Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece
Thank you CuddlyChristina. Funny thing is I haven't heard from her in a few weeks and am thinking she might no longer be available for chat. Anyways, thank you readers for helping me get the energy to write this story.
X_X_X_X
This left Eiza in great pain, and it seemed that she was ready to kick the bucket. Just then, she heard the sound of someone running, and saw that it was Razi, who looked genuinely concerned.
"Eiza!"
Eiza lost consciousness, but not before feeling Razi's warm caring hands on her cheeks. The crazy bitch...felt love.
When she woke up, she had the worst headache followed by a very tight mask on her face.
Slowly, she begun to stir, attempting to look around.
This place she was unfamiliar with because she just moved here today. How she missed waking up with or without a headache on the Golden Yumi.
But what was covering her face like a mask? It seemed to be, as she could move her hands, a hot towel.
Pulling it off her face, she got up and asked, "Razi? Where are you?"
"I'm in the kitchen." He told her. "Hungry?"
"Sure." Eiza replied, stretching her arms before getting out of bed.
Her clothes were still on, but her shirt was buttoned out for more room on her neck to put the towel on. That meant Razi got to look at her breasts. Although she was glad he helped her when she needed him...if he looked there again, she would end him.
Buttoning up her shirt, Eiza smiled as she asked, "So, what might you be making?"
"Beef and rice with straw length thin carrots." Razi said, handing her a bowl. "Good thing none of us trusted Jane with our cooking. Otherwise we wouldn't take turns watching her."
Eiza laughed, before she started eating almost immediately. She was amazed as to how Razi cooked something fantastic, and she couldn't help but praise him for his efforts.
"You don't really have to cook for me. We're husband and wife in title only, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't cook so well for me."
"But we are friends and friends don't make you cook your own meal after having a near death encounter." Razi explained.
Eiza couldn't help but provide him a wry smile, and with that they began eating together.
Razi was eating pretty slow, usually he could eat five plates before she finished her own. Something was weighing him in his mind. He must be thinking about the nepotism his father put him through.
Eiza took notice, and asked, "Is there anything wrong?"
Razi had to take a big sigh before explaining his predicament.
"It's just...I miss sailing on our ship and I miss going to new places, being stuck here acting like someone I'm not is just...wrong."
Eiza frowned, and leaned over to kiss him on the forehead, so as to to console him.
"Remember, we are husband and wife in name only, but we are just a platonic crewmembers trying to lie low until we figure out a way to make you Pirate King...or be found out and die horribly...worse than boiler with ice."
In just a year's time of lying low...Eiza and Razi were going to start a family. In the first month of being together...nothing happened with them. Razi did however have a golden luminescent dream of him and a golden haired woman with emerald eyes...in it he caressed her and penetrated her until he held her chest against chest, him on top and her in the bottom.
Then, he woke up...buck naked. Strangely, he wasn't naked when he fell asleep.
Nine months after that vivid erotic dream, a baby appeared in the hands of what used to be Daniel, but his gaze was cold and not even happy to reunite with his former captain, so Daniel without booze.
Both Razi and Eiza answered the door. Although they were just pedestrians, they were still intimidating foes to fight. Razi's jaw was open trying to muster something to say. Eiza was not surprised and not happy to see him.
"What do you want?" she curtly asked them.
"There's a child here for you. Her name is Charlotte." Daniel said, Pacifistally as if rehearsing a script...with the same performance as Rony Deber's plays. "She's your child Razi. What she needs is your guidance, care, and to grow up to be as strong willed and free spirited as you." Daniel handed the case to Razi before tipping his head goodbye. "Till we meet again."
Razi just stood in absolute stun while holding a baby in his paws. Eiza on the other hand ran out like she was going to hit someone with an axe.
"You died! We saw you dead in Alabastia...but even if you are a zombie...why are you acting STRANGE!"
Razi was too shocked to speak, while Charlotte's hands reached out for him in earnest.
Such a small, soft hand. Something so small...was in essence Razi. She opened her mouth to show she had fangs near her rear gum line just like Razi when he goes feral.
Hard to know if she inherited his fangs from the wolf blood that accursed wolf enchanted on him. As Charlotte ended up cooing, Razi was still stunned as he looked down at her.
"Daniel..." Daniel lowered his angry eyes at the buffoon he once had to follow, but he knew that Razi couldn't even captain a barrel. "I'll take good care of her. Thank you...you've always been a really good friend."
Daniel didn't feel that angry anymore; just the filth of being put precariously in a position that got him killed in an explosion...by Razi.
"You're...You're welcome." he replied with a nod.
That was the last Eiza and Razi saw of Daniel before he left for many years.
Present day, Razi was meditating in the living room. He was calm, breathing slowly, and his fake wife Eiza was cooking in the kitchen. He was happy.
In his meditation, he saw his daughter and all the islands she visited.
He'd also see that she had been able to go on numerous adventures, sometimes succeeding, and sometimes failing. That was enough to make him smile.
"So sad...Hardy and Etoile are leaving her crew." He said, a little weep in his voice.
"Who is Etoile?" Eiza asked, putting the meat in the oven.
"Nathan's daughter. I wonder what happened to him."
"Nathan?" Eiza asked. "I wonder myself, too..." she replied, a sigh escaping her lips.
It was unclear on what Hardy was up to, but Etoile had something in mind besides taking care of the Mink child (even if it meant getting infected): to pursue her dream crush.
X_X_X_X
Hardy was sleeping against a rock. His dream took him back to after he scared people away with his bubblegum form. Everyone scattered from the scene except the only guardian and closest person he had to a brother: Levi.
"That was some bizarre and crazy thing you did, muscles." Levi said, nervous but making light of the situation. "Maybe people will finally leave us alone."
"No, they won't." A familiar creepy voice announced.
This nearly made Levi and Hardy flinch upon hearing the voice, before they looked around to see where it came from.
Turns out it was the man who offered Hardy and Levi a way out...and he was standing before a door carved to look like the entrance of a cave only with flashing lights in the entrance. Both Levi and Hardy stepped a little closer to him, but he stopped both of them.
"Only one of you may enter. The other will only go through...not as a human being. And no, turning yourself into an oozing, skulking blob will not make you less human."
This was enough to confuse Hardy as he looked over at Levi.
"He's saying I cannot go with you, little one." Levi explained.
Hardy sighed as he closed his eyes for a moment, and then opened them as he went over to hug him. "Please be careful." Levi told him as he hugged him back.
Hardy nodded he would be careful for his guardian and friend.
As he approached the man, Hardy said, "I'm in."
Without further ado, the man unsheathed his katana and sliced it through the air...a portal of dark blue appearing before Hardy's eyes.
Seeing the portal was impressive, but walking through it...not so much. The young boy walked into a large auditorium...a waiting room with hundreds of other people.
"Where am I?" Hardy could only ask out of befuddlement.
"Your Relocation Center." He explained. "You don't get to leave your dimension and never come back without speaking to...the DED judge."
Hardy simply asked, "The DED judge? Who's that?"
"Dimension Evaluating Department. She is pretty much someone who tells you if your approved to live in your aforementioned dimension, so sit and look eager to go but let me do the talking and she might take you to a world you'll fit in with."
Hardy closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.
While walking to the office, he saw a lot of whimsical aliens, monsters, demons, and the occasional human lookers such as a spiky blue haired dark skin old man in a lab coat and a googly eyed boy with a shaven head, dark skin, brown eyes and sporting a yellow shirt.
Ignoring everyone else and forgetting those two when entering the spacious, furnished, onyx office with someone eating a sandwich with no sides and only lettuce and chicken breast inside.
"Oh, hello, sir. You new here?" he looked up and asked Hardy.
"Yes. If new means I don't know what I'm doing here or what I'm suppose to be saying...this is my first day and I'm too young for labor." Hardy stammered.
"Hello Arcadilon." The man who dragged Hardy here said. "How are your kids? My daughter just turned two today so she can walk and talk, but everything she does just seems like she's playing games."
"Actually, I don't have kids, but...I feel like I'm close to having one...someday." Hardy replied.
"Close? Your like eight years old." The judge said. "Anyways, I take it you want to leave him in the world with the Grand Line?"
"Yes. It was either the world where anyone could be a pirate and eat fruits which give them magical powers, or he could be stuck as an errand boy in his own world or fodder for demons in that world you nearly left me in."
"You really are a big flea trying to suck on the blood of a bigger dragonfly." She said bluntly.
"That's where your wrong. Where I'm from the bugs are all small by nature because the gravity is so heavy they would explode. So since I stepped on Earth's grounds I can tell you I ain't no big insect." He countermanded.
"Wait a minute? You have kids?" Hardy asked as his eyes bugged.
"I have one kid and she's only two years old. Soon she'll be old enough to need my help more than milk and affection."
Hardy couldn't help but be surprised, and then asked, "Besides that, do you have any duties here?"
"No. I'm just here so you can go to the only world that has people like you, kid. People gluttonous enough to eat a magical fruit unaware of the consequences."
"Hardy! Hardy...HARDY!"
Hardy awoke to see both Etoile screaming her head off and the baby in her arms cry in such a high-pitch wail he wanted to turn his ears into clams.
Thankfully, Hardy was quick enough to retrieve his hat. He sunk his hands into it, and was able to pull out some formula, as well as condensed breastmilk.
Etoile rushed to the table to prepare the milk for the baby wolf Mink.
Hardy got the humectant baby food and cream he found in the villages lazarette out. Etoile fed him while Hardy prepared to change his diaper.
The baby ended up cooing and laughing as the two adults took good care of him.
Hardy now had to do something most parents didn't have to do for their babies: give it a slice of an apple with antibiotics pressurized inside.
With that, the baby began to east the apple slice. Both Etoile and Hardy looked at each other and smiled, before she said, "We have to be really careful. We don't want to get infected."
"You mean you don't get infected. My bubblegum body has a very strong immune system, ergo why I came along with you." Hardy said.
Normally babies can't eat apple slices, but this young Mink baby grew it's fangs early.
As he began almost eagerly, Etoile couldn't help but smile and nod in agreement to what Hardy had told her.
Their little happy moment wouldn't last long. A certain protégé had tracked them down and was seeking a fight with them for a war they had not instigated and had no knowledge about.
Etoile and Hardy was quick to notice, as the voice asked, "Where are you, you punks?"
Hardy made the scariest face possible, a green slime monster with a large tongue.
"Oh, trying to make faces, huh? That don't scare me!" he said while crossing his arms with a smirk. "Come to think of it, have we seen each other before?" he asked.
"Do I look like we've met before?" The stranger sassed. "But to tell you the truth...Rankyaru Hornet Bomb!"
The projectile of compressed air created a beehive-esque bomb heading towards Hardy.
"Do something!" Etoile called out almost immediately, prompting him to take notice.
Hardy took a deep breath, then flipped himself backwards like a pancake. His back was bulky than his other form, helping him cushion the sharp projectiles.
The man was surprised as he saw Hardy's new form deflecting them. "Make sure the child is safe!" Hardy told Etoile, to which she nodded.
She dashed away with the child cradled in her arms. She left just in time for Hardy to distract him with a bulbous stretched gumball fist.
"Tekkai."
Hardy's fist made contact with...his foot. While he muttered the attack his foot was lifted, and it felt like iron against Hardy's bubblegum form.
"You're all gum? How can I possibly ever try and eradicate you?!" the man asked him.
"Me? You can harden your body more than my gum can hurt you, so if anything it's the same as a wolf fighting a dog...an unmovable force against an unstoppable object."
"What?!" the man asked, befuddled at Hardy's words.
Hardy knew he couldn't punch the man out, so he had to suffocate him with his bulbous body.
As he wrapped himself around him, the enemy began to feel his oxygen cutting off due to the pressure of Hardy's body.
'I must remember...my training.' His thoughts while being cut off of circulation were.
His training didn't help. He passed out from asphyxiation due to lack of oxygen. Although Hardy clearly could kill him, he morphed back to his human form to resurrect him.
Soon, he would find himself eventually awakening after a few hours.
He was disoriented from being unconscious all this time. The first thing he saw waking up was the person he wanted to hurt.
"You bastard!" he yelled out. This grabbed Hardy's attention as the man got up and attempted to attack him.
However, the lack of oxygen made him forget he had powers and attempted to hit him with a fist...moving snailishly. Hardy constrained him turning his arm into a bubblegum whip.
He then asked, "Why are you here to kill us for? We thought you were a possible nakama!"
"Possible nakama? How can you tell any stranger is a possible...that's not important! The important thing is my comrades will come to check to make sure my assassination was a success and when they find you, bubble boy, still alive...they'll pop your bubblegum body like a balloon!"
Hardy scowled at this, tightening his grip.
For this entire interrogation, his prisoners behavior went from ballistic enemy to weeping tortured slave all with just the twist of his gummy whip. Eventually, Etoile returned with the unnamed baby in her arms.
"Are you two done bickering yet?" She said, giving the baby a rocking up and down like her mother said she did. "I can hear this from the forest and it's like shrieking at Bentham."
"I can't do it! I'm scared!" he cried out, with Hardy suddenly letting go of him.
"You better listen up, assassin, because I'm only going to tell you his once. You have been in distance of this baby, which means your probably infected like I am, but thanks to Hardy I am not critically ill. So you can stay here with us but cannot leave, fight us where this time we will kill you, or by some miracle kill both of us...and still be infected...being a walking contagion for anyone close to you. The choice is yours."
As much as it pained him to say it, he had to abide by them.
"Fine, I'll stay with you...truce."
X_X_X_X
As for Charlotte...she went from an island of Mink's to an island that was in lack of a better term...bizarre. It was filled with men in completely black metal suits carrying shotguns and the wind was pink...and was kissing.
She felt herself shudder a bit, but still retained her composure.
"Excuse me," she asked, "But what's going on here?"
"The Marines." A skinny male with blue lips said, just trying to catch some fish. "They set up detectors so they'll know if pirates try to enter their island."
"But...why are some of them kissing?" Henry asked.
"Beats me. This is just strange things that happen on the island." He explained.
Henry and the rest of Charlotte's nakama could only shrug in confusion.
Herbert knew if they were going to step on foot on this island, they needed a way to jam the detection devices hovering over the island. Pirates were still illegal to step on islands.
"So, what do we do with these devices?" he heard the voice in his brain ask.
"I dunno; maybe it's up to Charlotte figure it out." Herbert replied.
"You sure this will work?" She asked. "I may just be some girl who could scratch a guy's eyes out before thinking things through, but don't these devices only work on old camera's?"
"This used to, but it's amazing how having a machine in your head can help you learn to destroy other machines. Now just activate it, and let's get on there so I can see if they have any fermented berry drinks so I can pass out on the beach and wake up with a tan...and hearing some rants from my brain how I shouldn't have drank that."
"If that's what you want, then fine. Be my guest." she replied.
Henry and Jio watched Herbert and Charlotte pressing the button. They got to easily step onto the island without any invaders.
Henry took a deep breath, before looking over at Jio. "Ready?" he asked.
"You're damn right I am. But we gotta make sure to be careful, too." Jio replied.
As they thought, the island was swarming with metal body soldiers carrying guns...and a once great now overweight director with a ten year old bespeckled blue haired girl.
"They will die now." She said.
Remembering how he was able to overcome his cowardliness, Henry had felt a surge of suspicion as he told Jio, "Crap. We've got to hurry!"
Jio used his staff. From the ground, a rock tumbled out before flipping upside down and crashing on top of one soldier. Henry quickly unsheathed his rifle from his back and fired without aiming. Even though he didn't aim, he shot one man's head clean off. That's when he realized, they were cyborgs. A mix of blood and machine parts sparked inside the helmet of the soldier.
"Oh, shit!" he exclaimed under his breath. "They're cyborgs?!" Jio asked.
"What are you guys waiting for?!" they heard Charlotte ask.
She was looking at them, seemingly paying no attention to the cyborg with the gun pointing six feet away from her. But she kept her wolf tail strong, wiggling it in front of his face before she did something unlike anything a Wolffang has done before, and that was use her claw hand to pry into the ground before twirling in a one hundred and eighty degree twirl and launching herself towards the cyborg. Her feet alone caused his head to pop off.
Herbert took notice of this, and asked, "What's going on here? Are these men machines?"
While he as thinking that...one of the cyborgs aimed his gun at Charlotte.
"Yes..." The blue haired girl said, tapping her fingers. "Her turn to die."
The cyborg fired...nothing came out. The wistfulness of seeing Charlotte die turned into anger.
"But I wrote SHE DIES!"
Little did they know, an old ally was around. Who? He was always close to Charlotte, but who he was she didn't know and she didn't even know of his prescence until the cyborgs' gun jammed.
Charlotte and her nakama were in shock and amazement as he arrived on the scene. "Missed me, guys?" he asked them.
Charlotte never met this person, but she heard enough from her father to know he was his best friend. The only living corpse and passer of souls...Zombie Jen.
No time for greetings or happy reunion with her uncle, he pulled out his two guns and fired at double cyborgs after cyborgs.
Nearly every cyborg was shot down in a flash with bullets to various areas, to Charlotte and the others' surprise. "Uncle Jen?" was all that Charlotte could ask.
"Hello. Nice to finally meet my best friends daughter and my niece. How are things, Charlotte?" He said with interest.
"Everything's pretty peachy. Sure, I may have lost a few nakama due to certain reasons, but I'm still giving it my all to be a potential legend of sorts." Charlotte replied.
"Really? What sort of reasons?" Jen asked.
"Other than I gave up on just traveling and now want to be as recognizable as my dad, maybe even be the new Pirate King, every island I go to there's always something wrong so I try kicking them with my foot and I want to stop the Marine's from checking people to see if their pirates."
Henry was impressed at how she explained her goals to the anorexic yet silky black haired man.
"But what reasons? That's what I asked you." Jen asked.
Charlotte sighed, before finally replying, "Well...One of them, Flint, wasn't in good shape, so he ended up leaving. Then there's Etoile and Hardy, who both left, so that Etoile could take care of a Mink infant."
"Currently, I've got Herbert, Jio and Henry backing me up."
Jen moved his head past his niece to see the three gentleman behind her.
"Hello. I too was the weakest member of Razi's crew, but he still relied on me as I'm sure my niece relies on you three young men."
Jio grinned, before he replied, "My name's Jio."
"I'm Herbert."
"And I'm Henry. And believe, we've been through A LOT to get here."
"Nice to meet you Jio, Herbert, and Henry. As Charlotte said, my name is Jen, and my wife's name is Beaith."
"I see that...so, how long have you been a pirate?" Herbert asked.
"I was a pirate since I was adopted by Usopp so nearly twenty years I was a pirate, but now I've resided on this island for over eight years. No more pirating for me, just settled down...and now I await my impending death."
This was able to shock Charlotte and the others. "Death? But...why?" was all that she could ask.
"I may have the power of the Devil Fruit to move my soul around that doesn't mean I am immune to death, Charlotte. I want to spend my final moments on this island."
The four pirates followed the retired pirate to his home, a wooden cabin with polka dots drawn on the walls, two windows in the front and one near the roof, a chimney, and yellow light illuminating the inside.
Walking inside, they got to see Jen's wife.
"Dear, how was your day?" they heard her ask Jen.
"Well other than a run-in with the cyborgs you know who keeps making, my niece out of the blue shos up. Charlotte; Bentham. Bentham; Charlotte. Jio, Henry, Herbert ...Bentham."
She looked at them with a small smile. Her smile quickly turned into concern.
"You didn't warn them?"
"To tell you the truth, no, I haven't." Jen replied, shaking his head.
She sighed. Although their bickering came off as comical, her face told Charlotte this news was serious.
"Humans who are still flesh and blood don't live long here...Nyn must not be allowed to find you. And Nyn, is a spirit who believes he has the right to know when a soul passes on. If he kills you...you stay as one of his soldiers."
Her words were enough to shock Charlotte and the other nakama.
"Your saying when you die...you become a slave here?"
"In a way, yes." Bentham replied as she nodded.
"Normally they wait for pirates to show up, but since you found a way to bypass the alarm...she will try to kill you herself." Jen warned