Hey all you Voice readers! Well, I was on a roll this week, so here's chapter 48! Two days early! Can you believe it?

Koe: (sighs) I can't believe you've managed to find any gaps in your homework to do this.

Luffy: Frosty! I've got it!

Koe: I love it how you always say you've got it, but you always ask me for help.

Luffy: I thought you'd be happy about that...

Koe: I'm not complaining.

FM13: The answer is...?

Luffy and Koe: An onion!

FM13: Right!

Thanks to everyone who reviewed! Enjoy chapter 48!

Chapter 48

Now, when Vivi told us about Erumalu, she said it was called the green city. Sounds nice, right?

The Erumalu I saw in front of us was anything but green.

The entire city was barren. I couldn't see a speck of green anywhere. The only buildings were a few stone ruins.

"Green city, eh?" I said, gazing at the sandy ghost town.

Vivi nodded sadly. "Alabasta kingdom has suffered a three-year-long drought. Erumalu was one of the hardest hit."

I pointed down the river we were sailing down. "What about the river?" I asked. "Couldn't they have just pumped water from there to keep their crops going and all that?"

Vivi didn't take her eyes off the craggy rocks in front of us. "Before, the Sandora river did nourish the land, but lately, the river's current has slowed. The fresh water of the river has been pushed back by the ocean currents. We're sailing on sea water right now."

Nami analyzed the rocky shore just ahead of us. "This looks like a good place to drop anchor." she said. "Koe, could you raise the sail?"

I gulped at the thought of the height, but turned around to do my job. I was just about to grab hold of the rigging when Ace stepped beside me. "I'll come too." he said. "It'll be faster if I help."

I nodded in thanks.

Ace gave me an odd look as we started to climb. "I thought you were afraid of heights." he said.

"Did you now?" I said, focusing on anything but Ace, and how high I was already. I had developed a strategy where I just focus on a song in my head while I'm climbing the rigging. If I break concentration, I freeze from fear.

"So, you'd be okay if I did this?" Ace jumped up, and landed again, making the rigging sway alarmingly.

I held on to the coarse rope for dear life. My heart jackhammered against my ribs.

Ace jumped up and did it again.

"Ace!" I shouted. "Cut it out!"

"Ah, come on!" Ace said, chuckling. "This is fun!" He jumped again.

I felt my stomach turn upside down. This was terrifying. "Ace! Please stop!" I pleaded.

Ace stopped. "You okay, Koe?" he asked. "You're looking a little pale."

I looked up to see Ace about ten feet above me, looking down at me with concern.

He frowned. "You were lying, weren't you?"

I nodded. "I might've stretched it a bit..."

We finally got the sail raised, and now came the task of getting back down.

Ace, now beside me, looked down and said, "I'm jumping."

"You do that." I muttered.

Ace bent his knees. "Alright... Here we go!"

Wait, did he just say we?

Ace caught me up, bridal style (again?!) and jumped.

I, being the awesomely brave person that I am, yelped and kept a death grip on him.

We landed, well, actually quite gracefully. Ace set me down, then bowed. "You're welcome, sis."

I responded to that by clouting him upside the head.

Of course, the rest of the crew was killing themselves laughing. Jerks. That stupid Moss-ball even flashed me the thumbs up!

I stormed away from Ace in a huff, and stared over the rail.

"What on earth is that?"

Standing alone on the flat rocks was, what, a seal? A turtle? It was staring up at me with a look of determination.

"What's that?" I asked.

Vivi's face paled. "That's a Kung-fu dugon!" she yelped.

Usopp laughed. "Never fear! The great Usopp-sama will settle this!"

"Wait Usopp!" Vivi shouted.

I winced and looked away as Usopp preceded to get his butt kicked.

"It's dangerous!"

Zoro frowned at Usopp, who was lying in a bloody heap on the ground. "You let that thing beat you?"

Suddenly, there was an almighty Thwack!"

Ace peered over the edge. "Luffy beat it." he said.

"No Luffy!" Vivi shouted.

"What's so wrong?" Chopper asked. "He won."

"It's the code of the Kung-fu dugon to become the apprentice of whoever defeats it!"

I blinked. "That could be problematic."

"This is the stance you want!" I heard Luffy shout.

At the same time, Vivi and I looked over the edge.

"More apprentices?!"

There were at least twenty of them! All of them lined up, doing the stance Luffy modelled.

Ace and I burst out laughing.

"Oh, c'mon Vivi." I said. "What's the harm in a few cute, dugon apprentices?"


Of course, the harm in a few cute dugon apprentices is the fact that they insisted on following us into the desert.

Luffy and Vivi were having a very heated argument about whether or not they should come along.

"There's no way we'll be able to take them." Zoro said from beside me.

I nodded. "Yeah. What belongs to the sea should stay by the sea." I said. I immediately thought of Nigel. I had left him in his tank in my room with enough food to last him a week at least.

Nigel hadn't looked happy about it, but I'd rather have an annoyed ammonite than a fried ammonite.

Ace stepped up beside me and Zoro (Well, actually, he stood between us, you know). "Does this kind of stuff always happen to you guys?" he asked.

I just nodded. More often than a normal person would like to admit.


"I still think we should have taken them with us." Luffy grumbled.

Nami smacked him upside the head. "There's no way we could take them with us!" she snapped.

I shouldered the backpack Nami had bought for me in Nanohana. The only thing that made it heavy was my logbook. There wasn't much food in there anymore.

"I had to bribe them with our food." Chopper said. "They would have followed you to the ends of the earth if I didn't."

"Well, at least we're finished with that problem." Luffy said.

"Yeah," I said. "And we gave them half our supplies. Now we're really under pressure to get to Yuba."

"Hey!" Vivi shouted. "Someone's on the ground!"

I frowned. "How could someone survive in Erumalu for this long without water...?" I mused.

Vivi gasped. Then she let out a sob.

I looked away. Of course... It was nothing but a skeleton.

"Do you have any idea why the drought has raged on so long?" I asked. "Normally deserts have short, violent wet seasons, right?"

Vivi nodded. "But... That was before the dance powder..."

"Dance powder?"

Nami gasped. "I've heard of it." she said. "It's also called the powder that can summon the rain."

I frowned. "A powder that can summon rain?"

"Yes, but it has a deadly side effect. Dance powder rises into the atmosphere and causes clouds to gain enough moisture to start raining, but the clouds will be out of rain by the time they reach the town the rain would have fallen on."

"I get it." Usopp said. "It steals the rain from other areas."

Vivi nodded. "A few years ago, I hundreds of bags of dance powder in the palace storage in Alubarna, the capital..."

Luffy pointed at Vivi. "Your dad's evil, Vivi!" he shouted.

Sanji delivered a hard kick to Luffy's head. "He was framed, Baka!" he shouted. "Vivi's father would never do anything so horrible!"

Vivi dug her fingers into the sand. "It was all Crocodile!" she shouted. "The kingdom sees him as a hero, but he's been planning their downfall for years!" She put her face in her hands. "I... will never forgive that man!"

I frowned. Why in the world would a pirate want to settle down?

Suddenly, a loud, mournful moan split the air around us.

I turned around and around, looking for a direction to face. It wasn't much use. It was all around us.

Chopper clutched my leg with a strength I'd never expected him of possessing. "What is it?!" he yelped.

Ace inclined his head. "It's just the wind blowing between the ruins." he said. "Nothing that can hurt us."

I listened to the cry of the wind. "It's... It's almost like the city's ruins are crying."

Luffy put his fist into his palm. "Alright." he said. "Let's go."


"Hah... Hah... Hah..."

"Stop gasping, Luffy." Nami said. "You're making me hot."

I stared at the sky, trying to keep my mind off the sun was a warped red disk against the cloudless sky.

Luffy was right about one thing: It was way too hot out there.

There were varying tolerance levels among the crew.

Sanji would grunt occasionally, run to catch up with Nami and Vivi, then start panting like a dog to catch his breath. Ero-baka.

Nami trudged along, looking like it was all she could do to keep from collapsing.

Vivi didn't look too bad, but then again, she was probably way more used to it than we were.

Zoro was pulling Chopper along on a kind of makeshift sled. Poor Chopper. He was probably hit hardest of us, since he's adapted to the cold.

Usopp was doing about as well as Luffy, which means, of course, he was panting and complaining constantly.

Ace didn't look too bothered by the heat. In fact, he was walking beside me, talking about the times when we were little kids, and telling me about some of his crewmates. I guess if you're made of fire, heat doesn't get to you that easily.

Luffy reached for the barrel of water on his back. "Water..." he muttered.

"Just a sip, Luffy." Nami said. "Just take a mouthful."

That wasn't the right thing to say. Luffy must have slurped up half the barrel, because his cheeks stretched until they were two feet wide.

Nami smacked him, causing him to spit all of it out. "Just a SMALL mouthful!" she shouted.

"Hey!" Luffy snapped. "Now I have to take another drink!"

Oh no you don't!" Sanji snapped. "You just had some! It's my turn!"

They started to fight, kicking up dust and sand.

"Stop fighting!" Vivi shouted. "You're wasting energy!"

Sanji stopped first, and started to say, "Hai! Vivi-" He stopped short. "What the hell is that?"

I turned my attention to where he was pointing. "That's a good question."

Something that looked like a dust-coloured mushroom cloud was moving towards us at an alarming rate.

Vivi noticed it and turned pale. "It's a sandstorm!" she shouted. "Find something to take shelter behind!"

The sandstorm hit like a charging herd of angry rhino, disorienting us all. The sand kernels stung my skin.

I could hear Luffy's laugh, Nami's shrieking, and Chopper's wailing. I shielded my eyes from the onslaught of sand.

Sanji! He hadn't made it behind a rock in time! The wind had caught him up and it looked like he was going to blow away!

"Sanji!" I shouted. I dashed from my hiding place behind a small rock and grabbed his arm.

That was when it happened. The wind caught my back, and both Sanji and I were hurled into the air.

Everything disappeared in a blur of sand. Then I hit my head on something hard, and everything went black.

Luffy: (throws a baseball at Koe) Catch!

Koe: (doesn't notice in time and gets hit in the nose) Ack! Luffy!

Luffy: Oops.

FM13: You'd better run.

Luffy: good idea.

FM13: Please review!