Chapter Twelve | A Doozy of a Day

All of a sudden, the fierce storm they'd been caught in had dwindled to nothing, and Quinn looked around in confusion to see a literal wall of rain behind them. "What?" she blurted, entranced by the sight. It was both bizarre and beautiful, and she found herself leaning against the rail just to watch the rain pour, the clouds above swallowing up the light.

"Oh no, no- grab the oars and start rowing!" Nami roared, startling her. "We need to head back to the storm!"

"Why? The weather is great!"

"Because we're in the Calm Belt and unless you want to be fish food we have to move!"

Both Quinn and Zoro immediately ran to the bow cargo bay and snatched the oars stored there, running back to the deck only to nearly fall over when something lurched beneath the ship. Luffy, sitting on his special spot between the ears of the figurehead shouted in surprise, peals of laughter ringing out between his words. "That's a big fish!"

And what a goddamn understatement that was, Quinn looking over the side of the ship to see the sea below swiftly growing farther away. Hundreds of feet, thousands that were rapidly lengthening between them and the sea, the Merry raised skyward on the nose of a sea monster. A nose which dwarfed their ship by a comical amount, and as her head turned on a swivel, following the scaled length of the creature's maw, she found herself staring sidelong at an eye the size of a mansion. Her jaw dropped, her breath got caught in her throat, and Quinn barely stifled the shriek of horror that was bubbling just below her ribs.

It's as big as a fucking mountain.

"We're gonna' die," Usopp whispered, having run up beside her to join her horror-stricken gawking. "Oh no- oh- oh no. There's more."

And there was, sea monsters poking their heads up left and right, dozens of them just as large as the damned monstrosity they were stuck on top of. "What the fuck are these things!?" Quinn shouted, feeling sick.

"Sea Kings!"

"That's what a Sea King looks like?"

She tried to remember the size of the steak that one man had eaten at the Baratie before violently crushing the memory. A steak from one of these things would be a hundred times larger than the entire goddamn Baratie, let alone something that could fit on a plate.

"Can we eat it?" Zoro asked, completely unbothered.

"I swear to god-"

"Depends on the breed," Sanji answered, and Quinn stole the cigarette from his hands, glaring. "You could have just asked- but, they can either be the best thing you've ever tasted, or the toughest thing in the world to chew and flavourless to boot."

Finally inserting himself in the conversation, Luffy hopped off the figurehead and joined them at the rail. "I think we should try and eat it. It looks tasty."

"Does anyone have any idea how to get off this thing without getting eaten?"

"Sorry, my 'I-Don't-Want-to-Die-to-a-Sea-King-itis' is making it pretty hard to think!" Usopp shrieked, white knuckling the rail.

Suddenly, a massive gust of air could be heard, and Quinn realized that the Sea King the ship was beached atop of was inhaling. She watched with trepidation as the nostril below (large enough to fit Big fucking Ben) flared, before they were suddenly launched towards the storm as the Sea King sneezed, the Merry propelled hundreds of feet while almost the entire crew squealed in fright. Luffy, of course, loved every second of it, his mouth open in laughter. Panicked, Quinn saw the rapidly approaching ocean and swept her rapier along the side of the ship while she roared out a hurried 'Arresto Momentum!' Her magic took hold, though she could feel it wearing on her stamina as the ship slowed its descent, falling back into the sea with barely a splash.

Quinn collapsed to the deck, sweat pouring from her forehead. "Shit," she gasped, pressing a hand to her chest and feeling the way her heart thumped patterns against her ribs. "That took a lot out of me."

"I didn't know you could do that!" Nami cheered, rushing down to check on her. "You alright?"

"I'm fine, just- just tired."

"Thanks for the save. Alright, all of you! Quinn's going to rest for a bit but I want you to keep your eyes peeled! We're headed thataway!" she ordered, pointing in the general direction of where they'll enter the Grand Line. "And if the weather suddenly changes, I want every one of you to immediately ask me what needs to be done!"

"Aye aye!" they all called, immediately running about the ship to make sure it hadn't sustained any damage, as well as ensuring they were on course.

"So, you just gonna' stay lying down there or are you going to rest somewhere more comfortable?"

"The floor is my palace and I am its Queen," Quinn drawled, although she stuck her hand out and grinned in thanks when Nami helped her to her feet. "Cheers."

"I'll ask Sanji if he can make you a drink and a snack or something."

"Already on it, my dear!"

Casting an amused glance towards the galley, Nami laughed. "Nevermind."

In a flash, Sanji was out of the kitchen and down the stairs with a glass of tangerine juice, a plate of finger sandwiches, and an umbrella that she had no idea was even on the ship. He handed the food to Quinn with a smile, balancing the umbrella on the rail beside her. "For the ship and crew's saviour."

There would have been a retort on Quinn's lips were her mouth not already full of what was the best damn sandwich she'd ever tasted. Instead, she just let out an amused sigh, waving Sanji off. After two sandwiches and a healthy helping of juice, Quinn couldn't stop herself from belching, thumping her chest with a fist. "Hell, those things are deadly."

"If it weren't for all the manual labour I'm certain all of us would be ten pounds heavier by now, with how damn good Sanji's cooking is."

"It's offensively delicious, honestly I think even if I got his recipes I'd- Jesus Christ what is that."

Whirling around, Nami laughed at Quinn when she saw what had made the witch freeze. "That, my friend, is the Red Line."

The Red Line, what Quinn was told was this world's only continent, a length of land that stretched in a ring around the entire globe, directly perpendicular to the Grand Line, was something she assumed to be – you know – a regular continent. And by that she meant sea level. Quinn shouldn't have assumed, seeing as it was a sheer cliff face of rust-red stone that stretched up into the clouds, and she could guess just by looking at it that the peak of the Red Line scraped the heavens.

"How the hell are we supposed to get over that," she deadpanned, neck straining as she tried to get a peek at the top of the indomitable red wall.

"That… that's the tricky question. Take a look at the map," Nami said, ducking beneath the umbrella and handing a sheet of thick paper to Quinn, pointing at a section towards the bottom of it. "See those four rivers, intersecting?"

"Yup."

"Those go up."

Blinking at the map, Quinn rubbed her eyes and then went back to staring at it, dumbfounded. "They're rivers that go up. As in… the currents go up the Red Line?"

"Yeah."

Handing the paper back to Nami, Quinn stood and stretched her arms, before picking up her empty plate, glass, and mystery umbrella as she walked to the galley. "I guess we're sailing up a magic mountain," was all she said, deciding it better to clean the dishes than have an existential crisis.

So she set to work scrubbing the plate and glass, which regrettably lasted all of a minute before her hands were empty and Quinn was confronted with the idea of a… magic river?

She honestly hadn't a clue what to expect, except that whatever was truly the case, it wouldn't be anything she predicted. That was the one commonality in this place. Whatever she could think of the real thing would be larger, fiercer, and a whole lot stranger than the fiction her mind had cooked up.

Which was why, half an hour later, with the entire crew thoroughly soaked through by the storm what had been aptly dubbed "Reverse Mountain" finally came into view, and Quinn could only frown and mutter something about fever dreams under her breath.

It was one of the most impressive things she'd ever seen before, a river that rushed uphill and bored a hole through the Red Line. It formed a massive canyon that, as her gaze followed it upwards, disappeared into the clouds like the rest of the continent it was carved from. What caught her eye were the gates that were dotted along the mouth of the river, great blocky things made of gray stone that bore no resemblance to the dull garnet that towered over them. They were man-made, somehow pressed flush to the neighbouring cliffs with nary a spit of air to divide them, something that by all accounts should have been impossible to create were it not for the stale remnants of magic she could feel bleeding off them in waves.

"Through the eye of the needle," were her whispered words, indiscernible beneath the roar of the storm.

"We need to get through there!" Nami shouted, pushing the crew into action. "Zoro and Usopp, I want you on the whipstaff!"

"Aye!"

"Quinn! Stay near the bow and use your powers to push us away from the Red Line if we start getting too close!"

"Aye!"

"Luffy!"

"Yeah?"

"Stay with Sanji and don't do anything stupid!"

"Okay, Nami!"

Taking her place at the bow, Quinn held tight to the rail as they approached the river. Massive, swirling whirlpools could be seen in the distance, the currents of an entire ocean crashing against the cliffs that were only stirred up further by outcroppings of rock that jutted up from the sea, reaching towards the sky. But it was those gates and the river that ran beneath them that she kept her eyes locked on, listening as Nami called out steering adjustments.

They approached the entrance to Reverse Mountain rapidly, and Quinn found herself holding her breath as they grew closer and closer. That held breath was released in a startled burst when she heard the crack of the whipstaff over the storm, whirling around to see Zoro holding the shattered fragments of it up to the window and shouting in worry. Her blood ran cold, and Quinn swept her rapier in a wide arc as the ship curved towards the sheer face of the canyon. A gust of wind exploded from the tip of the sword, whirling between the ship and the canyon and forming a buffer that pushed them just far enough away that the Merry righted course on her own, propelled onward upon the white crested current.

Behind her, Quinn could hear Nami roaring her approval, and a quick glance over her shoulder saw the rest of the crew sprinting towards the bow, Zoro still holding the splintered remains of the whipstaff in one hand. "Keep an eye on things!" Quinn shouted, snatching the whipstaff from Zoro. "I'm gonna' fix this!"

And she did, ears perked up the whole while just in case something went horribly wrong when she wasn't looking. The whipstaff looks as good as new when she's done with it, no jagged, spiderweb marks to indicate that a few minutes ago it had been shattered almost beyond recognition, bar the smiling goat's head resting at its peak.

Quinn exited the galley just as the Merry reached the clouds. They're frigid and wetter than the long familiar fog of the Highlands, and a childish part of her was disappointed to not taste candy floss when she opened her mouth and chomped at the clouds, an intrusive thought winning over her. Somehow, through the frosty white, Luffy spotted her munching on air and decided to try his hand at it, a keening whine marking his instant disappointment.

And just as suddenly as the Merry was shrouded in a puffy blanket of ice, they're peeking over the horizon to see clear blue skies and the summit of the Red Line. Sparse knots of trees, bushes, and vivid green grass lay still as the Merry crested the waves, tossed along with the current towards the easterly river that raced down, back to earth and towards the Grand Line.

Someone was cheering loudly, and Quinn could see Usopp grinning madly at the shining sun, his goggles shading his eyes. Beside him Nami had her arms raised skyward, and Sanji stood at the bow with a cigarette hanging from his open mouth. Luffy was clinging to Zoro's back like a rucksack, neck stretched to see over the swordsman's head, and even though Quinn couldn't see his face she knew he was as awestruck as the rest of them. All of a sudden there was a hand on her shoulder and Quinn looked down, startled for an instant before Luffy had dragged her headlong towards the rest of the crew.

"We did it!" he intoned, almost reverent, and it was hard not to notice with the glimmer in his eyes. "The Grand Line."

She somehow knew the next hand that clapped against her back was Usopp's, and he almost skipped as he came up next to her. "Nice save! That was awesome!"

"Thanks," Quinn said, gut swinging into her throat as the Merry began to descend, racing down the broad rapids that led them to the next step of their great adventure. The sensation of gravity fighting against her reminded Quinn of flying, a grin on her face as they continued to race down towards the sea.

She'd have to make a broom for herself somehow, wouldn't she? Quinn would be damned if she went the rest of her life without flying.

As they thundered downriver, the Merry once more plunged into the clouds. Ready this time, Quinn braced against the shock of cold, a shiver running down her spine unbidden. The clouds on this side of the Red Line were far more dense, massive puffs of swirling white that had her squinting in a vain effort to see through them. It was only the occasional gust of wind that swept the clouds away, offering Quinn flickering glimpses of glittering ocean. A cheery Yahoo! was cried by Luffy a few feet away, her captain unbothered by not being able to see a damn thing.

"I'm going to climb up the nest, maybe I'll be able to see something," Sanji said, the click clack of his shoes disappearing behind her.

A few seconds later something like a fog horn rang out, but far meatier than any klaxon Quinn had ever heard before. "What the hell was that?" Zoro shouted, just as it cut off abruptly. Standing up on her toes, as if that would change the fact that there were bloody clouds blocking her sight, Quinn tried to get a peek at whatever made that noise to no avail.

The frustration in Sanji's voice when he shouted back was clear. "I'm trying to get eyes on it!"

Wind had served her well so far, and getting an idea, Quinn injected a bit of magic in her voice and roared. "Get to the sides of the ship! I'm going to blow the clouds away!"

A chorus of 'Aye's rang out, and after a few seconds she drew her rapier and stabbed it forward, a ferocious gust of wind carving a hole in the clouds. White tufts whorled as they were pushed aside, following the wind eastward and clearing a line of sight that revealed a mountain, standing right where they were headed.

"What!?" Nami had her map out in an instant, scanning it manically. She grew paler and paler, glancing up from the map and back down, the paper beginning to crumple where she was crushing it. "There's not supposed to be a mountain there!"

"Well, there is!" Zoro interjected.

"Who cares? Let's go!"

"Dammit, Luffy! We're going to crash into it!"

"I don't think that's a mountain!"

"What the hell do you mean, it's not a mountain? Are you blind, shitty cook?"

"It's a-!"

Another blare, a bellow, and Quinn could see teeth peeking out from a maw that stretched almost as tall and wide as the Sea Kings that- no, this thing was smaller than the Sea Kings but, correct or not, that did absolutely nothing to quell the fear she felt staring a whale the size of a skyscraper down. It was immense, its nose covered a knotted cobweb of scars and its eyes were shut, as if it was throwing its head towards the sky and crying out in pain. It might as well have been, what with those scars, but the problem Quinn was worried about right that second was trying to get around the damn thing.

"-It's a whale!"

"That's a whale!?" Usopp shrieked, hands fisting his hair.

"The river is going to bottom out before we hit it, we need to take a hard turn to port when we stop descending! Usopp, Sanji, Zoro, get on the whipstaff!"

"Aye aye, Nami!"

"Quinn!"

"Yeah!?"

"You got any more tricks up your sleeve that can get us out of this?"

"I can try and slow us down again?"

"Do that!"

"I've got a better idea!" Luffy shouted, hands on the rails at the bow of the ship and his arms already stretched to an absurd length.

"Oh shit, Luffy, don't-"

"Bazooka!"

There was a nearly deafening snap, and Luffy was rocketing headlong towards the whale, soaring through the air almost faster than Quinn could track. Distantly, she could see him clamber onto the whale's snout, and as the Merry hit the bottom of the river and once more rocketed out onto flat ocean, she could only watch in muted agony as Luffy punched the goddamn whale in the eye.

Every nail in the Merry rattled when the creature howled in pain, a crunch behind her marking the second break of the whipstaff. "For fuck's sake," she whispered, the whale's maw dropping just as its eyes locked onto the Merry, and even as Quinn tried to halt the ship with an arresto momentum she was helpless in the face of nature. The ocean churned, a hole opening in the sea before them as thousands of tonnes of water poured into the creature's mouth and carried the Merry with it. In the back of her head, as they were swept into the pitch, reeking black of the whale's mouth, she was reminded of that old bible story Petunia was so fond of telling.

Some poor son of a bitch and a giant fish.

"We're gonna' die," Usopp wailed from the galley's open door.

"I'll blow a hole in this goddamn thing's stomach before we do," Quinn retorted, and both Zoro and Sanji hummed in agreement as they wandered up to her.

"I've got my swords."

"And it could taste good. I'd be curious to see how it cooks."

A noise of confusion welled in Nami's throat, and Quinn glanced at her. "What is it?"

"There's… a light?"

Following Nami's finger, Quinn looked ahead to see, yes, there was a light. "Is this a collective hallucination, or-?"

"I'm seeing it too."

"What the fuck is going on?"

"We're dead," Nami whispered. "The light… it's come to take us to the great big sea in the sky."

Holding back a comment of, trust me, I know what death feels like, Quinn could only watch as the Merry drifted lazily into the shining light of the midday sun, clouds overhead and a lonesome island a hundred feet away, capped with a small cottage and a cartoonish palm tree, under which a lawn chair rested. She blinked rapidly when, all of a sudden, a squid popped out of the sea in front of them and was summarily impaled on a handful of harpoons that had been launched from the now open door of the cottage.

A shadow loomed in the doorway, and Quinn felt more than a little insane when a seven foot tall flower walked out of the shadows and sat himself down on the lawn chair, legs crossed, after whipping a newspaper out of his pocket and opening it dramatically.

"Have I lost my mind? Is this- are any of you even real? Is this hell?"

"Hey, asshole! Say something!" Sanji shouted, pointing at the man.

Emboldened, Usopp piped up, his voice shaky. "Yeah! We've- we've got cannons!"

The man simply stared them down, his glare fierce, before loudly announcing, "You do that, someone's gonna' die."

Zoro stepped forward, his thumb flicking a sword out of its sheath, ready to be drawn at a moment's notice. "Yeah? And who would that be?"

"Me, of course."

Stamping his foot and shaking a fist at the man, Sanji roared, "What- what the hell? Are you mocking us!?"

"Hey, cool down, cook." Waving at the man, Zoro took his hand off his blade. "Hey, old man! Where are we? And while we're there, who the hell are you?"

"You know… it's polite to give someone your name before you ask them who they are. Were you raised in a barn or something?"

"Ah. Good point. Well, I'm Zoro, and-"

"My name is Crocus, I'm seventy-one years old, and I'm the lighthouse keeper here at the Twin Capes."

"I'm going to kill him."

Quinn, for her part, snorted loudly, trying her best to stifle her laughter with a hand over her mouth and tears in her eyes. Nobody had taken the piss out of her like this since… Sirius.

Wait, Sirius. He's- he should be here, shouldn't he?

"You kids think this is a rat's belly or something? Door's that way," the flower – Crocus – announced, pointing behind them at a- of course there's a door inside a whale's stomach. And of course this guy painted the goddamn walls to look like the sky.

Again, assumptions and reality. She shouldn't have expected any less at this point.

"Okay, can we get out of here before I kill this guy?" Zoro asked.

"Sure, sure, we just need Quinn to-" Nami shrieked loudly when the world suddenly lurched, the Merry tossed around by the roiling of the sea (stomach acid?) and Quinn, both nauseated and amused, held onto the ship and waited out the bout of indigestion the whale must be dealing with.

"Ah, there he goes," Crocus sighed, folding up his paper. "Laboon's smashing his head into the Grand Line again."

"And why would he do that?"

"He's suffering," Nami mumbled. "Is he trying to kill the whale?"

Huffing, Zoro began walking over, grabbing hold of a rope when the stomach acid sea began to lurch again. "Look, let's just get out of here and find Luffy, alright?"

"And the whale?"

He looked at Quinn, shrugging. "Luffy's my priority."

She nodded at him, moving to grab the oars when Crocus leapt into the acid. Quinn's heart skipped a beat, and Usopp planted his hands on his head and shouted, "Why would he do that!?"

"I haven't a clue," she answered honestly, trying to see Crocus through the brackish green he had doven into. A vague shadow could be seen flitting through the acid, rapidly moving towards the door and a ladder that flanked it, leading up to a smaller door at its peak. She reached out in his general direction with her magic, his thoughts pinging back with a hurried need to give the whale sedative so it would stop smashing its face into the Red Line. "I think… I think he's trying to help the whale."

"Why'd you say that?"

"Just a hunch." She pointed at the ladder as Crocus appeared, climbing upwards. "Look, see? He's headed up that way."

"I didn't even see that," Nami said. Are there tunnels in the whale or something?"

"Might be. Can't imagine how you'd get around otherwise."

A bang startled Quinn, and she watched as three figures sailed out of the small door Crocus was headed towards, launched headlong in the direction of the Merry. "Hey guys!" one of them screamed, waving frantically. The other two just screamed.

"Accio Luffy," she blurted with a wave of her still drawn rapier, Luffy flying towards the Merry. One rubbery arm wrapped around the mast as he sailed past them, before he quickly reeled himself in and stumbled onto the deck with shaky feet, dizzy beyond belief.

Flicking the brim of his hat, Luffy nodded at her. "Whew! Thanks Quinn!" He then stuck his head over the side of the ship and puked.

"Dizzy?"

"Very," he groaned. "Sanji, can I get water?"

"On it, Captain!"

"And Quinn, can you save those people I smashed into?"

Nodding, she scanned the area for the two strangers and summoned them with another sweep of the arm once they were spotted, nimbly dodging out of the way when they were launched, sputtering and green in the face onto the deck. Quinn wrinkled her nose at them, more than a little disgusted. "You two reek," she grumbled, studying the two. One of the pair was a blue haired woman wearing a more than risque outfit, swirls on the reinforced camisole she wore that wrapped around her chest like a funhouse mirror. The other wore a tinsel crown and had a stiff cravat tucked under his chin, his hair a pale red. They both looked as disgusted as she was, wiping ineffectually at the gunk that soaked them from head to toe.

"Hey! Are you two thugs still here?" Crocus roared from the doorway, and Quinn noticed that the rocking had calmed down. He must have given the whale (what was its name again?) a tranquilizer, and Quinn was plenty thankful to no longer have to deal with the constant rocking. "I'm gonna' tell you this one last time! You're not laying a finger on Laboon as long as I live!"

"Looks like he spotted us, Miss Wednesday."

"So he did, Mister Nine."

The two stood, taking rocket launchers out from god knows where, accompanied by a warcry of, "Time to complete our mission!"

They went to aim them at the peak of the whale's belly when, finally fed up with how her whole day was going, Quinn kicked their legs out from under them and smirked when they bashed their heads against the rail, dropping their weapons and groaning in pain.

She crouched in front of them, lifting what had been dubbed Mister Nine's chin with the tip of her rapier, smiling at him. "You two are going to sit tight, you got that?"

"How dare you-"

"I will stab you."

He put his hands up, apologetic. "Understood."

Running a hand down her face, Quinn stood, exhausted. "Okay, can we please get out of here? Please?"

"Gladly," Zoro muttered, sounding as done with the day as she was.