This novel is really coming along now! Sorry I didn't update it in a while. I had a lot going on: A choir day trip to Cleveland, a choir concert, school, spending time with my family, video games, school, doing more work around the house because it's starting to get warmer finally, and school. Plus, I was catching up on Fairy Tail and I also found a few new short animes. Okay, complaining aside, here are my replies to reviews on the previous chapter:

Thomas Drovin: Yep, and they got some pretty adorable followers at that! XD And Anne being overprotective as usual... lol. Well, the skeleton might not have been someone in that scenario for sure. It could've been some poor citizen who simply didn't escape Erumalu in time. Yep, it was nice that he or she was finally buried. Arigatou!

DarkLord98: Hm, that would be pretty interesting, actually, because Crocodile has the power to dry up water while Damon/Diamond can control his one weakness. I can honestly say I don't know.

NightmareKnight1: Oh, really? Well thanks for catching that. I'll have to change that. lol. Yeah, Damon getting sent to an island of demigods was my plan. There's gonna be a few story arcs of that. Plus, it'll be close enough that he can go to the War of the Best.

Kakusei: Ah, those things are so damn cute. They were hilarious! XD

Professor Random: Well, I'm guessing that you were pretty lucky and have only started reading this recently, because I was kind of lazy for over a month a half about getting this chapter done. T-T But I finally got around to it, so everything's good! :D Really? I'm kind of surprised. Most fanfictions are written by girls and those with OC's most often have a girl as the main character. Well, many thanks from Ohio!

Chapter 36 start!

A Dream of Death and Carnage

Diamond-chan VS a Sandstorm!

Previously on One Piece Full Blast:

Vivi, who had been sitting next to the grave, stood up. "Hai," she confirmed. "I'll persuade Leader to stop the uprising."

"Persuade?" Zoro repeated. I didn't even bother to say my usual remark.

"All of the catastrophes in Alabasta have been engineered by Crocodile," Vivi explained, walking off with the rest of us. "I'm going to tell them the truth, and put an end to this useless bloodshed!"

"Okay."

"Crocodile's going to pay," I growled. "Just you wait."

With that, we left the Green City, leaving the newly made grave of the unknown corpse in our footsteps.

"Aah..." Lucy moaned under the brutal sun, unrelenting and uncaring. Nearby, a family of desert lizards lifted their heads and glanced sideways at us, then scampered off over the dusty dunes. "Aah... AAH... Aah... Aah... I'm burning..."

My mind was blank. I desperately needed to take a Number One, but there were no toilets or even chamber pots anywhere within twenty miles. Even I was starting to succumb to the devastating heat of the Sun, which hung in the sky like the most intense microwave you could imagine. The desert was way hotter than I remembered it being from when I got lost before Nanohana, and I swore some evil sun god/demon was watching over me, cackling like a mad scientist.

"I'm sweating," I groaned. "How am I sweating? I'm supposed to be invulnerable to heat... Shit, I need to go to the bathroom..."

Stumbling next to me and using a walking stick, my captain was faring no better than me; in fact, she was affected just about a thousand times worse than all of us. Her eyes were barely open and her tongue was lolling out, bouncing a little (because even her tongue was made of rubber). Nobody else was complaining about the intense heat much except Chopper, who was nearly KO'd because of his fur coat.

"Well, I'm so hot, I'm not even sweating anymore!" Lucy gasped.

I raised an eyebrow. "I don't think that's possible, Lucy-chan. But I do think that unless we find a place to go to the bathroom soon, I'm gonna pee myself, and I haven't done that since I was at most three years old." My barrel slipped due to my sweat-coated skin, and in a panic, I nearly dropped it completely. Luckily, however, I caught it just in time.

"Aah..."

"Enough of the 'Aah's,' Lucy-chan," Nami sighed, walking ahead of us, waving her hand dismissively. "You'll wear yourself out. And if you need to go to the bathroom, Diamond-chan, just go behind that rock."

"AAH..."

"EH!? But that's disgusting!"

"Well, would you rather do that or pee yourself?"

That damn navigator had a point.

"AAAAAH!"

"Lucy's not listening to a word I say, is she?" Nami deadpanned.

We'd been making our way across the desert for the past hour, and we'd seen your average desert things along the way. There had been cacti, Komodo dragons, lizards (as I'd mentioned before), and a tarantula had scuttled across Usopp's path, which strangely hadn't freaked him out at all, though Nami and Sanji were terrified of the giant spider. Lucy, Usopp, and I had picked up long walking sticks from the base of a dead tree we'd passed, though mine had already crumbled into sand. Maybe using it to ward off an evil owl wasn't such a good idea.

While I finished my business behind the nearest scorching rock, I heard Chopper croak, "I can't take this." The exhausted reindeer was being dragged by Zoro on a hastily built raft of sorts, with two long sticks that the Marimo was pulling on. It had been crafted by Usopp, since Lucy, Zoro, and Sanji had epically failed at making one, and I took no part in it. "I'm perfectly fine in the cold, but I can't stand the heat..."

"It's because you're so damn fuzzy," Usopp pointed out through half-lidded eyes. "Why don't you take off that animal costume?"

I pulled up my shorts, zipped them, picked up my seawater barrel again, and rejoined the crew just in time to see Chopper go into Heavy Point, tic-pulsing and roaring, "WHAT WAS THAT, ASSHOLE!? DON'T MAKE FUN OF REINDEER!"

Usopp's eyes bugged out and his jaw dropped as Yeti Chopper loomed over him angrily. "AHH! A MONSTER!" he screamed in terror.

"Don't call Chopper-chan a monster!" I retorted, bopping him over the back of his head and making him faceplant into the sand. The liar came up sputtering, his face coated in yellow powder.

Zoro tugged uselessly on the 'raft,' then turned and sighed exasperatedly. "Chopper! Don't grow big like that! I can't pull you!"

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING A MONSTER, YOU STUPID-NOSE!?"

"Wha-Wha-What did you - - Why, I'm g-gonna - -"

"USOPP, YOU BASTARD! TAKE BACK WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT CHOPPER-CHAN NOW!"

"Just turn back already!" the swordsman snapped, forcing the surprised reindeer to become small again by grabbing the crown of his head and pushing furiously downwards. He sat Chopper down on the raft, grumbling under his breath and cursing more than a lawyer.

As she passed by the four of us, Anne just raised an eyebrow, totally and completely unaffected by the Sun due to basically being it in human form. However, I did feel an icy glare directed at me that made my skin crawl. I turned blue and decided to make myself as small as possible.

'The heat doesn't seem to be affecting you much at all, Vivi-chan," Sanji observed, walking with the princess.

"I was born and raised in this country, so I'm used to it," she explained.

When I was done reprimanding him, Usopp and I walked back to the others, and he whined, "Man, why are these sand dunes so freakin' tall? I thought deserts were supposed to be flatter than this!"

"They're like waves of sand!" I said as we continued climbing the next dune.

"Aah...!"

"Okay, Lucy-chan, that's enough now..."

"This is an ancient desert," put in Vivi, ignoring our overheated captain. "The largest sand dunes can reach over 300 meters. And they are a bit like waves, yes, in the sense that both are formed by the blowing of the wind."

"3... 300 meters!?" Usopp gasped.

I did some calculations in my head. "That's, like, almost a thousand feet!"

"We might as well be climbing mountains!"

"Aah! I can't stand it..." a certain straw-hatted pirate groaned. "It's so hot..." She was still carrying my stuff as well as hers, and it was probably a rather heavy load, made worse because of the oven-like climate here.

"Lucy-chan, you can have one sip of water!" Nami relented, taking pity on her. "Only enough to fill your mouth."

I facepalmed. "You shouldn't have said that, Nami."

"Eh?"

She looked at Lucy, who had taken the barrel of clean water and inhaled so much that her cheeks were puffed out bigger than watermelons. Usopp and the navigator were unamused, and they both punched her on the back of the head, causing her to spit out the water onto the dry sand.

"THAT'S TOO MUCH!" Nami exploded through a shark-like face.

"Don't you think you're overreacting just a tad?" I said, worrying about my crush. Nami's punches freakin' hurt, even for someone made of rubber. I wondered if she had Haki, but it only came out when she was furious at someone.

"Save some for me, too!" Usopp roared. "You just took eighteen mouthfuls!"

Sanji pointed at the sniper ferociously. "Oi, wait a minute! You just had some a while ago! It's my turn next!"

"Don't fight! You'll waste your strength!" Vivi called, frowning worriedly, but the navigator, liar, captain, and cook immediately got into a wild scuffle, kicking up a cloud of sand around them comically. I just sweatdropped and shook my head, continuing up the sand dune. Lucy gets beat up by her own crew worse than her numerable enemies. Go figure.

"Oi, you made me spit it out!"

"Well, you're the one to blame for that, aren't you!?"

"That's right, you had it coming!"

"Usopp, you baka, stop punching Lucy-sama!"

Anne eyed the group with a small smile and a shake of her own head. I could tell she was thinking that Lucy hadn't changed at all.

Later that night, the temperature dropped drastically, and I found myself low on energy. We set up camp and Anne helped out by building a fire for Sanji to cook our food on. I stayed as close to the fire as I could without the worry of embers falling on me and possibly burning me. From the looks I'd been getting by the Whitebeard Pirate whenever I was especially nice to Lucy, there was a very strong possibility of that happening.

"So c-c-c-cold," I groaned, my teeth chattering. I wrapped my blanket around myself some more and scooted a little closer to the fire. I could tell the others were going about their daily antics, with Lucy trying to get the meat from the fire while it cooked and everyone telling her it would give her food poisoning, but I wasn't really paying attention. I was just too freakin' cold. Who knew a desert could be so cold? I mean, it's a desert. They're supposed to be hot.

"It was so hot during the day," Nami complained, also unamused by the drastic change in temperature. "What happened?"

Vivi, bundled up in a blanket of her own, enlightened us. "In the desert, where there's nothing to absorb the heat, the days are burning hot and the nights drop below freezing. The desert holds many unexpected dangers."

"What's wrong with Diamond?" Anne asked, looking at me. "I think her lips are blue."

"She's mostly immune to heat, but really weak against cold," the bluenette said.

"...Oh."

"This is n-n-not fair," I grumbled. "S-Stupid d-d-desert! I h-h-hate the c-cold."

As the fire crackled and radiated much-needed warmth, a cold wind, brisk and howling, swept across the dunes.

Chopper was staring up at the sky happily. "Look at all the stars!" he exclaimed with a sigh and a grin.

"You could see stars from your Winter Island, couldn't you?" Usopp pointed out. He and Zoro were sitting next to the reindeer, while Nami, Vivi, and I were cuddled up together under wooly blankets. It was a fruitless effort to conserve heat. How the Eskimos survived, I had no idea.

"On a Winter Island, the sky is always filled with thick snow clouds. This is the first time I've seen so many stars!"

The resident Long Nose stared. "I'm too cold to look at the stars!"

"Truthfully, I-I-I never saw m-many stars unt-t-til I joined the c-crew, either," I said, violently shivering. "H-Hardly any."

"Really?" Nami asked. "Why?"

"L-L-Light pollution. W-We had these m-man-made lights everywhere, a-a-and they gave off s-so much pollution in the c-c-cities that the stars at n-night w-were invisible."

I sneezed.

"I'm fine in the cold," Chopper said, still talking to Usopp.

The sniper rubbed his face against the doctor's furry body. "It's so nice to have something warm here~!"

"Hey! Don't rub me!"

"I did it because you're so fuzzy."

"Don't make fun of reindeer!"

"AAAAAAAHHHH! A MONSTER!"

Zoro grunted. "Chopper, don't get big like that. You are pretty warm."

"I wish I had a f-fur coat," I whined.

"So warm~!" Lucy said, forcing Chopper back into his normal form and hugging him with Usopp. Chopper's eyes went spirally. "Come a little closer! I bet you're warm, ne?"

"...Yeah..."

Vivi stepped out of our group and went over to Anne, who was sitting by herself farther off, next to the tents. They were far enough off that I couldn't hear their conversation even if I wanted to, but I was so cold it didn't really matter. Meanwhile, Chopper, Lucy, and Usopp were wrestling with each other in an attempt to get comfortable, and Zoro was growling in annoyance since they kept knocking against him. After a second, though, all four of 'em fell asleep, worn out from the day of hard trekking.

Despite the extreme frigidness, I found myself nodding off, too.

The day was warm and muggy, but the sky was filled with the sounds of fighting: Massive explosions and cries of both pain and victory, anguish and joy. In the middle of a field, surrounded by a moat, stood a medieval castle with turrets jutting out in every direction. A man with a crown stood on a balcony of the castle, observing the small war below him with a cold, uncaring expression.

The man had brown hair and brown eyes, was white, and had a New York accent. He was about seventeen and wore an emerald green cloak.

"The battle of demigods and their dark sides..." he mused. "This day shall decide the fate of the world. Actually, it will decide the fate of the whole multiverse."

"YOU BASTARD!" a familiar voice roared. The teen turned. Standing at the entrance of the balcony, panting and bleeding from many injuries, blood stains covering his leather jacket, was the spitting image of himself. His most hated enemy. "YOU KILLED THOMAS! HE SAVED MY LIFE AND WAS KILLED BECAUSE OF IT!"

"Thomas?" the king said almost thoughtfully, though a sarcastic undertone betrayed this. "You mean the other son of Aeso, who had told you that there weren't anymore of his children in this world? Thomas, the fisherman? That Thomas? I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about."

"URUSAI! STOP LYING! I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOUR GOAL IS, BUT I'VE HAD IT WITH YOU! LOOKING EXACTLY LIKE ME, YOU KILLED COUNTLESS PEOPLE ON THIS ISLAND, MAKING THEM TRY TO KILL ME WHEN THAT SHICHIBUKAI BLASTED ME HERE! EVERYONE HERE HAS BEEN THROUGH HELL AND BACK BECAUSE OF YOU! AND EVEN WORSE, YOU KILLED YOUR FRIEND IN COLD BLOOD!"

"I don't know what you've been smokin', but Inferno was never my friend."

Down below, in the field, there was a particularly piercing cry of agony. The demigod in front of him gasped.

"No way! That sounded like Susan! But she almost defeated me... there's no way she could've just been killed..."

The evil king smirked. "Never underestimate the power of darkness."

"Y-You... Dagger... DAGGER, YOU BETTER BE READY TO DIE! TEMPEST TROPICAL FIST!"

I don't remember the rest of the dream after that, or maybe it ended there. But before long, I was awake and playing with Lucy, Usopp, and Chopper in the sand, trying to forget about it. The morning was brisk and windy; not quite as cold as the night had been, so I could still move around without too much trouble, but not exactly warm either.

Lucy suddenly jumped. "Whoa! Look at that! I found a shrimp!"

I snorted. "Don't be stupid," I told her. "There aren't any shrimp in the desert."

"So that's a shrimp! Sugee!" Chopper exclaimed, his eyes wide as he looked at the red creature Lucy was holding by the tail. It was much bigger than a normal shrimp, had angry red armor-like skin, and eight legs, four on each side. It glared at us with beady eyes.

I frowned. Wait a minute... that looked suspiciously like a...

"I agree with Diamond-chan," Usopp said, narrowing his eyes at the creature. "Shrimp can't survive here!"

She turned and waved it at him. "Look!"

"Hey, you're right! It must be a desert shrimp!"

"It looks tasty."

"Honestly, is food the only thing on your mind?" I sighed with a facepalm. Sometimes Lucy could be so simple it was like we're talking to a preschooler, and at other times she seemed way smarter than we give her credit for. It's so confusing, but I guess that's one of the things I like about her. If she was smart, she'd be overpowered, but if she was dumb all the time it would be like she was added simply for comic relief and a necessity for a character to defeat the strongest guys.

Usopp blinked. "Think we can eat it?"

"Why not?" Lucy asked with a shrug. "I've eaten crayfish before."

"This is the first time I've ever seen a real shrimp," Chopper told us.

"People in my world eat shrimp all the time," I supplied. "Well, okay, maybe not all the time. It kinda depends what country you're from, because in my world, there's a whole bunch of different countries with diverse customs. Some people even coat crickets in chocolate and eat them for a snack."

"Really!?" they gasped, their eyes wide. "Wow! Your world is weird."

I sweatdropped. "That's comin' from you guys...?"

But damn, did that so-called 'shrimp' look suspiciously like a scorpion.

"Lucy-chan, that's dangerous!" Vivi's voice shouted from the direction of the camp, which was about 200 meters away.

We turned to see the princess standing in front of her tent worriedly.

"No way!" my crush said stubbornly with a pout. "I'm not wasting it!"

"That's a scorpion!"

I face-faulted. "EH!? It was a scorpion!? Luce, toss it immediately! They're small, but their poison is deadly! You might die with just a single sting, or at least get really, really sick!"

"IF YOU KNEW THAT, THEN TELL THEM!" Vivi yelled at me.

"Well, it's not like I've ever seen a scorpion in real life until today," I huffed.

But our warning had fallen on deaf ears. "What, I can't eat it?" Lucy complained with a bored look while Chopper shrieked in fear and hid the wrong way behind a rock, and Usopp backpedaled to a safe distance. She handed it to the latter. "Here, you can have it."

"Gyah! Don't give it to me!"

"Then I'll toss it."

She threw it behind her back and it landed behind a rock far off, hissing.

"Gomendasai," sighed Vivi. "I should've told you beforehand."

Usopp frowned and nodded seriously. "You're damn right you should've!"

"Usopp!" I chided. "Language!"

"But you cuss all the time."

"Well, yeah, but that was just rude. You're speaking to a princess."

Chopper sucked in a nervous breath. Lucy, Usopp, and I blinked and looked down at him.

"What's wrong, Chopper?" we chorused.

He stood silently for a few moments, his furry ear twitching. Then he turned and dashed to a rock, climbing up it and peering out to the horizon suspiciously. We all looked in the direction he was, but couldn't see anything except sand blowing rapidly across the desert floor in quick waves.

"Something... is coming," he said.

"And 'something' would be... what?" Usopp asked, confused.

The wind, which had been steadily increasing, whipped my long, brown ponytail in my face, making me sputter and brush it away. My desert robes were rippling violently and my kami no kosoru rapped against my leg. I frowned and held my hair back. "Hey, minna, does the wind seem stronger?"

Lucy tilted her head. "Yeah, why?"

Anne stepped out of her tent and yawned, moving in front of our view. "Ah, the wind has picked up." She glared at me. "You didn't sleep with Lucy, did you?"

I grinned nervously and held my hands up in peace. "N-No way! I mean, she's my captain, and we're not even dating or anything! I wouldn't sleep with her!"

She raised an eyebrow. "...Good."

I exhaled steam, relieved. But the mention of sleep reminded me of my nightmare. Gods, that had been awful. There was all that death and carnage. I had no idea who those people dream-me had mentioned were. And then there was that crowned dude who looked exactly like my male form except dressed in the clothes of a king, and he probably smelled a lot better, too. ...Speaking of which, I really need to take a bath soon. Anyway, that nightmare really got on my nerves. I mean, it was just a dream, right? But it felt so real... almost like a memory.

"You're my son, so you're a demigod who can control water, breathe underwater, and negate most Devil Fruit powers," I remembered Aeso saying to me when we first met. "Besides that, anything you can dream has the potential to become reality."

Anything I dream has the potential to become reality.

I had thought he had meant that I could achieve whatever my dreams were, like becoming the greatest martial artist, but now I was starting to wonder about that. What if it meant my dreams - - my dream dreams, not the dreams where Aeso butts in and talks to me - - could foresee the future?

In that case, I really am a psychic.

But then that would mean all the death and carnage I saw in last night's nightmare could happen in the future...

Vivi's voice broke through my musings. "- - the rocks!"

I blinked. "Um, wait, what?" It didn't make much sense that the bluenette had only said 'the rocks,' so she must've been shouting something else while I was still lost in thought.

"Nani?" Lucy said, equally confused.

"A storm!" she called, her voice echoing strangely. She turned and we saw her panicked face. "A sandstorm is coming!"

My eyes widened. "A sandstorm!? Shit!"

"Oh?" Anne hummed, shielding her face and looking in the opposite direction of the incredibly strong gales of wind. She sounded fairly interested, like this was all a slightly exciting game. But as we stared through the dim morning light, a wave of sand appeared over a line of rocks, barreling straight toward us like it had been shot from a cannon. At that high of a speed, the sand pellets could probably take off skin.

"Take cover, minna!" I screamed, diving behind a rock and reaching my thoughts out to my barrel of seawater, which still sat in my tent. As the rest of us who were awake dashed next to me, I summoned water from the barrel and erected a wall in the shape of half a dome to shield us from the onslaught. I managed to spread out thin enough to cover both us and the camp, which was kind of important because several of us - - Nami, Sanji, and Zoro - - were still asleep, and all of our stuff was there.

The sandstorm bore on us and ripped at our strangely shaped, watery shield. I could feel it, like an angry beast ripping at the dome, attempting to blow it out of my control and come crashing down on us to eat us alive. It took a ton of effort just to hold our shield up. I could feel my brain starting to ache. I winced and groaned in pain and concentrated harder. It was like this freaky storm had a mind and a will of its own, but then again, with Crocodile on the sidelines, that was a very possible case.

'I won't let it fall! I won't let the sandstorm win!'

"Diamond-chan, what's wrong!?" Lucy yelled over the bellow of the storm.

I simply screamed in response.

'No, I won't let go! Stay! I have to protect my friends!'

Vivi shouted, "Diamond-chan, your face is red! Are you alright?"

"I'M FINE!" I bellowed. "URUSAI SO I CAN CONCENTRATE - - OW, MY BRAIN HURTS, DAMMIT!"

"Your brain!?" Chopper demanded. "I can't fix that!"

"We don't need you to do this Diamond, we'll be fine!" Anne shouted, a worried edge to her voice despite her usual coldness towards me.

"DIDN'T I SAY TO SHUT IT!?"

"But - -" Usopp started, but another shriek of pain from me silenced him.

Lucy puffed angrily. "Dammit, what a pain! This desert has too many sandstorms!"

The sandstorm barraged our dome of safety relentlessly, roaring at me to just give in already. It was taking everything I had to keep this stupid thing up. Was this really all the power I had? How was I supposed to save the world from an army of incredibly strong demons, Senshi, and monsters if I couldn't even save my friends from a sandstorm? My vision was starting to get blurry, and the aching in my head now felt like Mario was hammering it as hard as he could. I cried bitter tears as my friends watched in horror. My body was overheating, my heart was hammering, my thoughts were reduced to one single mantra: Don't give in.

And then, it was over.

The storm, a rabid animal that bore down on us mercilessly, passed over us and swept into the distance.

Breathing hard, I willed the slightly sandy seawater to return to the barrel and promptly collapsed onto the warm sand. We were now in a room of damp sand shaped like a half circle, but nobody had been touched. In the end, I had beaten the storm.

"O-Oi, are you gonna be alright?" Usopp asked gently.

Grinning weakly, I panted and collapsed into the sand, exhausted even though I had just woken up not even a full hour ago.

"Never b-been better," I groaned, and promptly passed out.

Well, I finally finished this chapter! I know I didn't cover the whole episode, but I felt I could make it tenser and awesomer this way, and actually give Diamond a way to be awesome without adding more characters or more plot. If it was weird to you that the sandstorm was described as having a mind of its own, just remember that Crocodile was probably controlling it from Rain Base, and when he realized there was a barrel's worth of water there, he'd want to dry it up. It was basically Crocodile's will trying to dry up Diamond's water, and Diamond's will trying to keep it there and protect her friends. People actually do die in sandstorms. I kind of exaggerated when I said the high-speed sand could rip off skin, but the real threat is that sandstorms can bury things in a heap of sand extremely quickly. Getting trapped under all that heavy sand without any way to breathe or escape is the thing that kills people.

Again, sorry I didn't post this chapter for over a month and a half. I don't know what was wrong with me. I think it was just laziness, or possibly writer's block. I'm not sure. In any case, I am not dead!

Thanks to all of you new readers who have added this story to their follows and favorites list! I now have over 60 favorites and about ten less follows! To those who haven't done so yet, please follow and/or favorite this novel. It really makes me feel good and I appreciate it a lot. Of course, it's not necessary for me to continue writing, however. Also, don't forget to leave a review saying what you liked best, any OC ideas you might have, et. cetera.

-TheRealEvanSG