I don't own One Piece. I really wish I did though.

... Also, for the record, I really did try to resist this ever since reading This Bites!by Xomniacand his fellow members of the Cross-Brain. But being practically the gold standard of Self Insertion and my most favorite thus far, plus in combination of me being me, I ended up toying with the idea of a Self Insert regardless of my aversion towards SI fics (typically for quality (or rather lack thereof) reasons.I have the same issue with First Person fics as well). Ironic, I know. At any rate though... what self restraint I had however came in something of a combination of two things: NeonZangestu's story Wordplay, another SI fic, and

"THA FUCK!"

That was all I could scream out as a pair of hands bigger than my body snatched both me and my chair from behind and yanked me away from the keyboard I was just typing with. Before I knew it the den I practically lived in was gone as the wind rustled through my hair as the open air I suddenly found myself in rapidly and inconsistently switched from midday to evening, to night, replaced with dungeon walls, sucked out by THE VOID OF SPACE, again replaced with the evening sky, then something-something-something—

IT'S ALL BLURRING! I CAN'T MAKE SENSE OF THIS! IT'S CHANGING TOO FAST!

Then as suddenly as it all began it ended as whatever had grabbed me utterly SLAMMED against the wall with such force my head whipped forth and back, both times smashing my head against the hands that bound me and the back of my chair respectively. As I sputtered and wildly eyed my new surroundings, a room barely lit by natural light emanating from somewhere behind me, my attention was soon drawn to two men beneath my precarious perch. The both of them were dressed much like old fashion business men or mobsters you might see in older period movies: office shirt, the slacks and the suspenders to hold them up with. I barely eyed the taller, bulkier and balder of the two in favor of the shorter one with indigo hair jutting out in two directions like a fork in a roadway. They were both eyeing a textbook held aloft by the shorter one barring the occasional and frankly disturbingly calm glances sent in my direction as I tried to make sense of what happened to me.

"Huh...?"

"Not him," Indigo briskly announced with a tired sigh as he snapped the book shut.

"Think we might still get something off him though?"

"Don't see why not. Would you...?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Whahey-HEY! What's happening!?"

I was ignored however in favor of the bigger guy lumbering toward the base of whatever was holding me. "I think cell twenty-seven might be still empty." From my angle I was only able to discern he was about to stomp on something when he exaggerated the wind up by tossing his arms up as he tilted his body back.

When he slammed his foot on whatever mechanism he had his sights on there was a loud mechanical "thump!" resounding from the hands that bound me. A second later those same hands jutted forth with me still in their grasp as another mechanical groan erupted from the telltale machine I was imprisoned by.

"JUST TELL ME WHAT'S GOING ON!"

For all my panicking however I was still ignored as what they had done was finally made clear. With a simple throw the machine with human-esque hands launched me, chair and all, in an arc across the room, past one of the iron barred skylights without windows, before plummeting to the floor...

XVX

Outside

With the twilight's sun blanketing the other side of the cargo ship anyone would be hard pressed to find a small sail boat in the shadow of said ship, at first glance at least. The same could be said of anyone sneaking aboard amidst the dying light. Or rather they would be until they were forced to hurdle onto the deck at least where a crew was at least. Even so fortune favor the infiltrator as she hopped the railing after sneaking a swift yet careful peak of the otherwise empty deck.

Not wanting to test her luck any further than she already had the unwanted guest made her way to the nearest doorway most likely leading to the hold where the valuables were kept and pressed herself against the door. She then planted her ear to it to listen for any of the crewmen going about their business. As luck would have it she arrived just in time for a dull conversation to creep out of the wooden portal whilst in the company of what sounded to be footsteps upon stairs. She backed up a step and looked to the where the hinges would be in the off chance that it was an outward swinging door which she could hide behind, otherwise she would have to dive for the nearest object which she could hide herself behind. In this case fortune once more smiled upon her though she couldn't help but be curious in this set of circumstances. There, to the sides of the door were hooks for a rack. Next to one such hook to the left was a board which was propped up against the wall. Next it however was what appeared to be a locker riveted into the wall. Sadly she couldn't tell in the slight as to what the container held within it. At the utter most she could guess at the red printed words of "In Case of Emergency" and a keyless lock holding the locker shut. But that was separate issue for the time being.

After her quick scrutinizing of her surroundings she ducked to the hinge bearing side of the door just in time for it to open, the door completely obscuring her from those who were walking out from it.

"—we really need to rethink a better security system. Those bug-things are really creeping me out. Not to mention of course that it's damn near impossible to herd them back into their cage without killing them and those zombies they make when we do let them out."

"I understand your point seeing as I have to help you over half the time. But unless you want to dip into our savings—"

"NEVER!"

"—then we'll have to accept that we have to keep capturing and selling in order to fund that worthless midget with the materials we can scrounge up for cheap," the other man continued unabated as they casually strolled through the door. The taller of the two paused long enough to reach out behind him without looking, grabbed the edge of the door and leisurely slammed the door shut without either of them being any the wiser of the intruder who was now exposed as they walked away. "Sadly it'll take that much longer if we keep up this trend of grabbing low quality goods."

"I'll never understand that Devil Fruit of yours," the taller man groaned rather pitifully as the orange haired infiltrator carefully crept to the other side of the door and let herself in. "At least we have some emergency provisions just in case though."

"Indeed."

XVX

In the hold

With a groan my eyes peeled open blurrily took in the scene of a ceiling made of crisscrossing bars above me. I blink and blink again and again until my blurry vision simply became fuzzy. Where are my glasses? I tried to lift my head to get a better idea of where I am as well as to try to find my glasses but a sharp jolt of pain put an end to that notion. I tried to move it to the side but that was met with the same wince inducing result. What the hell happened? Where am I?

As I wondered and regretfully began to recall the confusing moments before ending up... wherever I am my hands began to blindly feel around the hard wood floor with growing trepidation as what little hope that those terror inducing moments were but a dream. That by some coincidence I fell asleep in my chair and fallen onto the vinyl wooden floor of the den without waking up and that some concussion was playing with my sight in combination with the lack of my glasses despite the fact of how familiar I am with my ceiling after so many years. But no. What denial I had died silently screaming in my head as my hand groped my face in a validated search for my glasses which miraculously only slipped down my forehead. The left side of the left lens was cracked...

I vainly tried to focus on that which annoyed me most greatly in life, any damage at all to my glasses (seriously, who wouldn'tbe annoyed by that considering it's literally the first thing you see if you have glasses), but sadly my panic was far greater than a half asses attempt not to have my heart leap out of my chest out of fear. Worse yet it got me to my feet, forcing me to hiss in pain as both my neck and various parts of my body howled in protest even as I surveyed what kind of hellhole I was literally thrown into. I didn't like what I saw in the least however.

From behind the crisscrossing rusted iron bars of my cage I spied numerous others surrounding my own. For better or worse most of them were empty save for a few. In fact I could readily count only two others close enough to discern without the need for glasses... okay that was false. I may have been able to fuzzily eye the short guy to my left...

Wait, was that a gnome? Holy crap that is! A Warcraft Gnome! Four fingered hand (including the thumb), semi-bald head with a pointed crown of purple hair, matching colored goatee and all! I briefly entertained the thought I was still hallucinating. A mild attempt to turn my head quickly dissuaded me of that notion. Sadly the sharp pain didn't make the bars which I now touch any less cold nor solid. At any rate however it seemed he was lost in his own little (no pun intended) world whilst twiddling with his thumbs as he somberly stared out from behind the bars of his own cell.

As for the other guy... I spent god knows how many hours playing Fallout Three to not recognize the form of a super mutant. Big, tall, brownish-yellowish skinned, ugly, pot-and-grill armor and all... The sheer murderous glare he was sending my way did not accrue any good will on my part in ever hoping he was something like Fawkes. It also did not help that due to the distance between us he also gave off the vibe of a Jason Voorhees style serial killer either... making it a little sad that the fact that we were both in separate cells was a good thing as far as I was concerned at the moment. It didn't make him any less fucking creepy and terrifying however.

While doing my best to completely ignore my psycho... blockmate... I tried to see if there was anyone else here that was stuck in the same situation as us. There was. Unfortunately even with glasses my eyesight wasn't remotely good enough to discern other than vague shapes partially illuminated by the fading light between rows and rows of crisscrossing iron bars. At best the closest one seemed to be two rows over from my own row. Looking behind me however it seemed our row was next to the wall of this dungeon we're in. That begs the question though, where are we? For the life of me I couldn't find one thing to clue me in as to where we were. I mean most dungeons, prisons, etc were made of stone or concrete. Prison camp? Bit more like it but what sort of camp was in a room? Why would we even be here to begin with?

... well, at least I was distracted from entering hysterics at least.

Wait. Now that I'm thinking about it, didn't that guy say something about selling something?

My breath was quickening once more as my eyed my cage anew. It wasn't long before I was yanking on the unyielding iron.

Bull. BULL! THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING!

"LET ME OUT!"

THIS CAN'T BE A SLAVE CAMP!

"AAAAAAAAGH!"

I DON'T WANT TO BE A SLAVE!

In the midst of my panicked struggles I wildly eyed a vaguely familiar person skittishly creeping through the cages on the other side of the row in front of me, moving as if unnerved by the mere sight of them and having second thoughts because of which. As I raggedly breathed I barely put much thought in the act of attempting to shunt my arm through the holes of my cage. I barely even registered that the gaps were too small for my hand to slip through, forcing my hand to repeatedly slap against the bars as I called out to her. "HEY! HEY HEY! PLEASE LET ME OUT!"

The figure stilled in fright thanks to my calling out to her.

"PLEEE-HEAASE!"

The woman, or what appeared to be a woman judging from what little I could see between the series of bars, hesitated before bolting to the side, forsaking what little sense of stealth she had left to her being. Most likely because of me screaming out to her but that thought hadn't crossed my mind as I followed her as best I could with my eyes. It didn't matter though. She was barreling towards what looked to be an gap between the rows of cages and the wall as opposed to whipping around the nearest corner to my row...

All I could do was stumble back and fall onto my ass as I both gaped and began to hyperventilate as my newfound fate closed in around me like a grim specter...

"Damn it!"

Before I knew it that same familiar blur was running down the hallway of my row! My neck be damned, I jumped to my feet and practically body slammed the closest thing that was a door to my cage just as the orange haired teen slid into a stop in front of it.

"You owe me for this!" she growled as she dug into a pocket of her shirt and whipped out what I could only assume to be a lock pick. I couldn't bring myself to care about whether it is or isn't however as I desperately gripped the bars in excitement.

"THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!" I unabashedly squeeled. In fact I was so keyed up that I didn't waste either time nor thought once the door was opened. In fact I think I damn near teleported out of the portal and spared not a second in squeezing her in what was probably the greatest bear hug I ever gave to date! "THANK YOU!"

"SSSSHHHH!" she angrily hissed as she slammed her hands into my mouth. "I get that you're happy but keep it down will you?! I'm just counting myself lucky that none of the guards heard any of the racket your making!"

"There are none."

"Huh?"

Though she asked the question, both of our heads snapped to the gnome as I let Nami go.

... wait. Nami? Why would I think of—

I gawked, pure and simple without her being any the wiser to my state. There, in front of me, was Nami. NAMI! PRE-SKIP NAMI FROM ONE PIECE! She's practically my favorite character aside from Luffy. Well, short of Robin at least. She was first though way back then!

... and with that thought I feel old.

As I stood stock still, thunderstruck, the gnome explained himself as if he hadn't noticed my condition either. In all honesty I considered it something of a miracle that I was even paying attention at all as a myriad of thoughts and possibilities ran like a hyper maelstrom in my head. I mean as... insane as it is to apparently be kidnapped by some dimension hoppers and put into some kind of slave camp with WoW characters and Fallout enemies, PLEASE TELL ME THEY DIDN'T CAPTURE ONE PIECE CHARACTERS TOO DAMN IT!

"Originally there were guards to this ship. A crew as well. But that changed when they not only caught me the first time but subsequently caught me trying to escape. Seeing my inventive genius both during my abduction and in my escape attempt they put me to work... This entire ship is predominantly automated now thanks to my efforts, Miss. Other than Lawrence Greer and Grisham Belt you won't find anything more significant than one of the few automatons for defense that they had me build aside from Belt himself. That and their... 'pets.'" The gnome pointed toward the rest of the rows before his cage. Or rather he was attempting to point to the far off wall which none of us could properly see. "But short of an invasion or a mass jailbreak however you won't likely see them."

"That's good, I guess," Nami reluctantly offered with pursed lips before returning her attention to the cage. "But if you helped them like you said, why are you still here?"

The gnome's solemnly neutral expression dropped to a scowl. "Because they'd rather have me on a leash both if and when some of their new toys break. Not that I'm that surprised anymore considering what they did to their previous crew once the renovations were complete..."

My stomach churned as a hunch struck me. Against my will I turned to my own cage and eyed it. "Please don't tell me..."

"They did."

"... that's just sick," I gurgled.

"Oh my God," Nami whispered in horror as the implications struck her. Her clapped a hand around her mouth in horror as she backed away from the cages before her, her eyes shifting to and fro in anxiety as if she was seeing what I was only just imagining. When her back accidently bumped into the row of cages behind her she leap away from them, spinning around to face them as she did so. "I thought this was just some unmarked pirate ship after hearing the rumors." The gnome only hummed in response before speaking up once again.

"Since you're here though, would you be so kind as to release me?" he wearily asked, his expression now more dour than before. "As you can imagine... opportunities like these come once in a blue moon for me."

Nami bit her lip all the harder in thought before reluctantly nodding. "Fine!" She quickly scampered to the gnome's door, bent down and began to work her magic. "But for the record this is the last cell I'm opening. After this I'm going to bust open that safe and scram before I get caught and locked up with the two of you!"

"That's fine," the gnome replied. "I'm confident I can navigate this ship blindfolded if I must. I also know how to use my own inventions as a distraction if it comes to it. But may I ask you one thing, Miss?"

The door was unlocked and the door was swung open by the time the gnome called out to her. Even so she perked her head as the gnome ambled out of his cell. "Yeah?"

He didn't reply at first. Instead he simply motioned for her to follow. I followed as well for lack of a better option aside from trying to venture out on my own in unfamiliar territory. We didn't walk far, just to the end of our row and into the gasp beyond. From there he pointed to another space beyond the furthest set of cells to what looked like a rather simplistic meeting area to conduct business. "You weren't referring to the safe that was over there, were you?"

"Yeah, why?"

Try as I might without leaving the relative safety of the others, I couldn't see a safe. A dark patch in the wall perhaps that was behind a set of three chairs surrounding a table but that was it. Perhaps it was a wall mounted safe?

"That safe was specifically designed to act as bait and enable the capture of would be thieves such as yourself. Trust me when I say that there isn't anything of value in it."

"Augh! This is getting even worse by the second!" Nami whined as she stamped her foot on the decking.

""Now now, have patience," the gnome offered as he then began to jog back down the row we came from. "I simply said there wasn't anything in there!"

In a flash Nami was eagerly following him, albeit in a subdued fashion as she tried not to eye the rusted cages surroundings us. Likewise I followed suit more out of the desire to not be alone in a creepy hellhole (AT BEST!) rather than the dawning realization that we were potentially going to loot a pair of demented asshole slavers' personal vault (oh how my inner Fallout looting self was squeeing at the thought. Even so I kind of wish I had a gang of giggling minions to do the job for me...And now with that thought in my head I couldn't help but wish to be in a giant suit of armor to terrorize my enemies with (*Insert Obligatory Evil Cackle here*). Regardless though I couldn't help but find the entire trip awkward: I often have little reason to keep in mind that my stride often overtook people much shorter than myself whenever I'm particularly motivated to power walk as opposed to jogging. That goes triple for those with the height of a gnome.

In short order we near cautiously left the relative safety that was the blinding series of cages, barring the snarl of an agitated super mutant of course. Of the three of us the gnome was the only one who confidently, for the given value of which, strode out from the cell block and made for a walled off staircase that would've otherwise been invisible until I accidentally stumbled upon it if given a chance to; the wall that sided the staircase along with the more natural wall, by virtue of original construction, blended in disturbingly well with the primary wall behind it if no one could see the staircase proper. From there we simply ascended the stairs till we found the first landing roughly three-fourths of the way up. To the left was a short lived walkway connected by another wall. It wasn't hard to tell that this catwalk was overlooking the hold below, the same one we just left. Well, technically we were still in it but you get the idea... At any rate the gnome diverted himself from the rest of the and sauntered out onto the pathway where a console seemingly awaited him.

"What's this?" Nami asked as she and I curiously watched him pull a lever at the console's side. With a soft mechanical whir it shortened to better suit his own height.

"This, Miss, controls the majority of the room below. The cages specifically." We both peered out to see the room we were once in, technicalities notwithstanding with being on a catwalk overlooking it. From there we had a dismally better view of the cells below where we both noticed, or at least I noticed, something that was otherwise missed during my initial observations: high above the cages, attached to the ceiling, were large metal claw-like clamps. Each one was perfectly situated over each of the cages. Off to the side I was able to spy on exceptionally large hinges to what appeared to be a gigantic hatch in the ceiling, presumably to lead outside. Underneath this hatch was another of the claws. "Whether it's to showcase their 'stock' or to complete a sale, those bastards find it more preferable to use this operating system to bring the cells outside than to, say, drug the victim and haul them up top. And Light forbid that Lawrence use his portal powers for whatever reason other than kidnapping whatever fits his fancy..."

"Wait, Portal Powers?" Nami intoned with an incredulous glare just as the gnome began to operated the console with practiced if hesitant ease. With a loud "CLUNK" that drew my attention to the claws once more I witnessed a smaller four pronged claw originating from the center of each clamp claw descend toward the cages. "You're kidding me, right?"

"Miss, I can certainly attest to the fact that none of us in this room besides yourself at this very moment are native to your lands." The claws hooked onto the tops of the cages and their chains grew taut. Seconds later, with some screeching of metal on metal, each and every one of the tops of the cages began to rise up from their respective places of rest. "In fact our mutual acquaintance here... 'arrived' barely two hours ago. Or an hour, give or take. It's hard to tell time down here," the gnome drearily sighed.

"Hey!" Between the bark and the subsequently poke into my side my attention snapped to Nami.

"AGH!"

Sadly I somehow forgotten why I wasn't bother turning my neck when I did so. As I was done sucking my teeth as the jolt of pain subsided I got the tail end of a sympathetic frown from the gnome and the ashamed look on Nami's face before she softly asked if I was okay.

"Y-yeah," I grunted as I rubbed my neck, my teeth clenched as I sucked in another breath.

Nami's brow furrowed and her lip pursed. She opened her lips to say something but seemed to think better of it before switching her attention back to the gnome. "So about that treasure...?"

"Hm? Ah, yes. Follow me." He made to step away from the console before adopting a contemplative look on his face. "Actually, one moment." Without another word he whipped himself around and pulled on the same lever as before. Once the console was restored to its taller height he reached over and expertly removed a panel from the front of the console's base and promptly reached both hands inside. Moments later and with quite a grunt of exertion he began to rip out wire after wire, tube after tube and cog and cog with a wild abandon. When he was done he stepped back, his expression remorseful for but a brief moment before replacing it with an air of semi-professional neutrality. "Right. Let's go. I'd rather not find out how many of the prisoners can discriminate us from those two or just don't care."

Without further ado he dashed back into the stair case just as the first of the cheers and the roars began to emanate from the floor below. I spared but a glance below to see some apparently relishing their newfound freedom whilst others were possibly sizing each other up like animals in the wild. Actually some of them did look like animals, but that was a separate issue. I followed both him and Nami soon enough after the latter gently prodded my shoulder to ensure I was paying attention enough to follow. The three of us quickly bounded up the remaining section of the staircase and came to a second landing which lead to a door in the wall to our right. The inventive gnome however didn't approach the door. Instead her went to the wall in front of us and began to carefully scrutinize it.

"Here!" he declared as he pointed to a seemingly random spot. "Right there should be a hidden switch for an equally hidden door here! It will straight to their trophy room! It may not be money but with luck you'll either find something you can sell for quite the fortune or find useful for yourself. Regardless though, beyond their trophy room is an emergency escape route."

"Close enough," Nami loudly mumbled as she marched to the wall and felt around the spot that the engineer pointed to. "At this rate I'll just be glad to get anything out from of this place. Ah-ha!"

"Click! Thmp!"

Aside from the depression of the button and the wooden thunk a section of the wooden wall silently slipped away to reveal a small hallway closed off by a brass hatch. Nami didn't waste any time in opening it as soon as she saw it. Subsequently she practically threw herself inside and had to clamp her hands around her mouth to muffle the delighted squeal of joy that came from her circling in place the moment she entered the supposed trophy room. Naturally I followed...

... my own screaming was vastly more fanboyish in comparison to hers at what I saw.

Money and jewels were ignored along with items I was nowhere remotely familiar with as I eyed the collection around me: case and point being a PREDATOR MASK! AND THE ICONIC WRIST BLADE-THING TO GO WITH IT! AND THERE WAS THE SHOULDER CANNON NEXT TO IT!

And like that what aches and fears I had were lost whilst Nami was looting everything that was either shiny or valuable looking if not both. As for the gnome, he seemed to be collecting some items over by—WAS THAT GURTHALAK FROM WOW?! I NEVER GOT MY HANDS ON THAT THING IN THE RAIDS!

And there! I may not remember the names of each individual piece but I KNOW THE ARMORY OF NINJA GAIDEN TWO WHEN I SEE IT! THE SCYTHE AND DRAGON SWORD ARE IMPOSSIBLE TO NOT RECOGNIZE! EEEE!

I couldn't nor wouldn't stop myself from roaming about the room like it was one of those interactive museum exhibits where you were allowed to touch the items or animals in question. In a matter of moments my hands were groping and feeling a Palantir to no effect! Lightsabers! LIGHTSABERS! OH! MANDALARIAN ARMOR! A WATCH! Wait, a watch? A vaguely familiar watch... Hold on, that's the watch Roger Smith wear's to summon Big O! He wouldn't knowingly... part with... it... Oh God.

"Trophy Room," I numbly reminded myself as I let the watch go and stagger back into a table and eye the room in a new damning light.

"Huh? Hey! Are you alright? It's not your neck again is it?"

I almost turned my neck again before being reminded of what that would bring me. Instead I had to bodily turn to Nami to address her. As I did so I lamely gestured to the room around us. "Trophies... from the prisoners." I turned to the gnome whose back was to me. Even so he solemnly looked over his shoulder at me. "Am I right?"

He didn't answer me at first. Instead he sighed as he turned his head back to whatever seemed to be in his hand at the time. I barely heard the soft click of a casing being shut before he stowed whatever it was away in a pocket of his pants. He then bought himself some extra time pulling up a newly equipped workman's belt obviously made for someone his size before turning around. "Specifically trophies that catch their respective interests," he finally replied at long last. "Needless to say its rather easy to do so when someone is lying unconscious in a cell."

I turned to Nami and it was obvious that nothing more needed to be said. With a grimace and great reluctance Nami eyed a handful of jewels in her grasp before slowly tilting said hand to let them slip back onto the counter where they came from. She then knelt down with a scowl and closed up a rucksack she procured from... somewhere, I must have been lost in my admiration during that moment, hefted said sack onto her shoulder. "Let's just go," she muttered as her hand around the tied off mouth of the sack grew white.

"Right. If one of you would help me then. Most of the systems I installed were made with humans in mind after all..."

Like before the inventor shuffled off to a seemingly blank wall and eyed it for but a moment until he pointed to a seemingly random spot. I, being the nearest, moved over to it and felt around till my hand accidently depressed a false section of the wall. Rather than act as a switch for a door however it simply slipped out of view to reveal fire alarm style switch.

"Pull on it and twist it one-hundred and eighty degrees," the gnome ordered. I promptly followed suit. Once that was done a series clicks, whirs and some mechanical groaning hummed through the wall even as another section opened up to reveal both an armored wall and door underneath. "It's going to take a couple of minutes: this was, unfortunately, designed with the worst case scenario in mind barring the ship sinking in the event that Lawrence had been incapacitated; it's also deliberately slow in the event that someone somehow learned how to access this door."

I sighed and backed away from the switch and leaned against the nearest table my ass could find. As we waited I listlessly looked the room over once more whilst trying not to relish the fact that each and everything that would be found on a devoted fan's walls was in fact real (I especially tried not to leap at the chance to claim a real LIGHTSABER (SQUEE!) for myself... damn it, what color was it?Mace Windu's was awesome!). That didn't mean I didn't once more gawk however when I saw it, an item that was truly not like the others despite sharing the same name.

A Devil Fruit.

It was strange to look at. It came in the shape of a series of grapes, blue ones at that with little red zigzag stripes encircling each grape. It was on its own little pedestal on a table littered with valuables like rings, crowns and smaller but ornate weaponry. I may not know what type of wood it was but it as rich as its lacquer and polished to shine. It even had a protective glass case surrounding it. I only learned that when I unconsciously moved over it and reached out to it... Never have I ever been so tempted to knowingly steal anything in my life before.

If it was indeed what I thought it was, and unused at that, then who knows what sort of power I could get my hands on. Paramecia? Zoan? Logia (I so hope it is! That's practically invincibility and immortality in one package!)? Not counting the innate abilities of something like the Whisper-Whisper Fruit from the Warship Island arc, even if it was a Paramecia I would automatically more powerful than most I would meet. Or at least have an advantage of some kind. Zoan, while not my favorite (though cool nevertheless), was a bit more straight forward with its abilities. A worse case scenario is that I either endure or overpower whatever brawl I would end up in. A Logia though (PLEASE BE ONE IF I EAT THE FRUIT!), other than developing a situational awareness to avoid having my head taken off (AND AWESOMELY REGENERATING IT!) that sort of power required more academic knowledge if I wanted to make the most of it. Case and point being Enel vs Luffy where the moron didn't know anything about an insulator-slash-poor conductor like rubber. Or Crocodile's weakness toward water being another example. Regardless, other than glass and quiet qualms towards theft (despite the circumstances; pay unto evil if I do, be morally righteous and up in the air if I don't), the only thing stopping me was whether or not the potential benefits outweighed the cost both known and to be discovered...

... Wait a minute.

Now that I was thinking about it, Nami was one thing, but a Devil Fruit (unless it was something else), here?

... could either of those two guys from before be Devil Fruit users as well?

... am I in the world of One Piece?

"Krrrr!"

Immediately my eyes darted to the door we originally came through only to find it had been closed some time ago. When the groaning continued from a source other than the door that was still unlocking I fearfully turned to it as my hand blindly palmed the glass to find whatever latch there was to the glass case... It palmed it more desperately and more frantically when it quickly became apparent that there were in fact two doors leading into the trophy room sans the emergency exit. And there, standing at the opened doorway was the taller guy. The REALLY taller guy. As in a full head and shoulders taller than my six-two self...

He stared at me in utter bewilderment at first before he growled like a beast with a glare to match. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING OUT OF YOUR CELL!" he bellowed as he stomped his way toward me. In doing so he completely missed Nami who was hugging herself against the wall, in a newfound corner between the wall and the opened hatch door. He was especially not aware when she stepped out from the shadow of which with her bulging bag raised and twirling till it was too late to dodge its swing.

It wasn't enough however. It staggered him yes but it didn't knock him out. In fact it only made him pissed.

With a snarl he whipped around, grabbed Nami by the neck and slammed her against the wall. For better or worse however it didn't knock her out. In a way though I wish it did. As she was being held there her face was immediately turning blue. As such it was no surprise that she happily dropped her bag in order to madly claw at the offending appendage with all her strength. Alas even as she was digging bloody furrows into her skin he didn't budge in the slightest as he was choking the life out of her.

"Don't just stand there! Do something!" the gnome cried out.

Thankfully that snapped me out of my stupor just enough to act out a frenzied plan of getting that semi-cursed fruit. While barely thinking it I grabbed the first thing that looked like a hammer (it was really an axe) and bashed it against the case, easily destroying it in one go. From there my hands flung at that fruit, tore off handfuls of the berry shaped balls and stuffed them into—

HOLY SHIT THIS THING TASTES FUCKING NASTY!

It was out of sheer fucking will borne out of an emergency that I managed to swallow that HORRENDOUS CRAP before turning around and wildly throwing the hammer (axe. Stress induced misidentification, sue me!) at the guy only to miss and hit the wall instead. Between that and the fact that Nami was still choking I barely cobbled enough of a coherent thought to even grope for another weapon before charging the fat bastard. Unfortunately I failed to grab anything. As such I resorted to the only option I had left and HOPING TO GOD that I somehow ate a strength enhancing Devil Fruit to knock off the FUCKER before her ASPHYXIATES NAMI!

With nothing more than a hope and a prayer I leapt up in the final stretch with my fist cocked back and a war cry borne from stress and fear roaring from my throat. He didn't even bother glancing at me the whole time. Not even when my fist let loose to smash into his cheek.

BAM!

HIS MISTAKE! THE GAMBLE PAID OFF! VINDICATION!

"ROOOOOOOOAAAARR!"

... and like that my confusion decimated both my elation, desperate rage and excitement in one fell swoop as a new question struck me: did I just give out a bestial roar?

On both a hunch and out of curiosity I looked down at myself and was... both elated and disappointed at the same time? Huh. Never thought I'd say or think that about anything. Ever. Not even with Devil Fruits... give or take an exception (who wouldn't want to shoot laser beams out of their eyes over bird mind reading if given half a choice?! (No offense Apis!... you can't read people's minds yet, can you?...I'd rather not find out the hard way!).

I definitely ate a Zoan fruit. I'm apparently some kind of cat type of Zoan? I had claws for sure in my apparent hybrid form. A tan coat peeking out from the ruins of my shirt...

Aw shit. I liked that shirt!

In a related off topic moment I reached down to see if my sweat pants survived. They did. Or at least I think they did. They were made tight thanks to my unwitting transformation... my socks didn't make it though. And in other meandering news I evidently have a mane which I only found out when I was trying to scratch my head. Evidently I am a lion.

... well it was no Logia but it was still sweet.

ZZTT! "GAAAAAH!"

I was snapped out of my scrutinizing to look over at Fat Bastard (whom I DECKED TO THE FLOOR! YES!) and found him now at the mercy of the gnome who was now armed with what looked to be a freshly cobbled taser. Was that why he didn't join in the attack? so he could make that thing?

Regardless, once Nami began to cough a hacking cough my attention was drawn to her. I pursed my lips as I briefly pondered how to return to normal and conjured an image of my old self as a result. Thankfully that was what did it. The ceiling, which had became so close to my head thanks to my transformed state, flew away as I quickly shrank with an alarming speed that caused me to stumble a step out of surprise... that and subsequently hunch over with a yelp when apparently said state broke the elastic banding of both my pants and underwear in one shot.

Ugh.

Thankfully it seemed that no one noticed my predicament thus enabling me to snap up my pants with nothing more than a blush on my cheeks before leaning over to help Nami back onto her feet.

"T-thanks," she gasped as I hauled her to her feet, one hand rubbing her reddening neck. She cast a quick glance at the still screaming man being electrocuted by a surprisingly dispassionate gnome (not sure if I want to know how personal it was for him given being a captive aboard this vessel... In fact it may be best for me to ignore that for the time being lest he adds me to the list...) before flashing a cold smirk in his direction. When her eyes snapped up to me her smirk was lost, her brow furrowing as she gave me a once over. "What happened to you?"

At this I gave a cheesy smirk in reply. "Apparently my clothes didn't survive my new Devil Fruit."

Her unamused frown soon wiped the smirk off my. "A Devil Fruit? Really?"

"Huh?"

"Look, if he somehow kicked your ass or you tripped and ruined your clothes I can understand. But really? A Devil Fruit? Those things are myths!"

My jaw snapped in the name of restrained fury. It took me a moment of outright glaring at her unimpressed, skeptical and cross armed form before gathering the wherewithal to calm down and form up my counter argument consisting of pointing a a finger at myself, taking a deep breath and... boom.

"What the hell?!"

I couldn't help but grin at her expense as Nami practically pancaked herself against the wall in fright as I towered over her. And since I was already doing this, I may as well try out my third default form. As such I held up my finger for such a moment... Imagine the regular form of a lion...

You know one would think I would at least feel something extraordinary when transforming. I certainly would think so. Evidently not since my only clue thus far regarding my transformation is the my eye level. In this case as opposed to towering above her I was now about eye level with her shoulders.

"Holy crap," Nami murmured. "Devil Fruits are real?"

I tried to say yes but all that came out of my throat was a non-threatening groan. Huh. I guess that sort of thing is learned then (Chopper made it look so easy too! Then again he did have yearsworth of practice beforehand). At any rate I quickly nodded in the affirmative before thinking back to my human form... That didn't turn out like I had hoped. Thankfully my pants didn't fall down but it was nevertheless embarrassing to find that apparently turning back into my human form didn't necessarily mean I would be automatically standing back up. Another thing to work on I guess.

"Right then," Nami murmured before coughing into her hand and looking to the side. The now thankfully quiet side. "Hey, is the door open yet?"

By the time I managed to stand up with my pants held up as high as possible and looked over to the bald brute (whom was drooling on the floor, unresponsive to the world... and now smelling like burnt popcorn as he lay there twitching), I found the gnome solemnly pulling back the strings of his taser gun as he looking back at Nami. He then glanced over to the door we were awaiting for, bringing the both of us to look in the same direction and finding it open.

"Alright! Let's go before anything else happens!" Nami breathed before she retrieved her rucksack and scrambled for the door. I soon followed while closely tailed by the inventor.

"Before we leave, would you mind pressing the big red button to the right?"

"Uh, sure."

It took me a moment to find the switch he was talking about. It was on the other side of the door. during my hesitance I was bypassed by the gnome whom quickly slipped through the threshold and promptly disappeared down a descending staircase beyond. I myself soon crossed it as well and stopped just long enough to humor the gnome's request.

SLAM!

And because of which I soon found out why much to my startled—apparently it basically slammed the door shut behind us. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised in the slightest because of that...

I didn't want to test my luck however.

With a renewed grip on my pants I quickly descended the stairs after my comrades and was soon met with a small dock with an opening bay door. Resting at said dock was, rather surprising for me, a simple motorboat of all things given the level of security displayed thus far. Sadly however it wasn't much use however as we soon found out. As the door opened it quickly became apparent that the door was blocked off by another boat of all things. A small sail boat. One that elicited a surprisingly innocent, relieved yet loud guffaw from Nami the moment she laid eyes on it.

"I sure know how to pick them, don't I?" she sighed as she got up with her bag on her shoulder and sauntered to the ship. After a few paces she turned around and smiled at the both of us. "You guys coming or what? There's plenty of room on my boat."

(A/N: Not counting the earlier section, this will be the only author's note for the entire story if I can help it. I will be using my own personal page in regards to author's notes from here on regarding this story. At any rate I hope you enjoyed this chapter.

Monkeybandit2, making off with your attention! No refunds.)