I woke up with my head on a log. Ow. Not fun. I sat up and looked around. Tall trees, a babbling brook, and a berry bush greeted my eyes. This wasn't my room.

"...what the fuck?" I muttered. I looked down at myself. Comfy sweatpants with pockets, check. Favorite navy blue turtleneck that was a little too big for me, check. Magic: the Gathering Jace jacket, check. Hiking boots and thick socks, check. Black scarf, check. That was not what I went to sleep in, but it was all my favorite clothes.

I looked around again. The bush full of what looked like blackberries caught my eye, and my stomach growled. I plucked a handful off the bush, braced myself, and tossed them into my mouth.

Jesus! I didn't remember blackberries tasting THAT bad! I chewed and swallowed anyway. No sense wasting food. So I had food and water. That was the good part.

The bad part was what I saw through the trees. Water. I was on the coast.

I followed the beach for a while, then sat down on a piece of driftwood. Had I been marooned on an island? Figures.

I set up a makeshift lean-to with palm branches and driftwood. Might as well prep for the worst.

Dinner was blackberries and water. I hated blackberries, but they tasted better this time.

I was stuck on that island for three more days. Three days of nothing but fruit I hated and water I didn't know the quality of. Three days of isolation.

Then the Marines arrived.

I saw the ship cruising towards me and ran to the beach, hoping whoever it was would take me with them.

Men in white uniforms and...baseball caps? rolled out barrels and headed into the forest.

I watched them go, figuring they were stocking up on water.

Then a person approached me. She wore a long white coat and a baseball cap that said "Marine" on it. Her hair was bright red, like RED, not orange-red. Her eyes were brown, but glimmered with something I couldn't recognize. All this I categorized in the back of my mind. Most of me was too focussed on her lower half.

Because she had goat legs. Let me repeat that. Goat legs. Like a fucking satyr.

She grinned at me. "What, never seen a Zoan Devil Fruit in action?"

Most of me gibbered. I was in One Piece. A series I knew only the barest of bare-bones information about.

I managed to collect myself. "...no, I haven't." Now I was looking, I could see horns poking out of her hair and curling off to the sides.

"I ate the Goat-Goat Fruit, Model: Ibex." She explained. I knew, vaguely, how Devil Fruits worked, so that explained that.

"I see."

"I assume you've been stuck on this island, huh? How'd you get here?"

"I have no Idea." I said honestly. "I was at home when I went to bed."

She raised an eyebrow. "I'm Lieutenant Richards Camellia." Her hand was outstretched.

Right, surnames first. "Gilson Finn." I shook her hand.

"You know, if you want, we could take you to our next stop and let you off there."

"Well, I don't have shit in the way of money, so that won't help much." I said without thinking.

She grimaced. "Do you have any marketable skills?"

"Uh, well I can read, write, do math, let's see...Oh! I can sew!"

Camellia grabbed my shoulders. "You can SEW? I'm conscripting you right now! We have a surplus of ripped uniforms and no one to fix them!"

I nodded. "Um, sure? I'm not wearing that uniform, though, and only until the next major city."

"Just wear the hat."

"Deal." I followed her onto the ship.

"And we're putting you on the same workout routine as the rest."

"Shit."

It was hell, I'm not going to lie. The first few days especially had me crawling into my bunk almost passed out. But after the second week, it got easier.

On the third week, something new happened. One of the Marines, I don't know his name, brought a pair of cuffs with him when he returned from shore leave. "We got some Sea Prism Stone cuffs!" He tossed them to me and I caught them reflexively.

I staggered. "Uugh." It felt like I'd caught the flu, had a bad depression day, and been punched in the gut at the same time.

Camellia snatched them from me, grimacing, and put them down. "You ate a Devil Fruit?"

"Not as far as I know." I shook my whole body like a horse with fleas.

"Has anything you've eaten recently tasted godawful?"

"God DAMN it it was those blackberries!" I buried my head in my hands. "I KNEW they shouldn't have tasted that bad."

"So you accidentally ate a Devil Fruit. Wonder which one?"

"I think I'd have noticed being a Logia." I muttered, head still in my hands.

She nodded. "I can teach you how to transform if you're a Zoan."

"How?"

"Focus on...on your core. Imagine it growing and enveloping the rest of you." She explained.

I focused, and felt my body shift. Gasps greeted me as my field of vision split into two distinct viewpoints, and somehow I was taller.

"Okay, so...what do I look like?" I questioned.

"Well, you don't have skin." Camellia began.

"And I'm assuming the extra weight on my head is horns?"

"Bingo. You sorta look like a skinless centaur with a horse head and a person head."

"Motherfucker." I slapped a skinless palm to my face. "I'm a fucking nuckelavee!"

"A what?"

"Old mythical sea creature that spreads sickness and kills crops." I returned to my normal form.

"So, a Mythic Zoan." She crossed her goat-legs. "Petty Officer Finn, you got lucky."

"I guess. Hey, someone get me a barrel of seawater. I have a theory."

One of my fellow Marines rolled out a barrel.

"Out of curiosity, how deep would you need to go in order to start feeling its effects, Lieutenant Camellia?"

"Eh, up to my knees for it to really hit me."

I opened the barrel and climbed in. It felt like the Sea Prism Stone, but less intense. Manageable.

"You suicidal-huh?"

I grinned. "The nuckelavee is a fucking sea creature. This is uncomfortable as hell, but I think I feel it less than you! Not that I would do this for fun. Someone tip me over?"

Camellia kicked the barrel over with one hoof. "You are insanely lucky."

"It still makes me weaker, and I think I might puke, but...I think I'd sink slower than you."

"Yet Sea Prism Stone affects you like the rest of us. Interesting."

I shrugged and shook water off of my head.

Over the next few weeks, I figured out more about my Devil Fruit. My hybrid form was a skinless, genderless human with horns. I hit harder like that, and when not human could breathe out a miasma that rendered people ill. I sent seven men to sickbay with different illnesses testing that. I had claws in my skinless and full forms, sharp black ones. Fangs as well, and my hair was gone. I developed a habit of walking around in my hybrid form, much like Camellia. I even figured out how to keep my clothes on while I did it.

And finally, finally, we made it to Logue Town.


So, tell me how I did!