Hello all you Voice readers! We're almost at the fifty chapter mark! Yay!

(flinches when a loud crash is heard)

Luffy: Frosty! Koe!

Koe: (sits up so fast she smacks her head on a lamp) Ouch! What, Luffy?

Luffy: Usopp's challenged me to a riddle contest!

Usopp: (comes in after Luffy, panting like crazy) Yeah. You guys give us another riddle, and we have to race to figure it out first.

Koe: You guys do know that that means you can't ask me for help, right?

Luffy: I know... (gives her the puppy dog eyes)

Koe: No.

FM13: Okay, here it is. This one was sent in by Thomas Drovin.

I can sizzle like bacon, but I come from an egg. I have plenty of backbone but not a single leg. I can peel like an onion but still remain whole. I am long like a flagpole, yet still fit in a hole. What am I?

Luffy: ... You gave us a hard one...

Koe: That's kinda the point, isn't it?

Luffy: Okay, Frostmoon13 doesn't own One Piece or any of it's characters. Only her OCs.

Alright! Please enjoy this next chapter!

Chapter 49

Black. Everything was black. Then I felt sharp pain at the base of my skull.

I sat up with a jerk. "Sanji!" I exclaimed.

There was no one around me. There was nothing but sand.

"Sanji!"

That's when the sand underneath me started to move.

I yelped as something underneath me broke the surface of the sand. I landed on my feet, my hand on the knife Ace had given me, when I the something groaned. "Damn..."

I stopped short.

It was Sanji, his blond hair completely skewiff, spitting sand out of his mouth. "That's absolutely disgusting." he coughed.

I sheathed my knife and grabbed his hand, pulling him up. "You're lucky to be alive." I said.

Sanji blinked a couple of times. Of course, he chose that moment to do his wet noodle act and try to hug me. "Koe-chwaan!"

I smacked him in the mouth with the hilt of my knife. He hit the sand with a thump!

He sat up, holding his hand to his mouth. "Cute, smart, and violent." he mused. "Love it!"

I smacked my hand on Sanji's head, and turned it around, forcing him to look around us. "Get your mind out of the gutter for two seconds!" I snapped. "Can't you see what our current situation is?! We've completely lost them! And we don't know the way to Yuba!"

It was true. Sanji and I were the only people for as far as the eye could see. The only things for miles around were me, Sanji, and hundreds of high sandy dunes.

Sanji slumped to the ground. "Now what?" he said. "How could we have lost Nami-swaan and Vivi-chwaan?!" he wailed.

I smacked him again. "What about the others?!" I snapped, growing shark teeth.

Go figure. The worst had happened. We had gotten separated.


"Okay, first thing's first." I said, dropping my backpack in the sand and kneeling down beside it. "Let's check our supplies." If we were gonna get out of this alive, we needed to ration our food and water.

"Sanji, check your supplies."

He saluted, with hearts in his eyes. "Hai! Koe-chwaan!"

I groaned. No, I might not survive this. "Be serious!" I snapped.

We didn't have much. Sanji was carrying two boxed lunches, two canteens of water, and a pack of uncooked rice. I had a boxed lunch, a pack of roasted nuts, my water bottle which I kept strapped to my waist, and my black eyeliner.

I had made a mistake thinking this trip through the desert wouldn't be so bad. Not anymore. "That's Karma for you..." I muttered. "Okay. We need to ration this so we can survive for as long as possible."

Sanji nodded. "You're thinking on the right track." There was a kind of dark, serious look in his eyes I hadn't seen before. "Damn it..." he muttered. He slumped down and put his head between his knees.

I walked over to him and put my hand on his shoulder. "Hey, it'll be okay." I said. "We know what direction we're supposed to be going, so with a good bit of luck and determination, we'll make it to Yuba."

Sanji shouldered his pack. "Then let's go." he said. "We're heading north-west, right?"

I nodded. I pointed to the horizon. The sky was getting dark and the sun was starting to dip below the dunes. "We'll follow the setting sun."


Okay, if anyone tells you that a desert is hot all the time doesn't know jack about what they're talking about. A desert at night is freaking freezing.

Sanji and I stopped to make camp about an hour after we started. Of course, it was pitch black, and we had no wood to make a fire.

That's how we ended up sitting back to back, shivering just to keep ourselves from freezing to death.

"Isn't this nice." I mumbled sarcastically through my chattering teeth.

Sanji lifted his arm and draped it over my shoulders.

I immediately elbowed him in the ribs. "Paws off." I said in english. "Damn pervert." I didn't freak out because, well, it was really cold, and he'd already tried that a few times, so I was developing a thin tolerance.

"You have any idea what time it is?" I asked.

"No idea." Sanji said. "Try to get some sleep, Koe-chwan. I'll keep an eye out for trouble and protect you while you sleep."

I bonked him on the head. "What are you gonna protect me from?" I snapped. Then I shivered, and settled back against Sanji's back.

I stared at the cloudless sky. It was beautiful.

Wait wait wait! Okay, Koe, keep your mind on the present. You're lost in the desert with the last person you'd like to be with, who may or may not try his luck with you again.

I imagined Ace's expression if he could see us now. Oh, god. I hope he never finds out, for Sanji's sake. I mean, he may be a love-struck fool, but he's not so bad if he gets serious.

That's when I noticed Sanji's breathing had become quiet and steady.

I muffled a chuckle. The fool fell asleep. After all that.

Well, I thought. Someone has to keep watch.

I sat there for a long time, fingers and toes numb from the cold, my breath instantly turning to vapor as it left my lips, and stared at the myriad of stars looking down on us.


The next day, we woke up early. Well, correction. Sanji woke up early. I didn't get a wink of sleep.

we trudged along through the sand. The sun had risen a couple of hours ago, so the heat was playing orchestra. Meaning it was going in a steady crescendo.

At about noon, we stopped for a break. I was starving. We had decided on a system. Sanji would ration the food, and I would handle the water, you know, 'cause of my devil fruit power.

"Here." I willed some water out of my hip flask.

Sanji gratefully accepted the offered water. "This is it?" He asked.

"If you don't want to die of dehydration, yes." I said flatly.


We kept moving, crossing the dunes. Some of these dunes were really impressive.

Vivi had said they could reach a thousand feet at times. Yay, sand mountain! Note the sarcasm.

"So, Koe-chan," Sanji said, breaking the less than comfortable silence. "Do you want some food?"

"I don't think that's a good idea, Sanji." I said. "We should wait a little while before we eat."

Sanji pouted and gave me the puppy dog eyes.

Suddenly, I felt the sand shift beneath my feet. The sand gave an alarming lurch, and we fell over backwards.

"What the-" My words died in my throat when I saw what was causing the sand to do that.

About five feet in front of us, a pit was forming in the sand. It was probably about as wide as Merry was.

That wasn't the scary part, though. The worst part was what was inside the pit.

A huge scorpion. Yep, that's how bad my luck is. It was taller than Sanji and I put together, with a stinger the size of Merry's figurehead! I figured it must be an ambush predator, stinging and eating anything that steps into the radius of it's unstable sand trap.

Sanji yelped as he slipped over the edge.

Without stopping to think, I lashed out and grabbed onto his hand. My other hand had a death grip on what felt like a cactus.

Sharp needles pierced my hand through.

I bit back a cry of pain. "Sanji!" I shouted. "Don't let go, whatever you do!"

"Can't argue with you there!" he shouted, his voice a little higher than normal.

There was a ripping sound.

I risked a look behind me.

The cactus I was holding onto was uprooting.

We were sliding further and further into the pit scorpion's pincers.

"Sanji!" I shouted. "Kick off the scorpion's head and propel yourself out of the pit!"

Sanji nodded. He dodged a slash from the scorpion's large pincer, which had serrations on the edge, and kicked off it's head. He launched himself into the air, I felt a tug as I was pulled along with him.

There was a sickening pop! and a flash of pain that nearly made me go blind.

Sanji landed gracefully in the sand like a deer.

Me, I hit the ground like a stone. Hard on my side. "We... made it..." I huffed, as soon as breath returned to me. I tried to move, but a fresh bolt of pain shot through my shoulder. "Ow!"

Sanji was beside me in a flash. "Oh, Koe-chan..." he said. "That looks awful."

I knew I shouldn't have looked, but I did. And I didn't like what I saw.

My shoulder was dislocated. It was easy to see. It stuck out at an odd angle.

"You have to reset it." I said to Sanji.

He turned pale. "What?" he said.

"You heard me." I said. "It'll hurt less after it's reset."

"I've never reset a shoulder before." he said.

A guy admitting he can't do something? (I mean a guy besides Luffy) The apocalypse must be coming.

"I can." I said. "You follow my instructions and it'll go semi-smoothly."

Sanji didn't look happy about it, but he stood behind me.

"Okay." I said. "You need to do this in one go, so I think it would be best if you kick me."

Sanji frowned. "I would never kick a woman, Koe-chwaan!"

If I hadn't been in such intense pain, I might have clouted him. "If a girl is in intense pain and the only way to end that pain is to kick her in the shoulder, would you?"

Sanji sighed in defeat. "Okay." he said. "But this is the last time."

"Okay, stand a little more to the left." I said. I braced myself for impact. I had set one of Ace's shoulders once, after a particularly bad day fighting bears in the woods.

Ace had cried out in pain when I reset it, so I was pretty sure it would hurt. Ace never cried out in pain. Ever.

I took a deep breath. "Okay... Now!"

To say that it hurt was a bit of an understatement. I hadn't felt anything so painful since Kuro stood on my broken ribs.

I gasped as my shoulder was forced back into place.

But, unlike most injuries, dislocated shoulder pain dies away quite quickly.

I was standing again in no time.

The next thing to deal with was Sanji's leg. He had just barely avoided getting his leg speared by that scorpion's tail. The stinger had missed his bone, but had left a good sized cut in his calf.

I risked using a bit of water to help ease the pain. The good thing about scorpions is, the larger they are, the weaker their venom is. So this scorpion was probably about as poisonous as Luffy.

Then there was my hand. I'm sure everyone knows cactus needles hurt. One thing a lot of people seem to forget is that cacti have acid on their needles, so even if the needles just poke you, it hurts a lot more than it should.

I couldn't risk any more water. I tore off the bottom of my coat and wrapped it around my hand. It wasn't much, but it would have to do.

Sanji offered me his hand.

I thought of snapping at him for thinking I wasn't strong enough to haul myself up. Then I sighed. There wasn't any harm in letting him help me once, was there.


We trudged along through the sand.

The day was in full swing now, so it was getting really hot.

I dug through my bag and grabbed the black stuff. I put it over my eyes and on the ridge of my cheekbones.

"Hey, Koe..."

I turned around to see if there was anyone behind us who knew me. There was no one there. I turned back to Sanji. "Did you say something?"

He nodded.

I put my hand on his forehead. "Are you running a fever?"

Sanji's eyes turned to hearts. "I'm a burning ball of love, Koe-chwaan!"

I took my hand off his forehead. The heat must have made me delirious or something. I had thought he had called me 'Koe'.

"What is it?" I said, slightly sharply.

"You've never told me what your dream is." he said. "Not really."

"I said my dream when we got to reverse mountain." I said.

"That's not it." Sanji said. "You said something about finding your brother. Now that you saw Ace again, is your dream half accomplished?"

I couldn't help but smile. "I wasn't talking about Ace."

"Oh." Sanji said. We walked a few steps before that sank in. "Wait, what?!"

"You heard me." I said. "I have another brother."

Sanji's face fell. "So I have to convince three of your brothers?!"

I pinched his ear, hard. "You won't need to convince my brothers until you convince me."

Sanji put up his hands in an 'I surrender' gesture. "Okay, okay!" Then he looked at me quizzically. "So, who is he?"

I sighed. "His name is Keith. He's two years older than me. I haven't seen him for ten years."

Sanji raised his curly eyebrow. "What happened?"

"Well," I said. "We were planning on running away from home, and we accepted these devil fruits from a fruit saleslady. We didn't know they were devil fruits, of course. When I ate mine, I got vertigo, got hit by a semi truck, and fell from the sky and hit the ocean, where Shanks saved me. I haven't seen Keith since, but I know he's in this world."

Sanji snorted.

"What?!" I snapped.

"fell from the sky?" he laughed. "I know you're like an angel, Koe-chan, but fell from the sky?"

I frowned. "I'm not an angel, I'm from another world."

Sanji snorted again. "That's funny. And I thought Usopp was the tall talker."

I stuck my tongue out at him. "Fine. Don't believe me."

"Okay." Sanji said. "If you're from another world, where are you from?"

"Saskatoon." I said sharply.

"Where's that?"

"Saskatchewan. Canada. North America."

"You're just throwing around a lot of random words to me."

"I kinda figured." I said. "You don't have to believe me, Sanji. I'm just telling you how it is."

"But you do have another older brother?" Sanji said.

"I wouldn't lie about that." I said.

I gazed at the sun, which was now a glowing orange blur on the horizon line. "We'd better set up camp." I said.


Sanji stood beside me, and squinted at the horizon. "Is that what I think it is?" he said, his face slightly pale.

I looked to where he was talking about. "You've gotta be fricking kidding me."

A sandstorm. This one was huge. It looked like a long way off, but it was closing in fast.

"Find some shelter!" I shouted.

The sandstorm hit five minutes later. We had barely covered a kilometer before a blast of sand and hot, dry wind hit. I was lifted off the ground and launched into the air.

I shielded my face with my arms from the onslaught of tiny grains of sand.

There was a sickening crash, then everything went black.


I groaned and opened my eyes. Immediately, I shut them again.

I shot up like a rocket. I brought my hands up and started rubbing the gritty sand out of my eyes.

"Shit..." I said in english. "What's going on with these freak sandstorms?"

That's when I noticed I was alone.

"Sanji!" I called. "Sanji!"

I was alone. The only other things I could see for miles around was, well, cacti, rocks, and ... footprints!"

Sanji must have woken up before me and gone to look for me! I had been buried under the sand. What if Sanji thought I had landed somewhere else?

Only one thing I could do. I would follow Sanji's footprints. If they were Sanji's. Of course, if I caught up to someone, even if it wasn't Sanji, I could ask them the way to Yuba. Then, hopefully, I could rendezvous with the others there.


Of course, the only problem with following footprints in the sand is this. Like anywhere else on earth, there is a bit of wind in the desert. Sand gets blown away by the wind easily.

I had been trudging after Sanji's footprints for about half an hour before I had completely lost any trail to follow. Now I was completely lost.

Only one thing to do now... I thought. Just trudge in a random direction and hope for the best.


"Hah... hah..." I had been trudging around for a good few hours at this point. I was lost and thirsty and, okay, I admit it. I was terrified. Terrified of being alone. Not in ten years, since I had first arrived in this world, had I felt so completely alone. I might have cried if I had been any less dehydrated.

I staggered over a sand dune, not expecting to see anything.

I gasped.

Just on the other side of the dune, was a small building. There was a light on inside, and the light through the windows shone softly against the dimness of the evening.

I slid down the sand dune, heedless of the sand in my boots, and made my way to the building.

It looked a bit like the thatched huts in Erumalu. It didn't stand very high, and it was wide.

The sign hanging over the door said Spider's Cafe.

I took a deep breath and opened the door.

Luffy: Frosty! I got it!

FM13: What is it then?

Luffy: Meat!

Koe: How does that make any sense?

Usopp: I've got it. A rope!

Koe: Ropes don't come from eggs or sizzle.

FM13: Koe, you've figured it out, haven't you?

Koe: (nods)

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