I waved goodbye to Camellia and wandered through the streets.

As I exited an embroidery store with a large bundle of embroidery floss, I was run over by a man carrying three swords and sporting green hair. I vaguely recognized him as Roronoa Zoro. I heard someone shrieking after him about swords and pirates.

I slapped on my Marine hat and grabbed him. "Play along."

Someone, a woman with glasses and a sword, came barrelling down the street. She stopped, seemingly dumbfounded.

I mean, how often do you see a skinless person in a Marine hat snapping cuffs onto a renowned pirate hunter?

"Move along, Marine." I said imperiously. "I have subdued the pirate and will be taking him to my superior."

To her credit, she recovered remarkably fast. "Yes SIR!" She saluted and walked back the way she came.

I returned to normal and looked at Zoro. "Holy shit, she actually bought that."

He snorted.

I whipped off my hat and stuffed it into my pack. "Hey, where you headed?"

"To my ship."

"Mind if I come with? I've been looking for a vessel to get me out of here, and I can do chores to pay."

"Why not stay with the Marines?" He asked as I headed towards the docks.

"Buddy, I like freedom. I was on a Marine ship for three. Fucking. Months. If you think I'm getting back on one, you're crazy."

Zoro snorted again. "Fair."

We met up with his crew and piled onto their ship.

Nami noticed me first. "Zoro, who's this?"

"Ah...what's your name?"

"Gilson Finn." I replied. "I bailed your swordsman out of a situation involving an angry woman."

"Oi, quit making it sound suggestive!"

"But there were handcuffs involved and everything." I grinned as rain pelted down my face.

"To clarify, she fake arrested me to get me away from a crazy Marine." He said quickly. "She wanted to get out of Logue Town and said she'd do chores to pay her way."

"Chores?"

"I can mend clothes."

"Hey, wanna join my crew?" The straw-hatted boy chirped. "You can be our clothes-mender."

"You know what, why the hell not?" I shook his hand.

The others introduced themselves.

Nami explained about the lighthouse to an interested Luffy as we sailed.

"So, what do you hope to get out of this little journey?" Zoro asked me.

"I want to prove to myself that I'm not useless."

He raised an eyebrow. "Interesting."

Sanji dragged a barrel onto the deck and slammed his foot onto it. "To find All Blue!"

Luffy next. "To become the Pirate King!"

Then Zoro. "To become the greatest swordsman."

"To draw a map of the world!" Nami added.

"T-to become a brave warrior of the seas!" Usopp stuttered.

They looked at me.

"Fine. To grow beyond my limits!"

We slammed our feet into the barrel.

"TO THE GRAND LINE!"

I begged off of drinking, since I knew alcohol was a depressant and I had depression.

Luffy noticed the friendship bracelets around my wrists, twelve in total. "Ooh, those look cool!"

"I appreciate the compliment, Captain. I made them myself."

"Can you make more?"

"Why, you want one?"

"Yeah! In gold and red!"

I grinned at him. "I have the materials. Does anyone else want one?"

"Oh, do you have orange and green?" Nami piped up.

"I do. Usopp, Sanji, Zoro?"

"Blue and black, please." Usopp requested.

"Black and white for me, lovely Finn." Sanji added.

And Zoro thought for a moment. "Silver and black."

"Alright, can one of you write that down? I'll get started as soon as I can."

Nami scribbled it down under the awning so it wouldn't get wet. I put down my pack as a wave washed over the deck.

Luffy fell over and I staggered. "Fuckin' seawater…" I grumbled.

Luffy groaned agreement.

"Oh, my love, you have a Devil Fruit?" Sanji asked.

"Number one, NEVER call me that again. Treat me like Zoro or Usopp, since I'm physically and emotionally incapable of romantic or sexual attraction."

He wilted.

"Number two, yeah. The Nuckelavee-Nuckelavee Fruit."

"The fuck's a nuckelavee?" Sanji asked.

"Think big skinless centaur with a horse and human head that lives in the sea and brings illness and blight." I explained. "Seawater affects me less than your captain since the nuckelavee lives in the ocean, but it's not like I can swim. I'm able to turn into a nuckelavee or into a skinless person with horns."

"So you can fight." Zoro extrapolated.

"I've never been in a fight before but I have three months of Marine training under a Lieutenant with her own Devil Fruit." I pulled out my Marine hat. "This is how I bluffed Zoro out of trouble."

Later, Nami slammed down a map onto the table. "The entrance to the Grand Line...is a mountain."

"A MOUNTAIN?" Was the general outcry.

"I had a hard time believing it myself, but look at the map. The lighthouse was pointing directly here, at Reverse Mountain."

I groaned. "Let me guess, we gotta sail up the damn thing."

"That's what the map says."

"Nami-swan could never be wrong about this!" Sanji cooed.

I grabbed his ear and tugged. "Down, boy."

"Didn't you get that map from Buggy? How reliable could it be?"

"We're gonna sail up a mystery mountain!" Luffy cheered.

"I hate to be the voice of reason…" I cut in. "But doesn't that also mean we have to fall down the other side?"

Zoro and Sanji went silent. Nami nodded. "Unfortunately, it seems so."

"Can't we just go south and enter that way?"

"No!" Luffy protested.

"He's right, and there's a reason for that."

The storm went silent. "I'm getting the feeling silence is not golden?" I asked sardonically.

"And that is the reason. Get on the oars! Start rowing! We gotta get back to the storm!"

When your navigator says "go towards the storm" in that tone of voice, you shouldn't question it. The boys did, but I ran belowdecks and began rowing like a woman possessed.

Apparently, we almost got eaten by a Sea King. The things you miss when you're sensible.

Nami explained how the mountain worked, but I didn't think too hard about it. I barely passed Geology, and only knew the basics of ocean currents.

I was too busy realizing that the others were all under twenty, making me the oldest current crew member by a year, at almost twenty-one. I was the responsible adult. Shit.

We went up the mountain and came out on top. The view was...remarkable.

Giantwhaleholyfuck!

To recap: We were heading down Reverse Mountain, then a motherfucking giant whale appeared, Luffy shot it with a cannon, and then he punched it in the eye.

How is this my life? I did not sign up for this! I just wanted to go to college, get a job, and live a simple life, but nooo! I had to sign on with the most SUICIDAL idiot in any world ever!

"Captain, why?" I moaned as we were swallowed.

We ended up...somewhere. It appeared to have clear skies, but I was betting on an illusion of some kind.

"Giant Squid!" Usopp and Nami yelled.

Sanji and Zoro tensed, but the squid was harpooned before any of us moved a muscle.

The little hut on the island in the whale's stomach, its door opened. A man with flower-like hair(?) dragged the squid to the shore of the little island.

He ignored Sanji's yells for him to say something.

"I-If it's a fight you want, we've g-got a cannon!" Usopp stuttered.

"Do that and someone will end up dead." the old man said calmly.

Sanji sneered. "And who would that be?"

"Me."

I facepalmed.

Zoro took his own shot. "Hey, would you mind telling us just who you are, and where this is?"

"It's common courtesy to introduce yourself first, brat."

"...oh, right, sorry. I'm-"

"My name is Crocus, the lighthouse keeper of Twin Capes. I'm seventy-one years old, a Gemini, and type AB blood." The old man cut Zoro off.

Zoro snarled.

"Calm down, you did ask." I pointed out. "I'm guessing he knows the whale or something."

"If you wanna leave, the exit's thataway." Crocus pointed.

"There's an exit in the sky!"

"That's no sky." I peered at it. Damn did I wish I had my glasses. "I think…"

"It's painted!" Nami realized.

"That's just my way of having a good time." Crocus adjusted his newspaper.

The whole place shook. "Woah! What's going on?!"

"This whale, he's bashing his head against the Red Line again." The flower-looking man's island swayed.

"Now that you mention it, that whale's forehead was covered in scars and he was bellowing up at the sky."

"He must be suffering terribly." I muttered. Crocus's island swayed again.

"It's an iron ship!"

"He must be in here to kill that whale from the inside."

"That's none of our business, we have an exit so let's get out of here." Zoro pointed out.

Suddenly, Luffy and two other people slammed into the ship. The unknowns, one blue-haired and one orange-haired with strange marks on his face, tried to shoot the whale, but Crocus took their hits with his own body.

Luffy knocked the pair out and we heard Crocus explain why Laboon, the whale, was slamming into the Red Line.

A whale and pirates...seemed unbelievable, but that's how it was. Pirates had left Laboon there, promising to come back for him, but...fifty years is a long time.

"He doesn't know they're dead, does he." I stated.

"He still thinks they'll come back for him." Crocus confirmed.

We left the whale and tossed the would-be whalers overboard.

Crocus continued to explain. The pirates had already left the Grand Line. They left Laboon behind to save their skins. He said he'd tried to tell Laboon, but the poor whale didn't want to listen.

After that, I couldn't believe-wait, it was Luffy, I could totally believe what he was doing. My new captain got into a motherfucking fight with a whale by using the Going Merry's mast as a weapon.

I sighed into my hands, which my head was buried in. "Why, Captain?"

"It's a Tie! I'm pretty tough, eh?"

Laboon's big eyes widened.

"Our fight has yet to be settled, so we've gotta fight each other again. Your old friends may be dead, but I'm your new rival!"

Something like comprehension entered the whale's eyes.

"And once my crew sails around the Grand Line, we'll come back and see you again! And then we can fight again!"

Laboon howled and tears dripped from his eyes.

Luffy painted a shoddy image of our Jolly Roger on the whale's forehead. "This is a symbol of our promise to fight again! Don't go bashing your head into the rocks and erasing it!"

Clever. Give the whale a new reason to live and make him stop hurting himself.

As Usopp fixed the mast and Sanji cooked, I began Luffy's friendship bracelet. Gold and red, just as he'd asked.

When the food was ready, I was halfway finished with the bracelet.

Nami freaked out about the compass, and Crocus sighed. "You came here without knowing anything at all?" He told us about the geomagnetic field that surrounded the Grand Line.

"To navigate the Grand Line, you'll need a Log Pose."

"A what?"

I took another bite of fish as Crocus explained the concept.

"So it's a funny-looking compass?"

"It does look odd, yes."

"Like this?" Luffy held up something.

"Yes, that's it. Without a Log Pose it'd be impossible to navigate on this ocean. Of course, it's hard to obtain one outside of the Grand Line."

"I get it, but hang on, WHY DO YOU HAVE ONE?!" Nami punched Luffy.

"The weirdos from before dropped it."

"Oh."

"Why'd you hit me?"

"I felt like I had to." She took the Pose from him. "So this is a Log Pose...It doesn't have any markings on it."

Crocus, the man with all the answers, explained how it worked. He told us that every path led to one point. "Raftel. The end of the Grand Line. The only ones ever to confirm its existence were the Pirate King and his crew. It is an island of legends."

Usopp gasped. "Does that mean that One Piece is on that island?"

"That is the most likely theory, yes." Crocus nodded.

"We'll see for ourselves once we're there." Luffy's confidence astounded me.

"Hey, you ate all the food!" Usopp complained.

I smirked. "Are you really surprised at this point?"

"Honestly, no." He admitted as Sanji and Luffy broke the Log Pose and Nami kicked them into the ocean. "But I'm hungry, dangit!"

I reached into my pocket and pulled out an apple. "Here."

"Why did you have an apple in your pocket?"

"So Luffy wouldn't eat it." I deadpanned.

"Fair point."

Once everyone, including two unwanted guests, were onboard, I waved to Crocus. "Thank you for all your help!"

The man grinned. "No trouble, since you helped Laboon! Farewell!"

And off we went to Whiskey Peak.


So, how'm I doing?