My life in One piece

by Fuyutaro son

I decided to try my hand at a 'girl falls into one piece' fic, may my readers never be sane again...

4. The crew's start, and Morgan's end

Chapter 4: The crew's start and Morgan's end.

Summery: I may never know how it truly began, but I do know that I never truly had a choice in the events that led me here. I am in one piece now and have unwillingly left my own world behind. That is all that matters, and that is all I need to know.

Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with any legal rights to one piece in any form, I do not own one piece or any part of the merchandising, gaming, manga, anime, characters, or anything of the sort. Please do not sue me as I do not have any money. The only things that I own from this fic are my own original characters.

A/N1: I KNOW ZORO IS ALSO CALLED ZOLO,

A/N2: I HAVE DECIDE TO LEAVE THE PAIRING UP TO THE READERS.

Please note that this chapter was edited on a massive scale one 10/30/09.

'thoughts'

"Words"

(inner Kaede)

-------------

Luffy, Coby, and I were all sitting on the wall that surrounded the marine naval base run by captain Morgan while Lilfoot sat on my shoulder. We had been there only a few seconds and were now staring at the famous anime pirate hunter, Roronoa Zoro.

It was nothing like it had been in the anime.

He was tied to a cross like stake and was positioned so that he was on his knees with his arms spread to either side of him and tied to the arms of the cross.

Instead of just a little bit of blood and dirt on him, he seemed to have been dipped in it and left to dry in the sweltering heat. His clothes were the color of rust thanks to the dried blood, and through the blood I could see a ton of bruises, as if he had been tortured.

'Which he probably was.' I reminded my self, knowing that the marks had probably been caused by Helmeppo and his men. 'He must have been dragged through the mud after getting the shit beat out of him.' I thought, not believing that any man could survive being this tortured and starved.

Because he had definitely been starving.

He was thinner then anyone I had ever seen before, and I was sure that if we were in my world, he would have been dead already. The weeks of starvation he had endured had apparently taken a tole on his weight. It wasn't a pretty sight, though he still managed to have a look of muscle to him, something I would have never thought even possible for someone so thin.

As for his face, it was covered in blood and bruises, or at least the little of it that I could see was. Most of it was covered up by a rust colored bandanna that I was sure had originally been his green one. The anime had never showed the scene for what it truly was.

It was a one man blood bath.

He had been tortured and covered in his own blood., and the sight of it would probably give me nightmares for the rest of my life.

I was so shocked at what I was seeing that I ever even notice a small girl scale the wall next to me, hush us, scale down the other side of the wall on a rope, and run over to where Zoro was. When I finally realized that the girl was there, a man that could only be described as freaky had already appeared.

Helmeppo.

"Oh my god! It's Michael Jackson and Elton John's love child!"

At this exclamation, everyone with in hearing distance, which was luckily just those of us on the wall, turned their heads toward the loudmouthed cat that was currently sitting on my shoulder.

"How do you figure Elton was the father?" I don't know what made me ask this, and I wasn't even sure I really wanted to know the answer, but it just kind of slipped out of my mouth.

"Well, he dresses like Elton John, but kind of resembles a blondish Michael Jackson." she said, pointing at Helmeppo with one of her little paws.

Luffy turned his attention back to the freaky love child while Lil explained her reasoning to me. I kind of already understood her reasoning, but I didn't really want to listen to Helmeppo at the moment. I was afraid that I might do something stupid if I did.

It was just as Lil was finishing her explanation that Luffy caught my attention by jumping into the air. I didn't even need to look to see what was going on, I already knew what was happening thanks to my magical ability to speak to flying cuttlefish... OK, so I can't speak to flying cuttlefish, but I still knew that the little girl had been thrown over the wall at Helmeppo's orders.

Luffy caught the girl in mid air and landed on his side while cradling her in his arms, something that must have been very painful for him. The moment they landed Coby and I hopped down from the wall and headed over to them, wanting to make sure that they were both alright.

I might have seen Luffy catch the girl in the anime, but the whole Zoro scene had made me think that somethings were going to be a little different, like how hurt someone got.

As Coby and I made our way over to them, the little girl slowly sat up in Luffy's arms and looked up at him with large saucer sized eyes. She clearly hadn't thought that she would survive getting tossed, and seemed to be shocked at the fact that someone had saved her, not to mention the fact that it had been the strange guy she had hushed before.

"Thank you mister." she said, still staring at him with big round eyes.

Hearing the girl thanking Luffy for saving her in what had to be the voice of a five year old, I couldn't help but wander what kind of monster would order someone to throw this innocent little girl in an attempt to hurt her. I had seen the episodes later in the series, so I knew that the idiotic Michael Jackson and Elton John love child wasn't completely bad, but that didn't stop me from wanting to rip his overly pampered head off.

"Luffy! Are you ok?!" Coby yelled, Finally reaching where Luffy and the girl were seated.

"Yeah, he's fine." I answered for him before kneeling next to the girl to see if she was hurt. "What about you? Are you OK?"

She didn't appear to be hurt, but then again, I didn't like like I was from another world either.

The girl nodded her head in answer to my questions, all the while looking up at me with her large saucer like eyes in surprise. Actually, she was looking up at the fluzzy black thing on my shoulder. (Note: Fluzzy = Fluffy + Fuzzy)

As I helped her and Luffy to their feet, Coby started his rant about how horrible Helmeppo and the marines were, saying that someone should really do something about them. It was while Coby was ranting about everything that Luffy walked back over to the wall and climbed over it, most likely to go talk to Zoro. In the mean time, the little girl was having a staring contest with Lilfoot, which I was unfortunately going to have to sit though as I didn't want to see all that blood again.

That and I had a feeling that Lil would kill me if I made her loose the staring contest. She more competitive then Alice or any of my other friends. If she wanted something, then she damn well better get it or someone was going to loose a toe.

After a few minutes of the staring contest, it was starting to look as though the girl was going to lose the contests.

Then she did the unthinkable.

"Kitty!" She shouted, throwing her arms around the fluzzy black thing with eyeballs, causing Lil to eep in horror.

She really doesn't like being smothered by people, not unless they 'belonged' to her, meaning that she pretty much only lets people that have taken care of her for a while pet her, though she did have a strange habit of attach herself to random guys...

while I was momentarily lost in my thoughts about Lil and her strange habit of attaching herself to guys, \Ricca, who's name I barely remembered from watching the anime, was still smothering said cat, who was struggling to get free with all her little fluzzy might. After about five minutes of this, Luffy suddenly appeared next to me out of nowhere, having just jumped over the wall. Apparently, he was hungry and wanted to go get something to eat.

"Huh?" Ricca asked innocently, looking up at Luffy with her big round eyes, still trying to kill my cat with love, something I was still laughing my ass off at. "Oh! I know where you can get something to eat! mommy owns a restaurant!" She said, jumping up and down a few times before running off in the direction of her mother's restaurant.

When we finally got to the restaurant, Luffy sat down in front of it without going in. He just sat there and stared at the sidewalk for a few minutes before finally speaking.

"When I was talking with Zoro, he had me feed him the rice balls you made for him, and he really liked them too!" Luffy said cheerfully, turning to grin at the little girl.

"Really? He liked it?" She asked while Lil continued her struggling.

It was at about this time that Lil finally gave up on getting free, crossing her little kitty arms over her Furry chest while glaring at everyone that dared to look at her.

Not a happy kitty.

"That's right, he ate every last piece, he even said to give his complements to the chef!" he said, giving her an even bigger smile, something I hadn't thought was even possible.

"That's great!" Ricca said happily, hugging Lil as tightly as she could, causing her to develop a strange twitch in her eye.

While Luffy continued talking, Coby was thinking about something, most likely about the things he had just leaned about the local marines. It was his dream to be a marine, but he didn't seem to like the way the marines in this town acted. He had also thought that Zoro was a blood thirsty bastard, but it was starting to seem like he had been wrong.

"I wander if Zoro is really as blood thirsty as people say he is..." He finally said, seemingly thinking out loud.

"He's not!" The girl exclaimed, shocked that Coby would think that Zoro was blood thirst or cruel.

After Luffy told her that she wasn't making much sense, she started her long story about how Zoro had saved her. About three minutes into her story, I slowly started tuning her out, letting my mind wander off into the coming events, namely the part where Luffy would be running through the halls of the marine base.

I had already decided that I would probably have to start stealing stuff like Nami. I knew that I was going to need money in the future, and since I was already a pirate, stealing from a bad guy every now and then didn't seem to bad. The fact that the marines were enemies and that the leader of this base was corrupt put the place on my 'Places it's OK to steal from' list.

'OMG, I really am starting to thinking like a thief... Nami would be so proud...' I thought, rolling my eyes at the thought of what she would probably say.

It was at that thought that I realized that Nami would be sneaking around in the base too, meaning that I was going to have to be very careful if I didn't want to be seen by here. If she saw me, then it might changed to much of what was going to happen, meaning that something that is supposed to happen wont. So getting seen by her could end up screwing up the whole buggy ark, and then she wouldn't join the crew.

And if that happened, then her village would stay enslaved forever, and that would really suck.

In the middle of my thoughts and everyone else's conversation, loud cracking sounds started coming from my froggy bag, which was still attached to my hip with the end of my trusty mallet sticking out of it.

Hearing the strange cracking sound, everyone froze. The sound was incredibly loud and it was definitely starting to get louder. It sounded kind of like the cracking and crunching sound that you hear when a chicken hatches, only about fifty times louder. The moment everyone realized that it was coming from my direction, they all turned to stare at me with confused expressions on their faces. When they finally realized that the sound was coming from near my waist, all of them instantly turned their attentions to the froggy bag.

That confirmed it, I wasn't imagining the sound. It was definitely coming from the froggy bag my aunt gave me.

While everyone was staring at the froggy bag, Lilfoot wiggled her way out of the girls arm, pawed her way up my leg, and stuck her head into the bag, trying to figure out what was making the cracking sounds.

"I think there's something alive in here..." She said, still with her head in the bag, causing the little girl to jump back in surprise.

"It talks!" Ricca shouted loudly, pointing at Lil's fluffy behind as the crazy cat tried to dig deeper into the bag.

When Lil heard this shout she quickly pulled her head out of the bag and looked at the girl while picking at one of her ears with her paws.

"And it used to be able to hear to." she said indignantly before sticking her head back into the bag. "Hey, I think it's an egg!" She shouted with only her tail hanging out of the back.

Fearing that I might never see her again if she got lost in the bag, I grabbed her by her tail and pulled her out. At first I thought she was stuck because I couldn't get her out of the bag, but after a few minutes of pulling, I finally managed to get her free of it. It was when I finally managed to get her all the way out of it that it became crystal clear why she had been so hard to pull out. It had been so hard to get her out of the bag because she had been holding onto a big round object that was about the same size as my head, if not bigger.

It was a giant egg.

And the cracking sound was coming from it.

The giant egg was completely covered in cracks that seemed to be getting bigger and bigger by the second. Whatever was inside of it was planing on coming out of it very soon.

"It's an egg!" Luffy shouted, stating the obvious as only he could.

"And it's huge!" Coby added, wandering how that huge egg had even fit into the bag in the first place, only to remember that it was a magic bag.

"Why did you have it in your bag?" Ricca asked curiously, taking the huge egg out of Lilfoot's paws and setting it down on the ground between everyone.

"I didn't even know the egg was in there. The bag is a magic witch's bag that my aunt gave me, so it is impossible to know about everything that's inside it." I explained, crossing my legs as I sat on the ground, taking the egg and putting it in my lap once I was settled.

"I know!" Luffy said excitedly, having just had an idea. "Let's eat it!"

In the blink of an eye, my trusty mallet was in my hands and the end of it was slammed against his head, causing a few large lumps to form where it hit.

"Luffy, it's hatching. We are not going to eat it." I growled darkly, holding the mallet in a menacing fashion so that he understood me clearly.

Nami would so be proud.

"I'm with Luffy on this one. It smells like a bird, I say we eat it." Lil said, licking her lips as she looked longingly at the hatching... creature.

"Lil, just because you're small doesn't mean I wont beat the crap out of you too. If you haven't figured it out yet, everything my aunt put into this bag, no matter how weird it might be, was put into this bag for a reason." I stated calmly, guarding the egg so that she couldn't get to it, knowing that she really wanted to eat what ever was inside it.

"Fine, be that way!" She said angrily, pouting slightly as she turned her fluzzy back to me and crossed her arms, indicating that she was annoyed with me.

The sad thing was that there was a small part of me that wanted to eat it to, though I was sure that it was the cat part of me. Lucky for whatever was in the egg, the part of me that wanted to eat the egg wasn't very big. It only took up about .01 percent of my mind.

"Sh! It's hatching!" Ricca said, shushing us as the cracks in the egg suddenly started to slowly push apart.

Whatever it was that was trying to get out of the egg was almost out. In fact, it was so close to getting out of the egg that we were able to hear it making sounds inside of it.

"Kweh!"

The instant I heard the call that came from inside the egg, I froze. It was a sound that I heard all the time when I played my favorite Role playing game, Final Fantasy 9. It was the sound that came from a really big bird, a bird that was big enough for someone to ride on.

It was the sound of a Chocobo.

The egg slowly split apart, causing the top half of the egg fall off and land on the ground, revealing a large baby bird slightly bigger then an adult chicken, only rounder and way cuter then a baby chick.

It was a Chocobo.

A baby Chocobo.

The newly hatched Chocobo simply stared at me from it's sitting place in the lower half of the now shattered egg, kwehing at me. It looked like it was happy to be out of its shell, but I wasn't so sure I was happy to see it. Having a baby animal to take care of meant that it would be even harder to stay alive in this world. I not only had to keep me and my cat alive, but now I had to protect a baby bird from getting axed, Buggy-balled, clawed, hypnotized, and shot as well as several other horrible things that could happen to it.

'Maybe I should have let Lil eat it.' I thought nervously, knowing that I was now stuck with the little defenseless creature.

"Hey! It's a chicken!" Luffy shouted, looking at the little bird as though he had just spotted dinner.

Not if I could help it!

"Luffy-san, I don't think that's a baby chicken. It's muxh to big for that." Coby said, adjusting his glasses as he got a closer look.

"Yeah, it's as big as a grown-up chicken, but it's only a baby." Ricca said, also trying to get a closer look at the little bird in my lap. Or should I say the big bird in my lap.

It was huge for a baby bird. Even an ostrich chick took a little over a month to reach the size of an adult chicken, but this chick was already that size.

"Yeah, I think that's one of those things from the game you like." Lil whispered, whispering it into my ear so that no one else would hear her.

"Yeah, I think you're right. It definitely looks like a chocobo, and it sounds like one too..." I whispered back, pausing when I caught sight of something that shouldn't have been possible.

"Lil, do you see what I see?" I asked in shock, pointing at the inside of the top half of the egg, which was laying on the ground in front of me..

wanting to know what it was I was pointing at, everyone turned their attention to the eggshell, and it didn't take long for everyone to see what it was that had shocked the hell out of me.

There was writing on the inside of the eggshell.

"Yeah, that is just weird." Lil said, looking at the inside of the egg shell.

It wasn't just weird, it was just plane freaky. How was it even possible for someone to write on the inside of an egg that hadn't even hatched yet? I was starting to get used to the fact that anything was possible, but this was kind of pushing it.

"Is that writing?" Coby asked, his and Ricca's jaws hitting the pavement at the realization of what was on the inside of the eggshell.

"So cool!" Luffy shouted, giving us all one of his big grins.

I don't know why he always grins, but as long as he wasn't doing something stupid, he can grin all he wants.

"What's it say?" I asked, not really directing the question at anyone, just wanting someone to read it already.

"I'll read it." Coby said, while picking the egg shell up and and trying to read it, only to shake his head a moment later when he realized that he couldn't. "Sorry, but I've never seen this language before." He said in a defeated tone, handing the egg shell to Ricca, only for her to shake her head as well when she wasn't able to read it either.

"Here, let me see." Luffy said, taking the eggshell out of her hands and trying to read it. "Huh? I can't understand any of this." He said after a few minutes of trying to look at it from every angle.

"Well, give it to us so we can try to read it. If my aunt did write it, she would must have made it so that only we could." I said, silently wandering if it was magic, or if it was simply that they didn't read English. For all I knew, the written language here bight be something else.

When Luffy handed me the eggshell, I found that I could read it, which I did out loud.

Dear Sweety, I know how much you like these things, your mother told me

all about them and that game you love so much, so I decided to get you one.

There are stores all over the many different worlds that sell them, so it wasn't

that hard to get one. I guess you can say it's a distant cousin of the large birds

in Arabasta. Have fun.

Love aunt Pinoka.

PS, don't ask how I managed to write this, you really don't want to know.

The moment I finished reading the note I realized that I should have done it silently and just given them a clip notes version of it with a few small edits. The reason why I realized this was that Coby was now staring at me, most likely because of the word 'worlds'.

"What did she mean by 'Worlds'?" He asked in a confused tone, confirming my suspicions that I should have read it to my self and not out loud.

"Oh, that! Hehe. It's nothing, she elderly! You know, a bit senile in her old age!" I said, laughing slightly and hoping they would buy it.

Lilfoot slapped a paw to her face, which pretty much told me that she didn't think they would, and to be completely honest, I didn't think they would buy it either.

Lucky for me, they did buy it. They all nodded there heads in understanding, whispering to each other about how sad it was that my aunt was loosing it.

If she ever found out that people thought that she was going crazy, she would probably kill me.

"So," Coby said, looking at the bird on my lap with an analyzing gaze.

'he had better be looking at the bird, or I might have to beat the crap out of him...' I thought suspiciously, narrowing my eyes at him.

"So this is a chocobo... I've never heard of anything like it before." He said, poking it slightly with his index finger, causing it to jump over my shoulder and hide behind my back, scared of the offending digit.

"Hey! You scared him!" Ricca shouted, smacking Coby on the back of his head for scaring the not so little bird.

The Choco-chick slowly peaked its head out from around my back, still trying to hide from the big mean finger that had poked it.

"Come here little guy." I said softly, turning slightly and picking the large baby bird up, setting it in my lap again after I moved the other piece of the egg.

The Choco-chick kwehed again as it was put back out into the open, but calmed down when it realized that it was in my arms.

'-wait, it's a bird... please don't tell me it has a mommy complex now.' I thought in horror, remembering that birds imprinted the first thing they see, thinking that it was their mother.

"There, that's better. " I said, petting it on it's head, as it calmed down and started looking around.

While it was looking around, I was busy trying to get the mommy complex thought out of my head. It wasn't exactly a happy realization. I didn't want a baby bird to be running around after me thinking that I was its mother. If it did that, then it would probably just cause even more problems for me.

"OK, if we're not going to eat it, then let's name it!" Luffy said, still with the big annoying grin on his face.

Though, naming the bird wasn't a bad idea. Calling it the big Choco-chick all the rime would get annoying.

"Yeah! Let's name it! How about... Talon?" Lil asked, coming up with what had to be the dumbest name for a bird.

"Um, how about not." I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes at the name.

There was no way I was naming a bird Talon, it was way too redundant.

"Well, why not Cajun?" Luffy asked excitedly, causing me to go for my mallet again.

After I had successfully beat the crap out of Luffy, I sat back down and put my mallet away, and was proud to say that I hadn't upset the baby chocobo in the process.

"We are not naming the bird after any kind of food or appendage, is that clear?" I asked, making sure that everyone understood that it was a rhetorical question.

Knowing that I wouldn't be against getting out my mallet and smacking each and everyone of them if they went against my little order, all of them nodded their heads vigorously. After I was sure that all of them understood, we all started thinking about what we should name the little bird, who was currently falling asleep in my lap.

"I know! You said he was a chocobo right? Why not name him Choca?" Ricca asked, apparently thinking that the name was a great idea.

I didn't really agree with her opinion of the name. I thought that the name was kind of cliché, but then again, there was a lot of cliché things in this world. It was a little cliché for the underdog to be the one to always win, and yet Luffy was there. It was a little cliché for a bad-guy to be stupid and over confident as well, but buggy and Alvida most certainly fit that position.

All in all, cliché things just seem to go with the one piece world...

"Kweh!" the little feather ball said at hearing the name, instantly waking up from it's very short nap.

"That's no good, the name doesn't really fit." Lil said, looking at Ricca, who seemed to be a little upset and slightly offended by her comment.

"Why not? think it's a great name!" She said sadly, folding her arms at having had her idea called 'no good'.

"It's not that it's a bad name, it's just that Choca sounds like a girls name, and this little guy says he's a boy." she explained as though it should have been obvious.

Everyone stared at her for a few seconds, shocked at her announcement. Non of us had even considered that as a possibility, and I'm not talking about the bird being male.

"You can understand him?" I asked, eying the little fuzz-bucket for a few moment's.

She had just gone from weird, to weirder.

"Of course I can! I am an animal after all!" She said indignantly, apparently offended at the insinuation that she shouldn't be able to understand a chocobo.

All of us simply blinked at her for a few moments before shacking our heads at her and getting back to the matter at hand.

"Well, then why not name him Choco?" Coby asked after a moment, thinking that it was just as good as the name Choca was.

While I still thought that the name was a bit cliché, it was the only thing that we were able to come up with, so it would have to do.

"OK, Choco work for you?" I asked, lifting the little chocobo up to see what he thought of the name, and apparently he liked it.

"Kweh!" He said happily, flapping his little wings around madly in the air while kicking his feet in what could only be described as a happy dance.

It was kind of cute, which meant that I had to add him to my 'cute things I'm fine with' list, which now had two names on it. Lil, and Choco.

After we all agreed on the name, Ricca led us into her moms restaurant, which looked more like a tavern. Once the food got to our table, it took us only a few seconds to figure out what Choco ate thanks to the fact that the moment he saw a plate with some veggies on it he took off for it like a cat after catnip. I probably should have known that he would eat veggies like the Chocobos in the games, but I was still in shock at having my own chocobo to actually remember that fact.

Once we figured that out, I asked for a few random veggies trays for Choco to try, which he guzzled down happily.

We had been there for a only twenty minutes when some very unwelcome guests showed up., walking through the front door and talking way to loud.

It was Helmeppo and his soldiers.

The moment they all entered the restaurant, all of us turned our attention in their direction, glaring at them openly. Non of use were happy to see them, and from the look on Luffy's face, I could tell that he was already thinking about knocking the idiot out.

Not even noticing all the glares he was getting, or just not caring about them, Helmeppo sat down at one of the tables and instantly started about Zoro and how he was planing to execute him. I couldn't help but smirk in his direction. It was nice knowing that Luffy was going to deck him any minute know. The more and more he spoke, the more and more I wished that Luffy would beat the shit out of him already, and luckily, I didn't have to wait long for it.

"You bastard!" Luffy shouted angrily, punching the no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grand-...

Wait, sorry, wrong story.

Anyway, Luffy knocked Helmeppo to the ground with one good punch to the face. He then moved to stand over him, glaring down at him with his fists balled in anger. He was more then just a little angry, and I could tell that he was going to kick the little bastards ass, or at least he would have if it wasn't for one problem.

'Damn it Coby! Why did you have to stop him?! I wanted to see that ass-chinned jerk get his clock cleaned!' I thought angrily as Coby jumped up and ran over to Luffy and started trying to talk some sense into the rubber man.

"Luffy-san! Stop! You can't hit him!" Coby shouted, try to stop Luffy by grabbing him from behind and holding his arms so that he couldn't punch at Helmeppo again.

It was while Coby was trying to stop Luffy from killing the idiot that I finally realized that Nami was sitting just a few tables away from us. I still didn't want to screw up the storyline by talking to her, so I tried to pay as little attention to her as I could. Lucky for me, she didn't seem to notice me glancing at her at all.

By the time I turned my attention back to the fight, Helmeppo had already run screaming out of the restaurant and down the street to tell his father what had happened. The thought that his father was going to beat the shit out of him the moment he tried ordering him to kill Luffy gave me a worm fuzzy feeling, like Christmas had come early.

Or like the IRS screwed up and gave me three times as much money as I was supposed to get from my tax returns, something that never happened to me, though I still hoped that it would. Then again, I doubt it would matter much, seeing as I wouldn't actually be able to get the money in this world, let alone do my taxes.

"…"

'Wait... I don't have to fill out my taxes! YEAH! Christmas in one piece!' I thought happily, glad that I no longer had to deal with taxes. (A/n: Yeah, that would never happen. The IRS likes taking my money to much, they would follow me no matter what world I was in. T-T)

"That bastard!" Luffy growled angrily, storming out of the restaurant and heading down the street toward the marine base.

"huh?" I said dumbly, looking around and trying to figure out what was going on.

I might have seen the episode, but it never showed Luffy leaving the restaurant, and I wasn't really thinking that much as I was to busy taking a trip around lala-land to actually form any thoughts. It wasn't until Coby interrupted my daydream that I actually realized what was going on.

"Come on! Luffy's headed to the marine base to free Zoro! We've got to help them, the marines can't get away with this." He shouted with a surprising about of confidence, stopping in the doorway to look at me.

When I go off into la-la-land, sometimes it doesn't want to work properly for a while, so it took me a second to comprehend what he was saying.

"Huh? What changed your mind? Weren't you against us freeing Zoro?" I asked him as I stood up, a sly smile making it's way onto my face.

Coby hung his head for a second, clearly torn between what to do. It seemed that my question caused him to think about his actions.

On one hand, it was the marines that put Zoro in jail, and it was the marines that he wanted to join. On the other hand, the marine leader at this base was a corrupt psycho bent on torturing people, which he really wanted to stop. Not to mention the fact that Zoro was actually a good guy.

"The marines may have locked him up," he said, finally raising his head to look at me with determination in his eyes. "But the marines at this base are corrupt, and they shouldn't be aloud to do stuff like this to people!"

I couldn't help but smile at him. That was the answer I had been hopping for, and I was kind of proud of him. In just a two days he had gone from being a chicken to being kind of brave.

It was a big improvement.

"OK then, let's go!" I said proudly, grabbing my bag and moving over to the door to leave while Coby ran off ahead.

"Wait!" Ricca shouted after me, causing me to stop in the doorway. "You can't go! Captain Morgan will kill you!" She said sadly, tugging on my shirt in an attempt to keep me from going.

Sighing heavily, knelt down so that I could look at her at eye level.

"Don't worry, we'll be fine. Trust me." I said reassuringly, smiling in a comforting manner. "Hey, can you do me a favor?" I asked, smiling at her and waiting for an answer.

"Um... I guess so, mister." she finally said, nodding her head at me, though I could tell that she still didn't want to let me go.

"Hehehe. You're a cute kid." I said with a fake ass smile on my face, trying to pretend like I wasn't a little annoyed at the 'mister' comment. "Firstly, I'm a girl." I said, causing everyone in the restaurant to turn and stare at me in shock. "and secondly, I need you to watch Choco while I'm at the base, he's to small for me to take with me into a dangerous place like that."

Handing chock to her, I nearly jumped out of my skin when a voice that was way to loud and way to close to my ear started talking.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, can we go now?" Lil whined, causing me to wince slightly and everyone else in the room to gasp in shock again.

'Great, give everyone a heart attack Lil. Good job.' I thought sarcastically, rolling my eyes at their reactions.

Ricca took Choco while still looking up at me with big sad eyes. She was trying as hard as she could to believe that we were going to be OK. She didn't want us to go and get hurt, but she knew she couldn't stop us.

"Thank you." I said softly, patting her on the head as I stood back up and headed out the door and down the street towards the marine base.

When I finally got to the wall of the marine base, I jumped over it and landed gracefully in the courtyard. When I landed on the other side, I took a quick look around and spotted Zoro and Coby, though Luffy was nowhere in sight.

"Hi guys, bye guys, got to take care of something!" I called as I ran right past them, nearly scaring the shit out of both of them as I appeared out of nowhere and disappeared into the main tower.

I had headed into the main tower because I knew from watching the anime that it was where Helmeppo's room was, and was therefor the most likely place to find Morgan's room as well. Morgan had made a comment about collecting the taxes from the people, so I was pretty sure that he would have a lot of money in his room, and Helmeppo was just the kind of guy that would have a ton of jewelry, so I really wanted to get as much of his crap as I could as well.

"Ok, Do you remember what floor Helmeppo's room was on?" I asked Lil, turning to look over my shoulder at her.

"How the heck should I know? I think it was near the top of the tower, but apart from that, I don't have a clue... Oh! And it was facing the courtyard, because Luffy jumps out of it." Lil said, trying to remember as much as she could from the anime.

Since I had no idea where Morgan's room was, but knew that his son's room was on one of the upper floors and was facing the courtyard, I decided that the best thing to do would be to head up a few flights of stairs and start checking rooms. With that in mind, I quickly found the nearest stairs and started running up them, or rather hopping up them as I had a feeling that my high jump would be faster and I wanted to be as quick as possible as I didn't want to miss the fight outside.

When I finally reached the fourth floor, I instantly started checking doors. I kept opening them up to look inside, only to close them again when I saw that the were normal rooms and didn't look like they would belong to either Helmeppo or Captain Morgan. It wasn't until my seventh try that I got lucky, though it wasn't Helmeppo's room.

It was Morgan's.

It wasn't actually Morgan's room, it was his office, the same one that Nami had searched in the anime, which meant that she was probably going to be looking through it for the Grandline-Chart soon. When I remembered that the only thing she stole from the room was the 'Buggy the Clown Sign' I decided that it was OK to steal some money out of the safe.

"Well, I guess we have a little while to search since she doesn't get to this room until Luffy and the others are back at the restaurant." I said out loud as I walked into the room and headed over to the paintings, remembering that Nami had found the safe behind one of them.

"Yeah, but I still think we should get out of here as soon as possible, we don't want to run into her by mistake." Lil said, pointing out that Nami could still show up at any time as some of the things in the anime were a little off.

"Don't worry, I still want to steal some stuff from Helmeppo's room too, and I want to see the fight outside as well. So I don't plan to be here that long." I said, assuring her that I would be out of the room as soon as possible.

"Helmeppo's room? Why in the world would you want his stuff?" Lil asked in surprise, clearly thinking that I had lost my mind.

"Because, he's the kind of guy that would have a lot of fancy jewelry, and that's the kind of thing I need to steal." I said, pointing out that Helmeppo would be the one with all the bling, and not his father.

"I guess that makes sense..." Lil said, thinking about it for a minute before a thought occurred to her. "You know, I think the safe was behind some bear kegs." She said, causing me to look at her over my shoulder.

"Are you sure? I thought it was behind one of the paintings." I said, looking at her as though she was nuts.

"I can see that, now try behind those kegs." She said, pointing at two large barrels sitting against the wall.

Deciding that it was probably best not to argue, I rolled my eyes at her and walked over to the barrels and moved them out of the way, growling slightly when I found that she was right.

Great, now she'll never shut up.

"See, I told you so." She said triumphantly, only to pause when she realized a small problem that the safe presented to us. "Hey, how do you plan on opening this thing anyway?"

"Oh, that's the easy part. You're going to listen for the clicking sounds while I turn the dial to find the combination." I said happily, picking her up and setting her down next to the safe.

"Great. Now I'm your stethoscope." She said in an annoyed tone, crossing her arms and glaring at me.

"Don't give me that, how else did you think I was going to open it?" I asked quizzically as I put my hand on the dial.

Rolling her eyes, Lil stuck her ear to the safe, waiting for me to begin turning the dial. After about half a turn she stopped me.

"Click." She said in a bored and annoyed voice, causing me to chuckle slightly.

"Ok, so that's 32." I said, starting to turn the dial in the opposite direction.

"Click" She said in that same bored and annoyed tone almost a full revulsion later.

"35." I said, once again starting to turn the dial in the opposite direction. This time it had barely gone past the 1 when she stopped me, though this time she stopped me with two words.

"Double click." She said, pulling her head away from the safe while looking up at me. "I think it's unlocked." She added, indicating that I should try the handle.

Knowing she was probably right, I grabbed the handle and pulled, smiling when it opened up.

Inside the safe was a rolled up piece of paper, which I ignored knowing that it was Buggy's sign, and a small mettle box.

"So, what's in the box?" Lil asked in a sing song voice, looking at it curiously as I pulled it out of the safe.

"Don't know, but we're about to find out." I said with a mischievous smile on my face, opening it up and practically jumping for joy when I saw what was in side it.

"Ha! Jackpot!" I shouted happily, smiling at the contents of the box.

"Holy shit, that's a lot of cat nip." She exclaimed in surprise, staring at it in shock before turning to look at me with giant dollar sign shaped eyes. "Mommy, you know I love you, right?"

The box was full to the brim with money. I wasn't really sure how much it was, but I had done the math and found out that 100 beli was equal to 1 dollar, and each bill had 1000 written on it, so it had to be a lot. (A/n: 1- There is a 1000 on most bills seen in the anime, 2- the exchange rate is just my estimation.)

"Wow." I said, completely ignoring Lil's dollar sign eyes as I started trying to figure out just how much beli was in the box. "When Zoro borrowed the $100,000 from Nami, that bundle of money was about a fifth this size, so I'm going to guess that it's around $500,000 dollars."

Deciding that it would probably be a lot safer if I figure out how much was in the box later, I put the it into my back pack and closed the safe, remembering to place the barrels back in front of it when I was finished.

After making sure that no one would be able to tell that I had been in the room, I quickly headed back into the hall and headed back toward the stairs, knowing that Helmeppo's room was probably on a different floor then his fathers room.

With the way Morgan acted, I was pretty sure that his room and his son's room would be in the same tower, but in two very different parts of it.

Once I was on the next floor, I started looking into each of the rooms again, checking to see if it was Helmeppo's or not before closing the door and heading to the next one. It was as I was about to open a door that was about half way down the hall from the stairs that I saw Nami walking around the corner, heading straight for me.

I quickly ducked through the door that I had just opened and closed it behind me. I really didn't want her to see me in the base as I was pretty sure she would probably knock me out thinking I was some marine's girlfriend or something.

'Wait. Everyone always thinks I'm a guy... that means that she would probably think I'm Helmeppo's boyfriend... Yeah, hiding is definitely a good idea.' I thought in horror, wishing that I didn't look so much like a boy.

A little annoyed with the fact that I looked like a guy, I peaked through the key whole to see if the coat was clear, only to have Lil voice her thoughts about my 'you look like a boy' problem.

"You know, if you're going to steal stuff, you should probably steal something girly so that people will stop mistaking you for a guy. You know, like a top that doesn't look like it belongs on a business man." She said, causing me to glare at her over my shoulder for the snipe on my outfit.

The shirt in question was a button up white long sleeved shirt. It was one of my favorites and I didn't like her insulting it.

'I know it's a guy shirt, but it's comfy damn it!' I thought angrily, glaring at her with eyes that promised death to her if she said anything else about my shirt.

Even though I was a little annoyed with her comment about my shirt, and even though it was my favorite shirt, I knew she was right. As long as I dressed like a boy, I was going to be mistaken for a guy. If I wanted to people to stop thinking that I was a guy, then I was going to have to stop dressing like one. Sighing heavily, I closed the door and started searching the room in an attempt to see if there was any girl clothes around, though I didn't really expect there to be any.

"Well, I guess I could take the pillows and covers, it might get cold at night on the dingy." I said when I couldn't find anything else to steal.

Walking over to the bed and stuffing the pillows and covers into the little froggy bag, I paused, realizing that it could rain at any time, including when we were back on the dinghy. If that was the case, then I was going to need something to keep us dry as well.

"What about clothes?" Lil asked, interrupting my thoughts and giving me a look that said that if I didn't steal some girls clothes soon she was going to scratch the hell out of me.

"Does it look like there are any girl's clothes in here? If I come across any I'll steal them, happy?" I asked impatiently as I finished putting everything into the froggy bag, hoping it would get her to shut up for a while, which it did.

"Good enough." She said, taking the hint to drop it.

Moving toward the door, I couldn't help but think every time someone had ever had a magic bag in any movie or story. The people that had them never seem to actually use it. It was always forgotten or something. It never made any sense to me.

I opened the door and peaked out into the hall, sighing in relief when I saw that Nami was nowhere in site.

"Thank god for small miracles." I whispered as I moved out into the hallway and over to the next door, glad that I hadn't ended up running right into Nami.

When I opened the next door, I realized that all the rooms on this floor were probably all guest rooms because the room on the other side of the door was the exact same as the one I had just stolen the pillows and covers from. Deciding that I should steal some pillows and covers for the Luffy and Zoro, I quickly looted two more rooms before heading up to the next floor, hoping that I would finally find Helmeppo's room. I had been in the tower for a while now, and I was probably going to miss the fight if I stayed in the tower any longer.

'Why the hell did I want to go to there bedrooms?! Why couldn't I just head for the kitchens instead? Oh, yeah. I don't know where the kitchens are.' I thought, wishing I could just skip Helmeppo's room and head to the kitchens because I was starting to get hungry.

Wanting to get out of the tower as fast as possible, mostly because I wanted to see the fight but partially because I was getting kind of hungry, I decided that I wasn't going to steal anything else until I found Helmeppo's room.

Unfortunately, that decision that didn't last long because I found a room with a lot of stuff in it that nearly made my eyes pop out of my head.

"Jackpot!" I said happily, causing Lil to jump slightly at my sudden outburst even though it wasn't even loud enough for anyone to hear.

The room must have been a study or office of some kind because it had three showcases in it that were full of weapons as well as several bookshelves that were sitting against the walls. It also had a couple of desks set at random against the walls as well.

Know that the stuff in the showcases would be the most valuable, as well as wanting to have some extra weapons if I ever needed them, I quickly headed over to the closest showcase, fully intent on stealing everything that was inside it.

At first I tried to opening the glass door, but found that it was locked tightly, which of course didn't stop me at all as I quickly took out my trusty mallet and smashed the glass door into little pieces with it.

"You know, you're lucky that thing didn't have an alarm on it." Lil pointed out in an annoyed tone, wishing that I would stop making loud noises as she really didn't want us to run into anyone.

"Luck has nothing to do with it, Morgan's the kind of think headed guy that would think that an security system would be pointless because no one would be stupid enough to mess with him." I pointed out, reminding her that Morgan was an ass and that he was to full of him self to do something smart like hook up a security system.

Once the glass door was out of the way, I quickly started shoving everything into my froggy bag, somehow managing to keep track of what went into the bag. Once I was done with all of the showcases, I started checking the desks for stuff, only to find a bunch of pencils, paper, maps, more paper, ink bottles, paper again, a knife, and oh, did I mention the tone of paper? Not being to picky and knowing that I might need to use the maps to pay Nami off in the future if I ever borrowed anything from her, I quickly shoved all of it into the bag.

After I finished with everything in the room, I quickly headed to the door, deciding that I would try for Helmeppo's room one more time before I gave up.

With that thought in mind, I opened the door to the hallway, only to find that there was a man standing on the other side of it who had clearly been about to enter the room. He and I just stared at each other for a second, me with a nervous smile on my face and him with a look of surprise.

'Oh shit.'

Coming out of his shock, the guy went for his gun at his hip while opening his mouth to speak, most likely to yell out to the other marines that there was an intruder. Not wanting to give him the chance, I quickly grabbed my mallet and bashed him over the head with it.

If it wasn't for my cat like reflexes, he probably would have had his gun out before I even got the chance.

"Think anyone heard that?" I asked Lil, wandering if the sound of me bashing someone in the head would attract attention.

"How the hell should I-" Lil was cut off in mid sentence when Luffy suddenly ran past the open door, dragging a half unconscious Helmeppo behind him.

"Wasn't that-?" I started, only to stop a second later when I realized that I should run after him, which I did as quickly as I could.

It was Helmeppo's room I was looking for after all.

"Yeah, that was Luffy. Why the hell isn't he fighting outside yet?!" Lil asked indignantly, just as confused as I was about that.

'I knew that it would take longer in real life for everything to happen, but I didn't think it would take this long.' I thought in surprise, trying to keep up with the rubber man as he ran down the hall.

I had probably spent less time in the tower then I had realized, and Luffy's situation had probably taken a lot longer then it did in the anime because of the whole 'can't skip things in real life' thing. Of course it would take him more time to drag Helmeppo through the halls then it showed in the anime, and the fact that my feline abilities had let me zoom up the stairs as though they were nothing didn't hurt ether. I had practically gone flying up the stairs thanks to my jumps, and had zoomed down the halls for the same reason.

Basically, I wasn't sure if I was just a lot faster then I realized, or if everything else just took a lot more time then in the anime. Either way, I hadn't missed much yet.

Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I continued running after Luffy, getting a little worried when marines started coming out of their rooms. They were clearly trying to figure out what all the commotion was about, and it wouldn't take them long to see that it was us. When Luffy ran past them, the all started to chase after him, not realizing that I was behind all of them, which was nice for me because that meant that none of them would attack me, but if they did, I had my handy-dandy mallet to fend them off with.

About half way down the hall, Luffy stopped running and started talking to Helmeppo, causing me to remember something from the anime that I had completely forgotten.

Luffy was going in the wrong direction.

When Luffy had his little shouting match with the guards and Helmeppo, I knew I was right. He had definitely been going in the wrong direction and was about to turn around and run straight at me, which he did almost as soon as the thought entered my head.

Which meant that the guards all saw me.

Oh shit.

As Luffy nearly past me I started running again, wanting to stay as close to him as possible so that the guards wouldn't be able to shoot me. They wont shoot him because he has Helmeppo, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't shoot me if I fell to far behind, now did it?

When Luffy suddenly ducked into one of the rooms to the side, I was so relieved because it meant that I wouldn't have to worry about getting shot once I was through the door, and it meant that I wouldn't have to run any more.

'For the love of all that is good, no more running! My legs are killing me!' I thought frantically, clutching my side and locking the door after I entered the room.

I really didn't want anyone coming in while I was stealing stuff, especially when my legs hurt so much that I probably wouldn't be able to get away. I wasn't out of shape. I had always had to stay in shape for competitions in my world, but I still wasn't used to so much running.

When I turned back around after locking the door I found that Luffy had already jumped out the window, and Helmeppo, for some unknown reason, had gone with him.

"Didn't Luffy-" I asked in confusion, trailing off with my question.

"Yeah, Luffy let him go before he even got near the window, but Helmeppo followed him." Lil said, starring at the broken window as well.

It took me a second to get over my shock at Helmeppo jumping out he window after Luffy, but once I was done staring I quickly started shoving everything I could find that I was willing to take into my bag. I checked every drawer and each closet, not really shocked when I found three walk-in closets attached to the room. After I finished with the drawers and the closets, I started going through the jewelry boxes, happy when I saw he had good taste in Jewelry.

OK, so I have no idea if any of it was good, but I liked them, and that was all that mattered.

When I counted all of the jewelry, I found that there were seven rings, six necklaces, twelve bracelets, and nine pairs of earrings. It was a lot. He clearly had issues, because I had never even had half that much jewelry in my entire life.

After looking around the room for a few more things to steal, only to find that everything else in the room was pretty useless, I quickly moved over to the window and looked out it.

"You are not jumping out that window!" Lil shouted in horror, trying her hardest to keep me from jumping out of the window.

Turning my head slightly, I gave her an evil smirk before jumping out of the window, ignoring her shouts that I was crazy.

'It's a good thing cat's always land on there-' I thought, only to stop half way through the thought and let out an earthshaking scream when I landed...

"MY TAIL!" I screeched. Hopping up and down in pain.

When I had landed, I ended up landing on my tail. Don't ask me how it happened, but the tip of my tail had somehow managed to get under my right foot just as I was landing, meaning that I had crushed it when I landed.

"See, that's what you get for jumping out of a sixth floor window." Lil said cheekily, smirking at me as I petted my now abused tail in an attempt to get rid of the pain.

This thing was really starting to become my own worst enemy. It was part of me, and yet it almost seemed to go out of it's way to cause me pain. I know it is just an appendage, but it really did seem to have a mind of it's own.

Not wanting to miss the fight, I tried to ignore the pain in my tail as best as I could and looked over at the battle field, only to find that everyone was shouting and cheering.

The great captain Morgan was finally defeated.

"Great, I missed it." I said in an annoyed tone, rubbing at my tail again now that I knew it was pointless to ignore it.

I had really wanted to see the battle, it would have been so cool to watch Luffy and Zoro kick everyone's ass in person.

Shooting the everyone in the courtyard a glare, though no one seemed to notice, I decided to head off to Ricca's mom's restaurant on my own so that no one would have to see me sulking.

Plus, I was so pissed off that I was pretty sure that I would be tempted to kill Luffy for not waiting to beat all the bad-guys until I got there.

And that would be bad, especially since he was technically my captain.

I was about half way to Ricca's mom's restaurant when Lil started poking the side of my head, trying to get my attention.

"What?" I asked plainly, looking over my shoulder at her, only to see that she was grinning evilly at me.

She was way to happy for this to be a good thing.

"God sent us a sign." She said happily, smirking at me for some reason and pointing over to a building.

Rolling my eyes at her, I turned my head to see what it was she was pointing at, only to groan in horror when I saw the sign that had caught her attention.

Malcolm's Junk shop

We buy and sell everything you need.

~Including clothes~

"Come on," She said happily, causing my eye to start twitching. "You promised you would get some new clothes, and I can see some girl stuff through the window."

"No, I said if I came across some girl clothes in the marine base I would steal them." I corrected, really not wanting to enter the shop.

"Just do it." Lil said in a commanding voice, nearly making me bash her pretty little head in for trying to order me around.

Sighing heavily, I looked back at the shop again, still not really wanting to go in. I had always liked my clothes, they were comfy, but she was kind of right. If I really wanted people to stop mistaking me for a girl, then I had to do something about the way I look, and the best way to do that was to change my clothes a little.

Plus, I was pretty sure she would keep bugging me until I finally went in, and I needed new shoes thanks to the fight with Alvida.

With that in mind, I headed into the shop.

Almost as soon as I entered the shop it became very clear that the old man behind the counter wasn't a people person, in fact, he was an-anti-people person. He was rude, obnoxious, and way to much like my friend Matt for me not to want to hit him with my mallet.

Luckily, I didn't have to stay in the store for long because I almost instantly found a shirt that would keep people from thinking I was a guy. I also found a pair of earrings that I liked, as well as a pair of open toed blue shoes like the orange ones Nami is always wearing in the anime, which meant that I wouldn't have to worry about ripping them whenever my claws decided to make an appearance.

Once I had had the items I wanted, I took them to the counter, pulled out the box of money, payed the guy 12700 belly (which is the equivalent to 127 dollars) and left. As soon as I was out of the store, I headed over to an alley way, ducked behind some a large trashcan, and changed my shirt in an attempt to keep Lil happy. After putting the new shirt on and putting my old one into the froggy bag, I headed for Ricca's mom's restaurant.

When I finally reached the restaurant, Luffy and Zoro were already there, probably sitting back in their chairs lazily, having just finished stuffing themselves silly.

"Wew, I am stuff! Having not eaten anything in three weeks, I was ready to gnaw through my boot straps." I heard Zoro say jovially as I pushed through the crowd of onlookers outside the building.

I was going to get in there one way or another, even if I had to take out my mallet and start bashing people in the head with it. No one, and I do mean no one, was going to keep me from my food.

"Ha! I can't believe you're finished already. Light weight." I heard Luffy say as I continued pushing past people, determined to get into the restaurant.

'I'm hungry damn it!' I thought angrily, just wanting to get to the restaurant so that I could eat.

By the time I finally managed to reach the front door and had taken my first step into the restaurant, Zoro was already asking about the crew.

"So, how many others have you gathered for your crew besides me." He asked before taking a drink from a mug, which was probably full of sake or ale.

"Huh?" Luffy asked confusedly, still shoveling food into his mouth as though he would starve if he didn't.

"You said you were in the middle of gathering together a crew, and if you're going to be king of the pirate then you've got to have some members already." Zoro said, wandering how many of us there were.

It was at this point that Choco caught site of me, instantly going nuts the moment he did.

"KWEH!" He shouted happily, getting everyone's attention and running over to me as fast as he could, jumping up and down madly when he was just a foot or so in front of me.

Smiling at him and trying not to laugh at his goofiness, I picked him up and hugged him lightly.

"Nice to see you too." I told him happily as I walked over to the table that Zoro and Luffy were sitting at.

"Hey! Kaede! What took you so long? And why weren't you at the base?" Luffy asked, smiling at me and waving to me as I sat down.

"Sorry about that. Since you were taking down Morgan, I thought it would be OK for me to steal some of his stuff." I said, not really caring if anyone heard what I said.

I wasn't all that surprised when I heard some cheers from people, apparently they didn't mind me stealing from the x-captain.

"Huh? Who's she?" Zoro asked, causing me to smile.

'OK, Lil wins, the top was a good idea.' I thought, glad that someone finally got it right on the first try, only to change my mind a second later.

"Or are you a dude?" Zoro suddenly added, tilting his head to the side slightly, trying to figure out if I was a guy or a girl.

Poor mortal, he knows not what he does.

In a flash, my mallet connected with his head, causing everyone in the room to gasp and shout in surprise.

"I am most certainly a girl." I growled darkly as Zoro sat back up and glared at me, though the large lump on the top of his head cut the effect of the glare down considerably.

"Hehehe. Yeah, she tends to do that if you call her a guy." Lil said, rubbing the back of her head nervously, causing Zoro, and a few other people, to jump back in surprise.

Only a few of the people in the restaurant joined him in his surprise as some of them had already seen her speak, though that didn't stop them from staring at her.

"What the hell?! It talks?!" He shouted, jumping up and pointing at her in surprise.

"Of course I talk!" Lil said indignantly, glaring at him slightly. "All witch's familiars do." she added before jumping up happily at the sight of the plate of tuna that Ricca placed in front of her.

"Witch?!" Everyone shouted in shock, turning to stare at me now that they had been informed of my fake occupation.

Rolling my eyes at everyone's reactions, I grabbed one of Luffy's large drum sticks and started eating it, to hungry to wait for my own plate. Normally, I would never eat off of someone else's plate as I was brought up better then that, but Luffy wasn't exactly being polite about who's plate he was eating off of, so I didn't really care all that much at the moment.

After I swallowed the food that was in my mouth, I turned to everyone that was still staring at me and spoke.

"Yep, I'm Kaede Tsuda Burnett, the Ctarl-Ctarl white witch!" I said proudly, striking a pose with my mallet before turning back to my food and taking another big bite of the drumstick, much to Luffy's dismay.

"Aren't witch's supposed to be ugly?" one of the other customers asked, only for another one to practically sign his own death warrant a second later.

"Maybe that's why she looks like a boy." The other guy said right before a large mallet suddenly connected with the top of his head.

"Firstly," I said, putting the mallet back into my froggy back, much to everyone's surprise. "I know I look like a boy, but that's just really bad genetics.

"As for the ugly thing, everyone just thinks that witches are ugly because because a witch's face is the only part of our bodies that age. So by the time I'm ninety, the only part of me that will look ninety is my face." I said, using my memory of how Dr. Kureha looked to come up with my lie.

"Oh! That explains it." Luffy said, nodding his head in understanding, though I wasn't really sure he understood it at all.

"What's a Ctarl-Ctarl?" Ricca asked once she and everyone else had processed all the information I had given them.

"It's her species." Lil explained, looking up from her food and saving me the trouble of talking.

"What?! You mean she isn't human?!" Someone asked, the same idiot that had made the comment about me looking like a boy.

"Nope," Lil said, only for me to change that slightly when I realized that I might see my aunt in this world.

If that happened, it would be really hard to explain why I was a Ctarl-Ctarl and she wasn't.

"Well, sort of. I'm half human, my father's human, and my mother isn't." I said, though I was hoping that they would leave it at that, lucky for me, Zoro chose to ignore the 'I'm only half human and I'm a witch' comment for the moment as he didn't really believe it and decided to ask about the crew again as he was still waiting for Luffy's answer.

"Huh, so I take it she's on the crew too?" He asked Luffy, pointing at me with his thumb.

"Yeah, she was the first member of the crew." Luffy said, pausing to take another bite of food before continuing. "And you're the second." He added, taking yet another bite of food.

"KWEH!" Choco said angrily, flapping his little wings at Luffy.

"Choco would like to point out that me and him are crew members to. Most big pirate ships consider animals that can act on their own members." Lil said, correcting Luffy's statement.

"Huh? And what good are animals on a pirate crew?" Zoro asked skeptically, having never come across animals that were pirates before.

"Well, actually, Choco might not look like it, but when he's full grown he will be around seven or eight feet tall, if not taller and will have six inch talons. He'll also be able to fly really fast. All in all, he'll be able to take on other pirates on his own.

"As for Lil, she can do a lot of recon if we ever need it, Plus she can hid stuff in her ears, so if we need her to plant a bomb for us or take a message to someone, she can, especially since she can just tell us anything she finds out." I explained pointing out that Lil and Choco were a lot more useful then they looked, though I wasn't really sure how long it would take Choco to grow up.

"Huh, I guess that does kind of make some sense." Zoro said, thinking about how most people would simply ignore a large black cat and say whatever they wanted in front of it.

While Zoro thought about all the uses there were for Lil and Choco, the marines finally arrived.

It was time for us to leave.

"Hay, you there." one of the marines called out, getting everyone's attention.

"Huh?" Luffy asked curiously as he took another bite of food and turned his head to see what the marine wanted.

"We heard a rumor that you guy's are actually pirates. Is this rumor true?" the marine asked, though he clearly already knew the answer.

"Way! Wats ums!" (Translation: Yeah! That's us!) Luffy said, his mouth still full of food.

"Luffy san! You shouldn't talk with your mouth full!" Coby said frantically, a little embarrassed by Luffy's lack of manners.

If you ask me, he sounds more like my mother then a kid, which is kind of creepy when you think about it.

"Swormy!" (Translation: Sorry!) Luffy replied with his mouth still full of food.

Apparently, he wasn't really listening.

"Sorry about that, he meant to say yes." Lil said, wiping some of Luffy's spit off of her fur while shooting him a sideways glare.

Just as the marine was about to speak, a few random bats flew out of my bag, causing everyone in the restaurant to jump back in shock, including me. It had been incredibly random, and extremely surprising. It wasn't every day that bats flew out of a small bag that was about half their size after all.

Plus, while I knew that the bag might have something living in it, I hadn't expected anything to come flying out of it at random. That's just freaky damn it!

Once everyone had recovered from their shock and the bats had all left the restaurant, the marine that had been asking us who we were spoke again.

"'Cough' We appreciate everything you did to save our town from that horrible tyrant that terrorized us all for so long, however, as marines we can not site idly by and allow pirates to go about their business. Therefor, you and your crew will have to leave this town immediately, but out of respect for what you have done for us, we will not report you to head quarts, and we'll also overlook all the stuff that went missing from the base." He said sternly, adding the last part as an after thought.

'well, at least I'll be getting away with it. Hehehe...' I thought in embarrasment, grinning a little to innocently.

Luffy and Zoro both turned to look at me, both thinking that it was me he was talking about.

"Hehehe. Maybe I did take a little more then just Morgan's stuff, but come on! It's going to get cold on that little boat, so I took a few covers..." I said, trying to convince them that it was all for a good cause.

While I was making my excuses about why I had taken the other stuff, everyone from the town that was in the restaurant started shouting, trying to convince the marines to let us stay.

"What?!"

"Are you crazy?!"

"How do you find the nerve to talk like that?!"

It seemed like everyone was fighting for us, not wanting the people that saved them to get kicked out of town.

"Before these pirates came along, you guys were as scared of Morgan as the rest of us!"

"With out them, we'd still be under his reign! We owe them our lives!"

"Yeah!"

Everyone was still shouting at the marines, trying to get them to let us stay. Luffy on the other hand did what I knew he was going to do. He got up and ended the shouts with one simple sentence.

"Well, time to go." He said loudly, smiling at me and Zoro before turning to Ricca's mom. "Thanks for all the food lady!"

Ricca, it seemed, couldn't believe her ears. She wasn't really ready for us to leave. "Hey, wait a second! You're leaving already?" she asked sadly.

"Yep." I said, answering for Luffy as I picked Choco up and let Lil Jump into my backpack.

It was odd, but it already seemed like Choco had gained some weight... nah, I just wasn't used to carrying him yet.

"We're pirates, we can't get to cozy in a town on land, our sea legs would fall off." I told her happily, causing a few people to chuckle slightly.

The joke was lame, but if they thought it was funny, then that was fine by me.

While I made my statement I walked over to Ricca's mom and had her bag up a small bag of greens for Choco, not wanting the little ball of feathers to go hungry while we were on the ocean. I wasn't about to let something so young starve.

"Thank you." I said after she handed me the small bag, putting the it in the froggy bag so that it wouldn't add to the weight I was now carrying around with me. With Choco in my arms, I had way to much stuff to carry as it was.

Once the bag of greens was safely in the froggy bag, the five of us straw-hat pirates headed for the door, with Lil on my shoulder and Choco in my arms, ready to leave. Well, at least we were going to leave, that is until one of the marines realized that Coby wasn't heading out with us.

"Hey, aren't you with them?" He asked, directing his question at the back of Coby's head.

"Ah! Well.. I... uh..." Coby stammered as he turned and looked at the marine, unable to come up with a complete sentence to help himself out of the situation.

At this point, Luffy simply started moving again and headed out the door, only to be stopped by the same marine again.

"Hold it, is he with you guys or what?" He asked, starting to get on my nerves. I was tired and I wanted to go to sleep, and the only place that was going to happen was on the boat. So if he didn't stop talking soon, I was going to have to kick his ass in order to get some Zs.

"No, but what I can tell you is what he's been busy doing up until now." Luffy said, causing me and Lil to roll our eyes as Coby froze in horror. "There was this fantastically fat pirate lady, I think her name was Alvida-" He started, about to tell everybody what Coby had been up to.

"Luffy!" Coby whispered in horror, shocked that Luffy would betray him like that.

"She carried around this big iron club, and boy was she the nastiest looking woman I've ever seen." Luffy continued as he walked over to stand next to Coby and started poking him in the head. "And for two years this wimpy kid was her own privet cabin boy."

In the blink of an eye, Coby punched Luffy as hard as he could, clearly having finally snapped. Luffy didn't even move an inch and instead started punching him back, beating the crap out of him. It was while Luffy was beating the crap out of him that Zoro finally figured out what was going on.

"Stop it! Get out of here now!" The marine yelled, ordering us to leave the restaurant and the town. "We can't have you pirates ripping up this town any more then you already have! You hear me!"

"Bamb!"

I had somehow managed to beat Zoro over to Luffy, bashing the rubber man on the head and sending him to the ground. (I am also happy to report that I managed to not drop Choco in the process.)

Now that Luffy wasn't hitting Coby anymore, Coby fell to the ground in pain, causing the marine to point at us and start yelling again.

"It's obvious he isn't one of you guy's, so get out of this town and leave that poor kid alone!" He demanded, causing the corners of my lips to twitch slightly.

I really wanted to smile, but I knew that it would give us away if I did, so I kept my face as straight as I could.

"Fine, we're leaving." Zoro said, grabbing Luffy by the back of his collar and dragging him out of the restaurant behind us.

After we were a good distance away from the restaurant, Luffy got up off the ground and started walking on his own, not wanting to be dragged all the way to the boat.

"So, where's the ship?" Zoro asked once we had finally gotten to the docks, looking around for our boat.

"It's that one there." Luffy said, pointing to our little boat and causing Zoro to face fault when he saw that it was just a dinghy.

"What the?! You've got to be kidding." He growled in an annoyed tone while covering his face with one of his hands, causing Lil to fall over, laughing at him.

"I know it's not much, but soon we'll have a big ship with lots of crew members!" Luffy said happily, jumping into the dinghy.

Looking longingly at the larger dinghies, I jumped into the boat with Zoro, knowing that Luffy would probably be against the idea of stealing bigger boat instead of taking the one we stole from the cruse ship.

'Oh god, I'm starting to sound like Nami.' I thought, hanging my head in horror.

Luffy quickly untied the boat and raised the sail, causing us to move out to sea with the wind. It wasn't until we were so far out to sea that we couldn't see the island anymore that Zoro finally started talking again.

"So..." Zoro said, looking back and forth between Luffy and me. "Which one of you knows how to navigate?"

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