Chapter 9
A Quick Dip, Anyone?

Running up only to be surprised to an enemy-clear deck was an understatement. I was speechless and shocked. Did they already beat up the monsters in the time it took for me to get here or were my senses starting to fail me? The latter of the two thoughts scared me more because I always relied on my senses as they were never wrong.

I felt something like a little blip in my mind. It directed me to the side of the ship. Looking over and into the water I saw the movements of the Rune Monsters waiting below. Ok so my senses weren't getting rusty, that's a relief. But why weren't they on the ship attacking?

"What happened?" I heard Chopper shout as he rushed over to Luffy.

So an attack was launched?

"I don't know. They came on the ship out of nowhere. One attacked me and got scared so they all retreated," Luffy said proudly though he did look a little pale. "Splashing me with sea water won't defeat me!"

Sea water? If they splashed him, he wouldn't look so faint unless…

"Luffy, are you a devil fruit eater?" I asked. He turned and gave me a bright smile. "Of course! I'm a rubber human because I ate the gum-gum devil fruit." He started to tell Chopper how he 'scared' off the Rune Monsters. There's more to it than just that.

I stared over the railing again and into the water. The Rune Monsters were still there but they seemed rather calm about it. Almost like they were formulating a plan.

"It's not over is it?" Zoro asked coming up to my side. "I doubt those things would just give up."

"They didn't give up," I reaffirmed his assumption. "There's something more to this. They're too calm right now."

Just then from the other side of the ship, water was sent flying and landed directly on both Luffy and Chopper who was attending to him.

"They think water is our weakness," I said to Zoro. "How many of you are devil fruit eaters?"

"Only four," he answered. "What? Are they just going to keep throwing water at us?"

"If that were the case, the deck would be flooded. There's something more."

'Aura let's take flight.'

'If you say so Princess.'

Aura took over as my body took form of an angel. She flapped her wings and soared high above the mast. She began looking in all directions for any unusual movements.

'You were right, there is something more. The flying type are conversing with the water type.'

This is bad.

'Quick, Aura go down and inform everyone about the situation. We need to ready them for battle.'

'Already ahead of you.'

Aura descended in the middle of the deck where everyone were trying to take care of the wet Luffy and Chopper. She cleared her throat to get their attention.

"I'm giving the devil fruit eaters three options. Find a way to defend yourself, find someone who can defend for you, or go inside and hide." I think she handled that quite well at least they may start to take the Rune Monsters a bit more seriously.

"Why would they need to hide?" Usopp asked.

"Because the creatures discovered that there are devil fruit eaters on board. They will try to use the flying types to snatch them up and drop them into the sea," Aura replied. "They're smart creatures figuring out that some of you have a weakness to water, but not smart enough to realize that the weakness doesn't apply to everyone."

"It really is a problem!" Usopp started freaking out. He was followed by Nami who kept saying that she didn't want to be dropped into the sea.

"Those that are useful, you need to kill enough of them in order to drive them away. They lose confidence as their numbers get smaller," Aura stated. "I'll stay above to get the flying types and I'll try my best to keep them away from the ship's airspace."

Aura was about to fly up again when she realized no one was moving. Having being used to commanding the Resistance who follow instructions, this was a little new to her. "Why aren't you moving?"

"Our captain gives us the final order," Brook answered. "We decided to follow him therefore we must obey him."

"We'll do what the feather-winged magician said," Luffy announced. "Alright, let's go!"

I felt the anger bubbling up within Aura. None of my transformations take well to names other than Aura and Luna. I need to be very careful with this otherwise Aura will flat out refuse to help them.

'Listen Aura, Luffy isn't someone you should waste your breath over.'

'He called me a feather-winged magician.'

'At least you're not a mysterious princess magician named Aura-pri-luna.'

'That sounds fair enough. It's time to fight back mysterious princess magician.'

'Haha, you're hilarious.'

Aura smirked at my last comment before flying up again. This time the flying types were heading over to the Sunny and the water type were taking their position. She readied her Light Bow and took aim at the winged creatures.

"Heavenly Shower!" Aura called out as she released the arrow. The said arrow then split into multiple beams of arrows covered in white light hitting all of the flying type that were at the front of the flock. As the arrows hit, magical substances spurted from the wounds. While cringing in pain, the flying Rune Monsters fell.

'You know, I never figured out how anything is Heavenly about that attack. It's quite gruesome if you ask me.' I said the Aura. I'm not lying, the sight isn't pretty.

'Be quiet. Nobody asked you,' Aura half growled back in response.

Ok, I'll back off. It's her attack anyways, who am I to say anything about it? Oh right, I'm the host body!

Aura used the Heavenly Shower attack a few more times until the flying Rune Monsters gave up trying to pursue the Ship. But it was a bit too easy chasing them off and I knew Aura felt the same way. She flew over to the mast and stood on the very tip of it, Light Bow still in hand.

'Something's not right. It shouldn't be that easy.'

'I know. For now we'll just have to stay up here since we're the only ones capable of launching an aerial attack.'


Back on the deck of the Sunny, the Straw Hats were putting up quite the fight against the water type Rune Monsters. The devil fruit eaters had much difficulty attacking because part of the bodies of the Rune Monsters are made up of sea water.

Zoro and Sanji were having a competition on who can defeat the most Rune Monster while everyone else were just trying their best to hold their ground. From Aura's view, all she saw was the cook and swordsman sweeping the deck clean of monsters, which was a good thing in one stand point.

Of all the devil fruit eaters, Brook had a great advantage since he too was a swordsman. He didn't have much contact with the creatures and was able to fend them off. Luffy, Chopper, and Robin on the other hand had a lot of difficulty since their attacks are more physical. Nami and Usopp made up for that drawback with their own combination moves. Franky on the other hand was trying to steer the ship away from the fray.

Aura swooped down just in time to fend off the Rune Monster that tried to sneak up behind Luffy.

"Be sure to watch your back Straw Hat," she said in a low tone. "I can't watch you all when I'm trying to figure out their next line of attack."

"There's more!" he shouted happily. "Let them come, I will beat them up!"

'This idiot– '

'Aura relax. You need to get used to it since we will be with them for a while.'

"What's that?" Luffy asked to no one in particular. Aura followed his line of view which led straight up into the sky. A weird looking cyclone of the flying type Rune Monsters were heading straight down in the centre of the ship

"Their next line of attack…" Aura sprang into action. "They're trying to sink the ship."

Aura put her Light Bow away and pulled out her dual blades. "Blessing of the Sanctuary." The two blades lit up in a white light in response to the magic boost. Spreading her wings, Aura kicked up into the air and headed straight towards the creatures. Picking up speed, she began to spin with the blades held firmly in each hand.

"Heavenly Fire Strike!" the white blades shined brighter as Aura thrust herself into the centre of the cyclone. The blades tore through all of the creatures while the white fire that followed after burnt them and the ones that didn't get hit. Once she got through to the other end, she rushed back down to the ship. "Quick, whoever's free hit the falling Rune Monsters before the ones that haven't disintegrated reach the ship." This job fell into the hands of Zoro and Sanji who changed their contest into who can hit away the most.

Once the water types saw the downfall of the flying types, they withdrew from battle. Luckily the Rune Monsters that were defeated on the ship disintegrated into smoke so there wasn't much of a clean up to do.

"Woot! That was fun!" Luffy shouted. "Please tell me there's more later!"

"Your idea of fun is really twisted," Aura deadpanned. Nami and Usopp agreed in a glum mood.

"You're really strong feather-wing!" he added.

'He dropped magician and called me feather wing. Are you completely sure that I cannot inflict an injury on him?'

'I am completely sure that you can't harm him. And you're an angel, are you supposed to be wanting to hurt people?'

'I can make an exception.'

"Anyways!" Franky shouted to get everyone's attention. "Because of the fight, we were thrown off course a little. Angel-miss, if you could please give me the proper directions."

Aura sighed and headed to the helm to give directions to the second isle. I knew she was a little annoyed by the new names. Which is why she switched back with me once she was done with Franky.

"We should be closer now, we weren't thrown off course that much," I said to them. "If you look straight ahead, you'll see the snowy mountains of the next isle already."

"You're right!" Chopper exclaimed from Zoro's shoulder. How they all ended up at the helm was beyond me.

"Alright Franky! Go straight ahead!" Nami commanded. "I'm assuming this is a Winter isle."

"You're right. Any guesses of what it's called?" I asked. "I was told to keep this part as a game."

There were multiple guesses that were thrown around, some were really far from the mark. These were done by Luffy. Apparently everything had to do with something related to meat. Robin was the last person to make a guess, her's being Snowball. She laughed after her guess because it sounded a bit ridiculous.

"Well I hate to break it to you all that your guesses are all wrong," I stated.

A huge chorus of disappointment erupted from the Straw Hat crew.

"Isle number two being a Winter isle is called Ice Cream Cake."


Author Notes:

Update 2~! And of course they're near the second isle.