So I've tried writing a One Piece story several times without much success, but the concepts I have just won't seem to leave me, so I decided to try once more to write this, though this time I won't base him on me, but someone else I know. I was inspired by this from Visual Pun's story Annotated.
So. Once again. Here we go!
I open the door of my old 02 Stratus with a body check before turning in the driver seat and stretching my legs with a groan of relief. Nine hours of driving are great for making one appreciate a good leg stretch. I'm just glad my Uncle's old cabin was a little south of Atlanta instead of a little north. Driving through Atlanta would have added another three hours onto the already arduous trip. It seemed to be well worth the drive though, the fall air held the crisp smell of cooler weather despite the trees all still sporting green leaves, and a brisk wind brought a smile to my face.
As a Floridian, cool weather like this was about as nice as it got.
"So are you just going to sit there or are you going to let me out of the car?" An annoyed female voice spoke from behind me.
"Why don't you get out your own door?" A deep voice inquired from the back seat with far too much innocence.
I turn my head to look into the car to see Jessie giving her patented resting bitch face look over her shoulder into the back seat, her short chestnut hair framing her face in a way that I found to be rather striking. Without breaking eye-contact her right hand gave a few yanks on the passenger side door to no effect.
"Gee, Gideon, it doesn't appear to be working. Like the last fifty times I tried it."
I could feel my brother's smile as I climbed out of the piece of crap I called my car, the door to the backseat opened next to me and my brother stood up out of the car as well, the cheery smile in the same place it always was, right on his lumberjack bearded face.
"For shame Ben, not having a working front-passenger side door." Gideon chided as he pulled his pillow and backpack of electronics out of the back seat.
"It doesn't open because of the accident you had in the car before I ever bought it from you!" I snapped out.
"Yeah, but it's not like I hid it or anything. You bought it knowing about the damage and when I sold it to you for only two-hundred bucks. Thus I can no longer be blamed for the malfunctions of the vehicle and, ergo, it is your fault."
"You actually bought this piece of shit?" Jessie asked as she too exited the car though by means of crawling across the driver seat. I distinctly did NOT look down her blouse at a lovely swaying motion as she exited.
"Trust me. I have buyers remorse." I replied.
The thing wasn't actually that bad. It worked, it had AC, if only when the air was on its highest setting, and had personally carried me over thirty thousand miles. Getting it for two hundred dollars was a steal, but I couldn't let Gideon think I was overly ingratiated to him. He was already doing me a favor by coming up here with me. My uncle wouldn't let me come up here by myself with a girl I wasn't married to. Thus Gideon asked off work to come along despite not particularly liking my uncle's cabin in the backwoods of Georgia.
I didn't know what my Uncle was so worried about. This wasn't even a date. I think. Probably. I'm not the best person to ask though. I have never once claimed to understand the female mind.
"If we hurry we can still shoot a few targets." Jessie says brightly, "So lets get this stuff in the cabin and be on our way!"
"Nah, I got it." Gideon says, "You two go ahead and go to the pond. I'll bring the stuff in and catch up."
"Yes!" Jessie trumpets with a fist bump as her hand givess a slight caress to the Desert Eagle in the holster on her hip. "Pop the trunk and grab your stuff so we can go!"
Jessie is a unique individual. She enjoyed comics, movies, tabletop games, and knowing that with a twitch of a finger she can blow away most things on God's green earth.
You know. The refined things in life.
I head to the trunk and quickly retrieve my own gun, a .308 Winchester hunting rifle, my brown canvas jacket, and my tackle box I had repurposed to hold my ammo and accessories for my gun. I put on the jacket, put the strap of the gun over one shoulder, and bend down to lace up my boots.
"Ugh! Stop tying your shoes and let's go blow shit up!" Jessie complains.
"He's not tying his shoes, his scratching his other head." Gideon says as he waggs his eyebrows and passes by me with an armful of luggage.
I duck my head, so no one can see my now burning face. I choose to say nothing. Any reaction I give would only encourage the man-child.
"That's terrible." Jessie says with a failed attempt to hide her mirth. "Your sense of humor could use an adjustment."
"Nah! My sense of humor is for me, whether anyone else finds it funny or not is only tangentially related to my enjoyment!" He cries over his shoulder before heading into the cabin.
"Your brother is a mess." Jessie says with a shake of her head.
"Yeah. I tried to retrain him. But he was the older brother and already stuck in his ways before I could make him a decent human being."
"Have you tried a spray bottle and treats when he's good?"
"Sure. How do you think I got him to stop going on the carpet?" I reply smoothly.
Okay. So my brother's sense of humor might have infected me. So what? I make it look good.
Jessie seemed to agree as she lets out a laugh. She has a nice laugh. She doesn't have a demure or petit laugh, she has a laugh that her whole body seemed to want to participate in as her shoulder threw back and her voice project out with no thought as to who could be listening.
It is beautiful.
"You got the targets?" I ask to change the direction of my thoughts.
"Right here." She says as she withdraws a target decorated with the drawing of a zombie head from the bag at her side. The bag functioned as her purse, but it looks to be more of a messenger bag. As she puts the targets back in her bag a single target falls from her grasp. I bend down and pick up the paper before folding it and placing it in my back pocket.
It'll be the first thing I put up to shoot.
"So, you almost done with college?" She asks.
"University." I correct, "And yeah, one more semester and I will officially have a masters and begin my career in photonics engineering."
"Sweet. Make sure to let me know when you make the first Holodeck."
"Psht. First thing I'm making is a lightsaber." I joke back.
And then…it happened.
A barrage of sounds, colors, and ideas suddenly hit me like a sledge hammer. Not like I had a realization or anything, but like I was hit physically and with a mental pressure I imagine is like Professor X mind raping someone. One might say, Ben, you can't get hit with ideas like that, to I now say "Shut the fuck up, you don't know what you are talking about."
Apparently, I at some point passed out because the next thing I know I feel something hit me like a freight train and send me flying. Which is weird, because the hit didn't hurt. At all. Which it should have if it was capable of sending me flying. But I don't feel so much as bruised though that may change when I land.
…
Which should have happened by now.
I'm sill falling.
…
…
I override my fear of the height with the anxiety of not knowing and crack open my eyes to see the breathtaking view of the ocean. And also ocean. And more ocean until for a moment I spin enough to an immense red cliff spanning as far as the eye can see.
I look back down at the approaching water and have but one thought.
At least I don't have to pay off that fifty thousand dollars of student loans.
Then I hit the ocean with a jarring splash that made my jaw jam shut, cutting out the screams I had been making. Again, I didn't feel an ounce of pain when it should have felt like my bones had shattered into bite size pieces for the sea creatures I'd be feeding.
The taste of salt confirmed that I was in the ocean and years of swim practice had me quickly swimming back up to the surface and taking in a gasp of air…only for a wave to crash back down over me and knock me back under the water. I feel my clothes weighing me down as they absorbed water and became heavy, particularly my jacket. A shrug of my shoulder made sure my gun was still strapped there as well. I could try shrugging some of the weight off but I really wanted a gun and jacket if I wash up on an island with wild animals and no civilization. The thought process probably wasn't very logical but once you read a lot of isekai stories it kind of gets implanted in the back of your mind.
I've swam competitively for the last eight years. I know my limits. If it starts to get too much I can always drop it later.
The next fifteen minutes or so consist of me attempting to surface, getting a breath or two and being smacked back under water. I'm used to swimming and I've had worse practice drills but the redundancy is getting a bit irksome and the salt water constantly rushing into my nose and mouth is just slightly worse than the normal chlorinated water I'm used to.
When will the monotony-
Something grabs my arm!
Sweet hallelujah! A rescuer has come! That or an Octopus or something has grabbed my arm.
"Hold on tight!" A scratchy male voice yells. Yes!
The two of us move through the water with great jolts forward, my rescuer apparently holding onto a rope that's other end has other people pulling us up. My face smacks into aged wood and barnacles.
A boat! I'm saved!
I try to get a look at my rescuer but all I get a glimpse of is a decently muscular naked torso and black cotton pants. Or is it wool? I'm never quite sure the difference on sight alone but I am sure that the pants weren't made with the high precision of a machine.
Regardless, me and half-naked semi-macho man get pulled up onto the deck.
"Thank you! I thought I was going to drown! You guys really-" I cut myself off as I see the men around me. All of them looked out of a period piece. They wore clothing that was clearly hand sown and had cutlasses or flintlocks at their sides. All of them were looking at me rather how I imagine a pack of wolves look at the sickly sheep that's falling behind from the rest of the pack.
"Don't worry. It's our pleasure." Said a man that looked to be in a close approximation of a tuxedo if it weren't for the obvious hand stitching. "Not every day money just falls into your lap like this."
They think I'm a pay day? Ha! Jokes on them. I have more debt that Kratos has anger issues.
I look around the ship and then up to the mast to see a black flag with a skull and two stacks of dollar bills crossed behind it.
Oh. Damn. I think I've been Isekai'd.
"So. Uh. I don't suppose that you guys are fishermen or just really dedicated LARPers?"
"Dedicated what?" Mr. Semi-Macho man asked.
Yeah. That's what I figured.
…damn it.