The poor girl is completely confused about what's going on, but tries to stay as quiet as possible so that she doesn't wake the other two people in the room.
Speaking of which, she blushes at remembering that this guy is holding her, then she nervously lifts up the blanket they're sleeping under. When she sees that both of them are wearing clothes, she's slightly relieved at the fact that she's still a virgin.
What fully calmed her down though, is when she feels her chest, she feels her family's necklace hiding under her shirt. The question still remains though, who the hell is the guy holding her?
She looks down at the arms around her waist, and grows bug-eyed when she sees that these arms are coiled around her waist in three loops! Either this dude is the most flexible man ever, or his body is elastic!
Her purple eyes slowly follow the arms' trail, until she spots the owner and gets a closer look at him. She cautiously brushes some strands of his black hair away from his handsome face, and is taken aback by the scar under his left eye. There's only one person that she knows of with an elastic body, and that scar, but she wasn't completely sure until she saw the legendary straw hat sitting next to the bed in wait for its owner.
She has to cover her mouth to keep herself from screaming, not only about the fact that she's in the One Piece world, but that Monkey D Luffy is cuddling with her!
She refused to lower her hand when she looks over at the other bed, where another person is sleeping, and even though she's looking at her back, she can tell from the orange hair that it's the Straw Hat Crew's navigator.
The whole situation is just getting weirder by the second, because if this is really the One Piece world, there's no way that they all of them would be so relaxed about her just appearing out of nowhere. Shit, she doesn't even remember seeing the Timore comet!
The astronomer rubs her aching head from the growing situation, but takes a deep breath to calm down and try to think over what she does know. From looking into the series up to the Davy Back Fight, she can tell that they're pretty close to that arc from how broken down the room looks.
Depending on if she's on an inhabited island or not, she can just get off the ship without them waking up, and no harm will be done here.
Before she can try to get out of Luffy's hold though, she hears stirring from Nami's bed.
Rose jolts in fear when she sees Nami starting to sit up, but doesn't make a sound when she looks around the room.
To the brunette's confusion though, she watches Nami look around as if she's seeing this room for the first time.
What's more, when Nami sees her staring at her, with Luffy's arms around her, she only has questions for her. "Who are you? How did I get here?"
"Shouldn't those be my questions? I thought you live here." Rose asks in pure confusion of why she's clueless.
Nami frowns at the deflected answer as she gets out of the bed. "What made you think that?"
"That picture." Rose points to the desk that holds a picture of Nami as a child with her sister Nojiko and their adopted mother Bellemere happily standing together.
Nami widens her eyes at the photo and holds it in her hands. There's no doubt that this is her family, but she still has no idea why she's here. She looks back at the other girl and drops her jaw when she sees the brunette scooching away from Luffy, but his stretched out arms won't let her go! "What the hell's wrong with his arms?!"
"He must have a fucking devil fruit! I don't know why we ended up like this, but I'm getting the hell out right now!" Rose answers as she keeps trying to pull herself free.
After a few seconds though, without her knowledge, she uses her powers to get his arms to phase through her, just when she was pulling to her right, and falls onto her side.
It's hard to say whether Nami or Rose are more surprised by the sudden escape, but neither of them have time to question it, because when Rose freed herself, the arms reeled back on their owner and hit him in the face!
The poor boy groans from being hit and slowly wakes up with a red mark on his face from the hit.
Both girls twitch when he sits up, but he looks just as confused as they are. "Who the hell are you guys?"
"THAT'S MY LINE!" Nami answers before she looks too Rose. "And you, I saw your body slip from him. What the hell's with you?!"
"How the crap should I know?! I'm as fucking confused as you are!" Rose answers in annoyance and accidentally creates a hot breeze to hit both of the pirates.
All three of them were shocked by Rose's mood breeze going off, but Luffy's reaction quickly changes to a happy one as he gets up. "That's so cool! How'd you do that?!"
"I have no idea..." Rose answers as she gets up, with more questions than ever before. She looks down at her arms, with surprise that her nails are now blue, and tries to pinch herself but finds that she's phasing through her arm.
While the two natives were surprised by this, Rose actually finds this relaxing because it all makes sense now. Even if she suddenly arrived to here through the comet, there's no way for her to gain powers without a devil fruit, but it's impossible if she just got here. Along with the fact that she doesn't feel any pain from her foster family's beatings, she comes to the conclusion that this is a lucid dream.
She grins at the new revelation, and decides to roll with it by giving the others a friendly grin. "I know this is all nuts, but it's better if we sort things out one at a time. My name's Rose, what are your names?"
After brief introductions, Luffy looks at the girls. "So, neither of you pulled me out of the water?"
"What do you mean?" Rose asks.
"The last thing I remember was leaving my island, but I got sucked into a whirlpool, so I got in a barrel to survive." He laughs at the crazy memory, but Nami couldn't believe what she's hearing.
"That's crazy. All I could remember was counting my treasure... What about you?" Nami asks towards Rose which causes her to jolt.
The last thing she remembers was celebrating Christmas, from over a year ago. After she received a beating as a gift from Rick the Dick, and got thrown out again, Boris, the landlord, was nice enough to let her back in the apartment, after the rest of them left to be with their relatives. However, he didn't stay with her, so she celebrated alone for the rest of the night by watching Christmas movies...
She shakes her head to forget that lonely memory and shrugs her shoulders. "Nothing that could've led me here."
She looks down at the red backpack, that she used as a pillow, picks it up, then looks to the others to drop the subject. "If none of us know about this place, how about we see if there's anyone else here? We might be able to get something to eat too."
"Yea!" Luffy answers before he runs out without them!
Nami blinks at the rubber boy's carelessness, and watches as Rose follows him with no intention of telling her what she remembers.
The redhead can't believe that they're both acting so calm about this, but there's nothing she can do except to follow them with her guard up.
As soon as the trio reaches the deck, they're met with a confused sniper, a scared humanoid reindeer hiding behind the mast, and a confused archaeologist who's being hit on by Sanji.
Robin ignores the chef's flirtatious works, and looks at the three newcomers. "There you are, we have a problem."
"And who are you?" Nami asks from the doorway, but only earns her Sanji twirling over to her and Rose because he thinks that the question is for him.
"My sweet, I can be the man of your dreams if you allow it. If you're free, what do you say to dinner?" Sanji answers as he gives both Nami and Rose a flower.
"Fuck no." Rose says before she steps away from the flirt, so Sanji can allow himself to keep charming Nami.
The redhead was not amused by his charm though, and pushes him away without a thought. "I'm not playing games, who are you people?! And what's with the raccoon dog?!"
"I'M A REINDEER!" Chopper yells out to the shock of Luffy and Usopp.
"IT'S A TALKING MONSTER!" They both scream out which scares Chopper into running away, with Luffy and Usopp chasing him, and completely pisses off Rose.
She grew angry enough for hot air to lift her a few feet off the air, and fly off her body, but she only thinks that she's dreaming it as she goes after them. "I'LL SHOW YOU A FUCKING MONSTER! COME HERE YOU SHIT CRAPPING BASTARDS!"
When Usopp and Luffy notice the hot air from behind them, they look back in horror to see Rose flying after them, with the scariest glare that they've ever seen! "AAAH!"
Chopper didn't look back, but instead ran up to the upper deck to hide in the tangerine trees when the boys direct their efforts to run for their lives from the menacing wind girl.
Robin, Sanji, and Nami sweat drop at the weird chase, and can tell that they won't stop anytime soon. After a few seconds, Robin decides to step in by using her powers to grow arms off the deck to grab Rose, Luffy, and Usopp's ankles.
The boys trip onto their faces, but Rose manages to keep her balance, when her wind stops lifting her up, and she lands on her feet. Instead of being surprised like the others, she looks down at the grown hands with excitement in her eyes from seeing Robin's power first hand. "Whoa, awesome!"
Despite the scared and shocked looks from everyone else, Robin only giggles at Rose's excitement as she releases her power, and tries to straighten things out. "Listen up everyone, we're on the Grand Line."
All of the East Blue natives were either shocked or horrified by the news with Rose and Chopper only being indifferent.
"You can't be serious right?!" Usopp asks in hopes that she's joking, but there's no sign of it on her face.
"I am, we've all been travelling for a while now."
"Travelling for what?" Luffy curiously asks, but instead of saying anything she points up to the crew's main flag.
As soon as Nami looks up at the pirate symbol, her eyes fill with rage from the fact that she's on a pirate ship. She had no problems with speaking her mind either. "Are you telling me that I'm travelling with pirates of my own free will?!"
"Not just travelling with us, you're a part of the crew, just like the rest of us." Robin calmly answers with most of them being surprised.
"NO WAY!" Nami answers furiously as she steps up to Robin. "I hate pirates! There's no way I'd travel with them, let alone join them!"
"Wait, I might have proof!" Rose answers which gets their attention to her.
Rose takes the red bag, that she took from her room, off her back and shows it to Robin. "This my backpack, right?"
Robin can tell where she's going with this, and gives her a slight nod. "That's right Wind-chan. Your photos should be in there."
The brunette ignores the weird nickname at the moment and gets on her knees while she opens the bag, finds an envelope, and takes it out to show Nami. "If I'm travelling on the Grand Line, pirate or not, I'd take pictures. If you guys are in them, then that should be enough proof."
Nami doesn't accept the compromise at all as she glares at her. "The pictures could be fake for all I know! That can't prove that I suddenly love pirates! The only things that I like are money and tangerines!"
"Like the ones up there?" Robin answers as she points up to the upper deck.
Nami follows her finger, ignores Chopper's look of fear, and is surprised to find tangerine trees on the ship. She widens her eyes when she recognizes the trees just when Robin grows an arm onto one of the branches.
Chopper yelps at the grown hand and hides deeper into the trees, just when Robin's hand picks up a fresh tangerine and tosses it to the navigator.
When Nami catches the fruit, and gets a closer look at it, there's no denying that this is her family's tree. However, none of this makes sense in her eyes. While it true that her last memory was of counting treasure, but it was the treasure she plans to use to buy back her home village from the pirates running it. She would never uproot them like this, even for an act.
"Well?" Robin snaps her out of it with her question, which brings the thief back on her guard.
She holds the tangerine protectively in her hands as she narrows her eyes at Robin. "These are Bellemere's tangerines, but this doesn't prove anything since I don't know why they're here."
"That I don't know, but back in the room you were sleeping in, you do have a log book. I'm sure you can find the reason there, along with another picture of your Bellemere." Robin answers, which gives her the chance to go inside.
As Nami goes back below deck, Rose starts to think about whether or not she should say anything about her past. Sure, this is all a dream, but Nami would probably think that she was lying to her just to keep her aboard.
Rose shakes her head to the thought, then looks to see Usopp and Luffy going upstairs where Chopper is. She rushes after them and catches up to them just as they find Chopper hiding behind a tree.
"What exactly is that thing?" Usopp asks, and receives a smack on the back of the head.
Usopp groans at the hit, and rubs it while seeing Rose scowling at him. "Don't be rude. He's not a thing, he's a reindeer."
"Cool!" Luffy exclaims and runs after Chopper, which leads the poor doctor back in another chase.
"Knock it off!" Chopper yells as he runs for it, but Luffy stretches his arms forward to reach under Chopper's armpits and lifts him up!
Usopp drops his jaw at the crazy power while Rose acts like this is something normal.
Chopper joins Usopp in the fear when he is reeled back until the arms return to their owner, leaving him only to kick his legs around helplessly! "Hey!"
Sanji watches the reindeer from the lower deck, and starts thinking of recipes while he's smoking. "You know, he could make a great stew."
"Yea!" Luffy answers, but before he could give him to the chef, or Rose could punch both of them in the face, Chopper begins to transform and make all the men speechless.
"I'M NOT FOOD!" Chopper yells as soon as he finishes transforming into his heavy point, pulls out of Luffy's hold, and punches him in the face to knock him down.
Chopper doesn't stop there, because before anyone can react, he turns to Usopp, and punches the right side of the floor to send him flying down to the lower deck!
Rose had to cover her mouth to smother the giggles she gained from watching the well-deserved hits.
Robin however, had no problem with giggling at the exchange before she looks to Sanji. "We can't cook him. He's our doctor."
Her comment gains everyone's attention as she continues while smiling up at the curious reindeer. "A very brilliant one at that."
Chopper immediately transforms into brain point from the praise, puts on a goofy smile, and starts dancing down the stairs where she is. "Shut the hell up! Being praised like that doesn't make me happy at all stupid jerk!"
"Sure seems that way to me." Sanji answers in indifference of the weird dancing.
Robin though, smiles at the adorable dancing and explains his powers to the others. "He's a reindeer that ate the human human fruit, so he has human capabilities."
"You have one too, right?" Rose asks as she joins them on the lower deck with Luffy following.
"That's right, I ate the flower flower fruit which allows me to grow limbs anywhere I want. Do you remember your devil fruit Wind-Chan?"
Rose remembers the strange nickname that she's been calling her, and points to herself. "Why am I Wind-chan?"
"Because you ate a devil fruit that allows you to control air. You can turn your body into wind as well."
She widens her eyes at this, then lifts her hand up to her face, and focuses until she turns her hand into an invisible breeze. "Oh my god, that's fucking awesome!"
She gets ready to try more stuff, but stops when she sees Usopp and Chopper's scared faces. Thanks to their fear, she starts remembering the cold eyes that she'd get all the time in her homeland, and loses all her excitement about her powers. She softly frowns as she turns her hand back to normal, while ignoring the confused looks from the others, and speaks up. "I don't remember getting them, so I guess I didn't have them long."
She looks over to the captain, to get the conversation away from her. "But I'd bet a thousand beli that you ate one too, right?"
"Yup, I ate the gum gum fruit, so I'm a rubber man." Luffy answers as he pulls his cheeks out to immeasurable lengths to prove his points.
While the boys were surprised by the demonstration, Rose stares at the awesome power with wide eyes, and a large smile before she applauds him.
For some reason that he can't explain, Luffy grows happy about her enthusiasm, and releases his cheeks from their hold while he laughs.
Robin also giggles, but at how well the amnesiac lovers are getting along, before she continues with her explanation. "Anyway, with one more person, we've been travelling as an eight member crew."
Sanji grows curious about this, but relaxes when he remembers the green haired man who was still sleeping in their room. "Was it the guy in our room?"
"That's right." Robin answers before she looks to the doorway that leads below deck. "You can come out now Swordsman-kun."
The others look to the door curiously when the muscular swordsman walks out with a usual scowl. No one, but the archaeologist, knows how long he was lurking, but Rose can guess that he was at least there after Nami came in, and was just waiting to know the situation.
Regardless, the swordsman just looked around at the band of freaks, before Usopp shakily pointed his finger at him. "S-state your name!"
"You're supposed to say your name before asking for someone's name." Zoro answers bluntly.
Usopp flinches from the intimidating looking guy, but Luffy doesn't hesitate to jump into the conversation. "I'm Luffy!"
The swordsman hums in curiosity when he looks at the carefree boy, but he has no problem with giving his name now. "Name's Roronoa Zoro."
Sanji widens his eyes at the answer, when he remembers that name in the newspapers. "As in 'Pirate Hunter' Zoro?"
Usopp flinches at the terrifying name, but Zoro could care less as he answers his question. "I've never took that name. It's what the World Government calls me."
"But you're still a bounty hunter, right? Shouldn't you be here to hunt pirates instead of travelling as one?"
"Hell, if I know. How famous are you guys?" Zoro asks, which doesn't calm down Usopp's fears one bit.
Instead, it forces him into going on the defense by lying his scrawny ass off! "S-so you are after us! Well bring it on! I, Captain Usopp, have eight thousand people under my command!"
"Really?!" Chopper asks in astonishment but most of the others can see through the lie.
Zoro however, calls his bluff by starting to unsheathe his sword with a demonic smirk. "Oh, then I bet you're worth a lot. I could use some food money, so I have no problem taking you on!"
Usopp flinches back from the accepted challenge, but before anything can be said, Rose steps up with her own demonic smirk. There's no way she'd waste the chance for a good fight, especially against the legendary swordsman, so she gets in a stance and beckons him to come forward. "If you're looking for a challenge, I'll be your opponent hedge head!"
That comment ticks him off enough to bring out two of his swords. "Bring it on bitch!"
The two amnesiacs charge towards each other to duke it out, with the others watching with a mix of shock or amusement.
When Zoro makes the first swing, he widens his eyes when his attack phases through her! "What the fu-?!"
Rose cuts him off by giving him a punch to the nose with enough force to reel him backwards.
Luffy laughs at the crazy hit, while Sanji and Chopper were surprised by how quick it was.
When Usopp sees that he's safe, he smirks in pride as he points to the wind girl. "That's right my loyal crew mate, keep following Captain-!"
"Shut up!" Rose yells out to him which gets him to lose his voice from the fear of being next.
The swordsman growls at the hit and charges at her, with the wind girl now going in with using her powers.
He tries to slash her with both swords, and receives the same result, but this time earns a blast of wind when Rose turns her right hand into a strong gust to send him flying backwards a few feet away from her until he lands on his butt.
Rose softly grins at the fight before she calls out to him. "It's obvious you don't have haki, let's stop."
Even though no one knows what haki is, they can tell that the swordsman won't just give up, so as he gets up, he gets his third sword out.
The boys grow curious when they see him putting the third scabbard into his mouth, and going into a stance for three sword style. "Big talk for someone so short. Let's see if you can face this air head."
"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU CALL ME?!" Rose asks with hot air flowing off of her.
Robin starts to wonder if she can stop this, just as the two start to charge at each other.
Before a single slash or punch could be thrown though, the sound of an engine going off fills the air.
Everyone looks to the door in confusion, but soon has to run to avoid getting hit by Nami's waver!
"Whoa, what's that?!" Luffy asks in excitement of seeing the cool Sky Island tool.
"It's a waver!" Rose answers, to Robin's surprise, before she sees the oversized bag that's full of the gold that was stored for Merry's repairs.
Nami doesn't know that's what the treasure's for, and doesn't care. All she knows right now is that this money can free her village, so she's leaving whether they like it or not! As she turns toward the water though, she doesn't feel the waver moving anymore.
When she looks down, she gives a surprised shriek when she sees that Rose used her powers to surround wind around the base of the small boat to lift it a few feet into the air!
"W-wow." Chopper says in amazement of the power when he sees Rose concentrating on her powers.
"Nice work Wind-chan." Robin says as she uses her powers to grow arms onto the waver.
When they go for the bag, Nami holds the end of it while holding onto the handlebars with the other. "Let go! I'm not staying here!"
"Why not?" Luffy asks as he steps up towards her.
"I already told you, I hate pirates! Nothing you say can change that!"
"What if Luffy saved your home village?" Rose asks which got them all confused.
Nami however, grows wary of the girl as she tightens her hold on her getaway vehicle, and goods. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about you joined this crew be-! be-!" She starts to feel an itching feeling in her nose, and before she knew it, she sneezed out a breeze that's so strong that it sent her flying to the back deck, with a loud crash following!
The gust also pushed Robin until she stumbled a few steps to her right, which broke her concentration to release her powers just as Rose's wind was released.
Nami doesn't hesitate to take this chance by steering towards the ocean, then uses the altitude that she's stuck in, to drive over the railing, and onto the ocean!
As Nami makes her escape, Sanji, Chopper, and Luffy rush to the back deck and finds that Rose crashed her back onto a barrel, and broke it!
Both boys can see that she's awake, since her eyes are wide open and she's breathing, but she doesn't give any signs of getting up.
Believing that she's badly hurt, the chef quickly goes to pick her up, but before he could touch her, she gently swats his hand away, and weakly gets up.
She doesn't say a single thing when she fully stands, with her bangs hovering over her eyes, and a frightened cold wind blows off of her body.
Before any of them could ask what was wrong, the sound of a loud splash could be heard from the front.
"What now?!" Sanji asks when he looks over the railing to see that Zoro sheathed his swords, tied them to his head, and dove into the water to swim to shore. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!"
The only answer Zoro gave him was silence as he kept on swimming to the shore, because he found being with them a waste of time. With no memory of why he was with them, he had no reason to stay with these freaks. He was better off going to the island to find where he was and figure out his next move.
"This is a problem..." Robin mutters, but there's nothing she can do to stop him because he's in the ocean, so she has no choice but to let him go.
"Hey, take it easy!" Luffy's voice rings out to Robin and Usopp's ears, which gets them to run to the back deck, where the others are, before they get hit by a blast of freezing cold wind hits them.
Usopp's teeth begin to chatter, as he holds onto his arms, then looks to see that Rose is the source of the strong wind. Seeing her just standing there, with her long brown hair flying up from her power, he grows fearful of what's going to happen. "W-what the hell's going on with her?!"
"Her mood breeze is going off! This happens when she feels a strong emotion!" Robin answers as she rubs her own arms to warm herself up.
"Do you know what emotion this is?!" Chopper asks with not feeling to cold thanks to his furry body.
"I think she's afraid, but I don't know why." Robin answers, and goes to try to talk some sense into her friend.
Before she could take a first step though, a flash of red rushes past her!
In a matter of seconds, everyone was shocked, except for Sanji who's horrified, to see that Luffy rushed towards the wind girl, while she's trapped in her thoughts, and pulled her into an embrace!
The sudden warmth from the hug snaps Rose out of her daze, and stops the mood breeze in its tracks. As soon as she knows who's hugging her though, her pale face becomes beet red before she steps away, and phases out of his arms.
Robin giggles at the interaction, and grows arms off the railing behind an angry Sanji, to grab his arms so he doesn't try to attack Luffy. While Sanji futilely struggles, while spitting out various curses to the rubber boy, Robin looks over to a confused Luffy with a calm smile. "Nice work Captain-san, how did you know that hugging her would work?"
A few of the others notice Rose stiffen from the question, but Luffy wasn't one of them when he shrugs to Robin's question. "I don't know, I just acted on instinct. That was the first thing I could come up with."
"Of fucking course..." Rose mutters which catches their attention. She looks up, with her blush gone, and finds that all of their eyes are on her, with a look of worry. Sadly, all she can feel from the looks and her situation is dread.
Thanks to the pain in her back, she knows for a fact that she's awake, and for some reason she joined the Straw Hats. She might not remember why, but she doesn't care.
In a situation like this, she has to do the one thing she does best. And that is to bolt out of the situation like a bat out of hell!
She doesn't say a single word as she runs past Luffy, Robin, and Usopp, with the speed she uses to avoid Bobby, jumps onto the railing like a rabbit, then takes a chance by jumping off the railing!
"Hey!" Luffy calls out when he goes to the railing to grab her, but just when he reaches the edge, Rose manages to float up to their level and a few feet from the ship.
She stumbles on her flight, and sways left and right, but she has no choice but to use this method to fly to the island. The further she gets from the Merry, the heavier her heart feels with the guilt, but she refuses to look back when she speaks up. "I'm sorry, but if I'm really awake, then I can't be here! Don't look for me!"
As soon as those words were said, both Rose and Luffy felt an unexplainable sadness, inside them. However, Rose knew that staying would just cause trouble, especially since she almost blurted out Nami's past. As soon as she reaches the island, she'll find a place to dig through her backpack and try to find some answers.
As she flies off to the green, mountainous, island, the others watch her go on her own.
When she's barely out of sight, Usopp gains enough sense to ask the question on his mind. "She thought she was dreaming this whole time?"
"She found herself on a strange ship, and suddenly got wind powers. I would've thought it was a dream too." Sanji answers calmly before he watches in sorrow as not just one, but two pretty girls left. "I wish they didn't leave though..."
"Don't worry, since both Navigator-san and Swordsman-kun are from East Blue, they probably don't know how a log pose works. They can't get too far on these waters without that information."
"What about the wind girl?" Usopp asks curiously.
"Sadly, I don't know where she came from, so she might know about them. Given her past antics though, she's probably going to find an isolated place to calm down. She really did take photos of our adventures, so hopefully when she sees them in her bag, she'll be back." Robin answers with a soft frown, because she honestly doesn't know what to do at this point.
Before she can find a solution though, a loud grumble from her captain's stomach.
"Hungry..." Luffy grumbles which just makes his mood grow worse by the second.
Chopper screams in fright, and goes back to hiding in the trees to avoid getting chased again.
All Sanji can do is sigh at the insanity around him before looks around for a door. "It might be better if we eat something, then come up with a plan."
When he can't find how to get in, he looks to the lovely woman, and grins. "I'm sorry miss, I don't think I caught your name."
Robin grins at the request, and is more than happy with him helping her. "My name is Nico Robin, follow me and I can lead you to the kitchen."
The chef gratefully follows her inside, with the others following, except for Chopper. Instead the reindeer stays in hiding until the other pirates are out of sight, then nervously stands outside the kitchen window to watch the pirates, and listen to Robin's tales of their past adventures on the Grand Line.
**********************************************************
As soon as Rose's feet touch the ground on the island's coastline, she runs as fast as her legs could take her into the lush forest. Even though no one's chasing her, she refuses to stop for anything. All she could hear was the raging thoughts in her mind about her current situation.
She can barely depict one idea after the other as they swirl in her mind, and make her more confused by the minute.
All the adrenaline pumping in her veins doesn't help her calm down, but it keeps her running for what seems like miles, until she reaches a clearing, filled with yellow flowers, deep in the forest. As her anxiety fades from the calming environment, a swelling exhaustion from the run takes its place, so she leans her side against a thick tree to catch her breath.
As soon as the anxious girl feels like she's calm enough to think, she takes backpack off, and drops it in front of her. "Let's see what I have to work with..."
She sits down cross-legged in front of the red bag and digs out each item to lay them out on the green blanket she had in there. At the very least, she can say this is her bag. No one else would hold so much stuff, from a group of dials to a small first aid kit, so she's always prepared. The only thing missing here is some food.
Rose chuckles when a thought of Luffy complaining about the lack of food pops up in her mind. As quick as that joy came though, she snaps herself out of it by shaking her head. She knows that she can't go back, so there's no point in thinking about the Straw Hats...
She quietly sighs at how things turned out, before she pulls a crumbled piece of paper out of the bag. When she gets a closer look at it, her purple eyes widen at the sight of it being her wanted poster. As soon as she saw her mom's maiden name on it, tears peeked out of the corners of her eyes from finding out where her mom came from. "Dammit..."
She chuckles to herself, wipes the tears with her free hand, and looks down at the name again. "Of all the fucking things, mom's a D. What's next, my doppelganger's a marine, and she gets with Coby?"
She laughs at the idea, that seems far-fetched to her, before she neatly places it onto the blanket, and digs out an envelope from the bag.
The brunette opens it, and isn't surprised to find a bunch of photos that she took from both her adventures in Alabasta, and Sky Island. "I guess I really did take pictures..."
She shuffles through each photo, with the occasional chuckle from seeing the happy moments captured during the crew's adventures. She doesn't see herself in the photos in their Alabasta adventure, until she sees herself standing with Nami and Vivi as if they're best friends.
The freckled girl was surprised at how happy she was in the middle of that photo, but then softly grins at imagining what she felt at that moment. Even though there's no doubt that she's been in this world for a while, and has traveled with the Straw Hats, there's still so many questions unanswered. Like how the crap did she agree to join them?
She softly sighs at how her work's cut out for her, and keeps shuffling through her clues. She stops when she sees a photo of her sitting next to Luffy's bed, where he's sleeping to recover from his fight with Crocodile. This picture can leave a bunch of questions in itself, because the way her past self is looking at him is as if she has a crush on him...
She shakes her head at the strange idea, but when she goes to the next picture, she drops her jaw at the sight. Her face grows pinker by the minute, the more she stares at the photo of her blushing self trying to escape Luffy's hold, but he has a tight grip of her in his sleep!
She grabs the photo of her staring at Luffy with her other hand, and shifts her eyes between the two photos to compare them. It's obvious that Luffy pulled her in on his own, but she wouldn't believe it if they weren't cuddling this morning. "Oh god, are Luffy and I a couple?! How is that possible?!"
"The hell if I know."
The brunette yelps in shock of hearing another voice, as her wind picks her up a few feet, then drops her on her but in a second! She looks up with wide eyes to see that the source was the man she fought on the ship with. "What the fuck man?!"
Zoro didn't give her an answer, but grows curious when the wind she made blew the wanted poster to his feet. When he picks it up, he knits his eyebrows at the photo before he looks to the scrawny girl in front of him. "How the hell can someone like you be worth 70 million?"
"Don't ask me, I just learned about it a few minutes ago!" Rose bites back, as she puts the photos back in the envelope, then stands up. "What the crap are you doing here, anyway?"
"I'm trying to find a town, but there isn't one on this island." Zoro answers as he looks around for a place to go.
Rose though, quirks an eyebrow at the answer before she takes her poster back. "You should've seen the town when you came to shore. Anyway, if you go left, you should find it."
He nods in understanding, but when he starts moving, he starts going right.
Rose couldn't believe that he's really this bad with directions, and has to bite the inside of her cheeks to keep her from laughing. She forces herself to put everything, but the photo envelope, back into her bag, then puts it back on, before she calls out to him. "Hey, that's the wrong way!"
Zoro stops in his tracks and gives her an annoyed scowl as she points in the right direction. "I can take you there if you want."
He narrows his eyes at the innocent looking girl, but if she has clues on his memories, then he should find out what she knows, even if she is a cheeky brat. "Try anything funny, and we'll finish what we started on the ship."
She lightly scoffs at the idle threat before she walks ahead. "We can finish that fight when we get our memories back, come on."
He follows along, and catches up to her side. "So, you really found pictures of those pirates?"
She nods before she takes the photo pile back out, holds it out so they both can see, and shuffles through them. "Yup, there are plenty here that have you in it too."
As he looks through all the photos, with him in about half of them with the crew, there's no doubt that he knew these pirates and has been travelling with them. Still, it's hard to explain why he can't remember, the last thing he remembers was sleeping on a boat in East Blue after he took down a bounty.
He scowls at the window of memories he lost before he looks to the wind girl. "This makes no fucking sense."
"Tell me about it, this is the last place I thought I'd end up." Rose answers as she puts the pictures back in the envelope.
Once she puts it in her bag, she knits her eyebrows in thought. "Still, almost every one of us on that boat lost our memories. It can't be a coincidence."
"The only one who didn't was that woman in purple right? Could she have done something?" Zoro asks but Rose can only shake her head to his theory.
"Not possible. Robin's power is only sprouting hands. Even if she did have a way of doing it, I can't see a reason for her to..."
She looks around the island, then looks ahead. "There has to be something with this island. I've seen a lot of crazy fucking places, and one that has some kind of memory stealing wizard wouldn't surprise me. After we reach the town, I'm going to find the redhead, and see if she saw anything there. Will you help me with..."
She trails off in thought, when she looks back and finds that Zoro is nowhere to be found! "HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU GET LOST WHEN BEING GUIDED?!"
She flies up to try to get a bird's eye view, but his grassy head practically blends with the green forest. She runs a hand through her brown, unruly bangs, and groans in disbelief at how she lost him.
She looks at how small the island is, even though she's flying just above it, and slightly calms down. "He can't get too far on his own. At least I showed him the photos. Hopefully, I'll get better luck with Nami..."
The brunette sighs at how crazy her day has been and flies over to the coastal town, with half their buildings being made of coral.
As soon as she got close enough to the town, she noticed some of the shocked stares from the civilians, so she quickly lands on the port. She ignores how they're still looking at her, and walks deeper into the town.
"That was an interesting entrance miss. What an amazing power."
Rose stops herself when she gets out of the port, and sees a smiling, young, boy, wearing a cap over his long, wavy blue hair, and a cloak over his shoulders. The oddest thing she noticed though, was that he's holding a pink horn, that looks exactly like a sea horse.
She doesn't know what to make of this kid, but tries to see if he can help her by giving him a small grin. "Thanks, I ate a devil fruit. What kind of a horn is that?"
He looks down at the pink instrument, with red patches on the back of the blue-eyed seahorse before he looks up at her. "It's an heirloom. What brings you here?"
"I'm looking for my friend. Have you seen a girl around my age, orange hair, and riding a weird land boat?"
He nods to her question, as he looks back to the docks where a group of worn down boats are held. "She tried to find a boat, but she found that they wouldn't last on the Grand Line."
Rose visibly tenses at how extreme she took her memory loss, but didn't say anything when he points to the direction of a hill with a cluster of coral made buildings. "If you go up that hill, there's an inn on the third building to the right. Your friend asked me directions to go there, so I think she'll stay the night."
Rose nods to the directions before she heads off, and waves at the kid. "Thanks for the help."
He waves her off, with an innocent smile on his face, that is obviously a mask to the wind girl. She can easily tell that the kid is hiding something, because she can't shake the feeling that something is off with him. For some reason, she gets a bad vibe whenever her eyes land on the horn, so she'll do her best to stay on guard.
With that goal in mind, she heads up the hill in hopes of finding the navigator.
As soon as she is out of the boy's line of vision, a small smirk makes his way to his face as he makes his way to the woods. While he walks away, with no people to hear him, his mind trails to the taste of the wind girl's memories that he stole last night. "Of all the memories to devour, I'd never thought a demon's memories would taste so good. It felt so much more powerful from all those other worlds she looked into. I couldn't even stop myself from taking an extra year or two's worth of memories from her. And not just her, those pirates have so many wonderful memories together that they make up more of a meal that this island ever could."
He can't help himself from snickering as he looks up to see that the sun will set soon. "With them confused, there's no way they're going to leave. I should have what I need in a few nights."
His smirk couldn't be any wider from the plan as he goes deeper into the forest to lay low until he can catch his prey once again. All he needs to do is wait for them to fall asleep again.
***************************************************
After a painful check in with a confused manager, Nami sits alone on her bed in an inn to fully read over the log book that she took from the Merry.
As she reads through each page, that holds her own handwriting in it, she forces herself to acknowledge that she did travel with this crew. However, with there being no information about her hometown on here, there's no way she can accept that she would be in their crew. Not with her believing that her home village is still under siege by an evil crew...
The redhead groans at the confusing situation, and puts down the book, just when a knock can be heard from her door.
Nami flinches at the sound, in fear that it's the pirates from this morning. With that risk being too high, she wants to ignore it, but the knock is stubbornly being made with no signs of stopping.
After a minute of continuous knocking, she grows irritated enough to go answer. She carefully inches towards the door, takes a look in the peep hole, and flinches back when she sees Rose's distorted face through it.
When Rose heard the sound of something heavy being moved from the other side of the door, she stopped knocking and called out to her. "I know you're in there Nami. Open up, I just want to talk."
"Hell no, you freak!" Nami calls from the other side and rushes to grab her stuff.
Rose grows angry at the insult, and tries to open the door, but it's locked, so she takes a few steps back to break in. "You asked for it, you bitchy ginger!"
Nami jolts at the sound of her roar, and packs her journal, just when Rose runs to the old door that's filled with cracks.
She keeps roaring when she bull rushes the brown door. However, when she made contact, she didn't touch the wood! Instead, her air-like body seeped into the cracks for her to phase past the door!
Nami jumps backwards onto the bed from the sudden arrival, while Rose trips on her face from the sudden use of her powers.
The thief takes this chance to run, by grabbing her bag, and heading to the window, but before she can make the jump, she suddenly feels her feet lift off the ground! She knows that she's caught again, but refuses to give up the treasure, so she wraps her arms around the bag protectively. "You're not taking my treasure!"
"Did I say that I was here for the goddamn treasure?! Just calm the fuck down!" Rose answers as she uses her wind to float her just above the bed, then drops her on the mattress.
Nami sits up while pushing the bag behind her, and glares at the intruder. "Then what the hell do you want?!"
Rose takes a deep breath through her nose to help herself calm down, and not kick her ass. Once she's calm, she puts her bag on the floor, then takes a seat on a nearby chair. "Like I said, I just want to talk. The sooner you answer my questions, the sooner I'll leave, without your treasure, ok?
Nami slightly calms down at the offer, and that she doesn't want the treasure, but she still sees her as a dirty pirate. She still sits in the way of Rose's view or the treasure, and gives her a look of disdain. "Fine..."
The brunette takes the rough answer, and gets to the point. "I know that something on the island caused our memory loss, but I don't have anything to go on. Did you see anything strange when you got to town?"
Nami slightly tenses at the question and quickly recalls what happened when she made it into town. "The entire town is weird! When a newspaper was dropped in the square, a whole mob came by and fought for the newspaper!"
Rose widens her eyes to this, as if she's actually surprised, then tiredly sighs. "Looks like the town's affected too. If they're fighting for newspapers like that, then, wait..."
She trails off when she thinks back on the kid she saw with the creepy horn. If the kid was a local, then he would've been just as confused as the others, but he acted perfectly fine. That feeling she got from the horn can't be a coincidence either, he has to be the wizard! "That little shit!"
Nami grows confused by the outburst as she watches her get up.
"I gotta go hunt down a lead. I ran away from those pirates, when I realized that I wasn't in a dream, so don't think I'll go ratting you out."
She turns to leave, but with a surge of courage, Nami blocks her way to the door to get her own answers. "You fucking thought that it was a dream?!"
"I woke up on a random ass ship, with a bunch of people I never met, and a crazy ass devil fruit. I had to either be in a dream or I lost my memories." Rose answers bluntly but the redhead won't have it.
"Then tell me, what were you going to say when you tried to stop me from escaping?" Nami asks with suspicion in her eyes.
Rose however, wears a completely indifferent mask, to hide the anxiety she has when she remembers the fact that she almost blew her secret. "I did just say that I thought I was in a dream, right? I was going to say some random crap that I thought would convince you that you belonged with them."
Nami is taken aback by the explanation when Rose digs the photo envelope out of the bag, and takes a few pictures of Nami with the crew out of them. "And judging from these, I was right in that you belong there."
She takes the photos and widens her eyes at the sight of her playing on a cloudy island with them, having a pillow fight, travelling with them, and posing with Rose and Vivi. "What the hell?! You really had..."
She trails off when she looks up from the photos to see that the brunette's not in front of her. She looks behind her to see that the door is left open, from the intruder running off without a word.
The redhead quickly closes the door, and locks it for her own sense of safety, then lets out a breath that she didn't know she was holding. "That girl gets weirder by the minute..."
Even with that comment though, when she looks down at the photos, it's hard to argue with her. They don't look fake at all, and some of these places matches up to the places described in her journal. "Shit!"
She slams them face down on the counter, then puts her treasure on the floor to make room for her to belly flop onto the bed. All of this stuff is just crazy to her, because there's no possible way for her to agree to be a pirate, unless... *What if Luffy saved your home village?!*
As she replays what the wind girl asked her, she starts thinking that she may be right. There's no possible way she would abandon her home village to travel with pirates. If they were somehow able to take down Arlong's crew though, and she grew to like them, she might've actually joined them...
She groans at the stupid possibility, that's seems impossible in her eyes, and wraps herself in the blanket. All she needs is some sleep to help her calm down. With a clear head, she can find some answers tomorrow, or at least a way to get back to her hometown.
***********************************************
After hours of searching through the island, Rose is at a loss for where that kid with the sea horse horn could be hiding.
Every local in town barely knew where they were, let alone where the kid could be, so she was on her own for this search.
She even searched through the woods and mountains, but there's no sign of where that kid could be.
At the moment, she's sitting on a cliffside, eating a couple of red apples that she found in the forest, and watching the sun finish setting, as well as the ship that she woke up in this morning.
As she stares at the Going Merry, she still has a hard time wrapping her head around it all. To her she was just in New York yesterday, trying to survive, then suddenly she's a Straw Hat pirate, with a 70 million bounty, and possibly dating the future pirate king.
Just the thought of her and Luffy being a couple is enough to make her blush, but she can't accept it. Of all the awesome people in this world, there's no way someone like her could get him to fall for her. She had to have misread the photos, because he deserves someone way better. Her running away when she knew she was awake was proof enough...
The brunette softly frowns at the thoughts about herself, and buries those negative feelings in her mind. There's no time to be thinking about shit like that. All that's important right now is to find that kid and get their memories back.
As soon as she finishes the last apple, she gets up to continue her search, but finds that it'll end pretty soon. The reason for that, is because when she looks at the docks from her spot on the cliffs, she can see the child, with the horn in his hands, walking to the docks. "There you are..."
She tries to create a gust, to pick him up, but nothing happens, so she flies towards the docks to get a closer range. As soon as she flew off the cliff though, she hears the sound of a splash, and sees that the kid dove into the water. "Why the fuck would he take a swim at this time of..."
She trails off when she looks towards the ship, and figures out that he's going to finish what he started! "Crap!"
She flies towards the Merry, to warn the others, but as soon as she gets close enough to the ship, she hears a terrible noise from the horn that makes her cover her ears. She stumbles in her flight from lack of concentration, but pushes herself enough to reach the back railing of the ship while the other pirates writhe from the noise.
The brunette grabs onto the railing, and looks to the front of the ship where the kid is standing on top of Merry's head, while he's using his horn on them. "I fucking knew it..."
She swings over the railing, to get on the back deck, but before she can do anything, Luffy stretches towards the figurehead to get him.
The kid flinches back when he sees the rubber man slingshot towards him, so he kicks his hand off the horn while he was in mid-flight. The pressure from the hand reeling back doesn't stop Luffy, but instead flips him in the air, until he kicks the horn down from his hands and onto Merry's head.
Rose bites the inside of her cheeks to keep herself from laughing at the flip, but her urge to laugh quickly fades when she sees a blue, glittery, smoke seep out of the horn and envelopes Luffy.
"LUFFY!" The others rush over to the smoke, where Luffy fell unconscious, when the kid makes a dive for the ocean.
"Oh no you don't!" Rose catches the kid on a gust of wind, just an inch before the ocean, which catches everyone's attention.
Robin and the others watch the kid fly over their heads, and over to the back deck where Rose is.
"Hand over the horn, you little shit." Rose says, with a menacing glare in her eyes, and reaches out for the approaching kid.
The child trembles at those frightening eyes, but he won't lose! Just before Rose can touch him, he takes a deep breath and gives off a loud, eerie tune from the horn!
Every conscious pirate, holds their head to the horrible tune, but Rose refuses to release her captive. She lifts her head in rage, but when she looks at who she's holding, her blood runs cold. That's because instead of seeing the little troublemaker, she sees an adult, white, burly man, wearing all black, his dark blue hair in a ponytail, and a demonic smirk on his face. "How long has it been kid, seven years?"
The only one who could hear this was Rose, because for the others, all they see is her still holding the kid right in front of her, while a strong whirlwind of cold air surrounds the two of them!
Robin tries to approach them, but the wind is so strong that she's afraid of getting blown away if she goes up the stairs. "WIND-CHAN SNAP OUT OF IT!"
Rose however, can only hear her heart practically beating out of her chest, because this middle-aged man is the monster that destroyed her family. She can only feel her body tremble in a cold sweat when he points the gun, in his left hand, to her face. His smirk couldn't get any wider, as he reaches for her necklace with his free hand. "This really is a replay of what happened. This time though, I'm going to take what I need, then help you rejoin your folks in hell."
That mention of how he shot her parents, replays the image of her parents' being shot multiple times by this man, and snapped her out of her frozen state. Her fear quickly morphed to a blind rage, which breaks down her whirlwind, and gives her the chance to use her hot wind to throw her parents' murderer into the ocean! "YOU'RE THE ONE WHO'S GONNA DIE, YOU MOTHERFUCKING MURDERER!"
As she watches him go into the water, without a single shot made, she catches her breath from the anxiety attack she had, and grabs onto her family's necklace for security.
"Are you alright?!" Rose snaps out of it from Robin's voice, then sees the others looking at her with a mix of confusion and concern.
She shakes her head to try to forget her trauma, then looks around for the memory wizard. "Where's the kid?!"
"You just threw him in the water, what's wrong with you?!" Usopp calls out to her, while hiding behind Robin.
Rose widens her eyes at what he said, then looks back at where she threw him, and realizes that the kid played a mind trick on her. She grows completely furious from how he dug up her memories of a day that she never wanted to relive, and starts flying on hot air. "I'M GOING AFTER THAT LITTLE SHIT!"
She flies off without any regard for Sanji and Robin's calls for her to come back, and reaches the island. With how fast he was to get to the ship; she has no doubt that he would reach the island already. And her suspicions were right when she saw fresh footprints on the forest coastline.
After the furious girl lands on her feet, she runs further inland to go after her prey with newfound motivation. It was one thing for him to take her and the crew's memories, but after what he did to her, this became personal. "I'M COMING FOR YOU, YOU FUCKING BASTARD!"
TO BE CONTINUED