One Piece belongs to Eiichiro Oda
Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney
OCs belong to me.
-Chapter Twenty-Eight-
"Thanks for your concern!" she angrily snapped.
"There's a problem, captain!" one of Barbarossa's men suddenly cried out. "I've searched the ship's storage top to bottom and there just isn't enough spare lumber on board for us to repair the mainmast—the ship isn't going to be going anywhere! If we don't do something soon, we're going to wind up dying like dogs in the middle of the desert!" he wailed, riling up the rest of the men onboard the ship.
"We sand pirates are born right here on our ship and we'll die here as well, a true sand pirate would never think about abandoning ship" Barbarossa firmly stated. "The mast destruction was an act of fate and we sand pirates will never do anything to defy the flow of the sand—fate aside though, there is timber at a certain oasis" he recalled.
"And where's that?" Luffy asked. "I'll be glad to dash over and get it" he offered.
"Bad idea" Barbarossa said, shaking his head as he turned down the rubber man's offer to help. "The sands have changed lately—it's too dangerous for outsiders."
"I caused this, I'll take care of it!" Luffy huffed, standing his ground which caused the man to boisterously laugh.
"Alright, you're on—you can use this sand sleigh to bring back the lumber" he grinned, motioning for his men to lower down two sleighs from their ship and onto the sandy ground.
"It looks more like a canoe than a sleigh to me" Nami remarked as she observed the sand sleighs that were being presented to us.
"Huh, you're right, it kind of does" I agreed.
"Zaba and Rasa will show you to the oasis, they'll be your guides—Rasa is the best sand sledder on the ship" Barbarossa boasted. "These sleighs carry two, who will you take?" he asked.
"Hey, don't worry" Luffy dismissively waved. "I'll be fine alone" he confidently smiled, turning down the man's suggestion to bring someone else along.
"Hey, you alright?" I asked, jolting Vivi from her thoughts as her gaze quickly snapped away from the sleighs and towards me in a questioning manner. "Something wrong?" I asked, noting just how silent she had been since the sleighs were lowered.
"Huh?" she slowly blinked as if the gears in her head were still trying to catch up. "Oh, yeah," she eventually answered once she realized what I had asked, "I'm alright—just thinking is all" she smiled as I slowly nodded. From the corner of my eye did I watch as her smile wilted and her gaze drift back to the sand sleighs.
"Come on now, this is no time to get cocky" Usopp scolded the moment he heard Luffy's statement of going alone.
"It looks like it might be tough going, want me to come along?" Sanji offered before flinching as we all whirled around the second we heard Vivi suddenly scream. She was as stiff as a board, staring wide eye straight ahead and past the knife now embedded into the ship behind her. Looking in the direction that the knife had come from, we were greeted by the sight of a young woman atop the broken mast. Harsh was the glare that she wore as she effortlessly jumped from the broken mast and to the ground, perfectly landing on her feet as she did so.
"Very impressive, Rasa" Barbarossa praised.
"These others, they seem like outlanders, but you're from here" Rasa stated in an almost accusatory tone while pointing the knife in her hand at Vivi.
"How could she tell?" Luffy asked.
"Body structure and perhaps appearance as well—a person's body is made to withstand the area they're born in" I guessed, shrugging my shoulders despite my certainly in my answer.
"I'll wager that you've had some experience with the sand sleigh, which means you'll come along with us" Rasa bitterly spat, her behavior oddly aggressive towards the princess despite the two having just met.
"No way, it's much too dangerous for Vivi to go!" Sanji frowned, quickly refusing the woman's demands with the harsh shake of his head.
"Yeah, she stays" Nami agreed.
"Shouldn't Vivi be the one to decide whether she goes or not?" I asked with a raised brow.
"Alright, I'll be glad to go" Vivi nodded, accepting the woman's demands with a firey look in her eyes. Rasa grinned at the princess's answer, almost looking pleased with the determined glint in her eyes.
"Huh? So these travel on sand—how does it work?" Luffy asked as he curiously began to examine one of the sleighs.
"I'll pilot the sleigh, I did it once long ago" Vivi said.
"It's not too different from a ship, this goes here...right?" Luffy asked, suddenly pulling up the sail without much thought. "Whoa!" he cried out in shock the moment a harsh wind blew by and caught hold of the sail, sending the ship flying across the sand with little to no warning.
"Huh?" we questioned.
"They sure are fast" I whistled, impressed by the speed of the sleigh as it effortlessly cut through the sand like it would the sea or in the snow.
"You can say that again" Usopp said just as Luffy came rushing back towards us. Screaming the whole time until face planting onto the ground in exhaustion due to the excitement he had just experienced.
"Okay, I'm back" he heavily wheezed.
"Will you just let Vivi handle the sleigh from now on?!" Nami, Sanji, and Usopp snapped as I softly chuckled.
"You take it easy there, Luffy, alright" Vivi said, looking back at the rubber man currently sprawled across the back of the sleigh. "Now, let see..." she mumbled in thought as she worked on getting the sleigh ready before finally, they took off.
"Zaba, let's go!" Rasa ordered the moment she saw the two sail by.
"Right! Ready, Rasa!" Zaba nodded as they took off after the two.
"What are we supposed to do while we're waiting for them?" Chopper curiously asked once they were gone.
"I don't know" I shrugged.
"I mean, I can think of a few things we could do " Zoro suddenly and huskily breathed into my ear without warning, causing me to flinch as I roughly smacked my hand against the side of my head.
"We've discussed this before, sir—such lewd ideas are simply not allowed!" I cried out, face now flushed with embarrassment.
"Have we? I don't recall us ever having such a discussion" he grinned.
"Oh yeah?" I huffed. "Well how about we have one now? This time with my foot up your ass" I threatened, causing him to snort.
"We can always eat the camel" Barbarossa suddenly suggested, causing his men to cheer.
"Second" Sanji and Usopp agreed, causing said animal to cry.
"I'm just kidding" Barbarossa quickly laughed, hands now raised in defense the moment he spotted the pointed look Nami and I were giving him as his men now whined in disappointment.
"Didn't sound like you were kidding to me!" Nami snapped.
-Later-
"Despite how he seems, you can always count on Luffy in a pinch" Nami sighed as she and Barbarossa quietly conversed with one another, staring off into the distance as they talked. I genuinely couldn't care less about whatever it was they were discussing nor did I care all that much to join in as I peered up at the sky. Seated up on the railing, I tilted my head as far back as I could and mindlessly stared up at the clouds that lazily drifted by...
It was both peaceful and unsurprisingly boring if I was being honest.
Everyone had instantly wandered off after Luffy and the other three had taken off for the oasis. Most of them were busy patching up what little they could of the ship with what few supplies they had while the rest lingered about, quietly talking to one another about the most mundane of things.
"Captain, it's them—they found us!" one of Barbarossa's men suddenly shouted, startling me from my thoughts and nearly causing me to tip over the railing's edge if I hadn't been quick enough to catch myself. "Off the starboard side!"
"Battle stations everyone!" another ordered as the men started to scramble about.
"There must be hundreds!" Usopp cried the moment he caught a glimpse of the men heading this way.
"That's kind of an over-exaggeration" I said.
"Who are they?" Nami asked.
"They're desert bandits—they're a desperate band of vermin that are always attacking us" Barbarossa answered. "Conflict seems to be in the air today, everyone in the desert seems to be on edge" he hummed in thought. "Hear me, men, don't let a single one of these desert rats escape!" he suddenly shouted, causing his men to cheer.
"Yes, hooray...go pirates..." Usopp weakly cheered along with them.
"That's the spirit" I grinned, roughly smacking the sharpshooter's back as he lowly whined.
"The desert has pitted us against each other, now we will see who the desert will favor! At last, we will end this—let the desert decide who will be victorious!" Barbarossa proclaimed, sounding as if a magnificent and final battle was about to take place and not some fight between a bunch of pirates and bandits.
"What's that?" Nami suddenly asked.
"What's what?" I asked, head turning as I looked towards the giant beetle atop one of the sand dunes that she was pointing at. Its back legs were currently pushing a giant ball in front of it as he slowly walked backward. "A Grand Dung Beetle?" I echoed, repeating what the men around us were shouting as they started to panic.
"What's a Grand Dung Beetle?" Sanji asked, he and Zoro finally reappearing on deck.
"Beats the hell out of me" Zoro shrugged as he crossed his arms.
"Just looks like a dung beetle, but bigger" I said.
"They're desert bugs that haul big balls of dung—over a hundred people a year are squashed by their big ball of manure" Barbarossa explained.
"That's a disgusting way to die" I gagged, unable to suppress the shiver that overtook me upon imagining such a horrific death—even if the weight of such a massive ball didn't fully crush you, the infections you were sure to get surely would.
"That huge ball of dung is heading straight for us!" one of Barbarossa's men cried as the overgrown beetle finally sent its ball rolling down the sand dune and towards the ship.
"Leave it to me!" Barbarossa proclaimed as he jumped off the ship and rushed towards the ball of dung with a vigorous shout. Grabbing hold, he dug his feet into the ground and started to push back against the giant ball of manure until finally...
It squashed him.
Nami, Usopp, and Chopper clung to one another, screaming at the sight of the man's failure as the rest of us froze in place with more of the men no longer knowing what to do now that their captain was down and out. Sanji and Zoro were the only ones to really react, jumping off the ship and destroying the ball of dung with utter ease as if it was never really a threat in the first place.
"Thank you, my friends" Barbarossa grunted as he shakily stood before growing quiet as one of the bandits that had been run over by the ball of dung earlier suddenly emerged from the sand. Loudly did he start to angrily scream and shout, flailing his arms around like some child before eventually taking off running.
"What a screwball..." Usopp muttered, causing me to softly chuckled.
Time passed by quickly and it wasn't too long before the sun soon finally started to set. Once more did everyone go their separate ways, wandering off to some other part of the ship and leaving everyone else to their own devices as they finished whatever work they had left to do.
"They sure ran off in a hurry, it's really too bad" Barbarossa sighed as he and Nami once more found themselves peering off into the distance. "It would have ended nicely to steal all their food and water first" he confessed with a smile.
"I guess sand pirates have it rough too" Nami hummed.
A/N: Enjoy
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