Chapter 1

A.N.: Hello, Readers! My name is CaptainPrivate, and I am pretty new to this whole writing thing. This is my first story, and if I'm being honest, I was scared about writing. But, the Cross-Brain's This Bites! got me to swallow my fears and do it, so enjoy!

Chapter 1

"Gum Gum…" The haki-black arm of one Monkey D. Luffy cocks back, folding in on itself like a massive rubber spring. His torso bulged out like some comical joke, but the speed he had shown just panels before confirm that Fourth Gear was no joke.

"RRRAAAAAAAGH!" bellows one Donquixote Doflamingo, throwing every string in Dressrosa at the legendary captain of the Straw Hat Pirates, desperate to halt the raw power of the opposing force.

"King Kong…" Luffy huffs, steam hissing from every pore in his body, his reddish-black skin glowing with heat, and the contraction of his fist into his forearm reached its apex.

"STRAAAW HAAAAAT!"

"GUN!" and with that, the game was over.

My heart jumps as I read the masterful dialogue and take in the beautiful art style of one Eiichiro Oda. That was an amazing fight, I grin, the sun beating down on my face. The thoughtful manga writer really had forged an amazing universe, almost as well with the pen as Shakespeare had with words. He did good, and was now a man that I look up to for his prowess in writing. In fact, I've been following the story for, what, is it two years now? Oh, how time flies.

"Hey, dipshit," a voice sounds behind me, "Get up, we're going out on the boat."

"Fuck off," I groan, and without looking up from my phone screen, I flip the finger in the speaker's general direction, "I'm reading," the person I am flipping off is Nate, my brother. And my brother, to say it simply, is a dick. However, because he's my brother, I still love him. Don't tell him I said that.

"Well, then what're ya reading?" I feel the blight of my life's chin on my head, and I instantly click the power button on the side of my iphone 6s.

"That is something that you don't need to know," I grunt, bucking my head back. My skull hits the bottom of his chin, and he jerks back, surprised.

"Woah!" he snorts, "Someone is on their period!"

"Yeah, well…" my brain shorts out, and I come up blank. Come on, Ian! Think! "Fuck you," well done, Ian, well fucking done.

My brother thinks the same thing, and slaps the back of my head, "Nice going, Dumb and Dumber," he shakes my head around, jiggling my grey matter around and about.

"Stop," I mumble, irritated, "I don't wanna go out on the boat, and you can't make me."

Always proving me wrong, my brother wraps both of his arms underneath my armpits, and lifts. "Up and at 'em! Gramps gave us this boat, and we're using it!"

I tried to struggle, I really did, but you see, my brother is easily ten times stronger than I am, and I am a weak bastard, so there was no choice but to slather on more sunscreen and venture into the great beyond on some old-ass boat.

"Why do I have to, though?" I whine as I trudge through the sand, easily my least favorite part of the beach. As episode II states: it's coarse, rough, and gets everywhere.

"Because," my brother runs his fingers through his light brown hair, his slightly sunburnt skin cooking in the harsh light, "Mom said that we have to spend more time together, and I don't want to open that particular bag of poisonous snakes."

"Venomous," I correct him, "Seriously, if I didn't know you, I would say that you never went through Sophomore Biology."

My brother is someone that I've learned to live with, mainly due to the fact that he's shorter than me. Not by much, but juuuust enough that I can brag about it. Unfortunately, that usually ends with me getting punched in the gut. He has hazel eyes, unlike my blue, and is much thicker than I am. I don't mean with fat, I mean muscle. The guy is jacked, and the fact that he's a dick to me and only me is very worrying whenever he's around. We arrive at our Grandpa's old rowboat, the Nicholas II, and clamber in. Everything was how I remembered it to be; the polished oars, the freshly coated interior, the ornate bow. For an old ship, my grandpa really put some effort into keeping it seaworthy.

"Well, dipshit," my brother sighs, "Ya ready?"

"Yeah," I rub the polished wood of the bow, remembering the way the old man had taught me all I know about ships and how they work. He had died a few weeks ago, and he had left me and my brother each half of the boat. So today, we were going out on a short trip to the island he had always taken us when we were younger, to spread our portion of his ashes off the cliffs there. I know it's disrespectful to whine and complain about a trip like this one, but I've always done that to Nate, and I ain't stopping now!

Nate pushes the small rowboat into the waves of the Pacific, water spraying onto me. Grandpa, I hope you like it, I stare at the bright blue water, clear and clean. This place was always good for a swim, but I didn't feel like it today - it was too calm, too pristine to disturb, so instead, I just sit here and wait for the waves to carry us.

"What do you think?" my brother grunts, and I glance back, "Will those clouds make it to us?"

Indeed, a cluster of dark clouds was making its way toward us, the mist-like rain creating a hazy screen, with rainbows poking out every now and then as the sun glints. "No, I doubt it," I respond, and we sit in silence after that, the storm slowly gathering in the distance.

The stupor I am in is shattered as the boat bumps against the rocks of the island shore. "We're here," Nate grunts as he hops out, causing the boat to sway. He splashes down, and pulls a crude leather bag out of his pocket; the bag my grandpa made to hold his ashes. I follow, the freezing water sending a chill up my spine, and I shiver in the warm summertime air. Despite being so far north, Oregon is quite warm in the summer, but the water still freezes like a bitch.

"So," I begin as I splash onto the rocky shore, my sandals sloshing water left and right, "Shall we begin?"

"I believe we shall," and with that, we began our journey. The island was humble, pretty much a rock in the ocean, but grass and bushes supported a pretty diverse amount of wildlife, primarily rabbits and small birds. When I was younger, this place felt like a country, ready for me to explore. Now, coming back, this place was tiny.

"Which cliff was it again?" Nate asks me, looking around the rocky path we walk, "I don't remember."

"It was the one with the tree he planted," I respond with little to no enthusiasm. It wasn't anything that I wanted, saying goodbye. It hurt, because I never did anything with him, my grandpa. At every chance that allowed it, I would always go off and play video games, ignoring the old man, and I didn't think about what losing him would be like. I took him for granted, thought he would always be there, but the strength and power that made the old man himself, it didn't help against cancer.

The genetic failure was unstoppable, and the moment we heard, I knew that we would never be able to make up for spent time. The strong pillar of our family was brought to a pile of skin and bones, laid low by the fury of a combined colon, bone, and liver. We didn't even find out about it until four weeks after it had gotten to him, and the tuesday after I had visited and said my final goodbye, he died. From what my dad said, it was painful and long, happening at two in the morning, and lasting until around three thirty. After that, it was never the same for me.

"There it is…" Nate mutters as we walk up a steep slope, and at the top, there it stood. The tree itself was simple, a pine tree, but the spray from the sea had killed it long ago. That, and the lack of underground nutrients in the rocky soil.

"It's all dead," I huff as I hop on a rock, my sandals providing little footing, but I manage to keep my ground. The tree was shriveled, unnatural, and turning a decomposing brown, and the needles are starting to fall off. It shriveled like my grandpa, and around the same time. A sick simile.

"The wind is really blowing!" my brother exclaims as we reach the top, and the front of the storm was close, far too close than it should have been.

If God is real, this is his fucking fury, I think as I look out at the waves. The ones near the cliffside were smaller, choppy, but that wasn't what garnered my attention. Closer to the storm, tsunami-worthy titans sloshed about, spraying water everywhere. A flash of lightning lights up the dark clouds, black and bloated with water, like cows ripe for the slaughter.

Nate taps my shoulder. "Hey, Ian?" he asks, "I think we should come back another time. You know, when it isn't all storm of the century out here?"

I spin on my heel, irritated. "Bullshit!" I yell, furious, "You expect us to have come all this way just to turn back!? Hell no! If you won't do it, then I will!" I yank the leather bag out of his hand, and stomp up to the edge of the cliff, overlooking the sea, fifty feet below. See ya, grandpa, and with that thought, I open the chord keeping it closed, and empty the contents over the side. The dust filters out, blowing every direction, and a gust of wind causes the rest to swirl into the air, to be spread all over the ocean. With a satisfied nod, I begin to turn back, but a sudden, powerful gust of wind sweeps me off my feet, the slick rocks providing my footing doing little to aid.

"Ian!" I hear Nate cry as my back slams into the stone below me, and I am barely aware of the fact that the top part of my torso was hanging over the side of the cliff. The noises of my brother cursing and slipping reach my ears, no doubt to grab my slowly shifting body, but a flash of reddish-brown in the corner of my eye catches my attention, and I turn my head, which causes me to slide ever farther down the edge. I am moving gradually now, the constant rate bringing me nearer to the sea.

My brain, still recovering from the shock of rock hitting my spine, realizes that I am about to fall, and I react, but it was too late. Did either of us actually think to tie up the boat? That is my last thought before I slide off the rock, plummeting towards the ocean below.

I strike with a forceful sploosh, and the freezing pacific water envelops my skin, the thin layer of oxygen that naturally forms doing little to stave off the chill. My t-shirt drag me down slightly, but I quickly shed the heavier cloth, leaving me in only swim trunks and my sandals. Soon, however, the situation dawns on me: I'm going to drown. Panic rises through my throat, trying to force its way out in the form of frantic screeching, but I force it down, knowing the result of that specific endeavor, and start clawing towards the surface. No, I can't die here, my vision starts to blur, the combination of salt and carbon dioxide slowly suffocating my body. I made… a promise… can't… die…

"Gagh- *hack*!" I sputter, gasping for breath as I burst through the surface, and I look up as rain pelts my face. The clouds had closed in, black and foreboding, and whatever elation that I had felt by getting to the surface fell away, replaced instead by bowel-dropping terror. Tsunami-sized waves tore through the sea, bearing down on my patch of water. Each swell in wind pushed me further towards the rocky cliff, bringing me closer to death. Ohgodohgodohgogohgod, I frantically swing my head, looking for something, anything that I could latch onto.

My saving grace came in the form of a small, red cedar row boat that had drifted away from the shore, the name Nicholas II painted on the side in big, black letters. I thrashed my way through the water, fighting the currents with every stroke, until finally, I collapse onto the polished interior, heaving in an attempt to empty my lungs of fluid. Each of my breaths rattled as I roll onto my back, and blackness ebbs at the edges of my vision. I don't… want… to die… I can feel my brain shutting down, each of my limbs becoming immovable hulks of stone, and the boat rocks as waves crash, the center of the storm closing in. I… don't… wa… n… t. The last thing that I see before I slip into sweet oblivion is a plethora of colors, swirling above and around me.

Swirling.

Swirling.

Swirling.

Like mist.

Well, I'd say that was a good chapter. Nowhere near what the top peeps get, but good nonetheless. I'm planning on updating the story every weekend (hopefully), and I have really big hopes for this. If anyone wants to edit, PM me. Anyways, I will see you in a week! See ya!