Ch.6- Chopper: The Accident That Made A Doctor
Disclaimer- I don't own One Piece unfortunately.
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Living on Drum Island was usually like being on a very long winter vacation. Snow was everywhere all the time even during the summer. The snow was beautiful, the air always smelled nice and clean, and the children always had snow to play with. The only bad thing about being there was having to deal with the very few doctors and King Wapol. But that wasn't the only thing they had to worry about.
One of the biggest troubles besides King Wapol was Dr. Hilruk, the unlicensed doctor who came into the towns to "heal" the island citizens with his partner, nine-year-old Tony Tony Chopper, the blue nosed reindeer. The man and his partner were necessarily bad, but they just made the townspeople scared and angry at them for not being able to cure them of their illnesses.
Chopper hated the townspeople not because they always chased both him and Dr. Hilruk out of town right after they finished working, but because the humans treated him so badly after he ate the Hito Hito Fruit. The only human he really did trust was Dr. Hilruk himself. It wasn't his fault that he hated humans, it really wasn't and there was nobody on this island that would change what he hated.
It was now around the beginning of December and both Dr. Hilruk and Chopper had gone to a small town to cure a few kids that were really sick. The moment both Chopper and Dr. Hilruk stepped inside the little house, they knew that the first thing they had to do was get the sick kids that were crying their eyes out to stop crying.
The first task wasn't easy. There were three children laying in one huge bed, crying in unison at the pain in their heads that the fever was giving and at the pain in their throats that the coughing gave. The crying eventually stopped and Dr. Hilruk was able to examine them. Both parents of the children stood in the doorway of the room with nervous looks on their faces.
Dr. Hilruk and Chopper stayed in that house for five minutes before they were chased out by the father for making the children cry again this time worse than before, after giving them some medicine. As they ran, two figures from outside the house followed them quietly so they wouldn't be heard.
Dr. Hilruk and Chopper stopped in front of Dr. Hilruk's house and slowly turned around to see if anything had been following them. A shuffling sound came within some bushes about five or six feet away from them. A yellow color was sticking out of the bushes, a color not from the bushes. A conversation was going on between two:
"How long do you think they'll be standing there?"
"I don't know."
"Do you think they'll know we're here?"
"Shut up, Melis. You're going to get us caught."
"You shut up, Markis. You're talking just as loud as I am."
"Melis, I swear to God, if you don't shut up, I'm going to…"
"Who's out there?" Dr. Hilruk called out towards the bushes. The conversation quickly stopped, but the figures in the bushes refused to come out. "Come on, get out here!" Dr. Hilruk yelled towards the bushes. Slowly, two figures stepped out of the bushes, a boy and a girl with blonde hair.
"Who the Hell are you!" Chopper snapped.
The boy and girl jumped not because they were called out from their place so suddenly, but because a talking reindeer was speaking to them.
The braver of the two, the boy, decided to speak first, "I'm Markis."
"I'm Melis." The girl bowed her head.
"And what are you doing here?" Dr. Hilruk asked the two of them.
"We saw you running out of our house and…wanted to see where you lived." Markis answered. Dr. Hilruk and Chopper looked skeptically at him.
Melis punched his shoulder and whispered harshly into his ear, "That's the best excuse you could come up with!"
"Well, at least it's better than saying the true reason we followed them." Markis whispered back.
"Still, you could have picked a better excuse." Melis whispered back.
"Well, you found our house. Now go home." Dr. Hilruk interrupted Melis and Markis. The two didn't move. Chopper sighed and turned to his human form. He took a few quick steps towards them.
Melis and Markis screamed and ran down the snowy forest and to their own home. Chopper returned to his normal form. Dr. Hilruk let out a deep laugh and opened the door to his house. He walked inside. Chopper followed him. Once the door closed, both Dr. Hilruk and Chopper laughed uncontrollably about Melis and Markis.
"Do you think they'll come back?" Chopper asked.
"Nah." Dr. Hilruk answered.
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Melis and Markis ran screaming towards their home, but immediately stopped when they saw an elderly lady they knew too well enter their house.
"Oh no. It's the witch." Melis whispered frantically. Markis nodded. He was also afraid of the witch known as Dr. Kureha, and of all the money she'd take from their family when she finished curing their brothers and sister.
Both of them quickly walked into the house and away from the eyesight of the witch. In only a few seconds, the screaming and crying stopped and within minutes, the witch's voice echoed through the halls, "That'll be 99 of your earnings." Markis and Melis groaned. More money was gone from their already poor family. The witch didn't even reconsider when she ran into both Markis and Melis.
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As much as Dr. Hilruk and Chopper wished for Melis and Markis not to come back, the two children did come back the very next day. They were hiding underneath the windows of the small house, occasionally looking through the windows and hiding their heads when one of the two in the house looked up. Of course, both Dr. Hilruk and Chopper knew that Markis and Melis were there even if they couldn't see them.
Markis and Melis were determined not to be scared away by Chopper this time. They were fascinated by the medicine experiments Dr. Hilruk and Chopper were performing and just couldn't leave. But, as strong as their determination was, the two were chased out of the forest by Chopper again.
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Melis and Markis kept coming back to Dr. Hilruk's house for nearly two weeks and kept making up excuses on why they kept coming up. At the end of the second week, Dr. Hilruk was growing tired of all the excuses and both Markis and Melis coming to the house through the forest.
The last day of the second week, Dr. Hilruk practically dragged both Markis and Melis into his house and demanded to know the truth of why both of them kept coming up to his house everyday.
At first none of the two would answer, but after seeing a pissed off Chopper, Markis decided to answer, "We want to train under you to become doctors."
Dr. Hilruk didn't believe him so he made a weird look at Markis' sister. Melis nodded.
"How old are you two?" Chopper asked. Markis and Melis didn't freak out this time.
"Eighteen." Markis answered proudly. Dr. Hilruk and Chopper stared at him.
"Fifteen." Melis told them. Now she was the one being stared at.
"We're thirteen." Markis said. The room was silent.
"Fine, we're ten!" Melis shouted.
"Come on, tell us the truth." Dr. Hilruk sighed.
"Six." Markis and Melis admitted.
Dr. Hilruk shook his head, "You're too young to be training under me. Go home to your family."
"Forget it! I don't want to go back!" Melis shouted.
"Me neither!" Markis agreed.
"Why not?" Dr. Hilruk asked.
"There are five kids in our family and all the attention goes to our brothers and sister. Our parents are always worrying about them and not about us." Markis admitted.
"Weren't they just sick?" Chopper asked.
"Well, yeah. But even before then our parents would use all their attention on them." Melis explained.
"And why do you want to become doctors?" Dr. Hilruk asked.
"We want to heal people and be able to do it without our brothers and sister being with us and taking all the credit for something we did right." Markis explained.
"And why do you want to train under me?" Dr. Hilruk asked.
It took a while for Melis and Markis to answer the question because they were embarrassed, but Markis finally gave in, "We're afraid of the witch and you were the only one that came to our house besides the witch."
Dr. Hilruk laughed, "Afraid of the witch? That's a good one."
"Plus, with you, anybody can have the chance of being doctors. Even your reindeer friend." Melis piped up, pointing at Chopper.
Chopper froze. Is she telling the truth? Can I really become a doctor? Do I really have a chance? Chopper wondered.
Dr. Hilruk put a hand under his chin and looked like he was thinking, "Come back tomorrow and I'll give you my answer. Just give me a day to think about you training under me." Melis and Markis nodded and ran to their home.
Once they left, Chopper looked up at Dr. Hilruk, "Do I have the chance to become a good doctor? Do I really?"
Dr. Hilruk smiled larger than he ever had before, "You do. You have the chance to become one of the greatest doctors in all the blues."
"Are you going to let those two train under you?" Chopper asked.
Dr. Hilruk shook his head, "No, and I'll let them know that when they come up here tomorrow." He believed what he said was true, but never believed that an accident involving Markis and Melis would happen that day.
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Markis and Melis walked up the snowy fields the next day, leaving their brothers and sister, who were now completely recovered, at home. Both Markis and Melis ran through the forest as fast as they could. They were right at the halfway point between their house and Dr. Hilruk's house when the accident happened.
An earthquake rocked the ground and shook off a heavy blanket of snow.
"An avalanche!" Melis screamed.
"Let's get home! We can come back later!" Markis screamed back. He grabbed Melis' hand and started to run home, but the snow was falling too fast. The snow quickly covered both Markis and Melis and kept going.
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Hours later, Dr. Hilruk suggested to Chopper that they go towards the town Melis and Markis lived in. The two walked a short distance before Chopper's hoof hit something hidden in the snow. He quickly removed some of the snow until he saw the blonde, spiky hair of Markis. Dr. Hilruk quickly helped him remove the snow off of Markis and his sister.
Without saying anything, both Dr. Hilruk and Chopper examined Markis and Melis to check if they were still alive and breathing. They were alive and breathing, but they were also freezing. Quickly, Dr. Hilruk picked up both kids and started running towards his house with Chopper following him. They were at the house in less than a minute.
"Chopper, remember how the girl said that you could have a chance to become a great doctor?" Dr. Hilruk asked, placing the brother and sister on a bed. Chopper nodded.
"Well, this is your chance." Dr. Hilruk told him. Chopper nodded again and immediately started gathering blankets to put around Markis and Melis.
Markis and Melis were warmed up within a few hours although they hadn't woken from their unconscious state. Chopper had noticed something else wrong with them: fevers were burning their heads. Before deciding whether to give them medicine or not, he placed cloths on their heads. The two slept the whole night.
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The next day, Melis and Markis were only awake for a few hours. Their fevers ached and made them feel weak, but at least they weren't in extreme danger. Chopper was usually the one taking care of them as the two lay in bed, moaning in pain. Dr. Hilruk was considering on experimenting with medicines on Markis and Melis, but Chopper stopped them, explaining that they were just children and shouldn't have to die so young if something went wrong.
For the next few days, the fevers still confined Melis and Markis to the beds they were in. Chopper was busy treating them while the townspeople were searching all the grounds in Drum Island to find Markis and Melis. Unfortunately for them, the two children had not been found by them.
On Christmas Eve, the fevers of Markis and Melis were gone and the two were well enough to walk a few feet before having to rest. And, since it was Chopper's birthday, neither Dr. Hilruk or Chopper wanted to take Markis and Melis home but the two of them were not well enough to walk home by themselves so they had to stay at Dr. Hilruk's house for the night.
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At midnight, Chopper and Dr. Hilruk got out a sled from behind the house. They placed both Markis and Melis on the sled and pulled it to the entrance of the town, a short distance away from Markis and Melis' father.
"We'll pick up the sled at your house in a few days." Dr. Hilruk told them.
Markis and Melis nodded. "Thank you for saving us." Markis said to them.
"Oh, and Chopper? You will be a great doctor even if you aren't a human." Melis told Chopper. Chopper nodded and grew into the human form. He gave the sled a hard push.
"Merry Christmas!" Markis and Melis called back before stopping in front of their father. The man cried out in joy, collected his children in his arms, and pulled them home in the sled as they told them what happened to them the day of the avalanche.
Chopper and Dr. Hilruk watched Markis, Melis, and their father walk home until they were completely out of their sight. Then they started walking home. At their home, they got rid of all the smells of sickness in the house left form Markis and Melis when they stayed.
On that early Christmas morning, Chopper thought back at what Melis said about him being able to become a great doctor and about Dr. Hilruk agreeing with her and learned a special lesson. He learned that he would be able to become a doctor no matter what his species was. And that was the most important lesson for him.
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A/N: Okay, that was my sixth chapter. Sorry if it didn't make much sense, but I don't know very much about Chopper's life, so I made something up. Markis and Melis are my own characters, but if anyone wants to use them, they can feel free to use them. Sorry, if you didn't like this chapter very much, but I'm in a mega huge hurry to finish up all the chapters I need to do before Christmas. R/R if you want, but if you hate it don't flame me and send me your ideas if you have them because I really will need them with the next chapter or so.
Next chapter: Nico Robin