Sabaody Archipelago

The way I feel called out for finding Zoro and Law thirst traps on my instagram. That's wild.---

To sum up: Sanji almost drowned from the Flying Fish Riders dragging him down into the water at a fast speed with an iron cage. Meanwhile, Luffy intimidated a bull into fainting? We forgot about that, though, since Camie saved Sanji. When the blond got back on land, he started violently kicking his poster drawing look alike. Right in his unfortunate face.

We left after that since... well we accomplished what needed to be done. Hachi was saved. Now it was time for takoyaki. Hachi brought his food boat stand next to the Sunny for us. The dude is literally an octopus man but he makes octopus balls. I won't question it as long as I get to eat it. I was sitting between Usopp and Brook so I could avoid Luffy's food stealing techniques at least a little bit. He was going insane about the takoyaki. Chopper was sitting in my lap because... I want him to, ok? He's like my child. I love him.

"It really is good," Sanji mumbled with some of the takoyaki in his mouth, "How does he bring out the flavor of the sauce like this?"

"There's just something great about a food stand at see, huh?" Usopp said through a mouth full.

Chopper could only make sounds of agreement since his mouth was completely stuffed. "I'm pretty surprised he can cook it so fast and still make it taste this good," I hummed, putting another ball onto Choppers plate and watching him try to stuff it into his already packed mouth.

"This is the first time I have ever eaten takoyaki! It tastes so good. Like my stomach is going to burst...although I have no stomach," Brook added.

I blinked and said, "I can't believe you've never had it!"

"You guys can eat as much as you like! It's our way of thanking you for saving us!" Hachi sang while whipping up a bunch more trays of the street food, Camie and the starfish helping him out. The fishman suddenly stopped his movements and looked behind us at a certain orange head, asking, "What does she think...? Um, Nami, I mean... uh... well... how does it taste?"

Sanji and Luffy froze from nervousness while I slowly kept eating my takoyaki, occasionally feeding some to Chopper. The stiffness in the air let up after Nami said that it tasted good. I had eventually sat next to Sanji when he asked if I wanted to move after Luffy and Usopp had an eating competition, nearly suffocating themselves by choking on the food. The blond insisted on feeding me, but I quickly refused him. I stuff my face with balls of my own will. Yes, I know how that sounded. What of it? Anyway. We all had a pretty good time for a while.

"Oiii~! You guys~!" a voice called out to us. It got closer as they continued to talk, "Don't leave without giving us a chance to thank you~!"

I looked over the side of the takoyaki boat stand and raised a brow. "Who's that guy?" Luffy voiced my thoughts.

This blond guy's face was literally sparkling as he said, "I'm handso- ah, that was wrong. I'm Duval! Ahahaha~!"

"Did he always look like that?" Luffy questioned.

I shook my head, "No way."

"I altered his bone structure. He shouldn't have anything to complain about now," Sanji informed, still eating. 

"Oh! So that's why you aimed only for his face! I thought you just hated looking at it!" I commented, eating another takoyaki as the Flying Fish Riders came up to the side of the food boat. 

Duval began explaining how when he woke up, everyone was surprised by how he looked after he got his face smashed in. He said he just wanted to thank us and that if we ever needed anything, we could just call him up. I stifled a laugh as he attempted to wink. It was really bad.

"Well, as long as you're satisfied, that's good enough. If you wanna do us a favor, don't bother us again-" Sanji stopped talking after realizing that Duval wasn't paying attention in the slightest. He was too busy looking at himself in his hand mirror. "ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING?!" I laughed while Sanji got pissed off at the gang leader. 

The leather clad man was too busy looking at Nami now, who wiped her lips off with a napkin. "It's somewhat embarrassing, but I'll accept it! Your fair maiden's kiss!" he sang out, giving her finger guns. Nami denied ever doing that, and I covered my mouth to keep from cackling. I didn't need a beat down from our navigator. Duval then admired himself some more, looking in the mirror and asking it if he was the handsomest of them all.

"We get that you're handsome, but you're still an idiot," Usopp stated while eating some takoyaki next to Luffy.

"Jealousy?"

"No way!" the sniper retaliated, lunging at the man, only to be stopped by Luffy.

"Stop it Usopp! You're no match for his craziness!" the captain reasoned.

Duval ignored them and pulled out a slip of paper, looking at Sanji, "Well then, young master! This is my snail phone number! Feel free to call me whenever you need! I'll definitely help you out when that time comes!" His face crinkled awkwardly as he tried to get ready to wink again, saying, "I really did cause you a lotta trouble, huh? I'm sor-" he winked "-ry~!"

"Stop winking already," Sanji, Luffy, and Usopp all said in sync. 

I wiped a tear from my eyes and sighed, watching as they grabbed the man's number. "Man, this guy's a riot!"

The biker stared at me a bit before looking away with a knowing smile, "To take their loveliest lady from them... I even made her cry with my soon to be departure!"

"No, that didn't happen," Usopp said, waving his hand in disproval while he took a position in front of me.

"LEAVE ALREADY!" Sanji yelled, also in front of me.

Duval left right after that, and apparently he renamed his crew Rosy Riders or something. I shook my head and walked away, continuing to eat. We were eventually satisfied with the amount of takoyaki we ate, and I fell onto my back along with Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper, absolutely stuffed. Hachi and the starfish fell back as well, exhausted from all the food they had to make for us. 

"It was a wonderful afternoon, mister. I'm also more than happy with my first takoyaki experience," Brook said, sitting at the bar stool while drinking from a teacup. "Ah, pardon me." The skeleton then proceeded to fart and burp, one right after the other. I cracked up while Nami smacked him across the face.

Sanji called everyone back onto the ship for some tea, so we listened and went aboard. Camie informed everyone that we had to go to Sabaody Archipelago first before we went to Fishman Island. The question of how everyone would get to Fishman Island was brought up, since the shark submarine could not go lower than 5000 feet. The starfish started explaining that there were two ways of getting through the wall that is the Red Line. First of the two was with Navy permission through the city built on the Red Line, which would be impossible, plus we would have to abandon this beautiful new ship. Second of the two options: going through the sea route that goes to Fishman Island, which is dangerous, but we could take the ship this way by coating it. 

~~

"Alright! Look ahead! We're here, everyone!"

Everyone turned their heads upon the Pappag's (the starfish) call. Before us were huge vertically striped teal trees surrounded by floating bubbles. The leaves of the trees blocked out most of the sky above them from how large the plant was, and each tree had a patch of land connected to it where buildings resided. It was like an island made up of smaller islands. It was fascinating and beautiful, to say the least. We all gazed around us as bubbles floated overhead while the boat drifted through the water between the tree islands. Hachi began explaining that this was not actually an island, so it had no magnetic force to mess with the log pose, since it was actually just a cluster of trees that happened to create land beneath them due to their roots being exposed above water level. He said there was a total of 79 trees which were all labeled with numbers. Each tree island was connected by a bridge so people could go from one to the next if need be. We ended up docking further in, as Hachi suggested, at Grove #41.

"I'm off first!" Luffy chimed, jumping off the boat and running a bit ahead.

"Okay everyone, remember the number of this island! As I said before, all the islands are connected by bridges, so if you remember the number, you won't get lost," Hachi told the group as we got off the ship.

I walked beside Usopp and Chopper near the back of everyone. "I know someone who'd still get lost," Usopp muttered.

"He definitely will," I muttered.

"I think so, too," Chopper agreed, and we all turned around to look at Zoro who trailed behind us.

He grunted, "Huh? What?" All three of us sighed, causing him to repeat, "What?!"

We ignored him. The rest of us caught up with Luffy pretty fast, watching as he jumped on a bubble that sprouted out of the ground in front of him. Usopp and Chopper ran up to him upon seeing this, but I stayed with the group. Robin asked how the bubbles even work while our captain started jumping up bubbles. I was waiting for the explanation of how it works until a hand grabbed my upper arm. I looked to see who needed my attention, only to find out that no one was there. Just a stretched out hand.

It took me a second, but my eyes widened after I realized. I grabbed hold of the hand's wrist, trying to pull it off me until I felt my feet lift off the ground. "H-hey! Wait! Give me the optio-" Too late. I was thrown into the air and caught by rubber arms. "Ah, that wasn't as violent as I thought it'd be," I hummed.

Luffy laughed above me, stopping to grin widely at me, "(y/n), look how cool it is up here!" I looked down, seeing just how high he got just from jumping across bubbles.

Then, I looked at the bubble he was standing on; it was holding on for dear life. "Luffy, I think I'm too heavy to be on the same bubble as you. Let me go to another one," I said, pointing to a bubble floating beside him.

He looked at the bubble in thought, then looked back at me. "Don't worry, the bubbles are strong enough!" he assured.

"What the- just let me go to the other-"

"OI!" he ignored me and called down to everyone else, "I can see an amusement park over there!" He looked in the direction he was talking about. Chopper seemed to get excited about that, and he started talking to Camie about something. I have no idea, they weren't loud enough for me to hear. "Alright! Let's go higher! Then later we can both go on the Ferris wheel!"

I didn't have a choice, since he just started jumping up the bubbles. He got so high that we were above the tree tops now, but I couldn't see any bubbles that were higher than this one. Then, the bubbles around us started popping. "Oh no," I sighed out. I punched the side of Luffy's head, "This always happens when I'm with you!" He wasn't phased at all.

"Hehehe... Sorry!"

The bubble under us popped and we came crashing down towards the ground. When we got closer I was prepared to just activate my devil fruit, but I was caught in midair. Thankfully, not by Luffy. Speaking of him, I could hear Luffy crash into the ground a couple feet from me.

"I don't get why he always pulls you along when these things happen to him so much," Sanji growled above me, looking toward his captain, whose head was stuck in the ground from the awkward falling position he was in. "That aside... are you alright, (y/n)-swaaannn~!" Hearts were now in his eyes as he averted his eyes towards me.

I grinned and patted his cheek, "Yep, thanks to you." I jumped out of his arms. He was doing a little noodle dance while I turned to the others.

"By the way, Hachi, what did we come to this island for?" Nami questioned. "You said something about a coating for the ship earlier."

"Right. We'll go see a coating craftsman and have your ship coated in resin. In simple terms, it'll allow your ship to go underwater. That's the only way you humans can get to Fishman Island. But if you get an unskilled craftsman, the ship and its passengers will be crushed underwater, and that's the end. I know just one craftsman that you can trust, so I'll take you to him," Hachi explained. "In exchange, I need you to keep one promise for me."

"Sure, what is it?" Luffy chirped, rubbing his head that was now above ground.

"Sometimes, there are World Nobles walking around in town," the fishman began. When asked what those were, Robin explained. "No matter what may happen... promise me that you will not defy them. Even if you see someone die before your eyes... you must pretend you saw nothing. I'll say it once more. You must pretend.. you saw nothing!"

~~~

I was now riding a bubble. Yes. You heard me right. A bubble. Hachi told us to rent some rides while we went around the islands, and also to treat him and Camie like they were humans. We got no explanation for that, but we agreed anyway. When we first got these bubble bike things, Luffy was the first to try it. And when it worked, he tried to stuff me into his single person bubble with him already in it. For that, Nami punched him in the face for me. Hachi was driving a large version of this bike so Brook, Robin, and Camie rode with him.

Luffy and I kept ramming our bubbles together, and then we got distracted by a snack stand. Chopper and Brook joined us as we ate all of the samples, successfully pissing off the guy selling said snacks. After buying a bunch of souvenirs (mostly food), we came back to see that Nami had left with Robin to go shopping. This was great for us because then the trip to the grove we needed to get to was turned into a race. A highly competitive race between Hachi, Luffy, and I on our respective bikes.

The race halted when we saw the commotion in the town ahead of us.

"Who's that?" Luffy voiced.

There was a frantic man in the middle of a crowd of people. He was crying for help, saying he just wanted to go home and see his kid. The crowd did not seem to want to aid him whatsoever.

"Don't get involved, now. He's probably a pirate who was caught by kidnappers and then sold! His owners brought him to this island, and then he ran away! Even though he surely knows there's no escape!" Hachi informed.

My eyes widened, and then a ticking chime started going off in the direction of the man. The people around him started running away immediately. Everyone stared as the man cried out for someone to take off the collar, rattling it around on his neck violently. He stood there helplessly with tears falling from his eyes when his collar blew up. He had yet to fall to the ground despite the explosion that burned everything from the neck up, even the tops of his shoulders. The collar was still there, though.

"Slaves always have leashes around their necks  that are set to explode if the slaves try to remove them and escape," the fishman continued.

The man finally fell to the ground after that, unconscious. "What should we do Hatchin? There must be Celestial Dragons around..." Cami muttered.

Hachi wrapped an arm around her, "Don't worry, just stay calm, Camie." He looked at Luffy and I after that. "You two. Come down from the bubble bike."

"Huh? Why?" Luffy asked.

"Just hurry!" I jumped at the sudden panic in the octopus man's voice. I climbed down from the bike as he said, along with Luffy.

Some people started trotting down the grassy street. The towns people were all on their knees now, and Hachi instructed us to do the same. "Oh, my! How disgraceful, Saruu!" a woman's voice sang out. Saruu must have been the dog who was peeing on the former pirate's unconscious body. I know Hachi told us about bubble helmets earlier, but even the DOG has one? C'mon.

"Is that them?" Luffy murmured to Hachi. The two of them were in front of me. The fishman had told me to stay behind them and hide my face. He said that the Celestial Dragons would pick people off the street and make them slaves if they so chose, or even shoot them due to petty reasons.

A large slave was behind two white clad people, and a man in a full suit of armor followed after them. The white suits were ridiculous.

"Dear me, father, another one has broken down," the woman spoke smugly.

"Did you remember to give it a sedative every day?" the bearded man beside her questioned. Did he refer to that man on the floor as an it? I clutched my hands that were placed on my bent knees.

She walked forward and replied, "I most certainly did. It has no effect on the poor fool. Please buy me a new one!"

"You're terrible at taking care of them! You keep breaking everything in my ship captain collection..."

"It's this things fault," she continuously kicked the motionless man's body on the floor as she kept talking, "A grown man, always crying about family this, family that! When he's nothing but a mere human! Honestly, now!"

Surely, she could die just as easily as that man on the floor. Mere human my ass. The kicking sounds kept going. She didn't stop.

"He's not doing anything now..." Luffy growled through gritted teeth in front of me.

She pulled out a gun and pointed it at the man on the ground. "You make me sick." Two shots were fired into his body.

---No matter how irritating these Celestial Dragons were to watch, I LOVE this arc. So much. Not just because of the satisfying punch Luffy served to a Celestial, but rather the world building and the supernovas.