Chapter 22: Running from a Whale and seeing Nami
"So, what's so important about Trace? You need anything from that guy?" Okane asked me.
"I can't tell you, but how long is this going to take to reach Fannette Dock?" I said.
"Can't say, but the town's near the ocean of course and we're inland right now. We're running low on food, so we might need to eat the reindeer," Suteareru said, eyeing Chopper hungerly.
"Now one's going to eat anybody, we're supposed to guide them to Fannette Dock," Okane said, slapping the bandit hard enough that he almost fell of his horse. "You folks are even lucky that I decided to even think of helping you. Jakukeru."
"Eh?" Jakukeru said, he was smoking a pipe.
"Where's north?"
The other bandit took his pipe out of his mouth and held it in his hand, it spun until it pointed ahead of them. "Answer that?"
"Good."
We rode another two hours until Banetsu stopped his horse. "You feel that?"
"What?" Sanji said, then his horse started acting up, along with Sao, Loki, and everyone elses. Then we felt the ground shake, I got off my horse. "Anything wrong?"
"Tell me, are we on a lake?" I said.
"Yep, we're traveling on one, it's pretty large too. It's frozen though," Banetsu said. "I suggest you get back on your horse."
"What, some large, scary monster is comming after us?"
"There's a large whale that rises up to the surface for air, he's not a friendly sort. And he eats anything he sniffs out."
"When you say large, you mean?" Usopp said.
"He's big enough to eat all of us in one bite," Robuberu said, he made a biting sound and Chopper and Usopp flinched. "And he's heading towards us."
"This is going to be a bumpy ride," Banetsu said, a large dorsal fin was breaking through the ice, making loud cracking sounds as it came closer into view.
"How could you be so calm?" Vivi said. "We're going to get eaten!"
"Don't worry ladies, we done this so many times," Okane said, I got on Loki and we rode off as a very, very, very large orca like whale. It didn't take long for him to get close enough for him to leap onto the ice and chase us. "Man, I love doing this!"
"How could you love this?!" Sanji yelled. "There's a large fish that can eat us whole and like to screw with it."
"Basically, yes," Okane said, he turned his horse around and ran towards the whale. "Thief's Bullet!" He shot several times at the fish, it bellowed in pain.
"He said that he's going to trap us on a large chunk of ice, then kill us one by one if we don't leave the lake," Chopper said, Okane came towards us.
"That doesn't sound good, let's go!" I said, we raced off to wherever we might end up until...CRACK! SLAM! A large tail crushed the ice front of us, then we turned around. CRASH, SLAM! It attemped to crash us again. "This is insane!"
CRASH,SLAM!
"Argh!" Sanji said as we all went to the right. So, we're running in different directions to avoid the tail.
CRASH SLAM!
"Aw, help us!" Usopp screamed.
"My hooves are starting to hurt!" Chopper said.
CRASH SLAM!
"Hyah!" Okane said, out of joy? Yep, he's happy
CRASH SLAM!
A house suddenly appeared.
"That looks like the Silverback Manor," Vivi said, we raced faster until we got to shore. The whale stopped fallowing us.
"We should do this more often," Banetsu said, we rode towards the house. A bush started to rustle from near by. The bandits and me got their pistols and bow and arrow out, then pointed it at the bush. Nami suddenly appeared. "Oh." We drew back our weapons.
"What's with all the noise?" Nami asked. "Don't tell me, a whale chased you." Part of the lake was clear of ice.
"That's right, miss Nami. Well, I'll be wanting my horses thanks," Okane said, Usopp and Sanji got off their horses and the bandits rode off. "Good luck finding Trace!"
"So, how'd you guys get here?" Nami said as she led us to the house. "I got a job here for keeping track of the town's taxes two months ago. Silverback let's me stay here, it's pretty nice."
"Any word on Luffy or Zolo?" Vivi said.
"Yeah, Luffy's been seen sometimes." Nami opened the back door as I tied Loki to a tree. "Jack, my friends came from a long trip, can they stay?"
"As long as they want, Nami-kun."