"I can't believe our ship was shot…" I sighed.

"Those damned marines…" replied Nira, my first mate, doctor, weapons crafter, and best friend.

We were sulking along the bustling streets of the town we had "ported" in. My red and white striped shirt, baggy tan capris, and sandal like shoes were saturated with water and Nira's plain, light blue t-shirt, blue jean skirt with knit pant capris under it, and simple black shoes were as well and the both of us were looking for the huge town square where sailors, the Marines, and, amazingly, pirates could stock up on supplies.

"So…" I began as I tried to get a positive expression to cancel out Nira's negative vibe, "What all do we need to get again?"

She turned her head to me. Her expression showed absolutely no interest. All she wanted were some dry clothes and a place to stay. My milk chocolate brown eyes narrowed slightly and I growled.

"Doc, come on," I encouraged, "Cheer up. Well get some new clothes while were here, okay?"

"Hn," was her only reply.

I rolled my eyes slightly and giggled. Her green eyes met mine as I turned my gaze back to her and she glared at me mildly. I giggled yet again. We were so different yet we were the same in a few ways.

I smiled at her wide, my pearly white teeth glowing as I strongly countered her downer emotions and she sighed in defeat to my optimism, as she always did.

She said to me, "I hate you so much…" as she looked away from me.

I grinned even wider and shook my head ever so slightly. "No you don't," I replied in a sing-song voice while skipping forward slowly, "You know you love me way to much!"

"Are you sure about that, Captain?"

I gave her a fake offended expression, while setting my hand over my heart, and then pushed my bottom lip out in a puppy-dog pout. My eyes got a hurt glaze over them as I stared her.

"You dun love me?" I whined while turning away and acting like I had just been stricken, "Aw! How could you?" I brought my hands up to my face and "cried". She though, just stood there, giving me a very easily read look. I stopped my "crying" and returned the gaze from the corner of my eye.

"Are you done yet?" she asked in a very strong alto voice.

I sighed in defeat this time and let my arms fall limply to my sides. My back slumped and I looked over to her completely.

"Didn't work, eh?" I asked, already knowing the answer to it.

"No," she replied nonchalantly, "Not at all."

I let out another sigh then stood up and shrugged.

"Hn. At least I gave it a shot."

She shook her head as she usually did when I pulled that stunt, though this time it was because of the fact that I had done it in PUBLIC and we had gotten some odd looks from the passer byes, not that I had cared or even noticed for that matter, but I did notice her next reaction. As she looked past me she suddenly shuddered.

"What?" I asked not really realizing what she had exactly shuddered at, but once I had turned around my eyes widened considerably. "YES!" I screamed, "The food market!"

I grabbed her wrist and dragged Nira close behind me. I had my sights set on the vegetable portion of the market. Nothing else could get my interest at the moment.

"Captain!" she yelled in protest, "Captain! MADELINE!"

I kept dragging her behind me, but responded with a quick and simple, "What?"

"The fish market!" she replied in an agonized voice while attempting to dig the heels of her shoes into the pavement.

"We'll come back!" I told her while looking behind me slightly. Nothing was going to stop me. I wanted, no, needed some fresh vegetables.

As we approached the area I wanted to be at, I slowed down and released her forearm. She stood up, straightened out her clothes that had started to dry quite quickly thanks to the fast pace I had been moving at, and glared at me. She wasn't happy that I had passed the fish market.

"Oh get over it," I said while I too adjusted my clothing, "We'll come back. I promise."

"We better, Captain. Because if we don't-"

"I said we would, didn't I? And don't call me Captain so freely. We've got the marines here."

"And if that wasn't bad enough… Look."

I did as she had told me and my eyes widened.

There he was. The towering man with a built body, short cut, white hair, heavy jacket that was open wide exposing his bare chest underneath, and the two unmistakable, smoking cigars that were held firmly between his jaws.

We had a run in with him before, but once he heard that the widely known Strawhat crew was near, he decided to let us off, but not without doing something to impair us. He always was such a pain in the ass...

I leaned over to her and whispered, "Don't make eye contact. He might notice us if he sees us staring and being overly cautious."

She nodded in agreement and we both turned around.

Even though on this island we were safe from any kind of arrest or harassment because of the fact that this is how the economy of this particular place survived, that didn't mean that once we were ready to set sail he wouldn't come after us. Though we had to find a ship before we would even be able to think about leaving, but that wasn't something I was terribly concerned with. All I was concerned with was what kind of produce I could find to use.

"I need a bag, Doc," I told my friend, "Do you have any idea where the bags are?"

She suddenly pivoted to one side, her extremely long hair twisting around her thin, but muscled frame, and then back around to me with a canvas bag in hand.

"Ah haha! You're so good!" I praised.

She shook her head and accepted my compliment as I took the canvas bag and started off down the long isles.

I was running from one stand to the other, looking at each different piece of food closely and choosing carefully and after a few moments of inspecting the ears of corn that they had, Nira began to get a bit impatient.

"Cap–… Madeline. Hurry up," she told me with a rough intonation.

"Oh be patient, Doc. It's a virtue."

She turned away from me slightly and mumbled, "It's not a virtue I want…"

I chuckled lightly at her. She was always so impatient when I was looking for something. Especially fresh produce.

I picked up a few ears of corn and put them in the canvas bag and then ran off to another vegetable. Spinach. Fresh spinach. There was nothing else like it in my opinion. Nira followed reluctantly behind, but not close enough as to disturb me.

"You're like a small child in a candy store, Madeline," she stated softly.

I smiled as I turned around to return to her a smile and then as I twirled back around a few of my bangs from my bright red hair fell in front of my face once I had stepped forward and went back to my original path. I skipped over to the spinach crate quickly, reached out my hand, and grabbed not only a bushel of spinach, but ended up clutching someone's hand in the process. I stared at the peach colored hand for a few moments, my eyes widened, and I felt my face heat up. I then looked up at the human who the hand belonged to just as quickly.

His maroon, black pin striped shirt was neatly tucked into his black slacks and the, of course, black tie around his neck made his formal, gentleman outfit look all the more attractive on his slim male form.

"OH MY! I am so sorry!" I apologized as I quickly retracted my hand, "You go ahead and have that. I don't really need it anyway." That was a total lie. I really wanted it and needed it, but it was the polite thing to do and not to mention he got there first.

But then I heard a small gasp come from this young blonde man who caused me to look straight back at him and I was quite surprised at how quickly he had approached me. He had swooned up to me, the greens in hand and insisted with a mist of love and chivalry surrounding him that I take them instead.

"No. You go ahead and have it," I told him as I slightly pushed his hand back towards him along with moving myself a few steps back from him. My comfort zone had just been invaded and, well, like all people I suspect would have done the same.

He shook his head rapidly in a no motion, his blonde hair swishing about as he did, except the large portion of his bangs didn't seem to move from their spot in front of his left eye. How peculiar…

"Oh no, no, no," he said back taking just another small step towards me, "Ladies always come first."

As he finished his statement he quickly closed the rest of the distance between us, grabbed the edges of the canvas bag and gently set the spinach in. I looked at the bag with a confused expression and then back at him keeping the same look, but his made me lose mine altogether. He still had that mist of love around him as he grinned with a large heart pretty much pulsing in his visible eye. It was incredibly cute in my opinion.

'Need a subject!' I yelled at myself inwardly. Making conversation always made me feel less awkward.

"So… Why are you here?" I smacked myself mentally as the last syllable came out of my mouth. I hated it when I had to frantically look for a conversation starter and especially when the one I came up with was so cheesy… though he laughed.

"I'm a cook for a pirate crew," he said quite easily while adjusting his tie to make him seem more dignified to where he would be more attractive. I didn't think that was possible, but it must have been.

My eyes sparkled and I jumped slightly. The whole thought that he was a cook made me even more fascinated with him.

"Really? Me too! What's your n-"

Then the sound of someone clearing their throat reached my ears.

"Who is this?" came an alto voice from behind me and only I knew who it was as they set their hand on my shoulder.

I spun myself around and waved my hands frantically in front of me.

"I was just talking! I swear!"

"Mmhm," she said to me then looked at the blonde young man and her green eyes narrowed, "Who are you?"

"I'm Sanji," he replied with a voice of uncertainty.

I could tell that he thought she was a guy instead of a girl. A very feminine looking male, but a male none the less. A lot of people made that mistake, but he wasn't stupid enough to ask about it. Thank god. But then I heard him gasp again and his visible eye widened slightly. He rushed up to her and held one of her hands firmly in his own.

"Oh! I am so sorry!" he apologized, "I did not mean to offend such a lovely lady."

I laughed slightly at this sight. Nira was glaring very lightly, knowing exactly what he meant by "offending" her. Since she had a very strong alto voice, it tended to give people the idea that she was a guy and not a girl.

She pulled her hand out of his grip and turned away. Her blue-green hair flowed behind her.

"If you're going to be goofing around, I'm going over and getting supplies of my own," she said in an extremely impatient tone.

I laughed even more as she walked away. Sanji was somewhat confused as to what was her problem and somewhat hurt so I turned back to him with a hope that I could remedy him of that problem.

"Don't take it too personally. She's always like that," I reassured.

He looked back to me unsure, but took my word. I smiled seeing that he was going to trust my word and slipped my hand in his, gripping it firmly in a more traditional greeting and once he tightened his hold back I smiled and shook his hand.

"Nice meeting you Sanji," I told him politely. I could tell he was a bit thrown off at first at the fact that I knew his name though he hadn't told me, but he figured out how I was able to get it and once I nodded and we released each other from our holds I advanced past him.

I was about five feet away when I heard the soles of his shoes scratch across the pavement in the manner of turning.

"Wait."

I did as he told and went back to facing him.

"Yes?"

"You haven't introduced yourself," he stated with a sweet, but stern tone, "That's not too polite you know."

I laughed. Very, very gentleman like, he was and it made him all the more of an interesting character to me. Never had I met anyone as forward, yet respectful of women as he, but of course, if he acted like this towards me, I couldn't have been the only one he did it to. That was a "NO DUH!" kind of thing which of course, made my heart sink slightly.

"True," I said back, agreeing completely, "The name's Madeline." I spun back around to my natural direction and started, yet again, trucking down the busy isles of the market. "Hope to see you 'round Sanji!"

And the further and further I got from him the more my mind wandered to my best friend and her condition.

'I hope she finds something for it…' I thought to myself.

...

I still had a bored expression plastered on my face as I went searching through the stands in the medical market.

"Hnn…" I groaned as I walked over to the nearest one and pointed to a certain brand of medication, "What symptoms does that cure?" The clerk answered me, but didn't give me the answers I wanted. I sighed heavily. "Thanks…" I told him as I began to turn away.

'I guess…' I thought to myself.

I headed over to another one near by and pointed at another brand of medication.

"I'll take that one."

"Yes ma'am," was the reply I got.

Suddenly, I felt an excruciating pain in my throat and reacted as quickly as I could to it. I jerked a handkerchief out of my pocket and covered my mouth as I coughed violently, attempting to rid myself of the crap that was congesting my lungs and airways.

"Shit…" I cursed as I looked at the blood that was starting to stain the white cloth, "That's been getting worse…"

Then a small voice reached my ears.

"Um… Are you alright?" it asked with a caring tone, "That sounded like a really bad cough."

I looked at the small, furry creature standing in front of me and it seemed extremely concerned. It advanced towards me slowly and my thoughts raced. What in the world…

"A talking…"

Then I felt the pain again in my throat and coughed. I pulled one of my arms up to clutch my stomach and used the other to cover my mouth as I hacked whatever was coming up into it. The pain was horrible.

"OH MY!" screamed the little creature as it rushed over to my aide, "Are you alright?"

I didn't reply. All I did was move my hand away from my mouth and I saw blood running down my arm and slipping through my fingers. I growled quietly as my body slowly began to give out.

"Damn…"

...

Chopper sighed as Nira's body hit the ground and lay there limply.

"Oh man…" he said looking her over quickly to access just how bad she was and how much time he had to get to the ship to help her, "I'm going to need to get to the ship… and quick…"

He suddenly became huge and his body became extremely built. He picked her up and held her to him as he ran off quickly, large bounding steps echoing off the buildings around and then Zoro began to turn the corner.

"What the… Chopper? What the hell is he- Wait…"

He squinted his eyes slightly and took notice of the young girl he was carrying in his muscle toned arms.

"Why is he carrying that girl?" he asked as if he was expecting someone to answer, " Or better yet, where is he taking that girl?"

He stepped up his pace and did what he could to keep up with him, but not tip Chopper off that he was following, and following out of curiosity.


DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ONE PIECE!

Well... This is the re-done first chapter. I hope that it is interesting to you all 'cause I think that it is WAY more interesting than it was before, but anyways. PLEASE review! I would really appreciate it!

-Love Maruri

IMPORTANT NOTE: Earliest chapters are being edited to be better and more interesting, just as this one has been done.