Pahhur

We were survivors, warriors. The elements were our weapons and even they withered away before our enemy. We were the fortunate, living by running over the bodies of hundreds; and here, hidden in a separate dimension, safe, we began preparing to retaliate.

It didn't take us long to secure food and water, but what we needed was an army. The fight had been joined by thousands. A little more than a dozen remained. We needed troops, and we needed to train those troops.

Tech was the one that suggested using the Dimensional Nexus to go out and recruit people. He was the one that decided where to send us. So it was a bit of a surprise when we discovered who we were recruiting.

I went out on the first mission with Anatos and Neko, and as it turns out, Tech's ability to place the portals at ground level needed some work.

The three of us fell a good two feet before hitting the deck of a ship.

"Oy Oy! What are you lot doing on our ship?" I turned to the familiar voice and recognized Zoro standing in the doorway. His tall physique, short green hair, and muscular body imposing in the sunlight. I blinked as if seeing a ghost. He had been with us in that attack, I was sure he had been lost.

"Zoro?" I heard Neko ask up to him.

"Yeah, what are you? Bounty Hunters?" He had his hand on the hilt of his sword.

"You don't remember us?" I asked; he hesitated, trying to remember.

"Nothing comes to mind."

"Zoro! What did you do to such lovely ladies!" Sanji burst out from behind Zoro. Zoro immediately drew his blade to block a kick, and the two began tussling on the deck of the ship.

"So you know Zoro?" I turned and jumped as I spotted Luffy's smiling face as his neck stretched out to meet us.

"Gah! Luffy! Don't do that." He just began chuckling as his head returned to the rest of his body perched on a goat figurehead.

"So you are bounty hunters then."

"We're not, we just..." Neko clamped her hand over my mouth.

"We're just um... fellow pirates! Yeah. Our ship sank around here and we grabbed onto yours as it passed by, so sorry."

"Sounds like we're pretty famous if a bunch of pirates know our names." Usopp said also coming out from below decks, his elongated nose swaying in front of him.

"Well, we do get news about you guys from time to time." I said quickly.

"News from who?" Nami had now joined the deck crew.

"Uh..." I looked over to Neko who shrugged her shoulders back at me.

"The sea." Anatos said suddenly. The two of us turned to him; he was hanging half off the edge of the ship, staring out at the endless ocean.

"Makes sense." Luffy said turning around; although no one else on the ship seemed to think that way.

"If you're pirates, then I guess you're our enemies?" Zoro said.

"No-no! We don't want to fight!"

"We'd like to help if anything." I blurted out and was immediately faced with a bunch of suspicious looks.

"Zoro, take them down to the brig." Nami said coldly, the orange haired girl had apparently been listening the whole time.

"You mean the food cellar?"

"I wouldn't if I were you. Pah here would probably eat you out of house and home in seconds." Neko said.

"Right, tie them to the mast then." We chose not to resist as we were disarmed and tied up; Zoro seemed particular interested in my swords.

"Where did you get these?"

"An... old friend." He looked me over carefully then set the blades down gently against a wall. They then proceeded to try and discreetly talk about what to do with us, only to be foiled by Luffy very loudly saying he liked us, repeatedly. Finally Nami came back to us.

"Okay, we'll trust you for now; but we're going to hold onto your weapons and you're going to have to do some chores."

A day passed before I overheard Nami talking to Luffy about trying to cross Reverse Mountain; a very one-sided discussion. I later tried to catch her ear on the subject, but only got yelled at to work some more to pay off a debt I had somehow acquired, possibly when she had seen me in the food cellar.

"Why can't we just tell them the truth?" I asked Neko later as I helped clean the deck as best I could without touching the soapy water.

"We're from another dimension where we fought alongside them and left them to die. Do you honestly think they'd believe us? We need to befriend them first; rebuild the friendship, then when proof comes knocking we can tell them the truth."

"What do you mean proof?"

"There's supposed to be Solarus on this planet somewhere. These guys attract trouble, so it's just a matter of time before Solarus show up." I shuddered as I thought about Avarus' strike force, the Solarus. Hollow metal powered by the souls of the dead.

That was quickly driven from my mind as the ship was directed into an upstream that was headed up a mountain. Before I could even really comprehend how many ways this was bizarre the ship was caught in the current and flying straight up the mountain side. Soon enough we crested the top, our momentum carrying us a good extra foot into the air before we began free falling down the other side.

I lost my grip and fell, skimming along the water until I crashed beneath the waves.

When I woke up, Anatos had pulled me to land and was slowly resuscitating me.

"Ah, good you're awake. The others are in that whale." Anatos said bluntly.

"What!" I looked up to see an enormous whale's head sticking straight out of the water and consuming most of the horizon.

"Yep, they were eaten, except Luffy who was climbing around on top of the whale. I didn't see him underwater, so I guess he's inside the whale too."

"We better get them out!" I said, getting up.

"I'm sure Neko will find a way out." Anatos remarked. "Beside, what do you think she'd say if you killed that whale while trying to free them?"

"Free food?" Anatos smacked the back of my head.

"We're not eating him!" As he was yelling the ship came floating out of the whale's mouth. With everyone settled on land, an old man that had been inside the whale explained the whale was the pet of another group of pirates that had most likely died. He gave Nami something called a log pose which would allow her to navigate the Grand Line; and Luffy subsequently agreed to take two people they had met inside the whale back to their hometown. One was a blue haired young woman named Miss Wednesday, and the other was an orange haired young man who called himself Mr. 9.

This trip was more peaceful than getting to Reverse Mountain. With two people on board that the crew trusted even less than us, we got a free pass from everything except chores.

When we arrived at the next island, we were greeted with a celebration. The others were rapidly caught up in the entertainment, but I had caught sight of the resident's weapons. Solarus machine guns. I chose to stay on the ship and as night fell I heard people surrounding the ship.

"There's one on board! Make sure to take her out first." I climbed out, allowing them to begin taking aim before I launched myself towards them. Their bullets melted as I moved past them, and with a couple of quick punches they were scurrying away from me.

"Pah!" I heard Neko yell down to me from the roof of one of the buildings. "Solarus! They're coming from the south!"

"I need to get my swords from Zoro!" I yelled back, as I pressed on.

Zoro was already knee deep in fighting; but he spotted me approaching and grinned.

"I want to see what you can do." He said over the dull roar around us as he pulled the two blades from his belt and tossed them over to me. I carefully caught them and spun, giving myself some room to move. The people were gathering along the rooftops, leveling the machine guns.

"Careful, those bullets drain your strength if they get too close."

"Sounds nasty. Can't say I'm not impressed at how fast they can fire though."

"It looks like our enemy is helping out your enemies."

"Interesting." He leapt easily to a rooftop, cutting apart a group of people clustered there. I went for another roof, and sliced into the base with my red blade, Inferno, the building caught almost instantly; causing my opponents to flee screaming into the night.

I heard screaming and explosions coming from the village. When I arrived I saw Luffy and Zoro fighting each other furiously.

"There! Pahhur! You agree, they were our enemies right!" Zoro called over to me.

"Y-Yeah. I was helping you guys fight them off." Luffy turned his glare towards me.

"You helped!" Before I knew what was going on I felt his hands clamp onto my head, then I was spinning through the air before hitting the ground head first.

Neko

After Pah was knocked out, I had to wait patiently for Luffy to calm down; and instead sat with Nami, who was also watching.

"So you guys are fruit-users?" She asked suddenly.

"What?"

"Well she was setting fire to stuff with just her sword, and I saw you change shape as you got here."

"Fruit-Users?"

"You know, the Devil's Fruit?" I vaguely recalled someone talking about that sometime ago.

"Uh, sure. Yeah, we're fruit-users."

"Odd. I thought the Fire fruit was already in use by Fire-Fist Ace." She said coldly. I could tell by the look on her face I had just walked into her trap.

"... Alright. You caught me, we're not from this world." Her face was a cold mask as I tried to explain.

"The short version is, we're here from another dimension. Our enemy Avarus is incredibly powerful, and the guns these guys have seem to have been supplied by him, as well as the Solarus Anatos and I fought in the south. We're here to get help fighting Avarus, and we fought alongside an alternate version of you guys that didn't make it out alive."

"If that's your story, fine. I still don't buy it." I nodded.

"That's kinda why I didn't want to tell you; but whatever. We're here to help out, okay?"

"Right, well you guys haven't been attacking us, so I believe that. Well, you better pick up Pah. I'll get those guys to stop fighting." As I went down to pick up Pah, I heard Tech come in over the communicator embedded in our suits.

"Neko? You guys are done there for now."

"But I don't think we even have their trust."

"Neko, I know it's been like a week for you guys there, but it's been over a month here. We can't afford to waste our resources in one spot for too long. I'll send you guys back later. There's still plenty of time. But we need to focus our attention elsewhere, plus that last blow to Pah's head looks pretty severe; she's going to need to be treated. I'm going to open a portal near the center of town, grab Pah and Anatos bring 'em in." I turned to Nami.

"We're going to have to head back for a while! We'll be back soon!" I called over to her and sped off to grab Pah.