My dream was as weird as ever. In it, there were a bunch of skulls floating around an otherwise empty void. Half of them had red noses and wanted to decapitate me. The other half wore a straw hat and wanted food—to be more precise, meat.
When I woke up, things weren't any better. In fact, they were worse. A huge storm was raging around me, and the back of my neck was tingling, which was probably due to the rough ocean. I was gaining energy by the second. In no time at all, I was practically bursting with energy, and I wondered if it had anything to do with the storm. That was when I noticed something: The sea was underneath me and I was flying through the air. Beside me, three people I knew very well were screaming bloody murder. The fourth, whose arm was stretched had been stretched around us while the other was holding her straw hat in place, was giggling.
"WHY THE HELL AM I FLYING?!" I roared over the howling wind.
Lucy, who was obviously the one carrying us, grinned and looked at me. "Oh! You're awake!"
"THAT DOESN'T ANSWER MY QUESTION!"
"We almost missed the ship because Nami was disembarking. I got caught up in a battle with some smokey Marine dude and Zoro was battling some blue haired lady. They seemed to know each other. Ah, well. It doesn't matter. A huge gust of wind blew us all to the harbor and I used Gum-Gum Rocket."
I stared at her. "That actually made sense."
"What? I can be sensible, ya know. Hey, where did you get that eye patch? It's cool!"
"WE'RE FLYING OVER THE SEA IN THE MIDDLE OF A HUMONGOUS STORM AND YOU'RE WORRIED ABOUT AN EYE PATCH!?"
"Yeah. So?"
"Why did I end up with such an idiotic captain?" I moaned, crying anime tears.
Zoro, Usopp, and Sanji were still screaming. And we weren't landing. I started screaming too. Then we were caught by the red cross-sail of the Going Merry, bounced off it, and tumbled to the deck, cursing our lives. My landing was soft, however, and when I opened my eyes I noticed Lucy was lying under me, face red. I blinked and looked down. I had landed in such a way that I was accidentally straddling her.
My face went beet red and I quickly rolled off her, stammering an unintelligible apology.
"I-It's okay," Lucy murmured, sounding flustered. She adjusted her precious straw hat nervously while Zoro claimed that he'd definitely kill her someday. I couldn't help but wonder why she was blushing...
"Everyone!" Nami cheered, peering over at us and grinning widely.
I pointed swiftly at her and barked, "You didn't see anything!"
She tilted her head. "I didn't see what?"
"Never mind. Where's my bag?"
The gingerheaded navigator blinked and pointed vaguely upwards. "In the crow's nest, like you said. Why? What's in it? And where'd you get that eye patch?" Luckily I was saved from answering by a sudden flash of moving light. We all looked out to sea. A lighthouse was sticking up out of the ocean proudly.
"A lighthouse!" Lucy reported as the rest of us recovered.
"That means we're getting close to the Grand Line," Nami informed us, smiling. "That's our 'guiding light' to Reverse Mountain, the entrance to the Grand Line!"
Lucy went to stand next to her. "The entrance to the Grand Line is over there?"
"So what now?" the other girl asked.
I smirked. "What else? We go to the Grand Line!"
Usopp, who was hugging the main mast of the Merry, cried anime tears. "Are you really so crazy you'd want to go in a storm like this? Please, work with me here, man!"
Zoro simply nodded, a small smile on his own face. Sanji just gave a thumbs up and I sneered at him evilly. He turned blue and scooted to the other side of the mast.
Lucy giggled. "Yosha!"
"Everyone," said Sanji. "Let's have a little launching ceremony to mark the importance of this voyage. I heard sailors do this whenever they go out on an important journey. You get a barrel, place your foot on it, state a promise or wish or dream, and then everyone smashes the barrel together."
We all grinned at each other and agreed to do it.
Sanji was first. "To find the All Blue."
"To become the first pirate queen!" Lucy announced, placing her foot on the barrel. I was suddenly glad she didn't wear skirts.
Zoro did it, too. "To become the greatest swordsman."
Nami took the next turn. "To draw a map of the world!"
I smirked and put my foot on the barrel. "To become the strongest martial artist and to save the world!"
Usopp gulped and thought quickly. "Uh... I-I'm... to become a brave warrior of the sea!"
"LET'S GO TO THE GRAND LINE!" Lucy roared, and we all raised our feet before smashing them down on the barrel's lid.
"AYE, CAPTAIN!" We agreed.
CRASH.
𖦹𖦹𖦹
Although the rest of the evening was crazy and we worked like dogs trying to keep the ship from capsizing, I never got too tired. I didn't know why. When it was time to turn in, everyone else was out before their heads hit the pillow. (For some reason, Lucy always slept in the boy's cabin even though she was a girl. Don't ask me why. I'll never know.) I, on the other hand, was up in the crow's nest feeling as though I'd sucked down a hundred Pixie Stix. Where the hell all this energy was coming from, I had no idea, but when I finally hit the sack, it only felt like a few seconds before Sanji was calling for breakfast.
"What's wrong with you, Yuril?" Nami asked worriedly as we inhaled a breakfast of eggs and Canadian bacon. Don't ask me why it was still called Canadian even in this world, because again, I'll never know. "You don't look too good. Did that hurricane Lucy was talking about earlier take too much out of you?"
I sighed and rubbed my bleary eyes. I sipped coffee, trying to get myself awake. "No, just the opposite. I couldn't get to sleep last night because I had too much energy. Now I feel pooped, though. Like when a sugar high lifts you up, then sinks you down lower."
"Sugar?" Lucy piped up. "Food..."
"WE'RE HAVING BREAKFAST NOW, IDIOT! WHY ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT THE NEXT MEAL?!"
The day after that was calm and clear. In fact, it was as though the worst storm I'd ever encountered never happened. There was still stuff to do, though. Sanji and Usopp raised the sails so that we could catch some wind. I drew moisture out of the now-waterlogged floorboards of the Merry so they wouldn't rot. Zoro did lookout duty for me, though the job was a bit harder now that a giant bag of belli was sitting in the crow's nest. Lucy was fishing off the side of the Merry but grew bored and sat on her captain's seat—you know, the figurehead.
"So, Nami," I spoke up after I had finished my job. "How close are we to Reverse Mountain?"
"Well, we just left Loguetown two days ago, so it's gonna take some time to get there." She looked at me in approval and was about to call a crew meeting when there was the sound of three cannons firing. The back of my neck tingled as three cannonballs fell around the Merry and into the sea. I looked out to the back. "What the... Marines!? Now!?"
"Dammit, they never give up," Nami cursed. "And there's a whole fleet of 'em, too!"
Lucy and the others gathered on the port side to see them, too. "Oo!" Lucy giggled. "They must be here to collect the bounty on my head!"
"Yeah, but why is there a whole fleet?" Usopp moaned, shivering.
"They must've heard how hard it is to beat me! Shishishi! I'm just too strong!"
"That was your warning shot!" came a voice from over the ocean. "If you do not surrender, we will be forced to sink your ship and capture your captain."
"Told ya! Shishishi!"
"THAT'S NOT A GOOD THING!" I pointed out in exasperation.
"So, what do we do?" spoke up Zoro. "Give 'em hell?"
"Yeah!" Lucy agreed. "Let's fight!"
Usopp was not amused. "Why must we always do this?" he lamented. "How come there's always some type of danger whenever you guys are involved? How do you plan to take on an entire fleet? What the hell will raiding them do?"
"It'll do something."
"WHAT!?"
I turned to my captain. "Lucy, you fling Zoro and Sanji over there. Usopp, you take command of the cannon as backup for us. I'll get myself onto their ships using my demigod powers."
"Really?" Usopp sighed in relief. "Yatta! Then leave it to me. And just in case we have to make a quick escape, I'll do that, too!"
"Good plan!" she approved. "Yosha! Let's do this!"
Zoro backed up, looking panicked. "Oi, wait! You're not gonna—"
Suddenly Nami gasped and said, "Zoro, face the sails south! Yuril, get back up in the crow's nest! Usopp, Sanji-kun, take control of the rudder and steer us hard to starboard!" We blinked and looked at each other, but she barked, "NOW!" and we immediately did as we were told.
"Hey, Nami!" I called from the crow's nest once I had scrambled up the net. "What's up?"
"Yeah, what's going on?" Lucy wondered.
She frowned. "A squall is coming. We'll catch it and get away." She looked out to the fleet. "There's no way we could take that many ships on with the number of hands we have now."
"We'd be fine," the straw hatted girl protested.
A sudden gust of wind pushed the sails out as far as they could go without ripping and we increased speed. Lucy yelped and had to hold her hat in place so it wouldn't fly off. Riding the wind at such a speed from this high up felt almost like a roller coaster with no seat belts. It was an exhilarating feeling, but also a terrifying one.
"Hey, we're going really fast!" Lucy giggled from the lower deck. "This wind's fun!"
Usopp glanced behind us and grinned. "Check it out, Luce! We're losing the Marines! Ha ha! Just try to catch us now!"
But I was getting a bad feeling, a warning tingle in my neck. "Hey guys!" I called. "We're sailing towards something weird with the sea."
"Weird?" Nami muttered, checking a compass. "We're going south..."
After a few more minutes of the huge gust, the wind died down, as did our speed (considerably), and when I looked off into the horizon, the Marines were nowhere to be found. That worried me a bit. They wouldn't give up chasing a big name simply because of a little wind. They'd probably try to ride the wind, too, in hopes of catching up with us. And now that I was thinking about it, I was getting a cold feeling on my neck, like the one I got when we were passing the reef before our landing at Conomi Island. But I was getting it in multiple places, like there was more than one huge creature.
"Oi, guys!" I shouted, worried. "Something big's coming and it's got friends!"
Usopp was ignoring me. "Ha! Those dumb Marines will never catch up to us now! Another great victory for Captain Usopp-sama!"
"Cool! Cool!" Lucy approved. "That's my navigator!"
"Ah, Nami-san is so wonderful she can even predict the wind!" Sanji cooed.
"Well, I just had a feeling. And hold on," said Nami. "Yuril, did you say that some large creatures were coming?"
"Yeah, I did."
"Oi," Zoro cut in. "We don't seem to be moving. It's weird."
There was a pause. Nami and I looked around and sure enough, we didn't appear to be moving. The sails were flat. The small black flag on top of the mast wasn't flapping. In fact, when I looked at the ocean, it was completely still. "Hey, you're right, Zoro," I remarked. "Come to think of it, the sea's as flat as a pancake. Flatter, even." That fact worried me. I'd been sailing for over three weeks now, and I had never seen the ocean this calm. Not a single time.
Suddenly Nami let out a piercing scream.
"Eh? What's up, Nami?" Lucy asked.
"Nami-san?" worried Sanji.
"Oh, no..." moaned Nami in horror, her body shaking so bad I could see it even from this high up. "WE'VE ENTERED THE CALM BELT!"
This didn't exactly have the reaction she'd been expecting. Everybody except myself looked at each other, confused, even though I'd explained to them last week. They must've already forgotten. But I hadn't. I stared at the ocean—the Calm Belt—in horror.
"So then those large sea creatures I detected..." I gasped.
Nami nodded. Her voice sounded scared, and I bet her face was ashen. "Yes. Sea kings."
My neck tingled and suddenly the ship rocked violently. Everybody shouted in surprise and tried to regain our balance. It was hardest for me, because I was in the crow's nest and had very nearly been tossed over the side.
"What the... an earthquake?" Lucy guessed.
Sanji stared at her. "An earthquake on the ocean?"
"You guys!" Nami sighed. "Stop talking like we're fine! Roll up the sails and start rowing. Get us back to where we were before as soon as possible. Yuril, make a current in the water that will take us back to the East Blue."
"YES, NAMI-SAAAAAN!" said Sanji
"Yeah," I agreed, my face pale. "That was no earthquake."
Lucy tilted her head. "Back to East Blue?"
"What are you so worked up about? Why do we need to row?" Zoro complained. "This is a sailing ship."
Usopp, too, was unmoved. "Yeah, he's right! Why would we go back there when we just ran away from the Marines? Isn't it better out here, safer?"
"WOULD YOU JUST LISTEN TO ME!?" Nami roared. We had started moving again, albeit slowly, because I had already started up an ocean current to get us the hell out of here. "WE'RE IN REAL DEEP TROUBLE, HERE!"
"But the seas are so quiet!" Lucy protested.
"That's exactly it!" I agreed. "The seas are too quiet. We rode that wind too far and now we're in the Calm Belt. Sailing ships can't go through it because of two reasons: One, there is no wind or even water currents. Like, ever. You could spend a lifetime in the Calm Belt and you'd never feel a bit of wind. Also, there are even bigger problems, the sea kings. The Calm Belt is home to hundreds, thousands, even, of the biggest sea kings in the world."
"S-Sea kings!?" yelped Usopp.
Sanji stared at the sea. "So when the old fart said the Calm Belt was dangerous, this was what he meant?"
Nami nodded quickly. "That's right. So ROW THE HELL OUTTA HERE ALREADY!"
My neck tingled and I froze. "No, don't bother. It's already too late. They're surfacing."
The sea had started getting choppy and the ship shook once more. The back of my neck went crazy. Below us, water pushed upward almost by itself and we were lifted high up into the air. While Usopp and Nami screamed their heads off, I tried desperately to keep my balance but didn't need to worry about my belli bag. It was packed so tightly into the crow's nest that it wouldn't budge. As I looked out around us, I saw the same thing happening in multiple places in the ocean. One of the bulges of water had enormous eyes sticking out of it.
"Eh? What's that?" Lucy asked, peering at it in interest.
"I don't want to be eaten!" moaned the local wimp.
Around us, the water cascaded off of the creatures' heads, and we were finally able to see them. One was like a giant, yellow frog, and another had a head shaped like a horse. One was long, pink, and had fluffy white rings around its body. The one we were on was a nightmare baby between a zebra and a whale.
Sanji's jaw nearly touched the floor. Usopp looked like he was gonna pass out. Nami was hugging the mast and crying anime tears. Our captain was staring at the sea kings like they were her next meal. Zoro was frozen as he stared at the monsters all around us. His reaction would've been hilarious if I hadn't been feeling the exact same thing as him: Pure terror. We slipped down the snout of the zebra-whale thing and halted to a stop, which finally tossed me off of the crow's nest with a horrified scream.
"The reason you can't cross the Calm Belt is because of these things !" Nami cried.
"What are we supposed to do now?" hissed Sanji.
"For now, nobody moves a muscle!" Zoro advised. "We'll be back in the water soon, and then we're gonna row like hell!"
"HEY, EVERYONE!" I shouted. "I'M KINDA FALLING TO MY DEATH HERE!"
But maybe I should've stayed silent, because the shout caught the attention of the Frogzilla. The enormous yellow creature jumped out of the water and right at me. I was on a direct collision course with its throat.
"Yuril!" Lucy gasped. "Don't die! I'll save you!" She stretched her arm down to me and managed to wrap it around my waist. She retracted me back high into the air above our ship, with me crying tears of fear all the way. Not a moment too soon. Just as I was rescued, the frog snapped its mouth shut. If she'd been even a second later, I'd have been fish food and Lucy might have lost her arm. I looked down. Lucy was hanging off the side of the ship, arm wrapped around the mast so she herself didn't fall.
"T-thanks," I managed.
"No problem!" she called back.
I noticed the zebra-whale had a nose and got an idea. "Oi, Lucy-chan! Stretch me back down there! I have an idea to get us out of this mess!" Come to think of it, Apis had this exact same idea in the anime. So I knew it would definitely work. And come to think of that, we'd been following the anime pretty closely. So why didn't Apis show up today? Maybe it was unimportant since the Warship Island Arc was just a filler?
"Sure," said Lucy.
She swung me down to and I passed the monster's nose. I swung there for a second and tried not to throw up. Then I reached out and yanked out a giant nose hair from its nostril.
"Yosha! Beam me up, Scotty!" I cheered.
I wasn't sure if she'd understand, but luckily she did. As the sea king reared back, Lucy retracted her arm and I tumbled to the lower deck of the Merry, where I was caught by Zoro, who didn't appreciate the collision. The nose hair bounced away and fell into the ocean.
Lucy giggled. "That's one big nose hair!"
"Wait a damn second..." cried Usopp.
"If you do that..." moaned Nami.
Sanji's face was ashen. "That thing's gonna sneeze!"
"Exactly!" I agreed.
The sea king's nose twitched and the Going Merry creaked and groaned, shaking like crazy. Lucy announced that it was time to go, and then the zebra-whale let out a huge sneeze that caused us to fly over the entire monster infestation.
"Gesundheit!" I shouted.
A certain straw hatted girl was amazed. "Whoa! It feels like we're flying!"
"WHATÀÀÀAAAÀ!?" the other Straw Hats yelled in terror. "HOW CAN YOU TWO BE SO CAREFREE ABOUT THAT!"
"We are flying!" Usopp corrected her.
SPLASH.
A few minutes of screaming later, we fell into the ocean and threw up a huge wave. I sighed in relief. My neck wasn't tingling any more and the surface of the sea was wavy. We had soared out of the Calm Belt. What wasn't good, though, was the fact that we were all still hanging in the air while our ship was below us. Lucy fixed this problem by wrapping herself around us and using her body as a cushion when we smashed into the Merry.
We rolled off her, cursing.
"Well, looks like we're back in the East Blue," said Nami in relief once we'd all recovered.
"Thank the gods," I sighed.
Zoro nodded, adding, "And no sign of the Marines."
Usopp had turned blue, like a Smurf. "I thought I was gonna die," he moaned.
"Yosha!" cheered Lucy. "Full sails! Our heading? Of course, it's the entrance to the Grand Line!"