OMG, I am so sorry everyone for not posting on my usual time! I got so wrapped up in writing new content and then the drama of getting that position for work I mentioned in a previous AN and the usual stress of having a child under 10 lol...

ugh, yeah lots of "Clean Your Room/Clean Your Toys" going on here at my house, lol...Oh and her new thing has been, "But Mommy..." to whenever I tell her to do something...YAY! yep, can you envision the massive eyeroll I am giving at that? lol...

well here we go everyone! you have blown me all away with how many of you enjoy the story enough to follow it, (41 people?! seriously? I remember when I saw that Fois and Bae followed the story practically right on top of each other and bowled me over with seeing that others liked my POS work I'd written up...so I just wanna say, THANK YOU EVERYONE! we've hit over 3100 views for this story and I was just floored this morning when I checked on it.

(coincidently, that's also when I realized I was a day late in working on this and that since it's literally 1am for the 7/24th then that makes it two days late! eep! sorry! unfortunately my eyeballs felt like they were going to fall out of my head if I didn't get some sleep during editing so it got delayed until now...)

So here is a chapter that is extra long as compensation...? Let's get our Asses to Yuba already everyone! lol...

I am really trying to be cranking out the new stuff so that once I go back to work with a full time schedule, there will hopefully be a little bit of a buffer in between me writing slower and you guys getting new chapters...dont want to make you all have to wait for my lazy ass to get down to writing between shits at work lol...

also, do ya'll prefer longer chapters, or not?

yay or nay?

Chapter 18

It wasn't until we had all made camp that night that the others had realized that Ace was still separated from all of us out here.

Luffy just brushed it off saying, "Don't worry, he does that sometimes. He'll show up before anything serious happens," and proceeded to inhale his food.

One good thing about this country's giant ambush lizards and scorpions?

They make great eating, once sliced and diced by the two swordsmen of this crew.

Plus!

Due to their gigantic size, they even provide enough food for our gluttonous Captain!

Win-Win!

Zoro and I had taken on the scorpion, while Sanji and Luffy each got one of the lizards. I heard Vivi say, "You were right Nami-san, I DO feel sorry for them when the stronger members of this crew all attack at once on the animals."

I chuckled as it made me vaguely recall Nami saying something like that the other day, but I'd been a little light headed from the almost non-stop heatstroke.

Sanji made quick work for cooking and one whole lizard went to Luffy's blackhole that he called his stomach, while the rest was split between the rest of us.

The leftovers, not that there was much when you have someone that has a stomach with Luffy's appetite in the group, was packed up to take for later.

Looking at Will, I said off handedly, mildly frustrated for all women everywhere, "I'm still not sure where it all goes. Like, HOW does he manage to eat like that all the damn time but still remains so damn skinny?"

Will laughed and said fondly, "I know what you mean! Ace eats almost just as much! And there's never a speck of fat on the guy! I didn't want to believe him when he used to say that Luffy's eating habits were worse!"

Neal ruffled his feathers before saying thoughtfully, "Our island would have never been able to support such an appetite beyond a single meal. It's a good thing it was YOU that washed ashore and not him."

The look of horror on Will's face was near priceless.

I would never think of stopping here after being late by three days...nope, never!

The next morning was just as eventful.

We got to meet a group of Sand-Pirates, Yep that's a thing here apparently.

Who knew?

Luffy was not happy with the Captain-guy of the sand-pirates for some stupid reason, I was too busy to really listen as I was trying to untie Vivi, Nami and the pervert Camel from their ship's mast. Seriously, who tied up a camel the same way you would a fucking person?

Sand-Pirates, that's who...

Nami was listening though and once free, punched Luffy over the head.

During our Captain's rampage on the enemy ship, he'd inevitably damaged their ship by breaking the smaller rear mast, causing the sand-pirates to be unable to catch enough wind, that was how they 'sailed' on the sand.

They used wind the same way we do with the Merry.

Weird, but not the strangest thing I'd heard of from the older merchants back in LogueTown.

The two captain's eventually made peace, so now Luffy had offered one of us to go with Vivi on one of their smaller sand gliding ships, since she knew how to pilot one. It looked more like an ocean canoe with an overly large sail, to be honest.

We all drew straws and woo, I pulled the short straw.

I glared at Usopp and Zoro who were making snide comments to each other about how the shortest member pulled the shortest straw.

Ohhhhhh, laugh it up while you still can boys...laugh it up. We'll see who's had the last laugh, oh yes we will, I thought darkly as I continued to glare holes into their backs.

At my glare, Usopp paled and hid behind Zoro, who just smirked at me.

I mumbled to him, "Just wait until our next spar Zoro."

Damn-Smug-Sexy-Asshole just smirked wider into a feral grin.

Cocky-Sexy-Bastard.

I sat behind Vivi on the small sand canoe with Neal clinging to my shoulder.

He claimed it was out of self preservation, and considering how the whole reason we'd had to 'rescue' Vivi, Nami and the camel was because the sand-pirates were planning on eating the camel, I couldn't really say "no" to Neal, now could I?

At first, everything seemed great.

The small craft almost flew across the sand, but when the two pilots, Vivi, and some slim sand-pirate girl who seemed to have a personal grievance with the Alabastrian Princess, started to have a nonverbal race between them, that was when problems arose.

Turning to Vivi when I realized what the two of them were doing, I shouted, "What are you doing!?"

But she gave no reaction to my words at all.

Neal nudged my ear and I face palmed.

Of all the times to forget that she can't hear me! UGH! There's been such few times since I've joined this crew where someone wasn't able to hear me, I almost forgot that I'm not actually talking very loud. Damn it...woah!

My thoughts were cut off as the two canoes slammed into each other side to side.

Thankfully I'd been holding onto the other side of the canoe, or I'd have definitely broken all of my fingers, if not all the bones in my hand!

I threw a heated glare at the other canoe's pilot, but she wasn't paying any attention to me, all her focus was on Vivi, with a rather impressive glare of her own, if I don't say.

That crashing-bump though, threw us off the side of the sand dune we'd been cruising on, to slide down the hill beyond control. Vivi tried to steer us back up by going around the dune, but there was something down at the bottom that was pulling us in.

Think of a sinkhole, and that was what it looked like. Fuck!

Vivi was shouting to me, asking for any ideas, when Neal lifted off my shoulder and a second later, had grabbed onto the top of the mast to our canoe.

"Hold on! I wont be able to do this for very long!" He shouted down to us, just as he began pumping his wings harder and harder.

On the tenth down flap of his wings, we left the sand and with three more wing beats, we were back at the top of the sand dune. But Neal didn't drop us off there, instead he started flying after the other canoe.

Leaning over carefully, I looked down to see how far up he'd flown us.

I shouldn't have done that.

My face went a pale clammy green, and I had to lean back swiftly. I closed my eyes, and focused on my breathing in an effort to not lose my breakfast.

I never realized until we entered the Grand Line, but apparently, I have a fear of heights.

Who knew?

The MERMAID, has a fear of heights.

I kept my eyes closed until I felt the lurch and bumping jostle shake throughout the canoe, signifying that we'd touched down to land.

Thanks to Neal flying us past the other canoe, we easily 'won' the race.

Neal came back to land in the empty space behind Vivi's feet and in front of me, panting out, "I'll be right useless for the next two or three hours after doing that," and promptly passed out in exhaustion, dead to the world.

Vivi had used Neal's momentum when we landed, to open up the sail to its fullest extent and we'd practically lifted off into flight again just from the wind.

I'll never admit that I lost my breakfast at that point.

Vivi, the kind hearted girl, swore to never speak of it.

Once we'd gotten to the assigned village, Vivi was depressed to see that, it too, was abandoned.

The sand-pirate man, who'd ridden at the back of the other canoe, said he'd go find the lumber we were looking for and trotted off. I had turned to follow him, but got side tracked by the female sand-pirate and Vivi, as they spoke about the abandoned village.

It was here that we learned the reason why the other female sand-pirate pilot was so pissy with Vivi. Apparently she was the last one from this village who had still held out hope that the royals would come and send aid when their last source of water, the well in the center of town, dried up.

Vivi, predictably, started empathetically crying.

Scowling, I marched up to the girl and shoved her, causing her to fall to her ass in the sand.

She took a second, surprised shock overtaking her bitterly angry expression of before, before she lunged to her feet with a shout of, "What was that for?!"

She tried to take a jab at me in retaliation, but this was such bullshit and I was just done with today. Besides, if you're going to punch someone, don't do it half assed. That's just asking you to get your ass handed to you.

So I leaned out of the way and helped her tumble back into the sand by throwing her over my hip, using her forward momentum from her half assed punch to speed up the process. Gotta love Marine Hand to Hand Combat Training with Tashigi, I thought sadistically.

After she hit the ground again, I quickly kneeled down and pulled her arms back into a lock with one hand and my knee on her upper back, half straddling her, effectively pinning her into the ground.

Using the other hand, I grabbed her hair and forced her to look at Vivi, who, although frozen still in shock, and upset at my actions, was STILL crying.

Snarling into the woman's ear, I said, "Do you see that? THAT is a princess who fucking Cares! How dare you place such expectations on a girl, who is fucking younger than you are, Bitch! She aint some God, who can make it rain whenever you fucking want! She's as human as you fucking are." She flinched under me at that accusation.

Yeah, I'd learned Vivi was only around 16-17 years old. The woman underneath me had to be in her early twenties.

I kept going, "She's our friend and your words just made her cry. You're lucky that she loves you, simply because you're a citizen of her country. Otherwise? I'd have strung you up and given you to the Captain and let him decide whether or not you got to live for that offense. We're fucking Pirates, you and I."

Vivi flinches at my words, but I don't stop, she needed to hear this, to hear how serious we take our bond with her. I may not have spent the most time with her like Nami had, but in the time we all have spent, I had come to view her as a good friend.

The sand-pirate woman under me squirmed at that, but I pressed down harder. She wasn't going to get out of my pin.

Vivi stuttered out, "Wisteria-san, please," she looked like she wanted to say more, but whatever words she wanted to say, seemed to be lodged in her throat because instead of words, just more tears flowed down her wet cheeks.

I sighed, and finished saying, "But since she does love ya, I'll let you off with this warning. Whatever beef you feel you have with her? It's done. Got it?" I emphasized my words by putting a little more of my weight down on the girl while tugging up on her hair some more, and she croaked out, "Alright! Alright! Let me go!"

I nodded and got off her.

Vivi gives me a short hug in silent thanks, and the two make peace, this time without the angry bitterness of earlier.

The sand-pirate woman stands up and keeps a wary eye on me from that point on as we get about to doing the job we'd been sent out here for originally.

I struggled not to laugh at the male sand-pirate. His face, when we all finally found him trying to haul this huge ass log, all by himself, was just priceless.

Fortunately, I didn't laugh, not even a snicker.

After loading up the wood, we set back off, this time working together in order to haul the lumber.

Neal woke up right when we got back, he flew up and out, flying off to find Will, no doubt.

I was pleasantly surprised with Luffy shouting to me, "Wisp! Will's agreed to joining the crew! Now we only gotta find your sister and Mom for your dream to come true!" He was smiling so wide and waving his arms as he bounced around the deck of the sand-pirates ship, that I almost couldn't make out what he'd said.

Almost.

My face split into a huge grin, and I squealed loud enough that my throat was burning.

It was loud enough for Luffy to hear too, as he jumped down off the sand-ship, and his smile somehow got even bigger. Damn rubber fruit. Gotta be! No one's smile can get that big naturally.

I raced over to him once the sand-glider came to a stop and glopped him in the biggest hug I could manage.

Will came down and I could see he was blushing, but I was too happy to try to figure out if it was out of embarrassment or anger at that moment.

Leaving Luffy's embrace, I tackled my brother, who caught me readily. Only good thing so far about the 'youngest' brother being taller than yourself, I internally grumble, is being able to handle my tackle hugs! but I was still too excited to do more than think that as a side thought.

I was laughing so hard that I was almost crying, due to how happy and euphoric it made me feel to know my brother would remain by my side as I searched for Crystal and Mom.

I almost dislodged Neal from Will's shoulder when I'd thrown myself at him. Oopsie…

It took almost no time at all from that point for the sand-pirates to fix their ship. And with tearful farewells, they left us near to a small town that we should be able to get some supplies.

I tried not to be smug, seeing the angry woman sand-pirate waving from the crows nest.

Vivi made sure to double any positive feelings into her goodbye waving for me to the girl. Shit, I never even got her name...oh well, I'll probably never see her again, so what's the point of worrying about it? I shrugged it off and joined up with everyone else in waving goodbye.

Neal transformed again and offered to let me ride, which I declined for the time being, "I've done a lot of sitting, while riding that sand-glider, I think I'll walk for a little bit," I smiled up at him. In his Griffin form, his head is slightly taller than me, something Will had snickered at earlier, Bratty Baby Brothers...Constantly picking on their sisters.

We paused at some rocks about an hour later, and were surprised to see Ace coming towards us, riding some bipedal purple and orange lizard, dragging a sled filled with food and water supplies.

"How?" I thought to myself.

Will, who was sitting besides me as he offered out water from his Storage Box to everyone, said, "I've no idea how he does it, but he always manages to find the things he needs. Every single time too."

Ace reached us at that point and in the excitement of Luffy yelling and everyone else coming up and talking, I didn't get the chance to further that interesting line of inquiry with Will.

Ace had apparently found a fortified city built into some rock cliffs with a functioning oasis. It was a small one, however, and didn't have anything in the way of guards. Instead, this place had a small band of men who claimed to be members of the Rebel Army.

Ace had confronted them privately and managed to basically bribe all the food and water off of them in exchange for both his 'silence' on their secret and to leave the city. That was totally skewed in his favor, since he wasn't gonna stay there anyways, and didn't give two hoots about their lies.

Poor suckers.

Vivi however, wanted to test the wannabe rebel's moral integrity.

So now, we were all staged up at the gate of the city, waiting for these pansies to get their fake asses out here to show their true colors. This is so stupid. Oh well.

Luffy, as the captain and the man with the 'scary bounty', was standing front and center.

Zoro was to his right, Sanji to his left, Chopper to Sanji's left and Usopp to chopper's left, with me to Zoro's right, and Will to my right, Neal perched on his shoulder, wings spread in readiness in his Hybrid Form. We can make a pretty intimidating show of force when we wanna. Cool…

Will had pulled out a black baseball hat with a white anchor on the front of it and put it on so that the bill tilted down, shading his eyes as he glared at the city's gate.

Zoro had tied on his bandana, which usually was tied to his left bicep.

Usopp was standing there, arms crossed, frowning as he looked up to the sky, causing his distinguishingly long nose to point to the sky as well.

Sanji was standing there all nonchalant, smoking, EWWWW…thank god he's downwind!

Luffy was standing there, arms crossed, head tilted down, his straw hat overshadowing his eyes and a uncharacteristically grumpy frown on his face.

When the wannabe rebel's first came out, it was clear from their hastily packed bags on their shoulders that their original plan was to try to run away. Fuckin' cowards.

However, with all of us arrayed in a half circle around the gate, there was nowhere to go.

You could see the sweat drip down their faces and necks, literally, as they panicked.

Finally, the leader decided that he wanted to go down fighting. Spouting off about how he'd always dreamed of being some kind of hero. His buddies joined him.

Luffy ended up fighting them, even though it was only supposed to be an act, so they did end up a bit black and blue, but nothing they couldn't shrug off with some mild painkillers.

We hightailed it out of there, keeping the food and water that Ace brought of course.

We still needed that after all.

We stopped to rest at this large cluster of tall, dark-blueish grey, spiral rocks, and got to work making some lunch.

When we'd just sat down to eat, we met these two little boys. When they discovered Ace, they begged him to find a man, showing a photograph of him. Offering to pay an absurd amount of money, even though they didn't have said money, instead willing to go into basically indentured servitude in exchange. Kids these days...jeez...

After hearing the guy's name, Scorpion, Ace said, "I actually had business with this guy. So you don't have to worry about paying me."

Ace was smiling and all I could think was that he was just using it as an excuse to let the kids off. "Awe, the big ol' softie," I thought amusedly with a smirk thrown over at Ace and the boys.

Ace's freckled face blooms bright red, and he barks out, "I aint soft!" and stalked off around the boulder we were all leaning on (Luffy) or around. I blinked in surprise, and blushed myself, Ops, did it again....

Luffy was just snickering in amusement and nodded to me as he stage whispered, "Ace likes kids, so long as their not crybabies. He probably thinks these kids are cool for setting off on their own to find their dad." Ace shouted at Luffy from beyond the rock and Luffy yelped as he jumped up.

He'd been draped over top of the boulder, and the seat of his pants were smoking now, Guess Ace literally lit a fire under his ass! Hahahaha, I ended up laughing out loud, along with Will, who'd picked up on the same thing.

Luffy took off into the maze of spiral column rocks that surrounded us, calling out to Ace about him being a bully. Will and I were laughing too hard to properly hear Ace's grumbled reply.

We eventually got back to eating our lunch, this time offering some to the two boys as well. They were so awed by the fact that they got to eat "real meat" instead of just a single potato, that they almost started crying when biting into their food. My blood boiled in rage at the thought that these boys were being starved.

Sanji, ever the one aware of food related abuse, asked them about their living conditions at home and why they were out here looking for their dad.

As the boys explained about their father and their home, being in a part of the desert called 'The Badlands', they slowly perked up, only to get depressed again when admitting it being their fault in spurring their father's actions of hunting down "FireFist Ace".

All so he could prove, that if you just put in effort, and kept on dreaming, anything was possible.

"So your dad's a bounty hunter?" I asked in between bites, my blood finally cooled enough to speak to the kids without possibly scaring them.

The youngest nodded, while the oldest went on to explain, "Dad used to be, before he had us, an mom passed away from childbirth," he discreetly tilted his head down to his younger brother, and we all got that he meant when she gave birth to his sibling but didn't want to say that in front of his brother. Good...hopefully that keeps the little boy from thinking it was all his fault, since it wasn't.

"After that, Dad had to give up bounty hunting and stayed home with us."

I nodded, and asked, "Was he any good?"

The youngest smiles wide with pride, "Dad's dream is to be the Greatest Bounty Hunter in the World!"

I let my eyes widen for dramatic affect to say, "Woah! That's a pretty serious dream there. To start out with a Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates would be a sure fire way to get his name out there in the bounty hunter community," I stage-acted-ly mused, tapping my index finger to my chin as I looked skywards for extra effect.

Vivi and Nami are smiling fondly at me, as I spoke to the kids, making me blush at the look in their eyes.

We all got side tracked though at the sound of yelling, it sounded like Luffy, Ace and some unknown male voice. I felt my stomach sink as I watched the recognition light up in the two boy's eyes. Yup, that's gotta be their father, I thought as I scrambled up and over the boulder to see what was going on.

Out among the sand was Ace, and coming in hot onto him, I could see Luffy riding on an ostrich behind the man who matches the boys picture, carrying with him a large custom bazooka styled gun. Still not the strangest thing I've seen, I thought, as I remembered the island-sized goldfish that, technically, ate all of us back at Little Garden.

What followed is one of the most one-sided fights I'd ever seen.

Only topped by two of the fights I'd seen Smoker involved in, back at LogueTown. Seriously, a Logia in East Blue? How overpowered can you be?

Ace clearly won, without a single scratch or blow even connecting with him, which his shirtless attire made very evident.

The boys raced off to their father, finally letting those tears fall.

Ace questioned Scorpion, just for confirmation, that he hadn't fought and defeated "Blackbeard, aka Marshal D. Teach" after all.

With a sigh, he said no, that it was only bait to lure in Ace. While it had worked out ok this time, I hope he doesn't try this strategy out ever again, otherwise he's liable to get killed, I thought as I look the guy over.

He wasn't much to look at, the most notable thing about him is probably his black helmet, it's got stickers to personalize it, along with his heart tattoo he's got on his face, but the blue overalls and red flannel shirt were pretty basic. Everything about the guy screamed "normal" if one hadn't seen him "fight", that is.

After his tearful reunion with his sons, he decided to go home with his boys, he let Ace know, that last he'd heard, Blackbeard was headed for Banaro Island.

Ace seemed to know where that was, by his expression, and with a nod of thanks to the man, the small family set off, headed east for their home.

I sighed, as they slipped from sight, it was nearly sundown now, and we were either going to have to walk in the dark, to make up lost time, or camp out here.

Ace started packing up his stuff, taking some extra canteens from Will, who'd opened his Storage Box.

Confused, I asked, "You planning on ditching us in the middle of the desert?"

Ace shook his head no and said, "I was only coming along to find Scorpion, since this lead turned out to be a dud, I have to get back on Blackbeard's trail. Will, Why are you giving me these? Aren't you coming with me?"

Ace had gotten this intense look to his face, and I stepped closer to Will for emotional support.

Neal came to land on Will's shoulder, and they both looked at Ace, before Will bowed and said, "Thank you for everything you've done for me, Ace. I never would have found my oldest sister if you hadn't dined and dashed from Olé Man Bickley's that day. But this is where I have to part," he stopped to stand up and smiled, "I'll make sure to call Captain Whitebeard to let him know the change," his face grew hesitant as he recommended softly, "you should call too, Ace."

Ace scowled and snapped, "not until I've avenged Thatch. We've been over this Will."

By his tone of voice, they must have 'gone over this' topic a lot. That, or Ace is just easily irritable. Hard to tell really.

Will just nodded with a sad sigh, and said, "well then, I guess this is goodbye for now, Commander."

They smiled and grasped hands, well more like grasped wrists, as they don't actually shake hands, instead Ace grabs Will's forearm, and Will does the same back to Ace.

Ace turned away and looked at Luffy, saying to us all in general, "It's only natural that an older brother worries about his bungling kid brother. Please take care of him," he finished with a polite tilt of the head while holding his hat in place.

He then tossed something to Luffy, it looked like a folded up piece of paper, which Luffy confirmed, and when Ace teased him, asking Luffy, "what you don't want it?" Luffy clutched it close to his chest before saying, "No I do."

Ace gave his brother a fond look, saying, "That paper will bring us together someday, keep it always."

Luffy just nodded and held onto it just a bit tighter.

And just like that, Ace left us, back the way we had came, to get to his small boat.

Nami and Vivi pushed us on to travel farther during the dark, saying we were only an hour or two away from Yuba. The thought of sleeping in an actual bed, is what pushed most of us for that last stretch.

Thankfully, traveling at night wasn't as god awful as it was traveling by daytime in the desert. The moon was nearly full, so it made it very easy to see where we walked.

Speeding up so that I'm walking abreast of the pervert camel, I asked Vivi, "Soooo, how come we haven't been traveling at night this whole time? Seems to me, like it would have been much less of a risk for everyone getting heatstroke."

She shook her head, saying patiently, "you saw all the dangers we had to deal with on the way here, imagine trying to deal with all that, when you can barely see. While it's true, that it is harder to travel by day, its also when all the other more dangerous creatures sleep. There's very few animals who will venture out in the heat of the day. THATS, why I had us travel by day. It was the only way to go that was both fast and safe."

I nodded and smiled, "thanks for explaining it to me like that. I guess it's a good thing we only have about an hour to walk in the dark then huh?"

I fell back to where I'd been walking before, between Will, and Zoro, who were comparing weight lifting workout routines. Well, at least Will gets along with the crew besides just me and Luffy...that's a relief.

True to Nami and Vivi's word, it was just barely fifteen mins over an hour and we saw the outskirts of the oasis.

Unfortunately, this town looked just as dead and deserted as Emerluu had.

We all had to brace ourselves from a sudden, and very short, sandstorm that blew threw, adding another foot or so of fresh sand to the city.

Once it was clear, and no signs of people coming out to see the damage from the sandstorm, we knew that there were no rebels here, let alone anyone else it seemed.

Vivi started to panic and cry, but before she could let out a sob, we all froze as we heard the sound of a shovel hitting compacted sand.

Walking farther into the city, we found a very old man, who was hard at work, digging a huge hole in the sand.

At the sound of our approaching footsteps crunching in the sand, the old man looked up and smiled at us, "Oh, travelers? You'll be wanting some water no doubt. Don't worry, I'll get some for ya, just gotta move this here sand here out of the way. No sand is gonna win out over the Yuba Oasis, you'll see."

One of the guys asked the old guy if the Rebel Army was still stationed here, and his smiley open face, swiftly went sour as he swung his shovel at us.

Thankfully because he was down in a hole, he narrowly missed clocking Usopp in the face, passing his long nose by just inches. Usopp yelped and ducked back behind Sanji, who shoved him for trying to use him as a shield, saying he was only a shield for the ladies. I rolled my eyes at that, but didn't say anything, this time…

The old man went off on a tangent about 'those fools' having moved their base when the oasis dried up to a city called Katorea. At Luffy's question of where that was, Vivi cried horrified, "It's the city next to Nanohana! Back where we just came from!"

I groaned and slid to my knees, saying tiredly, "well, we're gonna have to think of what we all wanna do next then, and find someplace to sleep. Whatever we do," I glanced at Luffy, who's looking off to the west with a pissed and serious expression, clearly thinking of the warlord we will eventually have to face, "we can start out in the morning after a fresh night's sleep. At least," I paused with a blush, "that's my opinion. What do you two say, Captain? Vivi?" I turned to each person as I named them.

They were the two in charge of our group at the moment.

Luffy was our Captain, but this was Vivi's country. They would be the final decision makers here.

Luffy nodded and said, "I agree. We should get some rest." Vivi nodded in agreement, but before we could do that, the old man had rushed up an out of the hole he'd been digging, saying quietly, "Vivi? Vivi-sama, is that you?"

Usopp and Luffy panicked, waving their arms around as they tried to cover it up, and I winced, I was the one who called her out by name in front of a civi after all...Shit, my bad...

"Vivi-sama, don't you recognize me? I suppose I have lost some weight," he continued, starting to have two small tears at the corner of his eyes, as he talked to Vivi, who finally did seem to know him because she muttered, "Totto-oji-san!" her eyes filled with tears and she covered her mouth with her hands, when her tears do fall, they end up going all over her hands, but she apparently didn't care.

Seeing that he wasn't a threat, I turned away to give the two of them a moment of privacy.

Will, Neal and Chopper tagged along with me as I went looking around the buildings for a place we could all sleep for the night.

Eventually I found what used to be an inn, it looked like the old man must dust in here somewhat regularly, because there was very little sand in the room. What little there was, was on the bed sheets, and was quickly shaken free and it was clean once more.

Letting the others know, we quickly set to claiming who's bed is whose after a rather intense and epic pillow fight between everyone minus Luffy, who was still outside talking to Old Man Toto. He apparently wanted to help the old guy dig.

Unfortunately, there's not enough beds for everyone.

Nami and Vivi decided to double up, much to Sanji's dismay. He'd tried to get one of them to share a bed with him, but they unanimously turned him down. When he turned to offer me to sleep next to him, I half drew my sword and asked sweetly, "Only if you're willing to lose your manhood right here, right now."

He shook his head, face pale, and said as smooth as he could in the circumstances, "Another time perhaps." I snorted and shook my head.

I plopped down so my back was to Will's, and said, "goodnight, little brother."

He elbowed me lightly and said, "it's a good thing you're so small, Big Sis, otherwise this wouldn't work."

He chuckled as he gestures to the fact that, not only is he sharing a bed with me, but Neal has shifted to his hybrid form, being about a foot or two bigger in size and having his wings and tail being extra large. He used his wings as natural blankets over the two of us, while he curled up and cuddled close to Will like a teddy bear.

I blushed, and said, "well, if it didn't, I'd just have to share with one of the other guys. Usopp's the next smallest, but he has a bad habit of rolling around in his sleep."

Usopp, who'd only just laid down, shouted at me, "I do NOT!"

Zoro chuckled and said, "Yeah, you do. Half the time on the Merry, you end up kicking your way out of the hammock and hit me on your way down to the floor."

We all got a laugh at that, while Usopp just sunk down into his bed, grumbling about revenge.

Sleep came quickly, with my last thought before drifting off being, if only we'd checked Vivi's intel on the location of the Rebel Army BEFORE crossing the desert. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20 after all...

I wonder if there's a difference between Yuba water and the water we've been drinking from Nanohana?

Isn't it all just water?

I am so sorry! so, I had this chapter finished last night, but my hubby had to get up at 5am for OT at work...this was almost 12:30am so...yeah, I couldn't post it...

I was super exited to see someone offered to beta for me!

I'm waiting for a response, and uhh, I'm gonna be straight here, I HAVE NO CLUE HOW TO DO PRACTICALLY ANYTHING ON HERE! TOOK ME TWO WEEKS TO FIGURE OUT ON MY OWN HOW TO EVEN POST THE STORY IN THE FIRST PLACE!

(O.O) (ToT) "waaaah!"

YEA...

SO! any advice you may have? please feel free to share!

(Bluu...in case you didn't get the PM, yes I'd love to work with you, and Thank YOU!)

I am such a dumb dumb, it took reading dozens of stories to discover that the acronyms for "Original Characters" was what OC meant and that OOC was for "out of character"...

and that was only because some other author for a story I was reading, was kind enough to explain that in THEIR author note!

I felt sooooo stupid...

anyways! I'm so so so so so so so so sorry for being late!

Enjoy!