I'm so grateful to you all-this is now by my second most reviewed story! Extra long chapter to finish off the arc! I've been dying to get to Drum for reasons...
Firefly- Thanks for the review! Sunny's most obvious side is a cinnamon roll fighter (he's about 10-11 in pokemon years) but theres some other stuff going on in that brain of his that hasn't been able to pop up very often because he isn't able to talk to the crew very much yet...just wait. :)
Thomas Drovin, Gamelover41592, Engineer4ever, MAJORMATT1234, buterflypuss, Layla347 & Guest- thank you for the reviews and your amazing encouragement-I don't thank you guys enough!
"I'll show you the true spirit of Elbaf! BROGY!" As he pointed to the downed giant, Brogy suddenly startled back to life, sitting up.
"BLEH! It smells like rotten eggs!" He bellowed. He wiped some of the blood from his face and came forward on his hands and knees. He closed an eye in concentration as he examined Ms. Goldenweek. She froze stiff, barely five feet from his face. Her skirt ruffled from his exhaled breath. She looked a little worse for wear from fighting with Sunny, and sweating from facing Usopp, but the terror on her face cemented her loss.
"You're not the only one who blew up my keg, are you?" He frowned, then echoing the girl's words from before- "Little girls shouldn't play with explosives."
Ms. Goldenweek looked like she was caught between fainting and running though she quickly made up her mind, leaving a little girl-shaped dust cloud in her wake. No one followed—Nami tried, but Usopp reached out and tripped her with his leg, the force carrying her leg back clear out of her painted sandal.
She stumbled forward, barely catching herself with her hands on the ground with a groan. Sunny's eyes stayed trained on the smaller girl's escape, body tense.
"What..?" Nami's eyes still looked blank as she sat back in the grass in the middle of the painted and scorched field.
Usopp hurried over to Nami's side. Brogy lay his hands flat against the grass, chin resting on them as he watched his companions.
"Nami, are you alright? You're not planning on fighting us still, are you?"
She bit her lip. "No, I'm sorry. Sunny, Usopp- I didn't..." It had seemed perfectly logical to fight her friends, it's not like she had forgotten who they were, or even that they were going to set sail together, she still had wanted to defeat them. But what would have happened after that? Flashes of Arlong Park, both most recently and from her childhood keenly came to mind, enough to make her shoulders shake.
Then she felt a firm hand on her tattooed shoulder. "It's okay, Nami. There's no way we would let you or us get hurt here."
Nami blinked. "Usopp..."
Right! Sunny snapped out of watching the escaped Baroque Works agent and remembered the paint Usopp still had on his back. He took the folds of the fabric and balled his paws into it and sent a weak surge of fire to climb across the green streak. It was just enough to char the fabric and blacken the paint.
Usopp gave Nami a gentle smile. "The most important thing is that you're-GYAYAA I ALMOST DIED!"
Nami flinched back from the sudden change in her friend before huffing in annoyance, knocking Usopp's hand off her shoulder. "You're so uncool..." Then she stood up, wiped herself off and turned to face Brogy. "Are you okay? That girl tried to kill you."
"GABAGABA! I am fine, I didn't try to drink any because your very small friend was making a spectacle of himself! But I think we need to find your friends. Me and Dory's battle can stop for now to help you."
Nami nodded gratefully before going to pick up her dropped new bo staff before eyeing it with distaste. "Not that I'm not a little glad because of the situation... but this weapon sucks, Usopp!" She leveled an accusing finger at the man, only an inch from his nose. "Soy sauce and hand-warming functions? Seriously, you were going to let me go to battle like that? I'd definitely die!"
"Those are very situationally useful!" Usopp protested, then stood up straighter, rubbing under his nose. "Besides, I may have lied just a bit to you earlier."
"What do you mean?"
"The pressure plate near the grip, I told you it was a handwarmer so you wouldn't use it against us, but it's actually the rod's most useful feature!"
Nami dubiously pressed the plate. Out of the top came a pop and a bubble, which Nami waved a hand through. It was a pocket of cold air.
"I know you were brainstorming something like a barometer feature, but I decided to go a step further. The left thumb grip creates cool temperature balls and the pointer finger grip..."
Nami pressed it, feeling the air. "Creates warm air pockets," she finished, a wry grin spreading across her face. The warm air bubble rose up quickly to meet the slower cool ball and they broke apart with a slight gust of wind. "You mean I can create..."
The three Straw Hats were holding on for dear life on his shoulder and moving at giant's speed.
Their plan was simple—find the other biggest guy on the island and assume Luffy had somehow come across him.
Brogy knew where to go to find his rival, and the island wasn't big enough to present too large a challenge.
Before long, Brogy was parting two massive palm trees like Sunny would underbrush to see the other giant, dark-haired, lean, and thin, laying on the ground.
"DORY!" Brogy shouted.
Sunny was focusing on the ground, where one enemy lay beaten on the ground and another had managed to catch Zoro and Vivi on a white platform. Luffy was engaged in combat with an opponent with strangely-styled hair shaped like a '3' and glasses.
Brogy lowered the three pirates to the ground and Sunny ran forward to Zoro and Vivi, who were half-covered with white stuff, which was falling around them. Sunny had never seen it himself, but it didn't take a genius for Sunny to link this with the pretty, white stuff his mom had called 'snow' in her stories.
Sunny was bounding over to the platform for his distressed nakama when Zoro held out a hand. "Stop! It'll encase you too!" His lower half past his knees was entirely encased in a solid white substance. The snow falling from the sky had settled and hardened in his air and shoulders and Vivi was in a similar condition. Zoro realized he'd moved and quickly returned to the cross-armed, straight-backed stance he'd been in before.
Sunny jerked to a stop, his front legs just making contact with the slightly squishy white substance. With a little difficulty, he pulled his legs away, some stretching and sticking to his legs. It was hard.
Is this…ice?
He was a little surprised it felt a little warm, it hadn't been his impression, but he was younger then, and had probably misunderstood. But Sunny did remember that fire melted ice, his mother had definitely explained that. A quick breath of fire on each leg was enough to melt the ice in a tacky, warm liquid.
"Zoro quit posing, we're not going to become statues!" Vivi's voice was a little shrill.
His attention was momentarily diverted from Vivi and Zoro as Luffy dodged a blow from the man, who Sunny presumed was also a Baroque Works member, Mr. 3, and had a cast of the same ice on his arm. He was swinging it with enough force that he was momentarily driving Luffy back though the boy was more agile.
Nami and Usopp were watching carefully and arguing with each other, eyes darting to the wax platform. Usopp had rope in his hands, for what, Sunny didn't bother to try to figure out.
He took a few steps back, wiggled his butt and leaped onto the platform, which was starting to form a second layer like a cake. Even as light as he was, his paws sunk in slightly, but he moved fast enough he didn't break the surface tension and sink far enough to get stuck. In a few bounds, Sunny had made his way to Zoro and stiffly jumped onto his ice-covered shoulder, immediately scratching at some hardened ice behind his ear with a back leg. Then he realized it was also covered. And more snow was still coming from the sky above them.
I'm starting to hate snow, Sunny thought to himself, biting a paw so that the still-warm shell cracked-it was too slippery to stay on his shoulder without any traction. He gave his other paws a quick fire bath because this snow actually tasted really gross, and it melted away.
He felt Zoro jolt under him. "Sunny, do that to me!"
"What? No way, you'll get burned before all the wax melts!" Vivi protested. Sunny tilted his head in confusion. "Not ice? Then why is falling from the sky, Vivi?" Sunny's facetious observation was ignored.
"My other option is to cut my legs off but I may need them to fight, so this is the best option," Zoro shot back.
"You idiot!" She screeched.
"Wouldn't you do it if it was your people in danger?"
Vivi frowned but stayed quiet. Zoro took it as resignation. "Sunny, do it."
The quill pokemon nodded and jumped back down by the first mate's feet. His paws sunk a little faster now that his body temperature had risen but he held on to Zoro's wax-covered leg to prevent from sinking too far. He didn't aim his fire directly at Zoro. He needed to melt, not burn, and Vivi was pretty smart most of the time, so her concerns were probably legitimate, especially as Sunny wasn't sure how much fire a human could handle.
After a couple of seconds, the substance began to sweat opaque not-water drops. A few more seconds and the shadow of Zoro's boot began to show below the more filmy substance. Another stream of flame and Zoro pulled his leg out of the stretchy mess and balanced on his one trapped foot.
Sunny, sweating, moved to the other side to blast away at the other side of wax despite the rapidly growing feeling of exhaustion coming over him, leaving his fire shaky and volatile.
"It's not even that bad," Zoro grunted to Vivi, smelling more like burnt rubber and hair. "Do you want to try?"
"No way, just, no," Vivi said flatly.
Zoro shrugged as best he could, then turned his attention back to Luffy's fight. Sunny was halfway through melting the wax on Zoro's other leg when the ache in his throat worsened and he stiffened, trying to push past the discomfort. The ember in his throat caught and exploded in his throat, causing him to jump in pain and spew smoke and hot cinders as his eyes teared up from pain that led to dry hacking. He would have growled if it didn't feel like the last thing he wanted to do in his state. He'd made enough fire in his throat that it had been thoroughly covered in soot and caused a literal misfire and left him dizzy. And Zoro's leg still wasn't fully freed.
"You alright?" Zoro's brows furrowed. "Can you make any more?" Sunny shook his head helplessly, still heaving, a thin wisp of smoke still emerging from his nostrils.
"Alright then." Zoro's mouth set, bending over as much as he could and grabbing Sunny by his side and picking him up in one hand. "Hang on." He put his freed foot on the edge of the softened wax and pushed off on his toes. With a splrush the wax disconnected and they fell off the platform face-first toward the wax-free ground.
Sunny felt strong arms wrap around him and a moment later, he was jarred, but not stunned by the impact of the fall. He squeezed out of Zoro's grip, coughing in exertion, unable to clear his throat from the irritated burn there. It was painful to swallow and hard to breathe without coughing. Frankly, he didn't have the energy to melt more of the wax covering the rest of Zoro's legs and upper body, or even to speak. And then there was the matter of Vivi…
Sunny couldn't see her from the ground but her blue hair had been almost fully covered so she would be hard to make out. How was he supposed to get her out? Usopp had lassoed her but Nami and Usopp were still arguing over what to as it turned out, Sunny didn't need to be alarmed. As Brogy brought Dory unsteadily to his feet. Luffy shot an open palm attack out against the Baroque Works agent, who blocked it with the block of candle wax on his arm. Luffy grinned wide, his fingers stretching with the momentum of his attack and wrapping around the durable casting.
"Gum Gum Smash!" Mr. 3's eyes went wide before his entire body went blurry as he flew in the air and was slammed into the ground of the other side of the clearing, unmoving.
No one moved for several moments, the sheer abruptness of Luffy's victory stunning the group. Sunny lowered his head and hacked to clear his throat, slightly relieving the discomfort and breaking the silence. Lesson learned: he wouldn't push his fire so far, or his target wouldn't be the only thing getting burned. His mother had always warned him that the first rule of any fire-type was to respect the element-if you couldn't you were just as flammable as what you raze. Fire was the predatory element, it could help but it could take away-and eat at almost anything indiscriminately. Sunny had burned himself and he'd burned Zoro. He hadn't been strong enough for his own element. He'd have to step back, be more careful in the future.
Dory leaned over and gave the twitching Baroque Agent a light flick, sending him flying through the forest. The wax around them began to lose its unnaturally strong composition and slough off Sunny, Zoro, and Vivi. And with the danger gone, Carue soon appeared sheepishly at the edge of the clearing.
"Well, this calls for a feast! Geya-geya-geya!" Dory laughed. They were already in Dory's clearing, so the two giants, with their temporary truce, began to set up a fire and prepare the meat Zoro had brought.
The Strawhats gathered themselves. Luffy looked bruised but not badly off, Usopp a bit scorched, and Zoro had to slip out of his boots and rinse his feet, which were already bright red and burned, while Vivi and Nami tag-teamed him with a loud lecture. The swordsman himself didn't seem anything but pleased with himself, and when the smaller crewmate took a meek lap near the three loud humans, he stopped arguing long enough to give him a satisfied nod.
Sunny couldn't help a small smile from forming on his face despite himself. Zoro had been willing to risk a lot to get free but had been trusting Sunny to help him all the same. They may have both come out of it worse for wear, but Sunny knew if things went badly, they could rely on each other to make a hard choice. And Sunny was nothing if not an enabler.
"Where's Sanji?" Luffy asked. "SAAANJIII!"
Nami turned to the rest of the crew worriedly "Has anyone seen him? Sunny?" They all voiced negatives and Sunny shook his head.
"We split off because he kept scaring off my prey." Zoro supplied.
"We need to look for him," Vivi said.
Sunny gave a hoarse whine in lieu of speaking. Nami seemed to share his hesitance. "I don't think we should split up again. If we look for him, it should be together."
The group went after him, telling the giants they would be back in time for the party. Zoro had to drag Luffy from the raw meat, but he calmed down eventually, announcing he needed Sanji to cook from him.
Fifteen minutes into the forest, Luffy shouting after the cook loudly enough to scare birds from underbrush, something caught the fire pokemon's attention. Sunny, feeling better, had designated himself 'rear-guard' for his sleuth and was looking out for predators when he'd caught himself scrutinizing the one bird left in the underbrush, obliviously pecking at a spot in the dirt. The bird was larger than most-but not uncommon for this island-with bland brown and cream coloring, a pink beak, and tufted eyebrows.
"Pidgey!" Sunny exclaimed with all the unimpressive volume a cyndaquil could muster, too surprised to worry about scaring it off.
The pidgey didn't fly away, though, just ruffled his feathers and tilted his head, calmly."Yes?" As if the encounter were only mildly interesting.
"Pidgey!" Sunny repeated, baffled, skidding to a stop a few feet away from him. The rest of the group had turned around now, watching in confusion.
"It's just—you're a pokemon, just a regular pokemon!" Sunny babbled. He'd only seen behemoth pokemon that could blast him into next week in the last five months. It was such a tremendous relief to just see one like him.
Pidgey blinked. "You're standing on a seed."
Sunny moved back, bewildered, and watched the pidgey peck at the ground for a moment. It wasn't uncommon for pokemon across species to converse, but there was no caution whatsoever in this strange flying-type. He'd never had a conversation with any of the ratatta he used to feud with when he and his siblings spent an hour digging their burrow open and every time the siblings would succeed, the ratatta would re-burrow in seconds, adults snapping at them as they went.
But pidgey were not prey for cyndaquil or their evolutions-they weren't worth the effort to catch. There was no animosity between them, pidgey simply avoided the potential issue by keeping a distance. And while pidgeotto braved their clearing for bug-types unimpeded, it was because the fire-types knew better than to try to catch the swift birds. There was a delicate understanding-somewhat civil, but careful, that this one seemed not to notice.
"Sunny, what are you doing?" Luffy called. "We can eat when we find Sanji!"
Pidgey finally gave Sunny a suspicious look. Sunny scrambled. "I swear—I'm not going to eat you, I just haven't seen many of us…what's your name?"
"Pidgey."
Sunny realized he'd spent too much time with humans with a mental smack to his head. Naming conventions were quite different between humans and pokemon. Many species of solitary pokemon simply went by their species name—even trained pokemon did, if there weren't multiple of a species.
Pidgey flocked but mostly lived independently, so they wouldn't need other names. Even Sunny's sleuth used simple names to distinguish; Red, Blue, and Yellow. Vesper had chosen a new name for herself when she was older and her old name, Blue, was given to Sunny when he hatched. Names meant very little to pokemon—very little at all. Sunny hadn't even known what his parent's names were. But after he'd been given a name by his crew, they'd begun to matter to him—he'd begun to identify with a human word—his word—as abstract as it was.
Sunny turned to the crew.
"What are you doing with that weird sparrow?" Usopp asked, eyeing the pair, the bird only a little smaller than Sunny.
"This is a pokemon!" Sunny said, pointing to it, then himself.
"Oh, did you make a new friend, Sunny?" Nami asked, an amused smile gracing her face.
"Po-ke-mon!" Sunny explained, sharp with exasperation, "-don't be condescending, you're the one who isn't understanding-pokemon." Sunny lifted the pidgey's wing in emphasis. "Magic animal! Elemental! Creature from another world!"
Pidgey trilled in monotone, eyeing the scattered dirt abjectly.
"D'you think Campfire's saying he knows the bird?" Zoro pondered. Sunny quirked his head, then hopped up and down in excitement. Close enough!
"Or one of him?"
Sunny's hopping intensified. The pidgey had to hop with him a bit to avoid his wing being pulled.
"That can't be right, it just likes a like a normal huge sparrow on this island. It doesn't have weird colors or powers and doesn't look very bright." Usopp argued.
He stopped hopping, breathing heavily as he felt a brief moment of dizziness. Right, he was exhausted and his head hurt from where Nami had bunted him across the field. Sunny growled in frustration at the tinkerer, barely resisting going over there to burn the seat of his pants off, and he wasn't going to risk ember again. He'd let go of the pidgey's wing, and he was fluttering off at the sound of the low growl before Sunny could react.
Sunny felt a weight press down on his chest as he watched the pokemon disappear into the trees, one more puzzle piece of his own existence gone without anything to show for it. Tch. There were two pokemon that looked enough like the animals in this world to confuse the humans and he had to come across one of them!
Just then, another bird startled from the brush behind him, taking to the air with strong, slow pumps of heavy wings. Its prehistoric tail skimmed the air less than a foot above Sunny's head as it began to climb. Its blunt, toothed beak, feathery rainbow wings tipped with claws painted a strangely graceful silhouette. It was beautiful in a way Sunny had never seen before, even as its gravelly cry pierced the canopy.
"ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRCHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPSS."
The small fire-type watched in wonder as the prehistoric pokemon vanished from sight. After a few moments, the crew understood.
"That creature…that had to be one, right?"
Sunny managed a slight nod.
"But then before-?"
Another nod.
"We really…don't know anything about you guys," Vivi said finally. Sunny nodded a third time, but a tired smile crossed his face. If they knew, it was a start.
The crew found Sanji in short order—he'd managed to steer clear of all the fighting somehow, and the evening was spent eating, exchanging their accounts, and for Sanji, fawning over his 'warrior princesses.'
It was strange, in a way, for Sunny as they hadn't fully defeated Ms. Goldenweek. And even if he didn't think she'd be causing trouble soon, it felt a little hollow; that she'd made Nami fight them and hurt Brogy and had gotten away. Sunny had burned to go after her-as surely as his mother had pursued and caught her prey-for what she did to Nami. Only the fear and guilt Nami had been radiating had stopped him. But he pushed the feeling aside; he had his sleuth with him now and in the end, everyone was together. He focused on that. And the giants knew how to throw a party, according to Luffy and Zoro. They ate, drank, and made merry.
Dory and Brogy clunked their barrels of ale together, grinning down at the pirates and the princess.
"For all your help, let us know what we can do for you! GABA GABA GABA!"
Nami smiled slightly, bringing a finger to her chin. "Well, there is one favor we could ask of you two strong giants..."
They left Little Garden with a send-off fit for giants. As they bellowed goodbyes and words of thanks, the Merry set off from the coast. As they reached the first of choppy waves from shore, glinting scales snaked from the water, crimson and bright. Sunny's heart squeezed in the thought- The Red Gyarados.
It rose out of the water, stitching a straight line toward with a raging howl. She had been waiting for them. She'd been waiting just out of the shallows with their ship in view to carry out her revenge-she leaped into the air, seafoam at her mouth. Luffy ran to the front, preparing to attack.
"Now!" Came Nami's shrill cry. A figure moved from behind the ship, standing up, his upper body rising from the ocean. He reached a hand out to grapple the serpent's tail, who trashed in surprise, twisting back toward the giant, but her gaping maw was only bashed back with Brogy's shield.
The Merry pulled away, echoing with shouts of encouragement as Gyarados bit down on his arm and he wrenched her away, Dory joining in the water as they tangled with her, grins wide and laughing jovially.
"GABABABABA-A BATTLE FIT FOR WARRIORS OF ELBAF!"
"GYA GYA GYA! FINALLY A WORTHY CHALLENGE FOR US GIANTS!
Sunny and Luffy very much wanted to see the end of the fight but Nami navigated the ship to safety, until the giants, and the sea beast, and the island blurred with distance. Usopp wiped tears of awe from his face as he shook himself out of it.
"So those are the true warriors of Elbaf," he whispered.
Oh man, almost left it at the pidgey, but it felt like a troll move, so I delivered. As always, thank you all so much for your reviews. I always keep comments and suggestions in mind, especially when you all ask for more pokemon! Don't worry-more are always to come!
* Sunny's 'misfire' was a variation of Struggle.
* Raticate and Pidgey are both pokemon that look uncannily like their real-life counterparts. Seriously, sometimes I don't know how those two passed muster.