((A/N: Whoops, my hand slipped, and this is the product! I admit that I really shouldn't be doing this, but I can't help it! I had plot bunnies on the brain and they wouldn't let me focus for the past two days! I needed that focus! Anyway, I'll post the next chapter (that is already written) when I have the third done, that way you guys know there's another chapter coming for sure!

As for inspiration, I'd have to leave it at the BRAVERY SERIES by Rebelleader1011 and both versions of WITT AND WITTICISM by nvzblgrrl feet.

Comments and criticism are welcome! Flames will be used to keep me warm in the next freezing days.

And yeah, this is a SI (Self Insert for those who don't know) into One Piece. But she's not quite me, she is who I think I'll become in the next decade or so from her job to where she lives to her dreams and goals.

I'm looking for a Beta to kick my ass in gear so I finally start writing more than three or four chapters before moving onto another story. They also get to proofread my stories, and get a deeper view of what's actually happening in the story than what I convey in a chapter by being my soundboard! Interesting right?

I don't own One Piece.

I think that about covers everything. If you got questions, shoot me (not literally, please. Blood doesn't work properly outside the body, and bullets hurt!) a private message and let me know!))

Well, This is Confusing.
Part 1:

When I was younger, I had this weird dream, and I remembered it to this day.

I was riding my bike through a thick white mist. I didn't really have a destination, only that I was moving forward. I might have taken a few turns to weave back and forth on the smooth ground to alleviate my boredom, but that was it. Then the ground wasn't beneath me anymore, and I was falling. I was falling and I didn't wake up.

Tonight's dream felt a little like that.

My flimsy kid bike had gotten an upgrade. My foot tapped at the wooden deck below me. Upgraded to a ship.

"Coup de Burst!" Someone shouted from somewhere. And there's the falling part. I would have screamed if the wind hadn't taken my breath away. Desperately holding onto a nearby banister, my mind was strangely blank and everything I was seeing was clear and crisp, and I realized I wasn't wearing my glasses. It was a wonderful feeling to be able to see-OW!

Physics seemed to remember it was a thing after the ship had launched itself from the sea. What goes up, had to come back down eventually. I slammed into the hardwood deck with all the force of the fall. I checked myself for injury after I pulled myself up, but I'm somehow unharmed despite the soreness on my left side.

Someone whooped above me in the rigging, and there was childish laughter below deck.

This has to be the weirdest and most lucid dream I've ever had.

"RACHEL!" I turned just in time to be body slammed into the deck again. I saw black hair a red vest and tanned skin pressed into me in a space violating hug. His body felt strangely squishy, like his bones had give to them. "Rachel's back!" He crowed loudly.

I blinked up at the cloudy blue sky. Rachael was my sister's name, and while I'd react to it just as well since our parents continuously mixed up our names, it didn't explain why someone in my dream was calling me Rachel. Oh well, I'll just go with the flow for now. Sorry Rach.

There was a shout of disbelief, and a stampede of feet before shadows fell over me. I tried to see who it was, but I only saw silhouettes and the bright sun.

"Rachel?" A woman called. I only grunt in acknowledgement. This guy was heavy. "Luffy, get off her. Something's wrong."

The guy -Luffy- got off, thankfully, but the worried look I get when I see his face made me feel guilty. I sit up, and finally got a good look at the people around me.

There was a guy with a ponytail afro and Pinocchio nose. The woman that got me some breathing space had long orange hair, and the color reminded me of Rachael's before she learned she could dye her hair all the different colors of the rainbow. She was also looking at me worriedly. "Rachel," she said with apprehension, "do you know who we are? Do you know where you are?"

I frown. "No. Should I?" This was just a dream, right? I stood up and brushed my jeans off. But I'm not getting that feeling that this wasn't reality (aside from the flying ship, and- was that a deer!?)

The deer trotted around a corner towards us and was wearing a pastel blue and red hat with a white X on it along with a backpack looped around the front legs. Then it started transforming, shrinking, and it was suddenly as tall as my knee and walking around like a small furry human.

I blinked at it, my mind trying to understand what I was looking at. I crouched down so we're closer to being eye level, and I could tell it's not just an animal. Those eyes were way too full to not have intelligence. It blinked back at me before glancing searchingly at my body. "Hello." I say softly and open my right hand to offer a handshake.

It looked at my face for a moment before shaking my hand. "Hi." Alright, talking animals- check. It said back and started pushing at the muscles in between my thumb and fingers. Its hooves felt strange on my palm, and I knew what it was doing. My mom was a nurse, and could tell scary accurately how someone was doing physically with a handshake because of how the muscles tensed in the webbing between the thumb and finger. And this deer was prodding at those very muscles. "What do you last remember?"

I sat down on my butt and cross my legs, my hand still held gently between the deer's hooves. I noticed Luffy and the others were still there, watching me and the talking deer. "I was reading, played with my dog, got ready for bed. Typical day except when I was about to fall asleep, I was here on this thing when it took to the skies like a rocket." I look at the others. Was Luffy wearing a straw hat before? There was something at the back of my mind that recognized it, but I couldn't quite reach it.

Instead, I asked if I was supposed to remember them, because I usually know who I'm interacting with in my dreams as being that one actor from a movie or TV show, and I'm seriously pulling a blank here.

"I'm Nami, the navigator of this crew." The ginger answered before the others had a chance. She gestured to the guy with the ponytail afro, "This is Usopp, the sniper that doesn't use guns."

"Oi! I use guns sometimes! My Kabuto is just better than any gun." Usopp harrumphed.

Nami waved him off amusedly. "Chopper is our reindeer doctor. He's the best in the world for sure, and saved our lives way too many times to count."

I looked down at the reindeer that was doing a dance with my hand. "That doesn't make me happy at all you jerk~!" Chopper smiled, and I knew he was lying.

"And this is Luffy," I looked up to see Nami nod at the guy that tackle-hugged me into the deck… who was now staring into the distance through my head. It was pretty unnerving. "Captain of the Straw Hat Pirates."

I felt my eyebrows scrunch together in confusion. Where had I heard that name before?

"And if you're wondering how we know you, it's because you've been here before." Chopper said, reaching his hooves around my wrist to lift my arm up and get a look at my right side.

I was confused. I was pretty sure that I would have remembered a dream this weird. Nami continued for Chopper. "How did you say it…?" She tapped her cheek in thought before she seemed to remember. "It's later for you, but before for us."

I suppose I could understand that dream logic, I nodded at Nami, and she exploded at me for it. "Why the hell are you so accepting about this? No one took it that easily except this idiot!" She punched her captain when he started laughing.

I shrugged. "Either I'm dreaming this, and it wouldn't matter since nothing makes sense in dream logic. Or this is a reality where I exist, you just told me that my future is concrete, and I can't really change that." I gazed at Nami's and Usopp's gob smacked faces in amusement. "If it is the latter, I suppose it's good to know I'll have the captain on my side."

"It's a mystery thing!" Luffy contributed his conclusion happily. He was rewarded with another punch to his head from his navigator. He laughed before jumping into my personal space.

I pulled my hand from Chopper's grip and scuttle backwards. I didn't know there were stairs behind me. I started to fall, but a hand stretched to grab the front of my boiler suit before I could tumble down. I look from the stretched arm to its owner. Luffy's face spread into a grin that pulled at the scar below his eye. "Join my crew!" He said. The others looked at me expectantly, like they knew what I was going to say.

I steady myself on the stairs before I answer. "Pass." It was my typical response aside from yes or I don't know, and it was the answer everyone seemed to expect, judging by their fond expressions. It was really weird for these people to know me so well, and I knew nothing in return.

"Wrong answer. Try again." Except for Luffy, and I was getting a feeling this was going to happen again. And again. And again. Stubborn guy.

"Why would you want me as a member anyway?" I was probably the worst option for any physical activity, and I had specialized so far in my field because of my job that being a pirate wouldn't use any of the skills I had worked so hard to perfect.

"Because you're interesting, and fun at parties!" I was starting to wonder how big this crew was if those were the only requirements to join.

"It's because you're part of the crew." Usopp explained. "Not to mention the Marines have already associated you with us- you have a bounty poster and everything."

I watched the sniper rummage through the canvas bag at his hip to pull something out with a "Aha!" The parchment was smoothed over the deck and I peered down to look at what my bounty will become if this wasn't a dream.

That… wasn't me. While I didn't have a strong image of my physical appearance, I could recognize myself in a mirror, and that person in the image wasn't me. "Dark Edge Rachel - fifty million Belli" had black hair, and while the style was similar to what I had during high school (that was to say the bangs and the rest of my hair reached my bum with no layering), my hair had never gotten darker than a dirty blond. She had the slim and fit build that I've always wanted, but never managed because my body type was too broad proportionally. I had a Celtic nose and grey-blue eyes while she had dark brownish-black eyes and a button for a nose. She was even tanner than I was! At least we were both flat chested.

Rachel

"Rachel?" Chopper asked, and I realized I had stared at the photo too long.

"Sorry," I said, and pointed at the name below the image. In doing so, I realized my hand had the same skin tone as the woman on the poster. "They spelled it wrong." I point between the H and E in Rachel, "There's supposed to be an A here, even though you say them both the same way." I was not looking at their faces, hiding my face behind the fringe of my hair- and I realized my hair was black and just as long as I had it in my high school days. "I guess it doesn't really matter."

I glanced back up at the Straw Hat Pirates with a grin. I didn't want to talk about this anymore, so I changed the topic. "So, how did you guys first meet me?"

"It was in Alabasta, before the bananas, right?" Luffy looked around for confirmation.

Nami slapped his face exasperatedly. "Of course, that is the thing you remember." She clarified after seeing my confused expression. "Crocodile –the bad guy boss of Baroque Works we were fighting at the time- locked most of the crew in a Sea Stone cage, and fed the key to a group Bananawani. Sanji, our chef, beat a member of Baroque Works into making another key before we all drowned."

That made no sense, but her description sounded familiar, as impossible as it seemed.

"Don't forget how the Great Pirate Captain Usopp saved the day!" The claim went ignored.

"Who else do you have on the crew?" I asked, curious.

"We have a swordsman, Zoro. He's the one with the green hair and three swords." Nami pointed over the rail, and I turned to see someone possibly sleeping on the lower deck. Was that grass? "Usopp and I joined after. Then there's Sanji, he has blond hair and you can't miss him. Chopper was recruited when we left Drum Island; Robin, our archeologist, joined after Alabasta." She waved at the ear and eye that definitely was not on the wall last time I checked. The eye blinked, and I recognized the eyeliner and mascara before both pieces of the face dissolved into flower petals. Now there was a Cheshire character. Was I in some variant of Wonderland?

"Then we have our cyborg shipwright, Franky, that we got in Water 7 during that whole Enis Lobby incident." Interrupted my thoughts, and brought my attention back to the navigator. "And finally, Brook -our musician- joined us in the Florian Triangle. We're trying to get a fishman named Jimbe to join, but he's being stubborn. It'll happen eventually." Only Alabasta sounded even vaguely familiar, so I steered the conversation towards that.

"What else happened in Alabasta?"

"It's a terrible desert island!" Chopper interjected to complain. "I was grooming sand out of my fur for months after that!"

"We were escorting Vivi, the princess, back to her country to stop a civil war that was staged by Crocodile." Nami interjected before Chopper could go on a tangent. I looked around, and I noticed Usopp and Luffy had left at some point. Nami continued, but I wasn't listening. I felt like I was being squished feet first between two rollers. It strangely didn't hurt.

I looked down to watch my body disappear at the same time as the pressure of being flattened vanished. The navigator seemed to know what was going on before smiling at me. "That was a quick visit. We'll see you later." The ginger seemed to remember something, "Oh, and bring that battle fan with you next time- the grey one!"

I didn't have time to respond. I was nothing but a floating half of a head before I was pushed out of my bed by my dog.

"Damn it, Krishna!" I yelled at my black German Collie who only wagged his tail playfully. I glanced at the clock to see it was a few minutes before my alarm was going to go off. I disabled the alarm so I didn't have to scramble for it later, and got dressed for a morning walk. I caught a glance of myself in the mirror, and was relieved to see me in the reflection. I was thinking back on how easy it was to move in that dream body before I snapped myself out of it. Longing for dreams would never end well.

I shrugged and clip a leash on Krishna's collar. He hauled me down the hallway from my apartment and out of the building. We end up at the park a couple blocks away, and I let him loose for a while, and watched him explore the trees with a warm feeling in my chest. I still needed time to get back home to be ready in time for the start of my shift, so I check my watch.

Only to see it was counting down like a timer. I press a button on the side of the smart-watch to change the watch face, and I'm rewarded with the fact that had lost track of time somehow and needed to get back to my apartment two minutes ago. I whistled and called Krishna back, and it was my turn to tug at the leash.

I didn't remember the new countdown timer watch face until later that week and fiddling with the gadget on my wrist as I lay exhausted on my bed. I scratched Krishna's ear when he pressed his head into my hand.

Today had been a hard day with a security breach in the department on the floor below, and everyone was scrambling to shore it up and reinforce security measures so there wouldn't be a repeat offense. At least I was paid for the extra unscheduled hours.

There were a few minutes left on the timer, and I wondered what would happen if it reached zero. Would I go back to Wonderland again? The decoration on the wall over my bed caught my eye and I couldn't look away.

Nami had mentioned a grey battle fan, and I'm pretty sure she meant my unconventional full metal fan. Feeling stupid for doing this, I pulled the fan off the specialized shelf, closed it with a sliding click, and tucked it into my side. If it was a dream, then I would feel stupid in the morning. If it was real, then I guess I would cross that impossible bridge when I got to it.

It felt like time slowed down when I was watching the seconds count down on my wrist. There was an instant change when it reached zero.

What was my nice night time air conditioned bedroom was now a bright, hot desert. I noticed that my body had changed to Dark Edge Rachel's, along with my clothes. Instead of the PJ's I had laid down on my bed in, I was wearing a boiler suit again (but it was a different color this time) along with a huge piece of thin fabric wrapped around me that was flapping in the wind. I was so covered I wouldn't have to worry too much about getting sunburnt. There was a pack looped around my shoulders, and I was taking inventory of the survival supplies when I found my fan tucked away in one of its pockets. Huh. I still didn't feel like I was in a dream, and I glanced at my wrist. My watch was still there, but the timer wasn't counting down, it was frozen at having a month left. Was it broken? I tapped the screen in hopes of possibly fixing it. No luck, the screen stayed the same even after I had rotated through the other watch faces, so my attention wandered. What was that?

I pulled my hair up, and started to walk towards what might be a mirage or a city in the distance.

I didn't have to go far until I ran into the Straw Hat Pirates. Literally. I shook my head, and pushed myself up from the shifting sand. "Geez Luffy, is this going to be a pattern every time I show up?" I looked at the group around me to see distrustful gazes from everyone but Luffy. I pull the wrap covering my face and head down around my neck, and the gazes haven't changed.

"Who're you?" Luffy asked, and I felt my stomach drop. They didn't know me. Oh come on! This was only my second time here!

((A/N: And that's it for now. Let me know what you think!))