Hello all you Voice readers! Here's chapter 25! The square root of 625!

Koe: Calm down.

FM13: Sorry.

Luffy: Hey! I figured it out!

Koe: You mean I helped you...

Luffy: (ignores her) A nose! It's a nose!

FM13: Yep.

Luffy: YAY! (starts celebrating)

Koe: Frostmoon13 doesn't own one piece, or any of it's characters. Only her OCs.

Chapter 25

"You're doing WHAT?!" all four of them shouted at me.

"Do you guys have wax in your ears?" I asked. "I said I'm going to Arlong Park."

"Are you insane?" Nojiko shouted. "I told you not to fight them!"

"Koe-chan..." Sanji made a move to put his hand on my shoulder, then thought better of it. "If these fishmen are really that dangerous, you shouldn't go alone."

"Oh, I'm not going to fight!" I said. "Is that what you're worried about?"

Nod.

"Then you don't need to worry!" I laughed. Then, I put on a more serious expression. "I'm not going to fight them until Luffy gives the order."

Usopp looked at me like I was already in my coffin. "Why are you going, then?"

I raised my eyebrows. "Because I'm curious. I've never seen a fishman before, so I want to learn a bit about them before we start trying to kill each other."

Nojiko paled. "That's your reason?! They'll tear you to pieces! Fishmen are barbarians!"

I studied each of them carefully. "I think Zoro's got the best reaction here. See? Not worried at all."

Everyone looked at me and sweatdropped. "He's asleep." Usopp deadpanned.

I nodded. "Exactly!" I turned and started down the road at a walk.

"Oh! There it is!" I said, grinning. It had only taken a five-minute walk down the road.

Arlong Park was a yellow building with a red traditional-style roof, built high over a huge rock wall, frowning out at the sea. The words 'Arlong Park' were painted in black on one of the higher floors. On a jagged spire flew a pirate flag with a jolly roger that reminded me of a demonic shrimp.

I was about to walk in, when I heard a soft splash in the water beside me.

I turned to see a tall guy with, get this, six arms, and a bunch of spikey grey hair. His tubelike mouth was twisted in a good-natured smile. He looked at me for a full minute, then he said, "Good afternoon!"

I paused. I was expecting a lot of different greetings, but 'good afternoon' wasn't one of them. "Hey." I said, giving him a small wave. "Are you a fishman?"

He nodded. "I'm an octopus fishman! I'm Hatchan! Most people just call me Hachi!"

I raised an eyebrow. "Hachi, eh? I'm Koe. Nice to meet you."

Hachi grinned and shook my hand with three of his. "Say, have you never seen a fishman before?"

I shook my head.

"Are you not from here?"

"That's right."

Hachi's face brightened. "Great! Then you must be a guest!" he said. "A new recruit, perhaps?"

I had no idea what he was talking about. I just nodded.

"I'll take you the rest of the way to Arlong Park!" he said. "Your captain is in town right now, so you can wait for him there."

"Uhh... Thanks." I said. I followed Hachi up to the park.

My first impression of a group of fishmen... Not a pleasant lot. When Hachi led me through the park gates, every gaze that rested on me was that of a hunting dog looking at it's next meal.

"Lord Arlong!" Hachi called. "This girl is a navy guest!"

Navy? What would the navy be doing as guests of pirates?

A large fishman turned around. "Hachi..." he said, in a rumbling baritone. "Where have you been?"

I caught my breath. Arlong was huge, with blue skin, a long, jagged nose, and a mouth full of razor sharp teeth. His barrel chest sported a tattoo of his jolly roger, and a sun, which looked horribly similar to a brand. A blue dorsal fin stuck out from his shaggy mane of jet black hair. What disturbed me most was his eyes. They were almost as bad as Hawk-Eye Mihawk, except I didn't sense a kind of aloof scorn like Hawk-Eye's. All I saw in his eyes was a kind of mad malice. He definitely wasn't like Luffy's drawings. No matter how I looked at him, Arlong creeped me out.

"Well," Hachi said, "I thought I would show Mouse-umi's new recruit the way to Arlong Park. She looked lost."

I poked one of Hachi's arms. "I wasn't lost!" Geez, the way he carried on, you'd think my sense of direction was as bad as Zoro's.

Arlong walked right up to me and looked me in the eye. "So... Your captain isn't here... As you can see."

I nodded.

"Normally," Arlong continued, as if it were completely normal that marines would come and go about the place. "I hate humans. But you people, I can stand. Your captain knows how the world works!"

I gulped. He wasn't saying what I thought he was saying... Was he?

Arlong clapped his large hand over my shoulder, which made me wince because of my old injury, and steered me over to a bench near one of the pools that led to the ocean.

As he steered me there, all the other fishmen in the place stared at me. I caught a few comments like, "Filthy human", "She's dead meat", and "Do you think she screams easily". Not exactly the kind of people you'd want to run into in a dark alley.

"Hey! Somnus!" Arlong barked.

There was a short pause. Nothing happened.

"Gah! Lazy layabout..." he growled.

Then, someone behind us said, "Problem, lord A-Ah-Arlong?" It was another fishman. He was tall and muscular, not quite as much as Arlong, but still. He looked like he was only in his mid twenties, instead of his late thirties. He had brown speckled skin, a small, slightly rounded nose, and shark teeth. A thick mane of sandy hair nearly concealed his dorsal fin. The guy had shadows under his eyes, like he hadn't slept in days. He carried himself the way a stereotypical teenager would, relaxed into a slouch, a non caring expression in his eyes. He yawned again, and I got a full view of his teeth. My god, he had so many!

"Somnus," Arlong growled. "This girl is a new recruit in Nezumi's unit. Tell her the ropes, would you?"

Somnus dug his fist into his eye. Then, his eyes widened. "What happened here?" he asked.

Arlong looked ready to strangle him. "If you didn't sleep all day you might have been able to stop Roronoa Zoro from causing all this damage!"

Somnus scratched his head. "Roronoa Zoro?" he mused. "That famous pirate hunter? Why couldn't

Hachi deal with him?"

So, Zoro had been here already... No wonder the place was so wrecked.

Arlong sighed in annoyance. "Hachi was... away at the time..." he growled. "Just do your job!"

Somnus shrugged, and said, "Alright... Geez, you don't have to shout... Arlong."

Arlong growled and turned away, his hawaiian shirt whipping around like a flag.

"Geez..." Somnus muttered, "That guy needs to take something for that bad attitude of his..." He turned to me. "So, my name is Somnus. Well, my real name is Megalodon, but they call me Somnus because I sleep so much. What's yours?"

"Koe." I said. "No offense, but you look like you haven't slept in weeks."

Somnus shrugged. "Meh." he said. "I'm on night watch most of the time, so I don't get much sleep at night. Kind of funny really. I'm a little sleeper shark fishman."

I raised my eyebrows. I had never heard of that shark before. "So, have you been serving under Arlong very long?"

He shrugged. "About a month." he said. "I'm from a famous group of fishman pirates in the new world. I was sent here as a kind of ambassador. So far, Arlong doesn't like me at all. Quite frankly, I don't think much of him, either. Don't tell anyone I said that, though."

"You know," I said. "For a fishman, you don't seem so bad. You didn't look at me like I'm pond scum."

Somnus shrugged. "Ah, humans aren't so bad..." he said. "It's hard to find a fishman who's of the same opinion, though. I don't mind weaker species. We all share the same world, right?"

I smiled. This guy was smart. But he also gave me the creeps. I got the feeling that beneath that easygoing surface was a very dangerous opponent. "Mmm..." If only he knew... I don't even come from this world... Whatever. I wasn't going back, so there's no use thinking about it.

All of a sudden, there was a crash.

I looked around, and saw Luffy walking in. His hat wasn't on his head, and he looked like he was just bursting to bust some heads. "Which one of you is Arlong?" he asked.

Arlong, who was sitting in his large chair, looked at him out of the corner of his eyes. "I am. Who wants to know?"

"I'm Luffy." he said.

"Is that so, and what's a Luffy?"

"A pirate."

Then, Luffy walked up to Arlong, and punched him in the face so hard he flew across the park. He landed with a hard thump on the concrete.

Arlong stared at him furiously. "Do you realise what you just -"

Luffy looked just as angry. "You made our navigator cry!" he shouted.

I grinned. "Hey, Luffy!" I called. "Time to fight?"

Luffy nodded. "Let's go all out!"

New opponents are introduced! I tell you, it took me forever to think up Koe's opponent's name, species, and personality. I wanted her to fight an easygoing character this time.

By the way, Megalodon is the name of a gigantic prehistoric shark that was big enough to eat whales. The name means 'big tooth'.

Somnus is the name of the roman form of the Greek god of sleep, Hypnos.

Koe: Geez... How much research do you have to do for this?

FM13: Oh, it's fun!

Koe: Okay... Please review! XD

FM13: By the way, the next chapter won't be an Arlong Park fight. The next chapter will be in Keith's point of view.