Chapter 1 - So We Begin Again
A rough surface.
Warm, salty and fresh air.
The distant cawing of seagulls.
The gentle, arhythmic lapping of waves.
These were the feelings, smells, and sounds my dreary brain interpreted as I pulled away from the addictive drug of sleep. I groaned, my eyes squeezed shut to spite the light I could feel beating down on them. My back was stiff, like I had been sleeping on the floor, and it didn't feel like my bed beneath me. It felt like something hard, uneven, and a little slanted.
Wait, what? My eyes snapped open.
"OW! MOTHERFUCKER!" I cursed, wincing and immediately shutting them as extremely bright light immediately poured into them, almost blinding me. Spots pirouetted and spun in my once-more darkened vision, and my eyes watered from the unexpected albeit slight pain. Wondering why the hell I was sleeping on something hard and in a place that was all lit up, I slowly, carefully opened my eyes, squinting to adjust to the light.
Wait. Why did that look like bright blue sky above me, with white wisps of clouds?
And now that I thought about it, why did the air smell salty, like the ocean?
I opened my eyes wider and sat up, suddenly fully awake.
Perched on the side of a mountain for some odd reason, my pajama-clad self had somehow found its way outside and in front of a wide, vast ocean, the sun hanging hot and proud high above me. A roost of seagulls sat on a stony beach on the bottom of the mountain, pecking away at some fish. Out in the distance on the water, a dolphin poked out of the water and gracefully leaped through the air before splashing back down, nose-first, beneath the waves.
I stared.
"Weird dream," I said at last, and promptly fell back asleep, determined to wake up in my own bed even though this felt much more real than anything I'd ever dreamed before.
An unknown number of hours later, I woke up again, to the exact same sensations, and when I opened my eyes, the exact same sights greeted me.
Mind racing a million miles an hour, I opened my mouth, words forming and dying on my lips.
I closed my mouth for several minutes.
"...Well, that's just peachy," I rasped, voice not yet adjusted to being awake. There was no question about what had just happened to me overnight. I mean, come on. Some anime and video game nerd falls asleep, and wakes up in a completely unfamiliar place? It's a classic symptom of isekaitis; a disease which, unfortunately, tissues don't really help much with. The only real issue was whether I was in a world nobody had ever thought of before or if I had somehow been plopped into the middle of an already-existing series.
And judging by the smell of the sea and the fact that, as far as I could tell, this mountain and beach seemed to be an island…
Well, I'd read and written enough fanfiction to at least have a decent idea of where I was if I'd been dropped into an already-existing series. Hoping to the God I didn't believe in that I was wrong, my mind raced through a million thoughts. What was going to happen to me? Was this really real? How was I supposed to live here when, at least at first glance, I couldn't see any food or fresh water sources at all? What was I supposed to DO?
I mean, what the hell does one do when they wake up in what's probably the middle of the ocean on a mountainous island?
Civilization.
The first thing that I absolutely had to do was search for civilization. Gulping, I quickly scanned the side of the mountain and the flat parts of the beach.
A big, fat nothing. There wasn't even smoke that I could see on the other side of the mountain!
What could I see?
Grey rocks. Lots of them. And, actually, a part of some large animal skeleton half exposed in a cliff-face, rather interestingly. I wondered what kind of animal it was, whether it was a dinosaur or something, then realized my brain was getting side-tracked and started scouting the territory again.
The only living thing other than the seagulls that I could see was a single, large tree of an unrecognizable species that grew straight out from the beach below me and to the right. It was huge, probably taller than most oak trees, and a tangled mess of branches with weird white-and-grey leaves stuck out of it. I wondered what whacky evolution had resulted in it having white-and-grey leaves.
Oh well. At the very least, there might be fruit growing on it, fruit that was hopefully edible. Panicking from being stranded on a probably deserted island overnight makes a poor guy ravenous! And if not… well, at the very least, it would provide me with a source of shade to sit under while I tried to figure out what the hell to do next. With a determined frown, I immediately began running down the slope of the mountain.
~o~
Ow. Owwww. My damn legs!
Note to self… get the hell in shape!
Running down the mountain was a task and a half. The last time I'd done any sort of cardiovascular exercise in any decent amount had been five years ago in my sophomore year of high school, and that had been due to my mom attempting to force me into it. "You need more exercise!" she had constantly nagged at me. "Your muscles are going to atrophy from sitting around and watching movies and shows all day!" I'd relented for the first two years of high school, then put me foot down and refused to rejoin the team on the third year and had returned to my casual lifestyle since; a fact I now sorely regretted.
My legs burned. My chest heaved like I'd ran a marathon (and yes, I knew exactly what that felt like, unfortunately). Every part of my body was caked in sweat. Even though I was pretty slim and only weighed in at about 140 pounds, my body was not used to this level of stress.
Allowing myself a moment to bask in the shade of the tree, I let my heart's pounding in my chest slow down to more of a normal pace. When I could finally breathe as usual, I wiped the sweat from my forehead and looked up again.
I had finally reached the tree, after probably an hour and a half of running down a rocky slope barefoot (fuck me with a chainsaw; I hadn't even been allowed to take shoes with me!). Wincing as I shifted my center of balance onto a tender spot where I'd scored myself a shallow cut on my foot - hooray - my eyes searched through the strangely colored leaves of the tree.
Although the damn thing was mostly barren, there was one piece of fruit hanging on the lowest branch tantalizingly… if you could call the sensation you get when you turn the corner and just know someone holding a dagger is going to be there "tantalizing." The second I saw it, my worst fears were confirmed.
A shaky breath drew out of my lungs, which had suddenly clamped up even harder than when I'd done my unplanned workout for the day.
I'll give you three guesses as to what it was, and the first two don't count.
"That's a really large blueberry," I gulped dumbly.
That was my first thought when I saw the indigo Devil Fruit.
My second thought was, Do blueberries grow on trees? I thought they only grow on vines. Then I felt rather like an idiot. That was obviously a Devil Fruit. No other fruit I knew had bulbs that big and swirls on them. Devil Fruits didn't care where the fuck they grew. Normal botany rules couldn't apply for them.
"Okay, okay, okay, okay," I breathed hoarsely. Fear crept up my skin, along with a sudden blast of cold understanding. "Let's review the facts. I go to sleep. Wake up on a mountain island. There's a tree right in front of me whose only fruit is a Devil Fruit. So… if classic tropes remain at play… after I eat this fruit, whatever powers it grants, and test it out a little bit, the Straw Hats will come along and save me. Right?"
Right!?
I really didn't like the idea of wasting my days away, starving on a deserted island.
So. The world I was in was now confirmed. One Piece is a go, bucko. Now the only problem happened to be exactly where I was on this zany, cooky, completely insane planet of pirates and marines and lots and lots of water. Judging by the most common tropes of fanfiction… I was probably in one of the Four Blues. Most likely the East Blue, possibly the West Blue, much less likely the North and South Blues. If not one of them, I was probably somewhere in the beginning of the first half of the Grand Line.
My mind screeched to a halt.
Wait.
Those were joining the Straw Hats tropes.
Once more, assuming this life of mine had for some odd reason decided to become a fanfiction, what if… what if this wasn't one of those scenarios? What if this was a joining the Whitebeard or Shanks Pirates scenario?
What if this was THE NEW WORLD?
Shit shit shit. I really hoped it wasn't THAT. If it was that, I was a fucking goner. I wasn't ready for this! I wasn't ready for any of this! I especially wasn't ready for the sea that would send the Grand Line home crying to its mommy!
Swallowing dryly, I gulped and glanced back at the Devil Fruit. That annoyingly big and dark blueberry, hanging far too lightly for what its weight should have been on the branch of the tree. Wherever I was here in One Piece, if I wanted to make something of myself… I would need power to do it. Power that I could achieve quickly, without years and years of work and practice.
I'd need this Devil Fruit.
Hell, even if I wanted to just survive on this island, I'd probably need this Devil Fruit.
Steeling my nerves, I walked under the branch, reached up… and realized even though it was on the lowest branch, it was still much too high up in the air for me to reach. I jumped as high as I could and swiped at it. Nothing. I pursed my lips and thought.
I sucked at climbing trees, and there wasn't exactly much on this tree for me to work with in that regard, not at this height. Was there any way to get it down other than that? I scanned the area, and saw a cluster of stones in the gravelly sand that had probably rolled down from the mountain. That might work - maybe I could knock it off by throwing those at it! A goal set, I quickly jogged over to them, ignoring the aching protest of my already-abused quads and hamstrings and such. I gathered as many of the rocks as I could in a makeshift pouch created by folding up the bottom of my checkered blue-and-white pajama shirt.
Looking up and judging the distance and power I might need to throw the rocks at, I started chucking them at the Fruit. Most of them missed, because I sucked at aiming. One hit it pretty damn hard, though, and the thing swung rapidly back and forth like a pendulum before tearing off the branch and dropping. I hastily and clumsily caught it before it could splat to the ground.
Yuck. Now that it was up close to me… it stank. Words couldn't really describe just how bad it smelled. I felt like throwing up.
If this was what it was going to taste like… my entire body convulsed in a shudder.
No wonder everyone always complained about their taste. The stench alone was enough to give me massive second thoughts. How had I not smelled it before? Maybe as bad as it was, it just wasn't very strong of a smell.
Swallowing, I steeled my nerves and bit into the putrid Fruit.
I froze and swallowed in sheer horror, the slimy Fruit slipping down my tongue and through my throat.
After coming back to my senses, I immediately tossed the rest of the Fruit into the sand and spat what was left in my mouth onto it. "EVIL!" I barked, backing as far away from it as I could until I hit the tree trunk. Oh, God, that was nasty! That was by far the nastiest thing I had ever eaten. As bad as the smell had been, the taste was a thousand times worse, and I could still taste the disgusting juices on my tongue. It was like I had bit into a rotten corpse covered in cow manure. It tasted like I had swallowed Hell.
Now I perfectly understood the myth about devils living in the Fruit and entering the person who eats them. The taste alone explained that phenomenally well.
I coughed and shuddered, wretching and regretting every life choice that had taken me here.
Why the hell did it taste so bad? And the worst part about it was that I couldn't even see any fresh water around me that I could wash out my mouth with! However, even as I stood there, shivering from the wretched taste of what I'd just subjected my poor taste buds to, my brain couldn't help but wonder…
What power did I just give myself? And how quickly would it appear?
As I thought that, I felt a tug, like gravity pulling on my soul, and suddenly I wasn't standing against the tree, but where the Devil Fruit had dropped. Its juices, a vile red almost like blood, still stained the sand, but the Devil Fruit itself wasn't there anymore.
I blinked rapidly.
What the hell?
I turned around, staring at the tree, and saw to my surprise the withering remains of the Fruit where I'd been standing moments ago.
Had I just…
...Switched places with the Devil Fruit?
Um. What?
Teleportation? Or was it something else?
Blinking some more, I frowned and concentrated this time, concentrated on the Devil Fruit sitting there and rotting far quicker than was normal for any other fruit. I imagined that tug again, and suddenly the world shifted. I lost my balance and faceplanted into the tree that was suddenly inches from my nose.
Lovely. Thanks, me.
"Ow," I complained, rubbing my sore nose and turning around. The Devil Fruit once more sat where it had been dropped, as though it had never moved places.
Huh. Okay. So. Teleportation, then, via switching places with something. That was at the very least one aspect of whatever powers I had been gifted.
I wondered what the limits to the teleportation were. Could I switch places with any damn thing? I raised my eyebrow and looked around the beach for the seagulls from earlier. They were still there on the beach in the distance, a few miles away. I concentrated and imagined the tug.
Nothing. Interesting… so, then, maybe… a distance limit? Or could I not swap places with living things? I looked down at the scattered rocks that I'd thrown at the Devil Fruit. With a few thoughts, I'd swapped places with three of them. Then I glanced over at the rocks that I hadn't gathered up, which still lay untouched upon the beach.
Nothing.
Beginning to see what the problem was, I walked over and grabbed one of the untouched stones that I'd tried to switch with and threw it out towards the mountain as far as I could. When it landed, I tried switching places with it. Bingo.
So, then… it only worked with things I'd previously touched.
My eyes widened, and I imagined one of the socks that lay in my room at home. Pleading desperately that this would work, I imagined the tug… and nothing.
I still stood there, alone on the beach, in an unfamiliar world that would chew me up and spit me out if I wasn't careful.
For the first time since I'd arrived here, tears of bitter sadness built up in my eyes as the hope that had welled up within me was cruelly dashed against the side of the mountain that pointed up to the sky, uncaring for my troubles, a rather small distance away. Shit. I didn't know of any other powers or things here that could possibly take me home…
I was stuck.
I was stuck here. In One Piece, the land where sanity goes to get stabbed thirty-seven times in the chest.
I would probably never go home to my old life and my family and friends ever again.
After a few minutes of tears stinging my eyes, I took several shaky breaths and chewed my lower lip. So. A few issues were still left. Number one, and most importantly, I still didn't see any way to get food or water here. Number two, I still didn't know where I was. Number three, I still had no idea how I could get off this damn island.
What to do, what to do…
I didn't know what to do!
So what did I do? I did what I always did when I was lost on what I should do.
I procrastinated.
"Superpowers," I murmured, staring down at my now almost completely rotted Devil Fruit. "I have superpowers involving switching places with things I touch. But is that the extent to my powers?" My gut feeling told me it wasn't, and I wasn't sure why. Maybe the answer lay in the name to my Devil Fruit, whatever the hell that might be.
I wondered what it would be called. The Teleportation-Teleportation Fruit? Maybe shortened to Tel-Tel? Nah, that was kinda weird and it didn't feel right. Switch-Switch, maybe?
...Yeah, that… felt right. I wasn't sure why. It just felt like when you look down at a multiple choice question on a quiz and see an answer you know is right. Feeling some excitement at the idea of having found the name to my Devil Fruit, despite not knowing exactly why I was so sure I had found its name, I wondered what exactly "Switch-Switch" entailed. Could I switch more than just my location?
I took off my pajama shirt, laid it flat on the sand, and placed a hand on it.
"Switch-Switch… Um…" I faltered, unsure exactly of what to say. "...Opposite!" I settled on, lamely.
Tug.
Much to my surprise, suddenly I had another pair of pajama pants right there where my shirt had been. I blinked.
...Huh. Okay then. Frowning at the sensation of the hot Sun beating down on my now bare back, I quickly Switched my new pair of pants back into a shirt and shrugged it on. It felt exactly the same as it had before, except slightly more sandy. Blinking and sure this wouldn't work, I turned and stepped over to kneel down next to the remains of the Devil Fruit.
I touched it and winced at the gooey sensation as my finger squashed the grotesque Fruit. "Switch-Switch Opposite."
Man, I needed to get a better name for that.
Tug. Suddenly, the rotting Devil Fruit was a normal blueberry, albeit much too big and still with a bite taken out of it. I picked it up and brought it to my mouth, but hesitated. Even though the stench was gone, my stomach still turned over at the thought of biting into it again.
I bit into it and was pleasantly surprised to taste a normal blueberry, its sweet juices mixing strangely with the ridiculously bad taste of the Devil Fruit. I scarfed the rest of it down.
Huh, I honestly hadn't expected that to work.
Wait a minute, could it work on salt water? I rushed over to the ocean and cupped my hands in the water, gaining a small amount of it. "Switch-Switch Opposite!" I announced with a tug, feeling lamer every time I said it, and brought it to my lips.
Cold, lovely fresh water.
Um, guys? I think this power might be a bit broken. I still have to touch things for it to work, sure, but… wow, ship crews would love me. With me aboard, they'd hardly ever go thirsty. It's not exactly turning water into wine, but still, damn.
Wait a minute.
I blinked. If this is the kind of thing that it can do to Devil Fruits and sea water, what can it do to people? Unfortunately, I didn't exactly have other subjects to experiment on, but I did have at least myself…
Feeling slightly concerned that I could be doing something incredibly dangerous, I sighed.
"Fuck it. Let's do this."
I held out my arms, figuring that I wouldn't exactly need to touch myself since… um, wow. That came out wrong. Phrasing.
I sighed. "Switch-Switch Opposite."
Ow ow ow ow ow. An incredibly intense pins-and-needles feeling swept over all of me, and I quickly found myself blacking out. When I came to, I realized I was lying in the sand, that the Sun was much lower in the sky, and that my body felt… well, not too different, but still. Different.
I stood up and looked down.
Since when did I have two tan melons sticking out of my chest? My eyes widening, I grabbed my crotch. I froze.
...Um.
Oops.
Um… well… at least Ivankov can feel comfortable knowing he's not the only one who can change people's sexes at will?
"Hey there, missy."
What. That hadn't been me. I turned around and saw a bunch of evil looking men with really knotty beards and a sweaty stench like they hadn't taken a shower in days standing there, leering at me. Their garb was the usual pirate get up, cutlasses and pistols included.
What the hell?
Oh, no. No, no, no.
"Switch-Switch Oppos-" I started to say, but suddenly one of them lurched forward, and pressed a knife to my throat, grinning wickedly.
"Have a Devil Fruit, d'ya?" the fat man cackled. "Perfect! Today's our lucky day, boys! Them slavers will pay handsome money for this lass!" His wicked eyes turned towards me. "Don't you be trying anything now, missy! Or this dagger will pierce right through your neck!"
Oh, come on! I wasn't even a fucking girl!
And wait, when did these guys even get here, anyway!? My eyes noticed a pirate ship on the shore behind them, looking like it had seen waaaay better days. Shit, they must've landed while I was conked out. And they planned on kidnapping me, selling me as a slave?
Holy shit, my luck was literally the worst on the planet.
I refused to go through with this. Oh, hell no.
Faking confidence, I smirked and summoned the best laugh I could. "Oh, really? You thought you had captured me, did you? You haven't even found out what my skills are, and you thought it would go that easy for you!? Well, allow me to tell you about the secret technique passed down through my family for generations…"
The pirate blinked, looking slightly paler. "Secret technique?"
"Passed down through generations?" another gulped.
"That's right," I said, nodding sagely despite the fact that I was sweating bullets. "The unbeatable technique…"
"Unbeatable!?"
"Ahahaha… AHAHAHA…! SWITCH-SWITCH TELEPORT!" Tug. I switched places with one of the rocks, and turned and hauled ass as fast as I could away. "Run away!"
The pirates stared, dumbfounded.
"...Wait, the bitch is getting away! After her!"
"And I'm not a fucking woman already, I'm a man!" I roared back over my shoulder.
"What!?" the pirates all shouted collectively, looking stupefied. "No way!" They didn't seem like they believed me at all, and instead only got angrier, running towards me even faster.
I cried panicked tears. What the hell had my life come to, that I was now doing my best impression of Jack Sparrow?
I pumped my arms and legs as fast as I could, panting and heaving. Shit. I was still sore from running down the mountain earlier, and these big old jugs on my chest really weren't helping matters. I glanced over my shoulders. Yeah, those bastards were gaining on me quick! Not good! I could feel myself slowing down, too. I poured on the speed as much as I could.
I got maybe about a couple hundred feet further before they caught up to me, panting as hard as I was myself.
The fatso pressed his knife against me again, and about twenty pistols trained on me.
"You're not getting away this time, bitch," he spat, and as I tried to twist away from him, his hand came flying up and clocked me around the face.
I fell unconscious quickly like the squishy, normal human (albeit Devil Fruit user) I was.
~o~
TWO DAYS LATER
"The islands in the north…!"
"Dammit, will you cut out with that song? Your singing voice is really bad when we're not all singing in a party or something and the song itself doesn't even make any sense."
"Your hair doesn't make sense, Marimo."
"Eh!? What did you call me, Swirly Brow?"
"Guys, cut it out! Do you two ever stop fighting!?"
"Yes, sea witch…"
"Yes, Nami-san!"
Sitting on the top of the goat figurehead of the Going Merry, a brown-haired boy wearing a straw hat blinked. "Whoa, guys! Look at that beat-up ship out on the water! It's almost in worse shape than the new ship of that guy who just attacked us the other day!"
"Huh?" a long-nosed man wearing a bandanna tilted his head. "That idiot? I don't think it's possible to have a ship in worse shape than his still be in sailing condition."
The orange-haired young lady of the crew peered out where their captain, Luffy, pointed. "...Wow, that is a badly damaged ship. What the heck happened to them?"
Luffy grinned widely. "Do you think they went to the Grand Line?"
"Idiot," Usopp sighed, rolling his eyes. "It's impossible to make it out of that sea once you go in, remember?"
The high-pitched teen captain pouted. "But that… Kree guy and Mihawk made it out!"
Nami facepalmed. "Yeah, and Mihawk's stupidly strong and Don Krieg lost the vast majority of his massive fleet. I've never seen that dumb-looking pirate flag they're flying before. I can't imagine no-names like them made it out of the Grand Line alive."
Luffy hummed. "Maybe they're just idiots?"
"Idiots who don't take care of their ship at all," Sanji muttered, frowning.
Usopp blinked. "Ah. They're headed this way."
"Really?" Zoro asked skeptically. "They do realize Luffy has a thirty-million-beli bounty, right?"
"Ah," Luffy said excitedly. "They're firing their cannons at us."
"Why do you say that like it's a good thing!?" Usopp whimpered, sinking to the deck with tears caking his cheeks.
Zoro and Sanji grinned and cracked their knuckles.
"AND WHY ARE YOU TWO IDIOTS REARING TO GO!?"
"And I thought today was going to just be peaceful sailing," Nami wept mournfully.
The slave-capturing pirates didn't know what they were getting themselves into, nor did they have even the slightest chance against the Straw Hat Pirates.