Prompt: You can go to any fictional world, but you become the opposite sex.

This is the first ocean cruise I've ever been on. People make such a bit thing about cruises but this one sucks royal rabbit eggs. The boat is slow, the people are kind of annoying, even Nami (who was one of exactly two reasons for getting on this crab boat in the first place). I can understand her not really caring about me. I mean, she doesn't know me from Adam wood and I'm obviously broke. There was no need to mention my third strike here, so I won't.

I seriously cannot wait until Luffy and his ill-fated barrel show up. While the food is okay, I've already sampled everything and it's all kind of meh after the third day.

At this point, a brief review of events from my point of view might clarify any questions you might have for me and kill about ten minutes of sitting and waiting. Two birds with one stone, yeah?

My name is Mercy DeWitt, following the Western convention. Now, you might be asking yourselves 'Now why does a guy like this have a girly name like that?' Well, that's prior to coming to this world, I was a girl, at least physically speaking. Ask my dad or my step-mom and they would have told you all about my 'femininity failure'. As evidenced by that last sentence, it wasn't a nice place. I didn't really have any friends to make it easier, but I did have books. Mostly a lot of manga from the library that teenaged boys had drawn lewd details on (I'll leave exactly what up they drew and where to your imagination.) One of my favorite series was One Piece. You can see where I'm going here, but I'll go on regardless.

Well, somebody somewhere found this magic portal. Now, my world is boring most of the time. Dead boring or dead depressing, those are the two speeds. The boring is kind of boring that you feel killing you slowly over the course of years or a really long lecture. The depressing just comes from people being scum for no reason at all. The 'magic-just-goes-there-to-die' kind of boring. So this magic portal was Big News, capital letters. They figured out pretty quick that it hooked up to different worlds and that people could go through it without dying. Nerds (myself included) were lined up for miles. There was just this little side-effect of your genes doing a little dance during the trip and gender-swapping you somewhere along your trip though the rabbit hole.

Not that many people complained about it. I mean, you get a chance to go to Paradise at the cost of a lifetime of periods and a pair of 'okay I guess' boobs, you jump on that shit like a kid in a ball pit.

Besides the magical sex change, I don't look that different. My hair is still a black-brown mess that doesn't follow any law of gravity, my eyes are the same color I was born with (again with the brown-black of the nondescript), I'm only slightly taller than I was as a girl (five foot nine instead of five foot seven, fucking amazing growth spurt there), I'm still a skinny little fuck and all of my scars are still in place.

I'm really happy about being just about the same size, because I simply cannot afford to replace all of my clothes. I was never a skirt kind of girl, so I'm mostly lounging around in dress shirts, pinstripe knee shorts and a pinstripe fedora (an actual fedora, ala Indiana Jones, not a trilby. I hate trilbies with every fiber of my soul.) Did I mention that I love pinstripes? Well, I do. Not only do they carry the personage of an old time gangster, but they also make me look taller! Win-win, right?

So yeah, that's my story up to now pretty much. I'm pretty sure that there are more than a few people who are going to try the same thing that I have, but it's kinda to be expected here. How many musicians does one crew need? I feel like the answer is all of them, but I'm an enthusiast, so I'm more than a little biased.

I get up from the deck chair that I'm been napping in for the last hour, stretching out even as a crew member runs pass me with a hook on a rope. I almost missed Luffy's arrival, but my weird streak of good luck seems to be holding out for now. Holding onto that reassuring feeling, I follow the barrel below decks before the first volley cannonballs strike. "Showtime," I say with a smirk as I slip into the pantry that I know Luffy will slip into as soon as he gets out of that barrel.

While I'm here, I decide to stuff my bag with food. Knowing what I do about the protagonist of this nautical adventure, we're gonna need it. I ignore the racket that is coming from the other room. I might not have born in this world, but two months of sleazy living in the filthiest of dives, waiting for a specific redhead to board a specific ship is a hell of a way to acclimatize to general chaos.

As soon as I see a straw hat come through the door, I toss him an apple as a gesture of good will. Luffy catches it effortlessly and promptly eats it, even as Coby gives me a shocked look. I toss him an apple too before taking a chunk out of mine. "Hey."

"Hey!" Luffy garbles through his apple-mush.

"Hi…" Coby said uncertainly before looking at Luffy. "So… are you two going to introduce yourselves or anything?"

"Monkey D. Luffy. I'm gonna be King of the Pirates." He said as he started attacking another bushel of apples.

I gave Coby a casual salute. "Mercy DeWitt. I'm gonna be Luffy's first mate as soon as he gets a boat."

Luffy blinked before going back to his eating. "Oh, okay."

I sweatdropped. 'That was easier than expected.'

"So… are you like brothers or something?" Coby ventured.

Both me and Luffy gave him a confused look. "Where'd you get that idea?"

"Well, you both have the same general face and hair… and the same D."

I have to fight down a snicker at the unintentional innuendo, but Luffy has no such compunction. But I'm pretty sure that he isn't getting the same joke that I am.

"Pretty sure that we aren't. This is the first time we've met." I say, even as I rifle through the dried meats.

"Yeah, this Witty guy isn't Ace." Luffy says helpfully, completely missing the point.

"So why are you so friendly if you just met?" Coby is trying so hard to make sense of this situation that I'm starting to feel sorry for him. The poor little pinkette is trying to apply logic to Monkey D. Luffy. It just doesn't work…

"Enemies don't give you food."… Unless the logic applied is Luffy Logic, and then it is the only thing you can go on when it comes to Luffy's thought process.

I intercede before Coby's head explodes. "But enough about us, what about you?"

"Ah… I'm the cabin boy of the Alvida Pirates, Coby."

"Ah, so you aren't that important." Luffy nods sagely even as I swat his head.

"That was mean! He's just a—How old are you?" I asked.

"Thirteen!"

"You're freaking short and kind of a wimp, but the whole point of being thirteen is growing up, learning, hitting puberty, and becoming taller." A sage, I am not claimant to be.

"You started out just as rude as Luffy-san, got inspirational and then completely lost track of what you were saying." Coby muttered as he sweatdropped. "But it's not important. I'm a nothing. I'm a wimp and I'll probably die as her cabin boy. I'm gutless."

"Then leave." Luffy said. God bless the straight forward thinkers of the world.

"You've never seen her! She's scary! My legs go weak just thinking about Alvida and her mace… I'm useless and a coward."

Luffy nodded sagely. "Damn straight. I don't like people like that."

"I don't like me much either." Coby murmured.

"Ooohkay, this is depressing. Wanna talk about something else, like how your boss is a major bitch, what you'd like to do to her (please keep it G-Rated because I don't need those kinds of images), your dreams or some sentimental shit like that?" I smile brightly, even as I stuff my bag with even more food.

"I… I would like to become a Marine… and catch criminals like Alvida! This has always been my dream!" Coby found a moment of confidence to strike a heroic pose.

"Ah, so we'll be enemies!" Luffy chirped in, his finger knuckle deep in his nose. "Since we're pirates."
"Yeah, he's aiming to become King of the Pirates." I add, even as I pick apple skin out from between my teeth. "He's stubborn enough to pull it off too. We just need a boat and some more crew."

Coby blanched. "That… that's a death sentence! Do you know how many pirates are trying to find the One Piece? You'd be eaten alive!"

I feel a need to correct him, but Luffy catches the chance first. "I'm willing to die in pursuit of it. I'm stronger than I look and I will get stronger if it means that my nakama are safe."

I settle for lamely adding, "What he said."

Coby started crying. "Do you think I can do it?"

"I wouldn't know!" Luffy and I chorused.

"I'm gonna try! I'd rather die trying to escape than live on in fear! And I'll become a Marine and arrest people like Alvida!"

"What did you say, you little punk!" Suddenly the entire ceiling is gone. I forgot how fucking insane some of the early action was in comparison to reality. I blame it on how fucking insane the series was when it hit the New World.

Alvida manages to look worse in person than she did in the manga. I am honestly amazed by this fact. "And who are these chumps? Bounty hunters plotting to take my head? You'll pay for this one, Coby."

"Who's the fat shrew, Coby?" Have I mentioned how much I love Luffy? Because I really do in moments like these. He opens his mouth and pure gold spills out.

I decide to play along to indulge my nastiness before I'm thrown onto a boat for a week with a moron and a whiner. "Yeah, who is this old hag? I'd think I'd remember a face as ugly as that if she was important."

I never thought that it would be possible to hear someone's last nerve snapping, but it was like a gunshot in the shocked silence. I have never been so pleased with myself for being evil.

"Coby, who is the most beautiful woman in the all the world?" Alvida rumbles dangerously, like an oncoming foundation-shaking, nose-breaking fart.

Coby grit his teeth, tears in his eyes, before following my suicidal charge without hesitation. "IT AIN'T YOU, YOU FATASS, RATCHET BITCH!" I don't know if I loved Coby at all before this moment, but there isn't a question about it now that I'm experiencing this golden moment in person.

Luffy promptly lost his shit and started laughing his ass off. Alvida was still in the process of losing her shit and crushing Coby to paste. Coby's shit was lost ten minutes ago and he's crying in anticipation of death. I've already moved behind Cody to rescue his white-bread ghetto self just in case Luffy forgets to catch his enemy's weapon with his head.

I shouldn't have worried. Luffy's good at playing the hero, even though if you called him one, he'd freak out and deny it. It's beautiful how he effortlessly destroys Alvida; breaking her mace, her confidence and then the sound barrier using the legendary wide-load herself.

We steal the boat and crash it into the water. I smile and wave at Nami as we pass her and she flips me off. Perhaps that 'Happiness Punch' joke that I had leveled on her when we first met hadn't been the best ice-breaker, but it was still worth it.

A lifetime of living in the corners makes a lifetime of crazy-ass adventure all the sweeter, I find.