We got a shorter chapter this time and I wanted to test out a different way of writing it, hoop you guys enjoy.

gamelover41592: thanks and I thought it would be better for Luffy to be post time-skip.

SilentXD7: :)

merendinoemiliano: I know the RWBY story you're talking about but we also have to think about motivation. In RWBY they have the ever increasing threat of Grimm and Huntsmen/Huntresses in training that need to get stronger. In Star Vs they have monsters yes, but they are also being kept away from society by the threat of magic. Little note for the story: Magic and Haki are going to be addressed later and how they react to each other as well.

thewittywhy: I can really see Luffy not letting Marco live that down, just makes me more excited to write it!

Guest: I'm happy you liked it.

The Element of Insanity: Would it be possible? You basically nailed down my whole reasoning for doing it. I mentioned that in my notes I had this story as a (Luffy x Star) pairing but haven't officially said it outside of a Q/A. I'm also not surprised that people got that message from what I wrote, I wrote it in a way that can lead to a relationship for Luffy and Star in the future, so don't worry. It's happening. P.S. I also can't wait to write the Mewberty episode! It makes me want to rush straight to it but I already decided to take things slow.

The Gum-Gum Fruit

It was the dead of night and the temperature had dropped considerably, till the night air was a cool chill. The town of Echo Creek was still - people having retired back to their homes hours ago. Sleep was bliss; all those under the watchful eye of the moon knew this simple fact, dreaming peacefully of times that have been and, that will be. A single unfortunate soul found it impossible to claim a nights rest.

Star Butterfly laid restless in her queen size bed, staring at the moon with a frown on her face. She turned onto her side, feeling uncomfortable in the position she was previously in. On her side wasn't what she was looking for either as she tossed around some more, kicking the sheet that covered her to the floor.

It was just impossible!

She couldn't sleep, not while her mind was racing to figure out just… how?! Physically impossible - she has magic so things were not as impossible as it seemed. Star just couldn't place how something like... that could happen, even with magic. Everything she knew about the universe was blown away by just one little encounter.

As she tried closing her eyes again, ridding the thoughts from her mind, she allowed sleep to take full control of her body. Minutes went by, what felt like hours to the princess - the questions that had been swirling in her mind returning full force, just as sleep was about to claim her. Her nights for the past few weeks were spent like this; in the beginning it was bad, sometimes not getting a wink of shut-eye, but over time it had left her until she was able to get the proper amount of rest for someone her age.

It wasn't until recently that it came back, much worse than any previous night. The thoughts would fill her mind at night, a haunting with no possible escape for her… unless she got answers. She had held off from asking, afraid that she might cause some level of discomfort.

Not anymore.

She wanted answers - the questions she had.

Star did not care what anyone thought, be it if she was looked at as rude. She will get what she was looking for, or her name isn't Star Butterfly! With this sudden burst of confidence she swung her legs over the edge of her bed, the remaining bit of her bed sheet falling to the ground. With a huff, Star made her way out of her room and down the hallway to where her destination was.

Coming up to the door, she opened it slowly as to avoid waking the room's occupants. She waltzed right into the now open room - two occupants in a state that she herself was trying so hard to acquire but had failed. On her left Marco slept soundly in his twin size bed, mumbling a few incomprehensible words in his sleep. He had a smile on his face, completely unaware of the girl that was glowering down at him.

"Bet your enjoying yourself, sleeping without a care in the world, not a single thought in that silly little head of yours." She said while Marco continued to sleep in peace. His mouth opened to let out a snore, but was covered by a slim finger. "Shh… it's not your time yet."

A much louder snore echoed behind her, Star's head snapping back to look at the source of the unpleasant sound. Over on the opposite side of the room, swaying from side to side in a wall mounted hammock, was Luffy. His mouth was wide open, allowing another snore to escape from his throat. Star leered over at the boy; how could he sleep so peacefully after what he had did to her?

She stood there - by his side - watching him sleep for minutes on end. Star lost track of time as she watched her best friend sleep. The questions that plagued her mind seemed to bellow from within the deepest parts of her, making her ears ring. Finding it harder to bear, Star grabbed the edge of the hammock and pulled it up with all her strength.

Luffy's sleeping form rolled out of the now vertical hammock, his limp body tumbling to the wooden floor with a dull thump. Another snore emerged from the boy's throat even while his face was planted on the ground. Thinking that she needed to do more; Star grabbed Luffy by his white t shirt and, lifting him up to just below eye level, began shaking him back and forth, his head being thrown back repeatedly.

"Luffy!" Star yelled not concerned with waking up the rest of the house, she could already hear the yipping of the puppies from downstairs as they began to stir from their sleep. Luffy jolted awake at the cry of his name, a disturbed and slightly worried look on his face as his brain processed the sound of Star's voice.

"Star?" He looked up to see her bloodshot eyes looking down into his, almost glowing red in the dark room. The girl had dark bags underneath her eyes from lack of rest, something that did not slip by Luffy. "What are you doing? Is it time for breakfast? Are we going on a midnight raid of the fridge?!"

"How?!" His cheeks were pinched by the girls hands before they were stretched away from his head. Luffy had no clue what she was asking about so decided that he couldn't exactly help her.

"How what?" He inquired. Star let go of his cheeks, allowing them to snap back into position just before Star's hands squished them together giving him a fish face. The girl pulled his head up to hers so that Luffy could look directly into her sky blue eyes. He had to blink when he was met by the deranged gaze of the mentally exhausted girl. "What's wrong, Star?"

"Howrubberfruitbodyhowpossiblestretchgum?!" She spoke a jumble of words, not a single thing getting through to Luffy who had chosen to stay quite. Star was mentally screaming at herself; she had tried to ask too many questions at once and didn't get her main point across. If anything though, she was committed. "I want to know!"

"Lu-Luffy, what are you doing? It's the dead of night." Marco asked as he sat up in his bed, whipping his eyes of any traces of the sandman. He blinked as he was met by the shadowed form of Star, Luffy's head held within her hands, and her bloodshot eyes the only thing he could see. Screaming was an option, the scene before him was down right creepy, but held off when he decided to call out to the girl. "S-Star, w-why are you up so late?"

"Oh, Marco. Poor, naive Marco. You still have much to learn." Star said sweetly; her tone and appearance not matching up, causing Marco to flinch every time she said his name.

"Wh-What?"

"I'm not sure what's happening either." Luffy managed to say through his squished cheeks. Star, using her unnatural mewman strength, swung Luffy by his head and threw him directly at Marco. Luffy managed to spin himself in the air so that he landed in a sitting position on his brothers bed instead of him crashing into Marco.

The princess marched up before the two boys who watched her curiously; neither one of them knew the reason for Star barging into their room and waking them up, she wasn't making any sense either, so the whole event was an enigma. Luffy was more curious as to what she wanted with him - he wouldn't put it past Star to just shove him out of his hammock to wake him up, but to do that and start babbling for no apparent reason? No, there had to be a reason. Star was random, but not that random.

"Why'd you wake me up? I was having a great dream, there was a world made of meat and meat grew on the trees and they were made of meat! I was there eating all of it; sitting by the River of Seasonings!" Luffy described his dream; it wasn't that odd of a dream for the boy, Marco would often hear Luffy mumble in his sleep about meat, even once eating half his pillow.

"You did this to me, Straw Hat!" Star said as she accusingly pointed her finger at Luffy. Marco sent a quizzical look towards his brother before looking at Star's state of distress. His sleep deprived brain started working in overdrive as he tried to come up with a viable explanation for the girl's state.

"What did you do to her." He commanded, Marco already thinking the worst of this situation.

"Nothing… I think." Luffy said as he also tried to figure out what he did to his friend. He couldn't think of anything that he had done since they met that could possibly put her in this state.

"Nothing? Nothing?!" Star grabbed Luffy's nose and proceeded to stretch it to an arm's length. Luffy's eyes squinted as he watched his nose get pulled towards the girl. "How is this nothing!" Letting go of his nose it snapped back with enough force to send his head rolling back. "How is it even possible for a fruit to turn someone into rubber?!"

"Wha… oh! Is that what this is about, why didn't you just say so!" Luffy laughed as he thought about how silly Star was acting.

"How?!" She pleaded, a look of desperation in her eyes. Star needed to know, she had been waiting for a long time and she was going to find out now.

"How? It's because I ate the Gum-Gum Fruit, I already told you this." Marco groaned as he plopped back down on his bed, covering his eyes with a hand. Luffy and Star looked at the boy who was showing signs of falling back asleep.

"Can we have this conversation tomorrow, it's really late. Let's just go back to sleep and talk about it at school tomorrow." Marco suggested, a quick glance to his clock showed him that it was only 1 AM in the morning. Star grabbed the clock and threw it across the room, smashing it against the wall.

"I. Can't. Sleep." Star peered down at the boy who was trying to ignore her.

"Why not?" She directed her fierce stare over to Luffy who looked at her curiously. Star faltered under Luffy's adept blank stare, finding her bold behavior from before suddenly gone, leaving her withdrawn. How could she even begin to tell him that he was what had been keeping her up all night, more specifically his body?

"I… well… Luffy you…" A hand was placed on her shoulder, keeping her from uttering anything else. Luffy could feel how troubled Star was at the moment; he understood her shock when they first met and she discovered he was made out of rubber, but that was weeks ago. He never thought that his ability would still make resonance with Star after such a long time.

"Try to get some sleep and I'll tell you all about it at lunch, okay." Star looked into the teen's eyes, searching for anything that would prove to her that he was going to stick by his words. She knew that Luffy was a trusting person, Star had actually never met anybody as honest and sincere before Luffy; she has been to many different dimensions and had met with many different characters, but none had the integrity that Luffy had.

"Okay." Star whispered before walking out of the room, hoping that she could get even a minute of sleep before the questions plagued her mind again. Thankfully, the reassurance that answers would be given to her at lunch the next day was more than enough to put a spring in her step as she made her way back to her room.

Luffy too, made his way back over to his hammock and straightened it before climbing in and relaxing back. Marco had fallen asleep moments after Star had thrown his clock at the wall, and Luffy was excited to get back into his dream as well. Within seconds of laying in the hammock Luffy was back to snoring, the past events almost seeming like a dream; only a clock laying on the floor being an indication of what had transpired.

0-0-0

The next day came rather slowly for Star; managing to get enough sleep to pass the time till the morning. It didn't end there, having been up since the earliest hours of the day Star was antsy as she waited for Luffy and Marco to wake up. For the first time since she had came to Earth, Star had actually made it to school early, having pushed the brothers out of the house and towards the institution.

Luffy wasn't too happy about having to go into school earlier than he needed too. Neither was he happy about being dragged almost half a mile to the school, but he didn't complain. Star was in a get-things-done type of mood, her main goal being: get to lunch ASAP. The straw hatted boy was all for getting to lunch as well, mind you that his reasons were much different compared to Stars.

Throughout half the day Star had been the most productive she had ever been in any class. She managed to finish all her work before the dismissal of class, including all homework. The only person that managed to do better than her was Marco, who had to stop every now and again to help Star when she got stuck on something. When the bell rang and the students were dismissed for lunch, Luffy and Star were the first out the door both eager to get what they wanted.

Now; sitting at a table in the cafeteria, Luffy was cheerfully chowing down on his lunch while he waited for his friends to join him. Star was the first to arrive, sitting down directly across from the boy so she would be the focus of his attention… after he was done eating that is. Marco, Alfonzo and Ferguson arrived soon after; Marco took a seat next to Star while Alfonzo and Ferguson sat to Luffy's left and right respectively. It didn't take long for Luffy to finish his lunch, even stealing some from the people around him without them knowing. Star capitalized on the opportunity given to her and slammed her hands down on the table, leaning over to get in Luffy's face.

"So how did a fruit turn you into rubber?!" Star asked, a long day of waiting leading up to this moment.

"I don't know." Luffy told the girl honestly. She deflated at the answer she had been given, all that thinking and theorizing she put into figuring out just how the boy turned into rubber, gone.

"What? How don't you know?"

"What are you guys talking about?" Ferguson cut in, curious about why Star was questioning Luffy about his powers.

"Star woke us both up at one in the morning last night asking about how he is made of rubber. I don't think she had stopped thinking about it since." Marco filled the two newcomers in; Ferguson and Alfonzo both turned their heads to Luffy who was looking around the table, not exactly sure what to say.

"Now that I think about it, all he ever said was that he ate the Gum-Gum Fruit." Ferguson looked at Luffy suspiciously.

"Yeah, he never really went beyond that." Alfonzo added.

"I just… ate a weird fruit and became a rubber human." Luffy answered Star's question, his eyes darting from side to side as if he wasn't sure how to answer her question anymore.

"You just ate a fruit one day, and then turned into rubber?" The girl wasn't at all convinced by Luffy's explanation, and if anything, was a bit disappointed. "Was it a, oh I don't know, magic fruit? That would explain a lot actually."

"It wasn't a 'magic' fruit, that's just stupid." Luffy said, laughing at the ridiculous idea of a magic fruit. He stopped though when he thought about how cool it would be to have a magical fruit instead of a the Gum-Gum Fruit.

"Then what is it?" She pushed a bit forcefully. Marco looked between Star and his brother, he wanted to make sure that Luffy was ready to give away information regarding his powers.

"Luffy, think about how you wa-"

"It's a Devil Fruit."

"And he just went ahead and said it."

"A Devil Fruit?" Star tested the name and noticed how it left a nasty taste in her mouth; she wasn't thrilled with this revelation either, Star just didn't have a good history with the term devil.

"Yeah, I wound up eating the cursed fruit of the Gum-Gum Tree." Star was even less thrilled when Luffy mentioned that the fruit was cursed, and if she knew anything about the supernatural, a curse would imply that Luffy'd be afflicted with something. Was being made of rubber the curse?

"And you knew about this and didn't tell me!? I can help you ya know!" Star yelled at him, annoyed that her best friend would hide something like this from her.

"Help me with what?"

"With the curse! I can find a spell that can get rid of your curse, Luffy!" The boy tilted his head to the side in curiosity. "You don't have to be made of rubber anymore!"

"Is that what you think the curse is? Shishishi!" Luffy chuckled at the girl's expense; Star just looked at him weirdly, trying to figure out what the actual curse is. "Why would I not want to be made out of rubber? It's awesome!"

"Th-Then what is the curse?"

"Well… when someone eats a Devil Fruit they get a mystery power, and in exchange they can no longer swim." Luffy explained to the girl who looked at him blankly.

"Really? The curse is that you just can't swim." She repeated.

"Yep! The ocean hates me!" Star shook her head at such a ridiculous trade off - have a fruit that can grant you power but in exchange you can't swim.

"Wait," Ferguson cut in, getting the attention of the table. "How is any of that true? We've gone to the pool before and I remember you swimming."

"I needed floats though."

"To just make this easier to understand," Marco knew that there can be some confusion when it came to his brother's limitations and he wanted to make sure that everyone at the table knew exactly what Luffy meant. "Luffy can't move when fully submerged."

"What do you mean?" Star asked.

"When Luffy gets submerged in water he gets weaker, so he can't move all that well." Marco told them, Star thought about this weakness for a moment before shaking her head, deciding that she was worrying over such a silly curse.

"And when I'm fully submerged I can't move at all and sink like a hammer." Star blanched at Luffy's addition to how the curse affected him.

"You'll sink if you fall into water!" She yelled, standing up from her seat as she looked down at Luffy; the cafeteria became silent as all the students looked over towards their table. Star coughed as she sat back down in her seat. Marco tried to hide himself from that unwanted attention while Luffy only nodded his head to answer the girl's question. "Are you not worried about it, falling into water I mean?"

"Nope." Luffy cheerfully said before looking at Alfonzo's lunch. "Al, you going to finish that?"

"You ca-" Luffy grabbed all the food off his tray, shoving it into his mouth and swallowing it whole. "I was gonna say you can have it."

The bell rang signalling the end of the lunch break, Luffy and his friends got up from their table and left the room, after they returned their now clean trays. The walk to their next class was silent, for the most part, Luffy was joyfully humming a tune to himself. Star was looking at the boy's back in deep thought, something that did not go by Marco.

"You happy with the answers you got?" He asked, breaking Star out of her staring contest with Luffy's back. It took her a few more seconds to think of her answer.

"No."

0-0-0

The end of the school day came rather quickly and for the three friends, none were as happy as the straw hatted boy. They made their way home, each of them enjoying the short walk they took every day. Star was back to her usual self, it was like none of the past events ever took place; she just returned to joking around with her two best friends and there was no place she'd rather be than with the Diaz brothers.

"So you guys already finished your homework?" Luffy asked as he placed his hands behind his head.

"That's right, see what you can accomplish when your not sleeping in class." Marco said smugly, a victorious smirk on his face.

"Yeah but, sleep is sleep. There's nothing like it." Marco shook his head at Luffy's response.

"I hope you still think that while working on homework alone, Star and I will be watching TV." Luffy sulked at that, he wanted to hang out and watch cartoons with them too, but he had to finish his homework.

"Can you help me with it then?"

"Not this time, you'll have to finish it on your own."

"Then," Luffy turned his attention to Star, who had been silent for the past few minutes. "Star you finished, can I see your work." Star didn't answer him as she kept walking towards their home. Luffy looked to Marco for help but only got a similarly confused look in return.

"Hey, Star." Marco called out to the girl, who was walking up to their house's door. "Is everything alright, I know today wasn't really your day but I thought everything was fixed."

Star again didn't answer, choosing to stare at the door before her. The brothers waited for the girl to answer thinking that she was just contemplating on what to say. After a while, Star turned around and looked directly at Luffy, her eyes full of concern.

"Is it really okay, for you to be cursed?" She asked, the tone in her voice carrying a hidden message to Luffy.

"Of course it is, if I hadn't eaten the Gum-Gum Fruit I wouldn't be able to do this," Luffy stretched his cheeks to show Star what he wouldn't be able to do.

"Aren't you afraid of water? If you fall into a lake or something, you'll di… drown." Star found it difficult for her to say, she was scared for her friend. Luffy was reckless, there was no telling how and when Luffy was going to get near a body of water deep enough for him to drown in, but Star knew that Luffy would find a way to fall into it.

"Why would I be afraid when it's nothing new?" Star got annoyed by Luffy's laid back dismissal of what could be his downfall.

"This is serious, Luffy! I want to make sure you don't get hu-"

"If your worried about me drowning, don't be." Luffy interrupted her as he walked up to the door as well. He moved by her and opened the door, the moment he did the laser puppies came charging towards their owners. Luffy stopped in the doorway, looking back at Star with a warm smile. "If I drown then I trust you guys to pull me back up!"

Star looked at Luffy with wide eyes before she mimicked his smile. The three entered the house with Marco and Star going towards the family room and Luffy to his room. The two sat on the couch, turning on the TV, and relaxed for the rest of the day. Marco looked over to Star and noticed the smile that never left her face.

"Satisfied with your answer now?"

"Yep!"

Friends pick each other up when they fall.

I know it was a shorter chapter, about 2,000 words or so but, I didn't want to drag the topic on. I basically covered everything I wanted to in this chapter anyways, so get ready for more original content and major changes to the original story!

Thanks for reading!