me a knowing look that he then turned onto Vivi.

“Of course, if you are Nefertari Vivi, Crown Princess of Alabasta, that really does beg the question, doesn’t it?” he said, casual but quiet and with purpose. 

“What is a missing princess doing playing poacher, anyway?”

Chapter Text

“So, what should we discuss first?” Cross asked conversationally as he leaned against a wall, shit-eating grin in full effect. “While we’re waiting, I mean.”

We’d called Crocus already, so he’d be here in a few minutes. The only place I could even think of getting to was the control room from yesterday, so that’s where we were; not exactly a typical environment for an interrogation, but something told me this wouldn’t be the only time we’d be “making do” in a situation like this.

“We could start with info about where you come from, that’d be helpful,” I chimed in, trying to edge around in a way that would let us get to the heart of the issue. “If you were after Laboon specifically for his size there must be a decent number of people there, and they must all be just as okay with offing rare, displaced wildlife.”

… I probably could’ve worded that so much more efficiently. Why do those thoughts never occur until after I’ve said the thing that was poorly worded?

“If this girl’s the princess of Alabasta, who’s this idiot?” Nami said, nudging the guy briefly with her foot.

“What makes you think we’re gonna tell you pirates anything?” The guy shot back, understandably upset at being kicked at like a garbage bag.

“Yeah, and where the hell do you get off condescending at me?” Vivi spat. “You think I’d be working this job if I had a choice? ”

“Well, a lot of people do a lot of things for a lot of reasons,” I said, nodding thoughtfully. It was vague and asinine, but it was also true, especially in this case, even if I was also kind of aiming to annoy anyway.

“There are a lot of things that are cooler or more fun than being royalty,” Luffy said, rocking back and forth a little bit as he sat with his legs crossed. “I dunno if whaling is, though. I know I only like fishing sometimes, and whales are cool, especially this one.”

“We aren’t whalers , you dolt!” Vivi’s partner snapped.

“Mr. 9!” Vivi hissed. “Let them think we’re whalers if they want to, you idiot!”

“Too late!” Cross and I said at the same time.

We blinked at each other, then snorted, our crewmates either laughing a little or rolling their eyes.

“Mr. 9 is a pretty weird name,” Usopp said, rubbing his nose as he tried to restart the conversation.

“It’s pretty obviously a codename,” Sanji said, pointing at Usopp with his cigarette and raising an eyebrow. “Not that it tells us much , but at least that’s clear.”

… Holy shit, I think that was actually intelligent. It’s a miracle.

“Well, it tells us we aren’t going to be getting many straight answers,” I huffed, crossing my arms. “The only associations I have with code names are spies and secret agents, and there’s no way anyone like that would be open with information…”

“I feel like secret agents would be less…” Nami gestured at the two, presumably referring to the fact that the guy was dressed as a very dumb-looking prince and Vivi’s outfit was only slightly less garish and ridiculous. “... You know.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that we aren’t telling you anything!” Vivi shot back, turning up her nose a bit at the insult.

Cross sighed somewhat dramatically. “Well, I guess we’re not going to get anywhere on the princess front…”

He trailed off, waiting for Vivi’s expression to edge from anger to something more positive, then finished his train of thought:

“So, I guess we’ll just have to drag you to Alabasta and let them sort it out!” He grinned, and the color drained from Vivi’s face.

“Oh, can it, you,” Nami said, conking Cross over the head… hard enough that he fell over?

“What the shit?” I blurted, interrupting Nami before she could make some kind of snarky remark about us not being that kind of pirate or something. “Cross, are you okay?”

“What? I barely hit him, I’m sure he’s…” Nami turned back to see Cross struggling to sit back up, and she recoiled. “Holy -- what?!”

“What the heck was that?” Cross groaned, gingerly rubbing the point of impact.

“I just --” Nami looked at her hands. “ How? ”

“Ooooh,” I sucked in a breath. “Oh man yeah…” I walked over a few steps haltingly, not sure if I should actually get close. I reached my hand out, then faltered, bringing it in front of my face instead. “Okay, uh… you know how Cross and I both come from isolated areas away from the usual nonsense this world offers?”

Nami narrowed her eyes. “Yes…”

“Well…” I pushed my sidebang back a bit, hesitant. “Isolation tends to be… pretty bad at keeping creatures sturdy. I spent a month in normal conditions, so I’m in a bit better shape than I would be otherwise, but I dunno how Cross has been since he left…”

Actually, I knew perfectly well that he had spent his time between arrival and joining the crew living off of desert island plants, but I left that out for obvious reasons. I also left out the fact that a month ago I’d been the single most out of shape human I’d ever known, since I was at least alright by the point.

“I can work you through my workout routine if you want?” I shrugged at Cross, realizing as soon as I said it that even though I meant it as a helpful offer, it might’ve sounded condescending. Whoops. How can we… ah! “I think Sakura-san was also totally railing on my diet, but that was in shambles even for back home.”

“Your diet?” Sanji asked, making it two comments in a row that were actually helpful.

“Something about protein and vitamin counts? Isolation isn’t very good for nutrition either,” I laughed shortly.

Nami slowly sucked in a breath. “And you didn’t tell us about this weakness you two share because…? ”

My short laugh turned into full-on nervous chuckles as I scratched the back of my head and hesitated as much as I could get away with. “Well, uh… when it was relevant, we were kinda in a hurry, you know? And.. after that, I just… kinda forgot?” I shrugged.

Nami stared at me for a minute, then sighed walking over to me and giving me a lump to match Cross’s.

“ OW , Arceus!” I said, rubbing my head. “Was that necessary?!”

“Just checking,” Nami deadpanned, then turned back to our captives. “ Now then…”

The lump on my head distracted me from my crewmates’ continued attempts to wrangle information by reminding me that I hadn’t had a chance to do my routine yet today -- it was kind of a good thing, since otherwise I might’ve forgotten completely. I was planning to up the intensity today, so that would’ve been a bad thing.

Actually, speaking of which… I wasn’t particularly good at getting info out of people, so maybe…

“Hey, guys?” I piped up, interrupting Nami’s staredown with the captives. Before I continued, I looked around a bit, realizing that something was out of place. “Actually, wait, why isn’t Zoro intimidating them?”

“Because this idiot is standing here,” Zoro said, pointing at Sanji.

“Ah, okay, that’s understandable,” I nodded, ignoring Sanji’s reaction and turning back to Nami. “Anyway, I’m going to go out into the hall and do some of my workout routine so I don’t forget, is that okay?”

Everyone kind of looked at each other and then shrugged, which I decided to take as a yes. I turned an opened the door --

And in front of me was an otter in a spotted jumpsuit and a vulture with a winter hat, both of which wore sunglasses.

… BEEEEEEP.

TARGET: ACQUIRED.

“WHAT WAS THAT?” Soundbite questioned, voice purposefully placed to draw people’s attention to the door.

Presumably everyone followed this direction, because our captives let out a synchonized strangled gasp.

“F-Friday…!”

“Th-thirteen!”

In my actual field of focus, the vulture reached under a wing and then tossed a cloth-wrapped package at me. I caught it instinctively as they GTFO’d, leaving behind only a faint sizzling sound.

I turned a bit, looking back to the others, briefly registering the captives’ horror and my crew’s confusion.

“There’s no way this isn’t a bomb, is there?”

“Nope,” Cross shook his head.

I turned back to the package, blinked once…

And then I was but one of the many people screaming.

“GET IT AWAY!”

“HOW DID THEY EVEN --”

“DEAD! WE’RE DEAD!”

“FUCKFUCKFUCK FUCK WHERE’STHEEXITGOGO GO”

I blazed down the corridor, past Crocus, who’d I’d feel sorry for later, and managed to not go past the ladder to the hatch in my panic. I held the package by the string in my mouth so I could open the hatch faster and do the first thing that had popped into my head the minute I ran down the hall.

“ABILITY COPY: ZERO GRAVITY!”

The bomb shot into the sky, getting just high enough to explode without burning Laboon or my face. The Copy Essence I’d called to my fingers faded, as did the highlights it’d formed into my hair on its own as an additional focus. It was actually less than I would’ve expected for such a good power, although the wave of nausea reminded me that Uraraka Ochaco had side effects to her power already , so that was probably why.

I groaned as my stomach flipped, flopping over the edge of the hatch. At least I was tired and not feeling the remnants of anxiety.

“Sorry about that, buddy,” I called out to Laboon, rubbing the small amount of his hide I could actually reach. “Hopefully when we get back to see you again things will involve fewer near-death experiences for you… but I doubt it’ll be any more peaceful.”

… Wait, I’m not the one in charge, I shouldn’t be making promises.

I scooted down the ladder a little ways and yelled down the hall. “Captain! You said we’re coming back, right?”

“Duh!” Luffy yelled back.

“Okay, just making sure!”

“You’re aware Soundbite and I are here, right?” Cross’s voice snarked from my proximity.

“You know how habits are,” I shrugged, closing the hatch. “Oh, by the way, I want to apologize to Crocus-san for the commotion.”

There was a heavy sigh on the other side of the line.

“I have no idea what I expected from a kid wearing that hat.”

Oh yeah, Crocus knew Roger. I had forgotten about that.

“Make good on that promise, or so help me…”

“We’ve got a snail,” I said, like it was obvious, because it was. “Hell, we have more than one. We’ll keep in touch, and you can yell at us if we forget to call.”

“... Why didn’t I think of that?” Cross asked.

“That is the question, isn’t it?” I smirked.

Any further snark was cut off, however, by the world turning sideways, and I had to deathgrip the ladder as Laboon reared up and cried out.

“BWOOOOH! BWOOOH!”

“What the hell is it this time?!” Half the crew yelled with remarkable synchronicity.

“I assume Soundbite made sure Laboon heard!” I yelled back.

“YUP! These are HAPPY whale noises!”

“Shishishishi! Good! Take care of yourself while we’re gone, okay?”

“BWOOH!”

We gave Laboon a few more reassuring words and encouragements, and he calmed down, just before my grip started failing. I was probably going to be sore for a bit… and god I needed water. Trust Luffy to cushion me from deadly impact without even thinking one minute and then cutting me off from a precious lifeline in the form of my water bottle the next…

I opened the door to the control room back up and took stock of everyone, rubbing my throat absently.

Zoro seemed to have decided that being on the ground already meant he may as well nap, but everyone else was getting back to their feet…

Well, besides the two captives huddled in fear.

“We didn’t even get a chance …” Vivi muttered.

“I assume you knew those two, then?” I asked, feeling that there was some kind of opportunity here that I didn’t want to waste.

The captives started, like they’d forgotten we were there, then grimaced as they processed the question.

Unfortunately for them, they were just a bit too slow.

“So we all just got blown up entirely because of you two? Is that that the gist?” Nami said, tone murderous and eye twitching.

“Don’t forget LABOON!” Soundbite supplied, snickering.

“And since we got rid of it --” Yes, Usopp, you all did tons while I ran down the hall with live explosives, “-- we technically saved them!”

“Ah, so they owe us…” Nami’s eyes had shifted from twitching to glowing dangerously.

“So, about that information...” Cross leaned in, a grim sort of smile on his face.

The two captives’ eyes shifted around to all the various people staring them down, faces growing ever more horrified, until they finally looked at me.

“We will hurt you so much less if you spill your metaphorical guts, just letting you know,” I said matter-of-factly, hands on my hips.

“Fear not, princess!” Oh, god. “You’ll be safe as long as I’m around!”

“Anyway.”

There was a moment of staring, of silence, and the two exchanged a look. Then…

“Please forgive us!”

“We’ll tell you anything, just please let us go!”

Oh damn, prostrate and everything.

“I dunno, I think Nami was pretty attached to the reward money idea,” I said, faking thoughtfulness.

“Wait, you guys have a boat?” Luffy tilted his head, and the captives froze.

“The whale…” Mr. 9 said, horror visible even though he was still looking at the ground.

“Yeah, it’s probably flotsam at this point,” Cross sighed, shaking his head.

There was another moment of processing, then the two renewed their bowing with extra vigor.

“Please don’t hurt us!”

I sighed. “I told you, just tell us why you wanted to kill Laboon and whether the girl’s the princess and maybe the details about your hometown in case we decide to go there and we will have no reason to hurt you.”

“If you don’t, though, we’ll have no one else to redirect our captain’s rage at hurting his whale friend to,” Cross added. “And he’s, well…” he turned to Luffy, who helpfully punched his palm with a blank expression.

“Meep.”

“That’s what I thought,” Nami said. “Now, let’s start at the beginning…”  She pointed dramatically. “Names! Occupation! Home island! Now!”

“W-we’re bounty hunters!” Mr. 9 blurted. “I’m Mr. 9 and she’s Miss Wednesday!”

“We work for a super-secretive group called Baroque Works!” Vivi added, snappishly. “And if we say anything else, you’re in just as much trouble as we’d be!”

“I mean, it looks like they already want you dead,” I raised an eyebrow, looking down the hall briefly. “Not really too many other levels of ‘in trouble’, you may as well go all the way.”

“And risk being hunted down for real?!” Mr. 9 yelled like we were crazy. “That was a warning! ”

“When the Unluckies mean to hunt you down…” Vivi shuddered.

“Or they’ll go running straight to a higher-up! And then they’ll hunt you down!”

“Are you guys taking notes?” Cross joked.

“Wait, did you say they might go find higher-ups?” Usopp asked, his voice rising in pitch as he went. “As in, someone really scary could be on their way here right now?”

“Oh!” Luffy perked up, having mostly spaced out during this whole endeavor. “That could actually be fun! ”

“Didn’t you just ask the whale to take care of itself?” Sanji said, actually being helpful again despite the streak breaking earlier.

Luffy pouted.

“Hey, there’ll be people to beat up once we get the info out of these two, don’t worry,” Cross said, patting Luffy’s shoulder. “Better to go to the source, don’t you think?”

“Hell yeah!” Luffy punched the air, and I snorted.

“Someone’s eager, aren’t they?”

“Ami,” Luffy said, suddenly serious and also right next to me with a hand on my shoulder. My expression was exactly the one the situation called for. “I have had to sit still and stay in one place without going anywhere or doing anything for almost two days straight. We are going to go and beat up some bounty hunters for trying to hurt our friend, and nothing is stopping us.”

I nodded, expression still exactly what the situation would imply. “Gotcha.”

“Awesome! Let’s go!” He turned and punched the air to punctuate the statement, and I couldn’t help but laugh as everyone else sighed with varying levels of fondness.

“As long as you don’t end up being the ones to hurt Laboon in the end, I’ll thank you to take these ruffians wherever,” Crocus said, and I actually jolted a little, having forgotten briefly that he was there. “You said you did research, so I assume I don’t have to babysit you while you plot your course?”

“Well, first, I’ll need to know where it is we’re going, ” Nami said, giving a sidelong glare to the Baroque Works agents.

“Whiskey Peak!” Mr. 9 blurted. “The island is Whiskey Peak!”

“Great!” Nami smiled widely. “Then it’s Whiskey Peak, and then Alabasta!”

The agents groaned at the prospect.

After that, we realized that we’d gotten slingshotted from our own boat (Luffy just tilted his head at the glares we gave him), but with a bit of finagling, Laboon had come up close enough that Luffy could just carry us over a couple at a time, thanks to his shock absorption.

It gave me that appreciation for Luffy’s skill I mentioned earlier, but more than anything it reminded me of that technique I really needed to practice.

Not that I’d get a chance to any time soon, of course -- I’d barely had time to down some water for my forming headache when...

“Everyone to their places!” Nami barked. “According to my sources, we have no idea what bullshit this crazy excuse for an ocean is going to throw at us! I expect full cooperation, or else I’ll have your heads and your wallets for the rest of your meager existences! Am I clear?!”

She affixed certain specific people with certain specific Looks, and though Zoro scoffed, he was actually awake and ready, thank Arceus.

I was actually manning ropes this time, trying not to think too hard about the inevitable ropeburn or all the ways I could mess up and inadvertently cause the ship to sink.

Our… “guests” were helping out too, on pain of Nami Rage, and one of my tasks was also to keep an eye on the one closest to me, who happened to be Vivi.

Honestly this just added to the frustration, because there were things I wanted to say to her, but not only did I have no idea how to broach any of the possible topics, there was exactly no time.

Hopefully as long as I focused on -- oh, shit, here we go!

“ICEBERG DEAD AHEAD!”

Fuck, my arms were exposed, why was it so cold --

Oh, wait, now I’m burning, wonderful.

“OWOWOWOWOWOW--” I chanted, for lack of any other outlet of my tension, although I shut up once someone or something bopped me over the head, but good -- didn’t see or much care what.

“Pft- HAHAHA! THIS IS THE LIFE!”

“COULD YOU CAN THE ADRENALINE FETISH FOR TWO MINUTES?” I snapped, my feet slipping slightly from the sudden winds reminiscent of an angry Vivillon (to me, at least) that threatened to yank the rope straight out of my hands.

In retrospect, I really should’ve copied some kind of gripping power, but it didn’t even come close to crossing my thought-addled brain in the moment.

“I’m living my dream! Leave me alone!” Cross laughed, Soundbite echoing the sentiment.

“Focus on the here and now, jackasses!” Nami snapped, though it didn’t really have the desired effect.

“What did you think I was do -- ACK!”

Cross was having as much trouble with the wind as I was, which was both reassuring and terrifying.

“That’s it, I’m upping my workout routine and you’re going right along with me,” I grumbled, shifting my footing slightly.

“Whirlpool off the port bow!” Usopp shrieked, and we all refocused to avoid the giant pit of death to our left.

Somehow we went from avoiding a pit of death to sailing through the air, and I think we were upside-down at some point? I always hate the idea of rides that went upside-down, but I guess if I had to pick any time to have my first experience with them…

At some point I had started doing this thing where I go through the motions of screaming but no sound comes out besides the occasional whistle of air. I have no idea why I’d defaulted to silent screaming, maybe I was worried about my throat or my head or maybe I just didn’t want to disturb all the other people, who, you know, were already yelling. Either way, that was the only thing I was doing that gave me any outward flow for my overstimulation to help me focus.

Was Cross expositing? I think this was about where he waxed poetic about something or the other, which I’m sure was fun and great, but I was right on the verge of a Heroic BSOD, so I processed basically nothing besides screaming and the occasional internal randomness.

For example, how the hell was I going to survive this stupid adventure when my god damn anxiety --

Alright, that’s enough, focus, Amanda.

You can doubt yourself later.

Amazingly, whatever train of thought that was managed to let me stand my ground against the Grand Line’s insanity and survive that crazy ride, though the rampant overstimulation didn’t calm down enough for me to notice it was over until everyone else had long since collapsed.

I looked around, took a deep breath, and then bellowed out a huge yell, shaking my arms up and down and vibrating as many muscles as I could to force as much tension out of my body as possible.

“THANK FUCK!” I finished, flopping down with the rest.

There was a period of silence where my only thought was “ god I need water” before I realized that everyone was probably staring at me, and contrary to what snarky narration I might have otherwise included, I did, in fact, care that they were doing so.

“Sorry about that,” I offered, attempting to joke. “Anxiety and whatnot. Better I yell at the world than at my friends, right?”

“Don’t worry, Ami-chan, I wouldn’t mind if you yelled at me all the time~!”

… This was not the time.

I had just nearly died disposing of explosives and then been taken on an unwanted and uncertified roller coaster ride that could’ve killed me just as easily, I was thirsty, my head was starting to hurt, and you think I was even close to being in the mood for this?

Something in me snapped.

It started as a low groan into my hands, but unlike usual, it didn’t stop there.

I flailed a bit on the deck as the groan morphed into a yell.

“Will you get a fucking clue?!”

I shot to my feet and snapped around to glare viciously at the stupid, shitty, fuckboy of a cook.

“I’m sick of this. Fight me.”

This was a mistake. This was a colossal, huge mistake. But I wouldn’t really process that until way later.

“Eh?” Sanji and everyone else said in similar tones.

“I said I’m sick of your shit and I want you to fight me because you clearly aren’t smart enough to understand words, ” I clenched my fists. “Maybe if I hit you hard enough, some kind of sense might get knocked into place properly.”

Sanji didn’t get up, just looked at me with a very confused face, which I understand in hindsight but at the time just pissed me off even more.

“A-ami-chan,” he said, presumably trying to be diplomatic but only managing to set off my condescension alarms. “We can’t fight, I don’t want to hurt you.”

I snarled. “Well maybe you should’ve thought of that before being a colossal fucking jackass, then.”

“Wh-what are you talking about?”

This was just ridiculous. I know why Sanji is so genuinely confused about stuff like this, I know that he’s genuinely confused, and yet --

“I have complained about your behavior regarding my fucking biology on multiple occasions and have outright asked you to stop,” I spat, already starting to realize that I’d gone into the range of “losing it”, though there was no stopping me now. “You have proceeded to completely ignore this request and these complaints and continue treating me in you shitty, condescending, and pigheaded  manner, not giving an actual flying fuck about my actual feelings, so why the hell are you confused that I am trying to pick a fucking fight, and why the hell do you think appealing to my sense of safety would stop me at this point?!”

I was starting to not make sense and I was starting to realize I wasn’t making sense, and I was also starting to think about why no one had stepped in, but none of those had really processed, nor would they have time to on their own.

Luffy stepped in front of me, meeting my glare with his own.

People often talk about unstoppable forces and immovable objects, but the same logic applies to two unstoppable forces applied in opposite directions.

I recoiled slightly in shock, but his interruption aggravated my rage even more.

I snarled again. “What?! I’m yelling, so I’m in the wrong?”

The interruption had fueled pushback, but it had also derailed my thought train and let the other thoughts in my head push through the haze of anger.

No one said anything. Sanji got to his feet, but other than that, it was just me and Luffy glaring each other down, my fierce indignance warring with the side of my brain that was absolutely appalled that I’d said all this shit to my friend for god’s sake.

And with my captain refusing to let me run or hide from that side of myself, those feelings won out. That was a good thing, in the long run, but I didn’t feel like anything but crap .

I dropped my gaze, hanging my head and turning to the side.

“Fine. I’m gonna go lay down. Sorry.”

I trudged to the room I’d slept in last night, guzzled half my water bottle, went to the bathroom, and proceeded to spent the next half hour screaming and crying incoherently into a pillow (would have to make sure Nami knew not to use that one tonight). I felt like absolute garbage, and half an hour was barely long enough that I wasn’t right on the edge of tears just thinking about the whole mess.

Still, I couldn’t stay in there forever. I had a workout to do, and I’d have to see and talk to the others sometime. I gradually made my way back up to the deck, thankfully not seeing anyone on the way.

On the deck, though, there were exactly the people you’d expect; Zoro was doing his workout, our “guests” were sitting around, and Nami was keeping her eye on things, sipping a fancy drink and reading something.

Oh, and Luffy was sitting on Merry’s head, almost missed him.

I stood in the doorway for a second, scanning the floor, and then walked over to a place on the side of the ship far enough away from anyone besides the Baroque Works agents.

Slowly, I took a deep breath in, lungs still shaky from the tears, and stretched my arms up into the air.

I was gonna try for 60 of each today.

“What are you doing?” Mr. 9 said during my wall sit exercise, breaking my concentration very effectively.

I sighed and slid to the deck, rubbing my thighs. “It’s a leg training exercise, and it’s a lot harder than it looks.”

I needed to work up to more than a minute -- well, obviously, I was just going for as long as possible right now, and any improvement was good, but benchmarks are important, not that I had a way to measure it right now.

“If you want to chat, I don’t mind,” I said, getting back into position against the rail (not the best place, but emotional comfort outweighed physical comfort and safety right now). “Just wait until I’m done and then you can tell me all about your organization and where we’re going.”

Shit, my emotions were still super raw and the snark was in place as defense. I had known that, too, I really should’ve just stayed down below deck… Well, these guys weren’t our friends yet, so it… no, that didn’t help… oh, just focus on the workout, Amanda.

My legs strained as they continued to hold me in a sitting position with no support besides the ‘wall’ behind me. I really hoped I got to use my phone at some point soon, but thinking bitter thoughts at Cross’s lack of disclosure wasn’t going to help. That was a whole other kettle of fish.

My legs gave out and I sighed, shaking my head at my thoughts.

The plank exercise was next, and that was bound to raise more freaking questions, why in the world isn’t there a big enough space --

… I could’ve just gone to the storage hold, god damn it. Too late now!!

“Before you ask,” I said, moving my arms into place under my torso, “ this is a core muscle exercise, and is also harder than it probably looks.”

After a bit, I heard a door open and my stomach flipped, but I forced myself not to look. I didn’t need or want to know. I didn’t.

Of course, it turned out not to be necessary anyway.

“Nami-san~!”

Insert internal groaning slash running gag here. I flopped out of the pose onto the deck and drew my arms up around my face.

“I brought you the --” Sanji cut himself off with a strangled noise, and I very specifically did not move . I’d feel choked later, but right now, as said previously, emotional comfort won out.

“Ah… h-here, Nami-san!” Shit, fuck, I caused that awful terrible fake cheer, except he totally deserved the reprimands, except… uuuuugh.

Oh, fuck, is he walking towards me? He’s walking towards me.

“Ah, uh…” Well, at least he’s thinking, he’s better than I tend to be in situations like this… Come on, Amanda, he deserves eye contact, at least.

I pulled myself backwards and up into a sitting position, leaning back on the railing and making said eye contact.

Fuck, my emotional state was still very fragile, the tears were already forming. Why had I come out here again?

Sanji was clearly almost as frazzled as I was, and my face must’ve looked awful, because he got even more visibly uncomfortable when I looked at him.

“Hi,” I said, trying for levity and only managing a deadpan.

“Ah, hi?” he waved awkwardly, and fuck, I didn’t need to feel worse but there it was. “Um, do you, uh… want a drink… too?”

I glanced at my water bottle… it was almost empty. I was officially The Asshole if I did this wrong.

I nodded, failing for a smile.

“Yeah, that’d be nice, actually. Thanks.”

… Shit, the way his face lit up is illegal in multiple countries, it has to be. I needed sunglasses, my god.

“Would you prefer orange lemonade or just water? I can get you something fancier if you prefer!”

“Uh… lemonade is fine?” I sort of shrugged, not expecting the question.

Sanji nodded, smiling that bright actually-endearing smile. “Alright, I’ll be back in just a minute.”

He turned, but I interrupted, guilt finally pushing to the surface. “Ah, Sanji --” I stopped short, not sure exactly what to say, but…  “I… I’m…” I looked down again. “I’m sorry for yelling at you.”

There was a pause, but Sanji did respond, instead of just walking off like I expected.

“I, um. I’m sorry, too.”

My gaze rose back up, but Sanji had already gone back inside. My heart had that really uncomfortable mix of good and bad feelings and I knew everyone else had to be giving me Looks, but…

Somehow, it felt like there had been actual progress towards something.

Chapter Text

How the hell does someone make fruit juice and sugar water taste like the nectar of enlightenment? I couldn’t even tell what part of this made it taste so freaking good, what the actual fuck?

… Maybe I was just that thirsty after all the crying? Whatever.

60 pushups, two lemonades, and a set of cooldown stretches later, I finished my routine just in time for dinner.

Despite the fact that my earlier conversation with Sanji had been productive on the whole, I still felt more than a little awkward, so I wound up kind of standing in front of the door for bit, which naturally upset other people.

“Could you maybe move?” Vivi asked, irritation evident in every syllable. That certainly didn’t make me feel very good, but I was actually struck by sudden inspiration.

“Uh, sorry,” I said, trying to crunch the metaphorical numbers on the idea I’d just had while I opened the door.

Naturally what I saw on the other side was Luffy being himself, but since everyone was just getting in, there was actually a small opening where I could yoink a couple of plates and some food, so I did so, immediately spinning back around and giving them to our ‘guests’.

“Dining room is for crew members only,” I managed to quote without stumbling over it, proud of myself for making the idea work so far. “It’s crazy in there, anyway, I’m probably doing you a favor. In fact…”

And thus the true purpose behind my actions. I shoved the plates at the agents, then went right back into the room, weaving around the many limbs and scrounging up a plate for myself. Thanks to the chaos, I managed to avoid all eye contact and get back out of the dining room without any human interaction whatsoever! Huzzah!

And the best part was that I had a perfect excuse.

“Hey-o!” I said to our captives as I rejoined them on deck. “Wouldn’t be good if I let you jump ship before Alabasta, now would it?”

“How long are you going to keep this up?” Vivi spat, notably finishing her bite like the proper lady she actually was. “It’s not like the royal family would just reward pirates, even if I was the princess.”

“Sorry, hun, but you’re on a ship occupied almost entirely by hardheaded idiots,” I said, my manners distinctly less proper, because I was a pirate now and I didn’t have to chew with my mouth closed if I didn’t want to. “We’re going to Alabasta, and we’re beating up whoever wanted the whale dead and probably whoever they work for, all of that stuff. That’s kind of how this works, I think.”

I admittedly hadn’t been physically present for any of the other times my crew had done such things so far, but Vivi and Mr. 9 didn’t have to know that.

I couldn’t tell if my mood was improving or if I was the specific type of off-balance where I just needed to talk and talk because silence was bad, but talk I did.

“Whatever ends up happening, I don’t think you clamming up is really going to matter much long-term.” I gestured with my fork for emphasis, then took another bite. “Whether you tell us or we brute-force our way to the answers some other way, we’re going to get them, and you’re probably going to be in the same amount of trouble either way, so the only thing holding out accomplishes is short-term frustration.”

I paused for a few more bites, processing what I’d just said.

“... Sorry, that probably was way more convoluted than it needed to be. If it didn’t make any sense, that’s totally my bad,” I said, attempting levity despite the inevitable bad feelings. It was times like this that I usually tried to distract myself with Internet until the bad feelings had stopped being the only rut in my brain, but since that wasn’t an option, attempting to fix the situation was the only way to make myself feel any better, even if that meant there was a large chance of making it worse instead. “Talking details would have the benefit of shutting me up, if that makes you any more willing.”

“Hmph… In that case, maybe I’ll consider it,” Vivi huffed sarcastically, and I felt myself twinge. Stupid fragile feelings, I’d set that one up on purpose! C’mon, think… well, even if I didn’t get any information, as long as I kept them from actually jumping ship, Whiskey Peak had to happen at least a little differently. Anything was better than the mess the crew’d walked into originally, at least in my opinion.

It was a struggle, which meant I was that specific type of unbalanced, but I managed not to say anything to make the situation any worse than it already was, and we finished eating in that ever-awkward silence. When it came time to clean up, though, I realized I’d have to leave them unsupervised if I wanted to take the dishes back like a good person who cleans up after themselves. Not having any ideas, I sat and stared, the agents doing the same.

Just when we hit Peak Awkward, the door behind me opened, startling all three of us.

“Ami-chan? Miss Wednesday?”

Oh, fuck. Not who I would’ve wanted, but I guess Luffy might’ve been worse, in a certain way.

“Ah, there you are!” Sanji said, the genuine cheer in his voice alarmingly relieving. “I was worried when I didn’t see you.”

“We all ate, don’t worry,” I said, leaning back but not really making eye contact. “Just wanted to keep an eye on our ‘friends’ here.”

“Ah, what a wonderful plan! I expected nothing less from you, Ami-chan~!”

Oh, for the love of -- so much for relieving, my god.

“Sanji,” I said shortly, hoping that was enough to get his attention.

“Eh? Uh…” Fuck, was he seriously still confused? What -- “Oh! Uh, right. Okay.”

I sighed with relief, then turned to look at him properly, giving him a smile. I’d be a huge hypocrite to get pissy when he was actually making an attempt.

Oh hey, right, the dishes.

“Hey, uh,” I asked, adjusting my grip on the plate I was holding. “Do you mind taking the dishes back? Or I could take them, if you want, I just don’t want these to to jump ship or something before we get to Whiskey Peak.”

“No need to worry, Ami-chan!” ... Well, okay, that was the cute smile and not the noodle dance, so I guess he wasn’t going too far just yet, “I’ll take care of the dishes, you don’t have to trouble yourself.”

… Alright, I’m going to just think he was smart enough to realize I didn’t want to see anyone, rather than… his actual motivation, probably? I don’t know, it doesn’t matter. He took our dishes, and I was left with the agents again. Vivi was curled in on herself, probably reconsidering her life choices, and Mr. 9 just seemed confused.

“Alright,” I sighed. “If not your organization, how about yourselves?”

“Excuse me?” Vivi asked, looking at me disbelievingly.

“We’re going to be spending a decent amount of time together, so we may as well know a thing or two about each other,” I said. “I’ll go first, if you want. I’m Hijiri Ami, from really really far away, and I’m going to help my Captain become King of the Pirates.”

I crossed my legs and tilted my head. “Curious about anything?”

The agents just stared, and I sighed. “I mean, I could yell at you, but I already blew up once today,” I said, grimacing. “I’d really prefer for this to be an easier experience.”

Silence.

I looked between the two, raising an eyebrow. “Are you really going to get offed for telling me your real names?”

“Better safe than sorry,” Vivi muttered, eyes downcast. Was I having an effect? The food had helped my mood some, but the uncertainty in this situation really wasn’t helping.

“Ami, there you are!” A voice called from the door. I glanced back to see that it was Cross, of all people, and waved as he continued to talk. “Sanji mentioned you were up here, and I had a couple of…” he cast an appraising almost-grin over our captives, “...questions I wanted to ask, anyway, so I figured I’d keep you company up here.”

The sentiment was nice, but since he wasn’t the only one who came through the door, it was kind of inaccurate. I averted my eyes from the door the minute I caught sight of Luffy, unable to think of anything besides the confrontation from earlier; it was extremely noticeable, I was sure of it, but thankfully no one asked me about it. Instead, Cross put all of his focus on the Baroque Works agents.

“Now,” he began, sitting down next to me, “while there are a few big questions you seem pretty inclined not to answer, for… whatever reason --” his look indicated that he had a Pretty Good Idea of why they’d hesitate -- “I think the most important one, the question that ties most of this situation together, is the one I asked when we first met.”

… Was he seriously pushing for a full breakdown-confession now? This guy and his balls of steel… I might not survive the week if this kept happening.

“If you recall,” he continued, gesturing with his finger, “that question was ‘what would the princess of Alabasta be doing playing poacher’, and while I’d obviously have to amend that to ‘playing bounty hunter’, I don’t think that really changes the question. What do you think, Soundbite?”

“More suspicious? I’D SAY SO!”

“Not that I don’t appreciate mood-setting,” I cut in, already getting flashbacks to the Smoker Incident and really not wanting a repeat of that experience, and even if Vivi and Mr. 9 didn’t give off as many danger vibes, I was off-balance enough for it not to feel that different, “but I’m pretty sure torture’s frowned upon even in wartime, and getting to the point is generally useful in a situation like this.”

Cross gave me an absolutely affronted look, and I just raised an eyebrow. Senpai he might be, but c’mon, surely you can accomplish something without verbal barbs?

“Yes, well,” he glanced aside with a huff as he adjusted his jacket. “Couldn’t the same be said about interrupting a person while they’re speaking? So,” he turned back to the agents, “Let’s go over a few possible answers to that question from earlier, hm?”

Yeah, alright, fine, be that way, jackass, I guess I’ll just play along, or something.

“The obvious reasons for a princess to run away from home are terrible parents, disownment, or illegitimate love affairs, right?” I said, slumping to the side dispassionately.

Cross whipped back around at me and gave me another Look.

“What, did you miss the part where I’m not in the mood and don’t think this is a good idea?” I said, raising an eyebrow. “May as well get the dumb jokey options out of the way so we can get to that ever-elusive point.”

Cross grumbled mutinously under his breath, offhandedly unloading a finger pistol into his own skull before rounding on the Frontier Agents. “So, anyway, your country wants you back, and you’re out of this guy’s league, so two of those three options are out.”

“Excuse me?” Mr. 9 said, taken aback and offended at the same time.

“You’re also too old for her,” I said, still deadpan. I only knew that because of meta-knowledge -- I was terrible at telling age at anything -- but it was still a valid statement, so whatever.

“An-y-way,” Cross said, growing ever more forceful and shoving me for good measure. “Given that in this scenario, you wouldn’t need the money, the only other real reason would be something like… if you enjoyed the hunt, or something, wouldn’t you say?”

He gave me a pointed look instead of Vivi, which was probably fair in this situation but still made me roll my eyes. Vivi just gave a confused “what?” and let’s be real, sadism is kind of a jump in this situation.

“There are plenty of ways to hurt people when you’re rich or royalty, aren’t there?” I said, at first meaning just to be contrarian but then realizing that, actually, yeah, if you were a sadist, especially in this world, being a royal was bound to have far more outlets for those kinds of urges than running away would. How had I only had this realization now and not when I was actually reading Cross’s story proper? Maybe the situation was actually different and my brain was getting mixed up again, but that wasn’t really the point.

Cross seemed to think the same, since he finally snapped. “I am trying to successfully interrogate her, you nitpicky, ungrateful jackass!”

Welp. That was never going to cause anything other than a retaliation, no matter what mood I’d been in before this.

“Maybe you shouldn’t accuse people of being sadistic fuckwads just to elicit an emotional response!”

“This is an interrogation! Do you expect us to sit down and have tea or something?!”

Oh, for fuck’s sake, did he really think this shit was necessary for these people in particular in this moment in particular?

“There are other ways to get information besides brute force, you complete asshat! Would it it seriously kill you to try some other option first?!”

“And what would you suggest? Appealing to their better nature hasn’t gotten you anywhere!”

… O-kay. That’s how we’re playing it, huh?

Oh wait, no, he’s not done.

“It’s not like we have the time to make allies, form secret identities, or go on some kind of extended stealth reconnaissance mission to learn all the ins and outs and who their boss is! We have to make do with what what we have!”

“Do you seriously--” Suddenly, the anger keeping me going bubbled in a very strange way as I processed what he’d just said. “... Wait, what?”

“I said, we don’t have the time or resources for a long-term undercover espionage mission!”

I blinked, then looked at Vivi and Mr. 9. Mr. 9 was of course, just very confused, but Vivi looked positively shell-shocked, and I couldn’t even at that point.

I fell over on my side and literally couldn’t stop laughing.

“BAHAHAHAHAHA!” I grabbed my sides, tears starting to form. “Y-you! HEEheeheeheeHEEheeyou actually just sa-hehe-d thahahat!”

The sudden shift into comedy meant that I was physically incapable of stopping until it caused me to start running low on oxygen, but it was helpful in draining all of my tension; see, crying and laughing run on almost the exact same motions. It’s kind of beautiful, in a weird way… but let’s get back on topic.

“What’s up WITH THAT?”

“Are… are you okay?”

“Thi-hi-hink about what he-HEEheehee just sa-hehed!” I struggled to get out. “HEEheehe just HA-ppened tahahaha!”

I mean, okay, this was pretty unfair to laugh about, because this was the kind of thing exactly I and only I would notice ever, but why the hell had he said that exact thing in the first place? Comic timing?

“So, uh… moving on…” Cross said, and I could almost see the eyeroll, but no snark followed. I struggled to heave myself up so I could see if he’d finally realized what had just happened, and sure enough, Vivi was white as a sheet, Cross had one of those ‘wait shit’ looks, and I had every cause to grin like a madman.

“So judging by the looks on your faces,” I said, doing my best to reign in my giggling, “Someone may have just hit the nail right on the head by complete accident, yeah?”

“What… how…?” … Well, looks like we did end up breaking her… shit, that wasn’t my intention, alright, recovery maneuvers.

“I was honestly hoping I could get to that topic eventually,” I said, not talking entirely out of my ass. “Nothing else really makes sense, I mean, unless you really weren’t the princess, but you have to make a few assumptions in cases like this.” Save the Ace Attorney for later, Amanda. “If you left a country that loves you dearly and didn’t go into hiding but instead joined a large operation, that operation had to have offered you something, something besides wealth or power. Admittedly, anonymity seems to be a feature of this particular organization, which might suggest the whole ‘hate my parents’ angle, but the organization being tight-lipped would honestly mean that anyone who wanted information would probably need to infiltrate, so it was at least a pretty decent option to consider.”

I scratched the back of my head. “Again, this would’ve been totally moot if you’d actually been a real runaway or if you hadn’t been the princess, so I didn’t want to bring it up without preamble, but... while your acting is alright…” I glanced around the ship a bit, seeing Usopp struggling with a fishing line, Zoro snoring away, and Luffy twisting himself around Merry’s head for some reason, and that was barely half the crew, “It’s hard to really keep anything in place for long around here.” Did that comment make sense? Whatever, it got the point across.

And speaking of A Cross, there was suddenly a vicegrip on my arm, ow.

“You stole… you stole my shtick… my moment!”

“First of all, you technically still got the line that broke her, so your argument is slightly invalid on that front,” I replied, indignant, “And second of all, if I’m not here to stop my crewmates when I think they’re going too far, what I am I even good for?”

“Well, YOU MAKE A GREAT FLASHLIGHT!”

… Well, at least someone knew their place in the world.

I heaved a heavy, heavy sigh. “Thank you, Soundbite. Thank you so much.”

I shook my head and used Cross’s grip on my arm to force him into eye contact. “Listen, I expect you, all of you, to be just as quick to stop me when I go too far. I know I do, and I do it more often than I should…” I cast my eyes back down to the deck, thoughts of the earlier altercation coming back as they obviously would, and even linking back to all my old mistakes from back home… ugh, but that wasn’t helpful. I looked back up at Cross. “We’re here together, to make each other better. That’s what friends are for, right?”

Cross snorted a bit. “Those are the corniest song lyrics I’ve ever heard.”

“I do my best,” I snarked right back, and we both laughed a bit together.

“Wait, what?” Mr. 9 said, breaking us out of our little moment. “What just happened? Princess? Espionage? Infiltrate?”

If Vivi was attempting to pull together her Miss Wednesday persona, I couldn’t tell at all. All she did was look between me and Cross, a strange kind of determination in her eyes I couldn’t really understand. “So, what will you be doing with me now?”

“Neither of us make the final decisions,” Cross said, gesturing vaguely in Luffy’s direction, “but since we kind of assumed you were the princess anyway, the plan probably hasn’t changed. Now that everything’s in the open, though, we could honestly probably be of use to each other.”

“Not the way I’d have worded it,” Nami said, suddenly behind me and causing me to jump, “but if you’re actually working against Baroque Works, we almost definitely want similar things.”

“And I mean, seriously, do we really seem like the type of pirates who’d torture an innocent girl for trying to maintain her cover?” I said, cracking a smile. “I know it’s hard to believe in stuff like this sometimes, but you can trust us, both with the information and with your safety.”

“I…” Vivi struggled for words, her expression so pained I hurt… not that that was a surprise to anyone who knew me. “I’ve been at this for so long, and I’ve finally…” She clenched her fists. “I can’t just…” A shake of the head. “You have no idea what you’d be getting yourselves into.”

“We’re already into it, we said that already,” Luffy said, drawing our attention to him as he stretched in an over-complicated way to look Vivi in the eye. “I don’t really get why you’re hesitating. If Cross and Nami and the others say it’s important, then it’ll probably help us kick whoever’s ass as good as possible! So don’t worry about it.”

He punctuated his thoughts in his usual manner of punching his palm, then went back to tying himself in knots or looking out at the ocean in front of us or whatever he’d been doing.

“Welp, captain’s orders, then,” I smiled and crossed my legs again.

“Oh… You just don’t understand!” Vivi burst out, finally boiling over. “There’s no way you can stand up to Baroque Works! Not when it’s run by a Warlord of the Sea!”

… Well, if she wanted us to shut up, that was effective. 

Five separate breakdowns later…

As I sat up and took stock of everyone else’s breakdowns, I started to realize... you know, I knew what was coming. I knew Crocodile was no joke, even when underestimating his opponents as much as he ended up doing. Given my own set of mental health issues, this is really the thing I should’ve been freaking out about, not the fucking eye contact, right?

Maybe it was like back at Loguetown, where I just couldn’t process the idea of an ambush or someone who genuinely wanted to kill me because of all the Privilege I’d lived with for all my life? Except the thing was that I knew we weren’t actually going to die, and my weird empathy issues were always better at latching onto things that didn’t actually end in death, right?

But no, I was just thinking about having to camp in the desert and what a pain that was going to be, or how to train most effectively… Well, at least that urge made some kind of actual sense.

I was getting to be somewhat durable, at least, so the next things to do were things like acrobatics, and practical fighting instinct rather than pure ability and anger issues. That particular combination kind of made sparring a difficult thing to think about, though, because I didn’t want to go overboard and bludgeon Cross or Usopp or Nami to death, but the other half of the crew were the Monster Trio, the fact of which spoke for itself.

I huffed. There had to be something to work with, something I was missing…

Well, for now, Whiskey Peak was… not on the horizon? Wait, hadn’t they gotten there just after the dinnertime meeting in This Bites proper?

Was this another case of me fucking up timeframes and nothing else? Ugh, time shit makes my head spin…

Wait, if they couldn’t even make it to shore, why the hell had I been keeping them an eye on them all this time?!

Ugh, well, at least we’d gotten something out of it… May as well take the opportunity to work on the parts of my ideas I actually could work on. Basic jumps or landings, maybe? And I needed some aerobic exercise, too…

“Ami!”

I jumped. “Huh? What?” Fuck, they’d been trying to get my attention for the better part of multiple minutes, hadn’t they? At least they’d recovered, that was good.

“We’re coming up with the watch schedule for tonight,” Nami clarified, thankfully only directing a small amount of her understandable ire towards me. “We gave you a day or two without being on it, so you’re first tonight, got it?”

“Uh, yeah, for how long?” I managed to say, mind racing. I hadn’t even known about the watch last night, and I totally would’ve helped out if I’d known…

“It’s just two hours, relax,” Zoro said, and wow, when had he gotten up? Was I musing for that long? And was my greater confusion that evident on my face?

“Um, okay, who’s after me?” My anxiety was reacting just a bit, just because I’d been taken by surprise and that always happened, but I was planning on working on aerobic exercises anyway, and dancing to music was always best when no one else was around to give you weird looks, so basically my anxiety needed to can it.

“We’ll tell you when we figure it out,” Nami sighed, pointing backwards at the furious game of rock-paper-scissors currently going on between Usopp and Cross.

I snorted, thankful for a distraction from my brain nonsense. “Gotcha, no problem.”

“So, then. What about you two?” Nami said, addressing Vivi and Mr. 9, who were barely conscious due to shock at this point.

“Eh?” They said, neither of them moving.

“Well, now that our captain knows he’s a Warlord, there’s no way we’re not taking down your boss,” I said, swaying side to side a bit. “Well, since Vivi’s a mole, I guess he’s technically not her boss? But he’s definitely your boss, Mr. 9, so I think what Nami’s saying is that you kinda have to pick whether you want to stick to that or work with us instead. Right?” I looked to Nami for confirmation, and she kind of stared at me for a second -- shit, wait.

“Oh, uh, sorry,” I said, shrinking in on myself a little. “I um. I didn’t mean to be rude, I uh…” Fuck, how do you say ‘I kind of thought I could explain it better’ without sounding like a total jackass? You don’t, because I am the jackass, apparently.

“...It’s fine, I guess, you got most of the important parts,” Nami shrugged. “Just don’t make a habit out of it.”

… Fuck. I’ve kind of been doing it the whole time I was here, haven’t I? Ugh, I don’t need this right now…

“Like she said,” Nami continued, “as much as I hate it, it looks like Baroque Works is our target, so you’re going to get caught in the crossfire if you stick to your guns.”

“So are you with us or against us?” Shit, I did it again, right after we brought it up. I couldn’t help it, though! Mr. 9 wasn’t usually on my list of potential allies or additions, so even if it was only temporary, it would still be really neat. “Usually jerks say that kind of thing as a shitty fake ultimatum, but it’s actually relatively applicable here.”

Nami rightfully smacked my head, but I said what I wanted to, so it was worth it.

“You’d just --” Mr. 9 sat up quickly, but couldn’t seem to put his thoughts all the way together, just looking around at everyone. “W-why?”

“You’re kinda funny,” Luffy said, because of course that’s what he’d go for first. “I don’t mind if you stay, but you don’t have to either, I guess. We are gonna go beat up Baroque Works and Crocodile, though, so. You know.”

Wait, when had Crocodile’s name come up? Had I missed that too? Was it during the breakdowns? Why didn’t I remember?

“You’re serious…” Vivi said numbly, eyes unfocused. “You’re seriously going to take on Baroque Works…? Even…”

“Looks that way!” Cross interjected, surprisingly chipper -- I guess he won, then?

“My country is being destroyed from the inside out…” Vivi closed her eyes. “I was barely dreaming to hope, and you all, complete strangers, have just… decided to take them out…?”

The crew all kind of looked at each other, not really sure what we could say that we hadn’t already. How do you respond to someone saying something like that?

Arceus, now that I thought about it, Vivi was only 16, and she’d been undercover as a bounty hunter for multiple years. My stomach twisted at the thought. She was stronger than I’d probably ever be, in a lot of ways.

Speaking of which, she suddenly got to her feet, face full of that resolve. “I’ll do it! I’ll tell you everything I know, and I’ll help you as best I can.” She gave a bow, surprising us even further. “I’m in your debt.”

“Princess~!” Oh, for the love of -- “Your determination is so gorgeous!”

I grumbled, but since I’d already yelled at him once today and he wasn’t directing it at me, I wasn’t really in a position to say anything in this instance. Eventually, maybe… hm.

My thoughts were interrupted by Mr. 9 making a noise somewhere between a sigh and a hum. “You’re making me look bad, Miss Wednesday…” He crossed his arms, looking intensely thoughtful. “Ngh… well, I certainly don’t want to be on the receiving end of whatever strength gives you all the ability to simply state such a purpose…” He took a deep breath, then nodded. “Alright. My real name is Charles, though Charlie would suffice if you must. Before I completely agree, however, I have a request, if I may.”

While everyone expressed their confusion at about the same time, my captain and I were notable for being remarkably synchronized, headtilt and all.

“What kind of request?” Zoro said, raising an eyebrow.

“There’s someone else I’d like to spare the fate of meeting your crew in battle,” Mr. 9 -- sorry, Charlie -- elaborated. “When we reach Whiskey Peak, may I extend your offer to her?”

“Uh…” We all kind of looked at each other (besides Sanji, whose ‘girl’ radar had gone off, but that’s ignorable, or at least should be ignored). “How would that work?” I said, my brain kind of sticking as I tried to process the ramifications.

“Hold on…” Cross raised a finger as he drew all attention to himself. “Hold on, I think I have an idea… Is there any paper around?” He mostly looked at Nami when he asked that, which made sense. “I need to... Oh, but, uh,” He waved his hands in front of himself a little, “not that I don’t trust you guys to come up with ideas, I don’t want to intrude or whatever --”

“Cross,” Luffy said, both sounding and looking genuinely concerned, “I have no idea what plans even are.”

I snorted, unable to help a few giggles. “Someone else would’ve said something if they had an idea, dude. Be the tactician, if you want.”

I managed not to say ‘be the tactician, it is you’, thank god. That would’ve been the wrong time to try and explain those kinds of jokes… Wait, shit, I probably shouldn’t have been the one to tell him what his role should be, either. Curse you, impulsive nosiness!

“Tac… tician?” Cross put a hand to his chin and grinned a little. “... I feel like I could get used to that… Yeah, I like it! Alright, I’ll scribble down the basics and fine-tune it in the morning!” The grin grew to full size at he looked around at everyone. “I won’t let you down!”

A few other people stayed up for a little while; I asked if dancing (of course, I called it ‘aerobic exercise’ because the dancing was kind of embarrassing) would mess with anyone’s sleeping patterns, but Nami reminded me that the boys all sleep like the dead and the girls’ room wasn’t actually below the front part of the deck, so it’d probably be fine.

Once she and Vivi went down to go sleep, Luffy and I were the only ones left above deck. Naturally, the realization of this caused our earlier confrontation to be the only thing I could think about, causing me to freeze up. I hadn’t actually apologized to him yet, had I…? Shit…

Luffy made very specific and conscious eye contact as he got off his perch and walk towards me. He didn’t say anything, just… stared, for a bit. After that little bit of extended eye contact, he just smiled and patted my head; it was honestly a little awkward, since he was only a couple of inches taller than me, but it made me feel less like my stomach was tying itself in knots, so I guess it worked out.

He went off to bed, and I was left alone on deck with a bunch of things to think about and a few things to practice for the next two hours. However, for me to get the maximum amount of work done, something had to be done first.

“Cross, you still up?” I asked, knowing if he and Soundbite were awake, Soundbite could hear me. It took a bit, and I started to lean back against the main mast and sigh, but then, lo and behold --

“Huh? What’s up?”

“Oh!” I jumped in spite of myself. “Good, I almost worried. I was just wondering if I could borrow your headphones.” Hopefully that was vague enough… avoiding questions was a full-time job, wasn’t it?

“Why would -- oh, right. Yeah, alright, give me a minute and I’ll be up, I just finished the outline anyway.”

True to his word, he was nice and quick.

“They’re bluetooth, right?” I asked as soon as I heard the door.

“Hello to you too,” Cross said pointedly, raising an eyebrow.

I huffed and rolled my eyes. “Yes, hi. So, are they?”

“Yeah, they’re bluetooth ,” Cross said taking them from around his neck while I fiddled with my phone to get to the settings. “I can’t believe you get to keep yours…” he grumbled.

“I wouldn’t mind letting you borrow it, you know, once we can have it out with worrying about your pet snacking on it... or our ‘cover’ or whatever,” I said, not really intending it to be as passive aggressive as it wound up sounding.

Cross made a noise in the back of his throat. “And exactly what do you mean by that?”

I sighed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be a dick. Now’s not the time to talk about this.”

“Damn straight,” He muttered. “How do you even bring something like that up?”

Well, I didn’t have an answer to that. I mean, in his story proper, he’d only spilled his guts because he literally spilled his guts, and wow, that illness keeps getting more relevant on a meta level. The only other SI in the main section of my consciousness had a whole other set of circumstances, too, so that didn’t give me any ideas…

If Cross hadn’t been involved, I’d planned to tell them as soon as I’d helped them get away from Buggy’s weird ambush and gotten them to Iwai-san’s place, if that plan had even worked. Secrets gave me migraines, and miscommunication really grinded my gears, just due to my own anxiety, but outing Cross because of my own mental issues was probably a dick move… ah, focus, Amanda -- Settings, Bluetooth…

“...Why are there two options?” I said slowly, squinting a bit in disbelief.

The first option was the product name I’d expected to see, but the second…

“...SnailSpeak 162.314 50UNDB173?” Cross said, just as slowly as I’d spoken earlier.

Equally slowly, we turned to the sleepy gastropod on his shoulder.

“What?” Soundbite said, sleepiness almost overriding the accusatory eyebrows.

“Would that be overriding his autonomy as a living being…?” I wondered aloud, barely more than a whisper. “Do regular transponder snails have the same functionality…?”

“Probably best to keep it to emergencies,” Cross nodded, face blank. He was still holding out his headphones, so I went ahead and took them.

“Thanks, by the way,” I said, happy to pretend I never saw that.

“No problem,” Cross replied, nodding again and then turning to leave, apparently similarly okay with never mentioning it again.

I slipped the headphones on, adjusting the size a bit, then flicked to Youtube. What playlist to start with…

With only slight resistance from my anxiety, I managed to wake Usopp up for his shift two hours later with only around thirty seconds of mental prep and fall asleep in a timely manner, though not without having to strongarm my thoughts away from the proximity anxiety and other weird thoughts. At the very least, I was able to make myself think about future plans long enough for that to put me to sleep to avoid said thoughts.

Using my anxiety for good was a struggle, but sometimes it was worth it. Probably.

I was awoken, just as I had been the last two days, by loud fucking noises, this time, once again, being my captain’s gluttonous roars.

I shuddered to think that I’d probably eventually get used this.

Luckily, to make me feel immediately better, apparently we were having baked goods for breakfast, including an entire plate of cinnamon rolls meant for me and no one else -- what crewmates?

Alright, as funny as that train of thought might be, I knew rationally I could only eat two or three of the things at the size they were, but I was definitely not letting anyone touch those two or three. Mine.

I had come in before Cross, somehow, so when he actually did arrive, I handed him back his headphones immediately so I wouldn’t forget later. I knew my memory had a tendency to fail me, after all.

“So, how long until we reach Whiskey Peak?” Cross said, grabbing a croissant and glaring at the biscuits like he wanted to throw them into the ocean, not that I blamed him.

“We should be there at around noon,” Nami said, swatting away a stray rubber limb and managing somehow to look at three charts and spread cream cheese on a bagel and cross reference the Log with a protractor. Not that I didn’t respect the woman already, but damn that little demonstration earned my respect all over again, all on its own.

“So, um…” Vivi seemed hesitant, probably because she hadn’t been present for dinner last night and was therefore new to the chaos of mealtime aboard the Merry, but she pushed onwards. “Mister… Jeremiah, was it? You were the one with the plan, right?”

“First of all, it’s not ‘Mister Jeremiah’,” Cross gestured angrily with a croissant, which was probably funnier than he intended it to be. “Second, before I go over the details, I’ve actually got a couple of preliminary questions.”

He stuffed a corner of the croissant in his mouth and left us hanging while he chewed and swallowed. “First things first: how well can you and Princey swim?”

A few hours later, as I took some deep breaths to mentally prepare myself as we approached the harbor, I realized that it would’ve been totally in character for me to correct Cross on Charlie’s name there and I missed the opportunity. Not that those thoughts were useful when I was trying to mentally prepare myself, but still!

Anyway, as we pulled in, a Copy Staff was already in my hand; I’d picked a blunt weapon just because I sure as hell didn’t trust myself with a bladed weapon given my current level of actual battle experience and my usual resulting mental state. The Copy-Copy fruit gave me a pretty large edge, and if I had any actual edges and lost my self-control, that could be bad.

If Cross’s plan worked, we’d get to thankfully skip the entire honeypot part of the process, which was awesome. The downside was that we’d be dealing with a much more up-front sort of ambush, but those are much easier to prepare for.

Once the fighting broke out, we were to split up, knock out as many people as we needed to, loot everything not nailed down (and plenty of things that were) and then get back to the ship with Vivi, Charlie, and the confidants they’d gone ahead to warn in tow.

It was simple and solid, which of course meant my anxiety wasn’t going to let me forget about the Unluckies or the 5 pair, but as long as I focused, that would all hopefully be handleable. The real worry that I had to force myself to just not think about was…

“Pirates!” A surprisingly warm voice echoed out towards us, grabbing my attention and stopping my thought train. “Welcome to Whiskey Peak!”

Judging by the curls, our welcome party’s leader was Igaram, or that’s how he’d introduce himself to us eventually. He was smiling warmly, too, though the men behind him looked significantly less friendly.

“Yes, welcome…” Igaram continued, his smile turning cold. “And farewell.”

It was time.

It turned out I was right not to trust myself; just like all those weeks ago when I’d managed to help Iwai-san, I was running almost entirely on the ‘fight’ part of the fight-or-flight response. Presumably I’d be more effective as I accumulated experience in actual battles -- call it desensitization or whatever, but I was really counting on it -- but for now I just relied on the skill my ability gave me and the tension running nonstop through my blood, channeling every bit of force I had to make that tension go away… you can understand why I was worried.

It’s not like I didn’t see or fought blindly, necessarily; I hit noses and throats and solar plexi very consciously. If you had asked me any details about my opponents, though… nah, I’d have nothing for you.

The one thing I made sure to do was head in the opposite direction of the guy I knew we could trust who also happened to have multiple guns in his hair, because that was just a disaster waiting to happen. There was no way I’d be able to pay attention for the codeword we were supposed to be listening for if I got worked up on other guys around him first…

As for looting, I admittedly wasn’t that focused on it. I didn’t bring a sack or anything, just because I knew I was new enough to fighting that it’d probably get in the way more than not. I focused instead on knocking out dudes and pointing out where I’d been whenever I crossed paths with anyone else.

Speaking of that, I actually ran into Zoro way more often than I was comfortable with. I admittedly was kind of trying to wander aimlessly, but it didn’t make it any less worrying.

As I went around knocking heads and providing the occasional direction, I did swipe a shiny thing or two if it fit into my vest pockets; always good to have a personal fund, I guess? I kind of felt bad, but I was a pirate now, dammit, I was… ugh, I don’t like stealing when I don’t know the people to know for sure it’s worth it. I focused on telling myself that they were literally trying to kill us, and it kept me going well enough.

I felt significantly less bad about the water I… technically stole? I guess water was probably more of a scarcity in a world full of ocean without a ton of modern technology. Sue me, I got thirsty a lot.

Oh, hey, there was Cross, smacking a guy around with his bat -- wait, shit!

“Behind you!” I yelled, breaking from a jog into a sprint, and I vaguely heard Soundbite give a similar warning. Cross ducked, and the guy coming up behind him swung just right to hit the guy Cross had been facing. I took the chance to bludgeon the ambusher across the face, then over the temple, standing at a ready position even as he fell to the ground.

When I was sure he wasn’t going to get up for a while, I sighed and turned to Cross, who was still ducking and covering. “You okay?” I asked.

“Hehehehe… That was a classic,” He said shakily, his breath equally unsteady. “Ugh, I really shouldn’t be laughing in this case…”

“Eh,” I shrugged. “I’m having to rely on the cathartic feeling of hitting something as hard as I can, which is probably way worse than enjoying danger. Better than freezing up in any case, right?”

“Heh…” He straightened up, rubbing his arms a bit. “I guess so. Although…” He turned his head, giving the Shoulder Snail a very strong Look. “Soundbite, that was way too close for comfort. If Ami hadn’t been there, we might’ve been dead.”

Soundbite pouted. “But --”

“No buts!” Cross said, stern enough that my anxiety flared up a bit. “Soundbite, we need to be more than freeloaders. I clearly need to work out more, and youneed to practice more, too. In your case it’s more about how, but it’s still really important, okay?”

“Mn…” Soundbite’s face contorted as he processed the thought, and I couldn’t help it, I had to say something.

“I know it’s probably really overwhelming,” I said, surprising both human and snail. “Trust me, I know how it is when it seems like there’s nothing but noise and you have no idea what to do. Maybe it won’t work for you, but what I always make sure to do is to improve myself as much as possible, a little at a time, and remind myself sometimes that all I can do is my best. You know?”

I worried for a bit -- I knew I probably didn’t need to butt in, but the situation was too relatable and I was already so on edge… Ugh, anyway, I was worried, but my words seemed to resonate, Soundbite squinting as he continued to process. Then, he nodded, with impressive ferocity for a snail.

“Got it.”

I smiled widely, relieved. “Awesome! You guys want to go check out that house over there together?”

“Eh… sure,” Cross said, shrugging. “Just give me a minute, I wanna come up with a game plan with Soundbite really fast.”

“No prob, just don’t leave me alone in there too long!” I said, turning towards the house. “The two of us in particular would be better off together, after all.”

The house in question was notable for having a large, open trapdoor right near the entryway. Not only did I nearly miss it and fall in, it had a staircase instead of a ladder, so it just screamed ‘ambush’. The placement was really weird, but if it was usually covered and they needed hiding places for all those fake parties…

Anyway, I decided upstairs was somewhat less likely to feature someone sneaking up on me with a deadly weapon, so I walked slowly up… well, there was no one in the main hall, though there were a few rooms… shit, I was starting to freak out a little.

“Ami?” I jumped, though Cross’s voice provided a least a bit of a reprieve from the tension and silence. “You upstairs?”

I took a deep breath. “Yeah. Is there anyone else in here, Soundbite?”

“Mm… don’t think so!”

“Good enough, I guess…” I mused relaxing a little and starting to walk forward before remembering the giant pit I’d nearly fallen into a minute ago.

“Cross, I almost forgot, watch out for --”

Unfortunately, Cross’s distressed “GAK!” echoed up the stairs without any need for gastropodal amperage, so I turned and rushed back down to the entryway, as quickly as I could without causing my own stair-related accident.

“I tried to warn you,” I said, walking to the giant pit, and holding out a hand to help Cross up. Luckily he hadn’t fallen too far down the stairs…

Wait. Stairs?

I couldn’t help it, I burst into giggles. Cross grabbed my hand and I heaved him up, Soundbite being helpfully adhesive, but my laughter caused him to give me a Look.

“What’s funny?”

“Nothing,” I giggled. “I just guess you could say I ‘told you, dog’.”

Cross just stared, and with a start, I realized that I had just outed myself as Homestuck trash to someone with a large ego, strong opinions, and generally typical taste in media as far as I knew, and I had done it via the shittiest in-joke in the repertoire, what was actually wrong with --

“You dare to condescend to me, mustardblood?” Cross said, squinting. “I warn you, I might very well cull you where you stand.”

I blinked. There was silence.

Holyshithe’soneofUS

“Call me a mustardblood again and I’ll be forced to flip you turnways,” I said, my intensity growing with my smile as I spoke.

Cross’s smile grew to match mine, and thus began the time-honored Homestuck ritual of memeing ceaselessly and senselessly the minute you meet a fellow bag of trash.

“Zillyhoo!”

“Shaving Cream!”

“Echeladder!”

“Science Beam!”

“Good Dog!”

“Best Friend!”

“Knight of Doom!”

“Sylph of Hope!”

This all culminated in a series of high fives in various positions and, of all things, a god damn chest bump, after which I kind of had to curl in on myself a bit.

“Okay, that was a bit much,” I said, hugging my chest -- that very much fell under ‘weird bodily contact the anxious asexual would rather not deal with’, thanks.

“Man, I never woulda pegged you for one of us!” Cross said, laughing.

“Wh-speak for yourself!” I said, gesturing wildly. “You seem like the type of guy who would like your typical young adult nonsense, like mostly shonen anime and varying levels of philosophical nonsense! I’m just a former fujoshi, what the hell else would I be into…” I scratched the back of my head at that comment, never fond of reminiscing on those days of stupidity…

But of course, Cross wasn’t the type to ignore or move past such remarks, oh no.

“A former… what, now?” He said, haltingly, his posture shifting slightly to something defensive.

I huffed, glaring. “Yes, I said former fujoshi, and I didn’t undergo around four years of intense rehabilitation to be judged for my past mistakes.”

… The fact that I still shipped, just tried to be sane and good about it, was not going to be mentioned, or brought up, ever during this adventure at all. This was not the place, and friends don’t ship their friends. These were real people right now, for Arceus’s sake. I was not about to fall into that trap.

“... If you say so, then,” Cross eventually said, shrugging. “So, what do you think is actually down in this hole anyway?”

“No idea,” I replied, happy for the shift in topic. “I avoided it just because giant holes are generally good to avoid for a lot of reasons, like ambushes, and I definitely don’t remember it from the source material.”

“Wait, WAIT.” Soundbite interrupted. “What the hell WAS THAT STUFF EARLIER?”

“It’s something from back home,” Cross said, waving it off, but, as usual, I couldn’t help but comment.

“It’s called Homestuck!” I piped up. “That’s honestly weird, I would’ve expected you to notice it or reference it a time or two by now, really.”

“THAT STUFF’S ALL ONE THING!?”

“Yep!” I nodded. “I can understand the confusion, it’s a pretty weird series.”

“And that’s why we love it!” Cross grinned. “Now then, about this hole…”

Turned out to be a regular-ass boring wine cellar. The only thing weird about it was the fact that it was in the entryway. I was honestly kind of disappointed.

Oh well, at least there was no ambush, and plenty of booze to yoink. Booze felt a lot better to swipe than regular supplies, though I might’ve just finally gotten used to the feeling of stealing from these people. At the very least, this island was a base of a large organization and this world was basically two giant oceans teeming with things to kill and eat as long as you’ve got the gumption, so they’d all be fine, probably.

There was a problem with the fact that there was plenty of booze to yoink, however, and that problem was my and Cross’s wimpy stick arms. In our defense, it was, like, 7 barrels and a full dozen bottles, so I don’t think more than two people in the world could manage all of it at once, but it did still kind of feel like our stick arms were to blame.

Naturally, our response to something out of our weight class was to radio up, but Soundbite cut us off with some… sobering news, let’s say.

“Oh? Is this all?”

The voice was high-pitched and condescending, and worst of all, unfamiliar, which meant only bad things. Cross and I shared a look, then broke into a jog towards the center of the island.

“Soundbite, please tell me you did what were talking about and actually warned the others?” Cross said, tension evident in his voice.

“OF COURSE I -- TURN LEFT!” We did so, only losing our balance and speed a little. “Of course I did! WHY DO YOU THINK THEY’RE CONFUSED?”

“Which they?” I said, heart pounding for more reasons than exertion. “What do you mean?”

“I told the crew dangerous guys WERE HERE, SO THEY SHOULD SCATTER!” Soundbite clarified. “You guys were busy AND I DIDN’T HAVE ANY BETTER IDEAS!I guess it worked, though? THE JUMPY LADY just stopped jumping ENTIRELY, I THINK someone caught her or something.”

“On purpose, or with their spine?” I asked, my voice more shrill than it probably needed to be. An explosion cut Soundbite off before he could even try to answer, but it was close enough that it told us exactly where we needed to go.

We arrived at the scene to see a man flying through the air, the remnants of the explosion and a very angry Sanji where he flew from. Said guy hit a woman flying in the other direction, and the both of them collided spectacularly, the momentum apparently completely favoring the woman, since they kept going her way.

This compacted ball of human nearly hit Sanji on its way, which naturally caused a pretty adverse reaction -- I don’t think I’ve ever heard a human make a noise that terrifying. I think a part of him might’ve actually died, considering the colors he was turning…

“M-m--”

Oh no, sorry buddy, I know that was traumatizing, but not right now.

“Nice throw, whoever that was!” I yelled back in the direction the woman had flown from, jogging up to Sanji and placing myself firmly between him and the shallow crater that currently held the unconscious 5 pair. I mentally prepared myself to perform a Misty or even a Croagunk on Sanji if necessary, then surveyed the battlefield.

Over behind the crater, Nami was helping Vivi up, and both of them were scuffed and singed; that would explain what has caused the Galactic Punt, then. Glancing behind me, I saw Cross doing the same thing I was doing, and a woman even larger than I’d sort of expected from Miss Monday was walking up, carrying Usopp over a shoulder. Charlie was a few steps behind, and wow, I forgot he used baseball bats. Or are those just really large metal juggling pins? Eh, details.

“Man, the sun’s not even fully down yet,” Cross muttered. “The timeframes here are a mess.”

“However the ripples happen, I guess?” I muttered in response. I was glad the others were occupied more with examining the crater -- I was bound to say something that raised questions, I was terrible at stuff like this.

“Hey, wait,” I said, realizing something. “Where are Zoro and Luffy?” Their absence was pretty damn glaring, considering that even Zoro’s ridiculous inner compass didn’t usually keep him away from fights, and Luffy wouldn’t miss a good rumble for --

Well, okay, he’d probably be pretty conflicted if he was offered all the meat in the world. The idea of being Pirate King meant fighting a whole bunch, at least I think that’s part of how he saw it, so that trade wouldn’t even make sense to him, making it a bad comparison…

Ugh, anyway, the point was, the minute fighting was even slightly implied by the world at large, he should’ve been --

“... Soundbite, what’s so funny?” I said, casting a suspicious eye towards Cross’s shoulder and the snickering snail sitting there.

“Just wait,” he replied, like the jackass he was.

Of course, he wasn’t wrong when he implied it was worth waiting for, not that it made him any less of a jackass. In the crater, the two unconscious bodies moved, and not in the way that would suggest they were awake; instead, something under them pushed them up and off…

Oh my god.

My dear captain let out a cry as he freed himself, then looked around intensely, clearly ready to rumble, only to realize that both notable opponents were already KO’d, at least for now.

There was a brief moment of silence, and I swear I saw him visibly vibrating before rearing back and letting out the most frustrated “OH, COME ON!” I think I have ever heard.

Oh yeah, he’d mentioned being bored. That’s… probably less than good.

“Honestly, I’m kind of in Luffy’s corner here,” Cross said, crossing his arms and frowning. “I’m genuinely shocked they’re already out. What exactly happened here?”

“Miss Valentine’s Day’s ability is to change her mass at will,” Miss Monday said, suddenly at the side of mine Cross wasn’t on. That was, like, the fourth time I’d jumped out of my skin in what, 24 hours? Sheesh… Anyway, she continued, “It was difficult, but I managed to catch her when she attempted to crush me, and threw her back. The collision was probably rather awful.”

“Yeesh,” I grimaced, both at the thought of the impact and the fact that Miss Monday had honest-to-god thrown a woman who could make herself half a ton heavier. “I presume-slash-hope you’re on our side, then?”

“Yes,” she nodded. “I am Miss Monday, though I suppose you’d prefer my real name, which is Lulu. I appreciate that you gave Charlie the chance to find me; I suppose I’m in your debt, though the princess’s plight is also very moving. I would never have expected that my partner in Baroque Works was actually the attendant of royalty, but I’ve worked with him for years; it would be wrong of me for many reasons to stand against you.”

“W-well, I’m glad to hear you’re with us, then!” I said, a little too excited a little too suddenly; words, what were they? I kind of went for a bow, but at the same time, she offered her hand, which was a little awkward. Eventually we managed to shake, and her grip was surprisingly considerate to to fragile bones of normal people. “I’m Hijiri Ami, it’s really nice to meet you!”

“I’m Jeremiah Cross,” I heard from behind me, and I stepped to the side to let Lulu and Cross shake hands. “I’m the tactician, apparently.”

Huh, I guess he did get used to it.

“Everyone!” Luffy shouted as he climbed out of the crater, grabbing everyone’s attention. “I’ve decided that since the past few days have been really freaking boringfor me, and I hate being bored, we are not leaving this island without partying for at least five hours! And that’s an order!”

.. Wow, that was the most collective sigh I’ve ever experienced, too. Lot of firsts, today.

“Well, the Log apparently takes another hour or two to set anyway…” Nami muttered, holding her head.

“It’ll be a good time for introductions?” I offered, shrugging. It was a relatively pointless remark, but I felt the need to lighten the mood somehow, even if it wasn’t actually that dour.

“Wh-what about those two?” Usopp said. He was standing on his own two legs again, but they were shaking so much I was honestly astonished that it counted as standing at all.

“Is Valentine’s Day still at a heavier weight?” Vivi said, putting her hand near her mouth. “It would be pretty difficult to take them back to the ship if she is, and I don’t know what she defaults to when she’s unconscious…”

“Uh…” Something bugged me about that idea, what was it… oh, yeah. “Wouldn’t that be bad if they woke up and we were near the ship? We don’t have any real way of restraining them, either…”

“It doesn’t matter!” Luffy yelled, dangerously close to a legit whine. “If we have to do it right here or something, let’s just do it right here or something!”

“... I guess we did just find a whole bunch of grog…” Cross muttered.

I turned to Sanji, since he’d be a pretty important part of any party that was going to entertain Luffy for very long, and was relieved to see that he had mostly recovered and was currently taking a long drag on his cigarette. He let out a long sigh, then spoke. “I’m gonna need help setting up a fire pit, then, I guess.”

I was pretty awful at judging time in general, but Cross was right; the sun had barely set all the way by the time we’d finished setting up. It was probably a littleearly for a party, but I guess if you think of it as a pirate dinner party, it works?

I’d managed to get Sanji to let me help, mostly just by standing next to him asking repeatedly until he finally gave in and realized trying to keep me from ‘getting splinters in my delicate hands’ or something similarly asinine would just piss me off. I felt a little guilty that my anger issues were causing this change in behavior, but it was still a change that was relatively necessary, and now that we’d managed to clear out the island and adrenaline wasn’t the only ingredient in my blood anymore, the ideas I’d had earlier were starting to actually merge together into something somewhat tangible… I couldn’t really put it into place just yet, but at least I had something like a plan about all this.

Anyway, for my trouble, I got tasked with searching the rubble of the houses we’d destroyed for viable firewood and stone. … Yay.

I fully planned to forget any and all negative connotations by breaking the laws of my home country, because I was 21 in, like, months anyway and I was a pirate, and hey, that actually felt good to say to myself for once.

The problem with all that was that regular straight booze tastes like crap, and it smells like it, too. Sanji, curse his sheer duality and potential for actual cuteness, offered to make me something fruitier or something, but not only did I not want special treatment for the sake of his behavioral issues, I also would just feel bad making him run back to the ship for something so insignificant. I stuck with water, it worked out fine.

On the bright side, there’s nothing that quite matches the appeal of meat on a stick.

We all munched and drank and talked for a good portion of the few hours our captain had ordered. Zoro wandered in just in time to miss most of the setup work, and as I expected, he was exactly as pissed as Luffy that he’d missed the fight. He settled for the booze and beating up stragglers who tried to attack the party, but I don’t think losing to Miss -- sorry, Lulu -- at arm-wrestling multiple times helped his mood much, and neither did Sanji’s reaction to said losses, judging by the fight that broke out. That was mostly just business as usual, though, and since very little was at stake in this instance, I was able to laugh at it like I was supposed to.

Occasionally the 5 pair would start to move, and one of us would have to brain them to preempt it. Igaram had assured us there was in fact a doctor somewhere on the island, so hopefully the consequences weren’t too terrible? We didn’t really have a better solution, unfortunately.

As I chewed on my third stick of meat-on-a-stick, I watched Cross talk with Nami, Vivi, and Igaram, presumably about future plans from the snippets I overheard. I really hoped Igaram wasn’t going to pull his weird, awful decoy plan; it was pointless and I’d always kind of hated it. It’d be way more convenient and probably just as effective if we took him with us or something.

The Unluckies still hadn’t shown their faces, though they might’ve just surveyed the damage already and reported back without revealing themselves; they were crafty enough.

The real worry niggling at the back of my mind was… was...

...why was Cross suddenly looking around in a panic?

“Well, don’t you all seem to be having a good time.”

… Sssshhhit.

Speak of the devil, I suppose.

Chapter Text

So. This particular situation? One of the absolute worst for someone with my specific mental health problems. The danger hadn’t come out of nowhere, so I couldn’t rely on instinct, but it was sudden enough that I had no plan and was immediately put into a state of fear paralysis. I had a decent idea of what the danger was, but not in any way that was helpful, because all I knew was that I was very much in danger, lots of danger, everywhere. So, naturally, I was stuck still with fear, but my entire brain was also screaming at me to do something, fucking anything you colossal waste of space —

“Terribly sorry to interrupt; don’t worry, I won’t take long.”

I’d never heard the voice before, but that tone, the cadence, the subtle but never missing threat that hung between every word…

This was Nico Robin, professional of disappearances of all kinds, and expert wielder of a power that made many parts of her job significantly easier. 

And she was right behind me.

She put a hand on my shoulder lightly, and I only barely managed not to visibly flinch; my anxiety wasn’t helping, but something about the disembodied limb threatening to close around my throat was very persuasive in that regard.

“Oh, there’s no need for those expressions,” she continued. “I’m just… checking in. No need to stop the party.”

I struggled to keep my breathing something close to even, brain working entirely in blurs and curse words.

“Ah, forgive me,” the hand — on my shoulder, anyway — was removed, and Robin stepped forward into my vision, giving a bit of a bow. “I am Miss All-Sunday.”

Cross, as usual, was the first to regain the ability to speak.

Unfortunately, whatever came out of his mouth was almost completely incoherent and entirely unhelpful. Can’t win ‘em all, I suppose? I wasn’t particularly invested in any sort of one-upmanship at the moment, though, and he had managed to redirect her attention somewhat, so I felt capable of actually moving — that was good. It obviously wasn’t fun to see a friend get choked by something invisible, but I could actually do something about that, probably? Copy Essence was already pooling into my hands, what to… keep it simple, Amanda!

Claws, those were simple, and quick, and they sprang to my mind before anything else like a knife, whatever that says about me. I dug straight into the limb I felt threatening my safety; it felt wrong and awful, the way they sank in, but I was already scared and angry enough that the extra bad feelings just made me push harder — suddenly I couldn’t breathe and all I could think was rip, tear, do something!

Robin, with her remarkable restraint, managed to react with just a low grunt as I presumably tore chunks out of her flesh — fuck, and my shirt! Thank god for vests… As I clutched the front of mine closed, I spat out a quick “fuck off” in Robin’s general direction, turning to Cross to see if — oh, he’s got it, never mind.

Robin actually cried out as Cross managed to free himself, however he’d done it; I had more pressing concerns at the moment, god dammit. I spun to get Robin in my vision again.

“Cross, check your hood,” I said, a little louder and faster than necessary, but hopefully the comment was helpful anyway. There was no guarantee things were how I thought they were or how they’d been, but I was gonna work with the knowledge I had, thanks.

“Impressive…” Robin said, pain and effort evident in her tone, “… though unnecessary. I really didn’t come here to fight, you know, but with how rude you’ve all been…”

“Oh, trust me, if you want rude, just wait,” Cross seethed, carefully removing his jacket. I brandished my free hand, Copy Claws still fully formed, and my eyes flicked between Cross and Robin, in case one of them made some kind of sudden move.

“If you want to talk, talk fast,” I heard Zoro say, somewhere out of my line of vision, along with the sound of at least one sword being drawn. On the other side of the clearing, I heard Sanji make a sound that indicated exactly what kind of day he’d been having so far — poor guy — and there were some other sounds of footsteps and… well, I guess I’d describe it as the sound of angry rubber.

Robin was, unfortunately, not quite out of it enough that Luffy’s Flying Press attack hit her in the face or anything, but as she dodged, she stumbled, her hand twitching unnaturally… was she starting to bleed? What the —

“I’M BACK, BABY!”

Ah, well, that explained that, I guess.

“Nice job, bud,” Cross said, and I saw him replace both his jacket and his snail to their rightful positions in my peripheral vision. 

“Nice to see that your poor manners override any need for context,” Robin said, pulling herself back up to a full standing position. “I suppose I’ll just take my help and information elsewhere, then.”

Clearly, she was trying to keep the balance of power in this conversation on her side, but as you might guess, that was not the mood my anxiety was in at that point in time.

“Please and thank you!” I yelled, hearing Luffy yell something like “fuck you” from the direction he landed. “If you wanted to tell us something, maybe you should’ve said something about that, instead of standing around looking scary and choking people!”

Robin’s face turned completely cold. “Well, then. Rude to the end, I see. It’s a shame, you were… interesting while you lasted. Enjoy your fate, then; I’ll leave you to it.”

There was a tense moment of silence as she slowly stepped back, then there was a flurry of movement as she turned and burst into a full run down the nearest alleyway.

Out of everyone in that clearing, I really should not have been one of the people to run after her — my shirt was in tatters (though I remembered to zip up my vest, at least) and my stamina was mediocre at best even when my brain wasn’t wasting energy screaming — but that thought decided not to process at that moment.

Hell, I wasn’t really sure why anyone was running after her, besides something to do with the adrenaline. In the end, though, the why never mattered in situations like this.

“Ami, take the next right,” I heard Cross say after a minute. It took me greatly by surprise, but I managed to follow his directions despite that. Thankfully, I didn’t have to ask what the hell was going on, because Cross explained right away: “We’re going to try for a pincer to cut her off, so keep up the pace as much as you can.”

Despite the adrenaline and the knowledge that I should really try not to get distracted, I was now really curious about this. “How are you keeping track of our positions this well? Did you guys find a map when I wasn’t looking or something?”

“Something like that. You know how Igaram’s kind of the mayor?” I could hear a bit of the grin he had to be sporting. “We’d actually been looking over it for hiding places or things we hadn’t swiped, but this works too, right?”

I couldn’t help myself, I laughed a bit. “I didn’t realize I’d been brought to Fire Emblem, but I think I love it. Direct away, boss man!”

“HEY!” Soundbite interjected. “I’m the one — LEFT! — I’m the one doing ALL THE WORK!”

I turned where he said, and giggled in spite of myself again. “Don’t ever think I don’t appreciate it, Sir Slimestain~!”

After that little interlude, though, the levity drained from my face as my mind raced along with my legs. This felt wrong, out of place in a way I couldn’t quite articulate, even mentally. Something about a chase scene and Nico Robin… why hadn’t she waited? We’d been partying in the middle of town, sure, but not for that long, and she’d waited in every other instance I could think of! Why was my presence affecting such random things?!

The real question was whether it mattered, and that was something I could ponder at a later point in time. I shook my head and kept running.

“Why the hell am I the pincer?!” I panted as I started to tire out. “I’m not even fast!”

“You’re not slow, either, and no one else who was chasing her knows what left and right even are.” Cross answered, and I sighed as much as someone who was running could. “If it makes you feel better, we’ve been distracting and redirecting her so you don’t fall behind.” I didn’t process the awesomeness that statement implied until later, but it deserves mention. “Look alive; you’re almost there.”

“Right, because I can totally stop her in this state,” I wheezed irritably, turning the next corner — wait, when had we gotten near the docks? Was that how big that turtle was?!

And, well, there was Robin, and I was right in her path, which was presumably the plan, but what the hell was I going to do about it?! Should I just try to grab her? I probably wasn’t strong enough to —

I was cut off from attempting to have ideas as Robin saw me and, apparently not in the mood for anything of this variety, she simply summoned hands to grip my ankles and mess up my balance. I hadn’t gotten around to practicing landings (not that I would’ve been able to roll with arms on my ankles, anyway, but still), so I landed flat on my face, and she ran right past me.

It hurt, and fuck, I think she still had my legs, like she wasn’t content with just making me fall, but like fuck I was going to let Luffy — wait, just Luffy? Alright, perfect.

“Ability Copy: Lightning!” I grumbled, Essence wrapping around my hands (those paying attention may have also noticed a hood and a pair of antennae form on their own, to which I’d say, sue me, I like her and she doesn’t have inherent drawbacks), and I grinned as energy rippled through me and out in as wide a radius as I could make it go but especially straight into the things around my ankles — I kicked at them a bit for good measure, too, because guess what, Robin? I wasn’t in the mood either.

I heard Robin cry out again, and I was released, but as I moved to get back up, all I saw was the hind end of a turtle making a hasty retreat, and Luffy barely restraining himself from jumping out after it; the thing was a lot faster than it looked, and I couldn’t fish him out if he fell into the water, so his restraint was appreciated.

After watching the turtle book it for a bit, I flopped back onto the ground and sighed, rubbing my nose gingerly.

That had gone just great.

 Nobody talked much after we all got back to the center of town. There was still food around, and I have no restraint, so I ended up munching, but that was mostly just for mental coping purposes; I kind of felt like crap.

It was probably pretty silly of me, considering there wasn’t really that much I could’ve done in that situation, logically, but in some ways, that kind of made it worse… I should’ve been faster, held out longer, responded better…

“The log is set,” Nami said, breaking the silence. “We should probably get out of here.”

I stood up and looked around, realizing something. “Isn’t it going to be kind of a tight fit, with everyone?” Presumably we were taking Igaram, too, and the space thing had already been noticeable with just Vivi and Charlie. Not to mention the duck who would’ve been exceedingly helpful a few minutes ago if he’d been around — where had he even been? Whatever, he was here now… “I don’t mind sleeping, like, on the deck, or in the hold, or something, if you have to move someone… as long as I had pillows and stuff, I’d be fine.”

“Wh—Ami-chan?!” was a very generous approximation of the the noises Sanji emitted from his mouth in response to my idea. As annoying as that was, I reminded myself that today had been pretty unkind to him in particular, and a little lack of vocal control and his usual shtick wasn’t the worst thing he could be doing. “Y-you don’t have to —”

“I’m offering,” I said, with purpose. “There was only one bed, so I was probably going to have to sleep on the floor anyway, heh.” Maybe I’d get a chance or two to actually catch up on the source material or something… yeah, this was a good idea, why hadn’t I thought to do this earlier? Was I really that afraid of copying the other major One Piece Self-Insert? 

“You’re not going to just sleep in a bundle with all the cargo,” Nami said, swatting my head lightly. “If you’re going to sleep in the hold you’re sleeping in a hammock at least.”

“Oh yeah, hammocks,” I blinked. “I didn’t even think about that…” I trailed off into a yawn, which explained the lack of proper brain activity. “Man, that run must’ve taken a lot out of me…”

“Clearly,” Zoro huffed, like the giant hypocrite who didn’t even help that he was. Had his gag gotten the better of him again? I don’t remember it being nearly this harmful… it was still early, though, we had time to get serious… probably. Hopefully.

Speaking of gags, I still had no idea what to do about Sanji… The jabs and whatnot probably just made him feel bad, what he needed was something to do with longform exposure, or desensitization, or…

… Waaiit…

… Alright, I’d need to sleep on that to make sure it wasn’t colossally stupid, but if I pulled it off, that idea could be just what my sometimes-favorite needed… and if I killed an extra stone and helped myself with it, too, that was just a bonus.

Regardless, I was tired, so my mind swam for a bit as we started gathering everything up, until some part of my brain recognized silence and let my curiosity fill it, filter be damned. “How does one make a hammock, anyway?”

“It’s kind of tedious,” Usopp said, shrugging. “I think we’ve got enough, so don’t worry about it.”

“I like origami, so I’m no stranger to tedious repetitive tasks,” I said, swing back and forth a bit. “Teach me when we get a chance?”

Usopp seemed confused, but shrugged again. “Sure, if you want.”

“Sweet!” I pumped my fist, then yawned again. “Man, I’m way more tired than I thought.”

“Let’s get a move on, then,” Nami said, arms crossed. “We don’t have all night.”

“The bounty hunters are waking up,” Soundbite said, adding to the tension, and we all started to move a bit faster.

 It was starting to get late, but we needed to get far enough away from Whiskey Peak that there wouldn’t be any trouble, so we ended up staying awake a few hours longer than was normal, or at least that’s what I gathered from all the yawning — they weren’t that contagious. Once Nami felt that we’d gone far enough, we started setting up for the night, and Usopp and I had to figure out a way to arrange a hammock in the hold while minimizing the risk of sprains and not blocking too much floor space, which was a fun adventure. We managed, though, which meant I was satisfied about something that had happened that day.

“Thanks, dude,” I said to Usopp, rummaging through my new room to see if there were sheets and things. “Do I have to worry about the watch schedule for tonight, or…?”

“No one gets put on watch two nights in a row unless something really goes wrong,” he replied, tugging on a few of the knots for some final testing.

“Oh, good, thanks!” I chirped, happy both at the news and the sight of some blankets. I hoisted a few up and plopped them into the hammock, then offered Usopp a high-five. He blinked, but reciprocated, and I grinned, somewhat relieved. “Seriously, dude, this is awesome, thanks a bunch.”

“W-well, naturally,” Usopp said, putting his hand on his chest. “Knots and ropes are trifles compared to the Great Captain Usopp’s other talents!”

I snorted and rolled my eyes. “Does the Great and Powerful Usopp know how to fold geometric patterns out of paper?” I hadn’t really meant for that reference to slip out, but I had meant to call him something besides his preferred nickname, so it worked out.

“Geo… what?” Oh, right, Usopp grew up in a tiny town on a small island.

“It means shapes arranged in cool ways, basically,” I said, leaning against my hammock a bit. “I’ll show you sometime, it’s a lot cooler than it sounds. Maybe after you teach me how to make hammocks.”

“You were serious about that?” Usopp titled his head to the side. 

I shrugged. “It’s not like there’s much to do on this boat whenever I’m not training, and I don’t really have any job in particular right yet, so I’d like to be able to help out with stuff. Better than being bored, and I like learning new things.”

“Well, if you say so.” Usopp gathered up the few tools he’d brought to facilitate the process of hanging rope and headed out, and I got ready to flop into my hammock and sleep the night away…

Only to realize my pajamas, along with my other stuff, were still in the Ladies’ Quarters. Whoops.

 So something about me: I actually really like hammocks. Before this, I’d only had a few chances to get to actually use them, but they were always cool, provided sufficient cushioning from the rope. The gentle sway of the hammock caused by the sea and the ship lulled me to sleep with a great amount of ease, and the ridiculous din that would’ve normally awoken me was miraculously quieted by the lack of proximity…

Or, well, I’d think it was. Since I was awoken by a completely different set of unfortunate circumstances, I wouldn’t know for another night. Thanks, gravity! Ugh…

I sat up from the ground where I’d been chucked off of my hammock, rubbing gingerly at the side of me that had been battered by my landing. I started to stand up, but the boat jerked again, and I had to scramble just to keep from going flying across the floor. Thank god we tied everything down, or I’d be in serious danger of pancake-ification… what the hell was going on? I thought I heard some yelling from on deck…

Trying to get dressed while the boat was lurching this much was an Experience, but it calmed down by the time I was done… why was I getting a bad feeling?

I walked out onto the deck and was greeted by the sight of all of my crewmates face down on the deck, exhausted and more than a little drenched.

“Uh… What the hell happened here?” I said, dreading the answer. My fears were quickly proven correct as numerous heads snapped up (as much as they could in those positions, anyway) to glare straight at me.

Nami actually stood all the way up, and I was, of course, frozen in terror and a less-than-small amount of shame.

“Where. Have you been?”

“… I was sleeping…” I said meekly, shame circuits smoldering more with every word. 

“You’re telling me that you managed to sleep through us nearly getting swallowed by a giant whirlpool of death.” Nami’s voice was low and threatening, and my brain reacted in its usual way.

“I mean, effectively,” I said, internally yelling at myself because the corrections weren’t helpful but unable to stop, “I mean, I was probably woken up by it, since I fell out of my hammock, but then I spent some time getting dressed and I guess I didn’t process what must’ve been happening? I mean, I probably should’ve been more worried since it was bad enough to knock me out of my hammock, but..” I shook my head and clapped my hands together in front of my apologetically. “Anyway, I’m really sorry, I swear I didn’t mean to and I’ll try not to do it again!”

How the hell had I pulled a Zoro dear god what was wrong with me, I knew I was a deep sleeper but this was a very new low…

Nami was giving me a Look that only fueled the racing anxiety-driven thoughts, but eventually she just sighed, shaking her head. “You’re on watch first tonight. Go eat or something, I don’t know.”

“Yes ma’am…” I nodded meekly, eating sounding like a wonderful idea — I always got the munchies when my anxiety or depression acted up. I wasn’t sure if there’d be food left, but Sanji’d probably noticed my absence and tucked something away.

Said something was handed to me the moment I’d walked into the kitchen — apparently while I was getting grilled, everyone else had already recovered, and I hadn’t even noticed. Was I really that out of it over waking up late like this?

Waking up late could cost people their lives, so why wouldn’t you be?

Oh, fuck off, self, you’re not helping.

Sanji had handed me a plate of baked goods, and when I smelled the bacon in the air, the realization I was being catered to without question had a very strange effect on my mental state. Regardless, Sanji had noticed what I liked, apparently, and I wasn’t going to complain about cinnamon rolls, no matter what my mood was. I was dreading the time I was going to have to explain the reaction I had to pancakes and waffles… 

Well, as much fun as drowning my sorrows in baked goods was, I did have a few specific goals to accomplish now that we were on our way, which made me feel better. First, I’d need to do my daily workout, but then I needed to work on the technique I’d been wishing I’d practiced the past few days, and, of course… the other idea.

Sleep and a few hours of thought had not, in fact, convinced me that my idea involving Sanji was terrible, awful, no good, or even very bad, so once I’d done the other two things, I’d definitely go ahead with that idea.

The weather was decent, at least for now, so I felt okay with starting my warmup stretches on the deck; I made sure to tuck my shirt in, being the self-conscious person that I was, but I knew if I caught someone (Sanji) staring, I could smack them one without worrying about it, which alleviated that worry at least a little.

Nobody really stared, though, as though they were used to it, even though I’d only worked out in front of them, like, one other time. I guess my brain really was overblowing how eye-catching yoga was… 

I was a bit startled when Lulu came up next to me and started stretching alongside me, just for personal space reasons, but it also felt kind of neat for some reason; there was some sense of the camaraderie I constantly craved somewhere in it, I suppose.

Of course, there were certain limitations to that feeling. Someone asking me if I could function as weightlifting practice was… not something I’m used to. I wasn’t sure how to react, and she seemed to be okay with that, suggesting something else instead that made me laugh hard enough that I had to try it.

Balancing on something that’s moving is difficult, right? But balance was something I hadn’t had any ideas on how to practice, even though it was something I knew I needed work on in some areas, so when Lulu suggested standing on her back while she did pushups, I had to go along, it was too perfect.

The level of amusement from everyone else was about as variable as you’d expect, and balancing while you’re laughing is difficult as hell, but that was the point of training, after all, so I did my best to control my laughter and stick to my tree pose.

There wasn’t a whole lot else Lulu or I could do to interact with each other’s workouts directly, obviously, given our immense difference in strength (here was hoping I’d make up that difference somewhat eventually, but I wasn’t holding my breath too much), so I went to my repeatable exercises and did 60 of each, like the previous day, and tried the time-based ones twice each, not wanting to overexert myself when I could be needed to help right the ship at any moment. Sanji brought me a lemonade right when I was starting to get into my cool down stretches, and I made sure to give him a pointed Look to de-incentivize any desire he might have had to linger or stare. 

I drank the lemonade, though. Maybe I shouldn’t have, if I wanted to stay consistent in my de-incentivization, but Sanji did leave promptly after delivering the drink, and it was delicious, and if I wasted it I’d be disrespecting one of the parts of Sanji’s personality I actually respected, so…

My actual plan for Sanji had to wait, so my muscles could recover a bit, but that just meant I got to do what I’d been looking forward to for days — Devil Fruit Practice. There was one specific trick I knew I was going to need, but also knew I’d never be able to pull off without lots of practice, both on the endurance front and the actual technique front.

And that wasn’t even mentioning my crippling fear of heights and falling, or the fact that practicing flight the wrong way while on a boat could cause me to go careening into the ocean. I was honestly really grateful for the conversation about hammocks from last night, or else I’d have probably been way worse off.

“Yo, Usopp!” I called over to where the man in question was fishing. “Can you do me a favor? I need some rope for something.”

Explaining that I needed to be tied up could end up coming out all kinds of wrong, and I couldn’t help but think about it, but I forced myself not to even subconsciously draw attention to that line of thought as I spoke, and it seemed to work, since Usopp just went below deck to grab the rope without looking at me funny. Now all that was left was getting Luffy to let me use Merry’s head as an anchor; I’d thought about using one of the masts or something else, but there wasn’t really the right combination of open space and not-being-above-water-ness anywhere but the captain’s favorite seat, so I’d have to ask him to vacate or risk being knocked into the water by flailing limbs or something, probably.

“Hey, captain?” I said, walking over to him and getting his attention.

“What’s up, Ami?”

“I kinda need to borrow your spot for a bit,” I said, scratching my neck. I kind of didn’t want to say it outright, just to temper Luffy’s inevitable excitement, but I was probably better off just going for it. “I’m going to try flying with my Devil Fruit ability, and I’m not sure how well it’s going to go, so I need to anchor myself down.”

“Flying?!” Luffy was suddenly very much in my personal space, eyes shining exactly like I’d expected.

“I’m going to give it a shot, yeah,” I shrugged, taking a step back. “It’s probably going to look really dumb, so I wouldn’t get too excited.”

“Sounds awesome!” 

“If you say so…” I scratched the back of my head. “Just don’t laugh too hard at me, okay? I’m a sensitive soul.”

That just made Luffy laugh, which… well, I was sort of joking, so it was probably alright. Usopp chose that moment to arrive back on deck with the rope, and Cross was following behind, which made me grimace internally. If anyone was going to laugh at me like a jackass…

“Thanks, dude,” I said to Usopp, rocking back and forth a bit on the balls of my feet. “I’m not really good at knots, my dad’s intense love of boats only managed to drill a few different kinds into my brain.” I laughed a bit at myself, trying to overcome the knot of anxiety that was slowly forming in my gut. I had to do this eventually, after all.

“Well, never fear!” Usopp said, gesturing wildly with the long length of rope he was carrying. “The Great and Powerful Usopp will teach you all of his ten-thousand secret knot techniques!”

I smacked the back of his head. “Relevant ones only, if you don’t mind.” 

I noticed vaguely that he seemed to like the nickname I’d used last night, whatever that meant. My brain fed me an image of him in a magician’s getup, and I was surprised by how little it bothered me. 

After some finagling to make sure the ropes wouldn’t chafe or rip me apart when I inevitably got flung around (really should’ve thought of a cloth harness, thinking about it)  and then did something similar with Merry’s neck, trying to ensure the force would be distributed as evenly as possible. I patted the top of Merry’s head, absently muttering an apology just in case, then stepped back, gesturing a bit to the onlookers to step back as well.

Copy Essence pooled in my hands, and I reached back over my shoulders, letting the Essence flow out onto my back, shimmering wings growing and stretching out. They were big, bigger than you might expect, but probably smaller than they would’ve needed to be to make actual sense — best not to think about it. When they were complete, I felt the wind catch them and I was flung back, flailing a decent amount as the rope pulled at me. I flapped about, anxiety thrumming through me as I attempted to regain some semblance of balance; I could kind of feel how to do so, thanks to my power, but it was a bit hard to think properly with all the conflicting forces tugging me around.

At some point, I managed to lean forward enough that the wind started pushing — pulling? whatever the technical term is — me up instead of backwards, and that was a much less awful feeling. The gentle rising and falling reminded me vaguely of swimming, which makes a certain kind of sense, but it was distinctly more extreme; every slight shift of the luminous wings on my back caused a dip or a rise with little to no delay. There were also very noticeable benefits over swimming, though — I liked seeing without my eyes burning too much (though the wind wasn’t super helpful in that regard, but I could figure out a way around that), and I could definitely breathe better that I could if I was swimming, as one might expect.

At this point, I was relatively stable, but the only reason the wind was flowing over my wings at all was because I was being towed forward by the ship, not my own power; that would never do.

I flapped, moving a bit forward, but of course the ship was moving fast enough that the rope pulled taut again in no time at all. Alright, then, how hard did I need to work to match that speed…?

The wings weren’t technically relying on muscles, since they were magical constructs drawing their existence from my metaphysical life energy, but the motions of them flapping still caused some feedback to the muscles, though the effects that had remained to be seen. Then, of course, was the fact that they were magical constructs drawing their existence from my metaphysical life energy, and fairly large ones at that, so I could actually feel the mental exertion going on there more than I’d expected. 

In the end, I could only maintain the speed we were going under my own power for about a minute before I knew I was going to need to land or risk breaking a limb or two. It was kind of disappointing, to be honest, but the feeling of flying provided enough endorphins to combat that disappointment, and I added some “we’ll keep working at it” self-talk to aid that process.

I landed and started undoing the knots — I’d asked Usopp to make it so I could both replicate and remove them on my own on later attempts, and while it had taken some doing, we’d figured it out — and was immediately set upon by my overexcited captain.

“That was so cool!” He said, making me smile in spite of myself. “You seriously flew!”

“Only a bit,” I said, downplaying it without thinking. “I’m going to need to keep working at it, so I hope you don’t mind me stealing your spot every so often for the next week or two.” I stretched my arms up once I got the ropes off, leaning forward a bit to get my back too. 

I said “week or two,” but of course, I had no idea how long we’d even be traveling for until we hit Little Garden; Oda never talked about that stuff unless something funny happened, and even Cross’s original account wasn’t specific or anything. Still, a couple of weeks was probably decent enough to assume, and I doubted I’d need much longer than that to get the hang of my new trick. 

Hopefully my anxiety wouldn’t make me break down again in the meantime, but sometimes that’s just how it was on this bitch of an… Earth? Is Earth still the right word? This world was, like, 90% water… stupid memes and their specificity!

Last on the docket was Sanji, but I wasn’t going to get a chance to enact that plan just yet, because it was somehow already lunchtime, or so the Captain Stomach Clock proclaimed. Given that my own internal clock was every shade of busted in most situations and my powers drained my energy anyway, I wasn’t about to dispute the idea of lunch, so I jogged after Luffy to ensure I got as much as possible.

 After food was noisily consumed and I mentally noted how limited space already was, I decided that I needed to talk with Sanji anyway, I may as well help out with a thing or two; dish duty, for instance, while not my favorite activity in the world, was still something I had enough experience with to be helpful.

Sanji was, of course, quick to deny the need for my help, but I raised an eyebrow and crossed my arms, and after a bit of a staring match, he relented; there were a lot of dishes. Part of me worried that my insistence on helping him wasn’t actually helpful, since I was partially banking on his inability to deny me things based on my genetic code, but hopefully my actual plan would help with this properly — it’s not like I had anything else to do, either, so he really couldn’t make that excuse.

I was not allowed to touch the actual cooking utensils — not the knives, not the pans, only the plates and silverware. Sanji was unfailingly polite about this, because of the whole “two X chromosome” thing, but even given my biology, I could tell there was no budging on this, which impressed me for some reason.

Honestly, I was perfectly fine with such an arrangement, because I knew that pans could be a hassle to properly maintain and I had no idea how to properly take care of cooking knives. 

I wound up washing in batches, carrying as many dishes as I could reasonably carry without fear of dropping them from the table to the sink, then washing those before going back. As I did each batch, I asked a question or two to try and start my way to the conversation I wanted to have. Sanji was clearly pretty focused, and I didn’t want to bug him too much or cause him to cut himself, so I tried to be subtle and stuff, but I was never that good at conversation direction.

“Hey, why didn’t you want any help?”

“This is my job, isn’t it?”

That was barely an answer, but it was pretty much the response I expected, and explained at least a few things about Sanji as a person.

“I don’t have much else to do, you know. I don’t mind helping.”

“I appreciate it, Ami-chan, but there’s no need to trouble yourself for my sake.”

I think I’d just said it wasn’t any trouble, but I knew this was really more something to do with Sanji’s self-esteem and pride. As such…

“I’d never be able to do something like this on my own; you’re really impressive, you know?”

He didn’t respond to that audibly, but I thought I heard a brief pause in the rhythmic scrubbing of the pan he’d been working on — I’d been careful not to say that while he was sharpening something, just in case. I glanced over for a bit, as subtly as I could, but even with my best efforts, I still made eye contact with that illegally-adorable version of his face. I averted my eyes again quickly, too quickly, but I was too embarrassed to care. Then, suddenly, I realized that this entire situation, my reactions included, could be ripped straight out of a type of story I definitely didn’t want to enact — time to get this train back on track.

“Hey, I was actually hoping you could help me with something.”

Sanji stopped abruptly to respond with his usual enthusiasm, but I cut him off. “Let me explain first, okay?” Arceus knew he wasn’t going to like this idea much… “First, I need a bit of clarification; the other day, you said you didn’t want to hurt me so you wouldn’t fight me, even when I probably deserved a sock or kick or whatever in the jaw, right? Does this extend to… every situation you have to fight a person with two X chromosomes?”

Arceus it was hard to word this in a way that didn’t make me upset at myself but would also get the point across to someone like Sanji. 

“Well, of course,” Sanji said, clearly thinking his position totally logical and giving me a twitch I had to suppress. “I’m a gentleman, after all.”

“So if a woman were to attack you, you’d just —” I cut myself off with a deep breath before I could spit too much venom into my response. I very specifically didn’t want another fight… well, an emotional one, anyway. “Would you, like, at least defend yourself, if your life was in danger?”

The only reason I was even asking this stuff was because I wasn’t supposed to know it yet; stupid cover and keeping it up. I’d really wanted to just skip to the plan, but…

“If… if I could do it without hurting the woman in question, then yes,” Sanji was clearly confused — the sounds of dishwashing had stopped completely, and his tone, while thankfully not showing any anger or hurt (yet), was still giving enough suspicion to start setting off the anxiety alarms in my brain.

“Okay, then that’s perfect!” I said, injecting some cheer in my voice to combat the anxiety and hoping it didn’t sound too fake. “Spar with me, then!”

I put as many watts as I could into the grin I sent Sanji’s way, waiting a few semi-awful seconds for him to process.

“Um..” he said, and I heard him put something down. I lowered the wattage on my grin to see that he seemed… worried? Oh, dear. “Did… did I do something else to upset you?”

Oh. Ooooooh.

Whoops.

“Ah, no, that’s not what I meant!” I flailed, waving my arms in as negatory a gesture as possible, a small part of my brain thanking my lucky stars that I had also put my dishes down. “No, see, I have a plan! I thought this out an stuff, see, see, Zoro and Luffy, they’re stupid strong and don’t know how to hold back, right? And besides, if I wanted to spar with any of the boys, you’d probably get all upset and stuff, right?” I gestured to one side and paused briefly before moving my hands swiftly to the other side of my body. “But then Nami’s got other shit to worry about and I don’t even know how Vivi fights and Lulu is capable of literally bench pressing me, so that’s probably not a smart idea either, right?”

I threw my arms towards Sanji to finish the though. “But you’re capable of holding me off so I see what I need to work on while also being able to hold back enough to not give me bruises that last for weeks! It’s exactly what I need!”

Sanji blinked, and then his gaze shifted to the ground, the moving gears in his brain plainly visible on his face. 

Hopefully the way I’d put it appealed to his personal… stuff without making it seem too much like I actually endorsed it… part of this whole idea was actually meant to help Sanji with his Issues via a combination of exposure therapy and some gender-neutral version of the male ideal of bonding through battle, but the part about not wanting large bruises was a nice perk, if I was being honest.

A minute later and Sanji was still staring thoughtfully at the floor, and I couldn’t help but speak up.

“If you’re really that against it, then that’s fine, but… I’d like to get better at protecting myself, and you falling all over yourself trying to keep me pristine isn’t really helping.”

Was that too blunt? God, that was probably too blunt. I picked the plate I’d been washing back up and went back to scrubbing, feeling the shame circuits smoldering away, and my brain ran through alternatives of all the ways I could’ve fucked that up less. I could’ve made it more like a deal, probably? Offered to help more in exchange? The way I put it the benefits to him weren’t obvious, should I have waited until later? Arceus, how had Cross handled this, I know he addressed this at some point…

“… I’ll, um… I’ll need a bit of time to mentally prepare myself, but, well… If I can really help you that much, I’d like to try.”

My brain stopped short, the smoldering shame circuits stuttering as they gave way to a level of joy only possible in situations exactly like this. All the tension morphed rapidly into endorphins, and I just couldn’t hold myself back from jumping up with a joyous cry.

“Whoo!” I was careful not to drop my plate, but that was the only even remotely negative thought I was capable of entertaining at the moment. “Thank you thank you thank you!!” I may have even spun around… you know how young females can — wait a second, no, that was…

Well, anyway, the point was, I was now newly invigorated to finish scrubbing plates and silverware so we could Get To It. Sanji was probably Even More Confused about my sudden enthusiasm, but he went back to his own dish maintenance, so I didn’t think about it too much.

It really was nice when things went according to plan.

Chapter Text

Itwastimeitwastimeitwastime~~!!

… I wondered a bit what it said about me, how excited I was about attempting to beat up someone I knew wasn’t going to fight back. I knew I had some kind of violent streak, but this… wasn’t the level I was used to, at any rate. It was probably bad, right? Eh, it might just be my anxiety, I was locked into this course of action as of now…

Who knows. The fact was that it was time!

We got out onto the deck and I had a very visible spring in my step as I moved to the most open area and spun to face Sanji. Tension was starting to thrum through me, both because I knew how strong Sanji was and because I knew he would let himself get beaten up if I didn’t do this right. I couldn’t let myself get lost in any battlerage, but since this was someone I cared about and this was a relatively controlled situation, I was pretty sure I could handle it.

The real question for right now was “what do I copy first?” Something simple… ah, that’d work!

“Weapon Copy: Staff!” I called out, running forward and swinging as soon as my weapon had fully formed. Sanji brought up his knee to block, but otherwise didn’t budge, which was about what I expected, even if it was still pretty disappointing. I pushed a bit, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good, so I jumped back and swung the other way, aiming for his head — trying to trip him up or something would probably work even less, after all, though I was tempted to change it up, just out of… I dunno, some combination of boredom and frustration that was already starting to kick in after just a minute or two.

“Do I want to know what the hell’s going on here?” Nami asked, though it took me a second to register through my increasingly aggravated swinging. I was starting to not process, which wasn’t what I wanted about any of this entire process, so I took a step back to breathe a bit.

“Where’d ya get dat popcorn?”

… Oooookay, how had I missed Donald Duck getting on our ship? This was One Piece, not Kingdom Hearts, right…? …Oh no, wait, this was something from Cross’s original story, I’d almost forgot about that — I’d been mostly rereading the original manga, as you might expect, and it had been a month. How I’d missed the introduction of this gag was beyond me, but I had slept in like hell this morning, so who knows.

“Eh, don’t worry about it,” I heard Cross respond, right as I decided to change my Copy Construct. Most of my problems were really just that I was weak as hell in comparison to a member of the Monster Trio, but changing my method of attack felt good to me, at least.

Still no blades, especially since I wasn’t processing at 100%, but maybe some hand-to-hand? Gauntlets or something?

… Sheesh, okay, all this was telling me was that I really needed to improve my balance and work on, like, recovery rolls or other acrobatics. God, I swear I heard Cross laughing at me, the jackass… Was anyone else laughing? Sanji just looked severely concerned… why had I thought this was a good idea, again?

That thought overrode any others by about the fourth time I nearly fell on my face, and I just let myself flop sideways onto the deck, my constructs fading away. “Ugh, alright, I’m woefully behind, that’s been thoroughly established.” I guess I had at least come up with a few things I most desperately needed to work on, but it’s not like I hadn’t been thinking about most of them… eh, but rearranging my priorities on training was kind of the point of all this, thinking about it? Bluh.

At this point, I was tired and kind of sore, and it was just after lunch with nothing else on the horizon to do, and I was frustrated.

“Ami-chan?” I blinked, finally registering Sanji standing over me, nervously holding out his hand.

“Oh, thanks,” I said, letting him pull me up. “In general, I mean. This was probably useful in some way, I just have to mull it over a bit, I think.”

Sanji’s face was not getting any less contorted with worry. If I was going to improve his stuff, I was going to need to make this a regular thing, probably… fuck it, I genuinely did not have anything better to do.

“Same time tomorrow, then,” I said, half to myself, nodding. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I need a nap. Wake me if we start falling off the edge of the Earth again or whatever, I guess.”

I thought about going back down to my room — er, the hold — since, y’know, sleep is for beds and whatnot? But I’d missed stuff that way already today, and I might as well fully embrace the Zoro experience if I was going to end up like him anyway. Definitely not the Strawhat in particular I expected to end up emulating, but… Well, I found a corner where I could get relatively comfortable, even if I didn’t really expect to fall asleep. I briefly considered, like, meditating or something, but my brain wasn’t really in a solid enough state, so I just let it wander a bit more than usual. 

As usual with my average nap, I wasn’t aware I was dozing off until I’d already started to blink awake. I sighed when I realized the neck pain I was inevitably in for, but eh, I needed to get up and stretch and, like, use the bathroom and stuff, so up I went.

Once I’d done so, I became aware of what had presumably woken me up — it was, after all, very hard to ignore piles of moaning flesh.

“Well, this bodes ill,” I said somewhat absently, blinking to try and make my brain wake up all the way.

One of the piles of flesh raised its head and reached out an arm weakly, its moaning morphing into something sounding like “you,” and nope, I was still asleep, I had to be, time to turn this situation off and back on again, thanks! I had an appointment with a bathroom, now.

When I got back, there were no more piles of flesh and instead my crewmates were just leaning around exhaustedly on various things around the deck or each other. The exceptions to this were Luffy, who just seemed a little bored, and Lulu and Zoro, who were both looking everyone else over, for some reason that was beyond me.

“Okay, I’ve got, like, every question,” I said, not quite crossing my arms, but bringing them in close to myself.

“You…” Usopp raised his head from where he’d been leaning on the ship’s rail, and I realized he was probably the lump of flesh that had moaned at me a minute ago. “This… this is your fault…”

“If you’ve got enough energy to complain, you’ve got enough energy for ten more reps,” Zoro said, face somewhere between a glare and a smirk. That comment answered a few questions? But I had no idea what to do with it, really.

Thankfully, because my face was incredibly readable when it came to confusion, Lulu saved me the trouble of asking again.

“Cross was concerned about falling behind, I believe,” she said. “I wasn’t around when he convinced everyone to go along, but I was more than happy to accommodate the other women once I learned of the idea — Sanji-san took a little convincing, but I quite enjoyed the experience.”

“Oh, uh…” I looked around, grimacing at everyone’s fatigue. “Sheesh, I kinda feel bad, I don’t think I worked nearly this hard…”

“Not to worry, Ami-san,” Lulu said, patting me on the shoulder. “Your workout is perfectly suitable for gradual strength training. You also have excellent form during your warmups and cool downs — so often people don’t show their bodies proper respect.”

“Wow, uh, thanks…” I scratched my chin a bit — I wasn’t expecting that kind of response, honestly, but it was clear just from that that Lulu had an extensive knowledge of what the hell she was doing when it came to exercise… although her physique already kind of implied that, thinking about it. I was glad I wasn’t the only person who cared about warmups and such, honestly — Zoro never did them that I saw, but he may as well have been an actual cryptid, and that left me with very little in terms of helpful comparisons.

Actually, if Lulu knew that much about what she was doing, that made her suddenly a very helpful resource for the problems I’d just realized I’d had earlier that day.

“Hey, could you show me some agility exercises?” I asked, turning to make eye contact. “I feel like I’m lacking in that area a bit, from what happened earlier, and I’m not familiar with too many ways to improve it.”

Lulu’s eyebrows raised a bit, her face seeming somehow brighter, and I was suddenly both a little delighted and a little terrified. She proceeded to work me through no less than a dozen possible exercises, only around two of which seemed even remotely familiar, and she wouldn’t move onto the next until I at least had the basics of the form for each totally ironed out. It was… odd? She wasn’t exactly commandeering about it, definitely not rude, but she was certainly… thorough. It was honestly really helpful, though — I was easily able to pick out two or three I could fit into my usual workout without interrupting the rhythm I’d ended up finding with it in any way. Rad!

Training ended up being one of very few constants during our travel time — after the giant pit of death on the first day out from Whiskey Peak, you’d think things wouldn’t get more ridiculous, but you’d be drastically misunderstanding what kind of world I now called my home.

For instance, one day, after I’d helped Sanji with dishes (because that somehow became routine) but before we could get to our only-occasionally-helpful-feeling sparring, Merry was set upon by an honest-to-god giant fucking squid, and I had to block most of the encounter out because Cross made a shitty comment about hentai and my brain went straight into the gutter, and it was easier to just forget rather than get grilled about it.

… Okay, that probably wasn’t a very interesting example, let’s see…

I was starting up my stretches for the day, Lulu joining me, same as usual, and the rest of the crew were watching us out of the corners of their eyes, full of dread for when we finished and Lulu’s priorities shifted to them, same as usual, with two notable exceptions I managed not to notice, because I can be that oblivious, somehow. I did notice that Luffy was gone too, though, just because he’d picked a spot and everything, but we’d just eaten, so I just figured he was trying to wheedle more bacon out of Sanji or something.

I was very wrong.

What alerted me to that mistake was the… well, okay, it wasn’t really a scream, but it conveyed more tension and was longer in duration than just a normal yell of surprise? Ugh, basically, there was an elongated vocalization and then a thud from the top of the main mast, and for some reason I found myself thinking that whoever the hell did that better count their lucky stars I wasn’t in the middle of something more strenuous than warmup stretches… I guess I was just that hung up on making sure I got to ride an ankylosaur or something, because I had a sudden desire to cut a bitch if they made me get a sprain. Luckily, as I said, it was during some simpler stretches, so I was perfectly ready to snap my attention to the suspicious laughter that started up just after the impact.

Why, oh why was I surprised to see Luffy unwrapping his arms from each side of the railing on the upper deck? Why was I confused as to why Usopp was there? Why was I wondering what sorry loser they’d presumably catapulted into the crow’s nest?

Usopp’s face was an oddly entertaining blend of fear and excitement, and Luffy was, of course, the one laughing. I had no idea where to even start, so it was nice that Nami and Lulu were actually on top of things — not that it was, like, my job to be on top of things? Ugh, you get what I mean, control issues, etc, etc. Nami went straight over to Luffy and Usopp and whatever expression she had must have been amazing because they started talking right away. Lulu, meanwhile, gave an almost-fond (almost) sigh as she looked up the mast. “Charlie. Are you alright?”

It was then that I realized that Luffy wasn’t actually the only one laughing.

“Marvelous, Lulu!” Charlie’s grin was near-infectiously huge as his head popped up into view. “Sir Usopp’s aim is impeccable! And of course, the landing was no problem for one such as me! Not that I couldn’t practice it a bit more, of course…”

“You want to use our captain as a human slingshot to fling yourself around, possibly landing in the ocean, again,” I said, genuinely confused but honestly only a little exasperated — now that I’d processed, I realized it was pretty impressive in a way, and everyone seemed to be alright… although, thinking about it, I was actually kind of worried about Merry, if anything.

“You think I care if Charlie’s not a Devil Fruit user?!” Nami bellowed, telling me more than I’d expected about whatever Luffy and Usopp had tried to say to explain themselves. “He’s our informant, and if you lose us a reward because of some stupid combat application —” Wow, Nami, tell ‘em how you really feel.

“Yeah, I dunno how often we’ll be in places where you can set that up,” I said, only realizing that I was talking about spoilers after I’d said it. Luckily, though I’d been referring to my shitty memory, I actually managed to just make it sound like a normal thing people without knowledge of future events would say. I breathed a mental sigh of relief before actually letting my brain wander to places in the future that might actually allow for both a clear trajectory and a proper structure for Luffy to stretch from…

“Are you seriously trying to plan for it?” Nami interrupted my thoughts with a tone of incredulity. 

I blinked, because, uh, I wasn’t the tactician, but Nami was actually apparently talking to Cross, who I hadn’t noticed come up, because he responded, “I mean, it’s not that different from being Gum-Gum-Rocketed,” he said, and I had a bizarre thought that hey, he was actually being helpful for once, like I didn’t like him or something. He continued, “If Charlie’s into it, it’d probably be safer to just let them practice rather than try to stop them and have them do it anyway later.”

“It’s honestly less dangerous than my usual practice,” I couldn’t help but add. “Like you said, Charlie’s not affected by the ocean like half the rest of the crew is.”

Nami looked between the both of us, and the three stooges responsible, and just sighed, unable to even. Lulu helped her out by seizing the means of propulsion and fastening Usopp to the mast via use of Luffy’s arms.

They kept practicing, though.

The next incident of note actually happened during lunch, on about day… 5? Something like that. We’d realized that it was probably easier to set up chairs and such outside on the deck than elbow each other in the face constantly while trying to get food by about day three, so space was thankfully less of an issue, but apparently there was still room for friction in other ways.

“If Vivi-chan has an issue with my food, she can tell me herself, thank you very much!”

“As Princess Vivi’s personal attendant, it is my demonstrability — ahem, maaah, ma maaah — my responsibility to ensure her wants and needs are met!”

“You said you ran the royal guard!”

“My duty is simply to serve the princess, good sir!”

Vivi and Carue — y’know, her actual attendant, at least as far as I was aware — were completely unaware of this argument, as they’d already grabbed food from the free-for-all mess that had become of the buffet spread Sanji’d set up. The two plates Sanji and Igaram had been holding as they argued had already been cleaned off by our rubber vacuum of a captain.

I had literally no idea why they were arguing.

Neither did anyone else.

As such, we just left them to it. Why deprive any portion of the crew their entertainment for the day, after all?

In another incident a day or two after that, this time after my sparring with Sanji, Usopp’s semi-usual fishing endeavors drudged up not edible matter but instead a large wooden box that caused Nami to knock over more than one member of the crew in her haste to claim it. The impact of my ass with the deck did not help the confusion I felt about us finding an apparent new source of treasure that I definitely did not remember, but that confusion was… well, somewhat remedied, anyway, when Nami opened the box.

Why?

Because it wasn’t full of treasure.

It was full of crabs.

And let me make this clear: when I say full, I mean full, as in, so many crabs flooded our deck so quickly that I genuinely checked the box after the fact to make sure it wasn't some kind of extra dimensional portal. 

The screaming that followed this crustaceanal flood was so loud they probably heard Usopp and Nami in Level 6 of Impel Down. My own response was more of a continuous stream of cursing as I copied the legendary sword Kusanagi of Japanese myth to attempt to blow the damn things away as efficiently as possible without hurting anyone else (especially Merry). Despite inspiring wind-based slashes, the sword itself just made giant gusts, or maybe that’s just very clearly what I wanted out of the experience, who knows… 

Either way, it worked well enough, but the problem with crabs, see, is that they’re extraordinarily grabby. Five of them had latched onto various areas of Sanji’s pants as he tried to clear them away from a nearly-catatonic Nami, while three had grabbed onto each of the two swords Zoro had whipped out. Lulu had to pull them off of her clothes every few seconds as she tried to throw large armfuls overboard, though Charlie was next to her to punt at least a few away with his bats before they got the chance — I’d forgotten he even had bats as his primary weapons. Vivi’s Peacock Slashers seemed to be working fine at repelling them, though Carue and Igaram weren’t having much luck, for whatever reason, and I swear I saw Cross hugging a wall across the deck, being exactly zero help whatsoever, like a jackass -- he’d probably figured out what the hell was going on, too, thanks to the chortling snail on his shoulder. The absolute nerve. 

Luffy seemed astonishingly unbothered, which raised all sorts of questions in my brain about the strength of the rubber he was made of and when pinching becomes puncturing and things like that, in spite of the fact that I probably should have really needed to focus on the task at hand.

It took a solid half hour to get rid of all the damn things, and half the crew jumped at shadows for days.

All in all, bizarre was clearly the new normal. The couple of weeks I’d gotten had helped acclimate me some, but I knew it would still be a bit before I totally adjusted — as it was, I found myself reveling in the routines I was able to keep up, and rolling with the absurdities was a lot easier when I had a whole host of straight men and women to balance them out… at least, to whatever degree they could. I even managed to make it the entire stretch without another emotional explosion! … Well, okay, besides a couple of totally justified yelling fits at the ocean itself, because it was clearly a dick, and I wasn’t even alone in most of those.

That was an oddity in itself, in a way — I wasn’t alone in my reactions, however over-the-top they were, and I couldn’t even dream of being the most ridiculous thing in the world without that dream including a lot of effort. It was a pretty nice change from constantly worrying about how annoying other people thought I was constantly — not that it stopped me from having that mindset entirely, of course, and I knew in the back of my mind that my relaxation in that regard was probably going to bite me in the ass at some point eventually, but for now… it was nice.

It helped stem off the creeping dread of the prehistoric island of death we were heading towards, anyway, so that’s always a plus.

When the island appeared as a dot on the horizon, though, that dread had nowhere else to run. I couldn’t tell what Cross was thinking — not that my skill at that was anything less than mediocre at the best of times, but especially at this point — but I definitely remembered him having a plan, even if that plan didn’t cover for everything and he wound up taking the bullet regardless. I wasn’t personally a fan of throwing myself into the line of fire, but that did seem to be the pattern — Cross and the other SIs I’d seen hadn’t done so on purpose, but fate seemed to have its ways, and if we were to protect our friends, that meant assuming the burden ourselves; it was poetic, in a way, not that it made me any less paranoid.

The ideal situation would probably be no one getting sick, then having Igaram tell us about Drum if or when we ran into Wapol on our way, since it probably wouldn’t take a lot of effort for us to end up there anyway if Igaram had any knowledge of what was going on there, but there was no guarantee he would, obviously, and that idea relied on a whole bunch of conjecture I couldn’t make safely… and that was ignoring the positive consequences of Cross’s original ailment in particular, which brought up a whole slew of new problems about the issue of honesty we’d been arguing about for so long…

“So, you know anything about this place?” I heard Zoro ask from somewhere behind me, interrupting my thoughts. I remembered, then, that Robin had been the one to give the Straw-Hats what little information they had about Little Garden in the source material, and the differences in our introduction (which still boggled me, what was the source?) meant that we had literally no information — no warnings of death, either, though, so who knew, maybe it’d be interesting… or maybe our weaker members would get eaten in ten minutes, ugh, this was the worst.

“Nothing good, I’m afraid,” was the response Zoro got, and it turned out he had asked Igaram, which actually made a lot of sense and I was surprised I hadn’t thought about it myself. “Our base was on Whiskey Peak specifically so that if any run — ahem, ahem, ma, mah! — if anyone escaped, they would be trapped, if not killed.”

“WHAT?!” 

Whoops, there went Nami and Usopp. I turned out of curiosity and saw exactly the crying and hugging I expected, plus a duck for good measure.

“That’s about the extent of what I know, unfortunately,” Igaram continued, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Very secretive, Baroque Works. Other than the danger, all I know is that the island’s name is ‘Little Garden.’”

“Wait, but ‘dat doesn’t sound wife-thweatenin’ at all,” Carue said, loosening his hold around Usopp’s neck a bit in his obvious confusion.

I bit back an anecdote about Greenland and Iceland, because wow would that have been suspicious, and lost the chance to comment on the idea of misnomers entirely, because I was on the same boat as Jeremiah Cross, who is incapable of missing an opportunity to run his mouth (not that I’m in a position to judge, but still).

“Eh, whoever named it might’ve been trying to fool people into a deathtrap, you never know with stuff like that,” he said, and I internally grumbled again at how easy this whole “subtlety” thing came to him. He wasn’t exactly a subtle person, in general! Ugh, but I digress.

“Gee, thanks for the reassurance,” Usopp said, visibly drooping. 

“Well, whatever’s up with the island, it doesn’t matter! We’ll kick its ass!” Luffy said, being his usual, oddly-reassuringly-simple self. I laughed, unable to stop myself, because that pretty much summed it up, didn’t it?

Whatever giant dinosaurs tried to eat us, whatever candle-making jackasses tried to reenact the plot of a Goosebumps choose-your-adventure book, whatever crazy disease tries to steal the show like in all the major historical events back home, all we really had to do was get through it, and while that would never be simple… It probably wasn’t as complicated as some people might think, either.

“Sounds like a plan, then, captain!”

Chapter Text

When Cross rolled out his vat of homemade bug repellent, I thought I would be ready. I thought, dumbass that I was, that I had some way of knowing what was coming.

At first, it almost seemed like I was right; there was a heavy alcohol-like bitter-sourness in the air, combined with what smelled like onion or garlic, which I like the smell of, and that combination wasn’t so bad. I almost felt myself relax before the scent of dead, wet, rat took me by surprise and I felt that oh-so-unpleasant upheaval in my gut that I hated so so much. Something about losing control of any part of my body in such a violent way, probably, was why it was one of the feelings I hated most, but… well, anyway. Point was, it smelled rank. 

Ostensibly, I could copy the effect of bug repellent, but I had no idea if it would last or if something like that would depend on what constructs I used or how I made them, and an island of death with people who wanted me dead was not the time to experiment. 

I supposed to myself that I had considered biting the metaphorical bullet myself, anyway, but being sick sucked and I was mosquito-prone enough that it was not gonna be close to worth it. I’d hopefully get used to gagging every few seconds eventually.

“Welp, let’s get to it, then,” I said, accidentally cutting off Cross’s explanation of what the shit was and why it was important, because I had gotten lost in my own thoughts like an asshole again. Trying to recover, I continued, “Uh, you know, not really a point in arguing?” Nope, that wasn’t helpful. “… Sorry, I think my mind’s somewhere else right now, you can ignore me.”

The “you can ignore me” line was something I said far more often than I should have. It was probably funny to someone that I said it so often, considering that the only reason I ever needed to say it was because my attention-hogging, self-centered ways got the better of me, but who knows, really. 

I mentally reminded myself to actually try to not get into that kind of situation again instead of trying to make excuses for myself, then half-jokingly wondered when the hell my dad had gotten here… 

And then, before I could catch myself getting lost again, I was splashed by a sudden wave of lukewarm liquid and the awful, awful stench got a free ticket straight into my scent receptors. I made a noise somewhere between a screech and a gag and felt my brain force-reboot itself.

“Don’t worry,” I vaguely heard Cross hastily say, “you get used to it.”

“HE LIES!” was his partner’s spat response.

“I do…”

… Welp, at that point, there was nothing to do but try to make sure it was properly distributed. I’d probably have to burn these things when we were done here, or something… At least none of my clothes were all that fancy or anything.

As we maneuvered Merry into the first canal or river or whatever it was that we could fit her through, we marveled at all the giant trees and I reveled in the sudden wave of humid heat that came up on us as we went inland.

I took a deep inhale, energy starting to tingle in my limbs. The weather was just one part of it, everything about the atmosphere here was awesome.

“Little Garden…” I heard muttering from behind me, and I turned to see that Nami had found her way over to me during her supervision of our actions. “Little Garden, where did I…”

“I must say, ‘little’ seems rather an unfitting moniker,” Charlie said, voicing what a good deal of us were thinking as we looked around.

“These trees are kinda weird,” Usopp added, squinting at them.

“Oh, hey, a bird!” Luffy said, head leaned back too far for normal humans. “No, wait, is that a lizard? Weird.”

“Aaah, that’s where I’ve seen these trees before!” Cross said, making a gesture of realization. “It was in a book!”

“Petey’s Prehistoric Picture Book?” I said, grinning as I managed to remember the line just in time. Cross spluttered a bit and gave me a look of betrayal, and I realized that I had no actual idea why I felt the need to steal Cross’s thunder the way I did. He irritated me doing exactly the things I knew and expected him to do from the story that made me respect and admire him… Actually, no, wait, there was always a level of smartass that made me roll my eyes. In that case, turnabout was absolutely fair play here. 

Right? Right.

“That’s it!” Nami gasped suddenly, eyes wide. “Little Garden, the prehistoric island named because it was a ‘little garden’ to the people who named it!” She started shuddering. “We’re on a volcanic, dinosaur-infested island probably inhabited by actual giants!”

There was a moment of processing all around, and, according to precedent, it was down to either Cross or Luffy to break the silence.

This time, it was Luffy.

“Sanji.”

“…Yes?”

“Pirate lunchbox.”

“… Right.”

“Make that two!” Cross chimed in, grin huge.

“LETTUCE! LETTUCE!!” Soundbite chorused.

“And where the hell do you idiots think you’re going?!” Nami yelled, fists brandished.

“Nami,” Luffy said, in that terrifyingly direct tone he had sometimes. “Pirate,” he pointed at himself. “Adventure,” he pointed at the jungle, which made a few loud noises to punctuate his statement.

Cross was barely containing his excitement; I think it was all he could do to keep himself from shaking Nami by the shoulders as he said, “I’m gonna rodeo-ride a T-Rex and you are not taking that away from me, Nami.”

I took a deep breath of the jungle air again. “Welp,” I said, putting my hands on my hips. “One of us has to contemplate cradle-robbing some raptors. Oh, and I gotta find an ankylosaur, but I don’t remember if they’re in the same era bracket as T-Rex…” I crossed my arms and put a hand to my chin. “So many options…”

“You’re going too?!” Nami wheeled around to me. “Didn’t you freak out about the weather the other day?!”

“No, I freaked out about being overstimulated,” I defended myself hotly. “And dinosaurs don’t follow anxiety rules, okay, it’s dinosaurs. There isn’t anything else to do anyway, so meh.” I stuck my tongue out. It’s true that the fact that there were giant people and also giant reptiles, some of which could eat me, hadn’t really processed fully yet. But I mean, alligators could eat people and climb most fences and they were all over Florida, and everyone lived life perfectly fine there. Yeah, I was fine, I had ways to defend myself and I wouldn’t be alone.

“Might as well gather supplies while we’re here…” Sanji muttered. “Alright, assholes and Ami-chan, I’ll be right out.”

“Ah, um, Sanji-san?”

“Ah! Dearest Princess Vivi, whatever can I do for you?”

Oh god — hold it in, Amanda, you can do this…

“May I have a lunch as well?”

“Wh—” Nami whirled around again and grabbed Vivi by the shoulders. “Vivi. Vivi. I said giants. And dinosaurs. There are man-eating lizards and people who can kill you with one finger here.”

“Well, like Ami said, there isn’t much else to do…” Vivi’s eyes turned a bit downcast. “I’d rather not be alone with my thoughts right now, and besides, if there are giants and dinosaurs, the ship doesn’t really seem that much safer than the rest of the island.”

Nami’s eye twitched as she failed to find any response to that besides collapsing into a heap next to the single most conflicted Usopp I’d ever seen.

“Giants…” he muttered to himself, seeming interested, before terror overcame his features. “… dinosaurs… but giants… but… dinosaurs…”

Yikes.

“Princess!” Igaram interjected, taking Vivi by the shoulders himself — poor girl, “As someone entrusted with your protection, I cannot allow —”

“Relax, Igaram,” Lulu said, coming up from behind him and gently removing him from Vivi. “Vivi-san will not be alone, and if it will ease you worries, I will accompany her as well.”

“Actually, dear Lulu,” Charlie came up from behind me, and I jumped. I really needed to stop doing that. “I believe I should go with Vivi; we’ve worked together for a good while, after all, and I know you would rather go off into the jungle on your own.” He touched her bicep briefly, giving her a look I couldn’t decipher. “Go and indulge yourself without us holding you back, dear.”

Lulu paused, then visibly brightened, and for some reason I felt bad for the dinosaurs. “Take care, then, Charlie.”

I shook my head to refocus myself a bit and then did a mental tally. “That’s… five in total, then?”

“SIX, thank you!”

“Oh, right, sorry,” I said, smacking myself a bit mentally.

“Carue will be coming too,” Vivi said, casually destroying her poor duck’s hopes in one fell swoop, “so I won’t have anything to worry about, Igaram.”

Igaram was definitely not totally convinced, but he really couldn’t argue with a party of five humans and two combat-ready animals, so he just slumped to the floor next to Nami and Usopp.

“Lulu-san,” Sanji called toward her as she prepared to leave and he was shoving food into the arms of everyone who was in the active party, so to speak, “You don’t need to worry about my supplies, I’m more than capable of taking down enough game on my own.”

“Oh please,” Zoro snorted, “I could get a bigger chunk of meat in my sleep.”

Oh dear. Three guesses what happened after that, and the first two don’t count.

By the time Sanji and Zoro actually ran out into the wilderness, Lulu was long gone. She didn’t even pause when Sanji spouted his reassurances, so I guess she was really focused on finding a dinosaur to wrestle or something.

Speaking of wanting to see dinosaurs, though…

“Alright, you have one of our spare snails, right Nami?” I said, mentally going over the situation one more time. “Maybe I should take the other one in case our big group gets separated…”

… Now that I was going over the situation, actually, didn’t these little guys have names at some point?

“Y’know, we really should call these guys something,” Cross said, right on cue, and I whirled my head around with the expected expression of shock.

I looked at the ground and thought for a bit, then snatched up one of the two snails and held it up. “Mulligan,” I said, using the first pair of names that popped into my head, “and the other one’s Lafayette.” No idea why I was referencing hip-hop musicals today, but it was apparently happening.

There was a bit of blinking and shrugging, but nobody objected and the snails seemed to think they were fine enough names, so I put Mulligan on my shoulder and we got a move on.

While we were here, or so I figured, I could probably use bladed weapons without worrying too much, at least until we ran into whichever Baroque Works agents were around. Giant reptiles made good practice, in fact, so I decided it was a good idea.

I formed my good old Copy Sword on my hip, letting the construct’s link with my brain thrum a bit, then took a deep breath and listened to the sounds of the jungle.

Man, I really did love it here. I wouldn’t want to be lost or alone here, obviously, but that applied to most situations, and I wasn’t, so basking in the atmosphere was totally allowable.

“Someone’s enjoying herself,” Cross teased, and I stuck out my tongue.

“I bet you feel right at home,” I shot back, before realizing that I’d alluded to our world again and fighting back a facial expression of dread. It wasn’t anything specific, it was fine… Thankfully, Vivi spoke up to reassure me that I hadn’t fucked up too noticeably, anyway.

“You are dressed more warmly than I’d expect,” she said, tilting her head slightly. “I was actually a bit curious. Your home has a similar climate to this island?”

“Eh, it’s not totally tropical, but yeah,” Cross waved a hand. “I like wearing dark colors and layers, so I got used to wearing them even when it’s hotter than hell.”

“My hometown’s not so consistently hot or humid, but I totally prefer when it is,” I chimed in, unable to help myself. “I can’t stand the cold at all, honestly.”

“Well, the desert can hit both extremes, unfortunately,” Vivi replied, “so you have to wear long clothes the whole time. Being used to things like that is a good advantage to have.”

“It’s, like, loose, though, right?” I said, thinking about what deserts I’d seen in media and kind of verbally processing those thoughts. “I thought the point was that it wasn’t very insulating but it protected from sun and sand, or something?”

Vivi shrugged. “That’s true, but it’s easy to wrap it closer when the temperature drops. You’re better informed than most, though.”

I scratched the back of my head, both a little embarrassed and still kind of thinking about those logistics. “Eh, I just read a lot of fiction and some of it takes place in deserts, so it gets into my brain. Better than real research, anyway, whatever that says about me.”

“Actually, dear Vivi, I was curious about something myself,” Charlie spoke up, drawing everyone’s attention. “I mean no disrespect, but… if you rule a desert kingdom, isn’t there usually a set of… physical traits that tend to be associated with such a place?”

“Wow, I think that’s just about the most pretentious way to ask someone why they aren’t tan that I think I’ve ever heard,” I drawled. 

Charlie had the decency to flush a good deal and avert his eyes, saying, “Ah, of course… My apologies, I rescind the question, it was inappropriate of me.”

To our surprise, Vivi interrupted his apology by snorting with suppressed laughter.

As we blinked and stared, Vivi regained her composure, saying, “Sorry, sorry,” and waving her hand a bit. “I’ve been asked that question a lot of times, is all, and the answer is just… We spend all our time in the palace, we aren’t as adapted for the sun.”

“… Huh,” I crossed my arms. “I… I guess that makes sense?”

“I guess there are more than a few benefits to being a royal, eh?” Cross laughed.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean in this context?” I said, very confused and more than a little concerned about the implications that I was suddenly coming up with.

“I just mean it’s nice to have constant enough protection from the sun you evolve differently, sheesh,” Cross rolled his eyes.

“Oh, well…” I looked out into the distance, mostly mollified but driven into a deeper state of thought, “I guess when you look at it that way, yeah, being a royal does sound kinda nice.”

“I concur,” Charlie nodded. “Truly a life worth dreaming of.”

I muttered something about not knowing about that, but before I could actually start expressing my complicated views on royalty as a whole, Vivi did it for me.

“You would definitely never say that if you’d ever been to a Reverie,” she sighed. “Sometimes the petty rivalries and constant posturing alone are enough to make me run away and join the circus or something…” Her lips twisted into an elaborate grimace as she continued, “… and of course, that’s not even mentioning the World Nobles.”

I inhaled in a hiss, wincing, and Cross visibly shuddered.

“Yeah, that pretty much goes without saying,” he said. “I’d probably cause wars every week trying to deal with that level of condescension.”

“If that was all, it wouldn’t be much worse than any other noble with a bigger head than their body could hold,” Vivi groaned. “There’s more of.. well, let’s just say my family is in a worse position than most in that regard.”

“Oh, shit, seriously?” I said, quirking an eyebrow as I tried to follow the vague recollections I was having about this from Cross’s original story — and probably canon, it was a pretty big deal if I remembered right. “There’s some kinda bad blood? That has to suck with jerks like those.”

“What kind of bad blood, exactly?” Charlie’s voice was low and just a bit hesitant, and for some reason I was reminded of gossip-riddled sleepovers from back home even though I’d had exactly one of those in my childhood.

“Some ancestor a couple hundred years back broke something expensive by accident?” Cross threw out as a possibility, grinning a bit.

“I suppose not all priceless vases can lead to a homosexual supporting cast,” I quipped, grinning some at my own taste in references.

“All these damn rich people…” Soundbite muttered, and I burst out giggling.

“Unfortunately, it’s nothing quite so small or funny,” Vivi said, just a bit snappishly, and our grins quickly disappeared. “How much do you all actually know about the World Nobles?”

“Uh…” My gaze shifted upwards as I tried to figure out a way to word what I knew without revealing too much. “There was an alliance of great powers a long long time ago, and the greatest of those powers went off to live in a great big palace by themselves once the alliance was all set up? Something like that?”

“There were twenty rulers, right?” Cross followed up, “And they were the founders of the nascent World Government, whose descendants are allowed to do whatever the hell they want with no consequences.”

“And it’s been around eight hundred years since then,” Charlie finished, nodding a bit.

“A plus,” Vivi joked, though the humor only barely permeated her voice. “All you’re missing is the part where, eight hundred years ago, when the alliance was formed, the Nefertaris refused to go along with the ‘ascension’, and remained with their kingdom in Alabasta.”

Everyone stopped dead, most of us blinking in shock a few times.

“PRINCESS SAY WHAT?!” Soundbite supplied to break the silence, and while I questioned the method of delivery a bit, the sentiment was sound.

“That, uh…” I shook my head, blinking. Honestly, I had remembered most of this over the course of the conversation, but hearing Vivi come right out and say it the way she did had still affected me. It was… it was a pretty big thing. 

“That… would explain the issues, I guess,” I finished lamely.

“Wait,” Cross leaned towards Vivi a bit, “but you aren’t —”

“No,” Vivi cut him off forcefully. “Not a World Noble. Never. But…”

“You could have been,” Charlie finished, his face pensive and serious. I wondered a bit about where he came from and what his deal was; what was with the speech pattern, the prince getup from before… Well, it wasn’t time for that now.

Vivi nodded. “They’ve never let our family forget it.”

“Dat’s why we haven’ got any help wit’ da webellion…” Carue muttered, head hung.

“Well, that and my father not wanting their brand of problem-solving,” Vivi responded, looking off into the distance, “but they make things difficult, always. It’s never exactly unmanageable, but it’s always… there.”

I had no idea how, yet, that Vivi’s backstory played into greater plot events, either in canon or the version of the world that I was actually in, but whatever happened, it would be huge. 

A World Noble once removed… Why was I thinking of Donquixote Doflamingo, of all things? There was no point to thinking about crazy what-ifs when I was actually living in this world, and it wasn’t like I was sure Vivi was even going to stay with us, anyway, so they might never meet in any capacity.

My heart sank at that thought, yet another moral dilemma rearing its ugly head, but I shook my head again, even more vigorously. That one was barely a question, anyway.

“Worry not, dear Vivi,” Charlie smiled, “We would never think less of you for something like that.”

“I mean, it was a decision made by your ancestors,” I waved my hands a bit, “and honestly, I think it was a decision most of us agree with.”

“Yeah, it’d suck having to hate you instead of getting to be friends with you, so I’m definitely not complaining,” Cross grinned.

Vivi seemed a bit surprised, but she smiled widely. “Thank you. I’m glad to know all of you, too.”

It was then that my brain decided to take note of the fact that… “Hey, you know, Luffy didn’t him in with even one bizarrely insightful remark during that entire conversation.” I was starting to get a bad feeling…

“…Shit,” Cross said, looking around and seeing no sign of our captain. “Soundbite, where’s our favorite rubber idiot?”

“Well, if you look ABOVE YOUR HEADS,” Soundbite said, utilizing a few different tour guide voices, and we all snapped our eyes upward.

Now, I’m not always the best at describing things, but seeing a real longneck dinosaur (whichever one it was) in the flesh generated an almost familiar kind of awe in me, because of course I’d seen bones of these things in museums and I’d seen other huge things before. The difference, of course, was that this was something that was supposed to be long dead, so it wasn’t quite the same thing as seeing a giraffe right next to you in a zoo or something.

Did I forget to mention that I fucking love dinosaurs? I was grinning like a maniac the minute the thing’s neck swung into view, and not even the rubber idiot barely hanging onto it dampened my excitement.

… I would absolutely be a victim of Jurassic Park, god damn it…

“HEY GUYS!” Luffy yelled down at us from his makeshift perch. “LOOK WHAT I FOUND!”

“Awesome!” I squeaked, overriding the shock and distress everyone else was attempting to voice. Unfortunately, though, my joy was short lived.

You see, despite the fact that Luffy was very much a squishy meat-based human, and longnecks are supposed to be herbivorous, this one in particular seemed to be a rebel, because it decided to deal with the pest hanging around its neck by swallowing him whole. I didn’t actually get a lot of time to process this in the long run, but my hypothesis about why this happened involves the question of whether rubber counts as digestible plant-based matter if it’s alive — uh, that’s not really the point, though. The reason I didn’t have a ton of time to process the out-of-character behavior is because the dinosaur’s neck was very swiftly separated from its body, handily freeing our dear captain.

I hope that you don’t think that I managed to pay any attention to anything after that little bit of overstimulation, because if you do, you do not know me well enough.

I managed to recover what little sense I normally have and start processing again sometime after Cross called Nami back on the ship and found out there was another giant. I think specifically there was a bout of laughter that made me fully conscious again, mostly because of the response it elicited from Nami.

“Three… there are three of them…” Oh, dear, she was starting to hyperventilate. “THREE…”

“Dame Nami,” Charlie said, trying to be soothing despite the fact that he wasn’t breathing much easier than she was, “please take deep breaths and avoid throwing yourself into the ocean, or else we will all die after you do.”

“… Was… was that an attempt to stroke my ego?” Nami sniffled a bit, not sounding impressed in the slightest.

“I am doing my best,” Charlie replied forcefully, and I was hit with a bizarre sense of him stealing my line, even though I… hadn’t said it that often lately? Ugh, Arceus, let’s stay away from the meta-ness on that.

“You gonna be up there for a while, Luffy?” Cross called up to our captain, perched on the shoulder of… wait, fuck, which giant was this? I’d totally missed introductions and I genuinely didn’t remember, shit… well, hopefully I’d pick up the names via osmosis later? Anyway, Luffy was on the giant’s shoulder and seemed to be having the time of his life despite the dinosaur blood and spit he was dripping with.

“Shishishi! You bet!” Luffy called back down to us. “You should come too, it’ll be fun!”

“Wait, go where?” I turned to one side, directing the question at Vivi since she was near me in that direction. “I think my brain is still shorting out a bit.”

“Uh, I don’t know if he mentioned anything?” Vivi was blinking at nothing in front of her. “Oh, wait, his house, I think that was something that came up. I think I might go, it might… something?” Welp, she wasn’t doing much better than me, then. “What about you?” 

“Well, uh…” Okay, c’mon, think, what happens next? I was starting to get a bad feeling, and I couldn’t remember why, which was a feeling in general that I was getting tired of. I needed to reread This Bites again, that much was clear. “Okay, so, Luffy can handle himself, obviously, and the giant doesn’t seem like he wants to kill us, so… I don’t think any of us should go? Strength in numbers where we are, what with the dinosaurs?”

“That’s a pretty good point, actually,” Cross put his hand to his chin. “Well, I was kinda just wanting to wander around anyway, so… I’m good! Have fun, Luffy!”

“Maa…” Luffy seemed kind of disappointed, but it passed quickly. “See you guys around then!”

Whichever giant (Arceus I hoped it came up soon) turned and walked away, and those of us still on the ground turned to each other, all of us mostly recovered.

Cross exemplified this most, cheerily saying, “Welp, let’s go find that T-Rex, then! We’re burnin’ daylight!”

I should’ve had a complaint, I really should have, but I… genuinely didn’t. I just kind of grinned in response and patted Cross on the back, turning him towards the jungle and pushing a bit. “Lead the way then, Tactician Man!”

“Are we in over our heads, Ms. Wednesday?” I vaguely heard Charlie mutter to Vivi.

“We have no choice but to go along for now, Mr. 9,” Vivi responded.

After a bit of wandering, some conversations with the giants (I did wind up getting their names without embarrassing myself, thank Arceus), and a bit of angry staring at some of the most juicy-looking fruit we had no way of knowing we could eat without dying (this was mostly me, being honest), the six of us came across what looked like a cave, though the bleached-out rock face that made up the mountain made me narrow my eyes, though I had no idea why I was suspicious. Soundbite sounded the alarm before we could even think about going in, though, and for no good reason, I felt vindicated.

“Pack hunters, you said?” Charlie asked, directing the question at the giants through the snail connection. Soundbite had been doing most of the heavy lifting, Mulligan relaxing happily on my shoulder; he seemed to enjoy my whistling, which made me smile. 

“Indeed!” Broggy — he was the one we hadn’t seen, from what I’d gathered — replied. “Not much trouble for us, but they’d outnumber and overpower your small group without much trouble.”

They were probably the raptors I maybe-sorta-almost wanted to steal. It was marginally upsetting.

Although, on the scale of how upsetting things could be, there are definitely worse things than not stealing a cool baby dinosaur you have no idea how to raise or even much about besides “large chicken-like lizard.”

For example, if you wanted to be really upset, you could run into two trained assassins/bounty hunters who wanted you dead. By accident. That’s pretty irritating.

So upsetting is that situation that I have no idea what the proper response is to such a situation. Especially when those assassins are quicker on the draw than you, and one them can make giant fucking explosions. How are you supposed to react to suddenly getting blasted away from your party members?

I’ll tell you one thing, whatever the ideal solution to such a problem is, it probably isn’t turning tail and running, especially when all of your party members wind up running in different directions when you had just talked about how much of a mistake it was to split the god damn party in a deadly jungle, but we had just been almost blown to pieces, can you really blame us for being frazzled in such a situation? 

… Ugh, yes, okay, you totally can. 

Chapter Text

So, I’m sure you’re wondering exactly how panicking and splitting up turned out for us in the end, and let me tell you, it was exactly as much of a Time as you probably expect.

Speaking just for myself, my fight-or-flight response was so strong that I didn’t stop to register details about where the hell I was actually going until I realized that it had somehow gotten dark.

And also, funnily enough, that I wasn’t alone.

When I heard the slightly-skittering footsteps, though, the same adrenaline made my Copy Sword appear in my hand immediately, even though the rational part of my brain realized it was going to be exactly zero help when I couldn’t fucking see. As such, I started running through other ideas as best as I could while still in full panic mode.

Stress is a physical response designed to make you function better and faster, Amanda. Keep your brain and eyes open, and you’ll be fine.

Presumably the raptors could smell me, but, thank the gods of terrible homemade recipes, didn’t know what the hell to do with something that smelled like I currently did. They outnumbered me and could rip me to pieces but they probably wouldn’t as long as they thought I was dangerous to mess with and I got off their turf as quickly as possible. I needed to be intimidating enough that my movements wouldn’t trigger their instinct to chase me, what —

Wait, intimidating animal, would that… no time to overthink, just go with it, it’ll be fine.

My Copy Sword dissolved and I drew the essence up around my head, feeling horns take shape, then I reached back to the space between my shoulders and let it pool out even more, grimacing a bit as I felt it tug at my brain and body. All the while, I took small, slow steps backwards, quiet as possible.

I took a deep breath as I felt the constructs flex into place, and exhaled a shower of sparks.

The brief bit of light caused the raptors — the many, many raptors — to startle, just a bit, but they didn’t charge forward. I continued my slow walk backwards, breathing deeply and keeping the image of an intimidating monster in my head.

You are not worth my time.

I stepped backwards into the light, not looking away from the cave until I was a meter or two away, near where the undergrowth thickened back up.

Then, I turned and walked into the brush, gasping as my constructs snapped away. Dragons were not easy to copy, what with all the various parts and variations…

I didn’t have time to relax or catch my breath, though.

“Mulligan,” I said, trying to come up with a plan and stay as calm as possible now that I could see that the others weren’t anywhere, “Call Soundbite, quickly.”

The snail complied without complaint, and I held my breath as I waited for a response.

“Ami?” I finally heard, after a length of time that felt longer than it probably actually was. “What happened, where’d you guys go?”

“I would up in the scary cave from earlier,” I said, trying to even out my breathing. “I’m fine, though, I think they were thrown off by the gunk you made.”

That made more sense than anything else, anyway; now that I was out of the situation, I couldn’t help but think I’d just gotten stupid lucky…

“… Wait, Vivi and Charlie aren’t with you?!”

“No, and I haven’t seen our other ‘friends’ either.”

“… They don’t have a snail,” I realized aloud, standing up stick straight. “Soundbite, please tell me it’s loud enough where they are that you can get us there?”

“Uh…” I could hear the concentration even if I couldn’t see Mulligan’s face right that second, preoccupied as I was trying to figure out if I could see anything useful. “… EXPLOSION! AT YOUR 10 O’CLOCK!”

“Is that me or Cross?” I asked, already moving regardless.

“YES!!”

Bah, works for me. I tried to keep at a decent jog, despite the earlier use of my power not helping my pace at all. Luckily, after a few minutes, it wasn’t hard to detect the explosions, and the total distance was mercifully less than I’d expected it to be.

A Copy Staff laid just out of form at the edge of my mind as I rushed to see what was going on and figure out how how to help, but when I managed to catch sight of what could only be the fight, my heart dropped.

The 5 pair weren’t the only agents attacking Vivi and Charlie.

Mr. 3 was there, too.

I quickly aborted my run and ducked into some still-standing foliage, trying to get a good grasp of the situations before I ran in guns blazing and got turned into the plot of a Goosebumps book. It looked like Charlie was carrying Vivi as he jumped around to try and avoid the explosions and wax while she deflected what debris she could with her Peacock Slashers; this further inspection made me realize this was definitely still them attempting a getaway, which meant what I needed to do was find some way to distract or redirect them or something if I wanted to be useful. 

Not really doing anything was giving me jitters, but I knew just jumping in wouldn’t be enough to distract them for long enough and I’d probably die, so I had to think. I took another deep breath and tried to let my tension flow rather than build up, or whatever explanation of fight-or-flight actually makes sense, and kept looking, hoping for something —

“Ami,” Cross’s voice said right near my ear, and I forced myself not to jump visibly. “You’re at the fight, right?”

“Yeah,” I nodded, not caring he and Soundbite couldn’t see me. “Where are you guys?”

“Close by, doesn’t matter exactly where; just follow our lead, got it?”

And then I heard the sound of heavy footfalls and breathing from right next to me. I whipped my head around, really not in the mood to deal with a dinosaur on top of — wait, there wasn’t anything… Oh, okay, that was their plan, but how the hell was I supposed to “follow their lead” on that?!

Then I took another look at the wax, and all the stimulus together gave me a flash of inspiration.

I was almost certainly going to pass out after this, but I’d do what I had to do. I reached my hands up and back, spreading Copy Essence over my head and back once again.

I felt more take shape as claws as I grinned despite the slightly-painful tugging of my power, and I muttered, both to myself and the dynamic duo on the ground, “Cute, but why not follow this lead?”

I jumped — leaped, even — into a tree, delighting in the fact that I had the strength and purchase to climb into its higher branches, then I jumped from its limbs to those of one further forwards, a low growl I wasn’t entirely sure was just my voice building in my throat.

Something had made the fight pause, just for a moment, and I didn’t hesitate to spit a stream of fire through the leaves that just barely hid me from view.

I would’ve hit the wax-man right in the head if he hadn’t noticed the heat just in time, which irritated me, but I knew I couldn’t keep this up if I just stayed in one place. I jumped forward through the trees some more, the growl I felt before growing louder in my throat, and I fired another stream, this time at Valentine.

5 was quick on the draw with a response explosion, but I was able to jump through the branches fast enough to avoid most of it — not all, but the edges didn’t cause much damage besides some minor leg burns and maybe slightly-melted sneakers. My response to this inconvenience, instead of a cry of pain, was a bellowing roar that definitely wasn’t something I was normally capable of.

It was at this point that I, along with Mr. 3, realized Vivi and Charlie were no longer in the exploded pseudo-clearing. I fired another jet of fire, and dodged another blast, this time only dodging most of the damage because I’d had more of the tree between me and the blast than before. I barely managed to cling onto what was left of the trunk of the tree, and the agents stormed off into the jungle to pursue their targets again, thankfully not seeing my arms as they gripped around the tree. 

I would’ve fired after them, probably, but I’d passed my limit about two blasts ago, and I felt my constructs snap out of existence, my grip slipping. My consciousness faded to the point that I didn’t even fully register the fact that I was falling to my serious-injury-or-death…

Then Charlie had me solidly in his grip, and delivered me safely to the ground. I smiled blearily and gave a weak ‘woo!’ as he helped me stand up fully and I saw Vivi and Cross come out of the bushes, both mostly unharmed and looking satisfied.

“Nice job there, Drakina,” Cross quipped. “Not quite what I had in mind, but definitely effective.”

“I am frankly shocked that it worked, being honest,” I said, head lolling just a bit.

“Uh, Cross, not to ruin the moment,” Vivi said, her nose wrinkling as she brought her hand up to cover it, “but I think you smell even worse than we all did when we got here.”

… Oh no. Noooonononono. Can you hear that? That’s the sound of gongs, cathedral bells, and every kind of siren ever conceived, going off all at once in my brain as I processed what the hell Vivi was referring to.

Specifically…

“Cross,” I said slowly, failing entirely to keep the dread out of my voice, “What is that crap all over you?”

“Hell if I know,” Cross grimaced, lifting one arm as he inspected himself vaguely. “I didn’t realize they weren’t after us until after I camouflaged myself in goop, I didn’t think I had time to be picky.”

Doomed. He was doomed.

I hadn’t even thought about trying to warn Cross about the fact that he wound up super sick on Little Garden because I absolutely didn’t expect he’d wind up in that particular pool of gunk because I figured things would at least be that different or conspire to make me the one who takes the metaphorical bullet or Nami or something, oh god okay Amanda don’t panic, maybe there’s something we can do, yeah, let’s figure that out…

“Okay, so,” I said, clapping my hands together, “because we have no idea what kind of gross shit was marinating in whatever you decided to marinate in, I say we burn those clothes immediately.” I nodded, forcing a grin as I tried not to breath in. “Also you should definitely shower as thoroughly as possible and stay at least a meter from us at all times to lower the risk of whatever crap you may or may not be carrying right now spreading, kay? Kay.”

Cross’s eyes widened as he processed what I was implying, then nodded once, briskly. “Yeah, okay, good plan. To the ship?”

“Posthaste,” I nodded again. “Soundbite, you know which way to go?”

“JUST WHAT DO YOU TAKE ME FOR?” He scoffed. “To the left, to the left!”

Beyonce? Really? Eh, not really my place to complain, I guess.

I gestured for Cross to go ahead, and followed once he felt like a semi-safe distance away, before something suddenly occurred to me.

“… Wait, Vivi, where’s Carue?” I asked, my head tilting. “Charlie was carrying you before, but…”

“WAAAAAAAAAK!” I heard, along with an almost cartoony-sounding zoom sound, and then Carue skidded to a stop in front of us. “Vivi, they didn’ buy it fow a second, I towd you it wath a bad idea!”

“Well, we’re fine now,” Vivi said, stroking Carue’s neck and giving a small, reassuring smile. “I’m sorry to worry you with a long shot tactic like that, but… when Mr. 3 showed up I didn’t have any other ideas…”

“Uh, we MISS SOMETHING?” Soundbite said, helpfully making up for the berth we were giving Cross — sound powers totally ruled sometimes.

“I got uthed ath a decoy!” Carue squawked indignantly. “I pud Vivi at wisk and it didn’ even wak…”

“Well, we’re fine, so don’t feel too bad,” I said, smiling myself and patting Carue’s head. “Not every plan’s a winner, but next time you can be better, y’know?”

“Where’d you get that fortune cookie?” Cross said, Soundbite making him more audible. I stuck my tongue out at him in response, even though he couldn’t really see me.

“Maybe I got it from you, ya Shakesperian dingus,” I shot.

“OH SNAP!” Soundbite supplied, and I burst out laughing.

“Wh -- oh, I get it,” he huffed, “This is the thanks I get for being cultured, is it? I see how it is.”

“Let’s just get back to the ship, you loser,” I laughed.

As we walked, Cross reestablished connection with Nami and Usopp and reassured a livid Luffy that we were all alright.

“Trust me, we’re fine,” Cross said. “I won’t ask where you are right now because I know you have no idea, but… I dunno, keep an eye out, I guess.”

“You guys should be careful too,” Nami warned. “Nobody’s at the ship right now and we’re not sure if they’re just after Vivi.”

“Wait, no one’s at the ship?” Vivi said, worry creeping into her voice. “Where’s Igaram? He was with you, wasn’t he?”

“Oh god, don’t remind me,” Nami sighed. “We couldn’t stop him from running off the minute we lost connection with you.”

“So he’s alone, somewhere in the jungle?” Vivi was shifting from worry to panic, now.

“Oh, he’s with me!”  Luffy chimed in, a bit more cheerfully this time. “We kinda crashed into each other, but I’m rubber and he’s awake now, so it’s okay I think!”

Vivi sighed heavily with relief. “Oh, thank goodness…”

“Wait, awake now?” Nami cut in. “Luffy, what —”

“I fell unconscious for only a market — ahem-hem-MA, a moment, worry not!” Igaram responded, not really reassuring anyone but making a few of us, Vivi included, giggle.

“Alright, I’m glad, Igaram. Luffy, will you stick with him? Things seem like they could get dangerous…” Vivi bit her lip. “When we were running, I think I heard Mr. 3 yelling at Mr. 5 and Ms. Valentine about ‘other priorities’, but… I’m not sure who they meant, if I’m right.”

“They’re bounty hunters, you said?” Broggy asked. “Could be they’re after us, then, if the World Government still has prices on us after all these years…”

“I feel like Vivi or I should’ve heard about an operation like that…” Charlie mused, “especially given Little Garden’s proximity to Whiskey Peak… Although I suppose that all depends on when they began to distrust Vivi…”

“Well, it’s a possibility, anyway,” I shrugged. “We should probably be on the lookout just in case; constant vigilance and all that.”

… Wait, that’s a reference, isn’t it. Cross just slammed his hand over Soundbite’s mouth, so that’s a yes. Welp, too late now. 

“So, okay,” Usopp cut in, “We know Mr. 5 has explosions, and Ms. Valentine messes with her weight, but you said this Mr. 3 guy makes wax? How does that work?”

“It’s as strong as steel,” Vivi responded, “and he can shape it into whatever he wants: swords, weights, a giant robot, you name it.”

“A giant… wax robot?” Charlie raised an eyebrow, incredulous.

“Well, okay, I guess ‘giant’ is relative,” Vivi waved a hand. “The threat shouldn’t be understated, though; his abilities work especially well with his partner, Ms. Goldenweek. She’s an artist, and she can alter people’s behavior with her paints, somehow.”

“Devil Fruit?” Usopp said, being surprisingly genre-savvy. Even if he happened to be wrong in this instance, I expected him to freak out for longer when Vivi had said “giant robot.” Maybe Luffy already was and we just weren’t hearing it because Soundbite could do that? 

Bluh, focus.

“Definitely not a Devil Fruit, actually,” Vivi shook her head slightly. “I’ve seen her swimming, I remember clearly. I think it has to do with hypnosis, if I remember all my research correctly…”

“Oy vey…” Nami groaned. “That bodes ill…”

“Yeah, hypnotism and our crew definitely don’t mix well…” Usopp commiserated.

“Eh? Whaddaya mean?” It was amazing how completely I visualized Luffy’s inevitable head tilt. “All I did was rampage a little…”

Nami and Usopp groaned, and I just as completely visualized them falling to the ground.

“So is that everything?” I asked, trying to keep an eye out for anything unexpected coming out of the jungle. “What’s the plan?”

“As of right now?” Cross tilted his head back to look at us for a second, then hummed as he looked to the sky. “… as of right now, I think we should get back to the ship, then… probably we just have to find them before they find us.”

“Wow, what a plan,” I said in a deadpan. “Not that I really have any better ideas… we don’t know where they are, right?”

“NOPE!” Soundbite replied. “This jungle’s got WAY too much INTERFERENCE!”

I sighed. “Fair enough. We should probably try to stick together for real, this time.”

“Absolutely solid idea,” Cross nodded. “We almost at the ship, bud?”

“GIVE IT two minutes!”

I blinked. “Wait, if no one’s at the ship, and the jungle’s loud, how do you know where the ship is?”

“WATER? Duh!”

“Okay, okay, sheesh,” I put my arms up defensively. “I’m allowed to ask questions.”

Something was seriously nagging at me, being honest, and in fact, two minutes later, those suspicions were confirmed.

“WAIT!” Soundbite said, just before Cross emerged from the trees. “There IS someone on the ship!”

“Well, fuck,” I said, readying Copy Staff in one hand and taking a swig of water from my canteen with the other. “Alright then, what’s the plan now?”

“How many, and where are they?” Cross asked his partner, and Soundbite closed his eyes to concentrate a bit.

“I think IT’S MR. 5,” Soundbite said, “But I’m not… sure? There’s a guy, in the hold, muttering to himself, but… JUST ONE?”

“Just…” I blinked as my brain spun to put together what ‘probably Mr. 5’ and ‘alone’ actually meant for us. “Shit, get —”

“There you are!” A high voice sneered, and all of us jumped out of the way just in time to avoid a cannon-impact of a falling woman crashing down from the trees. I managed to use my Copy Staff to pivot as I jumped away so I could see both Valentine and the boat, it suddenly occurring to me that a man who caused explosions was currently inside our very wooden ship, and I had to take another deep breath to keep my brain actually working.

As Valentine jumped again and I got ready to dodge, I entertained brief, only-vaguely-connected ideas of going into the ship, but — dodge! — swing — PAIN, ow, a 1000-kilo punch is not something to joke about… that’s what I get for thinking about stuff besides the fight.

God, but absolutely none of us had a good matchup here; I was the only with a power and none of us were more than above-average in terms of strength and mobility, plus I was really feeling the power overuse. Absolutely no real way to handle a woman that fucks with her… weight…

… Okay, dodge, duck, grab Vivi out of the way, is that plan worth the vomit? Will it knock her out of commission long enough?

Suddenly an explosion went off near me and I didn’t have time to think it over anymore. I let my Copy Staff disperse as I rolled away from a punch that downed a tree and made the Essence coil around my hair and fingers as I lunged towards Ms. Valentine, grabbing her arm with both hands right as she made to take off. Squaring my footing, I yanked, swinging her around to block an explosion with her face.

“Ability Copy: Zero Gravity!” I yelled, feeling the strain on my stomach increase as Valentine increased her mass. I kept swinging, using one hand to grab her other arm as she swung it at me in retaliation. Twisting so her crossed arms turned into a remarkably efficient handle, I stepped again and kept fucking spinning, hoping my teammates had the good sense to stay out of the way, and keeping as good a track of Mr. 5 as I could. Then, after a good few spins, just when she’d increased her mass to the point I couldn’t handle it, I let go, letting her careen straight into her partner.

“Release!” I shouted desperately, not even getting to savor the crash before I had to catch myself from falling and hold back the vomit. I took a deep breath and swallowed, then chugged some water from my canteen. Only then did I survey the damage I’d done.

The pair of them had crashed through a solid six or seven trees and seemed to be — for now, anyway — down for the count.

“Ugh, do I need food and a water refill…” I groaned, wobbling a bit as I stood up fully. “Cross, take off your outer layers before you go in and do not let that crap touch anything, capische?” 

“What are you, my mom?” Cross huffed, gingerly removing his jacket. “Does, that, like, include —”

“Everything would be best, we won’t look,” I cut him off. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if the damage was already done in terms of Cross nearly keeling over once things started actually happening, and I wasn’t sure if we had been, like, exposed to a dangerous amount in any way, but this was at least something, and like hell I was letting him track super-cholera through the house — er. Boat. That was weird. “Make sure you get your ass into a shower and check the hold while you’re down there to make sure my room isn’t gonna blow up on me or anything.”

“We shall ensure the two ruffians don’t attack again,” Charlie nodded.

“Um, are the others still on the line?” Vivi asked and I blinked, directing my attention to Mulligan.

“Nami?” I asked. “You guys still there?”

“Obviously!” Nami snapped. “How have you idiots managed to get into this much trouble?!”

“Heck iv bwe know,” Carue commiserated.

“AAAARGH!!” I heard Luffy over the line, snorting in spite of myself. “Why can’t I find anything in this stupid place?!”

“Captain Luffy, Princess Vivi instructed us to —”

Igaram was cut off by another yell, then Soundbite’s face went flat. “I’M JUST GONNA stop broadcasting him NOW.”

I giggled a bit more, then went ahead with my instinct to keep tabs on everything. “You and Usopp are still with one of the giants, right?”

“Yeah, we stuck with Broggy,” Usopp confirmed. “And you guys are at the ship… where’s everyone else?”

“Zoro and Sanji are having their dick-measuring contest,” I huffed, “So who knows when we’ll see them.”

“Lulu is likely not to return until felling the largest beast she can find,” Charlie added. “I would say finding her would be equally difficult.”

“Cross, you burn those clothes yet?” I asked, assuming he could hear.

“If you’d paid attention,” Cross responded snarkily, “You’d have noticed I left them there for you to burn.”

… Huh, so he had.

“That’s the kind of thing you tell people, usually,” I huffed. “Yeah, I guess I’ll handle it, just don’t forget to wash your hair and all that.”

“Again, what are you, my mom? I know how to freaking shower.”

Soundbite started to make some kind of dog noise, but I made up my dragon constructs in a quick motion and cut him off with a rumble.

“Sorry, not funny,” I growled. “Find better jokes.”

Then I let loose a jet of flame to set the clothes alight, grimacing as a jolt of pain went through my head. I let the constructs fade, vaguely wondering about — wait, no, I had food, that was right!

God, how had I forgotten I had a lunchbox? It was a little shaken up from all the running, but it was functional enough, and definitely still delicious. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a ton of time to eat before the burning clothes started to light the nearby grass on fire, and I had to figure out how to make a forest fire not happen. I actually couldn’t copy water-based powers for the most part since my Copy Essence touching water counted as me touching water and that didn’t bode well if the necessary constructs were water, or at least that’s what the limited amount of practice I’d been able to do seemed to indicate, so I had to find another solution.

I slowly put my bento on the ground, then leaned forward… and a ‘nyoom’ could be heard as I rushed forward to pile sand and dirt onto the flames, all the while making some kind of noise with my mouth that I couldn’t begin to describe. Everyone joined me after bit of processing and flailing, and eventually we, somehow, had a relatively intricate sand/dirt castle made on top of where the clothes had been.

It was at this point that Cross walked out of the boat.

“… Did we miss something?” He said, and we all stopped short, looking at the various decorations we’d wound up making out of grass and leaves.

Making another ‘nyoom’ sound, I was back over by my lunch, munching. “Nope, not really. You all clean and whatnot?”

“Again, what are you, my mom?” Cross said, enunciated a bit oddly to stress the irritation in his voice.

“Don’t worry, HE EVEN —”

“WHY WOULD YOU —”/“NOPE! HELL NO!” Cross and I burst out, me covering my ears and Cross attempting to throttle his partner, all while a raucous laugh track played.

Cross groaned. “Ugh… and I think I still smell like bug repellent…”

“Oh, shit, right, the bug repellent,” I said, putting a hand to my chin. “Uh… you wanna wear my vest or something just to make sure? It’s pretty saturated, I think…”

“Better safe than sorry,” Cross said, and I really really really hoped that wasn’t a doom flag and really needed to stop thinking about this, wow, Amanda, just hand him the vest and be done with it.

And so I did, and his gag at the smell managed to make me giggle in spite of my concerns.

“So, now that that’s handled…” Vivi cut in gently, and thank god, “… what are we doing about Mr. 5 and Ms. Valentine?”

Cross crossed his arms and studied the agents’ crash site for a bit.

“… Drag ‘em in a direction and leave ‘em there?” He shrugged. Then he shook his head. “I mean, there’ll be dinosaurs, but we can’t just leave them here and outright killing them isn’t really high on my list of preferred options either, so…”

“Wouldn’t dragging them through the forest leave a trail of some kind?” Vivi asked, and yeah, the undergrowth was thick enough that might be a real concern…

“There are ways to avoid such things,” Charlie replied. “If the route is convoluted and we stay vigilant about it, it’s possible to avoid the undergrowth leading back to where we came from.”

“Oh, and we could make a slightly messier trail a bit in another direction on purpose, ef we have time!” I said, smiling as I pointed at Charlie in response. Then I blinked, my arm drooping, because… “Wait, why do you know that?”

He just shook his head. “You know it too, don’t you? It’s simply common sense.”

The dismissive nature that response kind of jolted at me, but now wasn’t really the time to get all depressed and anxious because of random comments.

“Honestly, failing anything fancy, we could just drag them down the canal until we can’t see the ship anymore and leave them in the nearest open area we see,” Cross added. “It’s all I got for now, since we don’t have any real restraints…”

“Alright, but…” Vivi trailed off, looking at the two agents. “There was also the problem, back on Whiskey Peak, about Ms. Valentine’s powers…”

We all went silent for a bit at that, staring at the agents.

“… I’m going to straight-up vomit all the food I literally just ate if I copy Zero Gravity again,” I said.

“… Soundbite, you’re sure you can’t hear Lulu anywhere?” Cross asked, head hung and sounding just a bit desperate.

“There are three different people HUNTING MONSTERS in these woods THIS SECOND AND every kind of giant beasty making EVERY KIND OF NOISE,” Soundbite reported bitterly. “AND WITH ENEMIES OUT THERE, TOO? You tell me.”

“Fair enough!” Cross said, forcing some cheer and putting his hands on his hips. “I guess just have give it a shot and if our backs hate us for it later, that’s their problem!”

“I love pretending body parts have sentience!” I cheered with equal forced cheer. “Let’s do it!”

Behind us, Vivi and Charlie exchanged a confused look.

“Definitely over our heads, Mr. 9…” Vivi muttered.

By some miracle, Ms. Valentine weighed a normal human weight when we tried to pick her up, although since none of us was really capable of carrying a whole human by ourselves anyway, we kind of had to carry each of them like large boxes or couches, one person on each side. It was more than a little awkward.

We walked our way down the river, away from the outside coast of the island, thankfully in the grass and not the sand where my feet could get wet. It probably wouldn’t have been too bad, but I had no real way to know, since I’d been pretty happy to avoid water besides when necessary for bathing ever since eating my Devil Fruit.

We’d been walking for about ten minutes when we realized it would be way too far to get the Merry out of sight, so we defaulted to our original plan of walking carefully through the undergrowth instead. Carue went ahead of us, lifting or moving things out of the way, until we started getting worried about them waking back up and just kind of settled for the next decent-looking place then booked it as carefully as we could.

“God that could’ve gone so wrong,” I said once we got back to the river. “I’m genuinely just waiting for —”

“Shh!” Cross cut me off. “Do not tempt fate or so help me…”

He trailed off, and I looked around confusedly during the ensuing pause.

“… So help you what?”

He squinted, also looking around. “Soundbite, any signs of impending doom?”

“Uh… NOPE!”

“Well alright then!” Cross brightened.”I guess the gruesome punishments can wait!”

“Oh, joy,” I groaned, mostly confused and exasperated, rather than worried.

Honestly, and this was me being realistic rather than saying it to say it, I genuinely had expected, like, a volcanic eruption to happen at some point during all that stuff we’d been doing. Dorry and Broggy hadn’t had a match the whole time we’d been here that I’d noticed and that was… really strange, at least to me. I mean there was a chance I’d just missed it, but it seemed like the kind of thing even I would notice…

And yet, even as we walked back down the river, there was no tell-tale rumbling. Vivi and Cross chatted with the giants and Nami and Usopp about stuff about the islands, with topics ranging from the year-long Log Pose wait and what to do about it to the giants’ great duel.

“Man, that kind of pride…” I could hear the stars in Usopp’s eyes as he gushed about the way the giants had kept up their fight so long. “That’s the kind of thing I want to have someday! The kind of person I want to be!”

“I dunno,” I sighed, just a bit. “I think it’s important what kind of pride you have, rather than always fighting just to prove you can. I mean, what about all the other people affected by these two? All their former crewmates who had to leave them here to duke it out forever?”

“It’s true, a hundred years seems a bit much, even for giants,” Vivi nodded.

“You just don’t get it,” Usopp almost scoffed, and I couldn’t stop myself from twitching at the tone.

“I’m going to stop you before you say something totally stupid relating to gender, okay?” I shot back, raising an eyebrow. “Fighting because you like it and want to is fine, in controlled amounts, and I like that kind of thing as much as anyone else, but these guys were originally supposed to be accomplishing something. At this point, all finishing what they started will do is kill one of them, it won’t matter.”

“Young lass, I understand that your words come from a place concern,” Dorry said, and I grimaced — I hadn’t actually meant to go that far in my argument, but I hadn’t been able to stop myself… now I felt bad. “You are not the first to call the traditions of Elbaf extreme!”

“Yes, but we believe Elbaf will grant us favor in the end, no matter whether we live or die!” Broggy continued. “That is enough for us, you see?”

“… Right, yeah,” I said, not really convinced, but I did feel bad for insulting them and it was their lives at the end of the day. “Sorry about that.”

Even if this duel in particular felt kind of pointless, it wasn’t like they were bad people or anything, and… I guess I definitely understood the appeal of following a single simple goal with all your strength, even if I tended not to be able to do it myself very often.

We were getting close to the ship at this point, though, and, in my introspective state, my eyes managed to wander just enough to —

BEEEEEEEEP.

TARGET: SIGHTED.

“BWAH!” Soundbite said suddenly, startled. “What was THAT?!”

I stopped in my tracks and just pointed, everyone following my gaze and pointer finger…

Straight to the vulture in an aviator cap perched on Merry’s masthead.

“Ah,” Vivi said blankly, her eyes unfocused.

“Welp,” Cross blinked a few times. “This is gonna suck.”

The vulture lifted her wings, machine guns appearing from god-knows-where, and I barely had the awareness to call Copy Essence before a hail of bullets came straight at us.

Thankfully, sometimes instincts actually work the way they’re supposed to, and in this case, I managed to copy a barrier power quickly enough to avoid any of us becoming swiss cheese.

The constructs that formed as focuses were a scarf and what felt like glasses, which meant my instinctual connection to shield powers was that OC of mine, rather than anyone else, which, while fascinating, was not something my brain needed to be processing, god damn it!!

The barrier was stable and sturdy and big enough to cover everyone, everything it needed to be, but I hadn’t fully recovered from my overuse earlier, so I was acutely aware of every clattering bullet impact. This, as you might expect, made it incredibly difficult to actually think about what to do next, but I happened to not be alone, thank Arceus, and my friends managed to yank me out of the line of fire.

Unfortunately, Friday had been sitting on the masthead alone, and Mr. 13 was waiting in the brush for just such a dodge as the lot of us managed. Cross managed to whip out his baton and deflect 13’s shells when he charged at us, but kind of just barely; Cross was off balance afterward, but I managed to make a Copy Staff to block 13’s next blow so Cross could recover. 

Charlie took this opportunity to slam 13 over the head with one of his bats, sending the otter rolling across the dirt, but 13 actually recovered near-flawlessly from that roll and brandished his weapons again, and I vaguely heard the sound of firearms cocking from the side.

And then, the volcano decided now was when it wanted to erupt.

Honestly, after that, I somehow kind of lost track of things? Cross’s original account of this arc wound up referring to its events as “The Little Garden Affair,” and I swear, I had intended to have a better handle on what the hell was happening and what was going to happen, but, well…

First of all, the last thing I expected was for the other Baroque Works agents to react to their sabotage efforts not going through by directly attacking the giants during their duel. I have no idea what the logic there was, did they think they’d be distracted, or that it would spur us into action if we were hiding? I have no idea if that’s giving them too much credit or if I’m just not very familiar with strategy.

Anyway, point is, Mr. 3 interrupted the giants’ fight, which obviously neither of them were happy about, but he had giant wax swords and could trap their hands and feet in various ways, so he actually wasn’t immediately flattened. Unfortunately, our group was still stuck dealing with Friday and 13, at least until they gave us a parting attack and flew off towards the giants for some reason.

Naturally, we chased after them, but once we got deeper in the jungle, we got turned around, like, three different times by various animal stampedes, and basically it was a huge mess.

At one point we ran into Sanji, who’d just taken down a T-Rex, and naturally Cross was kind of disappointed, but we didn’t really have time to dwell on it, so I just said something vague about finding him another one later.

The issue was, after that, we somehow wound up on top of a brachiosaurus’s head, and we were next to the giants so that was good, because I had a chance to melt some of their wax restraints and we all got to yell at Luffy for getting distracted by Mr. 3’s wax automaton armor, but then we were in the woods again for some reason and Ms. Goldenweek was complaining about her paint for some reason?

I didn’t really get to process the fact that one of us was apparently immune to her hypnosis or whatever, though, because there were the Unluckies a-fucking-gain, straight out of the sky, and then…

Then I was sitting on a picnic blanket across from Ms. Goldenweek, all of her associates knocked out around us including the animals, with various paint patterns all over them, and the rest of my crew relaxing and eating, with Dorry and Broggy laughing about something and drinking thankfully-not-exploding rum.

“Wait… what?” I said, looking around at everything and then down at my half-drained glass of lemonade and over at the giant hunks of dino-meat Luffy was drooling over as Sanji cooked them. “When… huh?”

“Sorry about that,” Goldenweek said mildly, munching on some crackers. Next to me, Cross wiped his hand on his pants a bit, grimacing at the green stain now present on both. “Hadn’t noticed my Calming Green working until just then so I didn’t think to take it off.”

“Wait, no, seriously, why are we having a picnic?” I asked, starting to panic a bit because gaps in memory when there was supposed to be a fight was nowhere near fun, you guys.

“We beat everyone up!” Luffy shouted unhelpfully before going back to staring.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t follow most of it either,” Cross commiserated, waving his hand as his grimace grew. “I was trying to go over the timeline with Usopp, but I think it might be a lost cause at this point.”

He sighed, before grinning. “I did manage to find that other T-Rex, though!”

“Wh- and I missed it?” I gasped, slamming my hands on the ground.

“Yeah, by that point you were already kinda out of it,” Usopp said, frowning a bit. “Sorry we didn’t notice sooner.”

I sighed. “Eh, it’s fine, I guess, but, if I may ask, Ms. Goldenweek, why are you here with us?”

“Dunno why my paint only worked on you half the time, but people as crazy as you lot were not in my contract,” Goldenweek said, still munching. “‘sides, I’m no good at fighting on my own, and Mr. 3 just took off once your crazy captain beat his butt, so I’m really not interested in anything but getting my third teatime of the day in.”

“Also, Luffy mentioned Crocodile during the fight, or something,” Nami added, startling me a bit; she was sitting closer than I’d realized, sipping her own drink with a frustrated look on her face. “Stupid captain, stupid Baroque Works…”

“Yeah, don’t worry, I don’t want anything to do with that,” Goldenweek said. “It’ll be nice to get off of Baroque Works’s crazy-tight schedule, honestly.” She sighed. “Eh, but the paycheck was nice…”

I didn’t really have a response to that, and by this point the dino-meat was starting to smell really delicious, and I felt like missing out on the opportunity to embrace my inner caveman would be silly, at this point. 

I’d kinda wanted to try it ever since we’d gotten here, honestly. I think I forgot to mention that? Weird. Anyway!

“Yoink!” I yelled as I darted past Sanji, nabbing one of the three-to-five hunks off the plate he’d made up. Copy Essence quickly wrapped around my hands as I remembered that Some Things Are Hot, but I sank my teeth into it regardless, savoring the tender juiciness and the cool different taste and jogging away from my suddenly-irritated captain.

“Hey!” Luffy yelled, “That’s mine!”

“Turnabout is fair play, captain!” I laughed, though honestly this stuff was good enough I wanted to eat it far more often than just “whenever Luffy stole my food.” 

During my efforts to keep my meal away from Luffy, I eventually jogged back over to Sanji, giving him a bit of a nudge and a smirk. “So, how’d that dick-measuring contest go, anyway?”

“Wh—” Sanji spluttered, totally scandalized for reasons it took me a second to understand, and I couldn’t help but guffaw in response before continuing to chow down.

“Good work as always!” I patted him on the back before he could recover and ran off again, dodging another grab from Luffy. “Captain, c’mon, there’s plenty that I didn’t take!”

“I’m kinda surprised you can eat that stuff,” Cross said, giving me and Luffy a bit of a dubious look. “I like my food a little less rare, personally.”

“Eh, you’re entitled to your opinions, however wrong they may be,” I shrugged. “On food, anyway.”

“F-for the record!” Sanji yelled belatedly, making me laugh again, “I beat that shitty swordsman by a mile!”

“Wh — like hell!” Zoro yelled, suddenly sitting up from where he’d been sleeping half a second ago. “My crazy rhino was way bigger than your stupid T-Rex, cook, I’ll kill you!”

“As if you could beat me at anything, you shitty piece of moss!”

“Bring it on, you perverted cook!”

“They were the same size,” Goldenweek supplied, tone as deadpan as usual.

It was at this point, while Sanji spluttered, Zoro raged, and the rest of us laughed, that Lulu walked into the clearing with the large head of a longneck dinosaur under her arm, the rest of the beast stretching back into the woods, its long back kind of visible a few places just above a couple of the trees as it moved. Once she got to the picnic blanket, she started essentially reeling the rest of the beast in, as much as a giant beast could be hauled into an open space that was somewhere around half its size, and everyone, even Goldenweek, gaped as Lulu snapped parts of the dino’s neck without hesitation to coil it so that as much of the thing could fit into the clearing as possible.

There was a pause after she sat down with the rest of us, the satisfied look on her face both serene and terrifying.

“Mm… yep,” Goldenweek nodded just a bit. “That one wins.”

Chapter Text

“And you just… found it,” Nami said, staring in disbelief at what she’d just been handed.

“I suspect one of the agents dropped it during the fighting,” Lulu replied, nodding.

The item in question was, as luck would have it, an Eternal Pose to our eventual destination, Alabasta, presumably the same Eternal Pose that the Unluckies were originally supposed to deliver to Mr. 3… Although, wait, hadn’t Goldenweek said he’d left already? Did I misunderstand something? He made it back in This Bites proper, too, didn’t he? How did…

Oh, fuck it, the sequence of events here was so far from my problem right now. The point was, huzzah! We had our way to Alabasta!

Now I just had to hope that somehow Cross didn’t end up with super-cholera and that the two of us could manage to get us to stop by Drum and that I could organically convince Cross to let the metaphysical cat of the bag — or maybe it would be box, in this case? Questions to ponder, whenever I wasn’t mildly flipping out.

I was so busy trying to account for various possibilities and ideas that I was barely cognizant of everything that went on as we packed up the extra dino-meat and other stuff back onto the Merry, at least until Nami let out a screech of pain and I nearly dropped whatever container I was carrying.

“What the hell was that for, Cross?!”

“Uh…” the man in question floundered a bit, and worry churned my gut again. “B-bug! Sorry, I just kinda… moved?”

“Wha — ew, gross!” Nami yelled as she looked down at her exposed midriff, god why didn’t either Cross or I get on her for that earlier, “Yuck, thanks for getting it I guess…”

“Uh, did… did it bite you, or anything?” Cross continued, and god I hoped not, that was not the extra edge my version of the story needed and I was genuinely unsure we’d survive if both Cross and Nami got sick.

“Uh… doesn’t feel like it!” Nami smiled, and I sighed with relief, returning to my business of carrying and worrying.

I was so busy worrying, in fact, that I managed to completely forget about the giant goldfish that served as the bizarre but epic finale of this island’s madness until we were already in its mouth.

Yes, my autopilot state can in fact get that bad; you ever space out while driving? I’m lucky I’ve never crashed for as long as I have… but, well, I’ll save jinxing myself for another day. Point was, almost as soon as I had the mental acuity to realize we were being swallowed for the second time in our journey, the giants had already performed their somewhat-signature move and feed us in a truly epic display, the air pressure pushing is forward at quite the clip. Cross was laughing his head off, Usopp was crying tears of awe and relief, Nami looked like she wanted to kill someone… pretty standard island departure for this crew, really.

Once the high wore off, though, it was straight back to worrying. As I stood, staring out at the ocean and trying to sort my thoughts out, I heard a ‘thunk’ behind me, and turned to see Cross with his head pressed against the railing on Merry’s other side.

For a couple of seconds, I genuinely and completely panicked, but thankfully, Cross lifted his head before I could actually act on that panic. He didn’t seem sick (yet), either, which was good, but he did look…

… Well, he looked like I felt, which made every kind of sense and I should’ve thought of earlier. I’d been so caught up in trying not to spill the beans at all costs that I’d forgotten the two of us could, like, commiserate, and that I could bounce ideas off of the ship’s actual tactician without any of the problems of — fuck, wait.

… I did know things Cross didn’t. There were totally spoilers involved, Cross didn’t have any idea that, more immediately than the former Drum Kingdom or Alabasta, he was the one in the most trouble right now!

Now, unfortunately, I regret to say that, like a colossal fucking hypocrite, I didn’t immediately tell him that I was reasonably confident that he was going to knock on death’s door. No, see, I hesitated, wondered if it was something I should say, wondering if it was right to warn someone who already knew I had knowledge I shouldn’t that they were in fucking peril.

And during that brief moment of hesitation, a News Coo flew by, Cross befriended it like the animal tamer he somehow secretly was, and then he read the newspaper.

And then. He called a meeting. He told Soundbite to alert Nami and Zoro and made it clear it was a on-the-down-low operation.

And he left me on the deck.

There was something familiar about it in more ways that one, none of them pleasant, and… was I supposed to… or…

“Ami?” Cross said, snapping me out of it. “Come on, no time to lose.”

… Ah. Right. No reason to get all down about silly things.

“Why the hell shouldn’t we tell her?” I hissed, gripping the side of the table almost to the point that it hurt.

On this table lay the newspaper Cross had just been reading, open to the page that had so concerned him: three hundred thousand members of the Alabaster Royal Guard, led by Commander Kohza, had defected to join the country’s rebellion.

“What good would it do?” Cross shot back at me. “We can’t afford the distraction; we need to be as efficient as possible.”

“What good would hiding it do?!” I was trying not to full-on explode, but it was not an easy feat. “She and everyone else are going to find out eventually, so hiding it is totally pointless! They deserve to know the truth!”

“Cross is right, Ami,” Nami’s arms were crossed, and I felt my stomach twist; this was wrong, why were they arguing, why couldn’t they just — “Vivi and Igaram are already worried. Giving them these kinds of details is only going to make them upset, because we’re already going as fast as we can.”

“The crew needs to stay focused,” Zoro added, just to make sure the point was clear, and my throat tightened.

They were probably right. Telling them wouldn’t make us go faster.

Telling them wouldn’t matter.

I didn’t respond, instead glaring at the newspaper with the full force of my mixed-up emotions. I saw the others look at each other in my peripheral vision, then they all made to disperse.

Cross stumbled, and I looked at him in worry. 

My gut went cold as I did; his face was pale. There was only one possible explanation.

I needed to… but…

… Would it matter?

I stewed over the dilemmas of information and truth for far longer into the night than was healthy, and barely managed to sleep for somewhere in the realm of a few hours. When I failed to roll back over and get at least a serviceable amount of sleep despite attempting it for another hour, I just gave in; at least continuing my reread would feel somewhat helpful.

It wasn’t long, though, before my body reminded me how long it’d been since dinner, and so, despite really not wanting to, I dragged myself out of my hammock and greeted the rising sun as I meandered sleepily to the kitchen.

And, of course, Sanji was already awake.

See, the issue here is that my truth-based dilemmas were absolutely not helped by Sanji’s whole… set of issues and his past, and even though they were not really related to any of the actual problems the crew was having at the moment, they still, because I’m me, exacerbated the issue.

“Ami-chan!”

And of course he was just chipper and hard at work and I really didn’t want to snap at him! It would’ve been stupid and selfish and the reasons I was upset were dumb and not really connected to him, just a tangentially connected series of augmentations…

“Ami-chan?”

Shit, he’s trying to get my attention, what the fuck do I do?!

“Uh, sorry,” I managed lamely, blinking rapidly to at least try to keep my vision focused. “You caught me mid-insomnia again, and I’ve… kinda been thinking about a buncha stuff lately?” Ugh, completely unhelpful, what was I even doing?

“Ah, I see…” Ugh, look, all I did was throw him off, he was all chipper and I ruined it, great job… “Well, I was about to start breakfast, so, um…”

I managed not to snap anything about that being obvious, which, believe me, is a more major feat than you would think.

I took a deep breath and rubbed my eyes, stepping as far out of the way as I could. At this point it’d be silly to stick around, but I couldn’t exactly just go back to sleep at this point, could I? I was still feeling Peak Awful, and usually when I felt this way it helped most if I could just do something, anything, even something small…

“Can I help?” I asked, still blinking to keep the drowsiness at bay. “I know I’m kinda out of it, but I… I really need to feel useful right now.”

… Fuck, wait, shit, that might hit Sanji way too close to home! That’s not what I wanted!! Why! Am! I! Like! This!!!

“I mean!” I tried to correct myself, even trying to smile, which was almost certainly a mistake, “I don’t want to get in your way! I just meant, uh…” 

God, this was all ringing super false to my own ears, I was starting to just think I should totally bail, but then I saw Sanji’s visible eye flit around a bit in my peripheral vision, and I realized he actually looked kind of thoughtful.

“You could… wash the rice for me?” He said, seeming kind of sheepish? Worried? It was a simple task, which was honestly great for multiple reasons, but I wasn’t sure if he felt conflicted about me helping at all or if he was just having trouble thinking of things I could do…

… That didn’t matter, though; he was trying his best to help, and something small like that was exactly what I needed.

“Okay, sure,” I nodded. “How much rice do you need?”

“Uh…” Sanji squinted, and I could almost see the numbers running in his head. I found this a little weird, since I figured he’d just tell me immediately and exactly… unless he was so good he didn’t even have to actually think about measurements because he knew them by intuition, shit was that thought disheartening… “Six? Six pounds, I think that’s about how much it ends up being.”

“We can make more if we get it wrong?” I shrugged, not really sure how much six pounds of rice was and really hoping there was actually a scale in this damn pantry… okay there was, thank god. “Also what do you want me to wash it in?”

… God, I was such a fucking liability…

Still, though, I managed to follow through, locating and executing what was asked of me, however clumsily. Sanji was remarkably patient for someone who held himself to the high standard I knew he lived up to, but I guess I wasn’t an active hindrance, so maybe that helped? Like, I wasn’t one to burn anything in the kitchen, I knew how to wash rice…

Anyway, we managed to get everything done in just about the same amount of time that it normally took Sanji or faster. Sanji found me plenty of small tasks to do like flipping omelettes exactly when he told me to or putting away any extra stuff, and, as a bonus, I even managed to bring up my strange relationship with pancakes and waffles in an organic way that felt actually helpful!

I even helped keep Luffy away a few times near the end, so all in all, by the end, I really did feel better. I felt genuinely helpful, useful, as weird or skewed as that worldview might be.

When Cross came in to grab his share, I made sure to maneuver myself next to him for long enough to say, “Hey, need to talk to you after food about some important stuff,” in a way that hopefully got the secrecy across.

Because I was useful. And what I had to say would matter.

I’d make sure of it.

“So what’s on you mind?” Cross said, leaning against the doorway of the storage hold. I sat in my hammock, swinging just slightly back and forth.

Now, how to bring this up and have a normal conversation about a nearly-certain godawful illness and almost death that was going to cost the both of us our biggest secret?

“… Okay,” I said, face slightly contorted in confusion as I found at least some place to start, “so, there’s a version of this story in it with you in it but not me, right? We covered this back in Loguetown?”

“Yeah, you…” Cross squinted, a hand going to his head, shit, okay, no time to lose, screw the diplomacy, “Shit, ow, where did that come from… Anyway, you were saying?”

“Uh, okay,” I shook my head, “Subtlety and overthinking is done for the day, you’re sick, really sick, and I know because this happened in your version of the story and I wasn’t able to stop you from taking a dip in dino-goo so it happened here, too, okay?”

“What? Sick?” Cross’s eyes widened, then he winced again, readjusting his footing and wobbling shit —

“Really fucking sick,” I stressed, getting up and taking a step closer. “It was some kind of super cholera and it made you lose your brain-to-mouth filter too because you and your team decided to be all clever… Cross, stay with me, okay?”

I caught him as he wobbled too much to stand up, and his head lolled a bit.

“Ugh…” he said, still trying to stand, “Sick, yeah, that… ugh, makes sense…”

“I don’t know if you can stop from spilling the beans by trying not to think about anything relating to this world, but the fact is —” 

I got cut off as Cross groaned and clutched his stomach and hoo was I getting a bad feeling about this but like hell I wasn’t going to follow through on the only thing I could actually do in this situation!

“Cross, if you can hear me, the fact is that we’re probably going to have to deal with our secret being out sooner than later, okay?”

“… It’s… it’s prob’ly… fine,” Cross forced out, and as I looked, I think he was either in enough pain to visibly grimace or he was trying to smile. “… Just… don’t let…”

He jerked a bit, swallowing drily, and I was starting to get a very bad feeling about this —

And then Cross vomited all over me, somehow falling unconscious in the process. I was forced to stand there, holding him up, as he emptied his guts all over me.

I only processed later that the scream from hell I heard at that moment was coming from me.

I didn’t fully process what happened during the chaos that ensued after that; at some point I started muttering, at first in response to the expected questions of “what’s going on?” and all the things I knew about how bad Cross’s illness was and what I actually knew about how to deal with it. It was nice, that despite a very clear mental freeze, I managed to actually communicate the fact that Cross had cholera of some kind and as such a bedpan would probably be necessary and to keep him hydrated and oh, also, salt, that’s important for blood to keep flowing properly, and sugar to help the absorption and wow was it lucky that Cross just so happened to have a variant of a disease I actually knew about because it just so happened to be the subject of some of my favorite history videos from one of my favorite channels and whoops, fuck, did I say that out loud?!

… Yeah, kind of a mess there, but that’s how my brain was in that moment, what can I say. Somewhere during the process of taking Cross and laying him down as well as cleaning up his vomit, Nami and Vivi had helped me change clothes and wiped me down thoroughly, even burning the soiled ones to boot from the smell in the air, which was nice of them. I would wonder later if I actually mentioned burning my clothes during the mumbling, or if it just carried over from the time I’d done similar on Little Garden — I never wound up clarifying that, actually…

Well, point was, the crew was remarkably efficient, and by the time I had my brain under control, Cross was safely tucked away in a mostly-empty sick room and things were clean.

Oh, and everyone was startled and concerned and they were all staring at me.

Alright, Amanda. Do or die time.

“Okay…” I said slowly, breathing deep to avoid spiraling into a new anxiety spiral right after I was almost done with the last one. “Okay, I think I’m fine. Sorry for freaking out.”

That was the best way I could think of to start; I wasn’t all the way calm, but I was okay enough now that I didn’t want the crew to worry anymore. Hopefully once I dispelled all their worries about my state of mind and being, I’d be ready to handle the inevitable questions… but time would tell.

“Why are you apologizing?” Luffy cocked his head to the side, just a bit too far for a person not made of rubber. “You were surprised and it was gross and you’re fine now so it’s fine.”

I laughed shortly, not meaning to be bitter but still on edge. “Yeah, but I worried you guys, right? So I’m sorry. And I’m also sorry for not being any help, y’know, with… all the stuff you guys took care of…”

“No help?” Charlie seemed genuinely confused. “You knew what was wrong with Sir Cross immediately!”

Not for a good reason, but I guess it was good that I was helpful — I could stay positive for now… but…

“I’m not even sure if what he has works the same as regular cholera of if the advice I had will work,” I sighed, because I really didn’t want to be the reason if we wound up fucking up something. “I’m not a doctor, so don’t take my word as gospel or anything; something could go seriously wrong still.”

“Still, it’s good you had info about it at all,” Nami replied, nodding a bit even as her expression shifted between two equally inscrutable expressions that both made me very nervous. “It makes it so we don’t necessarily have to drop what we’re doing to find a doctor as soon as possible.”

“Uh,” My eyes widened, because no, that was the opposite of a good idea, “Like I said, I don’t even know if what I said will help at all, and —”

“Did you forget about what we talked about before?” Nami said pointedly, raising an eyebrow but not otherwise drawing too much attention to the point, and I did not like where this was going.

“Are you seriously bringing that up? Right now? In front of anyone? When you decided not to say anything about it at all before?” I said hotly, and wait, shit, my control was still slippery as hell, I hadn’t meant to yell, I just…

“Bringing what up?” Usopp asked, sounding thrown off.

“Not my place to say,” I said darkly, tossing my head a bit and wait, no, Arceus, okay, deep breaths. “I need to go calm down or I’m going to explode again and I really don’t want to get into a screaming match right now.”

Not leaving time for them to respond, I spun and did my best not to storm out of whatever room we were in. I happened to walk past the sick room Cross was in, though, and that was the opposite of helpful…

What the hell was I going to do? I hadn’t meant to get so upset over the information we were keeping from Vivi of all things, even if I knew we should really bring it up to everyone if we were going to make decisions based on it… but if they thought I’d be able to keep Cross alive until Alabasta there was no reason for us to end up on Drum, even if we did get attacked by Wapol, and I had no idea to even begin to start handling the matter of our secret! I couldn’t just spill while Cross was incapacitated, could I?

As I stepped out onto the deck, I breathed in as deeply as I could and let the breeze wash over me. Had we anchored ourselves, or were we just… drifting? It wouldn’t be good to lose our heading, but I guessed we did have the Eternal Pose and Nami, so it probably wouldn’t wind up making too much of a difference…

Whatever, right now, I needed to let the tension out of my body and empty my brain, so I decided to at least go ahead and do some of my exercises, even though my adrenaline was starting to wear off and remind me that I was actually really fucking sleep-deprived, shit, maybe I should’ve just gone back to my room…

That thought really didn’t matter much, though, because I hadn’t even gotten through my warmup before everyone else, or at least a large chunk of “everyone else,” joined me on the deck.

Nami and Zoro were in the lead, as expected, and the were not happy, also as expected. Vivi stood behind them, looking… distressed, at least, though not fully pissed.

“So,” Nami began, and my fight-or-flight instincts began to go off like flood sirens, “we decided to see what our dear tactician had to say about this situation.”

Oh shit.

“Our dear tactician who, for some reason, already knows the names of both the king of Alabasta and the relationship the rebel leader has to Vivi.”

Oh hell.

“And of course, you mentioned something about spilling information you weren’t supposed to, now didn’t you?”

Oh. Fuck.

“And naturally, I thought back to Loguetown, because you two seem to know each other from somewhere, now don’t you?”

Fuckfuck shit god dammit

“I think I speak for everyone,” Nami said, stepping a bit closer to me, “when I say I would like a concrete, factual explanation. Now.”

My eyes darted around desperately, taking in all the various expressions of concern and anger and confusion all of my freaking crewmates wore, and…

I shook my head fiercely. “I want to tell you! Okay?”

My arms wrapped around myself instinctively. “I wanted to tell you when we first met! But the explanation you want… It’s not only entirely different from what you might think it is but it’s so ridiculous that I have no idea where to even start, okay?”

I shook my head again, even more rapidly. “And it’s not just my explanation, it’s not just up to me. And it’s not because we don’t trust you or because we’re trying to undermine you guys, what happened to the both of us is so genuinely foreign and unbelievable that if we told you when either of us met you there is a large chance you would write us both off as completely insane, okay?”

I took a deep breath and met Zoro’s eyes, then Nami’s. “Yes, we know things we shouldn’t. A lot more than you’ve just found out about, even. But listen, I swear —” I put my fist to my chest, trying to express as much emotion as I could — “I swear on my powers, my life, and every aspiration I’ve ever had if I have to, that we are loyal to this crew above anything else, Cross and I both.”

I held eye contact, forced myself to breathe as evenly as possible and to imbue the air with as much surety and genuineness as I could muster.

After a good few seconds that felt like fucking days, Nami’s eyes narrowed the slightest bit. “So you can’t explain now, but when Cross wakes up…?”

“Absolutely badger us for answers,” I said, almost sighing with some mix between relief and exasperation. “He’d probably be better at explaining than me anyway.”

“Oh?” Nami raised an eyebrow.

“Did you miss the part where I get distracted and mixed up easily?” I gestured vaguely, trying not to let any of my tension slip into my speech.”Anyway, yeah, the sooner he gets better, the sooner you get answers, but I’m not a doctor, so I have no idea when that will be.”

“So we’re back to the original dilemma, then,” Nami finished, turning her head slightly to meet Vivi’s eyes.

“… I don’t know what’s going on with you and Cross…” Vivi said, haltingly, “… but if we get to Alabasta and Cross is still sick, we’ll need to take extra time making sure our tactician is at full strength anyway.”

I sighed a bit. “And we aren’t even sure he’ll make it all the way there without medical attention…”

“So we find a doctor,” Zoro said, nodding at Nami, who had started looking at some papers as soon as Vivi had stopped talking. No idea where she got them from, but she was comparing them to the Eternal Pose and her Log Pose and making some other measurements.

I finally felt the opportunity to sag and sigh at the declaration, thankfully not stumbling or wobbling too much but definitely feeling the need for sleep.

“Okay, I’m really sorry, but sleep deprivation is calling,” I announced, rubbing my eyes. “I’ll take first watch tonight to make up for all this trouble?”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Nami said absently, waving me off as she studied her charts.

Thank Arceus.

I woke up just about in time for dinner, which was honestly way later than expected; I’d missed lunch completely, as was made obvious when I wound up wrestling with Luffy over table scraps.

Over the din, Sanji called out to me, “You said saline level was important, right?”

“Yeh,” I said, or tried to as I swallowed a bite. “Cholera kills by dehydration, if I remember right, and the main thing that keeps blood fluid needs saline to work right. Then glucose helps the digestive system absorb everything, or at least that’s the explanation I heard.”

“Alright, this should work, then…” Sanji muttered. “I’ll be back in a minute, don’t any of you neanderthals cause trouble for the ladies while I’m gone!”

He left, carrying a bowl, and I was left to ponder if that last remark was worthy of a full “oh god.” Probably not? It was actually vaguely backed in fact, as Luffy quickly tried to prove the moment my guard lowered even slightly. I managed to snag a roll in revenge, though, so… Meh, jury was out on if Sanji was improving or regressing in that instance.

After dinner, I could finally get to my exercises, though it kind of sucked that it would probably be too late to spar with Sanji for that night. On the bright side, I was starting to see some improvement from the exercises Lulu had suggested for my mobility, and I was getting better at rolling smoothly. In a few more weeks, I could probably move onto something more extensive, but what was still in question…

… Shit, I probably needed to practice my flying while people were still awake to save my ass if necessary. Should I try the dragon version to test my limits more? I’d barely managed to get past a minute and a half with the regular wings when not hyped up on adrenaline, though…

I decided to stick with the regular for that day; if I got myself too tired I might slack on my watch shift, and that would be way uncool.

The regimen started filling me with a bizarre sense of normalcy that was both comforting, in that way that habits tend to be, but also distressing; it felt weird to go about normal activities when something really bad was happening to someone I cared about, and the fact that Cross wasn’t out and about, snarking away or what have you, stuck in my mind with a distressing level of clarity.

I’d probably feel better if I could get my flight up to actual usable levels, but to do that… how long would I need to be able to hold any one focus, in a real one-on-one fight? How long would it take to face down one of the shitty killer rabbits, or one of Wapol’s flunkies if it came down to that?

I needed to be able to make it for as long as possible. Three minutes… Hell, a full two would be functional, if I switched my focus around a few times in the fight…

Of course, the minute I thought about the length, my focus fizzled out, and I just barely managed to get my feet under me to stop a faceplate. I hadn’t been too high off the deck or anything, but it still wouldn’t have been pleasant…

I scowled, looking at the stopwatch Lulu had given me when she’d heard about what I was doing.

One minute, thirty-seven seconds.

I needed to do better.

Two attempts with about the same results and all my other exercises later, most everyone else had gone to sleep, meaning my watch was on and I could dance like an idiot for a while without worrying about people asking where my music taste came from or anything like that. However, for that I would need Cross’s headphones, which would necessitate leaving my post briefly…

“Hey… AMI?”

… Well, that was unexpected.

“Soundbite?” I said, taken aback. “You’re still up?”

“… CAN’T sleep.”

And that was when I remembered that Soundbite was a relatively young creature that, as far as I remembered, we left in the sick room of his closest friend.

I wasn’t sure why I was the person he’d called for — I hadn’t known him longer than too many other people on this boat and he had reason to suspect me — but that didn’t matter; what mattered was what I was going to do about it.

“You want to hang out on deck with me until you can get to sleep?” I offered, barely hesitating. “I can grab you really fast and be back up before it could be considered negligent!”

The fact that I might be able to grab Cross’s headphones on the way was something I didn’t bring up, and honestly now I just felt bad about it.

“Yeah!” The sound clip Soundbite used to reply sounded excited, so I took that as an indication I was doing something right.

“Have you seriously been sitting in that sick room all alone?” I said quietly, moving as quickly down the ship corridors as I could without turning into a herd of elephants.

“Yep,”  Soundbite confirmed, making me frown.

“And nobody thought that the snail might be just as affected by the stench as the humans, I’m actually upset,” I huffed, having to take a few steps backwards after accidentally walking past the room in question. I took a deep breath as I went to open the door and pulled my collar up over my mouth and nose as a makeshift mask. “Make fun of my way of getting around bad smells at your peril.”

I ran in and scooped Soundbite up, then put him on my shoulder and beat it before I had to breathe or my shirt collar could get displaced, stepping as lightly as I could back to the deck.

“I got used to it AFTER A WHILE, honestly,” Soundbite said once we were on deck. “IT WAS MORE…”

“Ah,” I said lamely; not much I could say to understandable depression based on lack of agency. “Well, don’t feel the need to talk about it if you don’t want to or anything. You can, but I won’t make ya. I was just planning on playing music and dancing around, so if you can keep the noise from waking everyone up, you can just pick some songs for me, that’d be fun!”

“Ohoho!” Oh dear, that grin was less than promising. “YOUR WISH IS MY COMMAND!!”

Welp, no idea what was about to happen besides that fact that it was going to be some nonsense.

I could have reacted in the expected way, groaned and been upset, but…

I would not be defeated; this was my time to dance like an idiot, after all. As long as it wasn’t anything completely atrocious, I could jam to pretty much anything, from memes to Taylor Swift to J-Pop.

I answered Soundbite’s grin with one of my own — I was not in the mood to be a buzzkill tonight.

Two hours of lip-syncing and laughter later, Charlie came up onto the deck to relieve me of my shift, catching me and Soundbite in the middle of our third or fourth go-through of Eye of the Tiger. I managed to only stand stock still in shocked embarrassment for about two seconds before scooping Soundbite back up and booking it back under the deck.

On my way back to the hold, though, I passed Cross’s sickroom again, and it gave me pause. 

It didn’t… feel right, just leaving him there. Cholera was a lot more infectious than an insect-spread blood disease, so it made sense, but… when Nami had gotten sick, in canon, everyone had stayed with her through the night, in case something went wrong. Maybe it had something to do with the smell, maybe it had something to do with the trust issues… 

I shook my head. Was I really going to figure out some way to jerry-rig my hammock into the sick room just to give myself the personal satisfaction of…

… Oh, who am I kidding. Of course I was.

I’d have to sleep in my clothes to avoid any awkwardness in case the actually woke up, and I’d have to account for the smell with some kind of scarf or something? But the hammock allowed for both of those things, as long as I could actually get it untied from its place in the hold and retied somewhere in the sickroom…

Or, actually, wait, I knew where the spare hammocks were now, that would arguably be easier…

It took around half an hour and some experiments with copying Zero Gravity (I did not, in fact, expect to be copying that power as much as I was, but I supposed that just demonstrated how effective it was), but I managed to get a hammock tied in a corner of the sickroom, complete with proper blankets and pillow and a handkerchief around my face to ward off the worst of the smell (and yes, I wrapped up Soundbite in one, too, besides his eyes, though I wasn’t even sure if snails’ senses of smell worked that way).

It still didn’t feel quite right, though; something was missing, keeping me from falling asleep, and my natural response to that kind of a feeling was to try and do something, anything, to alleviate it.

I gave Soundbite a look and realized what might be bugging me, and picked the best thing I could think of to say.

“Cross is going to be fine, okay? I promise — I’ll make sure.”

I wasn’t sure if it helped, if it was even necessary for me to have said anything there, but… well, I was never good at leaving well enough alone, as selfish as it might be.

“Good night, buddy,” I said with a bit of finality, squirming a bit to settle in more.

“…Good night, Ami.”

I awoke to a blowhorn and regretted many of my life choices.

I groaned as I righted myself, having not quite fallen out of my hammock but having gotten tangled up.

“Well someone’s feeling more like themselves,” I grumbled. A laugh track was the response, but also some weaker human laughter, and I looked up to see that Cross was actually conscious and was probably partially responsible for my current predicament, which made me ever more appreciative that I’d thought not to be in my pajamas at this point in time.

My handkerchief hadn’t slipped either, which was nice, but as I got myself out of the hammock, I realized that sometime during the night the temperature had dropped drastically, and I shivered a bit as I instinctually looked around for a coat despite the fact that this was not, in fact, my room. 

“Shit, cold weather…?” Cross muttered. “Was it… really that close…? I don’t…”

“Yeah, I guess it is getting close, huh?” I responded, rubbing my arms up and down. At Cross’s vaguely confused look, I said, “I mentioned it before, but you’re saying everything that goes through your mind, don’t worry about it too much, just don’t get surprised when people respond to the things you think, is all.”

“… Every… thing?” Cross was starting to look concerned, somewhere through that sick haze.

“Don’t worry about trying to stop it, you think too much and everyone is already suspicious,” I sighed, deciding to fold the blankets off the hammock while I was here and talking to Cross, give myself something to do. “I tried to tell you before you keeled over the first time, but it’s really not that important; we’re going to get to Drum and you’re going to get better and then we’re going to have to explain our situation. You don’t have to worry about anything, is what I mean.”

I was probably failing incredibly hard to get across anything meaningful, but it was cold and I’d just woken up and I’d wanted Cross to know about this already and I guess I wanted to justify my pulling him aside before even though it wound up being as pointless as I hadn’t wanted it to be?

“I gotta put some warmer clothes on, do you need another blanket or anything?” I asked, trying to change the subject to something that wasn’t weird or awful, but when I looked back, Cross was back in his fitful sleep, muttering things I barely parsed every fourth word of… sheesh, this disease was no joke.

“Alright, then, Soundbite, you okay hanging out here for a bit while I pull some warmer stuff on?” I decided to redirect even as I took a couple of steps towards the door. “I’ll grab you for breakfast and everything.”

“NAH, I was hoping I’D STARVE,” Soundbite replied, chipper and sarcastic at once.

“Ugh, message received, sheesh,” I rolled my eyes, barely restraining the urge to stick my tongue out at the little bugger.

Finding warm clothes was actually not as simple as just heading down to the hold and finding them, as I’d hoped, because I could not for the life of me remember where the hell I’d packed the longer-sleeved stuff I knew I’d bought back at Loguetown. My various guardian figures had all made sure I’d had enough shit in case a random cold front came knocking or in case I was going to be there into the winter, but apparently I packed them deep enough for it to take a solid ten minutes to find them. 

I found myself sniffling already even as I changed, which did not bode well — I was never a fan of the cold, but in a few days I’d probably be having to hike through hip-high snowdrifts in clothes that were not waterproof while fighting giant rabbits…

Ugh, I needed to think of an alternative. The direct method really didn’t go well in Drum in canon. It had been a bit since I’d done that part of my reread, but the ropeways were hard to forget… so there had to be something else I could do, that I could get us all to do. 

In the meantime, hopefully the rather large increase in overall health and wellness would keep me from too many problems with running noses or numb fingers; I didn’t know how many tissues we had that were, like, portable, or if I’d have to make due with a handkerchief, which, ew, being honest.

I shook my head, zipping up the coat I’d managed to find. I didn’t have time to be thinking about my allergy to winter; Wapol would be here sooner rather than later, if I remembered right, and I was not about to let him get his big fat hippo mouth anywhere near Merry.

My changing complete, I wrapped a scarf around my neck and lower face as a last-second addition and made for the sick room, tucking Soundbite away in the folds of the scarf.

“Comfy?” I asked, though I wasn’t really sure how snails reacted to cold or if insulation would even help.

“For now,” Soundbite said cheekily, and I rolled my eyes.

“Yeah, okay, as long as you can see and hear and aren’t going to fall off you’re fine, alright?” I shook my head, giving Cross one last look before heading out the door. “Ready to brave the breakfast buffet, little buddy?”

“May the odds be ever in our favor,” Soundbite replied, and I frowned.

“The child murder olympics? Really?”

“TELL ME it doesn’t fit.” 

“Well, we aren’t children, and there’s no murder olympics, so…”

“SHUT UP, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEANT!”

I just found myself snickering; looks like my contrarian tendencies won this round. 

Thankfully, quite unlike any child murder olympic cornucopias, no vicious stabbing or other forms of murder were occurring at the Strawhat Breakfast Buffet, just your average amount of squabbling. As usual, it was a pretty easy in-and-out deal once I looked at the situation for a minute and figured out the optimal route to weave between everyone, but getting back out onto the deck without spilling was a bit tougher — I nearly got hash browns in my grits and the ends of my toast all greasy, but nothing hit the ground, so it was an overall success.

As I stepped out onto the deck with a folding chair, I shivered — the temperature was still dropping, and I was feeling it despite the coat… Shit, I was going to need, like, five layers on my torso and my legs by the time we actually got to Drum, wasn’t I?

And of course, just to make everything absolutely perfect, by the time everyone was done eating, it was full-on snowing. Wonderful.

… Actually, I mean that with a decent amount of sincerity; I loved snow, because living in the southern US made it feel super special whenever it happened. I probably wouldn’t enjoy hiking through waist-high drifts, but for now, watching the snow build up on the deck and the railing gave me that same sort of magical feeling snow always did.

Unfortunately, that magical feeling was soon very much tarnished by the realization that there was a conspicuous figure standing out in the open ocean ahead of us.

Yes, you read that correctly, standing out on the ocean, and the fact that I knew that this random person standing on the ocean was important is either a credit towards or a mark against the source material of this crazy ocean, depending on what kind of person you were.

I was not in the mood to deal with this — right after breakfast? seriously, world? — but like hell I was gonna let any fat hippo Pacman knockoffs do whatever they wanted to our ship. 

“Hey, guys,” I said, staring at the growing figure as we approached it. “Anyone else see that?”

“Yeah,” Zoro said, his tone aligning with my general lack of desire to deal with whatever nonsense this was. “So either we’re all seeing things, or…”

“Or the Grand Line’s MO is just to constantly one-up itself in nonsense level as often as possible,” I sighed in defeat, starting to think about what options I had to deal with this. If I remembered my reread right, Wapol was the main thing we had to worry about — all we had to do was figure out a way to get him as far away from the situation as possible…

In that case, it looked like I’d be wanting to copy that power again. I really hadn’t meant to use it this much, but… hey, useful was useful.

Once the figure standing out on the ocean was close enough that we could make out his absolutely ridiculous jester outfit, he actually made first contact, calling up to us.

“Quite cold today, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess it is pretty cold,” Usopp replied, nodding a bit.

There was a bit of silence as we all stared at the jest and he stared back at us. I twitched.

“So are you going to do something, or…?” I trailed off, not really having any idea what to say to get this situation over with. Thankfully, the situation ended itself right about when I finished talking, the ocean under the jester’s feet swelling suddenly.

The Merry shook back with the sudden waves, and everyone on deck had their own brand of shocked exclamation at either the sudden movement or the giant metal monstrosity currently rising out of the swelling waves.

Arceus was the thing impressive — a decently-sized part of me suddenly really wanted to steal it somehow, even — and that was before it opened its shell like a god damn Bakugan. I was somewhere around five times Merry’s size, and I was suddenly feeling a lot less confident about any simple plans to get Wapol as far away as possible…

Then I remembered what kind of asshole Wapol was, what this monstrosity of a ship represented, and, most importantly, the imminent danger both our ship and our tactician were in.

Deep breaths, Amanda.

These fuckers don’t stand a chance.

Chapter Text

As the massive submersible opened its shell, everyone on the deck of the Going Merry assumed some variety of ready position. There were a lot of people in the boarding party that gradually came into view, almost all of them carrying some variety of firearm; letting them onto our ship certainly wasn’t what we wanted to do, but we really couldn’t fight them all off straightaway like this. Once I managed to catch sight of Wapol, we could make something happen, but knocking anyone else off the ship was liable to just turn us into gunpowder-flavored swiss cheese.

It would have to be Wapol. I had exactly one idea, the same idea I’d had since this confrontation had been something I was forced to think about. It wasn’t really elegant, but…

“Hey, guys?” I hissed, edging closer to Zoro, who happened to be closest to me. “I have an idea, but it’s kind of stupid and reckless so I need you guys to cover me. Is… is that okay?”

“Will it get these jerks off my ship?” Luffy growled lowly, his eyes narrowing as the procession of thugs began to part — shit, alright, here it comes.

I nodded forcefully. “I guarantee it, Captain. Just follow my lead.”

“Got it.”

“Ami-chan, are you —“

Oh, god, not now! “Look, just cover me okay? Then you can make sure I don’t get hurt, right?”

I made the risky (from my perspective, anyway) decision to flash a hopefully-reassuring grin in Sanji’s direction, and he made one of those odd strangled sounds.

… I sure was doing a great job of taking advantage of his issues, ugh…

“Oi, you idiots, we’re right here!” I jumped as I recognized the sound of a gun being readied at me, and I spun around to the thug that’d spoken with my hands raised instinctively.

“Oh, uh…” Shit, no, Amanda, don’t say anything, you’re only going to make things way worse.

Thankfully, the procession was still parting, and the guy got shoved out of the way as the path opened up. I could tell that a couple of guns were still on me, but looking around, it looked like our guys could probably handle it as long as they reacted fast. 

I refocused my gaze on the target strutting down the deck towards us, tensing so I’d be ready at any moment.

“Are these the only people on this ship?” the fat hippo mused, his voice exactly as hatable as I’d have pictured. He was carrying large hunk of meat on a knife, and naturally was eating while he spoke. I would talk about how I reacted to him crunching down on the entire knife the way he wound up doing, but I was a little preoccupied steeling my nerves; when was the right moment? If I waited too long, he’d… but if I moved too soon I’d…

I think Wapol was still talking, but I didn’t really process — once he took another step forward, I jolted, instinctively thinking he was going to chomp down on Merry next. Once I’d jumped the way I had it was a waste not to commit to motion and actually fucking do something, and once my brain actually processed what he was doing, it looked like I was just in time.

“Don’t you dare, you fat metal hippo!” I found myself yelling as I flung my hand back, feeling the ever-more-familiar constructs representing Uraraka and her Zero Gravity flow into place. Behind me, I heard scattered gunshots and the telltale sound of people flying through the air and into each other, and I grinned, because hot damn I loved my crewmates.

Now, I’m a little impulsive sometimes, as I’m sure has been made obvious, but I did have some manner of common sense. As such, dear reader, while I’m sure you’d love to hear a humorous bit where I slap Wapol right across his giant metal jaw and wind up nursing bruises while the rest of the action happens, I actually went a little to the side and aimed to slap square across his eyes which, honestly, I feel like I should hear about people doing more often. Maybe it’s just usually less effective due to the angles of the face? Who knows, it worked for me this time!

Thanks to the immediate activation of Zero Gravity, the momentum of the slap across the eyes actually made Wapol spin backwards a bit as he began to float upward; that isn’t a particularly relevant piece of information, but I found the image funny, and it probably added to his inevitable nausea and disorientation, so I’ll talk about it if I want to.

“Luffy!” I yelled, moving into a duck-and-roll as efficiently as I could to avoid some retaliatory strikes from a few of the people around me — thankfully, the rifles they had aren’t great at close range, so it was all melee attacks going over my head as I scrambled back to my crew. “He’s all yours, Captain!”

“GUM GUM… BAZOOKA!” I heard as I dodged another swipe, winding up near Nami as she clubbed a gun out of a thug’s hands before they could fire. I couldn’t switch constructs without canceling Zero Gravity’s effects, and I wanted to get as much distance as possible, so I had to hold out and dodge even as I watched Luffy’s attack send Wapol flying.

As an aside? Most satisfying scream I think I’ve ever heard.

Once that scream had faded just enough that I could be confident of the launch distance, I slammed the pads of my fingers together.

“Release!” I said loudly, standing up straight and grinning as the action on the deck slowed, everyone stopping to stare at where Wapol had disappeared over the horizon. Their expressions were priceless, and I had tons of adrenaline pumping through me, so I couldn’t help but run my mouth a little — Cross wasn’t here, after all, someone had to do it.

“So, who’s next?” I held up my hands, my stance somewhere between tauntingly inviting and an outright battle stance. “Rubberman Skylines special: first ride’s free!”

“Wha-what is she?” One of the thugs muttered disbelievingly.

“D-did you see that? That guy’s arms, they —”

“You idiots!” One of the two generals, the one with the afro, snapped. “They’re Devil Fruit users like His Majesty!”

“Just throw them into the ocean and they’ll be goners!” The other general sneered, and woah, he used an axe? The things you forget between readings…

“… Yeah,” I said, feeling laughter bubbling up — did they seriously miss what had just happened? “The ocean is a Fruit User’s biggest weakness, for sure. But, uh…” I couldn’t help but burst into snickers. “Isn’t that more your problem than ours?”

“Eh?” The two generals paused and shared a look, then cast brief glances over the two ships and the ocean. After a few seconds, they made eye contact again, and —

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

“HIS MAJESTY!”

“HE’LL DROWN!”

The two spun towards the crowd of thugs, barking orders to weigh anchor and all that, and my snickers turned into full, unstoppable laughter as they all basically nyoomed back into their ship, all the while shouting things like:

“YOU ARROGANT BASTARDS!”

“WE WON’T FORGET THIS!!”

“WE’LL BE BACK, YOU HEAR US?!”

“DON’T YOU DARE FORGET OUR FACES!!”

“DON’T FORGET!!!!”

All of that just made me laugh harder, so hard that my constructs couldn’t hold, but the stressful situation was done, so that was fine. Everyone else seemed to find either their antics or my own laughter funny, too, because by the time their ship had nyoomed its way to the horizon, we were all doubled over or at least chuckling.

That laughter couldn’t last forever, though, and no sooner had I started taking deep breaths to calm myself down did our attention get drawn to something more concerning.

“Vivi?” Nami was the one to draw our attention to the issue. A pang ran through me as I realized I hadn’t even thought about Vivi’s inevitable reaction to this for a second because of my stupid laughing fit, but then, it was kind of unfair to myself to think that way. “Something wrong?”

“Wapol…” Vivi muttered, almost like she hadn’t heard Nami at all. “How did… but… could it…?”

“Wapol?” Usopp asked, visibly confused. “What are you talking about?”

“The man with the metal jaw,” Igaram cut in, and oh, shit, right, I had been hoping Igaram would recognize him. “At least, I believe that’s who he was, I haven’t seen the man in tears — ahem, miiimimimaabah — years. I’m surprised you remember him, princess.”

“Cross… mentioned his name,” Vivi said haltingly, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “Well, he mumbled about it, but then he tried to act like he didn’t know who he was…”

I had no idea when Vivi had gone down to Cross’s room and I had no idea how to proceed here but, well. Everyone was turning to face me, so I had to do something.

“Yeah, I know who he is,” I sighed. “Cross and I both know why he’s out on the ocean playing pirate…” Arceus, how much was okay to say here? C’mon… “I… I can tell you about him and why Cross knew he was attacking, if you want.”

“Does it truly matter?” Charlie asked, tilting his head a bit. “Even if you knew he was in the area, he’s gone now, is he not?”

… Wait, that’s seriously how they’re taking that? Sheesh, should I even try to correct him? Was there a way to do that that wouldn’t make the whole full explanation situation worse? Should I just take my stupid luck where I could get it?

“He’s right, it doesn’t,” Nami cut in, not even letting me finish my thoughts. When I looked, I saw she had put her staff away and pulled out one of — 

“Hey, that book is Iwai-san’s!” I yelled, cutting off whatever she had been about to say. The glare she gave me shut me up really quick, and it wasn’t like that glare was unwarranted, but c’mon! I specifically asked her not to swipe his stuff, dick move, Nami!

“As I was saying,” Nami continued, “We need to keep an eye on the weather today; the cold snap was really sudden but it hasn’t receded yet, so anything could happen.”

“Ah, you’re right,” Vivi said, as if she’d just noticed that snow was still falling. “If it continues, we might be getting close to an island.”

“Right, or it could snap back to something out of nowhere and take us totally by surprise,” Nami responded, clapping the book shut with more force than was strictly necessary. “So everyone needs to be paying attention, got it?”

“I’ll keep my guard up, Nami-san~”

Oh, god, he was noodling again…

“No one asked for a response, cook,” Zoro called out from —

“Why are you taking your shirt off in this?!”  I yelled upon turning towards his voice, both out of actual confused concern and my usual vaguely-prudish asexual brand of shock at seeing such things.

“Training,” Zoro replied, in a tone that implied I was an idiot, fuck him.

A vein throbbed in my head and I didn’t even manage to complain mentally about Sanji’s inevitable retaliation both on my behalf and in response to the quip Zoro had actually aimed at him.

Fine. Training. Don’t blow up, Amanda. Training.

Training sounded fantastic right now. 

 By the time I got around to my agility exercises, Lulu had actually started up everyone else’s strength and endurance training, which left me with very little room to practice things like sidesteps or rolls, and also kind of bizarrely concerned about how long my exercise regimen had gotten; was I going overboard? Was I doing this right?

Well, regardless, I couldn’t really continue my regimen like this, so I figured I might be able to continue my reread instead. When I made for below deck, though, Sanji intercepted me. He was offering me snacks, but I didn’t really notice, because he was also carrying a bowl of soup that potentially provided me an actual, like, reason to hide out below deck without any chance of feeling bad about myself.

“Is that for Cross?” I blurted, interrupting Sanji’s offer of — were those cookies? Ah, well, later maybe — “Ah, sorry!” I waved my arms a bit in embarrassment as I realized I’d been rude, but continued with my thought. “I just mean I can take that down to him; I was thinking about going below deck for a bit anyway and someone needs to keep an eye on him, right?”

“Ah, are you sure you’ll be alright?” Sanji frowned, clearly concerned; normally I’d be upset, but, well… “The smell is, er…”

I had freaked out about the initial sickness event, so his concern was actually understandable and somewhat appreciated in this instance. Still, though, I knew I could handle myself! I responded by pulling my scarf over my nose and mouth and giving a thumbs up.

Sanji snorted a bit, which I considered a win, and he handed me the bowl, which was definitely a win. “If he’s not awake when you get there you’ll have to wake him yourself.”

“WON’T BE a problem,” Soundbite piped up from where he was wrapped in my scarf. It was impressive that he hadn’t come loose during any of my exercises, but I did tend to wrap my scarves tightly and snails were pretty adhesive, plus I hadn’t really been doing anything that would jostle a snail besides maybe pushups and a few of the stretches… bluh, anyway.

“Yeah, don’t worry a bit!” I grinned, taking the bowl gingerly with both hands. I sidestepped to let Sanji pass, then made my way to Cross’s sickroom.

I was greeted by him working into a nearby bucket, which… I probably should’ve expected, honestly? But that didn’t really help the sympathetic stomach lurch I got at the sight of it, because I hadn’t expected it.

Even as he basically flopped back into his cot with a surprising amount of force, I could tell that he was only barely conscious, and I could hear him muttering about…

… Okay, no, miss me with that, was rambling about Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure of all fucking things, for some fucking reason? Was that seriously how he’d decided to handle the delirium? He’d just shifted focus to some other manga series to spill as little as possible?

Arceus, that was completely ridiculous, and the best part was that it didn’t honestly surprise me much at all, either. But seriously? Jojo’s? Of all things, the one franchise I specifically avoided to keep it as surreal to me as possible for my own amusement? The one thing I couldn’t comment on at all?

… Okay, my priorities here needed serious reconsideration. Redirecting my brain to my actual goal here, I tried to get Cross’s attention.

“Hey, dude, you awake enough to drink and/or eat, depending on what all’s in this soup? I haven’t looked at it too hard because I’ll eat it if I do.” I held up said soup a bit, taking a brief look at it; seemed like chicken noodle, which meant I really shouldn’t think about it too hard, because that was basically my favorite food of all time. 

“… Ami…?” Cross said slowly, blinking heavily as he tried to focus on me. 

“Excellent observational skills,” I said, grinning a bit sarcastically. “Can you sit up?”

“… prob…aly…” He responded, slowly heaving himself into a more upright position. I handed him the bowl once he was stable, and then I sort of half-sat on the hammock I’d set up last night while he slowly sipped at it

“… man… how can… even soup…?” He muttered between gulps and/or spoonfuls (he was alternating). “It’s just…”

“Yeah, Sanji’s talent is kinda scary sometimes,” I said, laughter in my voice. “Or well, talent’s not the right word, is it? He’s worked at it for, like, 80% of his entire life.”

“… both… important…”

I raised an eyebrow, because this was definitely a weird place for this conversation to go, but it wasn’t like I disagreed or anything.

“Welp, I’m gonna hang out here,” I said, swinging all the way onto my hammock and pulling my phone out of the inner coat pocket I’d tucked it away in. “Feel free to sleep or whatever when you finish, I’ll take the bowl back whenever I go back up there.”

For some reason, Cross seemed to find that funny; probably just the delirium, but who really knew? Whatever it was, I really needed to get back on the reread train.

Before continuing where I’d left off the last time, I needed to first go over the Drum Island arc one more time to make sure I had a decent idea of what was going on and if the ideas I was forming in my brain actually had a chance of working.

I really, genuinely, completely did not want to hike through chest-high snowdrifts OR climb sheer cliffs — the ankle-high snow that was piling up on the deck was already kind of irritating during my training — and while the damn Lahpins wound up being helpful in the end, like hell I was letting Sanji’s back get fucked up for that. I kind of wanted to help the baby, still, but, like, what wound up happening was that they respected the crew for leaving their baby alone, right?

My family was my priority first, that was fine and normal even if, uh, wow I whipped out the f-word easier in my brain that I expected to. It wasn’t even Alabasta yet, maybe let’s focus on our important plans and not my attachment issues, nope, moving on from this topic entirely..

There was one very obvious option, or at least obvious to me, but it depended on a few things, like how easily we could get the villagers to trust us and also a few mechanical things. I was mostly hoping that Dalton and Igaram would recognize each other, hopefully quickly, and that would make things at least SOMEWHAT easier than it’d been in the source material.

The really main issue was that making things easier for us to get to the top of the mountain would necessitate making it easier for Wapol to possibly even bring a whole army to storm the castle and that boded ill depending on how we handled the situation. We couldn’t all go up because the towns would need defending and besides which I didn’t remember the space on top of that mountain being large enough for too many people…

Besides which, that many people, even if it was just our crew, had the chance of really pissing off the people we wanted to help Cross — trespassing and all that — and even if we did promise to take out Wapol…

… wait, shit, and since I’d used Zero Gravity, he might be way farther away and not even get to Drum at the same time we would! That would be terrible, we wouldn’t even have the freedom to offer to stay because we had to get back en route to Alabasta to deal with all of that stuff why were there so many THINGS?!

Ugh, this thought process was proving to be the opposite of helpful. I mentally smacked myself, forcing into focus a reminder that no one could account for everything and trying to, especially with my giant mess of a brain, was only going to make things worse. I just needed to make a plan, proceed with confidence, and figure it out if it went wrong! That’s always the way my best days went! It wasn’t like any plans survived contact with the Straw Hats anyway!

We’d get there and we’d do our damnedest and we’d win no matter what because we were the Straw Hat fucking Pirates, god dammit!

I swung myself out of my hammock and did my full-body shudder, idea firmly in place, and resolved to give a hearty shout — once I wasn’t, y’know, in a sick room.

I got back to the deck, bowl in hand to return to Sanji, to find my crew essentially passed out in various steadily-growing snowdrifts.

“Ah, so training just finished,” I said to myself, vaguely concerned but mostly assured; Lulu was still around on deck, clearing around snow in place and not letting anyone actually get buried, plus everyone was wearing enough layers, so it was totally fine, as far as I was concerned.

Of course, not everyone was equally flopped out; I vaguely overheard Vivi and Nami talking about how the Grand Line’s islands worked where they were sitting against the railing, and Charlie was actually building some various shapes out of the snow — I wasn’t actually sure if he’d participated in the training at all, now that I thought about it.

There was definitely enough space for my agility exercises now, at least, and I wondered vaguely if the snowdrifts would provide enough cushioning to attempt a few more intricate tumbles…

Ah, shit, and I needed to try vaulting, too! And my flying practice, and…

I shook my head before I could get overwhelmed. First things first: I had a bowl in my hand still, though that was easily remedied by finding Sanji in his kitchen — I also made sure to remind him that we’d need to be sparring sooner than later and made sure he didn’t need any help, but he obviously declined, not wanting to get in the way of my training, which, fair enough, I supposed.

“So, Soundbite,” I said as I stretched my arms up, heading back out of the kitchen. “You up for providing a soundtrack for me while I do my thing?”

“You know it!” He responded. “What are you feeling, J-Rock? Linkin Park?”

“Hm…” I put my hand to my chin. “If we want to go with the theme, maybe something a little whimsical?”

“Theme?”

“Oh,” I said, because right, duh, I’d just had the idea, of course Soundbite didn’t know what I meant, “I’m going to be trying some cartwheels and other stuff like that, along with my usual agility stuff.” … Wait. “Shoot, uh… I might need to put you down so you don’t go tumbling yourself, um…”

I cast some looks around, but everywhere was pretty covered in snow — were snails cold-blooded? I had no reason to believe they weren’t, yikes…

“Something the matter, Ami-san?” I jumped as Lulu successfully got my attention, and apparently my distress had been clear as day, as usual.

“Oh, uh, I was going to do my agility training, but I was thinking of incorporating some, like, cartwheels maybe? Since the snow is there to cushion me?” Arceus, I hated sounding like an idiot like this… “Not even sure if that would work,” I waved my hand a bit to try and make what I was saying feel less cringey to myself, failing pretty badly, but whatever, thought that counts, “uh, but either way I need someone to hold onto Soundbite, because I can’t just leave him out in the cold.”

“What are you, my mom?” Soundbite quoted at me in Cross’s voice.

“Oh, what, you’re going to make fun of me for worrying about your well-being and comfort now?” I shot back, giving Soundbite a look that was somewhere between a glare and a pout. 

And now Lulu was laughing outright, wonderful. “I can hold onto him for you if you’d like. That scarf isn’t ideal for your exercises either, is it?”

I considered that for a moment, and realized that yeah, probably she was right, so I uncoiled the scarf, doing my best to keep Soundbite covered, and then handed the bundle to Lulu.

“Thanks a bunch!” I said cheerily. “Alright, now let’s get down to business…”

“Ah, Ami-san,” Lulu said, stopping me before I could turn fully around, “how long were you below deck for? You should probably warm up again.”

“Ah, shit, I hadn’t even thought of that!” I gasped, a hand going to my forehead as I looked down at myself for no real reason. “I didn’t cool off properly before going down there either, shoot…”

“As long as it’s not a habit, missing it once won’t hurt you,” Lulu said reassuringly, thankfully cutting me off before my self-flagellation could get any worse. “Just do your warmups again and you should be fine.”

I found myself sighing, pretty disappointed in myself for forgetting something so simple, but I was glad Lulu had caught it, and I was glad she was being really helpful about it. “Thanks, Lulu. I don’t know what I’d do without you on this stuff!”

“Your workout regimen was already quite decent without me,” Lulu smiled, “but I am glad I can be helpful. I’ll admit that I feel out of place on this ship most of the time.”

… Wow, I hadn’t even considered that. Before I could beat myself up for not noticing her discomfort or thinking about the possibility, though, because those were probably honest mistakes, I redirected my focus to reassuring her in the moment, because that was something I could do.

“You’ve been super helpful, trust me!” I said, putting as much weight as I could into it through my posture and tone. “You’re kinda like a personal trainer or a life coach or something, but for the whole crew! I think it’s awesome!”

Lulu laughed just a bit at my sudden enthusiasm. “Personal trainer isn’t a position I hear of in most pirate crews.”

“Well if you hadn’t caught on by now, we’re definitely not most pirate crews,” I crossed my arms and raised an eyebrow, but I was laughing myself. “Orthodox rules are way too limiting; the important thing is everyone does something everyone else can’t, and we support each other, and everyone’s important!”

I nodded forcefully to punctuate the sentiment, and was about to follow up with something to drive it home fully when I was preempted by a long, frustrated yell coming from one of the still-growing snow drifts. As Lulu and I moved to investigate, the yell repeated itself, and out of the snow burst, of all people, our captain, pulling on the brim of his beloved hat distressingly strongly — thankfully he had a coat on, despite the fact that I felt like I remembered him not remembering they existed at one point in the source material, so I didn’t have any extra reasons to be worried about him screaming while buried in snow.

“AAAAAAAAAAARGH!” He yelled, for the third time, “WHY IS THIS SO HARD?!”

Blinking, I took a step back. “You okay, Captain?”

“I’m fine!” Luffy shouted in the tone people tend to use when they’re definitely not fine. “I”m just trying to decide something but deciding things is hard and I’m starting to hate it but it’s really important but aaaaaAAAARGH!”

“Decide something?” Okay, probably I should’ve been more worried — and I was! Obviously I was worried about why my captain was so upset, but he’d put a mystery in front of me, a question just waiting to be asked and if I didn’t ask it, who would? “Decide what?”

Luffy snapped his head fully towards me, blinking rapidly and suddenly looking astonishingly like a deer in headlights, which was probably funny on a meta level given where we were going but anyway. His eyes shifted around rapidly to look at everything besides me, and his mouth looked like it was trying to escape his face — the effect was even funnier with his rubber features than it would’ve been on a normal person.

“… Nothing,” he said belatedly.

“Wow,” was my only response, “You really are terrible at lying.”

That was really rude at me, but holy crap, I was nowhere near that bad even at my most blunt and anxious about secrecy! It wasn’t like I hadn’t been aware of this, but wow was seeing it in person something else, like —

Wait, what the hell was I focusing on that for?! Get back to freaking question, Amanda!!

“I might be able to help, you know!” I pushed, shaking my head to rid myself of the weird tangent. “Sometimes decisions only get harder to make if you bang your head against them too long by yourself!”

“Hmm…” Luffy’s face scrunched up in a vaguely comedic manner, but it was clear he was still serious — he shook his head and said, “I’m the captain. This is something I have to figure out.” 

He nodded fiercely, face now set in a determined almost-scowl, then decided to bury himself back in the snow for some reason.

I sighed, but not because he’d broken the serious tone so easily; Luffy was the captain, but whatever he had on his mind… he shouldn’t have to take it on when it was clearly giving him so much trouble, no matter what kind of hierarchy or pride was going around.

I mean really, was communication so hard? I was quickly growing to realize and remember that this crew was actually kind of terrible about this kind of thing… We always said we were a weird crew with unorthodox ways of going about things, but in a lot of ways, Luffy really wanted to be his ideal of a good pirate captain, who was in charge and did what was right in that situation. And that wasn’t even mentioning…

… Actually, no, I wasn’t going to try and psycho-analyze these real people who I’d barely been on board with for a few months at this point. Besides, most of the things that might have triggered or exacerbated the potentially-debilitating self-esteem issues our captain had or would wind up having hadn’t even happened yet, or at least that I was aware of. Whatever was bugging Luffy right now, it probably didn’t have anything to do with that, and I couldn’t really help him with it. If I wanted to help with the vaguely possible but not guaranteed self-worth trouble yet to come — and of course I wanted to, I wasn’t going to deny my own incapability to leave people alone with their issues — I’d make sure to address it when and only when it was an actual problem.

For now, I had some freaking training to do.

After my acrobatics and agility and flying and sparring with Sanji — and I think dinner was somewhere in there but wow was I getting good at filling up my time — I was just about ready to conk out, but Nami made the executive decision that we were going to be staying unanchored and moving later than normal. The stable snow we were getting meant we were probably close to some kind of island, which I definitely remembered from the reread, and we needed to be as efficient as possible. It wasn’t going to be fully efficient since like hell any of us besides Nami knew what we were doing when it came to navigation and she was only one person (I wondered if I had time between training sessions to read some of Nami’s navigation books? It might be a good idea to see if I could free up some of Nami’s energy in that regard…), but anyway, we were going to do what we could. Lives were on the line, even if that was sometimes easy to forget with the general atmosphere of this ship.

We caught sight of Drum Island just after dinner the next day. Faster than I honestly expected, but the source material was never exactly specific about travel times, and it was good, considering the circumstances. Cross’s condition didn’t seem worse but he wasn’t better either and that boded very ill, not that any of us were experts but… ugh, you get the point. 

As we approached the island, we had to make a few decisions; if we headed straight there, it would be long past nightfall by the time we got there, possibly we’d even have to sail through the entire night, which wouldn’t help our case very much for a variety of reasons, but time was very much of the essence. In addition…

“You think we should hide our Jolly Roger?” I mumbled, biting my lip a bit. What with the idea of arriving at night, the fact that we were going to aggravate the islanders’ recent trauma was getting more and more worrying. “I guess they might’ve already seen us…”

“Pirates aren’t exactly rare, in this sea,” Charlie crossed his arms. “I suppose you make a good point, but why so worried about this island in particular?”

“Well…” I scratched the back of my neck, not sure exactly how to say what I needed to here. “I mean, if we mess this up, Cross is in tons of trouble, and…” I groaned, my face dropping into my hands. “This also… ugh, it has to do with all the stuff I know, even though I said we wouldn’t have to get into it until Cross was better. I kind of didn’t think about this situation.”

“Seriously?” Nami’s voice was incredulous. “What does one island’s stance on pirates have to do with anything? How could you happen to know this specific island’s view on pirates anyway?”

“It is such a long story,” I said, throwing my head back to look up at the sky. “I promise it’ll make sense when we explain, I just… didn’t want to bring it up until we could actually sit down to explain it. I didn’t think about the possibility of a situation like this, because I’m very clearly not the tactician.”

“Well, uh, what do you know about the island, then?” Usopp asked, and I vaguely noticed he was shaking. “My no-go-island-itis is, uh, very sensitive, you see, so, um…”

“We’re just here to find a doctor,” Zoro scoffed. “We probably won’t even be here long enough to get into any good fights.”

“Seriously? Again?!” Luffy seemed genuinely distraught, despite the fact that I’d expect him to care more about Cross’s health than that, sheesh… Then again, he might just still be on edge because of whatever was on his mind yesterday? That wouldn’t surprise me, and I couldn’t really get mad at him if that was the case.

I was surprised that everyone was just going along with what I was saying, not really caring about whatever implications they were concerned with when all this stuff originally came up. I supposed me knowing about islands in this region AND knowing about Baroque Works didn’t necessarily combine in any weird or suspicious ways they hadn’t already addressed, so the actual precognitive or metaphysical aspect hadn’t really had a reason to come up yet, but…

Well, being honest, it was kind of just nice to know they trusted me, to whatever degree they currently did. I hadn’t really been with them all that long, but they still took my words when I told them what I could about the situation for what they were and took my emotions how I meant them to be taken. It felt really really great to know that, however cheesy it might sound.

“Well, okay,” I began, deciding that telling them about this island would be all-around beneficial as long as I could keep the discussion from turning to how I would know. “You remember that fat metal hippo from the other day? The guy Igaram said he recognized?”

There was some nodding — not everyone, obviously, what crew do you think this is, but it was only yesterday, so even the biggest idiots on this crew and the people who weren’t directly involved at least kinda remembered.

“Well, if you remember, I said he was playing pirate, and I said that for the same reason Vivi and Igaram recognize him; he used to be royalty, specifically the king of Drum Kingdom.” I turned to gesture at the growing silhouette of the mountainous island in the distance. “That is Drum Island, named for its giant snowy mountains, the Drum Rockies. From what I understand —” I added in, to add a bit of ambiguity so the sheer amount of certainty I had about this stuff I shouldn’t really know wasn’t totally obvious — “a while back, the island was attacked by just about the worst kind of pirates, and he ran off with all of his administration and army to go gallivanting around the sea playing pirate while the rest of his island fended for themselves.”

I huffed, not bothering to hide my derision. “Between the original attack and the fact that their shitty asshole of a former king is running around as a pirate, I would be shocked if we weren’t immediately met with an armed mob, but, we will definitely be able to find a really great doctor there.”

“The Drum Kingdom is famous for great doctors, it’s true,” Igaram said, seeming thoughtful, “but if Wapol, as you spray — ahem-hem — say, left with as much of his administration as to leave the island to fend for itself…”

“I have it on good faith that there’s one doctor who’d never go along with Wapol,” I said firmly. “The issue is that she’s apparently pretty hard to get along with, on top of the whole fact that the island might not even let us get close, but her skill is apparently undeniable.”

I kept adding in those little pieces of ambiguity, words and phrases that made it seem like I just got the information from a verifiable source — which was true, technically, just one I trusted a lot more than your average informant — so that there was no reason to get suspicious of me or my motivations. Holding back information at this point would not help my case, and it definitely wouldn’t help Cross; I just had to keep the topic away from how I knew anything, and focus on the actually helpful parts.

I must’ve done something right, or at least my sincerity in wanting to help as best I could came through, because everyone else seemed… not to relax, but there was a shift, some kind of change from the nervous energy that had been gradually building up underneath the usual banter to the kind of focus you take on when there’s an obstacle to be cleared.

“So are we hiding our Jolly Roger?” I asked, getting back to my original point. “I’m not really that great at plans, and it might not even make much of a difference, since our captain is wanted and all…”

“I don’t wanna,” Luffy said, expression oddly serious for what you’d expect from that phrasing. “It… it feels like we lose to those fake awful pirates if we do that. Our flag doesn’t mean the same thing theirs does.”

Ah, right, this was… this was that honor thing, the pride of true pirates. The thing that really kept this crew together, when you got right down to it, that sense of true identity that came with our flag.

I… when I thought about it just a bit, I found myself laughing, which, y’know, obviously got me some weird looks, but, well…

“Sorry, sorry,” I waved my hand a bit, trying to stop myself. “I’m just laughing at myself, y’know?”

With Smoker, back at Iwai’s place, all the pirates had hidden their Jolly Rogers while getting their ships worked on, but so had the Marines; that was just how it was there, it made things easier for everyone. Here, though…

I shook my head. “Nothing ‘easier’ about it. We don’t have to lie about who we are to get people to believe us. Shouldn’ta taken me that long to figure out; sorry about that.”

Luffy grinned and laughed at that, and I followed suit, but it didn’t last for long.

“We are going to need some way of convincing them we don’t mean any harm,” Vivi said, eyebrows drawn together in thought.

Yeah, thinking about what had actually deescalated everything in the source material definitely squashed any laughter I had… That was one of my favorite moments in the source material, and a very traitorous part of my brain said hey, Vivi should get a chance to show how awesome she is, but, uh, fuck you intrusive thought generator in my brain, I wasn’t about to let my friend get shot for narrative value, so what other options did we have?

“We did beat ahp dehr ahful king,” Carue offered. “Think dat’ahl geht us points?”

“I find it unlikely they’ll believe us, if I may be honest,” Charlie shook his head.

“I CAN HELP!” Soundbite piped up, sticking his eyestalks out from my scarf, where he’d been spending most of the day again.

“Oh, you can only play sounds or voices you’ve heard, isn’t that right?” Lulu asked. I’d actually forgotten if we’d explained Soundbite’s power in detail to all the newer people on our ship — could I count them as proper crewmates right now? Meh, questions for later — but this property of it actually was super useful in a situation like this.

I shook my head as the phrase “evidence is everything” popped into my brain — crossover thoughts and emotions could be saved for later, there was still one last questions to address.

“So how long are we sailing for?” I asked, directing my attention to Nami. “If there’s a fight and we have to get out of there, it’d be bad if any of us were too tired.”

Nami looked over a few charts and one of the books she’d so egregiously stolen from Iwai-san — although if they were proving to be that helpful I guess I couldn’t be too upset, since Iwai-san could probably afford to replace at least some of them… “If we keep this pace for about two more hours and start sailing again at dawn, we’ll get there before noon, if I have everything here right. How long do you think it’ll take to convince this supposedly-difficult doctor to work with us?”

“Depends on a lot of things, honestly,” I scratched the back of my head again nervously. “I know vaguely where she lives, and I know a few things that’ll get her talking to us, but we might have to pay a decent sum of money, depending on what all happens.”

Nami grimaced in what would be a comic manner if the situation were less dire, eyes squinting and nose scrunching up and everything, and she heaved a deep sigh. “If it keeps our tactician alive, I guess we’ll have to make sacrifices.”

“I can pay some of the price, if you want,” I offered. “Depending on what the final cost ends up being, anyway; I have a good bit of savings from my job with Iwai-san with all my stuff, it’s not fair of me to hoard it anyway.”

Nami’s look went from a grimace to a suspicious, almost horrified stare, and I was not sure what to think about that, so I decided not to think about it. Eventually she just shook her head, and went back to her charts, so I decided to try and redirect my newfound tension into something productive.

“Alright!” I slammed my fist into my palm, not realizing I was copying Luffy until right after I’d done it. Rolling with it, because why the hell not, I continued, “Let’s get that doctor for Cross, no matter what!”

Shouts or just words or nods, all of affirmation, followed that declaration, and as Luffy took his place on Merry’s masthead to stare at the growing silhouette of the mountainous island we were approaching, I stood a bit behind him, taking it in myself. I found myself smiling, renewed determination flowing through my body, and the last words I’d said repeated in my brain.

No matter what.

Chapter Text

Arceus, but I was not getting used to having firearms levels at me anytime soon. Maybe eventually, like, say, two-years-and-Haki-training eventually, I’d be able to have some confidence that one wrong move wouldn’t mean my inescapable demise, but for now? Scary. Bad. Guns scary and bad. That’d been my association for twenty freaking years of life, and even if these guns were technically nowhere near as bad as the ones back home (scary bad wrong no why is that a thing), they were still just as conceptually terrifying if I thought about them for even half a second.

So! The answer was clearly not to think about them. Instead, I got to focus on how much I also hated negotiations, not because it was less stressful but because those were my options, and out of them, that was the stress I at least sort of understood.

Ah, but I’ve managed to give exactly zero context, so allow me to remedy that.

We reached Drum Island a few hours before noon, just like Nami had said the previous night. When we made our way up the nearest canal or river or whichever towards a place we could moor Merry, a crowd was waiting on the rocky shore, armed and dangerous, just like I’d expected and hopefully made implicitly clear. And, just as I’d hoped and asked, Igaram and Vivi were both on deck, ready to be provide their experience to the negotiations, and also hopefully be recognized by Dalton.

Except Dalton wasn’t there.

As you might expect, that made progress in negotiations much more difficult that I would’ve liked it to be, hence my current dilemma and stress-based rambling.

“Please,” Vivi said forcefully, head bowed. “Whether it’s money or anything, what will make you believe us?”

“Show me someone who believes a pirate and I’ll show you a dead man,” one of the villagers at the head of the group said, a vicious look in his eyes that alluded to the context behind that kind of remark.

I shook my head minutely, thoughts swirling. I sympathized, honestly, but we had a life on the line here too — and Luffy and a few of the others were getting antsy, which that line did not help at all. I couldn’t let myself get distracted; if things went south I had to be able to do something.

As you might expect, the current conversational climate made our other potential plan for getting on the villagers’ good sides pretty impossible; sure, we shared a mutual dislike of their shitty fat hippo of a former king, but if we brought him up now? When they were this pissed off already? We didn’t even really have a reason to know the connection, form their perspective; it would be suspicious in every way and would probably wind up with the gunshots actually firing. Vivi and Igaram’s identities were an even less promising option — no matter what, any other subject would just seem like obvious and desperate deflection.

And so, despite my best efforts and a solid idea, a simple trick of circumstance, presumably caused by my persisting and baffling effect on scheduling, had reduced us to essentially the exact same situation as the source material, except with no way to fix it.

“Talk about a bad first impression…” I heard Sanji mutter from somewhere (I was focused on the guns rather than everyone’s exact position, sue me), and part of my gut went cold as one of the villagers in the crowd finally snapped.

“I heard that, you!”

A shot.

I was, frustratingly, frozen by the sound; if I’d been the target, it would’ve been really really bad, but thankfully Sanji was more competent than that. He avoided the bullet, but he was not happy.

“Is that how it is, then?” He said lowly, squaring his footing, and, though I didn’t think it was possible, my blood went even colder.

“Wait, Sanji —” I started, reaching out with my hand in an abortive gesture, nowhere near confident or stable enough to —

“Don’t!” Vivi yelled, cutting off my self-deprecating thoughts as she slammed into Sanji’s side, moving to stand between him and the —

BANG.

Time stopped as I saw the tiny blur of a bullet shoot forward at my friends and there was a tiny burst of red blood on my friend and suddenly I was glad I was still frozen because if I had been able to move I did not want to think about what —

“WHY YOU—!”

Ah, but I barely had to imagine what I might do; Luffy was right there.

“I said don’t!” Vivi yelled again, voice rough with the pain we could all tell she was surpassing. She flung herself in front of Luffy, shoving him back with surprising force. “That isn’t going to help! You can’t solve this by fighting!”

Vivi met Luffy’s intense glare with her own, and he stopped. His gaze flicked to the blotch of red slowly staining Vivi’s sleeve — the place my eyes couldn’t move away from.

“It just grazed me, see? I’m fine.”

Luffy swallowed, and his arms dropped. Vivi slowly backed away and turned, sinking into a cow-tow towards the villagers.

“Please. If it’s what you want we won’t take a single step off this ship, but please bring a doctor here.”

A new voice resounded from the rocky bank, deep and full of authority: “What is going on here?” 

Dalton had arrived. I would’ve expected to have noticed the approach of an already-large man who could turn into an even huger buffalo, but —

… actually, uh, shit, when had I fallen to the floor? My brain was not all the way on right now…

“Luffy,” Vivi hissed. “You’re not doing your duty as a captain properly — not if you’re going to get into a fight in this kind of situation.”

Something rippled over Luffy’s expression, and his gaze shifted from Vivi to me of all people, then to the others, and finally the door down to below deck, where Cross was laying delirious and in pain.

He didn’t look at the villagers, though. Not even as he went to kneel next to Vivi.

“Sorry!” He said, with purpose. “I was wrong!”

I let myself look up at Dalton and the villagers, and their expressions gave me some hope, at least; most of them were conflicted at worst, and the ones closest to Dalton were staring at him, silently asking for instruction.

“We just need a doctor!” Luffy continued, the same sense of force in his voice. Dalton gave him a long look before scanning the rest of the crew. When his eyes met mine, I forced as much resolve into my expression as someone whose legs had given out at the sight of a gunshot graze could manage to convey, but he didn’t linger on me for long.

He did pause when he saw Igaram, and looked at Vivi a second time, not that that recognition would do us much good at this point, but thankfully, by the time his inspection was done, his expression was very different from the stern and threatening one he’d worn when he first arrived.

“There is only one doctor on this island,” he said. “If you want to meet her, follow me.”

“A witch?!” Usopp yelled, his shrillness making me flinch unconsciously. 

We’d been walking for just a little while — Lulu was carrying Cross, and we’d left Zoro, Charlie, and Carue on the ship. Carue hadn’t wanted to go out into the snow that was more than half as high as he was (less deep than I’d honestly expected, and we’d found insulate pants, but it was still a pain) and after Zoro had mentioned getting some training in while standing guard, Lulu had taken a long look at the nearby icy rapids and asked Charlie to stay with him. Presumably she’d wanted to stay herself, but she was the best suited to carrying people, so she left Charlie in charge of mosskeeping.

“She acts only on her own will,” Dalton continued — I’d already forgotten who had initially asked about the doctor, honestly. “She comes into villages seemingly randomly and takes whatever she wants as payment for her treatment.”

I couldn’t help but get a weird feeling that this conversation was going vaguely out of order, but that was a really dumb detail to focus on and I couldn’t very well pull out my phone to check, so I decided not to let it bother me unless it proved to actually matter for some reason. 

“By the way,” Dalton said, apparently done talking about Kureha for now. His gaze turned to Igaram as he continued, “I believe I know who you are.”

Igaram’s eyes narrowed a fraction, his posture shifting ever so slightly. “I believe I know who you are as well.”

Dalton’s face fell, just a bit, and he sighed. “I understand why you may be cautious, but that man is no longer on this island. This kingdom has no king, just as it has no name.”

Igaram frowned. The entire exchange honestly confused the hell out of me, but best I could guess, Dalton hadn’t meant to be threatening and that was confusing Igaram? Possibly neither of them had meant to be threatening and it was something else; I wasn’t a diplomat…

We had talked about Wapol, but I hadn’t mentioned that some of his retainers might have stuck around, now that I thought about it, which could be at least part of the problem here; was there a way I could fix that? It’d probably work out fine as long as my plan worked…

We arrived at the town relatively soon after that. Dalton dismissed the villagers who’d made up the band of guards, and I have to say, even though this probably wasn’t the time to be thinking about this, it was really charming how much everyone really and truly respected him.

“My house is this way,” he said, starting to walk again. “Ah, and my apologies for not introducing myself — and for the tense situation earlier, I suppose. I am Dalton, and I am in charge of this island’s defenses.”

“So where’s the doctor?” Luffy said, visibly confused.

“As I sad before, she comes and goes as she pleases,” Dalton replied. “We have no way to contact her.”

“What?!” Nami exclaimed. “No way at all? Why are we even here? Where does this doctor even live if you can’t contact her?”

Dalton paused, then shook his head. “Let’s get your crewmate inside, and I’ll explain.”

 Dalton’s house or cabin or whatever the right word was was a little cramped with all of us inside, but whatever. Cross muttered steadily to himself as we tucked him into the bed Dalton offered before starting up his hearth. Cross had actually gotten back to muttering about this universe during his fever dreams, and I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad; I personally was just worried, but we’ve established that I worry more than is strictly healthy no matter what anyway.

“So, about the doctor?” Vivi prompted, sitting down at the nearby table.

“Through that window,” Dalton indicated the window farthest from the door, “you should be able to see mountains.”

“They were hard to miss,” Sanji said, exhaling just a bit more heavily than normal — not quite a sigh, or a huff, but, like — ugh, you get it.

“Aren’t they…” Igaram hesitated, which I understood; bringing up the island’s past was going to be, uh… interesting. “The Drum Rockies, correct? They’re the deriding — ahem, maaamamaaaah — defining feature of this island, aren’t they?”

“… I suppose they were, once.” Dalton replied, expression inscrutable. “but I can only hope those days are over.”

He shook his head, just a bit, exhaling quietly. “If you look carefully at the top of the tallest mountain, you can see the castle where our king used to live. The doctor lives there now.”

There was a moment of silence as everyone processed. I was waiting for someone to ask something, either what had happened to the king or what would make a doctor live in a castle, but then I realized — not only had I already told them what had happened to the king, they hadn’t brought anything like that up in the source material at all, at least not that I remembered!

Shit, this was bad. How was I going to get the topic to come up now? This plan of mine was supposed to be cut and dry, simple shit, but of all things, conversational convention was keeping me from being able to bring it up at all!

“Of all places… and you said there’s no way to contact her?” Sanji huffed for real this time, and I couldn’t really blame him for his irritation — I wasn’t exactly feeling any better, as I’ve said, but therein lay the problem, if that makes sense; extra layers of tension weren’t helping me at ALL, not that there was much to do about it. “How does she even come down from up there?”

Wait, woah, that was actually a question I could work with! Holy shit, someone please build off of it in a way I can use to link to my actual idea…

“A-and why is she called a witch, anyway?” Usopp added, controlling his shaking surprisingly well.

“Well, for one thing, she’s over 140 years old,” Dalton said, seeming to take some amusement in the shocked expressions that comment caused. “For another… some people have seen her riding a sleigh through the sky at night, pulled by a giant creature.”

As you might expect, Usopp in particular did not take that well. I didn’t really pay attention to the rambling that he started doing, though, because Dalton kept talking.

“In all honesty, I’d prefer not to have more to do with her than strictly necessary,” he said. “If she has a transponder snail of any kind I’m not aware of it — all you can do is wait for her to come down through the villages.”

“Does she always come through all of them?” Lulu asked, and since I hadn’t even thought of that angle I was actually really glad she’d brought it up.

“It depends,” Dalton answered. “She seems to get information about where sick people are from somewhere, and tends toward specific locations, but in many cases she does a full round trip of the island. The issue is that she came down just two days ago, and she is almost entirely unpredictable, at least to me.”

“Hm…”

Fuck, had there been an opportunity there I’d missed? I was so stressed out I couldn’t even tell! And now everyone was just kind of standing and thinking, what —

“Cross! Hey, Cross?”

Oh fuck me, that was Luffy I did not need this right now because I knew exactly where this was going —

“… Huh? Wha?” Cross blinked blearily awake, and I immediately turned and walked as briskly as could be considered natural to stand behind Luffy — what was about to happen could not happen and besides which, Soundbite was still riding with me for the time being, and Cross deserved to know where his partner was.

“Wh… where am I?” Cross mumbled, eyes blearily searching the room.

“Cross,” Luffy said, and nope, dammit, I was too late, unconscious hand reaching out or no. “We’re on a snow island and the only doctor lives on a mountain so we’re gonna climb it. Okay?”

The hand that I’d been reaching out backtracked straight into my face as everyone else shouted their “WHAT”s at varying volumes.

Everyone besides Luffy quickly shifted from yelling to attempting to argue with him, and I felt my eye start to twitch. At this rate, I was about ready to throw stupid things like tact and decorum straight out the window — maybe if I actually got over that kind of bullshit I’d be able to make my plan heard at least…

“… this is…” Cross was muttering, which drew me out of my own thoughts for at least a second, though it didn’t seem like anyone else was paying attention. “… tooth? Big… should… Ace… see him…”

Nothing helpful at all. The Ace thing was something I might follow through on but not right now, dammit! 

Just when I was about to reach my breaking point of irritation, I felt Soundbite nudge my neck to get my attention, and when he cast a worried look at Cross, my shoulders sank from their tense position.

Right, I could at least do this.

I extracted Soundbite from my scarf with one hand and nudged Cross with the other, holding Soundbite out and giving Cross something that hopefully passed for a smile.

“Ah… hey,” Cross’s face brightened. “How you doin’, buddy…? Ami bein’ nice?”

I resisted the urge to glare at the implication that I would be neglectful towards a sad baby animal missing its closest friend, because even if it bugged me, Cross was just the kind of person who snarked at all times, even when just waking up from a fever dream — hell, especially after a fever dream, given that this crazy cholera was throwing whatever filter he had away.

“I’m fine… you’re… not…”

“Ugh… no kiddin’…” Cross rubbed his face limply. “But hey, I’m gonna get fixed up soon, right? Feel like braving the elements with me?”

… Twitch.

Cross held out his hand next to where I was holding out Soundbite, and after only a moment of contemplation, Soundbite gave a forceful “Let’s do it!” and slid onto Cross’s palm.

Cross laughed lightly as he heaved himself into a sitting position, finding a place to tuck Soundbite into his coat. He then cleared his throat as forcefully as a nearly-unconscious-with-delirium person could, succeeding at getting everyone’s attention.

“Hey, Luffy…” he forced out, trying to keep a grin on his face. “Can you… show me that mountain you mentioned…?”

… Twitch.

“Oh! Yeah, sure!” Luffy agreed, excited at a level that was both expected and unexpected. He was surprisingly thorough and considerate as he helped support Cross’s weight over to the window, not pulling or showing any impatience at all — pretty impressive, honestly, considering I associated Luffy more with carrying people like sacks of potatoes, especially when they were taller than him.

Cross stared out the window at the mountains, gaze intense even as his filter continued to malfunction and he mumbled about poetic language as a concept for some reason.

“… Sheer rock faces…?” He said, this comment actually directed at Luffy.

“Looks like it!” he replied cheerfully.

… Twitch.

“Inhospitable temperatures?” Cross continued.

“I think I’m already developing frostbite, and that’s just down here…” Usopp muttered, face contorted with misery.

Twitch.

“Ravenous beasts?”

“There were TEN SPECIES just on the way here that wanted our guts MORE THAN OUR COMPANY!” Soundbite supplied all-too-eagerly.

Twitch.

“So, over all, it’s a deathtrap?”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far…” Dalton grimaced, looking understandably a little affronted, “but none of that is inaccurate…”

And as though my fraying sanity needed more help, the next thing our dear tactician thought to say?

“… Is it my birthday…?”

… SNAP.

“THERE’S ANOTHER WAY UP THE DAMN MOUNTAIN!”

Hopefully the rattle I heard after that shout was just my imagination, because I was not in the mood to put up with this nonsense, and if I needed to yell more I fucking would.

“I cannot believe I am having to force this issue,” I said forcefully, gesticulating to emphasize my anger. “Here I thought maybe this conversation would get to progress in a way that would lead to me making this point organically, and I wouldn’t have to risk mutiny allegations, but my patience has run out and so I will be frank, dear captain, because I can only hope it will pay off.”

I locked eyes with Luffy, whose expression was thankfully not resistant or upset as of yet; I wasn’t sure I would be able to push on if I had to face down Luffy’s glare right now.

“There has to be a way up to that castle that doesn’t involve climbing a goddamn sheer cliff face,” I continued, crossing my arms for lack of anything better to do with them. “It’s completely and utterly stupid to think that’s our only or especially our best option.”

“What are you talking about?” Luffy squinted — not angry yet, still, but confused — and tilted his head. “We can’t just wait here and do nothing!”

“First of all, waiting isn’t doing nothing,” I shot back, accentuating the remark by pointing my finger. This point wasn’t strictly part of what I was trying to accomplish, but I couldn’t help but jump on the opportunity to make it known, and I could use it to segue into my specific point. “Can you honestly say that getting up that mountain would be faster than waiting for the doctor, even disregarding how dangerous it would be for Cross?”

Luffy blinked a few times, confusion becoming more evident on his face.

“Even if the doctor isn’t likely to come down today, and you want to go straight to the source —” I shifted my hand to rest on my temple, trying not to seem angry — or, at least, not more angry than I actually was, “which I don’t disagree with on a conceptual level, don’t get me wrong — you have to sometimes figure out when the direct approach isn’t actually that direct of an approach!”

I went back to crossing my arms. “I want to get Cross to the doctor as fast as possible, too. What I’m trying to say is that that means we have to find the best way up that mountain.”

“What makes you so sure so sure there are other ways to get to that castle?” Nami asked, either confused or suspicious — didn’t have the focus to figure out which right this second.

“Because it’s a castle,” I burst out, spreading my arms wide with my frustration. Wasn’t this obvious? I mean clearly it wasn’t, but it seemed like everyone else should’ve been able to make this connection… whatever, I’d explain if I had to. I shook my head and continued. “Look, Dalton said the king doesn’t live there now, and we have no way of knowing how long it’s been since the king left —” not technically a like, since I really didn’t know exactly how long it had been since Blackbeard had attacked — “but when a castle is active, all sorts of people live there besides the king and his family — there are servants, cooks, even soldiers sometimes depending on how the country is structured!”

I brought out a mass of Copy Essence to illustrate the point, ignoring both the irritating tug of a forming headache and Dalton’s surprised reaction — it was something to channel my nervous energy into and it was helpful, so I’d use it if I fucking wanted. The silvery fluid formed into a model of the entire island, not quite to scale so that the castle could be the focus. Small blobs indicating villagers and little buildings were scattered around it as well, in order to showcase some of my examples.

… it was a lot of Copy Essence. I did wind up with a headache. However, I also had a snack with me, so my power’s limitations and effects were not important right now.

“If the soldiers of a country live in its castle, and they need to patrol the country looking for potential problems, they wouldn’t put up with having to climb up and down a sheer cliff every day, would they?” I asked, having some of the little blobby figures go up and down the very steep mountains and around the island. “Remember, these are the people with the weapons. Besides their own wants, what if they captured a criminal and had to take them to the castle to be judged? The criminal could escape into the wilderness or could die during the climb without ever having a chance to plead their case!”

I sighed, letting the diagram drop; it really was a lot of Copy Essence and I figured I’d made my point. “Kings are supposed to have audiences pretty frequently, too, for things like business transactions or tax issues or other things like that, and even shitty kings would want people they don’t like brought before them in a timely manner, right?

“Oh, and NONE of that,” I swept my arm out in a wide arc, “is mentioning the food you’d need to feed the king, and his family, and all the other people living there! Food very rarely grows well on snow-topped mountains, you know? So there has to be or at least have been some way of transporting things and people up and down that mountain without climbing a goddamn sheer cliff face!”

There was some quiet after I finished my tirade, everyone kind of just staring at me — besides Cross, who’d slipped back into unconsciousness at some point and been lowered back into bed by someone, whoops.

“… Well, you’re not wrong,” Vivi said, just as I was starting to feel the silence. “All of that would apply normally, but Dalton already said that no one but the witch — er, doctor lives there now.”

“Which means that whatever methods were in place in the past are unlikely to still work,” Lulu added, nodding a bit.

“Maybe so!” I conceded, but I pointed to keep as much momentum as I could — I’d already thought about that and how to move forward in the conversation with that in mind I did not need to get more freaked out, I was fine! “We don’t know for sure, though, do we? And we don’t know whether the doctor or witch or whatever isn’t using those methods or something else we could use!”

I punched my palm, both to make sure I was keeping everyone’s attention and just to get rid of some of my ever-growing nervous energy. “If the methods don’t work, let’s try to fix them! And if they do work, then we can go straight to the doctor and get Cross fixed and either way will be way less dangerous than that crazy hike!”

I looked around, making eye contact with everyone. “So?”

“There’s one problem, Ami-chan,” Sanji said, a bit hesitant, seeming more concerned than anything else — not that that was helpful to my level of nervous energy.  “We have no idea what we’d be looking for.”

“We might not,” I nodded, “but there’s no way we won’t find someone on the island who will! Even if it’s vague, it’s a place to start!”

Alright, Dalton, why were you staying quiet here? You know exactly what I’m talking about! Why are you staying quiet — it’s just some god damned ropeways!

Thankfully, finally, after this entire affair of things I did to help not mattering one bit, something good happened — Igaram spoke up.

“Ahem, Sir Dalton,” he said, tone just on the edge of politeness, “as forger — ahem, miii — former captain of the guard of this kingdom, wouldn’t you be familiar with such a thing?”

… Wait, the way he said that made it sound like his misspeaking gag was just, like… an excuse to badmouth people without consequences…? … Hoo, alright, not gonna unpack that right now!

“Oh!” Vivi gasped. “That’s what you two were talking about on the way here! I was trying to think where Igaram might know you from…”

Dalton was frowning pretty heavily by this point, which added to my confusion — what was he hiding for? I didn’t have time to wrack my brain for analysis on this, either, so it was just irritating… but thankfully, he did, finally, respond.

“… There was a system of lifts operated on ropeways that allowed for transportation to and from the castle,” he said. He had been looking at the floor, but as he continued, he lifted his head and looked me of all people directly in the eye. “All of them were taken down when our former king abandoned his country. I cannot help you.”

Shit. I’d misremembered the details of the ropeways from my reread, hadn’t I — I had thought that maybe hat was the case, but I knew that Kureha —

“Wait, that’s it!” I exclaimed, interrupting someone else as they presumably said something dour in response — I’d figure out who it was and apologize later. “Even if the ropeways are all down, the doctor has to have a way up and down, right? You said she lives in the castle now but what about where she lived before?”

“Are you sure we can’t just climb the mountain?” Luffy frowned heavily, and the fact that he was standing next to Cross’s bed when he had definitely moved away from it at one point was concerning.

“I am absolutely sure, Captain,” I once again pointed for dramatic effect. “Like I said before, climbing that mountain should be our absolute last resort. Before we even think about trying it, we should try any other plan that would be safer and more efficient. It’s absolutely worth figuring out how this witch gets up and down the mountain.”

“Okay, but you want to check her old house for how she gets up a mountain?” Nami raised an eyebrow at me, complete disbelief in her voice. “Are you sure you’re not sick?”

“Hell if I know!” I said bluntly. “My head’s never been quite right, being honest, but this is the best clue we have — and I will continue to maintain that investigating an actually efficient way up the mountain is a better idea than climbing the sheer cliff face of the tallest mountain on the island.”

Luffy was now pouting. “… Seems boring…”

Before I could respond to that in any way — and I was honestly thankful, because I wasn’t sure I’d have a helpful response — his pout contorted into an uncharacteristically thoughtful frown, and he shook his head. “No, if this will really make Cross better faster…”

… Oh shit. There was the intense eye contact.

“… then I trust you, Ami.”

… oof. When Monkey D. Luffy looks you right in the eye and says something like that, that’s…

… well, it feels like you’re standing at the center of the goddamn universe! Okay, let’s do this.

I grinned, all my nervous energy fully centered into galvanization. “You got it, Captain.”

I spun, turning to Dalton. “So! Do you know where this witch doctor used to live?”

Also, side note? I was actually really feeling proud of myself (and a little anxious, obviously) that I hadn’t even once slipped and said Kureha’s name when I wasn’t supposed to know it right yet. It was taking a solid amount of focus and no one else was going to comment on it for obvious reasons, so I had to praise myself — it’s the little things that matter most, sometimes.

Anyway, Dalton had gone from stern/upset to confused. “… It is a ways from here, outside the village of Gyasta. What of your crewmate?” 

Oof, that was a good point. I wasn’t sure how far it was — I didn’t think it would be that far? Someone would need to stay with Cross, especially depending on how long it took to set it all up or if I was remembering wrong…

“Not all of us necessarily have to go,” Lulu offered. “If it’s only an investigation, perhaps most of us could stay here while you go with Dalton, Ami-san?”

… Hm. An understandable offer, if complicated slightly by the fact that I was pretty sure what we needed would be there… but then again, the setup time would play in anyway, so this made enough sense. And actually, I could even… well, the headache I mentioned earlier was definitely there, but it wasn’t huge, and I had water and a snack on hand, so that was probably not a terrible idea? It would make things way easier if it worked…

“No problem!” I said without too much hesitation; I gave a thumbs-up, too, for emphasis. “We have Mulligan and Lafayette, right?”

“Mulligan’s on the ship with Charlie and Zoro,” Nami said, rummaging through her coat a bit before pulling out Lafayette. “I brought this guy just in case, though, so you should take him with you.”

“Thanks!” I said, searching for a proper pocket to keep Lafayette in that would keep him safe in case I did try my crazy idea. “Alright, Sir Dalton — lead the way!”

 We’d been walking for about five minutes when the urge to try my wings out finally grew too strong. It wasn’t helped by the feeling that I was holding Dalton back from transforming, thereby slowing him down. I wondered if the possibility had even crossed his mind, honestly — maybe he thought I’d try to hitch a ride, which would probably be weird? Point was, I was getting impatient like a jackass despite being the one who wanted to investigate — my idea was at least unlikely to make it slower, so…

“Hey, can I try something?” I called out to Dalton, probably too loudly; he wasn’t that far in front of me, honestly.

I was just thinking he’d look over his shoulder and raise an eyebrow or whatever, but he stopped fully and turned towards me — more thought actually proves that this is exactly what I should’ve expected him to do. “Is something the matter?”

“Oh, uh, no, I’m fine,” I said, waving my hands a bit in was hopefully not too weird a gesture. “I just get the feeling I’m slowing you down, is all, so I wanted to try something to speed things up.”

I reached back over my shoulders and let the Copy Essence flow out. “This admittedly might go wrong since I’m not sure how long I can keep this up for, but…”

I let the light ‘fwoosh’ of my silvery fully formed wings speak for itself, merely feeling the need to say, “Worth a try, right?”

Dalton’s eyes widened. “You did something similar earlier… a Devil Fruit, I assume?”

Ah, right, he would know.

“The Copy-Copy fruit!” I answered, grinning. “I haven’t done this technique too much so I might, uh… wind up falling out of the sky, because this stuff is basically directly tied to my life energy levels…”

Actually, now that I was thinking about it, I should probably eat the crackers I’d brought before taking off… as I took the package out of my pocket, I realized the statement I’d just made was actually probably really worrying, so I hastily added, “Uh, it should work as long as it’s not too far though, like I said. Lead the way?”

I ripped the package open and just poured a bunch into my face, missing a few but accomplishing my goal. Dalton looked me up and down as I did so, then nodded to himself. “Very well. If you wish to move more quickly…”

… Woah. Zoan transformations are awesome.

“… then I shall make use of my Ox-Ox Fruit as well.”

I think my eyes were shining a bit — seriously I don’t know if it was my perception filter or what, but the shift from human to animals was way smoother and less creepy than I’d thought it would be and genuinely looked awesome somehow — but there were priorities here, and he immediately turned and galloped off, so it was time to put my wings where my mouth was.

I leaned forward, bent my knees, and spread my wings. The muscle memory started to take hold, and I took one, two steps and pushed.

“Wah!” I said as I shot into the air — more forcefully than I’d actually expected, is that what all the Precure felt like? — and immediately felt a lack of balance and the start of a fall. I spread my wings out as much as I could and tilted to try and turn the fall into a bank, running mostly on instinct but focusing as much as I could on where Dalton was actually going.

I genuinely wound up having to bank in a full circle before I was fully stable, but then I was off, my wingbeats providing me with, again, more thrust than I expected. I rose and fell steadily to keep my pace, trying not to get ahead of Dalton — not that it was too difficult, honestly, because he was faster than I’d been expecting, too; I had definitely been slowing him down.

I felt the wings tugging at my brain and my body, constantly requiring focus on them — the scenery and the forces at play in my rising and falling constantly threatened to steal away the power keeping me aloft, and it didn’t help that the cold was making my breath shorter than normal. I had a scarf around my face, so that was partially handled, but, well… the wind was definitely getting into my eyes. I was gonna need to invest in goggles at some point.

You’d have expected someone to have seen a rope the size of the ones needed to operate the damn lifts sooner than anyone on the island had; you’d also have expected me to notice it sooner than I did! Unfortunately for me, the snow did a startlingly good job at hiding the white rope, and I only noticed it because I saw Kureha’s house first.

It had only been a couple of days since my flight time was under two minutes, but I genuinely barely felt the strain or even my previous headache as I put a bit more force into my next gentle ascent. I’d almost definitely feel it when I landed, but for now, either I was loving flight so much that it made it easy to focus, or I was so terrified of messing up that I was pushing through it all to the point where I’d forgotten it; either was possible, and it was likely a mix of both. Point was, it was pretty easy to guess that it was Kureha's house, because it was in a big clearing, the only one of its size for a good distance, and so I decided to go ahead of Dalton and…

… figure out, uh. How to land.

From this high up.

I shook my head as the ground suddenly looked like it was going to swell up and eat me so that my head wouldn’t start spinning and make me lose my constructs — now was not the time for my acrophobia to kick back in after I’d spent so long trying to desensitize myself! I had been this high before, god damn it!

… Oh, and now that my focus had started wavering, the strain of my powers was deciding to make itself more obvious. That, or it just hadn’t been as long as I’d thought until just then, who knew! What a wonderful fucking situation!!

I could do this, I could do this god dammit, I just had to circle the house, getting lower each time, and — shit, fuck, that was the rope!

I fumbled for balance as I went tumbling down, presumably making a really obnoxious sound of surprise and fear, and managed to barely pull up right above the snow. Then I realized that I needed to actually, y’know, land, and so I fumbled a bit with my legs and wings as I slid through the snow; my own instincts and the ones my powers were supplying were kind of arguing as I tried to figure out where to, like, put my feet, and …

… well, basically, thank fuck that my first actual use of this power was the snow island. I managed to get into a decent standing position just as Dalton came thundering into the clearing, and the resulting wave of snow that tends to happen when giant buffalo men are involved crashed into the bank of snow that I hadn’t realized was actually helping hold me up. 

So I wound up falling into a heap. There was a dramatic fwump and everything. Only then did my wings fizzle out.

Arceus, I could feel the Look Dalton had to be giving me, even as I pulled my head up and shook the snow out of my hair. Even more embarrassingly, the act of shaking myself free of the snow combined very poorly with the headache from earlier and the extra overuse I’d just been putting my powers through, resulting in a wave of extreme dizziness. 

“Uuuuugh, am I glad for this snow…” I groaned as I took deep breaths, trying to keep my cool — the fall and the embarrassment both were triggering my anxiety hardcore. My head didn’t take too long to clear, but I still moved slowly as I sat up as fully as I could. 

Dalton shifted back to his human shape, saying, “This is certainly the former home of Doctor Kureha. It seems your hunch was correct.”

Yeah, now that I looked, the rope was a bit easier to see from ground level, just because of the way that it was wrapped around the tree-house. “Not surprised that no one noticed it, honestly,” I said, because I really had been taken by surprise. I was still breathing pretty heavily, probably mostly because of the cold, which as I’ve stated before I was not good with. “So, okay, definitely not any lifts set up here, but that’s what the rope is for, right?”

“Yes,” Dalton nodded. “It’s about the right size, and seems secured relatively securely… though I do wonder how the doctor is utilizing it if not the lift…”

The rope really was huge, now that I was right next to it; definitely big enough to walk on, if you enjoyed tightrope (or had four legs). “Is there a way we could set a lift up? Do you keep them somewhere?”

“Hm…” Dalton crossed his arms and closed his eyes. “I know that some of the villages received lifts when the ropeways were taken down, just in case something happened…” 

He was quiet for a bit, frowning heavily. “I am unsure if Bighorn is one of them, but if it is, and if I had some help, I could get a lift set up in… an hour or so, possibly less.”

“I can help!” I said, the idea of seeing how they worked perking me up a bit. “Oh, and one of my crewmates is super handy with stuff like this, way more reliable than he looks!”

Dalton blinked at me a few times, but didn’t say anything for a bit, which threw me off more than it probably should have. It was, thankfully, only for a bit.

“… You brought a transponder, yes?”

“Oh!” I blinked rapidly in realization, my back straightening, before immediately scrambling for Lafayette. “Right, yeah, I should let them know we found something so they don’t decide the climb is a better idea before we get back…”

“I would suggest that you stay here,” Dalton said, taking me by surprise right as I was about to call. “I wouldn’t wish another dizzy spell on you; I can lead you crewmates here.”

That… ugh, it made sense, even if I felt bad about it. I frowned, but nodded, then made the call.

I didn’t have to wait long, thankfully; the town was more than a mile away, so I was expecting Soundbite to have to recover from the shock of being called or whatnot, but it wasn’t long at all. 

“ How goes IT?”  

I hummed as I tried to figure out exactly how to word our findings. “Alright, well, we found her house, and one of the ropes Dalton was talking about is actually set up — there’s no lift, though, so he needs to go back to town to get some help setting that up. I, uh… kinda volunteered Usopp? Sorry!”

“W-what?!” I heard Usopp shriek, and I rushed to cut him off with my reasoning.

“I just figured, you know, that you might be interested in how the lifts work?” I scratched the back of my head sheepishly even though they couldn’t see. “I figured since I thought it’d be really interesting you might think so too — sorry I didn't ask first. But you were really handy teaching me how to make hammocks and stuff so…” Crap, I was starting to go in circles…

“W-w-well!” Usopp stammered as I trailed off. “I-if you th-think I’ll be helpful, the… then the Great and Powerful Usopp —” Arceus, I really hadn’t expected him to latch onto that name to this degree — “will be honored to lend his services!”

I giggled, unable to help myself. “Glad to hear! I have to wait here because I overused my powers… again.” I sighed, my head throbbing a bit as if to remind me of how much my shame circuits should be smoldering. “Dalton says it could take around an hour to set up the lift, and I’m not sure how long the walk is…”

“So most of us should still stay here, then,” Nami finished. “Dalton said it was near Gyasta, right?”

“Yeah, in a clearing on a hill in the…” Wait. “… Nami. Do you have a map of Drum Island for some reason?”

“But of course,” Nami replied, a kind of pride in her voice that made my eyes narrow immediately.

“Nami, I swear to the almighty power of Arceus, we need Dalton on our side as completely as we can get him if we want to get Cross to this damn doctor,” I hissed, vaguely irritated that my hands were full with a snail speaker and mic so I couldn’t put even one of them on a hip to accentuate my frustration. “Put it back by the time Dalton gets over there or so help me —”

“So help you what?” Nami said, her tone exactly the same. Lafayette conveyed the giant grin on the face of this stupid thieving girl so well I found my eye twitching again, because she was right; I really couldn’t do anything about this situation.

I glared hard back at Nami through the snail connection, and her grin only got wider. Finally, I just had to sigh. “Why are you like this, Nami?”

“Well we are pirates, aren’t we?”

My frown at that was even more comically huge, and all Nami had in response was a laugh somewhere between a cutesy giggle and a full-on cackle, and then the line cut dead.

I took a deep breath and then gave a heavy sigh, then got briefly distracted by how huge the cloud of steam was. That was really dumb, though, so it was only for a few seconds. 

I turned to Dalton, ready to tell him they knew, but, uh. He was gone, presumably had left as soon as I’d started the call.

I blinked a few times as it fully processed that I was going to be here for a while.

A fairly long while.

… Alone. In the cold.

… Maybe getting distracted by dumb random stuff was the right idea after all, then.

 It took me about two minutes of standing around to decide that it would probably be a better idea to, like, go inside the house I was right near, so, despite a bit of anxiety about trespassing, I let myself in on the pretenses of: A, it hadn’t been locked, for whatever reason, and B, I already knew the person who was supposed to own this house and that that person didn’t actually live there. I had no reason not to go in and sit down at least, eat the rest of my crackers, maybe go back and double check that I knew what I was doing to handle this island’s next wave of inevitable nonsense…

But of course, nothing is that easy. See, if you recall, I have a tendency to lose track of time and sometimes even my surroundings when I read, and, even though she might not live in this house right now, Kureha obviously did still own it and check on it — she used it for a freaking rope anchor, after all.

And as such, if you combine that with my established effect on scheduling in this version of the universe, well…

My only warning was the screen of my phone fading to static, the usual response when someone who wasn’t supposed to be privy to the information I was viewing was about to be able to see it. I’d had enough practice shoving my phone away in a split second for a variety of reasons, but that didn’t, of course, help with the level of panic such incidents always incited. 

“So, what do we have here?”

Though I’d risen to a standing position in my panic, I found myself shrinking back under the gaze of this… well, maybe a tall, lanky old woman wearing a track jacket over a crop-top with two pairs of shades doesn’t sound intimidating on paper, but may I remind you this was an island with thigh-high snowdrifts. You really don’t know what effect a person will have on you until you’re face to face with them, is what I’m saying.

So, yeah, terror and trepidation. A lot of potential things to say ran through my brain at once, from questioning who she was or just skipping introductions and blurting out my need for her to come with me right now. Technically she’d asked me a question, but right now the sheer sense of danger was kind of overriding most of my instincts! 

“Are you the doctor?” I wound up blurting, probably making the fact that I was really struggling for proper words way more clear than was going to help my case. “I’m really sorry for just coming in like this, but the cold and everything, and I mean the door was open! I wasn’t stealing, I promise, I was just waiting!” Yep, REALLY obvious that I was panicking. Great job, me. Was all that enough information? Did I seem too desperate? Would it be a good or bad idea to tell her that a group of people was on its way? Would all of our problems be solved if I just told her about Cross?

“Waitin’, eh?” Kureha took a few steps towards me, and my eyes cast around the room in a panicked desire not to meet her own gaze. Obviously that made me look suspicious as hell, which sucked, but on the plus side, I managed to catch sight of Chopper, obviously in full-reindeer Walk Point, standing outside — he was giving me some glare, too. “So what if I am a doctor?”

“Ah, yes, you see…” Gah, fuck, this lady threw knives and honesty really was the best policy, wasn’t it? Rambling the entire truth it was. “I was waiting for my crew, see, because we were going to try and use the rope outside to get up to your castle, because we really wanted — needed a doctor, because our tactician has this crazy cholera mutation! And Dalton said no one knew how to contact you, right, so my captain, he just wanted to take our sick tactician and climb your mountain himself!”

Well, SOME part of that story had taken Kureha by surprise enough to get her posture to shift from threatening to confused, at least, that was good.

“Crazy, right?” I threw my hands up in the air. “So I said to everyone that there had to be another way up, so we came to investigate where you used to live since I figured there was probably some connection, and I was right!”

“But now,” I pointed, almost at Kureha before reevaluating the potential danger involved in being vaguely rude to the old lady with knives and scalpels, and so my point was instead directed in the vague direction of Bighorn. “Now you can just come to see him yourself and we don’t have to do any of this weird drama or searching!”

Lifting her shades, Kureha leaned forward and gave me an intense looking-over. “No drama, ya say? Funny that, comin’ from a trespassing pipsqueak looking for a quick getaway.”

“I’m not!” I said, defensiveness flooding through me. Had she not heard any of what I said? “I can show you, all of that was true and we really need your help! I’m not trying to hide or run away — why would I say all that stuff if I was?!”

Ugh, I was not in the mood for this! I was doing my best, wasn’t I? Maybe I was trespassing, but I was a concerned crewmate! Maybe I hadn’t been meeting her eyes before, but damn if I wasn’t now; overriding fear was always a good use for anger, I supposed. 

“Please,” I said, trying to keep my glare as toned down as possible while still being present. “I need you to come to Bighorn to help my crewmate. I’ll provide assistance if you want and we’ll be sure to pay you, just… please.”

There was a pause — Kureha was still analyzing me, I suppose, because after a second of staring, she burst out laughing.

“Heeeeeheeheehee!” She backed up and replaced her darker shades, other hand going to her hip. “Not a bad glare you’ve got, girly! You’re so cute I might cry.”

I couldn’t help but growl a bit at the condescension in her voice — I knew that those words technically meant that I’d won her over, at least a little, but they still stung.

“… My name is Ami,” I said, trying as hard as possible not to sound like I was pouting, because I wasn’t — I was angry, dammit. “I know you probably don’t care, but I’m Hijiri Ami.”

I spared a glance out the door — at Chopper, see — then lowered my head a bit, adding, “… member of the Strawhat Pirates.”

Still didn’t have a real role, but… well, it was fine. I did wonder if I should’ve used Luffy’s line about him becoming the Pirate King? That would’ve been even more effective at getting Chopper’s attention, but from my peripheral vision, it looked like he had still taken notice, even if it also made Kureha raise an eyebrow at me. “Not exactly the smartest thing to go spouting off to everyone you meet, girly — ‘specially not on this island.”

“You would’ve found out eventually,” I shrugged, “and we aren’t the same as the pirates who wrecked this place. The word means something different to me and my crew — something better.”

Kureha’s raised eyebrow didn’t lower, but she turned around. “Sure thing, kid. Bighorn, ya said?”

“That’s right,” I replied, nodded even though her back was turned. “There are some people coming this way, but… wait, right, hold on!”

Duh, they probably hadn’t gotten out of Soundbite’s range yet — I could call him and sort out this whole issue.

“Whatever your plan is, girly, you and your crewmate’re gonna have to wait; I’ve got business in Cocoa Weed first. Can’t go skipping out on the rest of the island just or some pirates that brat Dalton let slip by, after all!”

“Hey, wait, but —” I looked at Lafayette already in my hand, and the sled Kureha was adjusting Chopper’s connection to, and realized that I could call everyone just as easily while moving. “Wait, let me come! I’ll help!”

“Oh?” Kureha turned to me, raising her shades to make her Look stick. “And what use would you be to me?”

“Uh…” I cast my eyes around a bit — I’d expected her to potentially refuse me on the basis of not trusting me, rather than what I could do, see, and I’d offered to help her earlier so I wasn’t entirely sure why she was reacting this way. “… uh, whatever you need? I’m not a doctor, obviously, but I can… clean stuff? And carry things, or hold people down or distract them?”

My response was a raised eyebrow, and my wobbly anxious frown grew. Possibly it would’ve been better for me not to have continued, but I was in a desperate need to be in any other conversational climate, and I really did need to go with her — Cocoa Weed, from my (admittedly not always the greatest) memory, wasn’t actually far from Bighorn, and besides which…

“Look, your services are costly and I know I’m making you go out of your way so I want to make things easier if I can!” I brought up my arms a bit, defensive but trying not to ruin this situation. “I’m not a medical professional, and I know I might get in your way if I try to do too much —” and that wasn’t even mentioning my tendency towards squeamishness about stuff like this, but none of that was helpful to my case right now — “but I learn fast, and I want to get some experience in case something like this happens again.”

Honestly that was kind of bullshit, since, again, squeamish, and we were hopefully going to have a real doctor by the end of this, but it WOULD be useful in case it ever came up.

Anyway, I put as much earnestness into my voice and my body language as possible. I thought about bowing, but I wasn’t sure if that would be going too far… Man, I really did suck at this…

Kureha just stared, yet again; it took a solid thirty seconds. Then, finally, “Well, time is of the essence, ain’t it? Get in, girly.”

Relief swept over me like a tsunami, and I could only hope that my relieved grin didn’t make me look too much like a newly-adopted puppy. 

 I called Soundbite as soon as we were moving — not that it was easy given that I was having to hold all the medical supplies that normally took up the space I was currently occupying — and thankfully, he was able to connect to everyone else so that I could give everyone the lowdown. The team that Dalton had assembled were understandably a little peeved that the whole thing had been called off, but my crewmates at least were relieved that I’d actually managed to find the good doctor at all, even if there was a delay involved.

It didn’t take a super long time to get to Cocoa Weed, which was a good thing, and while I hadn’t even thought to push harder at Kureha to go to Bighorn and skip out on whatever business she had here, I was incredibly grateful that it hadn’t crossed my mind once we got into town — see, I hadn’t remembered the kid Kureha helped during her introduction until just then. 

It was heartbreaking that I could hear the crying as soon as we got into the greater area of the village; sure, it wasn’t a huge place, but the tavern the sound was emanating from wasn’t anywhere near the place we entered from. It was loud and part of me was irritated, but I knew what was causing it, so I steadfastly told the part of my brain that wanted to get mad to stuff it.

When we did finally stop in front of the tavern, I could hear more than just the kid crying; there were also the voices of a few adults trying to get him to calm down, though some of them weren’t very calm themselves.

“Really, now…” Kureha said quietly as she swung herself out of the sleigh and began unhooking Chopper. “Some father, eh, girly?”

“Huh?” I hadn’t expected to be addressed, but thankfully Kureha also hadn’t expected a response.

“First thing a parent should know, ain’t it, Chopper?” She continued, patting Chopper’s head once he was fully unhooked. “That kind of crying can only mean something’s real wrong.”

She gestured for me to follow, so I took the two cases I had the securest hold on and dropped the rest unceremoniously back into the sleigh — hopefully I had useful things. Kureha walked up to the door and, well, given that there were clearly customers in the tavern, it was pretty unlikely to be locked, right? Well, Doctor Kureha was the type of person for whom that was an unnecessary detail. She reared a fist back, and with a surprisingly satisfying CRACK, punched the door basically in half.

It was completely pointless, arguably done entirely out of pettiness towards the father she’d just commented on, and, given that I knew she was about to charge the family in question half their savings, pretty cruel, honestly, but…

… yeah, it was pretty awesome, too, I won’t lie.

Naturally the patrons and owner of the tavern were less than thrilled about it, though, and honestly, I think they wouldn’t have been happy to see Kureha regardless, but she didn’t waste any time with their very vocal complaints. Instead, well…

“So, you boys wanna hear the secret of my youth?” She said, grinning near-madly.

“Wh-no, we didn’t ask that!” One of the patrons exclaimed, and I snorted at how scandalized he sounded. 

“Can’t believe that’s a hundred-forty-year-old granny…” another patient muttered, definitely not quiet enough for Kureha not to hear.

“I’M STILL ONLY 139, YOU INSOLENT BRAT!” she snapped, causing the entire patronage to flinch away.

In response to that reaction, Kureha’s savage grin return. “So, shall I treat that boy, then?”

“Wh —” the tavern owner was completely thrown. “He’s not sick!”

“Oh?” Kureha tilted her head just slightly. “Are you a doctor, then?”

There was a pause during which I awkwardly shifted my grip on the two cases I had in my hands, then Kureha shrugged and started to turn around.

“Well, if you’re sure, then,” She said, waving a hand nonchalantly. “Girly, Chopper, let’s move on.”

I looked between the rapidly-panicking tavern owner and Kureha’s back, not moving — unsure; I had a vague idea of what was about to happen, but I wasn’t sure if I had some kind of part to play. Thankfully, I didn’t have to figure it out, because it took barely a second for the tavern owner to throw out his hand.

“W-wait!”

Kureha turned right back around, grin still firmly in place. “Girly, put those kits on the table. Chopper, a bucket, if you please.”

She shooed a few patrons away from one of the tables and dragged it out a bit so there was plenty of room around it. I set the kits down and Kureha popped them both open with practiced ease; one of them had sharp implements and the other had ointment and bandages, which was a relief to me, at least, since again, it’d been basically random which ones I’d held onto. 

“So, kid, what seems to be the problem?” Kureha said as the tavern owner placed his son on the table. Chopper had brought not just a bucket but also a cushion for the kid’s head, which was impressive.

“M-my hands…” the kid said, voice wobbly with tears. “Th-they really hurt…”

“I see,” Kureha said, nodding seriously despite the grin still on her face. “Let’s see, then…”

With a fist, she pressed lightly on the kid’s leg, and he erupted into a loud yell.

“AAAGH!” He cried out. “THAT HURTS! IT REALLY HURTS!”

Can’t say this was fun to sit though, by the way; have I mentioned I have an issue with extreme empathy? This kid’s screams were starting to get to me, especially given how lightly she actually pressed…

“You forgot all about how much your hands hurt, though, didn’tya?” Kureha put in, still grinning.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing to my son?!” the tavern owner shouted, and I felt my eye twitch. This situation was already a bit overstimulating, and while maybe someone would find his continued outbursts funny, I for one was not that someone; I was not in the mood for this.

I had no idea if this would actually be helpful, but I decided to step in front of the father and adopt the best monotone I had in my register. “Quiet on the operation floor, please,” I said, honestly surprised at how effective it was given that my legs were actually starting to shake now as I imagined how bad someone would have to be sick to feel incredibly aching pain from a light press. I wasn’t sure if this qualified as an operation, either, but it was a more effective thing to say in a monotone to get someone’s attention — made me sound more stiflingly formal, which is what I was going for. “Yelling is not conducive to a proper work environment. Please leave the doctor to her work.”

“Wh-who the hell are you supposed to be?” the tavern owner responded, and my eyes narrowed.

“My assistant for the day,” Kureha replied, almost laughing. “And you know, she’s right — all your bellyaching isn't helping anyone. As for your kid, it looks like he’s got a serious bacterial infection in his bones, if that light of a press got that reaction. Luckily,” god, her grin got even wider, I didn't know that was possible, “I’m always prepared for something like this.”

In one smooth motion, she pulled a scalpel from the kit with the sharp implements and twirled it effortlessly, calling out to her actual assistant. “Chopper, my antibiotics. Girly, you might need to hold the kid down for a sec.”

“Wait, what are you —”

“Please stay out of the doctor’s way,” I interrupted, shoving the tavern owner out of the way as I moved to hold onto the kid’s shoulders. God, I was about to watch a kid get cut into, why was this weird monotone facade working? Anxiety and focus points made no sense. I really did want this to go quickly and efficiently, so maybe that was part of it…

Anyway, I held onto the kid’s shoulders and tried to give a reassuring smile despite the chaos inside my brain and the sternness I’d just been talking with. “Please remain still,” I said, my tone still formal but softer. “Doctor Kureha will be as quick as possible.”

“Heeeeheehee! Don’t you worry, kiddie!” Kureha said, still grinning, as she brandished her scalpel. “It’ll just be a quick little incision!”

“Wait, what about anesthetics?!” the tavern owner yelled, and my gut lurched. As Kureha braced the kid’s legs, I averted my eyes completely, my gentle restraint on the kid’s shoulders turning a bit more forceful than it probably should’ve been. 

The kid yelled and I tried very hard not to press even harder.

This was awful and I hated this why was I doing this this is why I wasn’t a doctoral student uuuugh —

“Alright, girly, give him to me,” Kureha said, and I immediately released the kid’s shoulders like I was being burned. I still wasn’t really looking, but my peripheral vision caught the motion of Kureha holding the kid up and Chopper rushing in. “And with that shot…”

Could I look now? Kureha put the kid (who was now stock-still) back on the table, so I figured I was probably alright to look again.

“There,” Kureha said, pulling out the ointment and bandages — gauze? — throwing the bandages to the tavern owner before gently applying the bandages. “Give it a bit, then bind his leg with that. He’ll feel better after it all settles — lucky we caught it in time to save him.”

“Save him?” the tavern owner, who was really starting to get on my nerves, responded.

“To be a bit dramatic, the kid was on the verge of death,” Kureha said, giving her scalpel an antiseptic wipe before packing it and the wipes away where they belonged. She then shoved both cases back at me, then began to look around the tavern.

“So, Chopper, what do we need for payment today?” she asked, and god, that grin was not going anywhere, “I think it was… toilet paper? Ah, and trash bags. Food and rum, of course and… 50% of the money you have. That should do, don’t you think?”

“Y-you’re taking half my money?!” The tavern owner yelled, and I cringed a bit. It was a bit much… but then, Kureha needed to eat? I guess? Wait, but she was taking food, too…

“Why, you!” One of the patrons of the car rose to his feet angrily. “What’s all this nonsense about the kid’s life being in danger, anyway?!”

“Yeah!” Another man joined in. “You think just because you’re a doctor you can take advantage of us?”

“We aren’t idiots!” A third patron shouted from the back of the bar. “Don’t think you can con someone through their kid, you 140-year-old witch!”

Chopper swung his head around to send his glare at the patrons, and as he let out a low, threatening rumble, I had the abrupt realization that reindeer were, uh, really big, like, Chopper was small for one and he was only a little only half my height, but between the antlers and the hooves and the fact that he probably was as long as I was tall, uh, yeah, kinda scary, but that was probably another of my unhelpful trains of thought, so I decided to refocus.

Unfortunately, the only other potential point of contemplation was whether Kureha’s style of medicine was inherently abusive and wrong, which. Arguably even more unpleasant than a reindeer attack.

I frowned heavily, probably looking comical with how much distaste was seeping out into my expression. Doctor ethics were always going to get my goat… er, reindeer in this case? … Well, anyway, Kureha was definitely laughing at my expression, at least a little, but I was far from the center of attention here.

“Um… Miss Doctor?” The boy called out softly from the table he still laid on. Despite how loud it had been before, that small voice drew all the attention in the room. My face softened as I looked at the kid’s teary grin, unable to stay angry — Kureha had saved this kid’s life, after all.

“Thank you!” The kid continued. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

Kureha’s usual grin softened, too, and before she lowered her shades and made to leave — somehow all the food and booze she’d wanted were already bundled together on Chopper’s back, when had that happened — she said, “Well, isn’t that a nice little reward? Alright, I’ll settle for just 49% of your cash, then!”

The tavern owner stuttered out a weak agreement, full of relief, at Kureha’s retreating back, and she gestured to me and Chopper to follow. Chopper was balancing all that stuff expertly, by the way — really impressive kid, honestly, and I should’ve made a comment on it while it had been on my mind, but there was A Lot Else going on in there at the time, too, so. Y’know.

“Um…” I said, fully representing that very chaos, as I helped load all the stuff into the sleigh, leaving even less room to sit than there had been before. Had Kureha actually gotten the money? She had just walked out, I was very confused right now… Anyway, yeah, not a lot of room, though I wasn’t going to bring that up for fear of getting kicked off the sleigh entirely. Instead, well… “I, uh… don’t mean to rush you, but you said Bighorn was close by, right? So we could make a stop-off? With every passing minute I’m more afraid my crew might give up and just decide to climb the cliff again…” Was it okay to keep going? She’d looked at me briefly in what I think was acknowledgement that she was paying attention? But she didn’t react to the whole mountain thing like she had before… “… uh, well, it’d be bad for everyone if that happened, obviously, but I think it’d be especially bad for the guy with cholera, y’know?”

Okay, thankfully, that got her attention.

“Cholera?” She spun around, thankfully already done harnessing up Chopper so I didn’t have to be subject to some gag about her accidentally choking him or something. “You were serious about that? How in the six seas did you and your crew wind up somewhere with cholera?”

“It was an awful prehistoric island,” I replied matter-of-factly, “and while we managed to protect ourselves from potential bug-carried maladies, our tactician decided it’d be a good idea to hide from assassins in a puddle of shit-smelling mystery goo.”

Kureha lifted her shades to squint at me, and I gave an overwrought shrug while I rolled my eyes. “It is a long story, let me tell you, but essentially there’s a whole lot of bullcrap on the Grand Line, why are you surprised, also why would I joke about my crewmate having cholera, et cetera.”

Kureha stared for another second, then lowered her shades back and shook her head — it’s weird to say this but I was actually kind of surprised she didn’t sigh, like, don’t ask me why I have these observations but I do, that was a thing I noticed.

More importantly: finally on our way to Bighorn! Hoo-fucking-rah!

 Once again, as soon as we started moving, I whipped out Lafayette, and I didn’t even have to ask him to make the call; I guess there were some benefits to having your communication devices be living creatures after all! “Hey, guys, everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Nami answered, “but Usopp and Dalton and the other guys they rounded up haven’t gotten back yet.”

“At least we managed to grab them before they had gone too far,” I sighed, though given how long we had to have been in that tavern I felt like I had probably made them all walk a lot farther than I’d originally imagined.

“You’ll also be happy to know that Luffy has been keeping himself busy making an army of snow-people,” Nami continued. “He’s been pretty antsy, being honest, but you know by now that that’s not news, and the army of snow-people does seem to be helping.”

“Yeah, that is good, actually,” I nodded a bit before remembering that that didn’t always translate that well over snail. “We should be there soon, I think this place we’re leaving isn’t far from Bighorn?”

“Less than a mile!” Soundbite piped up, and I giggled a bit at his enthusiasm.

“How’s Cross?” I asked, not wanting to miss any potential points of conflict; sure, I had a decent amount of surety that the others would let me know if there were problems, but I felt the need to check anyway, because then, y’know, I could be sure. “Any escape attempts?”

That was an attempt at humor, I want that on the record; I was really hoping that was the opposite of what was going on — I just knew that it wasn’t out of the realm of complete certainty, so it fell under the category of “any potential point of conflict.”

“No, he’s still been asleep, but…”

Oh no. That ‘but’ could mean a number of things, but given the edge I’d grown to recognize that lay in Nami’s tone, I had a couple of very decent guesses.

“What is it?” I asked. “We aren’t in any more trouble, are we?”

I meant that as vaguely as possible — either Cross was metaphorically spilling his guts (good job on that clever little multi-layered meaning of a plot device, there, boys, it’s a real winner as far as puns go) again or something objectively dangerous was happening, and neither were options I liked, given the current setup we were running with right now… although, Cross also could’ve been literally spilling his guts, I realized with a crinkle of the nose… but no, I was very right to be worried.

“… For the sake of clarity,” Nami continued, and my gut twisted just that little bit more, “you and Cross are privy to all of the same information from this source you’re definitely explaining soon, right?”

Fuck. Metaphorical gut-spilling it was, then. Personal shit, too, I’d bet, given that tone.

“Most of the same information, yes,” I said in return, trying to keep my tone even before realizing that I actually needed to be, like, trustworthy and genuine right now. I put as much of that as I could into, “and as I’ve said, I swear you’ll get the full rundown as soon as Cross can actually think again — and I won’t let him wriggle out of it for anything!”

I grinned, forcing myself a little, but under no circumstances did I want to come across as anything less than completely serious about my desire to honor this agreement, however slowly it was currently progressing. I could only hope that a sense of self-assuredness and upfront language gave off the impression that I wanted.

Conversations were hard and I hated secrecy but Nami — according to the snail connection, anyway — wound up smiling, which quelled at least some of my anxiety. “Get over here quick, then, before he starts walking in his sleep instead of talking.”

I snorted with laughter, not expecting a joke, and any forcedness was gone from my expression. “I’m not the one pulling the wagon, and I value my organs, so you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t pass your compliments to the doctor and reindeer giving me a ride,” I joked back. “Keep me posted, and I’ll do the same.”

“Obviously!”

There was just a bit of an eyeroll on her end before the connection shut off, and I felt my very sincere smile grow even wider.

 I have no idea why, but even though the distance to Bighorn from Cocoa Weed was shorter than that to Cocoa Weed from Gyasta, it wound up bugging me more; my anxiety had thankfully been somewhat quelled by positive friend interaction, but Cross was still sick and that was much closer to the front of my mind now that we were heading straight towards him. Add to that the fact that Wapol was definitely still out there somewhere and who know if Kureha would even have what she’d need to treat Cross and what if Luffy helping the Lapin during that avalanche wound up being important after all and —

… ugh, well, anxiety, you get the picture.

Thankfully, despite that anxiety, it was a short trip, and, even more conveniently, we got there just as Dalton and Usopp and their small little coalition of people got back, which would warrant a “hooray!” if it didn’t actually wind up with Dalton and Kureha getting into an awkward staredown. Thankfully, it didn’t last too long, though, and having everyone together was good, in my books, especially depending on what all was going to happen next.

Dalton and Kureha didn’t exactly fall into step, but as Dalton dismissed the people to drop the big lift pieces they were carrying for him to deal with later and walked to his door, Kureha followed behind at a respectful distance, and I, of course, followed her, right next to Chopper. Before we could go in, however, there were a few potentially alarming sets of circumstances to deal with.

First, Luffy was nowhere to be seen or heard, which sent an icicle of dread straight through my gut on its own. This was compounded by the fact that Nami, Vivi, and Sanji were all outside seemingly waiting for us, each looking a different level of either uncomfortable or irritated. In addition, though I’d expected Lulu to have gone with Usopp and Dalton’s group, she hadn’t appeared with them, which left a potential worse case scenario of Luffy convincing Lulu to grab Cross and climb up the mountain after all exactly like I’d wanted to avoid to crash through my brain and over my soul like ice water over a famous YouTuber —

— and then a rubber arm shot out of the largest of the half-dozen snowmen I was only now noticing, securing my own arm in a vice grip and yanking. I flew towards the snowman, and Luffy popped out of it to roll to the side, leaving me to slide through the remains of that poor snowy soul and wind up in a heap, head essentially buried completely.

I heard Sanji yell and what I could only assume was the sound of him kicking Luffy, hopefully in the face. I shoved myself back onto my feet and whirled around to glare at my still-grinning captain where he now lay on his back in the snow.

A couple of desires were now warring in my brain; on the one hand, Sanji jumping to my defense, while appreciated in this instance, was still symptomatic of stuff I didn’t want to encourage — besides which, I could smack Luffy on my own, thanks. On the other hand, if Luffy hadn’t gone gallivanting up the mountain, that left me confused as to why everyone else was standing around looking like they had bad news, and basically, I really wanted to know what I’d missed — knowing what the hell is going on is 90% of my motivation for continuing to exist at all times, by the way.

A small girl in the back of my head popped up with the ever useful “por que no los dos?” and I made good on that sentiment by flinging a hasty snowball right into Luffy’s face, while saying, mostly to Vivi since she was closest, “So, uh, what did I miss on the ten minute ride over?”

“Oh, well, nothing really, just…” Vivi’s vaguely irritated frown turned into a full grimace. “Well, it’s not exactly pleasant in there…”

“Lulu had to snap the bed in half to avoid the mess being worse than it already was,” Nami added. “She’s the only one who can stand to be in there right now; Igaram is currently emptying the barf bucket, in case you were curious.”

I hadn’t been, but… “Wait, Lulu broke the bed in half?!” I burst out. “What the hell possessed you to make that call?!”

“The bedpan had to go somewhere…” Sanji said, letting out a particularly long stream of smoke. Was he twitching? Poor guy…

“Ah, I… I see,” I replied, feeling a grimace coming on myself. “Still, though, did you seriously —”

“As cute as your kids’ banter is,” Kureha interrupted, making everyone jump a bit. “I’m gonna need ya to let me have a look at the patient.”

Oh, shit, we were all kind of blocking the door at this point. I took the opportunity to lob another snowball at Luffy as I moved out of the way, fully taking him by surprise this time.

Kureha, case in hand and Chopper at her heels, made her way into Dalton’s house, and I wonder if I should —

Wait, I think there was a dire train of thought I’d dropped somewhere.

“Lulu broke Dalton’s bed in half?!” I screamed, the fact reprocessing in spectacular fashion by combining with the fact that Dalton was basically right next to me at this very moment.

“Uh, yes, Ami, we just went over this,” Nami replied, raising an eyebrow at me like I was crazy.

“WHY THE HELL ARE YOU SURPRISED I’M FREAKING OUT ABOUT YOU GUYS DECIDING TO BREAK AN ENTIRE BED AND PRESUMABLY MATTRESS IN HALF?!” I shrieked, unable to contain my volume anymore after the entire day of stress I’d had by this point. “WE ALREADY HAVE MEDICAL BILLS, NAMI! NOTORIOUSLY EXPENSIVE MEDICAL BILLS!”

“Oh, Ami,” Nami put a hand on my shoulder, smiling serenely. “Don’t worry, I already have a perfect plan in place to deal with this little issue.”

I grabbed Nami’s wrist in a vicegrip and leveled her with the best glare I could muster. “Nami,” I said, “I already know what you have rolling around in that head of yours, and let me just — how about this. Remember my savings? I’ll pay for the goddamn bed. Just do not continue thinking those thoughts you’re thinking.”

“Sure thing,” Nami replied, somehow broadcasting an extremely high level of sarcasm through that same serene expression. “And when we leave to actually get where we need to go, you can stay here and work off all those bills, too.”

… I have no idea why, but that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I took the arm I had in my grip and yanked it off my shoulder, brushing past Nami more violently than I had to. “Excuse me for wanting to actually live up to the impression we gave off to get onto this island,” I spat, multiple levels of bitterness coming through those words. Only some of it was really caused by Nami, and it wasn’t fair to shoot all this venom at her like this, but for some reason, even a joke about them leaving me behind just… didn’t sit right — not right now, anyway.

I had a job I’d agreed to help out with, though, so I took a deep breath and let some of my muscles shudder to release whatever tension I could before opening the door and going inside the hut.

 That drive to feel useful was back again — not that it did me a ton of good, since Kureha didn’t need much help getting a blood sample from Cross, given his condition.

In case you were wondering about the smell, I was definitely glad for the filtration my scarf was giving me, but if I was being honest, it didn’t seem that different from any other time I’d been right near him.

“Can’t do my tests unless I go back to the lab…” Kureha muttered. “It seems like it’s flowin’ normally to the eye, but the symptoms definitely support the cholera diagnosis…” 

She looked over to me. “What have you been doing for him?”

“Oh, uh,” god, I was never going to get used to being directly addressed by important people about important things, was I? “We’ve been mostly giving him soup and other fluids, as often as he can take them. Keeping the saline level high enough is important so that the excessive diarrhea and vomit don’t cause a plasma deficiency, right?”

“Smart kid,” Kureha grinned. “So, has he been muttering like this the whole time he’s shown the other symptoms?”

“You have no idea.”

I jumped; I hadn’t expected Nami to follow me in after what I’d done and said. I looked back for a brief second but then looked solidly at the ground — eye contact would be weird right now, actually, let’s not do that.

“Are you saying that’s normal?” Nami continued.

“Well, girly,” Kureha raised an eyebrow, seeming amused at Nami’s harsh tone or something, “if what this little lady over here said about your jaunt through prehistory was true, then yeah, the delirium is about what I’d expect — your buddy here’s got Primal Cholera. Chopper, my antibiotics?”

Chopper was already next to her with one of the many cases held by its handle in his mouth. Kureha smiled and patted him on the head and, not gonna lie, my heart kinda melted a little.

Kureha made the injection efficiently, no dramatics, which was helpful and reassuring given the unfortunate gurgling that was starting up that I was trying very hard to ignore.

“Alright,” Kureha stood, pulling a couple of bags out from somewhere and putting the used syringe into one and the blood sample into the other. “I’ll run my tests, but I don’t carry IV fluid with me on my house calls… treatment for cholera is just about the same things you’ve already been doing, though, until it works its way out of him. Let the antibiotics work and keep him in bed for at least another three days.”

She frowned, looking Cross over; by now Cross’s mutterings had basically lost all coherence, but they were somehow more articulate, or steadier, like a constant stream of fevered consciousness.

“Looking at this, I honestly want to take him up to the castle for a full once-over to make sure I haven’t missed anything,” Kureha said, “and also to make sure he stays put and none of you try to skip town on me before my work is done.”

She looked around the room; Nami, Lulu, and I were the only ones here, but the sheer magnitude of the implied threat echoed through the space, or, at least, it affected me pretty heavily.

“Unfortunately,” Kureha continued, “transporting him in this state’d be more trouble than it’s worth…”

“Um, we can’t really afford to wait around for three days,” Nami cut in, her tone not really disrespectful but definitely not respectful either. “Especially if the treatment is just… doing more of what we were already doing, like you said?”

“I dunno, Nami, I don’t think we’d be able to monitor him properly, personally,” I put in, not really looking at Nami for fear that I’d let my earlier aggression come back — the fear of Kureha’s knives was bad enough, and even if I was mad at her, Nami definitely didn’t deserve to be skewered, so it was probably a good idea on multiple levels if I kept her from talking too much more on this. “If we had a doctor on our ship it would be fine, but not having one is kind of our whole problem here, yeah? We don’t know what problems to look out for.”

“Heeheehee! Well, at least one of you has some sense!” Kureha’s grin was back in place — a different kind of threat, but still a threat. “Hopefully you can pass just a little of it onto you friends so I don’t have to pound it into them myself, eh, girly?”

… Why did she have a scalpel now Chopper had not brought a case with scalpels — unless they all had scalpels oh god they probably all had scalpels —

“So,” Kureha continued, casual tone not fitting with the aforementioned sharp implement or the other things about her general body language that exuded threat all over the place, “shall we discuss your bill? Antibiotics these days are so expensive, and, well, I gotta eat, don’t I?”

“Wh — you haven’t even —” Nami, oh my god, please don’t provoke the armed doctor any more than you already have! Arceus I was not in the mood for this.

“Nami, look,” I interrupted, moving, despite a fair share of anxiety and some guilt about my earlier roughness, to stand between her and Kureha, “I know you’re worried, and for a lot of good reasons — you’re right to be worried, okay?” Alabasta really wasn’t going to wait long, I knew that, dammit, I was worried too. “The fact remains that we need Cross healthy if we want to go anywhere, and that means following the doctor’s instructions and paying her for her services.”

Arceus, my savings were going to take a serious hit by the end of this… maybe someone needed some wood chopped around here while we were waiting for everything to go down? Oh, shit, and I still hadn’t even started thinking about Chopper! I needed a break, my word… ugh, focus, Amanda…

“I said I have savings and I meant it, if you’re so afraid of spending the crew’s finances for whatever reason, and if the doctor says not to move him, we aren’t moving him,” I said forcefully. Nami outranked me by a large margin and despite the kleptomania and hoarding problems I respected the hell out of her but I was not budging on this. “At least let the woman go run her blood tests so we are absolutely sure we know how to handle this situation, okay? We can wait that long.”

Oh, look, I was actually doing the discretion thing, too — hadn’t mentioned Alabasta’s situation even once. I hoped that came through to Nami — I hoped that it was as clear as possible that I wasn’t doing this because I didn’t care but instead because I really cared, a whole whole lot, about what was right for as many people as possible.

Nami and I shared an extended period of tense eye contact, anger, suspicion, and hurt all present in her eyes. There was nothing but quiet for a while, but, well…

“… hope Ami helps Chopper at least… Wapol’s whole… and why are reindeer… anyway…”

Nami’s gaze flickered over to Cross as his ramblings became harder to ignore. The tense mood was at least somewhat broken, I think?

“Chopper’s the reindeer, right?” Nami muttered, not moving to meet my eyes again.

“There’s a little more to him than that,” Kureha tossed out, far more casually than I would have expected her to allude to her son’s tragic past. Chopper seemed surprised too, perking his ears up — who knew reindeer were so expressive? “How he knows anything about Chopper is something’ I’d like to know, though.”

“Oh hey,” Nami said drily, finally looking at me again, eyebrow raised, “what do you know, me too.”

“Ugh,” I heaved out a huge sigh, because holy fuck I did not need this right now. “How many times to I have to say ‘it’s not just my story to tell’ or ‘it’s a long story’ or ‘I swear I will tell you as soon as I am able’?”

I frowned as Kureha turned her own raised-eyebrow look on me. Ugh, their suspicion was utterly warranted and so now I was pissed at myself for being pissed about this, wonderful.

“Once Cross is actually coherent,” I said, looking between the two of them, “we’ll spill, and I will make sure we don’t miss a detail.”

Anything I could follow that up with? Any comment that would make it stick a little better this time? I get all the trust issues this brings up, but what did these people want me to say? I was really getting to an ugly point emotionally here… or maybe I’d already been at it for a while, ugh, that was a realization that just always drives a person to a double-facepalm.

I took another set of deep breaths; it was all a little weird with the scarf in the way, but it helped a little, at least, and thankfully, I think it got across the absolute hellscape that was my current mental state.

“I’ll just be on my way, then,” Kureha said, laughter in her voice, presumably at my overt display of emotion. “Girly — Ami, was it?”

Okay, wasn’t expecting to be addressed, so my head shot up in a way that was almost definitely comical in comparison to the previous overt emotion I’d been exuding.

“As my assistant for the day, I’m leaving this particular patient to you,” Kureha said, flashing that great big grin of hers. “We can discuss payment once my tests are done.”

“Uh,” I felt like I should have a response, but I didn’t, really, beyond… wait, yeah, that was a good one. “Do you, like, have a number I can call if things go to shit?”

Dalton had said they didn’t know a way to directly contact her, but she had to get her information about when people were sick in town from somewhere; maybe I was just guilty of wishful thinking, but it would be nice if she had a snail we could call.

“Heehee! Sure, if he takes a turn for the worse, give me a call!” She reached into an inner pocket of her jacket, then something whizzed by my ear before I could think, thudding into the wall behind me. “There’s my number. Stay warm, kids!”

And with that, she and Chopper left, and the gross bubbling mix of feelings in my gut only got worse as I fully processed that I had not talked to Chopper at all.

And then, because matters clearly needed to be worse?

“Puru puru puru puru!”

That noise apparently came complete with snail vibrations, as became clear to me as I fished Lafayette out of my pocket. The novelty of a vibration setting for snail-phones did not help the giant block of icy goo in my stomach, in case you thought it might.

“Ami? Lulu? Anyone?” Charlie’s voice came through as the line connected — it was hushed and urgent, which was not a good combination. 

“I’m here,” I said, tension resonating through my own voice. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“It’s that horrid Wapol character from a few days ago,” Charlie replied, frown deep and tone grave. “Carue and Zoro and I are in the woods — within sight of the Merry, of course, but, well, he instructed his crew to search out and kill anyone actually on board the ship, so…”

Yeah, I really didn’t care why he was in the woods either, in that case. “Did you hear anything else? They didn’t see you at all, right?”

“We were hidden well enough, it seems, but, well…” Charlie paused to swallow drily, and my heart sank — there was only one thing he could be about to say. “They’re following the lot of you to Bighorn, it seems.”

“Alright,” I said, trying as hard as possible not to have a full-on freakout by focusing on coming up with an actual plan of attack, because that was something useful. “Can you follow them without them detecting you?”

“Me? Certainly,” Charlie replied, an odd note of pride in his voice about that despite the circumstances. “But, well… not to be crass, or rude, but given Sir Zoro’s track record, I’m not sure…”

“Do your best — do what you have to,” I said, barely succeeding a not snapping it out. “Soundbite, did everyone else get that?”

“DUH!” Soundbite shot back, making sure to pick the single most offended voice clip he could find. “What the hell do you take ME FOR?”

“One of the other villagers told me those who can fight are already gathering,” I heard Dalton say, which made me feel a bit better until I remembered what Wapol had done to those people in the source material. Ugh, this blew…

“If that brat of a king gets his way with my castle, I’m tripling your bill, brats!” Kureha suddenly spat, and I jumped, not having expected Soundbite to grab her too.

I saw, out of the corner of my eye, Nami shudder in a way that somehow, no shit, looked like a computer glitch, and my tension levels decided that I should offer a solution, no matter how potentially stupid.

“Does that mean if we drive him and his stooges off you’ll lower our bill?” I said, actual genuine hope in my voice somehow.

“HEEEEEHEEHEE!” Kureha burst out. “Thanks, girly, I needed a laugh! Don’t push your luck!”

“… we make a living pushing our luck…” Cross mumbled across the room, and I whirled to see him attempting to actually sit up — whenever he’d actually woken up, he seemed to be aware that things were happening, which was probably bad news for everyone.

“Make sure he stays in that bed!” Kureha snapped, and dear sweet lord Arceus, my nerves were not having a good day whatsoever. “If you can do it, sure, try and impress me, if that’s you crazy pirate brats get their jollies these days!”

There was a bit of static, and then Soundbite frowned. “Already out of range.”

“That’s one fast reindeer…” Usopp muttered.

“… take one of his rumble balls, shit…” Cross muttered, now fully upright with a hand on his face, oh fuck this.

“The doctor has requested you remain in bed,” I snapped, reverting back to my monotone voice from earlier that day without really meaning to — not that I was complaining, it was effective. I pushed Cross’s chest gently so that he fell back into bed, and reached up with my other hand to let Copy Essence flow. Yes I still had a headache and yes I was going to need to fight anyway later and yes the pointed ears and cartoon curlicue were kind of stupid but if I needed to be Jigglypuff right now I would be Jigglypuff right now god dammit.

“Ability Copy: Sing,” I said forcefully, clearing my throat before wordlessly vocalizing the ever-iconic melody sure to knock Cross out — sure enough, he was snoring, not even muttering, in seconds.

Unfortunately, when I turned around, I saw that Nami had slumped to the floor, and Lulu, who had been standing in the corner this whole time without saying a word, was now lightly snoring.

… This climactic battle was off to a great start.

Chapter Text

… This isn’t going to get any easier if I lead into it, so I’ll be upfront. I’m not going to be continuing this fic any longer.

I’m very sorry to all my long-time readers, and to those just finding Copycat recently, but this fic has drained me over the almost two years I’ve been working on it. I started out really excited, and I had a lot of interesting ideas, but as time went on I realized that I only wanted to keep working so that I could get to all the outlandish ideas that would probably drive half my audience away. I stopped caring about One Piece much by itself, burned out by the fic and constantly overcome with new interests, and I stopped enjoying This Bites itself as I gradually realized that, aside from the fact that it was audacious and unapologetically self-indulgent in changing things and connecting as much of the world as possible, its sensibilities and mine couldn’t be further apart.

Our senses of humor are different, and our desires in characterization and story are different. My interest in One Piece has waxed and waned fairly consistently since I first discovered it, where the Cross-Brain seem to love it with all of their hearts, and they live and breath it even when thinking about other things.

I have things like that, too. I want to make great stuff for those fandoms, rather than burn myself out on a fandom I only sometimes care about. I hope you guys can understand.

I do have some good news, though! If you care about Ami or enjoy her powerset, she’s not going to be disappearing completely!

My friend and beta, Zaerosz — who, fun fact, I met through introducing him to This Bites, which he still really enjoys — has started his own One Piece SI, called “Uprooted." It isn’t based on TB itself, but! It is going to include Ami later on down the line. It’s starting at the very beginning, so she won’t be showing up for a little while, but rest assured, Zae really does care about this series, and he cares about presenting good work just as much as I do!

As for what I’m going to be doing now, well… My true love, the thing that drives me to create more than any other franchise, has always been Kingdom Hearts, and the release of Kingdom Hearts 3 only made that even more clear. I have two major Kingdom Hearts projects started (which perhaps tells you something about how much it actually means to me, lol); one is a Self-Insert, starting from the very beginning of KH1 on the Destiny Islands, and the other is a post-KH3 fic focusing on the more minor characters — in particular, all the many great reformed or reforming villains. The SI is called “Now I Will Step Forward to Realize This Wish” (Realize This Wish for short lol), and the post-KH3 fic is called "Seeds to the Wind."

I also have a Persona 5 Fix-It fic in the works, called "Carousel of Life" — the Persona series isn’t what I would call a great love, like Kingdom Hearts, but one of the characters in Persona 5 is. I have a lot of priorities, and Saving Goro Akechi is extremely high on that list — and I figured, why not utilize the characters from the P3 and P4 while I was at it?

Hopefully with all of those things to look forward to, you don’t find this cancellation too disappointing. I know this fic was actually really popular with some people, to my constant and joyous surprise, and I feel really bad about things like the work that went into the TV Tropes page and all the nice comments I’ve gotten over the course of this fic, but…

The thing I feel the worst about abandoning, even as I type this, is still all the outlandish stuff I was going to do over the timeskip — and trust me, it was going to get outlandish. I wanted to explore the limits of Ami’s power, and finally and truly separate myself from TB and its shadow… but none of the stuff I was going to do really even connects to One Piece’s actual themes, or what people come to it or fics like this for. Once I realized that, I knew that I couldn’t keep going with this fic. I hope you all understand.

Thank you guys so much for your support until now. Catch you on the flip side! 

EDIT 30 SEPTEMBER 2021

I can't believe I'm doing this, but I may as well, since people are still coming across this fic and reading it until the end. The redirects here are somewhat out of date! I haven't been able to work on the two Kingdom Hearts fics or the Persona fic over the past year or two at all, and instead have been working towards a new project in the One Piece fandom. It turns out that I couldn't give up on telling Ami's story after all, but it's going to wind up pretty different from this. There'll be more info in the ANs of One Sea, One Destiny if you're interested in that sort of thing, but just clicking on it should give you an idea of what you'll be getting into; I won't spoil the surprise!