Chapter 4
Hunger
"Come this way please," Mira said to the members of the Straw Hats; Luffy, Nami, Usopp, and Zoro. "Let me show you our ship."
"Say, does this ship has animals on it?" Luffy asked.
"Of course there are! We have lions, tigers, elephants, horses, even dogs. We have all kinds of animals," Mira said. "I will show you them later. Though, speaking of which, didn't you come from the bottom of the ship, Luffy?"
"Hm? Hmmm, now that I think about it, I did, didn't I? I remember that I fought some lions and tigers," Luffy laughed.
"I see… That explains how you showed up from below the ship to the stage," Mira said, sweating with a sweat-drop.
"Are you crazy?" Nami asked.
"Nami-chan, I think the answer to that is quite obvious," Usopp whispered.
"Are you stupid or something?" Zoro said straightforwardly.
"And I say that was spectacular!" Aster exclaimed as he was walking behind them.
The Straw Hat members and Mira stopped for a moment and turned around to be surprised that Aster was with them.
"Aster!? What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be mopping?" Mira asked strictly.
"Don't worry about that. Mr. P. Teller is handling that for me. Besides, hanging with you and the guests is much more fun," Aster convinced.
"Yeah, but…" He ignored Mira as he joined with the four of the Straw-Hat crew members.
"So you are pirates, right? Did you have any adventures?" He asked, showing a hint of enthusiasm.
Luffy grinned. "Of course we do! We have adventures all the time!"
"Sweet! I like to hear while Mira and I give you the tour around the ship," Aster decided. "Come on, follow me!"
Mira stepped in the front to stop Aster. "Ah-hem, I'm the one who the Boss assigned to give these nice people the tour."
"And I am here to make things a bit more exciting, Mira," Aster said as he gave her his puppy eyes. "Please let me be with you and help you."
Mira rolled her eyes. "Fine. You can stay, but if the Boss sees you with me, it will be all on your head."
"Thanks, Mira!" Aster chuckled. "Let's being our grand tour!"
"Hee, hee. Sounds exciting!" Luffy exclaimed.
The first place they showed on the tour was the dressing room.
"Here is the dressing room. This is where everyone's dresses are put in to prepare for our show," Mira said as she showed them around.
The dressing room was a huge room with rows and rows of dresses and outfits of all shapes, colors, and sizes.
"Wow! This is incredible! I've never seen so many clothes in one place!" Nami impressed.
"Looking around carefully, there are," Usopp said as he looked around.
"Hey, Usopp!" He turned around to see Luffy in a ridiculous getup. "Look at me! Isn't this neat? Check out this hat!"
Luffy was wearing a giant cake hat. Nami just shrugged, but Usopp joined with the captain to try out some ridiculous getup for himself, too.
"Hello again, everyone!" They turned to the source of the voice. "Welcome to my office."
"Hi, Violet. We are showing our guests around the ship," Aster said. "Oh, by the way, did you fix it?"
"As you all already met, Violet-san here is our dres' manager and coordinator. He, ah I mean, she handles everyone's costumes and outfits for all our shows," Mira explained.
"Ah! Yes, my lad, Aster!" Violet looked through the hanger with so many outfits and then took one out. "Here you go, lad."
"Thank you, Violet," Aster said as he accepted the fixed outfit, but strangely it was a small outfit.
"Hmm?" Violet walked over to Nami, which surprised her a bit and surprised her more when he touched and looked at her nails. "Excuse me, young lady, but your nails…"
"Ah, what about it?" Nami asked.
"You need some bit of manicure, dear. You've been using this lovely hand for something, like say drawing maps for example," Violet guessed.
"What? How did you know that?" Nami asked in surprise.
"I know what lady goes through," Violet claimed. "Let me fix you up quick."
Violet used her beard-like tentacles to grab a manicure tool and quickly trimmed Nami's fingernails beautifully.
"Tra la! There you go, dear!" Nami's nail shined like a diamond.
"Wow! That's amazing. Thank you, Violet," Nami said happily.
"No problem, sister. If you ever need anything else, you can always count on me," Violet said. "Not only I am a dress manager and maintain all these dresses, but I also make sure everyone looks spotless and beautiful. I even provide massage service, too."
"Really? Well, that would be great, and my shoulders do feel stiff from time to time," Nami stated.
"Then how about it? I can provide it to you, free of charge, of course," Violet suggested.
"Really?! That would be great," Nami decided.
"But, what about the tour?" Usopp asked, who was now wearing a giant bear jacket with black and white spot pants, and a weird hat with an arrow sticking through.
"You guys go ahead. I will catch you up. Just you and Zoro keep an eye on Luffy, OK?" Nami said.
"Huh? Why the hell I have to?" Zoro asked.
"Just do it, OK?" Nami's intimation loomed over Zoro and Usopp, making them feel very afraid. Aster and Mira sensed it, too.
"Well, that's OK. We can continue the tour. Right this way, gentlemen," Mira said.
"Let's go!" Luffy declared as he was about to leave with the clothes still on.
"Hold it right there, honey!" Violet stopped Luffy and Usopp with his beard. "You don't think you will take my clothes with you, are you?"
Luffy and Usopp gave back the clothes and then continued with the tour while Nami stayed and began with her message session by Violet. Soon, they arrived at the next area.
"Next spot is our training room!" Mira showed.
The training room was another special room, and it was a well-fit room with plenty of space and many weight-lighting equipment and exercise gears.
"Hooo…" Zoro showed some interest.
"OOoooh!" Luffy looked around.
"This is where everyone can exercise. Samson Strong usually uses this room a lot, but everyone can use it," Mira said.
"Not bad. Not bad at all," Zoro said. "Having something like this on the ship can be helpful for training."
"Yup! It's important to keep in shape," Mira agreed. "I occasionally used this room to work on my arms and bit of my arbs, too."
"It's pretty helpful room, especially someone who wants to lose weight," Aster stated as he grinned.
Mira looked at Aster menacingly as he stepped one foot away from her.
They headed to the bottom floor of the ship under the deck. "And here is our animal room!"
"Woah! So this is where you keep all the animals?" Usopp asked.
"It sure smells like it," Zoro noted as he sniffed.
"You will get used to it," Mira assured.
"Oh, it's you guys." Tina noticed. "You came to see the animals?"
When the group entered, some of the animals reacted and hid, especially when they saw Luffy.
"Hmm? What's wrong with these guys?" Luffy asked.
"I think they are afraid of you, Luffy. Don't you remember that you have beaten some of them up before?" Usopp reminded him.
"Oh yeah!" He remembered. "Sorry about that."
"Well, as long as you don't cause a ruckus to my animals, I forgive you for now," Tina stated.
"Miss Tina here is our animal tamer! I also help with her show, so I am kind of her assistant in a way," Mira said proudly.
"If anything, Mira is Tina's second-in-line!" Aster claimed.
"Stop it! Don't embarrass me!" She slapped Aster too strongly that caused him to trip over a bucket and it fell over his head.
"Ouch…" Luffy laughed at Aster's little misery.
"Pa-Woah!" Usopp turned to one huge cage and gasped.
"Woah! These are elephants, a real-life one!" Usopp exclaimed.
"Really? Let me see!" Luffy ran over to Usopp's side. "Wooaaaaah! They are huge!"
"The elephants are one of our big animal stars for our performance," Mira explained.
Luffy and Usopp noticed a baby elephant just hiding behind the other bigger adult elephants.
"Look at that. There is a baby elephant there!" Luffy pointed.
Usopp chuckled. "That's cute!"
Aster whistled, and then the baby elephant reacted as it came closer to the cage bar.
"This baby elephant was recently born about a couple of weeks ago. He is our newest member of the circus," Aster said as he padded the baby elephant. "We name him Dumbo Jr.".
"Dumbo Jr? That's a cute name," Usopp said as he smiled. "Which one of these elephants is Dumbo Jr's mother?"
"Unfortunately, his mother passed away," Tina said sadly. "It was just around when Dumbo Jr was born after three days."
"Oh…" Usopp said as he looked at the baby's elephant straight in its eye. Dumbo Jr looked straight at Usopp's eyes.
Usopp smiled as he reached out his hand and padded on the baby elephant's head. "I see. You lost your mother, too, huh? I know how that feels."
"Pa-Woah," Dumbo Jr said as it used its nose to touch Usopp and then grabbed on his nose.
"Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch! Ouch!" Usopp cried.
Luffy, Zoro, and everyone else laughed as Usopp tended his nose.
Dumbo Jr and its family laughed in response. "Geez! That hurt," Usopp cried as his nose was in red.
- One Piece –
"Here is the kitchen. Grab whatever foods you need. We have plenty." Chef Ham bought Chopper and Sanji into the kitchen. "The foods are all inside our refrigerator."
"Thank you so much." Chopper opened the refrigerator, and just as he said, there was plenty of food.
"Quite a big kitchen," Sanji said as he looked around. "Are you the only cook here?"
"The one and only, sir!" Chef Ham claimed. "I have some of the Clown Family to help out sometimes, but all the cooking and preparation are handled by myself. I also prepare some for our customers when they watch the show."
"You are hell busy with cooking for the crew and the customers," Sanji commented.
Cher Ham laughed. "True, but I enjoy it! I've been doing it for many years now! I am happened to be famous from where I was from. Since you lots are traveling on the Grand Line, someday you may get there."
"Really?" Sanji wondered in interest.
"Alright. I got everything I need, Sanji," Chopper stated as he had a large white bag full of food.
"Good, Chopper. I will help you with carrying it," Sanji noted.
They headed back to Merry to meet up with Robin, but when they arrived there, they saw Robin waiting.
"Robin-chan, how are you doing? Sorry to keep you waiting!" Sanji greeted happily.
"It's nice to see you guys back," Robin said, grinning.
"What are you doing here on the ship, Robin?" Chopper asked.
"Well, I have bad news to share," she admitted.
She showed them the mess left on the ship. The refrigerator was left open, and many kinds of stuff, like books and tools, were all over the floorboard. It was as if someone scavenged around, and made a mess.
"What happened here?!" Chopper gasped.
"And who dares left the fridge opened! All the ice has melted, too!" Sanji complained.
"And what's worse is that the patient is gone," Robin pointed out.
"But who do all this?" Chopper said.
"There is only one who can do all of this. It has to be the patient herself," Robin answered.
"Say what?!" Sanji and Chopper gasped.
"If I reckon, your patient must have gone up onto our ship," Chef Ham said.
"But why?" Chopper asked.
"She must be looking for food. We better find her," Robin declared.
"I agree!" Sanji exclaimed.
Meanwhile, speaking of the devil…
"Food…. Food!" The patient lady was scavenging around to find food as she looked very desperate as if she were going to lose it or already may have lost her marble.
She sniffed around and caught something. "Food! There!" She ran down the hallway to the kitchen.
Meanwhile, the tour group just left the animal den and were walking down the same hallway where the patient was running down towards them.
"Now, we will be heading to the kitchen," Mira stated.
"Hurray! I am starving!" Luffy overjoyed.
"I am kind of hungry, too," Usopp said. "I wonder if Chopper and Sanji got the food for that lady at the Merry."
"So your ship has a name? It's just liked our ship here!" Aster said.
"Hee, hee! It's made by a girl named Kaya from my home island, and we went on many daring adventures with it. Like that time when I fought a giant catfish, and the fish was quite literally a cat!" Usopp proclaimed proudly, though it was a lie.
"You've never fought a catfish! That was that giant fish with a cat face back in Alabasta!" Zoro corrected him.
"Wow! Really?" Aster gasped.
"Food…" They stopped halfway to the kitchen and saw someone on the opposite side. It was the same woman that Luffy and others found.
"Who's that?" Luffy asked.
"That's the same chick who is supposed to be on our ship," Zoro said.
"Yeah. She is," Usopp realized. "Why is she here?"
"Food…. I want food!" She ran towards them.
"Kyaaaaaah!" Mira and Usopp screamed, getting frightened by how horrifying she looked.
- One Piece –
A Navy battleship was sailing their way. The onlooker found Shining Sea Circus' ship ahead through his binocular.
"I see a ship ahead!" The soldier yelled.
"Ship ahead, men!" The captain of the ship shouted. "Sir, what should we do?"
"I sense that our escapee is on that ship most likely. Head there immediately!" Their leader ordered.
"Yes sir!" The soldiers began working as they turned towards Shining Sea Circus' ship without anyone on the ship noticed that the Navy was on their way.
Hello, everyone! Here is a long-awaited update for my One Piece story.
The Straw Hat enjoyed the tour of the ship while few of them gathered a food for a hungry patient, but it seems like she escaped and is now on the ship. Meanwhile, the Navy is heading their way to them. It looks like a sign of trouble coming!
Just a little announcement, but tomorrow is my birthday and yesterday, I got my Playstation 5! I am just overjoyed that I managed to buy it from Walmart during their drop over a week ago. I am re-playing Spider-Man Miles Morales to complete the trophy and try out the PS5 version next after I do that. Hopefully, I will play the next God of War and Horizon Zero Dawn sequel on this system.
With all that said, stay safe and healthy, and see you guys later. Peace!