Disclaimer: I don't, will not and have never owned One Piece. I do own Anna, though! ;P

One Piece was one of the greatest stories I've ever read. So what if my teacher said the opposite! I loved all the characters, good and evil. My favourite was and forever will be Roronoa Zoro.

HOW COULD YOU NOT LOVE HIM?!

But even reading the manga over didn't get rid of my sadness. It was my eighteenth birthday and my first birthday alone. 'Friends' (acquaintances I referred to my friend when I'm alone) had gone away and my grandmother passed away last month, leaving me an orphan again.

I sighed and put down the One Piece manga. I looked over at my birthday cupcake and sat up. I took the lighter and lit the candle.

"I wish my parents were still alive." And with that, I blew out the candle. I would have wished for my grandmother, but she would have hated being brought back.

All the lights in the house went out and a powerful wind pushed me back. A green light glowed from behind my cupcake and started to get brighter as a spectre floated up. "Happy eighteenth, my dear child," my mother said to me.

"Mom?" I said in a shaky voice. My father appeared behind her, they looked at each other for a moment before smiling down at me. "Dad?" Tears fell from my eyes and landed on the carpet.

It had been what, ten years since I'd seen them. Ten years without the love of my proper parents, and not just my grandmother. Ten years without my two best friends. Ten years without their loving embrace.

I stood up to wrap my arms around them but like hugging fog, my arms went right through. I looked up at them with desperation in my eyes. My mother floated down and gave me an apologetic look.

"We can't be brought back," my mother said, causing me to start sobbing.

"But," my fathers said quickly in a happy tone, "we are going to give you a replacement wish." I sniffled and nodded, trying to listen to his every word.

"Think of the Grandline," my mother whispered as she closes my eyes.

"Huh? What do you me-"

My words were cut off as I felt the direction of gravity change; I was plunged into cold, clear water. I gasped and tried to claw my way to the surface, but the fall knocked the wind out of me. I floated down and watched air bubbles escape my mouth. My eyes closed and my mind turned black.

'Thanks for the birthday present, mom and dad'

Oxygen filled my lungs again and I was thrown roughly against a hard surface. I coughed up water and my body shook. An unknown force pushed me onto my side, allowing the water to spill out and not back into my mouth.

"She's alright," a gentle voice whispered as my head is lifted. I looked up and saw Nico Robin, smiling down at me and patting my head.

"Robin?" I said weakly.

"Yes. What is your name?"

"Anna, pronounced awe-nah, not ah-nah," I said robotically.

"Do you know where you are?" I shook my head and Robin looked up at the others. I looked around with her and gasped.

Sanji, Nami, Usopp, Chopper, Brook, Franky, Zoro and Luffy were all crowded around me. The One Piece cast were there, in the flesh. My mind raced to try and figure out what was going on.

"Am I dead?" I blurted out as all other rational options ended with a dead end... Almost literally.

"No. You were saved just in time," Robin replied, helping me sit up.

I took a proper look around. Not only was I surrounded by the Straw Hats, I was sitting on the Thousand Sunny in the middle of the ocean.

'Think of the Grandline' my mother's voice whispered in my head. I scowled to myself and took a deep breath.

"Thank you for saving me, Usopp," I said as I bowed to him, who was as wet as me

"No problem..." Usopp said slowly, eying me suspiciously. "How do you-"

"You have wanted posters EVERYWHERE! Who wouldn't know your name?" I said a bit rushed, trying to cover up the fact that they're all just drawings on paper in my world.

The silence between everyone was a bit tense. No body knew how to start a conversation, or what with. I could see Sanji wanting to say something, but holding back for an unknown reason. Zoro looked at me coldly, Franky and Usopp viewed me as a stranger, Chopper, Brook and Luffy didn't look particularly worried that I'm on their boat and Robin and Nami kept their fake smiles.

"How'd you get here?"

A voice, whoever's voice it was, snapped me back to reality, causing me to flinch. "I'm not particularly sure myself..." I said hesitantly, looking up at Zoro. He almost inconspicuously put his hands on his swords, unnoticed by the others but immediately picked up by me.

I stood up and backed away from the group. "I don't want to be an inconvenience, so if you wouldn't mind dropping me off at the next port, I'll be on my way and we'll pretend this never happened!" I squeaked out of nervousness. I backed up a little more and cowered in fear as Sanji approached me. He took my hand and kissed it.

"No matter what, I could never forget such a pretty face," he said smoothly.

'Yeah, right you good-for-nothing flirtatious- Are those rose petals?!' I looked around me while rose petals fell around Sanji and me. 'I thought this only happened in anime?! Do all things anime happen in this world?!'

My thoughts were disrupted when Nami walked over and slapped Sanji's hand away. "I'm sorry to tell you, but we'll be reaching the next port in a week."

"I week?!" I clutched my wet t-shirt with all my might as all the possible outcomes of traveling with the Straw Hats rushed through my brain. My world became dizzy and my feet gave out from under me.

'Who the hell put that stupid railing there!' I mentally screamed as I fell back into the water.

• • •

"She doesn't look harmful..."

"That's what makes her a prime suspect!"

"Guys, shut up! She's moving."

I opened my eyes and found myself surrounded by the Straw Hats yet again. I loved them all, but as favourite MANGA CHARACTERS! Being around them was terrifying and knowing the situations they get into...

I was so dead.

"Where'd you come from?" Zoro asked sternly.

"Canada," I replied, groggily and quite tired.

"How did you get here?"

"My ghost parents teleported me here."

"Why are you here?"

"Do you really think I know?!" I screamed out of terror at him, sitting up and feeling the velcro restraints that hold my wrists and ankles to a bed. Zoro went to his swords, but Sanji stopped him.

"We are only making sure of a few things," said Sanji as he kneeled down by my bed. "We're making sure you don't work for the bad guys."

I sighed and laid back down. "This is all I know. I'm from Canada, a place where all of you," I looked around the room, "are just drawings on paper made by a genius author and mangaka. Today was my eighteenth birthday and I wished my parents could come back to life, but NOOOOO! They couldn't, so instead, they sent me here. Believe me, I want to squeal and jump around and enjoy the fact that I've been transported to some 'magical dimension' where my absolute favourite characters and husbands, don't asks, are living, breathing people. But knowing the Straw Hat pirates, trouble ALWAYS follows and being an untalented weirdo like me, I'd just get killed."

Everyone stared at me for a second before turning and talking amongst themselves. They all left the room, with the exception of Chopper and Zoro. Chopper undid my my restraints and I sat up slowly.

"We have no way to tell if you're lying or if you're just plain crazy, so instead of keeping you locked up in this room for a week, you can roam free under the supervision of Zoro." Chopper explained, pointing to the intimidating swordsman in the corner.

"I'll take the room," I said eagerly.

"Why? Are you scared I'll kill you?" Zoro smirked sadistically, cracking his knuckles.

"I'm not so scared of dying compared to the pain."

"Either way, you have no choice."

"Some birthday," I grumbled under my breath as I left the unknown room to follow Zoro.

On deck, all the other Straw Hats went about their business. Zoro waited for me to catch up with an unamused frown on his face.

He may have been the best thing to ever happen to my world of manga characters, but he scared the pants off me. Didn't matter how hot he looked with his open dark-green coat, and his muscles...

"What are you staring at," he snapped coldly, causing me to look down and walk faster towards him. He sat down and leaned his back against the wall, closing his one good eye. "If you move, I'll know, so don't try anything."

"Then may I please sit by the edge?" I asked. "To keep myself busy, staring at the ocean's horizon is calming." Zoro opened his eye to look at me, nodded and closed it again.

I took my desired seat: my legs on either side of a post, dangling off the boat. I leaned my face against it and stared of into the distance, trying to figure out what is going on. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nami sit beside me with her clima-tact firmly in her grasp but a smile on her face, as if to say 'I'll talk, but if you try anything, you'll get hurt'.

"Hello," she started.

"Hello," I replied as cheerily as possible, even though most of it is fake. I glanced over at Zoro and Nami caught me.

"Don't worry. He's scary and tough but he won't kill you unless you harm someone on this ship." Her kind smile turned into a sadistic grin, something quite new for her. "Same with me."

I nodded my head nonchalantly, unafraid anymore of dying in this world.

'There is only one fear I truly have and it's not something that's easy to overcome. For me, that is'

"So-"

"You think I'm a nut job, don't you?" I asked with a smirk, earning a half sheepish smile in response.

"I must admit, your story is a bit..."

"Out of this world?"

"Precisely."

"Out of this dimension is a little more accurate." I reached into my pockets in an attempt to reach for some goodies when I noticed Zoro put his hand on his sword. "In what universe to you think me, a weakling, could take on the wielder of the clima-tact?" I shouted to him. "I just wanted to show her something."

I reached into my right side back pocket, pulled out a crisp and green 20 and blue 5 dollar bill, and 3 dollars and 78 cents; one toonie and one loonie, five dimes, three pennies and a quarter. I placed them on the palm of my hand for her to examine and for Zoro to see that it was not something harmful.

"Where I come from, our currency is dollars and cents and differs throughout the world." I picked up the twenty and put down the rest. "In Canada, our dollar bills are coloured according to their value. Since your beri is similar to our Japanese yen, one penny is one beri. 100 cents make up a dollar, so every dollar is 100 beri in value. All this would be 2878 beri, approximately. Dimes are 10 beri, quarters are 25, loonies are 100 and toonies are 200." I pushed them towards Nami, who eagerly inspected the foreign money.

"It's so strange... I've never seen anything like this before." She mumbled as she caressed the plastic bills.

"Well, that makes sense. We live in either different worlds in the same universe, or different universe but alterations of the same world," I said more to myself. I shook off the thought and stared back at the horizon.

Nami left me to go and show the others what I'd given her, which seemed to have attracted a small crowd to my side.

"Do you have any more strange things?" Chopper asked, sitting between Luffy and Brook, Franky behind the three.

"I have a cellphone, our version of den den mushis." I placed the device in front of them and continue the hunt through my pockets.

I should probably mention that I was wearing a pair of plain beige capris with six full pockets. Two right beside the button, two at the back and two resting on the side of my knees. I placed the goodies out in front of them. The old flip phone cell phone, two purple lifesaver lollipops, a folded piece of paper, gift card to the movies, a few extra coins, a pen (how'd that get there? I was looking for that all day!), my wallet and a remote...

As I explained each one, Robin, Sanji and Nami join the group. Zoro continued to keep his distance. I told them stories in the spur of the moment, which were the stories on the tip of my tongue. The Twin towers, the world wars, world stability, and even the less intense things, like what my life was like, what I enjoyed doing and who I was. As I continued my story, a few eyes began to sparkle

Literally.

I was momentarily taken aback by it, as sweat drops, hearts and stars for eyes and the gloom cloud weren't present in my reality, but in theirs.

Dusk rolled in quicker than many of us realized and we stood up to head towards the kitchen, where Sanji had prepared our wonderful dinner.

I must admit, reading the manga, I had wished to try Sanji's food once. In the past, the possibility of that happening was a big, whopping ZERO! Now, it's 100%, baby!

"And for the lovely Anna, the finest!" Sanji said as he placed the delicious fish on my plate.

'Delicious my foot. I hate fish. Always have, always will. Not even the great Sanji could make me like fish.'

I hid my slight disgust and cut a piece off, hesitantly placing it into my mouth.

'Okay, so maybe even the great Sanji can make me like fish...'

"Whoa!" I exclaimed a littler louder than I would have liked. "Sanji, this fish is- oh my gosh, I don't even know where to start!"

"Of course!" He lifted his head in triumph. I heard a scoff and both me and Sanji glared in Zoro's direction.

'Just because he's awesome, doesn't mean he can go and ruin it for everyone else!'

"Care to share your input on the food, Marimo?" Sanji asked with a dangerous tone, stabbing his fork into his fish. They stared at each other for a moment.

'Uh oh...'

My chair was pulled back, causing me to fall on the floor just as the table was cut and then smashed.

'How long will I survive?!'

I must apologize for the mix up. I really needed to fix the story, so the chapters are sort of under construction for a small while, for those who have already read them

Please guide me along the way!

I'd love some feedback on how I'm doing and how I can improve, so please don't hesitate to tell me.

Anyway, TOODLES!

Sincerely,

The Amazing Panda (my nickname)