One Piece belongs to Eiichiro Oda
Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney
OCs belong to me.
-Chapter Forty-Three-
"You idiot! Look closer, they got bananas growing out of them—they're weird gators, not weird bananas!" Usopp snapped.
"What? No, Vivi, what happened?" Luffy asked when the princess suddenly gave a startled gasp.
"A big Banana Gator just swallowed the key to your cell!" she cried out, her stress clearly only getting worse by the minute.
"Well then, go down there and make him spit it out!" Luffy frowned.
"And how exactly would she go about doing that?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
"By force!" he huffed, crossing his arms and looking at me as if it was the most obvious answer in the world.
"I see..." I sweat dropped.
"I wouldn't stand a chance, they're alpha predators at the top of the food chain—they're ferocious, they even prey on Sea Kings" Vivi quickly argued, clearly not on board with the captain's demand. "Get near one and they'll devour you in one bite."
"Sorry, you might have had the key if I hadn't accidentally dropped it" Crocodile grinned with feigned guilt. "Now there's no telling which of my pets swallowed it" he chuckled.
"Crap!" Luffy hissed.
"Thanks a lot, you jerk" Nami sneered.
"Dammit! If we could just get out of here, I can handle those overgrown reptiles" Zoro cursed.
"Oh man, you're really dumb Zoro, we can't get out because the key got swallowed" Luffy deadpanned, causing me to snort.
"Yeah, don't you remember?" I grinned as I threw an arm around Luffy. "What are you, stupid?" I giggled as the captain nodded.
"I know that, you idiots!" Zoro snapped at the two of us.
"Oh well, I'm sorry, but we must be going" Crocodile said as he checked the time. "Time is of the essence—oh, and speaking of time, this room will be destroyed in exactly one hour," he suddenly revealed, "it served me well, but it's no longer of any use" he sighed, taking a final glance around the room as he did so. "Soon the water of Rainbase's lake will fill this room and unless they're fish or one of my gators, anyone left in here won't survive" he remarked. "Well, it's either one million innocent citizens or a mere five pirates with no future—it's time to choose" he said. "But, to be honest, the odds are quite low for both.
"I hope you like gambling Miss Wednesday because as they do at the tables upstairs, you're gonna have to roll the dice, just like I did with this country" he grinned. "Which was simple with all the fools here—people like those juvenile Rebels and that old man digging in Yuba."
"You don't mean that dried-up old guy, do you?" Luffy questioned, his demeanor doing a complete one-eighty as he rushed toward the cage's bars once again.
"Of course, even though everyone else has abandoned it, that old fool keeps pecking away every day at an oasis that's long-dead" Crocodile chuckled. "Even as he's plagued by constant sandstorms, he still digs away."
"Shut up!" Luffy growled, not liking the man's mocking tone at all.
"You don't know much about sandstorms, do you, Straw Hat Luffy?" Crocodile asked. "Ever wonder how one can hit a town perfectly every time?" he grinned, causing mine and the other's stomachs to fill with dread as his words slowly sunk in.
"No, wait...you don't mean…" Vivi gasped at the sudden realization.
"It was you—you did it!" Luffy angrily sneered, quick to come to the same conclusion as the princess and the rest of us.
"I will kill you!" Vivi growled as Crocodile and Miss All Sunday finally started to take their leave down a separate hallway that was connected to the room.
"The room is starting to flood, oh no! We're all going to drown if we don't do something quick!" Usopp frantically cried out the second the hatches in the room opened and water started to flood in. "Vivi, help get us out of here! I want to live a lot longer than just one hour!" he begged.
"Keep screaming, that'll help get us out quicker" I sarcastically said.
"What else am I supposed to do!" he cried.
"Scream louder, maybe it'll scare the water away" I said.
"Just stop freaking out" Zoro frowned.
"Are you crazy, Zoro?! How can I not freak out at a time like this?!" Usopp screamed. "We're all going to drown like rats if we don't get out of here, don't you get it?" he sobbed.
"So, it's either my kingdom or my friends..." Vivi bitterly muttered, roughly wiping away her tears with the sleeve of her robe. "All you've done is take, Crocodile, so I know you wouldn't give me either choice—even if I left for Alubarna, you would kill me before I even reached it. The only real choice, the only way to end this nightmare is to take out the one that started it!" she growled, raising one of her Peacock Slashes and swinging it around. "Monster! You don't know a thing, not anything about this country's people—it's history or way of life!"
"Vivi..." Luffy softly mumbled as the princess broke down, unable to really go through her attack once she realized just how badly things could possibly end if she didn't succeed. "Get us out," he told her, "you can do it, I know you can" he encouraged.
"H-how, Luffy?" she shakily whimpered.
"So you started begging for your life, eh, Straw Hat Luffy?" Crocodile hummed. "There's no shame in that, it's only natural to be afraid of dying" he remarked.
"I'm not begging" Luffy shook his head. "It's just that if I die, who else is going to be able to kick your ass?" he simply asked.
"Don't flatter yourself, your small fry..." Crocodile irritably grumbled, clearly annoyed by the captain's question.
"You're a small fry who thinks he's a big shot" Luffy snickered at the stoic look on Crocodile's face before flinching when the man snapped his fingers which opened a door in the room right below us, most likely letting a Banana Gator in.
"You're right, Miss Wednesday" Crocodile suddenly confessed. "I would have killed you if you left for the capital and, of course, I plan on doing the same here" he confirmed, clearly seeing no reason to lie or play pretend.
"Why is everything so big in this country?" I quietly pondered as I peered down the trap door the best that I could, catching a glimpse of the Banana Gator that had entered the room below us.
"T-that thing is so gigantic" Vivi sputtered, thickly swallowing down the saliva that had nervously built up inside her mouth before trying her hardest to put on a brave front.
"Vivi, you show that gator!" Luffy cheered.
"Are you crazy? It's too big!" Usopp snapped.
"Yeah, got to agree with Usopp on this one, she'll be eaten in one gulp" I pointed out.
"Yeah, Vivi, don't listen to this kook" Usopp nodded. "Get out of there, but...um...get us out too" he quickly added.
"She only has to beat one of them" Luffy argued.
"No, look out the windows" Nami quickly pointed.
"Huh? They're waiting in a line to eat us!" Usopp screamed upon spotting the line of Banana Gators that were now lined up right outside and waiting until it was their turn to enter the building.
"If they're lining up like that then that means they must be really hungry" I frowned, crossing my arms.
"At least we won't drown like rats" Zoro commented.
"Yeah, but in what way is this even remotely better?" I asked, only getting a shrug in return.
"Getting eaten by a ginormous alligator isn't the way I want to go either" Usopp whimpered.
"What way do you want to go then?" I asked.
"I want to go peacefully in my sleep when I'm gray and old, not die in some cage while I'm still young!" he cried before screaming as the Banana Gator from earlier crawled its way up into the room we were all in. Backing up, Vivi dodged the reptile's chomping jaws as it lashed out toward her—taking part of the stairway and table with it as it did so. "That thing's fast" the sharpshooter nervously noted. "Strong too, it chopped through those stone stairs as if they were cardboard."
"Must have good teeth" I hummed, not all that surprised by the animal's ability to bite through stone as I recalled just how strong an alligator's bite usually was. No doubt the force was doubled for this particular breed due to how large it was.
"Vivi, no!" Luffy gasped as the princess was suddenly struck by the gator's tail and thrown back.
"Can you hear us? Please say something—tell us, are you alright?" Usopp worriedly asked.
"Vivi, get up!" Luffy begged after not getting any kind of response from the still princess.
"Run!" Nami frantically shouted.
"You can't slow down, you have to run!" I called out to her, my heart now racing in fear when I saw that she still hadn't moved or responded to any of us. I started to worry about the possibility that she had fainted...or worse...
"Vivi, get out of there! It's going to eat you!" Usopp cried before falling silent as our attention was suddenly dragged back toward Crocodile and Miss All Sunday—even the Banana Gator seemed interested in them for a second as the sound of a Transponder Snail now filled the air.
"Looks like someone's calling—yes?" Miss All Sunday answered as she answered the snail.
"Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?" a very familiar voice responded on the other end of the line.
"Yes, we can hear you—you're a Billion, right?" the woman asked.
"Hey, pal, is this thing working alright?" the familiar voice asked, sounding as if he was talking to someone else. "I've only used a Transponder Snail once before" he confessed.
A/N: Enjoy
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