This huge mangrove forest that he had previously stared at and wandered through, with open-mouthed and awed excitement, was now a battleground.
His captain was fighting against some man who didn't quite understand the meaning of being "tight lipped"; Nami and Franky were standing stock still, watching as Sanji and Brook struggled against a massive robot that seemed to know no limits; Usopp screamed for his crewmates to run away with him as he struggled to carry Zoro's dead weight; Robin stood with him, watching everything happen around them.
The man who was the closest thing he had to an older brother was limp and bloody and close to death, stretched out over the back of his best friend. The man who gave him sweets and candy when he asked for them – when he was supposedly only at the beck and call of the ladies – was struggling to stand on his own two feet and to battle a Pacifista. The undead man who played music for him whenever he felt sad or happy or bored, was struggling to move with all the injuries to his frail bones.
The man gave him his own room to continue his lifework as a doctor was watching in shocked silence – something extremely unusual for him – as he could do nothing to help his friends. The woman who gave him the motherly love and affection he wished for all of his childhood was watching the same scene he was, eyes wide with shock and desperation. The other woman of the crew, with whom he had many an intellectual conversation with, could only gasp at what was happening.
And the man who had taken him away from his always snowing homeland and out to the sea – and to a desert kingdom, a city of water, an island of justice, an island of zombies and horrors – was being attacked by a man who was leaps and bounds stronger than him.
And there he was, on all four of his legs, watching as all of his comrades were stuck in a battle of strengths and fears… without doing a single thing.
He was told to run. They were the captain's orders. They always obeyed the captain's orders…
But standing there and watching as his friends fought for each other wasn't the right thing for him to do. Running away and leaving his friends to fend for themselves also wasn't the right thing for him to do. He said a silent apology to his captain in his head and rushed into battle.
"No, Chopper!"
The crunch of the three Rumble Balls seemed to echo in his head as he rushed to his captain's rescue. The stretch of his body to a form that he himself barely knew existed was more painful than anything he had ever experienced before. And the last thing he heard was the sound of his own monstrous scream of desperation, in Grove 12 of the Sabaody Archipelago.