The rational portion of my mind… had no part in my current thought process, which could be summed up as HOLY FUCKING SHIT, I'M ABOUT TO BE DISSECTED!
I tried to thrash out of my restraints, only to catch sight of Chopper quivering slightly as he giggled madly, shaking his head as he wrenched the bonesaw out of the wood.
"Ooooor, at least that's what I WOULD say if I were actually ready to begin. There's still so much equipment to prepare, so many preliminary tests that must be made! We wouldn't want SCIENCE! to be hindered by a miscarriage of protocol…" His grin widened half past demented, taking on a predatory glint. "Would we?"
Chopper turned his back before I could respond in any way, rummaging through a thick packet of notes, and, more importantly and three times as distressingly, mulling over his bundle of surgical tools.
I craned my neck frantically for anything that could get me out of this deathtrap. I noticed a few scalpels embedded in the wood—one guess where that habit came from—distressingly close to my hand. That would have been a good thing if I could actually move a single fucking inch!… Wait a second.
A few jiggles confirmed that, yes indeed, the strap on my right hand had just a little bit of give to it, and every other jiggle gave me a little more to work with. I subtly started to work my arm, reaching desperately for one of the surgical knives. I had no clue what the hell I was going to do with it, but better to have it in my fingers than Chopper's hooves, that was for damn sure!
I just needed a little more… a little more… almost—!
THWACK!
"MMMRPH!" I shrieked in muffled terror, wrenching my hand as far away as I could manage from the syringe that had buried itself in the wood mere millimetres from my fingertips.
"Now, now, Cross…"
I snapped my gaze back to Chopper, who still had his back turned to me.
"You really should stop squirming. All you're doing is needlessly increasing your heart rate, and that'll just make my work all the messier. And if my work is messy, then my SCIENCE! will be messy, too. And I don't want my SCIENCE! to be messy. So, you're going to lie still…"
THWACK!
All I could do was whimper pitifully as another syringe buried itself in the table, this one just above—or was it below?—the top of my head.
"Or I'll get cross with you. And trust me…" Chopper turned his head slightly, the lenses of the goggles he was wearing glinting maniacally. "YOU DON'T WANT THAT."
Ooooh, yeah, Chopper had learned a lot more from Kureha than just medicine.
Well, I was completely and utterly screwed. About to be cut open in the middle of the night by one of my best friends, intimately learning the meaning of the words 'I have a gagged mouth, and I must scream'—!… Wait a minute…
I started scanning the room again as a thought struck me. Soundbite should have been able to hear me, even if I was gagged, not to mention Chopper's own insane ramblings. Why the hell wasn't he—?
I suddenly met a pair of terror-filled eyestalks in a corner of the room as I got the answer to my question. There was Soundbite, far out of the way and out of my reach, clearly fighting to dislodge the bar of metal that Chopper had doubtlessly shoved as deep between his teeth as he could manage. On the plus side, Chopper had neither spoken with Kureha nor made the logical leap to using salt as a gag, so at least there wasn't any danger in that way… but on the other hand, as impressive as Soundbite's jaws might have been, he still had some limits.
That meant that Soundbite couldn't call for help, which meant that no one would know what was about to happen, and that meant…
"Okay! Now I'm really ready! Let's begin!"
That I really was screwed. Shit.
The Zoan-user took his sweet time walking over to me, looking me up and down the way that Luffy would eye a particularly tasty steak as he spun a scalpel in one hoof and a marker in the other.
"Alright, first off, allow me to begin by outlining what I have planned for tonight!"
In one swift jerk, Chopper slashed his scalpel along my body, cutting my shirt right down the middle and leaving the halves apart, exposing my torso.
… Terrifying though the experience was, I still managed to look on the bright side: provided I managed to survive this ordeal, I'd come out with a decent enough vest!
The chances of that dimmed considerably as Chopper started using the marker he was holding to draw a Y-shape on my body that several crime shows had made me intimately familiar with.
"For starters, I'll be investigating the physiological differences within your chest cavity!" Chopper explained cheerily. "Just some trivial things, really. The limits of your muscular and skeletal systems, the layout of your organs, and pain tolerance… You know, the basics! After that…"
I crossed my eyes fearfully as he pulled my bangs back and started drawing on my forehead.
"We'll move on to the main event: your brain!" Chopper was practically drooling at this point, his grin a rictus of insanity. "Yeeeessss, your valuable, valuable brain and all the miraculous discoveries that can be made within! Imagine all the discoveries that can be made from the brain of someone who came from an entirely different world! Oh, comparisons to our own neural pathways, anomalous genetic divergences, unique neurochemical makeups, ohhhh, the possibilities are ENDLESS! EHEEHEEHEE, I CAN'T WAIT!" Chopper zipped around to my side as he cackled madly, his scalpel glinting in the scarce lamplight as he held it aloft. "NO MORE WAITING! IT'S TIME TO BEGIN!"
I didn't dare move as Chopper slowly started to lower the implement towards me. Damn, damn, damn, I was screwed! Unless some kind of miracle occurred soon, I'd be little more than so many spare pa—! … Oh, son of a—!
"GRGHSTRO-MMPHT, GRGHSTRO-MMPHT!" I howled around my gag just as the scalpel touched my chest.
Soundbite's eyes widened, and he took a second to bash his eyestalks together in exasperation before he concentrated intently, and the piece of metal in his mouth shattered to pieces, alongside the crate he'd been perched on. He was forced to snap into his shell before he hit the ground, but the next second, he filled the air with a furious klaxon that jolted Chopper to a stop.
"S.O.S., S.O.S.! MAYDAY, MAYDAY! WE NEED AN OLD PRIEST AND A YOUNG PRIEST, STAT! HEEEEEELP!" he wailed desperately.
Chopper snapped his attention to Soundbite with a scowl. "QUIET, VERMIN! CAN YOU NOT SEE THAT THERE IS SCIENCE! AFOOT!?" He swung his hoof back viciously. "IF YOU WON'T HOLD YOUR TONGUE, THEN ALLOW ME TO HOLD IT FOR YOU!"
Thankfully, before Chopper could let loose with the scalpel, the door to the dining room burst open, allowing the majority of the crew, sans our heaviest sleepers (Read, Luffy and Zoro), to burst in.
"Cross, what's wro—?" Sanji started to ask before taking in the scene before him with abject shock. "What the hell is going on here!?"
Chopper spun around with a snarl, his body shaking with murderous rage. "MORE INSECTS DARE TO IMPEDE THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE!? SO BE IT!" He abruptly metamorphosed into his far larger Muscle Point, brandishing several scalpels between his fingers menacingly. "COME ON! I'LL VIVISECT YOU ALL, ONE BY—!"
Before Chopper could finish that sentence, a small, thin blur lashed out at the now-mad doctor, wrapping around his wrists before he could react.
"What the—!?"
The other end of the blur continued its journey around Chopper, spinning around and around and wrapping him up before snapping taut. Once the blur came to a stop, it was revealed to be none other than Boss, holding Chopper in place by means of what appeared to be an overly long piece of woven seaweed.
"Would somebody kindly help me with this nutjob?!" the dugong huffed heavily. "I might be a badass, but damn, he's big!"
"Fool!" Chopper barked, flexing his arms slightly. "Do you really think mere rope is enough to hold me?! It would be child's play to slip out! Observe!"
Just as Sanji swung his leg up to kick the mad doctor, Chopper reverted back to his Brain Point, causing the ropes to collapse around him.
"HA!" the human-reindeer crowed, his hooves thrust in the air victoriously. "Your feeble strategies are no match for my superior—!"
"Oh, will you shut up!?" Boss growled before yanking on the seaweed rope, causing it to snap taut around the Zoan's ankles.
"WHAT THE—!?"
"FORE!" Boss roared, twisting on his tail and spinning Chopper around like an Olympic weight. Chopper barely made a revolution around the room…
"NEZ!"
Before Sanji lashed out a furious kick to the Zoan's face, cancelling his momentum with a fantastic slam! I took a particularly sadistic pleasure in watching Chopper come away much worse for the wear from the ordeal, his eyes rolled up in his head, and a considerable amount of foam coming from his mouth.
"Well, that was new…" Sanji sighed wearily as he scratched his skull before glancing up at Boss. "Hey, good work with the ropes, though I don't think I've ever seen them used as a weapon like that."
"Actually, it's a ropedart, not just any old regular rope," the dugong replied, preening slightly and holding up the metal/coral dart at the end. "You need a good counterweight to get it to actually perform those kinds of maneuvers. Also handy for just smacking people with. And if we're complimenting each other's fighting skills, I gotta say, that was a damn impressive kick. I'd be hard-pressed to pull off anything as powerful, and not just due to my species' lack of mobility, let me tell you that!"
"Hey, don't sell yourself short there! I saw you moving, that was impressive! Tell you what, talk with me later, and we'll see if I can teach you any techniques applicable to your physique! I'm sure that if we get you training right, your lower body can be as powerful a weapon as any! Sound good?"
"Well, I'd be mighty obliged! And say, while we're on the subject of cross-training—!"
"Mmmph-gah, thank you," I nodded as a hand appeared to work the gag out of my mouth. "As I was saying, I hate to interrupt you two getting along so well, and honestly I'd love to contribute to the strengthening of the members of our crew, I really would, but as it so happens, I'm a bit tied up at the moment, so if you'd be so kind as to shut up and GET ME OUT OF HERE!?"
"PREACH IT, brotha!"
Thankfully, that prompted Nami to run up to me. "Cross, are you alright?"
I gave her as deadpan a look as I could manage while upside down. "I'm tied down to a table, and one of my crewmates just tried to dissect me like a frog. Would you like to reconsider your question, or would you rather leave your foot where it is?"
Nami huffed. "How about I just untie you while you explain how in the world Chopper went from cute and cuddly to wanting to cut you open?"
I opened my mouth to snark back, and shut it with a click as I remembered that relations with her were still somewhat strained, and that I didn't need to be untied to use my brain. "I'd be most grateful if you were to release me, yes," I politely requested.
"Allow me," a faux-warm voice purred, a flurry of petals heralding my release.
Any comfort I could have taken from my release was soured by Nami's own newly darkened expression. "Thanks a lot…" I grumbled as I sat up, massaging some life into my tingly wrists and ankles before turning my attention to Soundbite. "How are you feeling, little guy?"
"Besides the fact that YOU ALMOST GOT KILLED BECAUSE I FORGOT about my powers, and I WAS PROBABLY next?" Soundbite snapped as one of the dugongs dug him out of the pile of splinters that had been his perch. "FUCKING PEACHY!"
"Which means that you're alive. Good." I nodded as I took the little gastropod back and put him on my shoulder. "Now then, moving on… would anyone care to tell me what the hell just happened!?"
"You mean you don't know, Cross?" Usopp asked, a hint of fear in his voice.
"I was strapped to a table with a psychotic reindeer about to carve me up like a spring turkey!" I snapped, spreading my arms helplessly. "Does it look like I have any idea about all of this!?"
"Perhaps the pressure of the past few days was too much for Mister Doctor, and he finally snapped?" Robin suggested innocently.
I sent a pointed glare at the quasi-ex-assassin. "Thank you, Miss Assassin; sure, Chopper managed to live under high-stress conditions for several years without too much psychological damage, but we'll take that into consideration nonetheless." I looked away from Robin as her grin widened in amusement. "Does anyone else have any ideas?"
There was a moment of silence as everyone thought things over before Vivi raised a finger. "Cross, I could be off on this, but wouldn't you be the best person to talk to about anyone on this ship acting…" She cast a look at Robin before continuing. "Different from how they 'normally' would be?"
I blinked as I processed the statement before frowning thoughtfully. In the end, she was right. My presence had caused ripples, meaning that any changes were more often than not my fault. And seeing how Chopper didn't go crazy like this in canon, that meant that this somehow linked back to me. All I had to do was think about when I could have changed things to make Chopper act… differently… oooooh.
"Hang on a second…" I walked over to Chopper's abandoned pack and picked up the notes he'd been leafing through. He'd been filling the binder almost religiously while we were in Alabasta, so I could only assume that whatever it was he'd been working on was recorded in here. And assuming that whatever he'd been working on was what had driven him out of his mind…
Sadly, the search was easier hypothesized than done. It was quite jarring, really; intellectually, I knew that Chopper was an egghead of almost extreme proportions, but to see it laid out so plainly before me was something else entirely. The notebook was an absolute mess of incomprehensible words, indecipherable equations and formulas, both chemical and mathematical in nature, and unintelligible diagrams, with pictures of what appeared to be brains showing up at a disturbing number of intervals.
I started to lose hope as I neared the end of the doctor's notes, approaching a border I'd identified where the notes suddenly descended into raving lunacy...
"C'mon, c'mon, c—hell-oooo…"
When I finally hit paydirt, or something I really hoped was it.
"What is it?" Usopp asked eagerly.
"Look at this," I pointed out the passage I'd noted and started to trace it with my finger. "'Hypothetical possibility: Blunt force trauma to occipital lobe could initiate override of primary psychological configuration.'"
I really should have expected the blank expressions that almost everyone else in the room gave me.
I rolled my eyes with a sigh as I held an expectant hand out. "That means that I think I can fix him if someone were to hand me a rolling pin."
A disembodied hand promptly obliged.
"Thank you," I nodded gratefully, testing out my newly acquired instrument. It looked like it could do the job. Good heft, even weight…
Chopper suddenly started to groan and shift on the floor, which robbed me of any other choices.
"Say 'megalomania!'" I requested as I reeled my arm back.
"Wha—?" Chopper started to ask groggily…
THWACK!
"YEOWCH!" Before jolting forward in agony as I cracked him upside his skull. "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT…for? What the…?" His roar of anger trailed off into confusion as he realized the exact situation he was in. Thankfully, his voice seemed to have lost the demented tone it had taken on before.
Chopper shifted around for a moment as he regained his bearings before glancing up at everyone uneasily. "Um… three questions. Why am I tied up? Why did you hit me? And why exactly am I wearing my chemical goggles?"
"To answer your last question," Robin answered politely. "I imagine that you donned your goggles to avoid any splashback from entering your eyes mid-operation."
There was a tense silence before Chopper spoke again. "'Operation'?" he repeated nervously.
"AHEM," Soundbite cleared his throat, causing Chopper to turn around… and stare at the markings clearly present on my chest.
"Good morning to you, too, Chopper," I greeted him dryly as I held my bangs up.
The doctor was uncomfortably quiet for the longest time before he hung his head with a groan. "I… have a lot of explaining to do, don't I?"
"Understatement…" one of the dugongs started to sing-song before another slapped him upside his head.
"Let's start with these," I said, holding up the stack of notes. "You said that you'd tell us what you were researching when you had something concrete, and unless I miss my guess, I'd say that you delivered with gusto just now. Am I wrong?"
Chopper squirmed nervously as he refused to meet my gaze. "No, you're… you're really not." He fell silent for a moment as he thought things over before shaking his head in defeat. "Alright, I guess I'll start at the beginning: Yuba."
"Yuba!?" Vivi repeated in shock. "What happened in Yuba that could have caused all of this!?"
I, however, understood what Chopper was saying perfectly, and I indicated as much by slapping a hand over my eyes with a groan. "You're talking about biofeedback, aren't you?"
"Yeah…" Chopper nodded solemnly. Noticing the confused looks everyone else was sporting, he explained. "I asked Cross for advice on how to properly exploit my Devil Fruit powers to their fullest despite me being a Zoan, and he suggested that I look into a concept known as biofeedback."
"Oh, boy, here comes the egghead stuff," Raphey groaned.
"You wanna go back to sleep? Because I kinda want to go back to sleep."
"Agreed."
"CRAM IT, YOU THREE!" Boss yelled, forcing the Dugongs to snap to attention.
"Yeah, some of us are trying to listen!" Donny concurred.
"To clarify, biofeedback is the rumoured ability to control every inch of your body, making you able to do things like, say, move your hair as easily as your arms, or kick your own adrenaline into overdrive on a whim," I contributed, and the other three Dugongs suddenly seemed much more interested.
"Exactly, and I saw what you were getting at, too," Chopper nodded at me. "If I could combine biofeedback with the Human-Human Fruit's transformative properties, then I could quite possibly cut out the necessity of using my Rumble Balls. I could achieve all seven of my Points on my own, and that would be amazing. But…" He bowed his head. "It also got me thinking about something else. When you talked with us about Devil Fruits, and you mentioned the Blind-Blind Fruit, you talked about how there are no boundaries on Fruits and how they often go beyond the obvious in their usages, you remember that?"
"Yeah…?" I nodded slowly in agreement.
"Well, I realized something when I thought about it: I'd forgotten the most obvious thing that the Human-Human Fruit gave me, the absolute core of my powers. Something that had been staring me in the face my entire life from the second I ate it in the first place!"
Silence fell as we all tried to figure out what he could be talking about…
Until Sanji ashed his cigarette in one shocked breath. "You're talking about your intelligence…" he summarized numbly.
"Exa—! Ah…" Chopper jerked as he tried to point at the cook, only to have the gesture halted by the ropes. "E-exactly. The transformative properties of my powers are only secondary when compared to the real difference my powers made, a difference that encompassed the meaning of the word 'human': my intelligence."
Dimly, I could feel a headache starting to form in the back of my head. "Why do I have a bad feeling that I know where this is going…" I groaned to myself.
"So, wait," Usopp interjected. "That research you were doing in Alubarna—?"
"I was studying all the literature they had on the brain and how it functions," Chopper nodded in agreement. "I thought that if the Human-Human Fruit could give me this much intelligence now, and if I could manipulate it with chemicals already, maybe I could use more chemicals so that I could make myself even smarter! You know, exploit my fruit's powers even further, as Cross suggested! So, I spent all my time researching, trying to find what I'd need, and I found just what I was looking for before I went to sleep!"
"But as your IQ skyrocketed higher and higher, your sense of morality and your higher logic functions took a nosedive, yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before…" I groaned as I massaged my now actively throbbing temples. "So, let me get this straight… YOU MEAN THAT YOU—wait, has anyone here ever heard of a man named Robert Louis Stevenson?"
"I have," Vivi promptly replied, raising her hand. "His works were quite good."
"I've always been more a fan of Lovecraft and Shelley myself," Robin noted conversationally.
"Oh, good, that means that my analogy works." I nodded before returning to chastising Chopper. "YOU MEAN THAT YOU JEKYLL AND HYDE'D YOURSELF!? ARE YOU INSANE!?"
"Ah… not quite? After all, Hyde was explicitly less intelligent than Dr. Jekyll and was merely all of his darkness and vices unleashed, whereas I, ah… that is to say…" Chopper wilted uncomfortably before the combined glare the crew was giving him. "…kinda?"
Usopp sighed heavily as he shook his head. "Well, this has been one big fiasco. Still, after all of this, now you know better! So, all we have to do is get rid of the formula you used, and then we can forget that this all ever happened, right?"
Chopper pointedly refused to meet any of our gazes as he squirmed uncomfortably. "Er…"
Soundbite facepalmed, as much as he could with his eyestalks. "Of course not…"
"What is it?" Nami asked with mounting dread.
"Weeeell…" Chopper dragged out in a tone of voice that said he'd be poking his hooves together if he could. "The concoction I drank wasn't so much a temporary transformative serum like my Rumble Balls are… so much as it contained an enzyme I artificially manufactured that essentially turned a key in my brain?"
"What are you trying to say, doc?" Boss asked warily.
"It means that I can essentially still feel where all of that extra intelligence is in my mind…" Chopper trailed off slightly before hanging his head. "And it's not going away. Ever."
"Let me get this straight…" Nami groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. "You're liable to turn into a mad scientist at the drop of a hat, forever, and we have no idea what triggers the change? Is that what you're saying?!"
"Nononono, not at all, not at all!" Chopper shook his head in frantic denial. "I already told you, I can feel where the intelligence is! It's a permeable border in my brain, so long as I keep my head on straight, then it can't affect me! If I delve into it, then I stay sane for a period of time…" He glanced at me uncomfortably. "Until my newfound intelligence overwhelms me and I become liable to act on my… less than logical impulses…"
"At which point we can bring you back to the world of the sane with a little bit of 'manual override', is that right?" I clarified, tapping the rolling pin I was holding in my palm.
Chopper nodded, and Nami sighed in relief. "OK, then you can just keep from doing it again, right? I mean, sure, the effects are impressive, but you came close to killing Cross… and despite recent developments, I don't think any of us seriously want him dead, right?"
Most everyone gave sounds of assent… though Vivi and Robin's silence was a bit telling.
"B-but—!" Chopper tried to protest.
"Chopper," I cut in, my voice rife with concern. "I'm not even mad about the dissection thing, because that wasn't entirely your fault. I'm more concerned about you. I mean, you almost did something that you would have regretted forever! What could possibly make that worth it?"
"Um…" Chopper tilted his head thoughtfully for a moment before perking up intently. "I didn't get a lot done before I… 'nosedived', so to speak, but… Look at the back of my notes, page 237. You see that formula in the middle of the page?"
"Um…" I followed his directions and found a long, unintelligible equation waiting for me. "Yeah, I do. What is it?"
"The new recipe I developed that I'll be using for my Rumble Balls from now on," he stated proudly.
I gave the human reindeer a dubious look. "Chopper, while I'm sure a few extra seconds might be useful—!"
"Effectiveness is five minutes, and cooldown is three hours."
I promptly slammed the notebook shut with an enthusiastic grin. "WELP! If I were you, doc, I'd see about installing a metal plate in my skull, because you are going to be undergoing a lot of blunt force trauma in the days to come!"
"Hooray!… I think…"
"…Well, that settles it. Pay up, Sanji," Usopp said.
I glanced back to see Sanji, a grimace on his face and his new cigarette half-gone already, hand the sniper a thousand Berry note. "Yeah, yeah, you win: Cross is actively trying to get himself killed."
"OI!" I barked indignantly.
"Are you really going to try and deny it!?" Usopp snorted.
I opened my mouth to respond… and reconsidered my answer midway as I held my hand out. "No, I was just going to ask for fifty percent of any proceedings done in my name."
"COPYRIGHT, BITCHES!" Soundbite cackled.
Usopp and Sanji exchanged looks, then the former looked at me.
"Ten percent."
"Forty-five percent."
"Fifteen percent."
"Thirty-five percent."
"…Thirty percent."
"Done," I said, grinning as three hundred Beri bills were slapped into my palm.
"Well, even with that out of the way, I don't think any of us are going to get back to sleep after this…" Vivi tapped her chin thoughtfully before snapping her fingers. "Well, seeing how Luffy didn't wake up… Sanji, how about making us some midnight snacks so we don't have to deal with him stealing off our plates?"
"Hmm. That actually sounds pretty good," Nami remarked.
"Right away, my lovelies~!"
And that was the end of that; while Boss and Usopp untied Chopper and the other dugongs set about clearing the table, the resident love cook spun into the kitchen and two of the three—four! No telling if dugongs are psychic—four females on the ship sat down.
Meanwhile, I took the opportunity the commotion presented to me to pull Robin outside, away from potential eavesdroppers, as I chose to voice some… sensitive thoughts that had occurred to me and that I was less than willing to share with everyone else.
"Would you care to explain how you, of all people, didn't see Chopper come into the kitchen earlier?" I asked, frowning at her accusingly.
"Who's to say I didn't?" Robin replied with a serene smile.
I froze as I processed the implications, and promptly glowered at her. "Alright, then… would you care to explain why the hell you thought I deserved that? I don't like playing the debt card, but in case you forgot, you'd still be stranded on Alabasta if I hadn't kept my and his traps shut!" I jabbed my finger at a growling Soundbite. "I was trying to be nice to you, what did I—?"
"Do you really think I've forgotten?" Robin asked, much more quietly and much less serenely. "When we met in Whiskey Peak, you promised we'd meet again, and you'd pay me back for what I did to you then. I honestly thought nothing of the threat… until I discovered that you knew I had snuck onboard your ship the moment you arrived. I expected you to order me off, but as you have done nothing to stop me from joining your crew, I'm left to wonder what you have planned for your revenge."
I stared at her blankly for several seconds, pondering how to reply. I settled for slapping a hand to my face with a weary groan. "…I'm not going to take revenge, Nico Robin."
Soundbite let out an indignant squawk, and Robin raised a brow.
"Or at least…" I clarified. "I'm not going to take revenge today. Maybe not even tomorrow. You see—"
"I need to think a long, long time about just what I'm going to do with you," Soundbite cut in with a deep masculine voice, smirking widely. "I don't know, it might come to me, pff, in the middle of the night… or maybe next week or, a few years from now. In the meantime…why don't you worry about it?"
I chuckled at Soundbite's antics before promptly sobering up. "But seriously: I didn't plan and still don't plan on killing you. Embarrassing you? Sure. Humiliating you? Absolutely. But to kill a crewmate is the highest sin on any ship… and unless the captain says otherwise, you're part of this crew. Got it?" I finished, my expression deadly serious. Robin's expression was unreadable, but she nodded before turning back towards the dining room. I watched her for a moment before glancing at Soundbite and giving him a nod.
"Be afraid, Robin."
She froze, allowing me to breeze past her, staring at her with the sort of serene smile she was used to giving.
"Be very afraid," I finished, Soundbite putting Uncle Phil's voice directly in my mouth, along with the following maniacal laugh.
"…I believe I'll go back to taking the watch now," she said in a voice of forced calm. She moved into the dining room long enough to ask Sanji to bring her plate to her when it was done before climbing back up to the crow's nest.
With that done, I walked back into the dining room, both Soundbite and I grinning like loons.
Those grins proceeded to die as I saw Vivi pointedly looking away from me as I entered, her face still set in a frown. I sat down some distance away from her, though I kept trying to catch her eye before, during, and after the meal. But she focused on anything but me, and the rest of the crew offered no help.
"It's going to be a long week, isn't it?" I muttered.
"Ah, dun' worry,—gulp!—Cross!" Luffy patted me on the back consolingly as he swallowed the mouthful of food he'd been chewing. "She came around after Yuba, she'll come around after this! Maybe after she eats? I know I get grumpy when I'm hungry!"
I nodded… before grabbing the back of his head and slamming it into the table. "QUIT EATING US OUT OF SHIP AND HOME, YOU GLUTTON!" I roared at the top of my lungs.
---
On a certain island in the most dangerous half of the most dangerous half of the most dangerous sea in the world (so basically the most dangerous quarter, really), one of the most dangerous pirate crews ever to sail lounged about, identical grimaces on all of their faces, as if they were waiting for something to happen. Nobody moved. Nobody made a sound. And then…
"Don don don don!" intoned their Transponder Snail, eliciting a chorus of pained moaning from the migraine-nursing men.
"Who the hell's calling at this hour? Don't they know what the cooldown period for hangovers is?" growled Red-Haired Shanks, who nobody would guess from his current appearance was one of the Four Emperors unless they knew him personally… and even then, those members of that scarce cadre of individuals had their doubts.
"Don don don don!" the snail boomed again, eliciting groans from everyone.
"Wait a sec, isn't that the broadcast from yesterday? Luffy's crew?" Benn Beckmann said, struggling to his feet.
"Hey, it is! Somebody answer it, I'll want something to listen to while I eat some sea king meat!" Lucky Roux laughed as he walked towards the beach, dragging a yet-dead-to-the-world rookie behind him as the snail rung once more.
"And where do you think you're going?" Beckmann drawled, one eyebrow cocked.
"To catch said sea king, of course!"
"And you're taking our newest recruit with you because…?"
"Well, I'm not going to catch my first breakfast without bait, am I?" Roux explained in an 'are-you-an-idiot?' tone of voice.
"…Of course, what on earth was I thinking?"
And that was how the newest crewmate of the Red-Haired Pirates set the new record for fastest recovery from a hangover… for all the good it did against Roux's iron grip.
Giving the deceptively strong glutton no more thought, one of the other crewmates finally picked up the snail's speaker, mid-don, and the rest of the pirates slowly gathered around.
"How much longer, Cross?" came a voice on the other end.
"Just a few more rings, I want as many people listening as possible," came the more familiar voice of Jeremiah Cross.
"Well, alright. But soon, 'kay? I'm really excited!"
"Hey, Yasopp, this guy sounds a lot like you!" Shanks laughed at his sniper. "Think that son of yours decided to follow you out to sea?"
"Ha! As if! The grog must have gone straight to your head, captain!" Yasopp scoffed as he waved his captain's hungover ramblings off. "And besides, my son is seventeen now! No way he'd set out that—!"
"Luffy is seventeen," Benn deadpanned.
Yasopp hesitated slightly at that before shrugging. "Yeah, but still, the chances of him having gone by Syrup Village are a hundred to one; it can't be him." Nevertheless, the sniper dug up a half-full bottle from the sand and took a swig to calm his nerves.
"Alright, that's enough. If anyone wants to join in, they'll have to do it midway through! For now—!"
"IT'S TIME to start THE SBS!"
"… That's going to be a thing now, isn't it?"
"EEYUP!"
The Red-Haired Pirates roared with laughter as Cross grumbled mutinously.
"Never thought I'd say this about a snail, but I like his attitude!" Shanks cackled, earning him a momentary glare from their own Snail before it reassumed its pouty expression.
"… Even across dimensions… I feel your pain, Goda-sensei, I really do… bah, whatever. Aaaanyways, let's get to it. For now, we'll be cold-starting this broadcast with a general interview and talking some shop with our ship's sniper and all-around tinkerer. Please give a warm welcome to him, all the way from… yeah, better not name his home, huh? Well, all the way from the East Blue, at least, Usopp!"
"PFFFT!"
The Red-Haired Pirates fell into shocked silence as their resident sniper sprayed the alcohol he'd been chugging over the beach. At least, until both he and the captain leaped at each other simultaneously and fell into a brawl.
"OUCH! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU ATTACKING ME FOR, YASOPP!? I THOUGHT YOU'D BE HAPPY THAT YOUR SON'S A PIRATE!"
"I AM HAPPY HE'S A PIRATE. I COULDN'T BE PROUDER! MY FATHERLY INSTINCTS, ON THE OTHER HAND, ARE PISSED THAT YOUR PROTÉGÉ DRAGGED HIM AWAY FROM OUR QUIET VILLAGE INTO THIS CRAZY LIFE!"
"IT'S NOT THAT BAD!"
"I got my breakfast!" Lucky Roux crowed as he walked back to the crew, dragging a ten-ton behemoth behind him with one hand and a comatose crewmate with the other. "And the rookie's still alive! So that's also nice!"
"YOU'RE A DEAD MAN, SHANKS! ALSO, WHY THE HELL ARE YOU ATTACKING ME!?"
"YOU WASTED GOOD BOOZE, YOU BASTARD!"
SLAM! SLAM!
"SHUT UP, YOU IDIOTS!" Benn roared, unknowingly doing an orange-headed navigator and a retired first mate proud with the size of the dual goose eggs he lumped on his captain and crewmate. "WE CAN'T HEAR A THING OVER YOUR BRAWLING!"
"Now, before we start, chances are that either Usopp's father or someone who knows him is listening to this broadcast. That being the case, Usopp has a few words for him personally before we get into the swing of things. Usopp?"
Dead silence fell on both ends for a few seconds before Usopp's voice came through.
"Dad… I've looked up to you from the day you left home. Mom died when I was 7, but I never blamed you for following your heart out to the sea. From the first time I saw the sea, I felt the same way… I always wanted to follow in your footsteps. So, when Luffy came along and told me how you always went on and on about me… it made me happy, and even more determined to follow in your footsteps—oh, and before I forget, a message to any Marines that are listening in: Kuro of the Thousand Plans faked his death three years ago. My captain beat him when he challenged him, but didn't kill him. I don't know what Kuro's up to now, but he's still alive. Alright…anyway, Dad, here I am, the sniper of the Straw Hat Pirates. My captain plans to fulfill the promise he made to your captain… and when we finally meet again, it'll be as two equal Brave Warriors of the Sea."
Yasopp rubbed at one of his eyes, and Shanks grinned as he clapped him on the back.
The mood was promptly broken by a resounding cry of "DADDY'S BOY!"
The line was then overwhelmed by the sound of scuffling and brawling. "I'm going to turn you inside out and use your shell as a trophy! You hear me, you slimy little jackass!? A TROPHY!"
"JUST try it, DADDY'S BOY! HOOHOOHOOheeheeheeHAHAHA!"
"GET—OUCH!—GET OFF OF ME USO—YEOWCH!—AND LEAVE MY SNAIL ALONE!"
And the Red-Haired Pirates could barely hear anything else over their renewed laughter.
---
Lassoo whined pitifully as he shrank in on himself, putting on the biggest pair of puppy dog eyes he could muster up. "Do we reaaally have to do this? I-I mean, I think that my cold's passed, really!"
"Weeell, we don't have to…" I looked up faux-contemplatively before giving the canine-weapon a flat look. "As long as you're willing to walk everywhere, and maybe take some lessons from Zoro and Sanji to be sure you can run fast enough to keep up with us."
The spark of hope in his eyes died, and he went back to whining.
"Besides, you were all gung-ho about getting rid of the cold yesterday!" I pressed firmly.
Lassoo's hackles cocked up an inch as he glared at Chopper and Usopp, snapping at them and causing them to flinch back. "Yesterday, you only said that the long-nosed liar would have to dig through me! Now you want the newly made doctor to rummage through my insides too!? He's not even good with mechanics!"
"But he is without a doubt one of the foremost experts on Zoan-type Devil Fruits in this hemisphere, and while he might not have any experience with Devil Fruit-imbued objects, he's a fast study," I explained. Again. "So, either you let him help you, or you're not going to have anyone around to help your mangy ass should anything translate wrong to your biological side."
"What's it gonna be, MUTT?" Soundbite demanded.
Lassoo ground his fangs for a moment as he mulled things over before chuffing and glaring darkly at Usopp. "If I don't wake up, I swear that I'm going to haunt you to the end of your days…"
With that parting statement, the weapon's body promptly distorted, his fur and flesh melting into polished metal, his circular barrel prevented from toppling over by his prominent shoulder-mounts.
Usopp stared blankly at the cannon for a moment before giving me a searching look. "Are you sure you don't want me to 'fix' him while I'm at it?" he asked in a voice that plainly stated he was only barely joking. "Who knows, it might improve his attitude."
I won't lie, I did consider it for a brief moment before shaking my head. "Just a tune-up and a weight trim, Usopp, nothing more. And fair warning, he can hear you while he's like this."
"Why do you think I said it…" Usopp muttered under his breath as he knelt over the weapon. "Alright, you said he had a manual?"
"Yeah, Miss Merry Christmas said that she stashed it in a compartment on him," I answered as I gave Lassoo's weapon-form a look-over. He was a lot like a typical pirate ship cannon, only combined with a portable rocket launcher. His bore was almost half the size of half a soccer ball, and the bulge in his barrel where his ammo was to be loaded was about the size of a beach ball. Overall, it was easy to see why Mr. 4 had been his user: chances were that the list of people capable of lifting him with ease without the use of Haki was as long as Zoro's directions were comprehensible. "If I had to guess, I'd say that it's probably hidden, so—!"
"Found it."
"Eh?" I blinked in surprise.
Usopp held up a pamphlet of papers an inch or two thick. "Hidden in the inner lining of his breech. Ingenious, really. It'd almost be risky if the materials that he was made of weren't sturdy enough. Now, let's see here…" He started flicking through the manual, his eyes scanning over the mechanical diagrams that covered the pages. "Hmm, looks like this only talks about how the gun itself works…"
"That's probably all that we'll need, though," Chopper noted. "After all, Lassoo's base form is a gun. I agree with Cross's assumption that any issues with him could be translating from mechanical to biological. I've already given him a look while he was fully canine and I didn't find anything, so whatever's causing his sneezing must be from a mechanical deficiency."
"Try looking for something around his base," I suggested. "Could be that something's wrong with his firing pin or—"
"Got it."
I felt a vein bulge on my forehead. "Alright, now you're starting to tick me off."
Usopp ignored me in favour of showing off the complicated diagram he'd found. "It's his trigger mechanism, see? There's a design flaw in it; he can still fire fine, no problem, but it's also feather-sensitive. One wrong shake or movement—!"
"BOO—!"
BOOM!
Soundbite was cut off when we all jumped in shock as a stray wave suddenly hit the Merry, causing Lassoo to spontaneously discharge a baseball off the port bow.
We stared after the plume of water the wayward projectile had left before Usopp finally got his mouth working again. "Yeah, that… and I'm guessing that the sensitivity transferred over… maybe to his sinuses?"
Lassoo took this opportunity to shift into his canine-form, snorting and rubbing a paw over his snout. "Sorry about that…" he grumbled before looking up curiously. "But do you think you can fix it?"
"Hmm…" Usopp pondered, poring over the manual again. "The real question here is why they used this kind of mechanism in the first place. It's obviously inefficient, so why—waaaiiit…" Usopp flipped a few pages in the manual before tapping something he found and grinning victoriously. "Just as I thought! The trigger mechanism is so complicated because it was the only one they could come up with capable of launching and activating ammunition as unusual as the mutt's baseballs!"
He blinked as he thought that statement over before scratching his chin contemplatively. "Actually, I was wondering about that. How many baseball bombs do you have? I mean, you never seem to run out, you fired dozens of them while you were fighting us, and I never saw 4 or Christmas carrying any ammo belts—"
"I think I can explain that," Chopper offered thoughtfully. "Like the way the sensitivity of the trigger translates to the sensitivity of his sinuses, I hypothesize that Lassoo is capable of generating baseballs within his abdomen the same way the body produces stomach acid or bile." His mouth slowly started to open in a grin, widening molar by molar. "And it makes sense that it doesn't affect your hunger, either; as countless Zoan fruits have displayed in the past, the powers are fully capable of producing mass in pre-determined formations out of thin air! It's only a small leap to assume that this ability could be used to replicate non-orga—GACK! I'M BACK, I'M BACK, DON'T HIT ME!" Chopper promptly yelped, flinching away from me in a panic as I raised my gauntlet-clad fist.
"Mmm-hmm…"
"Mmmyeah, I'm pretty sure that's how it goes…" Lassoo nodded in agreement, surreptitiously sliding a bit further away from Chopper. "I can't remember ever having to reload, and Master almost always had me in my hybrid form when we were fighting."
"Ohhh, now that gives me an idea," Usopp said, grinning. "If Lassoo can replicate any ammo in his chamber and hock it up, then I've got the perfect idea for an upgrade: I'll replace the trigger mechanism with something a lot more compact and efficient, and that'll let me fit in a cylinder, like in that revolver Mr. 5 had, which should allow for variable ammunition!"
"Ah, Usopp!" Chopper hastily piped up. "If you do that, you'll need to spread out the slimming down as evenly as possible, because if one part of his anatomy is slimmer than the rest, it could cause severe anomalies to appear in his biological transformation."
I looked at Lassoo, who looked between the doctor and the inventor before speaking.
"Just as long as my overall stopping power doesn't get cut down, that's all fine by me," he sighed at last.
"Alright, then!" Usopp clapped his hands with a truly evil smile. "Cross, go and get Zoro. We're going to be doing a lot of precise metal-cutting. Once he's here…" The sniper's grin widened viciously as he yanked his goggles down over his eyes. "We can begin the operation!"
His grin promptly disappeared when Chopper snapped into his Muscle Point and cracked his fist over his friend's skull.
"NOT FUNNY!"
---
"Well, it appears that this Soundbite doesn't have a lot of latitude in ways of personality, does he?" Merry mused as he poured out a cup of hot chocolate for himself.
"It was kinda rude for him to ruin the moment for the Captain," Carrot said, the only one of the Veggie trio currently awake.
"Hmm, maybe so…" Kaya mused as she blew on her own mug.
"AND YOU smell like it TOO! Shishishi!"
"Watch it, shit-snail, or you'll wind up in my pan for Nami-swan's lunch instead!"
"I'LL BE GOOD, I'll be good!" the snail hastily yelped.
"But you can't help but admit that he's quite humorous, wouldn't you say?" Kaya couldn't help but giggle.
"Alright, with the resident jackass nicely chastised, let's get back to it. So, Sanji, you were saying?"
"Ah, yes… as any chef of the sea worth his salt will tell you, not a single scrap of food should be wasted. Once you've extracted what many people would call 'the best parts,' you're left with enough materials to make another full-course meal. Pulverize the bones and head of the fish, mix in the guts and whatever scraps you have from the vegetables, except the skins, then roll the meat into balls and deep-fry them. Bitterness whets the appetite, preparing for the vegetable dish; vegetable skins have just as much to give as the cores…"
"I think that I should fetch the chef, he'll enjoy listening to this," Merry mused contemplatively as Sanji went on. "And their cook is so polite, too. The spitting image of a gentleman!"
"Well, I'll say this for your methodology, Sanji, this definitely looks good. Mind if I—?" A wooden THWACK rang out over the connection. "YEOWCH! WHAT THE HELL, BASTARD?! YOU LET NAMI TASTE ALL THE TIME!"
"Yes, but she's a beautiful woman, whereas you're nothing but a shitty tactician with an even shittier snail on his shoulder."
"EXCUSE ME!?"
"WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME ONE OF YOUR PLANS ACTUALLY WORKED, HUH!? NOW BEAT IT, YOU'LL EAT WITH THE REST OF THE SHITTY GUYS IN HALF AN HOUR!"
"SHIT COOK!"
"BITE ME, SHIT SNAI—YEOWCH!"
"I stand corrected. Shame on me for expecting Luffy to have anyone fully sensible on his crew…" The butler trailed off while the younger members of the audience fell into fits of laughter.