Author's Note: Yatta! I love writing this 'cause it give me an excuse to rewatch One Piece. :-D BUT!! I'M NOT POSTING ANYTHING MORE UNTIL YOU ALL TELL ME IF THIS IS A GOOD IDEA, OR IF I SHOULD KEEP WRITING THIS STORY. SHOULD I KEEP GOING, OR START A NEW STORY WITH MY OWN STORYLINE? REVIEW AND TELL ME!
Disclaimer: I no own, you no sue
Chapter Two: Salvaging Monkeys?
Nami rained on the party. "It's too early to celebrate you know. There're a lot of fake maps in this world."
The celebrating foursome froze, and then shadows fell on their faces. They looked at Nami in desolation.
Nami sweatdropped. "Ah… sorry, sorry. That doesn't mean Sky Island DOESN'T exist," she hurriedly said. "But…" Nami punched the mast in frustration. "Listen Luffy, we can't get up there! I have no idea how to get up there!"
"You're the navigator, figure something out!" Luffy shot back.
Nami punched the mast some more while she continued shouting. "Oi, Nami, go easy on the ship," Usopp said.
"There are things that I can and can't do!" Nami screamed.
"Nami-chan is so cute when she's mad," Sanji sighed, little hearts coming out of his cigarette instead of smoke.
Hoshi leaned against the banister next to Zoro while Nami and Luffy continued to yell at one another. "So what do you think?" she asked him.
"Hmm? About what?"
"Sky Island! It's going to be a fun trip, don't you think?"
"Definitely's going to be interesting."
"I bet there's going to be a whole ton of adventures just waiting up there for us." Hoshi kicked the banister with her heels in excitement and laughed. "I can't wait!"
"Yeah, I guess… It'll be fun. Stuff like this always turns out to be an adventure, especially when Luffy's involved," Zoro replied.
"Why Luffy? What's wrong with him?" Hoshi asked, genuinely confused.
"EVERYTHING," Zoro emphasized. "From his crazy dream to his simple-minded brain… half the time I don't know why we follow this guy."
"What? Why don't you know?"
"Because the other half of the time, I don't bother to define why I do. It's something you get used to, being on this ship." Hoshi mulled it over. It really was true, when you put it that way.
"Well, I can't wait to go to Sky Island! It's going to be GREAT!" she said with a huge smile lighting up her face. She smiled at Zoro, who felt his face getting hot. He was scrambling around for something to say, but was saved from having to answer by Luffy flying into him, sporting a Nami-fist-shaped dent in his face. Both of them fell overboard. Hoshi's eyes widened, and then she pulled out her wings and flew down. Plucking them both out of the water, she threw them back up on deck, with some difficulty because she was laughing so hard.
"This is getting us nowhere!" Nami raged once everyone was back on deck. "What we need now is information! If that giant ship was really in the sky, then there's a way for our ship to get up there too," she informed the crew.
"But all the stuff in the ship sank with it," Hoshi pointed out. "Any useful information is sitting on the bottom of the ocean."
Nami punched one fist into the air. "If the ship's sunk, we'll salvage it!"
"YOSHA!" Usopp and Luffy yelled. Usopp held a fishing pole and Luffy had a net.
"YOU CAN'T USE THOSE!" Zoro yelled. "Morons," he muttered to himself. Hoshi laughed.
"Salvage?" asked Chopper, looking towards Robin. "What's that?"
Robin answered, "It's a method of bringing up sunken ships. But we can't salvage THAT ship. It's too big."
Chopper looked confused. "Then what do we do?"
Nami chuckled with an evil little grin on her face.
Later, Hoshi, Zoro, Sanji, and Luffy were all inside barrels with windows and gloves. Luffy's was a special one that had pants to protect him from the seawater, and was chuckling.
"Hey, hey, hey, hey, you make us do some pretty crazy things," he told Nami.
"NAMI-SWAN! I am absolutely going to find you a clue on Sky Island!" said the third barrel from the right. Hoshi could guess which barrel Sanji was in.
"I'm counting on all of you!" Nami told them.
"Don't worry about a thing," Usopp said. "My design is flawless."
"Yosh! Let's go!" said Hoshi.
Right before they jumped, a huge snake came out of the ocean and ate one of the birds flying twenty meters above the ship. There was a moment of frozen silence.
"Okay then, see you all," Nami said. Her last words were "We'll be praying for you."
They jumped. The air tubes connecting them to the surface doubled as speakers too, so it wasn't long before Chopper sent down the first message as he held the brake. "This is Chopper. Are you guys alright? Over."
The speaker on the far right answered first. "This is Luffy. There're sure a lot of monsters down here. Over."
"This place is a Sea Snake nest!" Zoro said.
"This is Sanji. Zoro's right, this really is- whoa! They're looking at us!"
"This is Hoshi. It's so cool down here! There must be a million Sea Snakes!"
"Okay." Nami nodded gravely.
Usopp's eyes were so wide, the veins were poking out. "H-how is that alright?" he asked.
"They can handle it. They'll all be just fine, don't worry. Chopper, hold the brake tight, okay?"
"Roger."
Usopp wiped his sweaty forehead. "Man, I am so glad I didn't go."
Robin smiled. She had gotten a bad shock when Hoshi had been washed overboard. Funny how she had been more worried when Hoshi was washed overboard than when her unspoken charge was going straight towards a nest of giant Sea Snakes…
Hoshi looked at the Sea Snakes swimming in a tight knot below her. She smiled to herself as she watched them swim. Gliding beneath her, scales shimmering in the sunlight reflected through the water's surface, they were truly magnificent creatures. They actually didn't give the group too much trouble… on the other hand, the Sea Snakes just watched them as the four kept going downwards. Hoshi waved at them. Thanks! she told them silently.
When they reached the ship, they split up to explore more. Hoshi looked around the room she had chosen. There wasn't much here in terms of information… a couple skeletons and broken vases. She found a small box, but when she wrestled with the old and rusted iron lock and opened it, there was nothing inside but a feather. Disappointed, she went and looked for the others.
She came upon Zoro looking thoughtfully at some rusty swords on the wall. But when he tried to draw them, they stuck. When he actually got the sword out, it fell apart. He looked so funny in a barrel with a broken sword in one hand (not to mention an octopus that had taken up residence on the top of his barrel) that Hoshi started laughing. Zoro looked around and when he saw who it was, he felt his face getting hot again.
By unspoken agreement, they went and found Luffy and Sanji just as the pair found another box. Hoshi noticed that it was extremely similar to the one she had found. Zoro wrenched a harpoon out of the wall and sort of poked at the lock. The lock came apart easily, and inside the box… was yet another feather. Hoshi narrowed her eyes. One box just for a random feather… she could accept that someone person on the ship was exceptionally eccentric. Two boxes, both with single feathers in them, was definitely worth thinking about.
Suddenly, a hook came in through the wall… a GIANT hook. The whole ship shook at the impact, and from the sound of things, it wasn't the only hook that was being inserted into the ship.
"What the hell!" Luffy exclaimed.
Sanji and Zoro instinctively took defensive stances and growled.
Hoshi ground her teeth. If an enemy came now, she was unable to summon any weapons in her current situation, and her movements were hampered by the barrel that held her air… basically, this was the worst time for an enemy to come.
The hook started vibrating, and Hoshi braced herself… but all that came out was a huge bubble of air. A HUGE bubble. Hoshi could conclude that the bubble was big enough to have filled the whole ship, because with yet more rumbling, the ship started floating back towards the surface.
As the ship continued to make its way up, beings in strange suits suddenly flooded the ship. Luffy, Sanji, Hoshi, and Zoro instinctively started to beat them all up. It didn't really take that long, as there weren't too many of them.
"Look! We can take of the barrels!" Luffy said, slipping off his own barrel and crouching on top of it. The rest of them followed suit, though they were content to stand on the floor.
"Whoever's trying to lift this thing sure pumped in lots of air… but who's doing it?" Zoro asked.
"Oi Zoro, the octopus is still on you," Hoshi commented. Surprised, Zoro glanced at his shoulder… and found she was right. The pink octopus seemed to like him.
"Nothing better have happened to Nami-san and Robin-chan… I tried calling them, but they wouldn't answer!" Sanji curled his body into a ball. "What if something happened to them!?"
Hoshi looked at Sanji strangely. Sanji's body was actually in a sphere shape, and started to roll around the floor. He looked like a ball with a yellow circle. Zoro had a very bad feeling about what was going to happen next. Hoshi didn't know an evil smile was creeping onto her face as she kept thinking… ball… ball… ball…
She picked up the Sanji-ball and started twirling him on her index finger, basketball style. Zoro and Luffy laughed themselves silly, and laughed even harder when Sanji broke his position, fell off Hoshi's finger, and fell on the floor.
"Dammit Hoshi, what was that for?" Sanji raged.
"Sorry Sanji-kun," Hoshi apologized, struggling to keep a straight face. "Instinct!"
"What the hell is instinct like that goi-"
"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!"
One of the walls broke, and a giant, talking monkey came barging in.
"Who's trying to muscle in on my turf!?" the monkey roared.
"Ah, it's a monkey," Luffy commented.
Hoshi thought this obvious, but then the monkey blushed. "Do… do I really look that monkeyed up?" he asked.
"Yeah… you look just like a monkey," Luffy repeated.
Hoshi walked up to the monkey and examined his face closely. "Yes, you do look exactly like a monkey," she said seriously, before her composure broke and she laughed along with the both of them.
"What sort of a conversation is this?" Zoro grumbled.
"What d'ya mean?" Luffy asked. Hoshi sweatdropped.
"Oh by the way, who are you?" Sanji asked the monkey. Hoshi looked the monkey over a second time. Obnoxious overalls, obnoxious sunglasses, obnoxious teeth, obnoxious headphones, obnoxious attitude… Hoshi mentally classified the monkey-person under 'obnoxious'.
"How careless of me!" the monkey cried. "But do you seriously think so? Do I look that monkeyed up? You have an eye for quality!"
"No, seriously, you look exactly like a monkey!" Luffy said, and the both of them inexplicably started laughing like maniacs.
"Hey, we asked you who you were!" Zoro cut in.
"It's polite to give your own names first though!" the monkey laughed.
"I'm Monkey D Luffy, the man who's going to become Pirate King!"
"First-class cook, Sanji."
"Roranora Zoro."
"Experi- I mean, Hoshi."
"Nice to meet you all! So where do you come from?" the monkey asked.
"We sailed from East Blue!" Luffy answered him.
"Oh I see, you all come from East Blue!"
"That's right! But really man, you look exactly like a monkey!" Luffy laughed.
"He's right! You look EXAAACTLY like a monkey!" Hoshi chuckled.
"Damn, this again," Zoro muttered.
"Aww, you guys are just saying that!"
"Seriously dude! You do!" Hoshi's bell-like laugher filled the cabin. "You really do!"
Zoro tuned out the conversation, and thought about Hoshi. When World Government ships had once attacked them to get Hoshi, they had found out that Hoshi was part phoenix. Maybe that's why her laughing sounds the way it does, Zoro mulled. He made a mental note to find out more about phoenixes, when the ship reached the surface.
Monkeys, ships falling from the sky, Sea Snakes… Hoshi's first adventure with her new nakama is turning out to be quite something indeed! Now that the salvaged ship is reaching the surface, what will the result be? Will the crew really actually get to the sky? It seems unlikely with this team...
Not posting the next chapter till I get some reviews that tell me if you think that this is a good idea or not! Should I ditch this story and write up a new adventure for Luffy and the crew? I'M NOT POSTING ANYTHING UNTIL I GET MORE OPINIONS!