One Piece belongs to Eiichiro Oda
Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney
OCs belong to me.

-Chapter Twenty-Two-

"You don't say" Zoro deadpanned as the Dugongs now swarmed around Luffy.

"They think you're their master now" Vivi explained to the still confused rubber man.

"Right everyone, after me—now punch!" Luffy ordered. "No like this!" he frowned before quickly brightening once the sea critters corrected themselves. "Yeah, now harder and shift—left, right, yeah!" he grinned, eagerly punching his arms outwards while watching as the Dugongs perfectly copied his every move as instructed.

"I think it already went to his head" I pointed out.

"Of course, it has" Zoro scoffed with the roll of his eyes.

"Right, all set, let's go to Yuba" Luffy smiled.

"Hey, wait a minute" Zoro quickly stopped him, eye twitching as he motioned to the crowd of Dugongs behind our captain. "You're not bringing them with us."

"Luffy, you can't!" Nami scowled as she placed her hands on her hips.

"Luffy, they're water creatures—they won't make it!" Vivi stressed once she saw that the captain wasn't really listening.

"But look at them, they're so cute—how could you say no to those faces?" I suddenly defended before squealing at the adorable sight of two Dugongs whining as they rubbed their heads against Luffy's legs as if begging to come with us.

"It's going to break my heart to say no to them, but we can't let them come along" Nami whispered as she hurriedly huddled close to Vivi in an attempt to look away from the adorable sight before she could fully fall victim to it.

"I agree, but how are we supposed to get them to stay?" the princess asked.

"I know!" Chopper piped up, rushing over to the supplies we had packed.

"What are you doing?" Sanji asked, raising a questioning brow the moment the reindeer started to sniff at the bags.

"What exactly are you looking for?" I inquired, quick to realize that the doctor was looking for something in particular amongst our bag of supplies.

"Here, all you guys can have this—but only if you stay here, okay" Chopper promised as he finally pulled out a rather large piece of meat. "Ah! Somebody, help!" he cried out, startled the second the Dugongs picked him up in their excitement and started to carry both him and the food he held off.

"Chopper!" Usopp shouted.

Soon after we got everything settled and said our final goodbyes to the group of Dugongs who now waved us off. I chuckled as Sanji struck the back of Luffy's head with a frying pan the moment he spotted the captain trying to steal back some of the food we had given the sea critters.

"Hope you all enjoy the food! Bye!" Luffy waved as we finally set off, now leaving he group of Dugongs and the ship behind as we made way for the desert.

"I'm going to miss them" I hummed out, taking hold of Zoro's hand and mindlessly intertwining our fingers.

"I'm sure they'll be fine" he said, giving my hand a squeeze. "Especially with all that food we gave them..." he grumbled under his breath.

"All you guys...food...now do you get it...?" Nami sadly mumbled.

"No, they said they wanted to go with us—why couldn't we let them?" Luffy huffed.

"Agreed, they would have made for some cute company" I said, quick to take the captain's side much to his delight.

"We don't have the food and water to take care of a group that big, morons" Nami stressed, glaring the two of us down. "Honestly, I don't know what we would have done if Chopper didn't persuade them to stay" she sighed.

"Yeah, they kept saying, "Where you go, we'll follow, Master," and they really would have too if I hadn't given them that food" Chopper quickly nodded.

"And now our food supply has gotten smaller—thanks, Luffy! Thanks!" Sanji snippily snapped.

"He's a handful" Ace remarked.

"You're telling me..." the blond muttered.

The further we trudged through the desert, the more apparent it became just how intense the heat truly was. It wasn't long before I soon found myself slipping my hand right out of Zoro's just to wipe the sweat off of it on my robe.

"You doing alright?" he asked.

"Yeah," I nodded, "hand was just getting too sweaty" I confessed, taking a moment to flex my fingers as well once I noticed how stiff they had started to become thanks to the arid weather. A comfortable silence soon fell over and it wasn't much longer before we eventually came across the remains of a ruined city.

"What's this?" Sanji asked.

"Are we in Yuba already?" Luffy questioned, eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he looked at the surrounding area.

"No, this is Erumalu, it was known far and wide as The City of Green" Vivi answered.

"It was green?" he frowned in disbelief, looking around the ruined city and taking note of how there was nothing really green about it.

"Unfortunate name" I said.

"Take a good look around, everyone, this is what Baroque Works has been doing to my country—to the people of Alabasta" Vivi frowned. "This is what they had to go through" she motioned all around us, desperately wanting to drive home just how bad things were. I frowned at the ruined and decayed building that just barely poked out from underneath the dunes of sand—at all the homes that had clearly been left to rot away. I barely felt the way Zoro's hand once more slipped into my own, his thumb now rubbing soothing circles around the back of my knuckles as I continued to look around—my frown deepening the longer I did.

"Wow!" Luffy whistled. "There's nothing here at all anymore, is there? Huh?" he questioned.

"No, it's nothing more than a ghost town now" Vivi sighed. "But up to a few short years ago, it was a thriving city full of gardens, palm trees, and lush greenery" she explained as she led us through the ruined city and allowed us to view more of its slow deterioration.

"I can only assume the people that once lived here were forced to move to other cities in the kingdom" I pondered aloud, earning a nod and another sigh from the princess as her gaze became downcast.

"This place..." Zoro muttered, kicking a nearby wilting palm tree.

"Rain was always scarce here, but by saving every drop of water and using it wisely, the city was able to make green flourish" Vivi wistfully explained "Unfortunately, that stopped when the rain did—not a single drop of water has fallen in this country for three years now."

"Three years?" Sanji echoed.

"Wow! That long?!" Chopper gaped, shocked by how long the city had gone without rain.

"But wait, even without rain there's still the river—there's another water source" Zoro pointed out.

"He's right, surely rain wasn't the only source of water this city had, right?" I asked, doubting that a city in the desert would have only relied on rain as its main source of water despite knowing just how fickle the weather could be.

"Yeah, and it should be close by—why couldn't they pipe the water from there?" Usopp asked, quick to agree with Zoro and me.

"The answer to that is just up ahead" Vivi answered, motioning for us to follow as the two men exchanged questioning glances with one another. "Even though it's a desert kingdom, never in a thousand years of Alabasta history has the rain ever completely stopped. However, there's one place in the country the rain fell more than usual, much more in fact—Alubarna, the capital" she calmly explained. "The people of the land called it the King's miracle...at least they did until one particular day..." she didn't hesitant at all, diving straight into her story of that day all those years ago.

"Dance Powder?" Nami questioned once the princess' tale came to an end.

"Oh, so you've heard of it?" Luffy asked.

"Yes, I sure have—it summons rain" Nami nodded.

"A powder can?" Chopper questioned, tilting his head.

"I've only heard stories about it, but apparently Dance Powder was created by a researcher in a country where it never rained" Nami explained. "Burning it creates a mist of smoke which rises into the sky—once it reaches the clouds, it causes them to rain. In other words, it gives you the ability to create rain on the spot" she continued, going into more detail on how exactly the power works.

"Oh! I've heard of it before as well" I said, hitting my fist against the palm in realization.

"You have?" Nami questioned.

"Yeah" I nodded, gaze soon growing hazy as the distant sound of long-ago voices suddenly came creeping toward the front of my mind.

"Worthless brat!"

"I-I'm sorry..."

"Just how many more times must we go over this? The powder is banned—get that through your thick skull!"

"I know, I...I was j-just—"

"Just what?"

"I...was just...just...I..."

Smack!

"Speak up! Are you so daft you can barely speak?"

"Yeah..." I muttered before shaking my head. Crooked was the smile I gave the moment I saw the concerned look the ginger was now giving me.

"Skylar...?" she mumbled. "You okay?" she worriedly asked.

"Yeah, I was just...thinking...is all" I assured her, my smile staying strong the longer she stared before eventually falling as I heaved a tired yet silent sigh the moment she looked away.

"Oh!" Luffy suddenly exclaimed, thankfully capturing everyone's attention at that moment as he did so. "I know what you're talking about—I've seen that stuff before!" he suddenly proclaimed. "I ate some a while back...it tasted pretty gross though, yuck!" he smiled, playfully sticking his tongue out in disgust at the memory.

"You ate Dance Powder?" Nami questioned, blankly staring him down before heaving an irritable sigh and walking right past him.

"It's not food, it's for making rain" Zoro said with the roll of his eyes.

"I'm pretty sure it's not even edible to begin with" I said, following close behind the swordsman as we walked past the captain.

"Hey, I'm not lying! I'm telling the truth—I did eat it and it tasted so gross!" Luffy angrily shouted as he started to rant the moment he saw that no one believed him. Almost like a child did he start to flail his arms and stomp his feet.

"Hold on, I don't get it, wouldn't that stuff be perfect for a desert country like this?" Usopp asked.

"You would think so" Nami nodded in agreement. "In fact, as its name suggests, the country that developed Dance Powder was happy enough to dance" she answered. "It got lots of rain and if there's a catch then it's that neighboring countries had a drought, let me explain how it works," she started, "now the mist from the Dance Powder targets smaller clouds that aren't ready to rain yet, it artificially matures them into full rain clouds—those rain clouds would have naturally grown into rain clouds, but when they were further downwind" she explained.

"Oh, I get it, it steals rain that would have gone to a neighboring country...that must have caused some big problems" Usopp quickly realized as those familiar voices once more started to creep forward. It wasn't hard to see why the powder was banned...and yet, I remembered always struggling to understand why a solution couldn't have been found to better optimize the use of the powder.

"Oh, it did—a war broke out between the two countries" Nami nodded. "Ever since then the World Government has instituted a worldwide ban on the production and the possession of Dance Powder" she said.

"Even so, some of it showed up here, huh?" Usopp hummed.

A/N: Enjoy

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