(A/N) It took me long. I know. And I'm sorry. But shit happens, and lately I've been far too stressed to write another chapter. Life does that. School helps.

I also wanted to tell you that if you're lucky, and if I have enough motivation *cough* reviews *cough**cough* I might post the next chapter within a few days, because I have no school until next Monday.

For those of you who are interested I have two other stories up, one of them is currently on hiatus (AcexOC) and called "Trustworthy". It might not be too good, but it's my first story, so go easy on me. The other one is "A Demon's Wings" and it's a MarcoxOC. Well, it will be in a few chapters.

Chapter 7: How?

"Luffy! How did you get here?! And more importantly, what happened to you?!"

Yep. Good old Shanks. Always worrying about me.

"I tripped and fell on one of my daggers. Ace and Sabo took me to see a doctor. From what I heard of their conversation I managed to conclude that the knife scraped my bone and I have to beware of infection, I got two stitches, I have to remember to change the bandages every day, and I had to get a blood transfusion. The injury under my eye bled a lot, but not enough for me to end up in this state, so I figured it must have been because of this." I gave him a full explanation, before he could ask for details and jerked my thumb at the barley visible bandages that covered my upper back.

He looked at Ace and Sabo suspiciously.

"Luffy. Who are these boys?", he asked.

"The one with the blond hair is Sabo, and the guy holding me is Ace. I'm staying with them for the time being."

"Which leads us to my first question. How did you get here? Last I saw you was right before we left the village!"

"I found a weird rock-ancient artifact-thingy with Adai writing on it. It took me here. Ace and Sabo found me and took me in. From what I've been able to conclude I've been transported to another dimension. Now what I want to know is how you got here? Are the guys here, too? Or are you alone?"

"Slow down, Luffy. Yes, the guys are here,which means no, I'm not alone. Yes, you have been transported to another dimension. As to how I got here... well, I was born here."

Three seconds of silence, before-

"What?! What do you mean you were born here?! I thought you lived in my world all your life, and now you tell me something like this?!"

Shanks stayed silent.

"Care to explain how you got to my world then?"

"Well you see... once, a long time ago me and my crew-"

"Crew? What do you mean crew? Are you talking about the guys?"

"Luffy... I'm a pirate."

Another three seconds of silence.

"Awesome! You're a pirate?! I bet you have loads of different adventures! Why didn't you tell me sooner? That's amazing!"

"I had no clue you would react like you did."

"...Should I have reacted differently?"

Shanks sweatdropped.

"As I was saying, a few years back we landed on an uninhabited island. Well, it had definitely been inhabited in the past, but now it was just an overgrown jungle. We found ruins of an ancient city. There was a giant stone arch in the middle of what must've been at one time a plaza. Some of the guys were goofing off and one of them stepped through it and disappeared. Me, being the good, caring captain I am, went after him and landed in your world. The rest of the crew followed. Took us a while to figure out what happened, but ever since then we've been going back there every few months, whenever we dock at the island."

"Oh."

Sabo and I were staring at the happenings before us in shock. So the man Luffy had been talking about was the famous "Red-haired" Shanks? One of the 4 Emperors? Seriously? Who would have expected something like this?

"Anyways, let's go somewhere else Luffy. Somewhere we can sit down and talk peacefully."

"Sure, OK. Can Ace and Sabo come too?"

Shanks looked at us suspiciously again but nodded his head.

"Great!"

Shanks motioned for us to follow him, and led us to Makino's bar.

"Ace! Sabo! I haven't seen you two around for a while. How are you doing? And who's the girl?"

"Hi, Makino. This is-"

"My name is Luffy. Monkey D. Luffy. Nice to meet you", she smiled at Makino. She seemed in a pretty good ever since we met Shanks...

"Nice to meet you too. Oh, Mr. Captain. You're back as well!"

"Yeah, I met up with Luffy here while walking around town and we decided to sit down somewhere and talk."

"I see. I don't think I've ever seen you around here Luffy. Did you come here from someplace?"

"...I guess you could say that."

"Come on Luffy, let's sit down somewhere." I nodded my head and looked at Ace. He sighed and put me down on a nearby chair. He and Sabo sat down on either side of me, while Shanks sat down across from us.

"How long have you been here Luffy?"

"A few days. Hey, do you by any chance know what a Devil Fruit is?"

"Of course I do. Devil Fruits are very rare fruit that give people who eat them unique abilities. Why do you ask?"

"... No reason." I looked away and started whistling.

"Luffy", Shanks started. "You know you couldn't lie if your life depended on it, right?"

I didn't move, waiting for him to continue.

"Luffy...did you by any chance eat a Devil Fruit?"

"Nooo..." Once again, I looked away and whistled.

"You did what?!" He reached across table and started shaking my shoulders. "You know that you won't be able to swim for the rest of your life, right?!"

"Yeah, well, Ace claimed that I might actually be able to swim after all, but we're still not sure, cuz we didn't have time to test it out."

"...Which fruit did you eat?"

I shrugged my shoulders to say I didn't remember.

"Mythical Zoan Type: Moon Spirit", Ace piped up.

Shanks looked at him weirdly, then turned to me.

"You ate a mythical zoan?", he asked calmly.

Hesitantly, I nodded my head, waiting for the outburst.

And it did come...

"A few days in this world and you already managed to eat one of the rarest type of Devil Fruit?! How could you get into so much trouble in so little time?! You know if the government finds out about this they're going to be after you, right?! There's only one other Mythical Zoan type they've confirmed, and the user is a pirate! Those Devil Fruit are some of the strongest!"

I shook my head. I didn't know that, actually. And I've had bad experience with government officials, at least one of them...

"What can you do?"

"I can control water. I didn't have time to find out the range, though. And apparently I'm able to turn into a creature. I didn't test that out either."

"Well, at least I know why... Ace, was it?" I nodded. "Said that. Since you're able to control water it makes sense that you would also be able to swim."

Shanks said some other stuff, too, but I tuned it out, I was growing sleepy... You see, I have a slight case of narcolepsy. It's not too bad, but it runs in the family, and since I hadn't taken my medicine for a few days it made sense for it to act up now.

"Sleepy...", I muttered before blacking out.

Luffy's head crashed to the table.

"Luffy!", Sabo exclaimed.

"Don't worry about her. She has narcolepsy."

I sighed. So she has it too, huh?

"There's something I need to talk to you two about."

Sabo and I looked up at the pirate, wondering what he wanted to tell us.

"You must know by now that Luffy isn't a very trusting person, right?"

We nodded our heads, I remembered what had happened when she had first woken up.

"She seems to trust you two. But know this-" Shanks's gaze darkened. "If either of you ever hurt her, I will have both your heads on a silver platter.

"I'd never do anything to harm Luffy!", I blurted out.

"Yeah, me neither!", Sabo agreed.

"You better not. Otherwise you know what's coming for you."

I looked at the sleeping girl.

"I think it's about time we took Luffy back. She doesn't seem like she's going to wake up anytime soon. It was nice meeting you, Mr. Shanks", said Sabo.

"But unfortunately, we have to go now", I finished for him.

"Just remember what I said."

I lifted Luffy up bridal style and we returned to the tree house. It was already dark out. Funny how time passes by so quickly...

As I was tucking her in to make sure she didn't get too cold I did something. Something I just couldn't resist. It just felt so right. I kissed her on the forehead.

"Ace...", Luffy smiled in her sleep. My heart skipped a beat and I returned to the livingroom.

Sabo was already asleep. I lay down on my improvised bed and tried to do the same. It wasn't easy, though. I couldn't stop thinking about what had happened. The scene replayed itself in my mind like a broken video tape...

(A/N) Yeah, so basically Shanks threatened Ace and Sabo. Thank goodness Luffy didn't hear that.

And for all those of you who haven't voted, I have a poll on my profile and you could help choose how the story ends. If you think about something that I didn't include in the choices, then don't hesitate to PM me about it.

And I thank you for all the reviews, follows and favorites I got. It made my day- erm week.

"Two weeks, actually."

*Looks at shadow behind me* You again? I though I had gotten rid of you already!

"It's not that easy, darling. Next time, try typing this stuff up WITHOUT the light on."

... See you guys later.