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Disclaimer: Nobody here owns One Piece; unless our dear Mr. Eichiro is a member of Ffnet. (which would be pretty funny).
Friend and Foe
Chapter I
"Sigh..."
Narrowing her eyes, she gazed at the horizon where a ship, now the size of a tiny dot, sailed out of sight.
"Looks like I'll have to swim for a while…" she muttered, observing her surroundings: a rock in the middle of nowhere. Sighing once more and crouching into a sitting position, the young woman reached for her slightly wet duffel bag – her only companion.
After a while of shuffling through its contents, she got out a white, fluffy towel which she would use to dry her hair with. Wet, dark blue tresses fell around her shoulders as she untied her messy ponytail. Humming a tune, she calmly proceeded in rubbing her hair with the towel. While doing so, she kept an eye out for any signs of life on the vast, blue sea around her.
The situation was clearly hopeless: here she was, stranded in the middle of the ocean, with no signs of- well, anything. Yet, she was strangely calm about it; more annoyed than horrified at the prospect of swimming for who-knows-how-long in search for dry land or maybe a ship.
But lo and behold, she didn't have to wait long for something to appear. She turned around, the towel on her head, to find...
"Yay! A ship! That was fast…" She jumped up, waving at the faraway ship that appeared to be moving towards her at a rapid pace.
"Wait a second, is that the navy…? Oh well, better than nothing. HEY YOU PEOPLE! OVER HERE!" she yelled cheerfully, flailing her arms wildly.
FWOOOSH! Apparently out of nowhere, fire consumed the fleet of ships as each one of them visibly disintegrated.
"Aaaawwww…" she whined, her arms dropping to her sides, the hopeful expression on her face replaced with a frown, while she watched her once potential rescuers smoldering into bits.
"Wow… that doesn't happen everyday…" After much grumbling and complaining, she finally decided to do what any person would in such a situation. Using her bag as a pillow and curling up into a ball, she promptly fell asleep.
He really didn't want to destroy all those ships. But they were getting annoying, and he really didn't want to spend too much time with them anyway. He had much more important things to take care of.
Portgas D. Ace, a.k.a. 'Fire fist Ace', resumed his journey that had been rudely interrupted by the navy. He had tried to negotiate with them peacefully- after all, they were only a bunch of lackeys with no chance whatsoever against him. But, of course, they would not let him pass (even though he could see every one of them trembling), so he had no other option but to set their ships on fire with his extraordinary ability.
After all, he was a pirate, quite a famous one at that; he couldn't go around showing mercy to everyone who bothered him, especially if that someone was the navy.
That was when he noticed something…blue and white. It was all he could make out of the little dot in the distance. As his boat swiftly approached the spot, he could identify a person. Out of curiosity, he made his unusual vessel move even faster by forcing more fire out of his outstretched hand.
He slowed down when he was close enough to observe whoever it was at a safe distance. He had visualized his younger brother's monstrous punches when he had decided to keep this distance.
Apparently, he needn't have worried, because the person turned out to be a young woman. She was lying there, immobile, with a white towel over her blue hair, wearing a white jacket that only covered half of her back, a blue top underneath, and white Capri pants. Although he wasn't very keen on coming close to a possibly dead body, he approached the rock anyway.
"Oy!" he shouted as he came closer. No reaction. "OY!" A small grunt – she seemed to be trying to ignore him as long as she could.
Well, at least this meant that she was alive.
Now, what to do? He couldn't just leave her there and pretend that he never saw her. That would be the same as killing her, since he would be leaving her to die.
The gentleman that he was, he decided to get her on his boat and drop her off at the nearest island. This was easier said than done.
After nudging and poking her quite a few times, with her refusing to wake up, Ace somehow managed to drag her unto his boat. Then, letting her sleep, he again resumed his journey.
There was something in the distance. It was approaching her at an unusually fast rate. Judging by everything being a dull color, and the way she seemed to be drifting around, this was underwater. She stared at the thing that was growing larger and larger every passing second. Before she could register this, it had already turned into something huge.
It opened its mouth to reveal gigantic, comb-like teeth. Her eyes widened when she realized that it was a giant whale which was about to inhale her. She could feel an enormous force sucking her towards the whale; she couldn't fight it and it looked like she was going to become fish food when-
"AAAAAAARRRGH!" she shrieked as she sat up, clutching her bag for dear life. She was slightly startled as, instead of a huge whale, she saw a young man with a strange hat standing in front of her.
He didn't appear to be in need of a shirt, and he wore pants that did not quite reach his ankles. He was staring at her as if he had never seen anyone scream before.
She blinked. "Uh… who're you?" she asked apprehensively, trying not to weird him out any more than she already had. "I think that's my line." he stated, sitting down to observe her more closely.
A moment of awkward silence proceeded, with her gaping at him and him waiting for her to say something. He crossed his arms. This movement seemed to bring her out of her trance.
She decided to break the silence by saying: "… Nice hat."
He gawked at her. Was that all she could think of saying after waking up next to a complete stranger? Apparently, it was – because all she did was gaze at him with her uncannily blue eyes.
He chuckled. The situation was so awkward that it was almost funny.
"I'm Portgas D. Ace." he said, "I happened to pass by that rock you were sleeping on and you looked like you could use some help, which is why you're on my boat."
She blinked again, as if trying to comprehend exactly what he had just said, but soon replied: "Oh… that's nice of you. Thanks." She smiled at him; she appeared to be completely awake now.
When he continued to look at her expectantly, she realized what he was waiting for, and hastily added,
"Oh yeah, my name's Mel. Just Mel." The awkwardness was finally broken.
"So how did you end up stranded on a rock?" Ace asked. This had been bugging him ever since he had spotted her.
"I was on my way to the next island in some ship, decided to take a swim, and next thing I know, they're waaaay over there." she pointed at the horizon. "It looked like I had to swim to the nearest island when I saw that rock. And, well, I thought that it would be a nice place to take a nap and look out for possible modes of transportation." she explained, as if this was something that happened to her all the time.
"Ah." he responded. He really didn't know what to say to that. She seemed to be very calm about the prospect of being stranded somewhere in the middle of the ocean with no food or water whatsoever.
"You take your bag with you every time you decide to swim for a bit?" He was confused. Her explanation didn't make a lot of sense.
"Yeah, I learned to do that after the first time this happened." she said simply, tugging the towel off of her shoulders and stuffing it into the bag. He decided to drop the matter.
Mel eyed the engine-type-thing behind Ace curiously. "Sooo… how does this boat work?"
He grinned. Now that was a good question. He stood up, saying, "I'll show you." Pointing the palm of his hand at the engine, he let out a blast of fire – almost throwing her off the boat as it shot out into the wide open sea.
Their ears were filled with the roaring of the fire and the fluttering of Mel's jacket while she tried to get her hair out of her face with one hand, clutching the side of the boat with the other.
"You ate a devil fruit?" she yelled, trying to be heard over all the noise. With a nod and a grin, he watched as she seemed to be shocked and delighted at the same time, judging by her expression.
"At this rate, we'll be arriving at the next island in a few hours!" he informed her, at which she grinned and gave him an 'okay sign' before gathering her hair into a messy ponytail. They exchanged a few comments here and there, making the other laugh, and unbeknownst to them, began to form a kind of friendship...
-to be continued-
Comments: Well, here you have it folks! A gift from me to you. Was this long or short? I have no idea. I've never really written a fanfic before… but if you don't like my style, too bad. Review if you feel like it, don't review if you didn't like it. Seriously, if you don't like it, why would you read the whole thing? Oh, and don't blame me on my incompetent Grammar skills. English just happens to be my 3rd language. Hehe.
I will update whenever I feel like it; which will be soon if I get a lot of positive reviews : ) . (No one's forcing you though.)