In regards to Sunny's stats, yes, I love meta information. Funny thing is, I'm not using pokemon stats since I don't know how to calculate them and the majority of his opponents will be human, I've been supplementing with dnd 5e rules with the Pokemon homebrew. So in that, he's a level 1 (out of 20) cyndaquil while Luffy, for example, is a level 3 way of rubber monk, etc. It helps me come up with difficulties and what is or isn't possible. That said, I do know that Sunny is level 8 currently and has a Timid nature, and decent SpA, Atk, and Speed IVs.

Sanji charged forward to stop the white-haired man's jitte. "Keep going, this one's got a seastone weapon!" He yelled.

Zoro stopped the swordwoman's blade with a look of concentration.

The tall, shiny mace-wielding woman shouted at Luffy, "You brat! I'm going to get my revenge!"

"I don't know who you are!" Luffy yelled irritably. He wound up a punch and walloped her in the head, sending her flying back into the side of the alley.

"Keep moving!" Nami shouted as mud splashed behind her and Sunny had to duck to the side to avoid the worst of it. Though a little bit of rain wouldn't hurt him, he hated getting wet. And besides, he was starting to look like a swamp monster.

"Not so fast, Straw Hat!" The woman pulled herself up from broken pieces of crates. "I'm not done with you."

Luffy adjusted the hat on his head. "You three go ahead. Sanji, Zoro, and I will meet you there," he said.

Usopp nodded. "Good luck!" And we started running again, me blindly following the two through twists and turns of the streets.

"Lahaha! I've got you now!" Sundries, the man who had eaten the mage-mage fruit, jumped out at them half a dozen feet in front of Nami, who skidded to a stop and ducked away with a scream, narrowly avoiding being hit with a bolt of energy.

Nami pulled out her bo staff and swung. Sundries dodged and pushed her over before putting distance between them again.

"Run!" Usopp said, reaching over to help Nami up.

Sunny looked over the magical man with layers of differently patterned clothes. The man stared back, looking slightly nervous as he remembered Sunny shrugging off his attack earlier.

"CYN! Cynda-quil quil!" Sunny squeaked, motioning his head toward the stretch of water that was just within view a couple of blocks further down.

"Sunny, come on!" Usopp said as the two of them moved away.

Sunny shook his head. Go ahead, I'll make sure he doesn't follow..

Nami stared at him for a moment, mouth open, but then pulled the protesting Usopp along.

"Staying behind, are you, little mouse?" Sundries said. "Be vanquished knowing that you've been defeated by the great Wizard of the East Blue!" With that, he sent forth another shot of fire, that Sunny dodged and it fizzled out on the wet bricks. Sunny moved quickly, having the advantage of the slippery surface with his low center of gravity and four legs. If he played his cards right, he could bring him to the ground and buy enough time for Nami and Usopp before making his escape.

He threw himself into Sundries' chest in an effort to displace him. The redhead stumbled back with a yelp as Sunny's head impacted the wizard's stomach with surprising force, sending him doubling over slightly. Sunny put some distance between them again and spun around again, preparing fire in his mouth and throat, then smothering it. He held his breath one second, two seconds…

"Get frostbite, little mouse!" Sundries reached out his palm and a burst of ice sprung from his hand to the surprise of Sunny. He can use ice and fire?

-three seconds. Sunny exhaled out his nose and a thick cloud of smoke and soot enveloped the two combatants. At the same time, he felt ice and sleet hit the front of his chest and feet with fury. He couldn't remember the cold very well, just the memory during his sleuth's migration of catching a big snowflake on his nose and it immediately melting away. This was nothing like the fond memory of the briefest chilly weather. It clung to his fur and froze and he found he couldn't move his front feet to the ground. A trapped cyndaquil was a dead cyndaquil!

The smoke still billowed around them. He could faintly see another light. Another type of attack! Shivering, he didn't think he could take another hit like that. His sprung up on his back, even if it risked being seen, and his temperature elevated past what would kill a human until his skin was the temperature of hot tarmac in mid-summer and the fire on his back, unbeknownst to him, and for the first time, rocketed past a thousand degrees, burning a brighter red than ever before.

The ice freezing his paws to the ground steamed. As the smokescreen began to clear, the ice around Sunny completely sublimated.

Another attack whiffed toward the pokemon, a bright ball—electricity this time. Sunny dove to the side, covering his face as stray bolts of electricity loosed as the orb of energy hit a few feet away. The fallen rain directly around him had mostly evaporated with Sunny's surge, preventing the electricity from reaching farther than it should.

"Did I hit it?" The wizard called as if Sunny would reply in the negative or affirmative.

The smoke suffused from the ground finally, the air still gray and ashy. Suddenly, the green-haired man rounded the corner. He approached Sunny and Sundries in a run.

"Huh. I knew that attack looked familiar so I followed the smoke, looks like I was right." He stopped twenty feet from the two fighters, eyeing the raging flames on Sunny's back and noting that Sunny hadn't looked away from his opponent, though the human was eyeing Zoro cautiously.

"I can't believe you're fighting again." Zoro didn't sound impressed. "Luffy and the air-headed blond went ahead, must have missed you. You planning on taking care of this?"

Sunny growled almost imperceptibly. He could tell, it would take maybe two good hits to take this man down. The man was slumped slightly and clutching his side. Maybe just one hit would wind him enough to take him down. He wasn't nearly as strong as the fishmen had been.

A sigh. "Fine, take care of this. I'm going ahead." Zoro said finally, taking off running toward the ship.

Sunny leered at the man, who stumbled back in surprise as the strange burning rodent opened its long, slanted red eyes and watched him with his thin white pupils.

"What?" Sundries growled, his back hitting the brick wall. He prepared another spell. "You're a little devil, aren't you?"

The cyndaquil charged, dodging to the side of the wizard's electric spell, and throwing himself not into his stomach but towards his face, now that he was slumped, he could reach, and impacted with all the weight of his body and fire. Sundries' head impacted against the brick wall. The building electricity in Sundries' hand fizzled out as his mouth opened slightly and his eyes fluttered closed, collapsing into a seated position. Sunny landed close by, huffing for breath. Sunny stayed there for a moment before jumping off Sundries' lap and running down the street toward the rest of the crew, throwing a glance behind him at the unconscious man.

In on the dock in front of the ship, with his arms crossed looking stoic, was Zoro. When he saw Sunny pelting toward him, covered in mud and soot, eyes slitted but content, Zoro smiled.

"About time, campfire," he said turning around. Sunny charged over and climbed onto his shoulder with muddy paws and Zoro easily climbed onto the ship just as Sanji and Usopp raised anchor.

As Loguetown disappeared behind fog, Nami gathered everyone from the various rigging and they were securing and laid out a poster. Everyone, layered in grime and mud, gathered around it curiously. It was a picture of Luffy grinning wildly with 'WANTED: Straw Hat Luffy' printed on it. Sunny wasn't sure what to make of it, but everyone else balked a little bit, though Luffy chuckled and Zoro gave a small smile.

Nami didn't look pleased at all. "Luffy, this isn't funny!" He jabbed her finger into the poster. "You're wanted dead or alive for 22 million berri! The Marines working with Arlong must have found out about what happened! That means what Buggy was trying to do…" she continued on, voice strained, "if you're caught—the government might try to do to you too!"

"Shishishi! Then I won't let them catch me!" Luffy said.

"Honestly, Nami, you can't expect a pirate not to get a bounty. Consider how much chaos Luffy wrought, there's no way the Marines wouldn't find out." Zoro reasoned.

Nami sighed. "There's more." She slid the paper over, revealing a second one.

"Quil?" Sunny said aloud in surprise. He was looking at a picture of himself holding half a coconut with one of Luffy's feet half-cropped out of the picture.

"Strawhat Mascot. Wanted: Dead or Alive," Nami stated. The air was a little heavier now. Zoro heaved out a sigh. Luffy grin slipped into thought.

"Hey, look though, Sunny's bounty is only 44 berri," Usopp pointed out amusedly. "I didn't know they went that low."

Sanji took a drag of his cigarette. "It still puts undue attention on someone who shouldn't have it," he said. "It's more symbolic for the marines. They're making sure people remember him. No one's going to forget the crew that has the East Blue's highest and lowest bounty."

"Well, I think these are great!" Luffy finally decided, giving Sunny a pat on the head. "We got our first bounty! The Strawhats are worth 22 million and 44 berri! I'm gonna put these up in the kitchen!"

"Oh no you're—" Sanji started after him.

"Not so fast. Before you all do anything, get yourselves cleaned up, you're all so muddy!"

Zoro scowled with mud splattered up to his knees, on one shoulder and his cheek.

"I wouldn't have gotten muddy if someone hadn't climbed onto me while we were escaping," he argued, pointing at Sunny. The muddy fire-type suddenly interested himself in staring at the mast like it held the answers to the world. It wasn't his fault his legs were short and he definitely couldn't outrun or jump onto the ship with his height. And wow, the mast was really tall.

"It doesn't matter why you got muddy, you are! Clean. Up."

Luffy and Usopp hurried off with the bounty posters. Sanji followed close behind.

With a growl at both Nami and Sunny, Zoro slowly followed the others into the boy's bathrooms.

Alright, I think I'm in the clear, he thought, as he slowly moved away from the fiery redhead.

"Not so fast, you," Nami warned, equally terrifying, causing Sunny to freeze in his muddy tracks. She picked him up, holding him at an arms-length, though she already had dirt and mud in her shirt and hair. He really was muddy, with splotches all over his coat, muzzle, and even on the top of his head. "We need to clean you off too."

Sunny struggled, splattering more mud onto her, but there was nothing he could do, short of flaming her and incurring her wrath.

"It's okay, it's not saltwater and it'll be a shower not a bath, so your devil fruit powers won't be affected."

What are you talking about? He complained internally, do I look like a rubberman to you?

Of course, she didn't understand, because he was on a crew where no one could understand a word he said.

She brought the shrew pokemon into her bathroom, spotless, but smaller compared to the boys', and closed the door. She shed her muddy clothes and turned on the shower and it steamed like a pot of tea. She took a relaxed breath and stepped in, cleaning herself off and washing her hair while the cyndaquil contented himself with laying in a dry but warm spot in the corner of the room.

Eventually, Nami stepped out of the shower, donned a fluffy bathrobe, and turned her attention toward him. It was like getting kidnapped abruptly from the Baratie all over again.

This! Is! Not! A! Good! Idea! Sunny cried, trying to get it in her head before he entered the small-pounding-rain-room. Give me some sand to roll around in and I'll be perfectly clean! But even his most clear and overt cynda-speech meant nothing to her.

"Hang on, Sunny, I just need to get you clean, it'll just be a second—"

The first barrage of water hit his back, bouncing off and wetting his fur, Sunny felt it run close to his eyes and screwed them shut as they stung. Small sparks of fire emitted from his back to fend off the rain and he had to fight to quell that instinct that would only exhaust him. The water was tolerable for a few moments but the sheer amount of it made it skyrocket uncomfortable to intolerable in less than ten seconds. The water started to burn like ice and soaked the heat that kept him moving within him.

The pressure of the falling water making it hard to find breath and blinding him. In the time it took for him to get completely soaked, he felt freezing cold, exhausted, and desperate enough to wrench himself from Nami's grip throw himself onto the lowered toilet cover, onto the sink and into the open vent where the steam was rising.

Sunny heard Nami shout in surprise after him but he moved instinctually, half-blind from his irritated eyes, separating himself from the source of water as quickly as he could.

The vent went a few feet forward, claustrophobic as it pushed from every side, but he scooted towards, then up a little ways, but Sunny could brace himself against it with the sheer instinct to get away, climbed the three feet of feet upward, then charged the horizontal surface, barely squeezing through the steaming exit that acted like a chimney to all the steam and heat vents of the ship, and propelling himself out of the deck, numb with cold and shaking like a leaf.

"Hey Sunny! Did you have to take a bath too?" Luffy called from where he was playing with a caterpillar he'd found on Nami's mikan trees.

Sunny stood, unsure of what to do. He felt cold and sick to his stomach.

"Sunnyyyy! Come over and see this cool bug! Eh, Sunny? What are you doing over there?" Luffy popped up off the ground in an easy leap and wandered over.

Sunny closed the distance over to him, stumbling on his feet. Luffy scooped him up and held him to his chest. "Oh, you're shaking! What happened?" Luffy frowned and stuck the soaking Sunny in his shirt, trying to warm him up.

Just then, Nami burst out the doors to her cabin in her robe, looking slightly relieved when she saw Sunny's head poking out of Luffy's shirt. Zoro by now had an eye open in curiosity.

"Oh, there he is, he ran out of the room…is he okay?" Nami asked worriedly.

"I dunno, he's shaking a lot and kinda cold," Luffy said, giving Sunny a pet on the head.

Sanji walked over with a glass of fresh lemonade for Nami, who accepted it without really paying attention. "You didn't bathe him, right? He's a devil fruit user after all," Sanji pointed out, looking at the miserable pokemon.

Nami shook her head. "No, he wasn't submerged at all. It was a shower, which shouldn't affect a devil fruit user, and even if it did, he would have gone limp like Luffy, not run away," she looked toward Luffy for confirmation, who gave a hum of agreement, wrapping his arms around his cold crewmate.

"But he didn't act like that, he acted like he was being burned, or getting put out like…an actual fire getting wet."

"What are you saying, that he might not be a devil fruit user?" Sanji asked incredulously.

"Well, we'd need to find some sea prism stone to confirm it, but yes, what I'm thinking he isn't just an animal that's eaten a devil fruit, but he's tied with fire somehow without one. The Grand Line is full of mysteries and… he might be something none of us have seen before."

1. I did a little fire-based research and the lowest, darkest red flames are about 950F (525C), considerably lower than a fully burning campfire, but then again, those take a long time to get that hot. Babyquils probably burn about 950. It's more a threat display than anything else.

2. Luffy's bounty… Because they arrived late because they stopped on Sunny's island, they missed Nezumi and although Luffy and crew scared off some Marines who had been stationed on Cocoyashi, they didn't directly meet Nezumi, who petitioned for Luffy to have a crazy high bounty for retribution. Sunny was given a bounty simply for being with Luffy while the Marine, er, journalist was taking their picture.

3. So imagine being stuck under a waterfall and the water is around you in every direction, coming so strong you can't breathe because the air is so full of water, and you can barely keep your eyes open, so you don't even know what direction to go in. I had that experience for roughly 5 seconds as a kid, and I imagined that even a shower would feel like that to Sunny, though natural rain would be much more tolerable, as seen.

4. Oda ruled that showers would be okay for devil fruit users as long as there wasn't too much standing water.