After we grabbed the Log Pose from Crocus, I went on deck and took out my newfound daggers. They were rusty. Mr. 9 clearly didn't care well enough for them to clean the blades. I thought back to the rest of the crew. In canon, they had a dynamic that no one could truly portray. People got close, but that bond just wasn't there.

Everyone was their own unique person, so… what am I? What are we? Where do Me and Mota fit in? What do we do? We probably only have time on this ship until the Alabasta Arc ends, so what do we do to make ourselves invaluable to this crew? To make ourselves part of that bond?

I sighed at the thought. I inclined my head a little to look at my reflection in the waves. I pondered at what I saw.

Nami avoids me, I thought, Zoro is still wary, Usopp is afraid, indiscriminately, Sanji deems me as a threat, and although he fawns over me like any other, he analyzes me for my next move, and Luffy? I sighed, Luffy is just Luffy. But… he's different. Not like how the anime nor the manga portray him as. He's searching me, nay, searching us for something. But what…

The sound of shuffling next to me broke me out of my thoughts. I saw Mota there with a sneer on her face. God that girl was absolutely insufferable. But, to be true, I taunt her equally as well. I wasn't in the mood for it right now, though, so I just ignored her.

After a few moments and no reaction was goaded out of me, she dropped her sneer and opted for a more worried look.

"Are you okay? You hit your head hard back there," she questioned.

"Don't worry, arsonist," I muttered, "If I die, then your objective will be fulfilled.".

Mota brought herself closer to me and looked me in the eyes. I could see a story of her own flashing through there. Pain. Fear. What people thought as innocence, was simply ignorance on her part. For a moment there, those eyes looked too old, too different to belong on her face, and I wanted nothing more than to just… take them off.

After that horrible, stuffy moment of silence, she spoke, "You're worried we'll be abandoned, aren't you?", she observed.

Surprised, I turned my head to her, "How did you know?".

She gave a mysterious smile and said, "I can just read you well,".

I felt satisfied with this answer, since I knew this was about the farthest, I could get in convincing her to tell me, and even I had to admit, my worry was kind of out in the open.

All telling signs that I was restless were there. I was looking into my reflection and pondering something, which is a sure sign to say that something is wrong, my eyebrows were furrowed, and my lips made a weird pout-but-not-a-pout, because, I don't pout! I don't know why, but it's never come to me.

I gave Mota a strange look and thought something, does she know exactly what I'm worrying about?

Mota gave a half-look of surprise before another thought chimed into my head.

A thought that was most certainly not mine.

'Well, if you want to lord over our connection with your worries so much, then please, be my guest,' she finished with a devilish smile.

I narrowed my eyes and decided to play with her for a bit. I wondered what her reaction would be if I thought of vulgar images…

…

Her reaction was priceless.

As I sifted through the pictures in my mind's eye, I could see her expression making changes between disgust and horror, as well as the occasional arousal.

'STOP!', the thought invaded my mind and bulldozed through all of the pictures I was sifting through, and sent us both reeling back from the sheer force of it.

My head was pounding, more so than it had been when I hit my head, actually, I think that that hit, made this all the more painful.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts, eliciting another sharp spike of pain in the back of my head, which I tried my utter hardest to ignore.

"The hell was that?", I heard Mota say, but her speech was warbled.

Oh.

Oh.

That cannot be a good sign, can it?

I promptly blacked out.

…

Shivani was in an underground bunker. She was extremely confused, and she didn't know what was going on. When her History Teacher walked in, she said,

"Shivani, come up! You'll be late for the field trip!"

Shivani was completely confused, but complied. Her mom and her sister followed her, and the surfaced to see a humongous, floating carnival. It looked an awful lot like Dressrosa. It had all the features.

The streets were paved cobblestone, and the buildings were tall. It even had that Oda-damned birdcage around it. Add that to the fact, that they were somehow in a carnival that is also somehow in the MIDDLE OF THE SEA, Shivani knew exactly where she was.

Not that she seemed to care, though.

She walked through the carnival, finding her best friends. They had the stupid, stupid idea to go up to the Birdcage and sit on top of the birdcage, because they were young and glorious.

In hindsight, they should not have asked their History Teacher. It did not matter that she even agreed, they should have not told the History Teacher.

Now, they were on top of the birdcage. With no one to help them back down. Shivani's best friend tried to get to the hatch in order to unlock it and go back inside the Carnival, but she slipped and fell into the unforgiving, yet beautiful waters of the sea.

Somehow, she changed into Tony Tony Chopper when she died. How strange…

"WAKE UP DUMMY!", a voice shouted out from the seas beyond her.

Huh? What was that? It sounded so familiar. Then, the dream went up in flames.

Wait… dream?

…

"…-KE UP DUMMY!", I woke up to Mota screaming profanities in my ear, and I winced.

"Jeez, no need to be so loud," I groused.

She ignored my complaints, instead opting to look at the sea, and shake me by the shoulders.

"We're here," she whispered in reverent awe, "We're here.".

I looked at where her shaky finger was pointing, and I could see cactus mountains, and for a moment, I was taken in by the same reverent awe as her. I shook myself out of my stupor.

"We're here," I said firmly. I nodded and got up. I rolled my head and stretched out all of my joints, hearing the cracking and popping noises they made. Once I was satisfied, I walked over to Nami. On the outside, I had an aura of indifference, almost boredom, inside, however…

Why didn't Nami wake me up? Was the first thing that came to mind, the second thing was, does she really fear me that much?

I didn't know I had been broadcasting over our connection until I felt comforting, soothing, and reassuring emotions flood me. Out of curiosity I glanced over to Mota who was calmly sitting down and smiling, the very look of serene around her. Anybody with half a mind and awareness could literally feel how experienced she was in reassuring someone.

A thought that scared me to no end.

Who did she have to comfort? What dangers did she face? Why is she so experienced in doing this? Question after question popped up in my head, leaving me in a dazed state before I unknowingly bumped into the Navigator herself.

I quickly righted myself, but before I could apologize, I found Nami apologizing to me profusely.

"Hey…" I started

"I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M—" she kept repeating like a mantra.

"WOULD YOU CALM DOWN FOR ONE SECOND?!", I yelled, somewhat indignantly.

She promptly shut up and squeaked out, "Please don't kill me,"

I looked at Nami oddly before asking, "Why didn't you wake me up?", by then I had become keenly aware of the number of stares I was receiving. Sanji's was wary. Zoro's was too. Usopp's was apprehensive, and Luffy was observing. Once again searching for something I couldn't identify.

Nami froze and mulled my sentence over in her head before blurting out, "I was afraid to!", she flinched away and braced for an attack from me, which disgusted me to no end. I was sure not to let the emotion show on my face or in my posture, but it flared up inside me. I lowered my eyes so they almost looked bored, and thought, does she really think me to be so low as to hit my own benefactors?

I opened my mouth to say another thing, though, "Okay," I deadpanned.

Nami looked up at me with a confused look etched onto her face, "What?" she asked lamely.

I sighed and looked at her, "I'll get to the point right now. I know you're scared of me. I know you don't like being near me. I know that I'm scary. Please, we're only going to be here until we get to an actual habitable island, then we'll be out of your hair, so…", and then I let out a painfully fake smile, "just bear with us, here.".

I then turned on my heel and walked away. I knew that the smile I had given them was so painfully forced. It was easy to do a smile like that. Just a little tightness around the cheeks, lose the spark of happiness within the eyes, and furrow the brows just a little. Without even turning around, I knew that I had made everyone there feel some form of guilt, whether they liked it or not.

Luffy, though, Luffy was an enigma. He could read people like an open book, and on top of that, he was unpredictable. If anybody watches MLP, he could easily give Pinkie Pie a run for her money, and even steal her thunder.

Speaking of which, that would actually be a pretty good story to tell, I hummed to myself in thought.

When I went back to Mota, I saw her scowling at me before saying, "I could feel your intentions from there, are you sure it was a good idea to make them feel guilty?", I gave a guilty smile, "Absolutely,".

She sighed before swiping away some of my bangs, "If you don't want to look so imposing, you should pin these back, and let your face's natural beauty do everything for you".

I looked at her, "'Natural beauty'? The hell do you mean?".

She scowled at me again and gestured wildly to my body, "Are you blind? While my body is all soft features, and the type of many I come across, yours is sharp, imposing, and you practically have the body of a model. Your features alone are sharp, and clear, giving you an aura of independence, you frickin' ooze sexi—", I cut her off there,

"I get it," she blushed and opened her mouth, but I quickly continued, "Although, I think I kind of want to look scary and imposing right about now,", when she gave me a questioning stare, I gave her a pointed look and removed a few of my mental barriers.

I mean, that we're nearing Whiskey Peak.

With dawning realization, she nodded and looked toward the island. When we sailed into it, everyone immediately began praising us and showering us with gifts and offers that I knew were empty. The rest of the crew were pulled in by their own desires and, by extension, me and Mota too.

I was offered multiple times to join drinking or eating contests, and I declined, sometimes politely, sometimes forcefully, Mota, however, was left alone. They probably deemed her too innocent to do any damage. Wow, maybe outward appearance really does help in combat.

It reached a point where no one could do any more and they all clocked out. I feigned sleep, and I could feel Mota's activeness, so I knew that she was acting too. She was acting horribly, though. When I heard footsteps, I subtly shifted in my 'sleep' so I had a firm grip on the hilt of my dagger. When the footsteps subsided and went… up, I fully awoke.

I shook Mota awake, and pointed upwards. She nodded and then frowned before pointing at Luffy. I kneaded the bottom of my lip with a frown mirroring the one on her face before brightening up and relaying a plan into her mind. Katrina's face brightened up like a sunny summer's day, before adopting a determined look. I think she was trying to copy my grim, determined look, but she ended up just looking awkward.

I sped up to join Zoro just as he began his speech. If he was surprised by my arrival, he didn't show it.

It was official. Operation Whiskey Peak was a go.

AN: Sorry for the update being one day late, for all the Hindus who are reading this fic, Happy Diwali. That holiday is technically the reason that I wasn't able to update, considering I came home at practically 11:00 in the night, so I hope that this chapter will be enough to compensate for it.

~~2,185 words.