AN: I'M BACK BABY! From now on I will upload twice a month rather than once every week, so I can keep my sanity. Look forward to appearances of more characters from both Fairy Tail and One Piece in this story. ENJOY! :D

Chapter 15: Friends and Foes!

Natsu and Luffy continued to chant 'Misty!' and stomp around the kitchen while Mystogan laughed uncomfortably, muttering he shouldn't and couldn't join the Happy Pirates.

'Alright!' said Lucy. 'That's enough. You guys can't force someone to join the crew.'

The boys stopped. Luffy said: 'It doesn't hurt to ask.'

'But you didn't,' said Lucy, 'Happy just suggested it.'

Luffy tilted his head slightly to the right, like a puppy trying to understand human language. 'I guess you're right.'

And after that he extended his rubber arms, grabbed the edge of the table Mystogan, Lucy and Gray still sat around, and pulled himself towards it. He landed right in front of Mystogan and pointed at the masked wizard with one very serious finger. Luffy clearly forgot it was impossible to look Mystogan in the eyes, which resulted in own his eyes rolling back into his head. But that didn't stop him. 'Join my crew!'

Lucy just facepalmed. 'That's not a question either.'

'And,' Gray meddled in, 'you're not the captain of our crew. You can't decide who joins.'

Though the ice wizard was right, it had Natsu fuming. He stomped towards Gray and bumped his head against his. 'Why would you say such a thing?! He's our friend!'

'I never said he wasn't our friend,' Gray coldly responded, 'he's just not in our crew. He has his own group of...weirdos.'

'Hell yeah I do!' said Luffy with a chuckle, even though it wasn't clear whether that was an insult or a compliment. The pirate sighed. 'Sorry Misty, but you can't join my crew. I already have an awesome cook.'

'Oh, I don't mind,' said Mystogan with a tiny voice, 'as I said before, I don't think-'

But the poor wizard was interrupted by captain Happy, who had flown up and now landed on Luffy's straw hat. 'So he's with us, then.'

'Actually-' tried Mystogan again.

'Mystogan should decide this for himself if he wants to join or not,' interrupted Lucy, and ironically enough she followed it up with: 'For now we could make him an honorary member.'

Not everyone understood what that meant, but there was excitement all around anyway.

Luffy bumped his fist against Natsu's shoulder. 'Now all you guys need is a musician, a shipwright, a doctor…and a sniper, and-'

As is evident, Luffy thought of Mystogan as the cook of the Happy Pirates instead of one of the finest, if not legendary wizards of Fiore. The Fairy Tail mages knew the stories about 'Misty', but no one corrected Luffy. Lucy in particular had a hard time processing that the legendary Mystogan was a socially awkward man who had an obsession for baking.

'Alright,' she said, grabbing the back of Luffy's shirt, 'please sit down. We weren't done yet.'

The pirate pouted his lips. 'There's more?'

'I'm afraid so,' said Mystogan, 'just one more thing I thought worthy of telling you about.'

Natsu and Luffy both seemed less than excited to listen to more crucial information about travelling through dimensions. They already found the first part boring and had snuck away to make weird faces in the kitchen. Like school children in class they silently signalled to one another they'd sneak out once Lucy and Gray were concentrated on Mystogan and not paying attention to them. Captain Happy was left out of this plan. He seemed to take his job as (symbolic) leader very seriously.

Lucy obviously saw what the boys were doing, but decided not to say anything. 'So what's the last thing we need to know?'

'Well,' said Mystogan, in a serious but friendly tone, 'there's something I've discovered about dimensional travelling which might be useful to you all, though I'm not certain it's the same for the pirate dimension; if you're not originally from the dimension you're in at the present, there's a chance you'll be send back after an unknown amount of time. This was the case with the pirate master Makarov became acquainted with.'

Lucy nodded. She remembered the story and this news wasn't particularly new to her and the other Happy Pirates, but she hadn't considered what it meant for them.

'There's no telling how long we'll be able to stay?' asked Gray.

Mystogan shook his head. 'It could be a year, or a day. Unless you travel back yourself.'

In Luffy's case, the Happy Pirates already decided they were travelling on their own. There was no way Monkey D. Luffy would just sit around waiting to disappear. Though he never said it out loud, Lucy knew that if the pirate was anything like Natsu, he'd rather die trying to find his crew than do nothing.

'We could disappear at any moment,' sighed Gray then, 'that's reassuring.'

Natsu scoffed. 'I'm not scared.'

Gray raised an eyebrow at him. 'Did I say I was scared?'

'You implied it.'

Lucy felt the temperature around Gray drop below zero and she could already tell where this was going, but she didn't step in. In fact, she kind of understood why both of them were on edge. Dimensional travelling was far more complicated than the Happy Pirates imagined; they had no idea where they would end up once they crossed the border, they didn't know how long they could be there and Lucy's Celestial keys wouldn't work.

Mystogan softly cleared his throat, and this time the attention shifted back to him. 'I understand if this is a lot to process. I'm sorry I ruined your adventure, but as a fellow member of the guild I thought this was the least I could do. Well, sharing the information that is, not the ruining part.'

His face couldn't be read, because of the mask, but everyone heard a sad smile in there.

'That's OK,' said captain Happy, and a shadow came over his eyes, 'but if you really wanna make it up to us, I have an idea.'

A short time later - Crow's Nest (the small lookout thing at the top of the main mast. You know, the thing that looks like a barrel but isn't)

'I can't believe you convinced him to cook for us!' said Lucy to the captain. The two of them had gone up the crow's nest to check if they were being followed already. The ship was still anchored and the one Mystogan used to find them was tied to it on the side.

Mystogan, the first honorary member of the Happy Pirates, remained in the kitchen, searching for the perfect recipe for the crew. Natsu and Luffy were nowhere to be seen, they were probably exploring more parts of this confusing ship. Gray had gone off on his own somewhere.

'He didn't seem to mind,' captain Happy responded, while flying over Lucy's head. 'Can I take a look now?'

'Just a moment.' Lucy scanned the horizon with a binocular. There was still one place she couldn't look at, and that was the bundle of clouds Mystogan appeared from. Lucy had asked him what was hidden there, but he didn't know. Erza marked it on the map as "too far", but it was unclear if that meant she knew what was there.

Other than those strange, smoking clouds the sea was quiet. There was no island or ship to be seen.

Then a very particular thought entered Lucy's mind. Something she'd meant to discuss with the others for a few days now, but kept forgetting. Since the cat was the captain, now would be a good time as ever to bring it up.

'Say, Happy,' she said while lowering the binocular, 'I was thinking about the marines who used to man this ship. They have families, children. In the pirate world. They should return at some point.'

Captain Happy floated near her face. 'Well, they will eventually. They'll just disappear.'

'I guess,' said Lucy, 'but according to Mystogan that could take years for some people. So they'll be stuck here. I mean, we're pirates now, but we're not assholes.'

Captain Happy descended and landed on the edge of the crow's nest. 'You want to help them?'

'Maybe.'

'But they're after Luffy.'

'True,' said Lucy, 'but Luffy himself seemed to like the Smoker-guy. They're not friends, I think. Maybe there's a rivalry between them. Or something.'

Captain Happy crossed his paws. 'Lucy, they're enemies.'

Lucy wondered to herself if what she was thinking was dumb. Perhaps she gave Smoker more credit than he deserved. She bumped into him in Magnolia and he hadn't cared to help her to her feet. The girl, Tashigi, had done that. She was the one the Fairy Tail mages reasoned with. Was she a good person? Lucy had no idea, but couldn't help but to feel a little sympathy for her, and perhaps pity too. Being surrounded by men like Smoker all the time and living with them on the same ship (Lucy was still not over the stank she encountered upon first entering the private quarters of the male marines), that couldn't be easy. Though Tashigi hadn't shown any regret, for as far as Lucy could tell. The girl soldier just did her job.

And that happened to be on the enemy's side. Lucy sighed. 'Maybe you're right. Forget what I said.'

At the same time - Navigation Room

The ship was still anchored, so standing at the helm felt silly now. Gray found himself extremely bored and ended up in what was probably the most interesting room on the entire ship, but he didn't take advantage of that. He just sat down on the comfortable chair behind the desk, put his feet up and closed his eyes.

Tomorrow was the big day. Mystogan would help them find the portal, and they'd go through it. That meant Natsu only had about two days left on his potion, which made Gray grin a little.

But right after this was decided, Gray felt restless. He wouldn't admit it, but he wondered whether Natsu was right; maybe he was scared. He tried comparing this feeling with the other times he felt terrified (such as when he encountered Deliora again), but it didn't match up.

He felt weird ever since Mystogan showed up. In a way, he reminded him of Erza. They both held secrets and clearly needed help, but just refused to open up. Gray felt guilty for leaving Erza behind, even though that was her decision. And now he was leaving for the pirate world.

'You damn softy,' he mumbled to himself. He couldn't get hung up over this. The pirate world was a dangerous one. He needed to focus.

Which was why he felt restless. The Happy Pirates were doing nothing, just because the captain insisted Mystogan would cook them dinner. They were wasting an entire day and night, and they'd already lost another one because Mystogan put them to sleep in order to speak with Luffy.

And then his mind drifted back to Erza again. The sooner this whole thing was over, the quicker he could find out what was troubling her. Conclusion: Gray was frustrated.

An odd sound woke him up from his grumpiness. Two voices loudly screamed "EEEHH?!" from somewhere else inside the ship.

Gray got up from the chair. Those voices obviously belonged to Luffy and Natsu, and he was grateful something happened.

Around the same time Lucy and Happy climbed up to the Crow's Nest - Below Deck.

To understand why those two were screaming, we need to go back in time a little. Somehow Mystogan succeeded in convincing both Luffy and Natsu to not be in the kitchen while he worked. He must've used some kind of spell, because both boys were very confused as to why they were suddenly standing in the hallway, and not in the room with delicious smells.

'This dimension stuff is making me hungry,' groaned Luffy, which Natsu seconded. On top of that they were bored. There was no need to fish, because Mystogan brought enough supplies with him. The dimensional border was around here, so the big search was over. Natsu wasn't allowed to use his flames on the ship, so they couldn't spar.

'What do you normally do in a situation like this?' asked Natsu as they walked down the hallway and carelessly turned a corner.

'Usopp and Chopper mostly know cool things to do,' Luffy said, 'Zoro trains. Nami does navigation stuff. Franky builds, Sanji cleans, Brook writes songs I guess...Robin reads.'

Natsu and Luffy were both the kind of people with the mindset of "books equeals torture", so there was no way they would enjoy themselves in the library. Perhaps the only book they would enjoy was the one with all the wanted posters in it.

Natsu suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, Luffy followed a pace later. 'Hm?'

'I hear something.' He listened again and felt a little excitement because they had something to do now: find out where that noise was coming from.

Since Natsu was a Dragon Slayer, his senses were a bit sharper than a normal person's (though the definition of "normal" can be questioned in the context of a story that features more than four mages, a talking and flying blue cat and a man made of rubber).

So Natsu walked in the front, Luffy right behind him. Natsu described the strange noise as the following: 'As a very tired man is saying "pudding" over and over again.'

They went down a staircase, then up a ladder and again discovered a part of the ship that was unfamiliar to them. There they stood still in front of a door. The sound came from the other side and continued on in the same tempo.

Natsu grabbed the handle and grinned. 'You ready?'

Luffy made a fist with one hand and nodded, as if whatever was in there would make a fine opponent.

The door swung open, revealing a room no larger than a broom closet. It could've been a broom closet were it not for the absence of brooms.

Instead there was a glass box hanging on the wall, and inside it sat a snail the size of a football. Natsu had never seen anything like it.

'It's a Den Den Mushi!' said Luffy, and he seemed glad for some reason.

The snail kept saying the word "pudding" in the same tone and with the same speed. Natsu lifted an eyebrow. 'Why does he keep saying that?'

'Someone's calling,' said Luffy.

There are a million things strange about this. First: how does a device from a different dimension work perfectly? Where does it get its signal from? Second: where is the caller calling from? The same dimension, or the other one? Third: the snail is on a marine ship, which must mean it's a secured line, meaning only other ships can call, so that must mean there's another ship nearby but there isn't. Secured lines, or "secret lines" might also be used by scary people from the shadows of the pirate world, which would mean more trouble for the Happy Pirates, but what would those people be doing in a world of magic?- and so on.

Neither of the boys stopped to think. Luffy grabbed the receiver and put it to his mouth. 'This is Monkey D. Luffy, the future King of the Pirates. Who is this?'

When Natsu heard that, he immediately made sure his own presence was known as well: 'And I'm Natsu Dragneel, the best Dragon Slayer in the world!'

From the other end sounded a low, tired voice. The man cleared his throat, and so did the snail. 'Well, it's working alright.'

It took them a heartbeat to respond. Both of the boys recognized the voice on the other end and the only thing they could say after that heartbeat was 'EEEEEHHH?!'

Before the caller is revealed, this story needs to go back in time once more. Let's start with what happened after the second fight between Erza and Smoker.