SURPRISE!
A quick chapter as an early Christmas present to you guys! Yeah, it's short, but it'll effectively kick us into Alabasta!
You know what's fun?
Starting off the day waking up and realizing that just about all your food is gone, and having to interrogate your bottomless pit of a captain to find out what happened.
"Don't lie to me Luffy," Sanji warns. "Tell me what you know right now."
Luffy's kneeling on the ground looking away. I'm on Luffy's shoulder, trying to get a good look at his eyes but he expertly keeps avoiding me. Sanji kneels in front of him and grasps his chin, "Look me in the eyes right now and tell me the truth."
He lets go of Luffy's face but Luffy still looks away, waving his hand. "No idea what you mean Sanji." he says casually.
I squint at him. 'Oh really?'
"Then let me ask you this," Sanji says. "How did enough food for nine people, which Pika-chan and I carefully divided up so that it would last until we reached Alabasta, suddenly disappear in the middle of the night?"
My eyes narrow as I constantly switch between Luffy's shoulders trying to catch his eyes, but he's good at avoiding the inevitable. Finally, I look at Sanji and we silently agree. I casually place my paw on the corner of Luffy's mouth and take it away, flexing it as if something was on it.
Sanji stands up, "What's up Pika-chan?" he asks, feigning innocence. "Did something on Luffy's mouth get on your paw?"
And the dam finally bursts. "I forgot about the crumbs!" Luffy blurts out.
I jump off Luffy and glare at him as a vein pops on Sanji's head. "Damn it, I knew it was you!" He kicks Luffy right in the face, sending him skidding across the boat.
"Pika…" 'Jerk...' Well, now we're screwed. No matter how many times Sanji kicked him it wouldn't get the food back.
Sanji turns to look at Nami on the upper deck, who's keeping an eye on the pose. "Hey Nami, we need to do something." Sanji says. "We need a better way of keeping the food safe from Luffy. Can we please buy a refrigerator that locks?" he asks sweetly.
"Pika pikachu?" I ask with him. I'm so sick of getting food storage all ready only to have it ruined by stupid rubber idiots!
Luckily, Nami actually looks like she's considering it. "Maybe...since it could be a matter of life and death." she turns to glare at Usopp, Carue, and Chopper who are fishing. I sniff the air and- oh my freaking Arceus, are you kidding me?
My annoyance is reaching a critical point; Sanji's is about normal since he gave Luffy that kick. We walk towards the three fishers, "So, how's the fishing going?" he asks tighty.
"Pika pika?" I ask through a forced smile.
They all shudder and face us, "Well, it's uh…" Usopp trails off without giving an answer. Without a word I jump onto Chopper's hat, giving a friendly smile when they flinch. And right when their guard is down, I strike. A second later, all three of them are burned and twitching on the deck; serves them right.
"Pathetic…" Sanji grumbles. "Even with Pika-chan helping me, I can't take my eyes off anyone." I sigh irritably; today is not shaping up to be a good day. Well, if we end up starving, these guys only have themselves to blame. Maybe learning the hard way will knock some sense into them.
A few hours later, Sanji and I are in the kitchen brainstorming ideas for what we should do if worse comes to worse with the food situation. Luffy and Usopp are still fishing but they still haven't caught anything. Nami and Chopper are in the kitchen too, working on map and doctor stuff. I really hope no one took Sanji seriously when he said Chopper was back up food...
However, our thoughts are cut short when Vivi enters, saying that something's wrong. Oh great, what now?
We all head outside to see a big wall of steam coming our way. Nami explains that it's just a hotspot and that it's nothing to worry about. And when Nami gives the 'okay' you know it's safe. An underwater volcano is probably getting close to rising out of the ocean to make a new island.
"Guess we can't eat the steam then…" Luffy grumbles.
"Have you caught anything?" Sanji asks, walking over to them with me on his shoulder. I had really missed being up here when he was sick…
"We're so hungry!" Luffy whines making me roll me eyes. Well, who's fault is that, genius? "Can't you cook us something?"
Sanji and I sigh, "You're hopeless…but I guess we can go to storage and check." I nod and I leap off his shoulder as we enter the storage area. Good thing too, cause a second later we go through the wall of steam and I can hear the others coughing loudly. The smell of sulfur seeps in through the floorboards but it doesn't bug me too much.
"Pika-chan, you check the frozen storage." Sanji says as he heads towards the non-refrigerated boxes.
I nod and obey, heading over to the chillier section of storage. I check the boxes first, but sure enough, they're empty; not even a crumb is left. Guess Luffy ate the bones again...seriously, how does he do that?
Sighing softly, I head to the freezer and lift up the door, but only ice greets me. Wait...I wonder…
Ignoring the stinging cold, I venture inside the freezer, making sure the door stays open. I step through the ice cubes, feeling a bit of a chill on my paws where the ghosts of old injuries still lay and I make my way to the back of the freezer. It's pretty deep; whoever built this ship must've really thought ahead when it came to food storage.
The place is so cold from having so much ice in it for so long I start to shiver not long after entering. A whole bunch of ice is piled in the back; so far nothing seems out of the ordinary. I make my way over and start digging through the pile of ice. I dig for a while until my paw touches something smooth and it isn't the wood of the ship.
A smile grows on my face as I dig out a bunch of giant pieces of blue meat; hello again, Elephant Bluefin Tuna!
Thank Arceus, Luffy doesn't think with his head; he didn't even bother coming all the way back here! I dig a bit more around the back area and find a few more fishes that had slipped under the ice during Luffy's raid. They were nothing spectacular, but better than nothing. We could easily ration this stuff and maybe even try a few new recipes with all this Bluefin Tuna we have left.
I turn back towards the entrance to head back and tell Sanji when there's a small snap of a door shutting and the whole freezer is surrounded in darkness.
Oh crap…
The freezer suddenly feels ten times colder as my eyes struggle to adjust to the darkness. I slowly make my way through the ice towards the entrance, my tail touching the wall just in case. A piece of ice crunches under my paws and I suck in a breath before shaking my head. C'mon Pika-chan, there's nothing in here, it's a freezer for Arceus' sake!
I continue my slow trek, taking care not to slip on the ice until I reach out and touch what I assume is the door. I let out a slight sigh of relief and reach to grasp the bottom and pull.
...Nothing happens.
I pull again, but the door doesn't budge. What's going on?
Again. Nothing happens.
I pull as hard as I can but it won't open! What's wrong with the door?!
I pull again, pushing myself against the door even, but nothing works! Why won't the door open! I start pounding on the door, fear starting to claw at my throat. I slam against it as my pulse starts to quicken along with my breath. The darkness around me starts to blur as panic slowly begins to build.
Open up, you stupid door! Open up! Let me out! I don't like this! I don't want to be here! You can't leave me in here! Let me out! Please! Please don't leave me here!
Don't take me away! I'm begging you!
Please just let me out! I WANT OUT!
All of a sudden, the door slides open and light assaults my vision. "Pika-chan?"
My panic immediately ebbs at the sound of Sanji's voice and I blindly bolt forwards into his arms. "Whoa, easy buddy." I shiver from both the cold and my initial fear.
Sanji looks down at me, "Hey, you okay?" he asks.
I let out a stiff nod, refusing to let go of his jacket. Sanji rightfully doesn't press me but I hear him mutter something under his breath, something about no closed dark spaces. I had no idea I even had this fear until now. Probably something my amnesia made me forget; freaking memory loss.
Sanji sits against the wall, still holding me silently, allowing me to warm up and get my bearings and I'm very grateful. A while later, I feel fine enough to let go of Sanji and sit on his lap without him holding me. "You good?" Sanji asks, giving me a pat.
"Pika." I say with a smile and a nod, leaning into his touch. 'Yeah, thanks.'
Sanji smiles back and he makes to stand up, prompting me to leap onto his shoulder. I forgot about the stuff in the back of the freezer, but I can tell him about that later. I'm never going back in there unless I can somehow prop the door open.
All of a sudden, the boat starts to shake violently. "What the hell is that?" Sanji exclaims.
"Pika!" We run out of the storage room to see a giant cat fish(?) rise up behind us out of the ocean. Luffy and Zoro are standing at the ready, weapons drawn. Oh yeah! It's a fish! We can eat that!
Sanji and I hurry over, "If you don't catch that thing I'll kill you!" he yells.
"It's backing away!" Zoro exclaims as the cat fish starts to move back.
"Pika!" I leap onto the railing; my lightning can fry that thing easy!
"Yeah, get 'em Pika-chan!" Luffy cheers. I charge up and focus on the cat fish, ready to release when-
"Pika-chan! Stop!"
I feel someone pick me up right as I release, a scream following. I stop and open my eyes to see that the cat fish has swum away and I look behind me to see a charred Vivi still holding me. Vivi drops me as she topples to the ground and I run over to her.
"Pikachu!" I exclaim worriedly, looking her over.
"Wow, you're really strong, you know…?" she says in a shaky dazed voice. Well, she's talking and still conscious, that's a good sign. Thank Arceus I wasn't charging up for a very powerful attack!
"Vivi! Are you okay?" Nami exclaims.
"Vivi, my dear! Speak to me!" Sanji cries in alarm.
"Pika pi!" 'I'm sorry! I didn't mean to!'
"Chopper! Where's Chopper!" Usopp yells.
"Right here, what- ahhh! Vivi! She's burned real bad! Someone get a doctor!"
"You're the doctor…"
"Oh yeah…"
Thankfully with some antibiotics and burn lotion, she was just fine in under an hour. I apologized again, but Vivi waved her hand, "I should've known better than to grab you when you were about to attack."
Apparently, she didn't want me attacking the cat fish because it's sacred in Alabasta. Well, that makes sense; kinda wish she told us that before. But on the bright side, that meant we were getting close to Alabasta; Nami even said we were entering the climate area around the islands! Oh, and also a bunch of Baroque Works ships are around us; that's a pretty big sign too.
We all agreed that it was too risky now to try and fight them. As Sanji said, "Nine against two hundred sucks."
After that, Zoro said it was probably a good time to start 'preparing'. While Sanji and I were in storage, Luffy and Usopp picked up a weird guy that turned out to be Mr. 2 from Baroque Works (though they didn't know until he left).
Big shock, the guy's a Devil Fruit User, whoop-de-doo. His power allows him to fully copy the faces and bodies of people he's touched; that can be pretty lethal in the wrong hands. So Zoro had an idea (a surprisingly good one for once), that we all put bandages on our arms. A simple but effective way to know who's who.
We all drew Xs on our left arms (that was Luffy's idea) and covered them with a bandage. Sanji helped put mine on and I helped with his once he was done. Even Carue got one on his left wing.
"So, what can I do to help?" Chopper asks, once his bandage is in place.
"Just do whatever you can do." Usopp answers. "And if you get overwhelmed, just run."
"Sounds like the pep talk he always gives himself…" Sanji mutters.
"Pika…" I agree my ears dropping ever so slightly. But even so, that's pretty solid advice for a newcomer. And hey, that first part is practically my motto; just do whatever you can.
That part seems to really motivate Chopper as well and the island finally comes into view.
"Now remember, no matter what happens on that island...these bandages are a sign of our friendship!" Luffy says.
We all put our bandaged arms in a circle and face the island. I have no idea what we're gonna expect here, but I'm ready!
Hmm...Pika-chan hates closed and dark spaces? *shrugs* Welp, better add it to the Commandments.
5. Thou shalt not trap Pika-chan in a dark enclosed space alone and unguarded; fear oriented reactions may follow X3