Episode of Amy

Amy wasn't sure what was going on. Her crew had been fighting the Hero of the Marines and a pawed cyborg, her friends disappearing one-by-one, and then her little sister was gone. In her rage, Amy had completely forgotten everything else like an idiot and Kuma got her, too.

She'd taken plenty of hits as both a bounty hunter and a pirate, but none of those compared to Kuma bitch-slapping her with a paw. It hadn't hurt, per se, but could sort of be compared to the sting of a spicy pepper: a tingling sensation that leaves the nerves buzzing rather than an ugly bruise.

Of course, her burned probably-scarring arms filled in the gaps of expected pain.

If she was here, alive, floating through the clouds in a paw-shaped bubble, then her sister and everyone else must be doing the same, right?

Except... one of them hadn't been there.

"Grace is going to freak," Amy whispered through gritted teeth, realizing Coby was still captured. "That pink moron. I'll have to hit him when we get back for making Grace worry."

Amy pondered and schemed all the evil things she planned to do to Coby for his stupid choices messing with Grace's emotions. She really didn't have anything better to do. And without her now-destroyed parasol, she couldn't do anything to change her destination, wherever that was. Eventually, the anger and adrenaline bled from her system, leaving the former Baroque Works agent tired and sluggish. Her eyes drooped into sweet sleep, though her dreams were plagued with worry.

Next thing she knew, she landed.

Myukuru thought it would be just another day where she would go out, practice with her katana, try to unlock her Haki, fail, go home, and drown out all the voices in her head telling her she wasn't good enough for her family under some booze, a new lover, or both that night. Her personal clearing where she trained was a small archipelago off the southwest shore of Nuts Island. It boasted nothing but a tiny forest of walnut trees that just hid the clearing inside, so it was perfect for her needs.

She arrived after a five-minute swim to the island, a ritual she'd developed shortly after finding the place. It was a nice warm-up, the water felt good, and human-sized Sea Kings offered a little extra practice when they tried to eat her.

As one would expect from swimming, her clothes were soaked. This was nothing new for the young woman, which was why she always wore a bikini on the swim and stashed several pairs of dry training clothes on the island years ago. She wasn't worried about peeping toms, so she changed into a plain black tank top and blue short shorts right there on the powdered-nut-strewn beach.

Myukuru was pretty in an exotic way with caramel-colored skin, her periwinkle hair a sharp contrast as it fell to her neck to frame her face. Her iris eyes scanned the island for anything suspicious, though she wasn't sure why. Nothing ever happened, anyway. Brushing away her concerns, she stretched her double-jointed arms, popping her back and all four of her elbows before sighing, retrieving her sword, and starting off into the trees.

The day of practice was frustrating. Her swordsmanship improved somewhat, but her Haki refused to awaken and the nagging of her subconscious said she wasn't worthy of her name. Nothing new there. What was new was the paw-shaped thing that fell from the sky around four o'clock, causing the Longarm-human hybrid to dive for cover.

Myukuru peaked out from behind a walnut tree at the edge of the clearing, eyeing the new paw-shaped depression that marred her personal training ground. In the biggest divot lay a groaning mass. They were dressed in a short pink dress with lemon patterns and had curly but ruffled blonde hair. Her arms were completely covered in bandages and gauze to her elbows. The wind carried her grumblings.

"Godadammed Kuma and his damn paws and damn robot parts and copies and shit. Where the Hell am I?" The woman slowly sat up, cradling her head. She sniffed. "Huh, walnuts. Don't see those in the Grand Line much."

Myukuru's eyes hardened as she spied on this intruder to her family's territory, squeezing the grip of her katana. Readying a fighting stance, the double-jointed women slipped away from her cover, sneaking toward the interloper.

"Who are you?" the light-blue-haired woman demanded. The blonde intruder jumped, floating to her feet and cracking the ground when she landed.

"It's rude to not introduce yourself, first," she shot back, unfazed by the strange arms of her fellow female. Ok, she was a little fazed, but she didn't let it show, falling into a basic, clearly uncomfortable fighting stance. It was obvious she was use to wielding some form of weapon she didn't have and the bandages suggested she was heavily injured.

"Who cares? I'm a pirate."

"What a coincidence," the blonde chuckled. "So am I." The two circled each other, Myukuru noting the bruises that littered her foe.

"What are you doing here?" the dark-skinned pirate asked. "Peace or war?"

"Would you believe me if I said I didn't mean to be here?"

"No. How can you accidentally be this far in the territory of Big Mom?"

Amy faltered, eyes widening as she tripped. Myukuru took advantage of her misstep immediately, rushing in and grappling the other woman with her katana resting against the blonde's neck.

"Some pirate you are," Myukuru taunted into her ear. "Though I can't blame you. Everyone fears Mama's name. Now tell me what you're doing here or else."

Amy threw her head backwards, hitting the other woman in the forehead. Myukuru flinched but held on, pulling her sword close enough to draw a drop of blood.

"O-Ok! Ok! I-It's a long story," Amy stuttered, acutely aware of the sharp object near her vital area.

"I've got all day."

"M-My name is Amy Palant." With an intimidated waver in her voice, Amy began her story, starting with Duval and ending with their battle against Kuma and Garp. Whenever she slowed, Myukuru's sword pressed against her jugular, prompting the blonde to redouble her explanation. "And I landed here. That's all I know. I swear!"

Myukuru sighed after a long minute, sheathing her blade and releasing the other woman. Amy gasped as she fell onto hands and knees, finally breathing normally.

"My name is Charlotte Myukuru. I am the 25th daughter of Charlotte 'Big Mom' Linlin and a lesser officer of Nuts Island, where you find yourself. Welcome to the New World."

"How do I get back to Sabaody?"

"You don't," the Longarm answered.

"Excuse me?" Amy hissed, one stomp cracking the ground beneath her. "I don't care if I have to face a Warlord or an Emperor, no one is going to keep me from my crew."

"Big words for a woman who was just stuttering under by sword," Myukuru responded nonchalantly. "That's not how it works here, sis. Leave or Life is the rule of Totland, and let's just say Leave isn't the right option. Especially with those injuries of yours."

"Then..." There were too many emotions. Amy couldn't help the tears that formed in her eyes despite trying to keep her legs strong. "I don't even know what that means! What do I do? I have to get back to them!"

Myukuru sighed again, running a hand through her hair as she eyed her fellow pirate. What could she say? She was a sucker for a crying blonde in a pretty dress. "I get the feeling you aren't that bad. Amy, right? Come with me. You can stay at my place until we find you a house of your own."

Amy blinked, stunned, as her fellow pirate started walking out of the clearing. Not wanting to get left behind in unknown territory, the blonde hurried to catch up. The woods weren't deep, but they were thick enough to slow her down, making her lose track of her guide for a couple minutes. Finally she found her way out onto a beach of powdered walnut shells, the only person she knew in the middle of changing.

"Wh-What are you doing?!" the Straw Hat cried, covering her eyes. Myukuru turned to her, unconcerned about her lack of clothing as she changed back into the suit she swam in. "Why are you topless?!"

"Calm down, Blondie," Myukuru chastised, rolling her eyes. "It's not like I have anything you haven't seen before. Unless..." The Big Mom pirate smiled, sauntering over to the Straw Hat. Amy refused to open her eyes. For all her teasing and bravado with her body over the years, it was just that: teasing. This was a situation she was unprepared to be on the receiving end of.

"Please put your top on," Amy begged.

"What?" Myukuru smirked. "Too hot for you? What's the problem? You don't have a permanent home outside your ship, so I doubt you've got a boyfriend or girlfriend or anything."

"I've had plenty of boyfriends!" Amy retaliated with a glare, the look withering from the blush that covered her cheeks. It was true; she had had several boyfriends while part of Crocodile's criminal syndicate, they just rarely lasted long, either emotionally or physically.

"Had being the main word." The Longarm still refused to put her shirt on.

"I-I'll have you know I'm engaged," Amy huffed, turning away. It wasn't technicality a lie. The fact that Gin refused to talk about what happened in Little Virgio while they were stuck in Sabaody's Ferris wheel didn't change anything.

She had technically proposed to him on Little East Blue. He just refused to say anything about it. And that pissed her off. And scared her. Which pissed her off more. But still!

"So what?"

Amy's thoughts ground to a halt.

"What do you mean, so what?"

"Even if you are engaged like you say," Myukuru began, backing Amy into a tree, "which, by the way, I don't really believe because I don't see a ring, we're pirates. What do we care for morals and ethics? You're here and he or she isn't." Amy didn't like the way Myukuru pressed against her. Not at all!

"A-Are you coming on to me?"

"Not yet," the blue-haired pirate whispered, running a hand over Amy's exposed thigh. "That's after about 15 minutes and followed by an optional shower."

Amy didn't know what to do in this situation, and the veritable typhoon of emotions inside her wasn't helping. She was separated from her friends, lost in the New World of all places, Big Mom's territory no less. She was worried sick for everyone else on her crew, Grace, Coby, and Gin most of all in that order. She had no way of getting back to Sabaody. And now an admittedly-attractive rival pirate was hitting on her.

"Now see," Myukuru said, snapping the Devil Fruit user from her thoughts. "You've got two options here, Sweetheart-"

"Don't call me Sweetheart."

"You can either trust me to help and take care of you until you know what you're going to do, or you can try to run and, assuming you get away, I'll report you to my mother who will have you captured, interrogated, and probably executed. What's it gonna be, Sugar?"

"I don't really have a choice, do it?" Amy muttered. "Fine, take me to your house."

"As you wish~!"

"Not like that, you shameless flirt! And don't call me Sugar!"

Amy's restless leg beat against the floor under the peanut-shaped table, spider-web cracks growing with each hit as she eyed the house. Myukuru's soft humming drifted from within the bathroom where the woman was showering, having offered Amy the first and a clean change of clothes. Myukuru's clothes were a little baggy on Amy's smaller frame, the blonde having chosen a pair of shorts and a sleeveless shirt that managed to hide them. Myukuru had managed to replace the bandages around Amy's arms, but without Chopper's healing salve, the burns she had taken protecting her friends ached and throbbed. Noting the damage to the floor, the blonde stood to explore the room.

Myukuru's house was nothing like Amy had ever seen, every piece of it made from edible materials. Most of the building itself was made from nut products, but more than a few of the decorations and furniture were from other islands. Photos hung on the wall and sat in picture frames on the counters, each including Myukuru with dozens on her own siblings.

Off in the kitchen area, distinguished from the house proper by the edible tile flooring, kettles and cups bounced around of their own accord, singing while making tea. That was one of the strangest things about the house and reminded her about the bar of soap she'd broken in the shower. It had the deepest voice she'd ever heard.

The humming in the bathroom stopped, the door opening with a cloud of steam as Amy's host stepped out in nothing more than undergarments and a towel.

"Settling in?" the Long-Arm asked. "Have you calmed down yet?"

"I suppose," Amy answered carefully, crossing her arms. She stepped back toward the living area, dropping into a plush armchair.

"Did breaking my soap Homie help? I'll have you know I liked that one."

"The Hell is a Homie? And that thing bit me in the ass!"

"And?" Myukuru countered. "That was one of the best things about it. If you held it down by-"

"I'm sorry I broke your living soap... toy," Amy sighed. "Can we move on from that and never mention it again?"

"At least you apologized," the local nodded. "Anyway, Homies are objects imbued with a month of life from Mama's Devil Fruit power. They come from the yearly Leave or Life offerings. Every person in Totland gives Mama a month of their life for every year they live here. It's the cost of protection."

"That's... That's..." Amy released a breath, slumping into her seat. "You know, I shouldn't be all that surprised. This is the Grand Line."

"So, what's your plan from here?"

"Luffy didn't give us a set time frame, but I still need to get back to Sabaody."

"Hun, it'd be a miracle for you to get off Nuts Island without being found, much less away from Totland."

"Yet I'll find a way," Amy answered. "Your crew is your family, my crew is mine. If our positions were reversed, wouldn't you do everything you could to get back?"

"I don't know," Myukuru shrugged, taking a seat on her sofa. She crossed her legs, relaxing, as the Homies in the kitchen boarded a cart Homie and rode to the peanut table to offer them tea. "Part of me says yes, the other part no. I'll never know which part would win, but this isn't about me. Come tell me about yourself. If you're going to stay here, we need a good cover story for you."

"I'm not staying here."

"Staying here for now," the teal-haired woman amended, accepting the tea and a spoonful of sugar. "Unless you want me to take you to Mama and let her deal with you."

"I hate blackmail when I'm on the receiving end," Amy grumbled, scaring the teapot and cup with a glare. The cup had a chip in it, she noted. "What do you want to know?"

"Likes, dislikes, skills, baking abilities..."

"Baking ability?"

"Hun, this is Totland, ruled by the most famous food connoisseur of the seas. Everyone here has some skill with food."

"Well," Amy began slowly, "I picked up being a chocolatier from my parents."

Myukuru jerked, going straight. "You make chocolate?!"

"...Yes. why do you sound so excited?"

"That is the perfect cover," the Longarm grinned. "Stir up chocolate or stir up trouble. Which to choose?"

"Why are you helping me?" Amy asked. "Not that I'm not thankful or anything, but aren't you committing treason or something by not arresting me?"

"Eh, maybe," Myukuru waved off. "Truth is, it's boring as Hell around here. Nothing ever changes 'cept Mama breaks something with her Hunger Pangs or has another set of siblings. Rival pirates are too scared to come anywhere close, so we never get any good fights. The last time something happened, Cupcake and Mugzy were sent to collect some candy Devil Fruit and didn't return. Maybe they're dead. Maybe they ran off. Doesn't affect me either way."

"You have a very... distorted view of family."

"But enough about me. We're talking about you. How can we blend you into Totland without my Mama finding out? You make chocolate?"

"Uh... yeah. My parents owned a chocolate shop on a small island in the West Blue, but they died to a plague that took out most of the town. I came to the Grand Line in the hold of some pirates who kidnapped me and a bunch of other orphans to sell as slaves. I joined the criminal syndicate that rescued us along with my... well, I call her my younger sister, but we aren't actually related. Our parents just knew each other really well. We stuck with that for a few years before we met our crew and went turncoat. I learned a lot about chocolate making from Sanji, our chef, and the different islands we visited, so I'm pretty confident in it."

"No wonder you're so stuck on getting back," the Charlotte commented. "Not that that changes anything. For your own sake, I'd suggest dropping the whole thing and living here, but who knows? Maybe you trying to fight your way out will give us some good, old-fashioned chaos."

"Leaving that to the future," Amy deflected, "what do I do right now to lay low?" Myukuru leaned in, making Amy mirror her to hear as the dark-skinned women whispered conspiratorially.

"So the thing about Totland is every island has a food theme. You'll want to get to Cacao Island. I've got a sister there, Pudding..."

Pudding wasn't sure about her new assistant. She was certain something was off about the blonde, or maybe that stemmed from how she was introduced to the girl. Either way, keeping up the 'sweet baker' routine was exhausting.

Pudding was a beautiful woman just out of her teens with chocolate-brown eyes that could make men swoon and an above-average figure that helped earn the praise of Mama's subjects. Typically, she wore a pink dress under her apron, staying cute just in case.

She'd had her cuteness going ever since she received a call from her half-sister Myukuru, the Longarm telling her she needed to meet this up-and-coming baker from out of Totland trying to bust into the sweets market. Pudding had said no initially and was in the process of hanging up when her sister said "Yeah, better not. You'd get jealous of her chocolate, anyway."

Pudding took offense to that, just like Myukuru knew she would, all but demanding they meet the next day.

And she was good, the brunette admitted. Not as good as she, but better rounded when it came to cakes and pastries that didn't involve cocoa. The price of specialization, Pudding supposed. Almost reluctantly, she accepted the woman as a temporary assistant before Myukuru said her goodbye with a wink and a shake of her hips, promising to return.

"Promiscuous bitch," Pudding muttered under her breath, needing something to complain about since she couldn't do it nearly as often. Amy danced around the kitchen in a pretty blue sundress and an apron, preparing a lemon-meringue pie with a side of cocoa-stix for a dog mink that had stopped by an hour before.

"So, Amy," Pudding begin. "You want to get into the baking scene here in Totland? Myu said you were from the West Blue. What brought you here?"

"Oh, circumstances," the blonde waved off as she finished packaging the order. "I was dragged into the Grand Line by pirates several years ago and became a bounty hunter to protect myself, but baking and chocolate has always been my passion. And I thought, what better place to perfect my craft than Totland, where they say anyone is welcome and everyone can cook?"

"I guess that's a good enough reason," Pudding conceded, walking over to the counter where she had been letting some frosting air. "I've never thought about it that way."

"I'm not that surprised," Amy responded as the brunette picked up the bowl. "You grew up here after all, Pudding-senpai."

The woman nearly dropped her frosting, only her personal Homies saving her from losing it in surprise. No one had ever called her 'senpai' before and she couldn't tell if she liked it or hated it with every fiber of her being.

Ting-a-ling! The door to Pudding's store opened, letting the dog mink from before enter. He had shaggy yet well-combed grey fur and was wearing suspenders and a bowtie.

"Something smells good in here," he barked, "and I'm not just talking about the food. You beauties are easy on the eyes and the nose. Ahooooowww! I'm here to pick up an order."

"One order of a lemon-meringue pie and a side of cocoa-stix for one Mr. Horn Dog?" Amy asked.

"That's me, bombshell," the mink nodded, causing Amy to question why there were so many flirtatious people in Totland. "I didn't order any cocoa-stix, though."

"They're on the house," Amy responded with a wink. "I'm trying to get my name out there since I'm new. Amy Pleasant."

"Doll, I'm a dog. I can't eat chocolate."

"Yet you live in Chocolat town," Amy shot back. "I've taken that into account, sir. This recipe is free of all the allergens that usually affect dogs."

"I'm not gonna eat 'em, sweetheart," Horn said before grinning. "That is, unless you wanna share them with me tonight over a movie? We could make our own version of Lady and the Tramp. Ahooooowww!"

Pudding blinked as Amy grabbed the mink by the bowtie, dragging his taller height down to her level. She had a look in her eye that Pudding had never seen outside of the mirror in her bathroom.

"Listen here, bitch," Amy hissed, the humanoid dog breaking into a cold sweat, unable to free himself from her grip. "I'm not asking you to try them. I'm telling you. My chocolate is going to become famous across the world. You should be begging to be one of my first customers. Now take. The damn. Stix."

"Y-Yeah, sure," Horn Dog squeaked, dropping a little too much Beri on the counter. Amy let go, the mink grabbing his order and retreating with his tail between his legs.

"What was that?" Pudding asked, the blonde seeming to just realize she was not alone. Amy turned to her, horrified.

"I... uh..." Amy stumbled, digging for an excuse. Any excuse. "He was being r-rude, so..."

"Amy," Pudding said, cutting her off. The local placed a hand on the blonde's forearm, a mad grin coming to her face. "I didn't know you were a sadist as well as a baker. This just might be the start of a beautiful friendship."

Amy's confusion and fear melted into realization, a grin that hadn't been seen since the time of Ms. Valentine appearing. "Pudding-senpai, I couldn't agree more. Kyahahaha!"

The doorbell rang, both the blonde and brunette turning to their customer with matching smiles.

"Welcome to Pudding's Sweet Shoppe!" they chorused, bowing. "How may I help you?"

BADA-BADA-BADUP... BADA-BADA-BADUP...

"Goda damn it," Amy groused from the bed of her temporary apartment, a three-room space made up of a simple bedroom, bath, and kitchen. Myukuru and Pudding had agreed to split the small cost after Amy's display the day before, at least until she got big enough to start making more income. Incidentally, those two were the only ones with the number to the den-den Myukuru had left her, which had only rung periodically through the week.

BADA-BADA-BADUP... BADA-BADA-BA... ca-lick

"What the Hell?" Amy muttered She glanced at the clock on the wall. "I's 12:47 in the morning. Wha's so important that I can't sleep?"

"Shut the Hell up and get your ass to the shop!" Pudding's voice demanded. "Mama's having a Hunger Pang!"

"What's a Hun-?"

"Shut up and get here now!"

The snail clicked off. Amy wasn't sure what was going on, but something was seriously wrong based on Pudding's voice. The secret Straw Hat jumped out of bed and donned her dress and apron before grabbing her new lemon-colored parasol and hurrying out the door.

Pudding's Sweet Shoppe was only two blocks away, a distance any of her crewmates could cover in seconds with the right motivation. Amy made the trip in 15, leaving cracks in the chocolate pavement as she went on account of her powers. All of the lights were on inside, the sounds of Pudding muttering expletives on the wind.

"What's going on?" Amy demanded as she stepped inside. Pudding whirled around, continuing to stir an absolute massive bowl of a chocolate fondue base.

"Oh thank Goda," Pudding breathed. "I need you to start making the biggest damn cake of your life. The specs are on the counter. We don't have much time. Mama'll be here in the hour, so get your ass moving!"

Amy still wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but she picked up the terror in Pudding's voice loud and clear. She was behind the counter in seconds, grabbing ingredients from the fridge while glancing over the outline. She froze.

"We have to make a cake 10 feet long and twice as high in an hour?!" she demanded. "The Hell?!"

"Right, you're new," Pudding realized, throwing flour into the fondue to make it thicken. "Sometimes, Mama has what are called a Hunger Pang. She gets a craving for some particular food and rips through stuff until she gets it. Tonight, she wants chocolate cake with a fondue topping, so she'd headed here. And if we don't have it ready by the time she gets here, Chacolat Town will be leveled."

"And the other sweet shops can't do shit?" Amy asked, cracking dozens of eggs while ignoring the pain the speed put to her scarred nerves.

"I've got them working on decorations and accessories, but the cake itself needs to be the best quality. You're new, but you're easily one of the best bakers on this island. Together, we might just pull this off."

The two lapsed into silence, the flurry of panicked work only broken by the women demanding something from the other side of the room. Keeping up with Pudding was one of the greatest challenges Amy ever faced in a kitchen since she started working with Sanji and, despite the panic, she found herself with a tiny grin as the cake's layers began coming together.

"Are...?" Pudding panted, smearing frosting and fondue on the base layer of the cake in equal measure. "Are you humming over there?"

"Oh," Amy blinked, using her powers to float the second and third layers of the cake onto a set of poles. "I guess I am. I'm just having fun. Kyahahaha!"

"This is fun?!" the Charlotte demanded. "People are probably dead! Mama killed my sister Molé when she was craving chili powder waffles a month ago! This isn't funny!"

"I know," Amy responded, spearing the upper two layers of cake onto the base. "It's just, this is the first real challenge I've had in a kitchen since my parents died. And I've already learned so much from being here."

"That doesn't help us deal with Mama! We have" -she checked her timer- "less than seven minutes before-"

"FOOOOOONNNNNDDDUUUUUUUUEEEEEEE! CAAAAAAAKKKKEEEEEEE!"

"Ohshit," Pudding squeaked. Amy didn't miss a beat, scooping up the fondue bowl from where Pudding had dropped it.

"Yeah," she muttered, picking up where Pudding had left off. "That puts a damper on things."

"We're out of time. She's too early. Chocolat Town's doomed."

"No we aren't," Amy denied. "Go round up the other bakers and get some Homies to keep her distracted. I'll have the cake done and out in five minutes. Trust me, Pudding-senpai."

"This is a bad plan," the brunette argued, already heading for the door. Amy didn't know where the other bakers were, after all. "If we die, I'm blaming you." She left, her Homies trailing behind her.

"Now to cut loose," Amy smirked, using her powers to take control of all 43.82 kilos of fondue in the bowl. Slowly, almost too slowly, the semisolid rose from its bowl, moving over the surface of the cake.

While Amy could freely change her own mass and that of what she'd touched (with concentration), moving such things was nearly beyond her. With Myukuru's help, she managed to move liquids and the like, but anything else was still out of her grasp, and what she could move moved at a speed like cold molasses, almost too slow to be helpful. Still, if an even layer of fondue was what they needed to stay alive, an even layer of fondue would Big Mom get.

Having finished, Amy quickly shifted the mass of the cake so she could place it on a long, flat wagon before driving it to the back of the shoppe. There, she opened the garage door Pudding had pointed out to her and headed toward Chocolat Town's central plaza.

Luckily, the cake was large but not all that heavy, allowing Amy to hurry down the chocolate sidewalk at a brisk pace. Big Mom's voice echoed across the town, yelling and screaming about cake while another multitude of voices cried in fear as she swallowed them. Not that Amy cared for the Homies after her first incident with Myukuru's soap, but their sacrifice was giving her the time she needed.

Amy reached the plaza in two minutes, a plethora of other bakers and chocolatiers streaming in with decorations of edible ribbons and massive amounts of frostings. Pudding stood on the fountain in the center, yelling orders to coordinate the incoming cooks. She turned as Amy entered with the cake.

"Oh thank Goda!" the Charlotte child breathed. "Everyone! The cake is here! Get to work!"

"Ma'am!" The swarm descended on the pastry, forcing Amy to jump away to avoid being trampled. Despite this, she gaped at how soon the dessert was completed. And not a moment too soon as Big Mom herself stomped into the plaza, the ground cracking beneath her feet. A man jumped from her shoulder, landing near Pudding in a crouch.

"Oh shit," Amy whispered. "So that's her."

"CAAAAAAAKKKKEEEEEEE!"

As quickly as they had come, the various chefs retreated, allowing the building-sized Emperor to stomp her way over to their offering by sense of smell. She paused for only a second, taking in the smell of warm, freshly-baked cake before digging into it with her bare hands, shoveling huge globs of dessert into her mouth.

"You did it," Amy heard a man say, turning to see the man and Pudding talking to each other near the center of the plaza. "I don't know how, but you did it, peroly."

He was dressed in some of the weirdest clothing Amy had ever seen, a long yellow trench coat buttoned in the front with peppermints and wielding a candycane shaped like a flat sucker as a walking stick. His voice sounding surprisingly normal despite the massive tongue that lulled out of his mouth under his sharp nose.

"Good help is hard to find, Prospero," Pudding responded, her eyes catching Amy's from across the distance. "Luckily, Myu found some for me."

"Myu?" the man named Prospero questioned. "You mean our sister Myukuru? She was finally good for something outside of sub-par swordsmanship and sleeping around, peroly?"

"I know," Pudding nodded, waving the blonde over. "Allow me to introduce you. Prospero, this is Amy Pleasant, my new assistant. Amy, this is my older brother, well, half-brother, the first son and eldest child of Big Mom, Prospero."

"A pleasure," the man bowed, taking Amy's hand and licking the knuckles. Amy pulled it away in disgust as he frowned. His eyes narrowed. "What are you doing so far inside Totland, pirate, peroly?"

"W-What?" Amy stuttered, Pudding's wide eyes staring at Amy with disbelief.

"Do not play dumb with me," Prospero responded, straightening to his full height over his sister and Amy. "I possess the Lick-Lick Fruit which allows me to, among other things, get a read on people I lick. You are a long way from Paradise, Amy Palant. You are under arrest for infiltrating the territory of the Emperor Charlotte 'Big Mom' Linlin. Please come quietly or I will be forced to restrain you, peroly."

"I... I... but..."

"Now wait a damn minute," Pudding objected. "I'll admit, I didn't know she was a rival pirate, but this, " -she waved to their mother eating the cake 40 feet away- "would not have been possible without her. Amy is the only assistant I've ever had that not only was competent enough to be called such, but could keep up with me as well. I'll not see her taken away for anything short of attempted murder."

Prospero's frown deepened. "You would defend this intruder, then? And what, have her become a citizen? We do not know what she is planning, peroly." He paused. "You seem familiar. For which crew do you work, peroly?"

"What's it matter to you?" Amy responded, defensive.

"I can tell you are a member of one of the crews of the Supernovas. Which one? Some were in the paper we received today, peroly."

Amy's eyes widened, giving away her concern. It only grew as Prospero produced said paper from his coat, though he would not let her see who was on the front. All she could see was the latter part of the headline; "pays respects at Marineford."

"... The Straw Hats," Amy finally admitted. "My captain is 'Straw Hat' Monkey D. Luffy. We got split up almost a week ago."

"As I suspected, peroly," the man nodded, offering the paper with her captain on the front page. Amy paused.

"... So about citizenship," she began.

End of Episode

You know, I'm a little disappointed. Not in this chapter or anything like that, but for a different reason. At the time of me typing this A/N, this story has around 1.6K followers. Of them, it seems no one caught one of the references I made back in the news article in the Episode of Gin. Among those mentioned to have been captured were the "Tres Horny Boys of the Maximum Fun Pirates". This was a reference to a podcast I highly recommend to any and all of you interested in the Fantasy genre.

Go on the interwebs and look up The Adventure Zone. It's a D&D style podcast played by three brothers and their father, and one of the best stories I've ever had the pleasure to hear. And, after completing their second long-term story, they just started a new campaign with only two episodes out at the time of this note. If you're looking for a fun time, give it a listen and go on a wild, world-saving adventure with Magnus Burnsides, Merle Highchurch, and Taako from TV as part of the Bureau of Balance, or an inter-dimensional ride with Ned Shicane, Aubrey Little, and Duck Newton as they deal with magic and monsters in the forests of Kepler, West Virginia. Or, join the newest journey of three students as they take on the challenges of Professor Wigginstaff's School for Sidekicks and Henchmen (not to be confused with the School for Heroes and Villains, run by Wigginstaff's older brother on the same campus).

TL;DR: Go listen to The Adventure Zone on (maximum fun .org) or wherever you can listen to podcasts, like asking Alexa to play it for you.

Read and Review!

-SwordOfTheGods