A/N: Finally, another chapter is up! And the reviews and follows don't flatter me at all! *does happy dance while saying so*
But seriously, thanks everyone. It motivates me to keep writing and improving. Thank you for the faves, follows, and reviews.
Much love, ~X
Hopefully to help keep a few things clear- things are told from both the pirates' and Team Avatar's POV. So when Team Avatar sees creatures from the One Piece world, they would likely call them what they probably would be in their world, and vise-versa. I've tried to make sure that the perspectives between the two groups are clear.
This chapter ended up being cut in half because it was so long... so, kinda happy I managed to get two chapters out of one.
Thank you, and please enjoy the story!
Chapter Five: Pirates!
It had been a week and a half (ten days to be precise) since Aang and the others had been trapped on the island. All of them began to doubt that anyone was coming. They at first tried to repair the boat with makeshift tools, and reinforce it for stronger waters, but when they saw a huge sea monster bigger than anything else they had ever seen (they thought that another island had appeared at first), the plans to even attempt to sail the boat went out the window.
"Eh, let's just wait until help arrives," Sokka said, and the others couldn't agree with him more.
Aang was very concerned for Momo, who had started to grow fungus on his body, just like the plant creatures on the island. Aang couldn't tell Momo not to eat, and he didn't want to deprive him when Momo couldn't eat fish. Plus, he wasn't sure if he would hurt Momo by trying to remove the growing funguses himself.
Sokka looked miserable, because he was getting tired of fish. He was even tempted to try some of the fruit and nuts, regardless of what those foods were doing to Momo. Aang was discouraged because of all the events involving Spirits and the Spiritual World, Zuko was irritated because of numerous insect bites, and a lack of sleep, resulting in him constantly being on edge. Toph was irritated because she was getting tired of the sand and the salty air made her feel sick. Katara was tired because she was trying to keep everybody's spirits up, but all of them grumbled at her and said things under their breath about her being so optimistic.
Their daily routine consisted of trying to get rid of the annoying insects that buzzed around them and bit them, scratching at insect bites, have little squabbles with each other for the smallest of things, apologize, lose sleep to the growling and clicking creatures of the night, and repeat. In short, all of them were irritated at one another, and were hardly on speaking terms. On the evening of the tenth day, they had an argument that escalated into a fight.
"Well excuse me for trying to encouraging everyone to keep their spirits up and wait for help to come!" Katara shouted at the people in front of her after she had tried to encourage them, only to be answered with a 'whatever, be quiet' type of response. "That Flying Pig Spirit said help would come, and we've never had reason to doubt any of the words from the Spirits, so at least someone here has a little faith!"
"Would you just shut up already?!" Toph demanded, "You're always going on about faith and hope!" Toph who mockingly said the words 'faith' and 'hope', continued, "While there's a time and a place, now isn't the time, because no one wants to hear it!"
"Don't talk to her like that!" Aang shouted at Toph. Normally, Aang wouldn't be given in to anger, but lack of sleep, worry, and frustration had been wearing on him, and as a result he ended up taking it out on the others.
"I can talk to her however I want!" Toph said defiantly, taking a stance that seemed to dare anyone to disagree with her.
"No you can't, that's my sister!" Sokka said to Toph, who responded by sandbending at him, and knocking him a few feet away. The two started their own argument while Katara forgot about Toph, and turned her attention to Aang "Stay out of this Aang! Do you really think I need your help? This doesn't concern you, and I didn't ask you, so just stay out of it!" Katara said to Aang. Why did he feel the need to step in when she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself?
"Well I'm sorry for trying to help! Next time, I'll just stay out of it and you can handle everything on your own!" Aang thought that Katara should be grateful; after all, he had been sticking up for her because he cared about her.
"Well, good," Katara waved her hand at Aang, as if she were brushing him off. "'Cuz I don't need it!"
"Humph."
"Humph!"
"Finally you got her to shut up. You should insult her more often," Toph, replied.
"What was that for?!" Sokka demanded, brushing the sand from his clothes. "Besides, you can't earthbend in an argument like this; it's against the rules!"
"Rules-shmules. You're just upset because you can't win."
"Why you…!" Sokka was clenching his fists and trying to think of a comeback.
"Oh yeah? Well the only reason you resort to earthbending is because you can't win in a normal argument!"
Zuko furiously sat up from where he had been laying, and shouted at the four of them, "If you're going to argue, do it somewhere else! There are people here who are trying to sleep!"
"If we're bothering you, then you move." Toph said defiantly.
Zuko glared at the other benders and yelled, "Ahhhhh! I can't believe I am stuck here with you people!"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Sokka asked angrily.
"You people; as in you people are the most insufferable, irritating people that I have had the greatest misfortune of being stranded with!" Zuko shouted, their campfire swelled, clearly showing the anger that was building inside of Zuko.
"Well, we don't want to be stuck here with you either!" Katara said, and she waterbended a few gallons of sea water at the infuriated Fire Lord and soaked him from head to toe.
Momo watched the whole display go on between the five humans, chirping and cocking his head. The fire died down just then, and went back to normal. As if the water had brought him back to reality, Zuko collapsed to his knees and buried his head in his hands, "I don't know how much more of this I can take… I'm sorry. I didn't mean any of it."
He sounded just as tired as the others felt. He then asked in a quiet voice to no one in particular, "When is that Lion supposed to get here…?"
"I'm sorry," Katara said softly, and she and Aang hugged.
"…Sorry…" Toph mumbled.
"Yeah…" Sokka just sat down and stared intently at the ground. "Sorry," he said quickly and quietly.
"I'm sorry too…" Aang said quietly, and he looked at the others, "We can do this, we've lived through worse before, and we've got to stick together. Especially now, and at least here, we have shelter, food, and water."
Everyone else just mumbled their agreements, and afterwards they all sat in relative silence as the night wore on.
***In the afternoon of the Eleventh Day***
Momo had wandered off into the forest chasing after a beetle, when he saw a large ship heading towards the island. He chirped out of curiosity, and crept closer to get a better look. The ship landed roughly onto the bay with a loud crash. The ship was unceremoniously thrown onto the beach by a giant wave, and was pushed up on the beach far enough that it actually crashed into a few mushroom trees. Creatures of the forest cried out in protest, while everyone on the ship was too busy to notice.
"Hey!" Franky shouted at the wave, "Watch the workmanship!"
"My special seat!" Luffy cried, and ran to go check on the lion head.
"Is everyone okay?" Nami questioned, as she brushed herself off.
Everyone answered with pained groans.
"Where are we?" Usopp asked, looking at the strange forest.
"Who cares? It's an adventure!" Luffy said, his body tingling with excitement.
Momo flew down to a perch closer to the ship, but was cautious. He was curious about these new people, and so he flew just a bit closer. It was then Momo regretted that decision as he locked eyes with one particular human wearing a straw hat. Momo had run from enough predators to know what the look in this man's eyes meant.
"FOOD!" Luffy shouted and took off after the strange creature with big ears and funny growths on his body.
"Luffy, wait!" Nami started, but of course the Straw Hat captain wasn't listening.
"I'll go after him," Zoro stated casually, and jumped down from the ship and went on his way to retrieve Luffy. "He went the other way, stupid Marimo! How can you get lost when you saw which way he went?!" Sanji shouted at the swordsman. Nami took over quickly, and said with the likened authority of a parent, "Usopp, go with Zoro; make sure he doesn't get lost. Bring back that idiot, and make sure he doesn't do anything stupid."
Usopp and Zoro thankfully didn't necessarily have to actually search for Luffy; they simply followed the general direction of the crashing coming from the forest.
The rest of the crew then started working to try and get Sunny back into the water. Chopper beamed. "Look at this place!" he squeaked, "I bet there are all kinds of medicines in there!"
"And possibly top quality ingredients," Sanji agreed. "Once we fix Sunny, we should check it out."
It was just passed noon when the shipwrecked Team Avatar heard a loud crash on the other side of the island, and soon afterwards they could hear voices. A few minutes later, there were loud crashing noises going throughout the forest.
Hope swelled in all of them. There were people here. They were saved! But why was there crashing in the forest? What was going on? They could hear the angry protests of creatures that were unfortunate enough to fall victim to whatever the crashing was.
"Should we go and look for them?" Katara asked, wondering if it would be a good idea to even contact these people. She was hesitant to try because they were unsure of whom or what these people could be, and the others felt the same hesitation. They were unsure about the entire ruckus coming from the forest, and if it would even be a good idea to approach the people that were now on the island. It could mean either mean rescue, or a fate worse than death.
Toph tilted her head in confusion. "There's something strange about the person in the forest… Well, I think it's a person. Their movement isn't anything like I've felt before. I have no idea how to explain it."
As soon as she finished her sentence, Momo shot out of the forest with a panicked look in his eyes, followed closely by a young man with a straw hat. Luffy stopped in his tracks when he saw the five disheveled people before him. Momo quickly landed on Aang and clung tightly to his neck, shivering with fright.
"Oh," started the young man looking rather disappointed. "He's your nakama… I wanted to eat him."
"You want to eat Momo?!" Aang shouted, but he stopped with confusion when the boy started laughing. "You guys dress funny," was the reason behind his laughter.
"This isn't how we normally dress!" Zuko shouted at the man, but the confused look on Zuko's face showed that he was wondering why he even felt he had the need to defend their appearance.
"Luffy! Where are you?!" someone shouted.
"Luffy, get your ass back here!" an irritated voice called.
Now that things had quieted down, it left Luffy's companions with nothing to follow.
The young man who was apparently Luffy, smiled and shouted, "Over here! I found forest people!"
"Oh, no, not another one of these guys…" Sokka thought to himself.
"We aren't forest people…" Katara said, confused by Luffy's words and actions.
"You aren't?" Luffy asked, looking confused. He stuck a pinky up his nose as his expression slowly seemed to get more confused as if he were trying to figure out what kind of people they were. "Then what kind of people are you?"
"Just… people…" Katara said, making a face at Luffy for so openly picking his nose.
"But that's boring…" Luffy said in an almost whining tone.
All of them stared at Luffy in wonderment and confusion, because it was like talking to a child; one whose attention span couldn't focus on anything for more than a few seconds.
Sokka quickly took over, and said, "We were shipwrecked… wait, is that the right way to explain it?"
"Shipwrecked?" Luffy asked. "Where's your boat?"
They motioned to the gondola, and Luffy took one look at it, and asked, "You came here in that?"
"In a sense, yes," Aang replied. All of them made a face at Luffy's uproarious laughter, and as if it were the most obvious thing, he said, "You can't sail in the New World with a boat like that. You guys must be idiots."
"We aren't idiots!" Toph shouted, tempted to earthbend this guy into next week, but stopped when he asked, "So, you wanna come with me on my ship? Sanji can make us food."
At the mention of "ship" and "food" they all would have said a unanimous "YES!" but were interrupted by an irritated voice saying, "Oi, Luffy, get your ass back to the ship. And what do you mean forest people?"
Everyone besides Toph turned towards the new voice, and a sense of uneasiness came over them. Two people walked out of the forest, and one of the men was tall, had green hair, a prominent scar on his chest, and was apparently blind in his left eye due to another scar and three swords were at his hip. The other young man had a strangely long nose, and he followed the first one closely looking terrified of the mushroom forest. He looked even more so at the strangers before him.
"Who are you people?" the green haired man asked, nonchalantly.
They introduced themselves, and left out their official titles for the time being, because they felt that it would be too complicated a thing to explain to the strangers.
"The name's Zoro,"
"I'm Captain Usopp and I have 300,000 followers! So don't try anything!"
He's lying… Toph thought, wondering why he felt the need to do so. The other members of Toph's group had the same thoughts as well.
Sokka was the only one to call Usopp out on his obvious lie. "If you have 300,000 followers, then we have a herd of dancing bull-monkeys."
The three men gave each other confused looks, and Luffy gave them a wide grin,
"I'm Monkey D. Luffy! Nice to meet you…you guys are weird!"
He then turned to Zoro, and stated, "Hey, Zoro, Usopp. They've been shipwrecked so they're coming with us!"
The looks on both Zoro's and Usopp's faces changed to ones of anger and frustration.
"You idiot! Inviting people you don't even know onto the ship!" *thwok!* Zoro hit Luffy over the head with his fist. "How many times have we told you not to do that?!"
"He's right, Luffy! For all we know they could be really dangerous pirates! Or worse, marine spies!" Usopp said, looking extremely worried. He kept glancing back at the group as if expecting them to do something that justified his claims.
"We aren't spies, or pirates," Aang offered, since he thought that the swordsman was picking on the kind cabin boy who was offering them assistance.
Luffy pouted and whined, "But Zoro~ I already told them that we were going to help,"
Zoro sighed deeply, and shook his head. "Alright fine, but you have to tell the navigator about them. Let's just get back to the ship."
The swordsman started walking to lead them back to the ship, when Usopp yelled, "Ahh! Zoro! We came from that way!"
Zoro got a strange look on his face and defended, "We would've reached the ship just fine, I do know where I'm going, dammit. It's you people who get lost."
Luffy only laughed at his companion's antics, entirely enjoying himself too much.
"Let's not go through the forest," Zuko suggested, "We've had enough of the place already, to be honest."
"Fine, whatever," Zoro responded with a yawn.
"At least I'm not the only one here with some sense," Usopp said, eyeing Zuko thankfully. Usopp led the way, but he kept glancing suspiciously at the people behind him. Zoro just trudged along without a word, and Luffy talked to the strange people that they had just met.
"So you're blind?" he asked Toph, looking extremely fascinated.
"Yes—stop doing that!" Toph shouted when Luffy waved his hand in front of her face, as if checking for himself, and he nodded to himself, "You really are blind."
Sokka slapped his forehead, and the others gave tired sighs.
Within a few minutes, the ship came into view, and Aang and the others looked on hesitantly, due to the fact that the ship was practically inland. They were wondering how the ship made its way so far inland and how proficient at steering a boat their rescuers actually were. A very large man with blue hair and strange arms was shouting something.
"Oh, Sunny!" he wailed, "This is not super at all!"
Why was he so openly wearing something that could constitute as underwear?
The wind shifted, and Aang and the others saw the flag unfurl with the wind… a skull with a straw hat and crossbones came into view. Aang stopped short, remembering that their last encounter with pirates wasn't very pleasant. "You guys are pirates?" he asked, trying to think of a strategy just in case they had to fight. He could see out of the corner of his eye that the others had stiffened, and were preparing for the possibility of a fight as well.
"Yep!" Luffy declared with a nod, "I'm gonna be King of the Pirates! Shi, shi, shi!"
Not fully understanding what that meant, Aang then noticed the figure head and stopped. A lion's head…
"What's the name of your ship?" Aang asked slowly, lowering his guard.
"Thousand Sunny!" Luffy said proudly, "Oh! There's Sanji! Sanji~! Food!" and Luffy ran to the ship.
"A Lion of 1,000 Suns…" Aang said aloud.
And there you have it! Next chapter: Team Avatar meet the rest of the Pirates and learn about what kind of game the Spirits want them to play.
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