YAAAY finally my first One Piece story.

My motivation to continue it will be not wanting to be disqualified from a story convention it's going to be entered in on The Muse Bunny, which is a brilliant writing site that I definitely recommend to anyone who writes fanfiction. It's themusebunny . proboards . com, just erase the spaces between the words and the periods.

So, a brief summary.
Lyon D. Rolf has two problems. These problems take the form of a pirate crew he has to keep under control and a daughter he has to try to raise on this pirate ship by himself. Things aren't easy, and they are made harder still during a terrible starvation period between islands on the Grand Line in which his five-year-old daughter Karimi eats a devil fruit under the assumption that it's a normal fruit, and because there just isn't any other food around. This devil fruit turns out to be the Kiku Kiku no Mi, which gives Karimi extraordinary hearing abilities - such as being able to hear the thoughts of everyone on the crew or anyone she comes near at all - which only creates further problems for Lyon. This story will take place in between the time that Karimi is five and probably around sixteen, and it will do so in about twelve chapters, because that's my limit for this story.

Now, my word count per chapter can be no less than 2,500. Microsoft Word told me that my word count of this chapter was exactly 2,463, so there shouldn't be any problems, I don't think. Fanfiction .net is telling me that the count is 2,515, but I'm going by Microsoft Word, which still tells me 2,463. I hope that fanfiction .net being weird about it doesn't screw things up for me. It was very difficult for me to type under 3,000 words for a chapter, since I'm used to going well over 3,000, so I really hope that Microsoft Word is enough to be reassuring that this story is under 2,500 words.

Anyway, the pirate crew is completely original, but they have alliances and enemies in canon crews and whatnot - which will go on to be explained in prequels and sequels when I write them. So, anyway. Onward I do go.

Disclaimer: Yeah, I don't own One Piece. Wish I did. I'd give Shanks a bigger part in it because he's just awesome like that. But I don't, so Shanks will remain a semi-minor-major character. I also don't own Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I think I should mention that since I borrowed Janx's name from a fictional alcohol in the books, because I liked it as a name.

Warnings: Alcohol. Yeah. Pirates, y'know. That's just how they are and stuff.

Quote, anyone?:
"So, what now?" he said, looking around at the crew. "Shall I send word to the Marines that we would prefer to be known as the Cuddly Pirates from now on?"
Lyon pushed Janx off the staircase as a response and took another swig of rum, trying very hard not to laugh at it all himself.

As much as they could be a blessing, devil fruits could also be a burden unto those who consumed them.

Such was the case five-year-old Lyon D. Karimi, who had been travelling on her father's ship for all of the five years she had been alive. Never before in that time had they encountered a stretch of water between two islands that was so long that they should run out of food before they even arrived anywhere else, but not one person who had sailed the Grand Line had ever claimed it to be anything but cruel and relentless. Only one piece of food was left upon the ship. There were many pirates who would willingly eat such a thing, but none of them were aboard the Sedna Sunrise. They had fought for ages to get the thing, and they would be damned if they would let it slip through their fingers just because they were all a bit hungry after a few days without food. It rather angered the captain that his entire crew was as stubborn as he was – though the anger could have just been a side effect of the beginnings of starvation – and so after making the offer to his crew, he decided to spend the rest of the day in the captain's cabin with a couple bottles of rum, leaving the treasure chest containing the fruit out on the deck wide open, for all hungry eyes to look at.

"If anyone wants to survive," he had informed the crew, "then go on ahead and eat it. If we all die before we get to the next town, then it's not like we're going to be able to sell it for anything anyway."

And with that, he had stalked off irritably to his cabin and slammed the door behind him. The first mate had reluctantly assumed the duties of captain for the rest of the day, since the actual captain had informed him that he "really wasn't in the mood to deal with a bunch of masochistically suicidal drunken idiots today." In such a situation, the captain's only real duties were making sure that the ship kept to its course. That, however, was also the navigator's job, so the captain's only job was making sure the navigator was doing whatever the navigator was supposed to be doing. Even so, the entire crew – first mate included – definitely preferred it when the captain wasn't in a bad mood. He was normally quite amiable, if not a bit of a scatterbrain.

All of this fuss had occurred quite early in the morning, and so Karimi had been soundly asleep for all of it. Therefore, she had been rather curious when she walked past the treasure chest containing the fruit. None of the crew had paid her any attention as she had picked it up and walked up the stairs onto the quarterdeck, where much of the crew was rather busy being slumped about, too miserable and hungry to notice much of anything except the fact that no birds were flying anywhere near where they might be able to get a clean shot at them and hope to salvage them for food.

No one else had been eating the fruit. Karimi thought they all looked rather hungry, so this didn't make much sense to her at all. Granted, it looked a bit like a lemon, but with as hungry as she was, she wasn't about to be picky about anything tasting too sour or too sweet or too anything, really. If it was poisonous, then it wouldn't have been left lying about like it was. Shrugging to herself, she took a seat at the top of the stairs and began peeling the golden colored skin off of the thing. She examined it a bit more after the skin was off. It definitely wasn't a lemon that someone had drawn swirly designs on, since the designs were also underneath the outer layer of the fruit's skin. It still didn't seem like it could have been anything bad, or else it would have been kept somewhere else. Regardless, she was hungry and she wasn't about to let this opportunity slip away from her.

Isolated from all of this, the captain himself had irritably kicked his boots across the room and flumped onto his bed, glaring at the half empty rum bottle in his hand. He really didn't need this. Pirates were supposed to like gold and money and shiny things in general, sure, but they should at least have some kind of a will to live. He would have eaten the damn thing, but doing so would cause him to explode, which probably wouldn't prove to be very good for the crew.

Sullen and still glaring at nothing in particular, he took a swig of rum, listening to the hubbub out on the deck. He scowled at this as well, at their general inability to remain quiet in any situation – but no, that wasn't right. They had all been annoyingly morose and hushed earlier in their miserable hunger. Now there were sounds of panic. Was that something to be annoyed at? It seemed like it, but that could just be his sobriety thinking for him – he normally didn't allow such a heinous thing to think for him, but halfway into his second bottle of rum and not so much as a buzz, what choice did he have on the matter? Regardless, something terribly weird was going on out there. Finding out what it was would probably be a good idea. He was captain, after all. It seemed to be his responsibility.

As he was standing, he heard a loud yell at everyone to be quiet. Everyone was quiet. The yelling for everyone to be quiet continued. That was also very weird. A moment later the voice clicked familiarly in his mind, and he was out of the captain's cabin and on the quarterdeck in a flash. Neglecting the stairs, he jumped down to the main deck, forced his way through the silent and rather nervous looking crew that was surrounding a corner, and kneeled down in front of the source of the yelling. His first mate was already there, assuming the duties of captain as he had been instructed to do, and doing a very poor job of it. Given the situation, it really wasn't a surprise.

Everyone was completely silent and Karimi was still yelling at them all about how they were being much too loud and that they really needed to be quiet. She was huddled with her hands over her head, her head on her knees, shaking rather more than what was normal or healthy for anyone.

This was one of those times, he thought to himself. He removed the battered tricorne hat from atop his head to run a hand distractedly over his hair, thinking that this was one of those times when being a captain and a father all at once was just too damn much to deal with. Lyon replaced his hat, calmly told most of the crew to go stand at the other side of the ship before he saw fit to drag them all over there – and added that they should probably be quiet. All but his first mate – who Lyon had told to stay in case his head exploded or something – scarpered off fairly quickly. Once the majority of the crew had gone off and remained silently watchful from the other side of the ship, Karimi calmed down a bit. Rather than yelling, she resolved into sobbing and begging in a much quieter manner for everyone to stop being so loud.

Lyon still hadn't quite figured this one out, being that no one was talking. He shot a look at Janx, his first mate, who looked about as confused as Lyon felt.

"Well?"

"It – it was definitely the devil's fruit, captain," he said carefully, his eyes darting to the five-year-old girl to make sure she wasn't going to bark at him to be quiet. "I'm just not entirely sure when she got to it or what exactly it's done."

All right, so then leaving it there had been a bad idea. The crew hadn't gotten to it, but maybe it wouldn't have had such a profound effect on one of them. It was possible that it might have a stronger effect on children, sort of like alcohol or medicine had a stronger effect on them. Maybe devil fruits could go bad? Perhaps – and the thought was a very unwelcome one, no doubt pushed into his mind by the sadistic entity of sobriety that was inhabiting his body with him at that moment – it had been tainted with somehow, poisoned.

Inexplicably, her sobbing grew louder at this. His mind was working a little slower than normal without the rum working to loosen its hinges a little bit, but after a moment, he found his eyes slowly widening at a thought that had crossed his mind. That thought was that perhaps the devil fruit was enabling her to hear any thought that crossed his or any of the other crews' minds.

"This could be very…" he started, but he was trailing off by the time Janx looked up at him. What could it be? Bad? Surely not, as long as she got a handle on the ability. Lyon himself had had a little trouble with his to begin with. It hadn't been this much, but he had also been nearly ten years older at the time than she was now. His had also been something a lot easier to deal with, if not somewhat amusing.

For a five-year-old child to suddenly be able to hear all the thoughts of everyone surrounding her – especially when everyone surrounding her was so utterly miserable – wouldn't be an easy thing for that five-year-old to deal with.

"What d'you think it is?"

"I think it is us thinking that's the problem."

Janx also took a moment, but his eyes were also widening in realization after a moment. "You think it's letting her read everyone's mind?"

Lyon thought about this for a moment, then replied slowly, "No, not so much read as hear. If she was reading our minds, she wouldn't be covering her ears. There's a difference. Reading would be a lot easier to cope with. Suddenly hearing a load of voices in her head that don't belong with her wouldn't be, hence…" He waved a hand in the direction of his daughter, who had calmed down a little again now that Lyon himself wasn't inwardly panicking. "I definitely wouldn't want to hear all the thoughts of a bunch of half-starved, miserable pirates all at the same time." Thoughtfully, he added, "I'm honestly having enough issues with my own right now."

"And the fact that they're sober, no doubt."

"Don't remind me," he growled. Janx sniggered, and Lyon shot him a look that quite clearly told him he shouldn't be sniggering. Therefore he stopped sniggering and simply laughed. "Keep as much of the crew off of the quarterdeck as you can, I'll be taking her into the cabin to see if we can sort this out at all."

A good hour or so later, Lyon returned alone from the cabin with a new bottle of rum, feeling slightly less sober than he had earlier and at least slightly happy about that. He took a seat on the stairs leading up to the quarterdeck that Janx was standing guard at – or rather sitting guard at, since he had been sitting there as well when Lyon also took a seat, swaying slightly.

"Catch a buzz finally?"

"After two and a half bottles. About damn time, I say."

"So what's the verdict on the kid?"

Lyon looked up at the sails for a moment as he spoke. "I'm not sure. I'd say she's going to have issues with large crowds for a while. She calmed down quite a bit once I explained what was going on, at least. We're all just going to have to be very careful about what we think from now on." Janx snorted in response to this. Lyon looked at him. "What?"

"Try telling the rest of the crew that."

"I will in a minute. After I tell them the good news, of course. She fell asleep, but she was hearing some other voices before that. From the general gist of what she heard, I'd say we're very close to the next island."

"That's great. I could do with some food that won't do weird things to my sense of hearing."

After another minute or so, Lyon stood and crossed to the center of the railing that ran across the front of the quarterdeck and called everyone to attention from what they were doing.

"I have some very good news and some news that you will most likely consider bad." He paused to let them discuss this amongst themselves a bit, but more to take another swig of rum. "Good news first, since it really is good news. We're close to the next island, and it is inhabited, so there will be food." This time he did have to pause, since this brought about a general hubbub of cheering and a rush to find some way to make the ship go faster. Once they had settled and quieted, he continued. "There is bad news, as I said. Due to the fact that that devil fruit was apparently what we might call… let's say, a Kiku Kiku no Mi, we're all going to have to be very careful what we think about, since she –" He pointed back over his shoulder towards the captain's cabin, "can now hear all of our thoughts."

"Well, what are we supposed to be thinking about, then?" asked someone – someone who turned out to be Janx being a smart ass.

"Er…" Lyon thought for a moment. "Cuddly things. You know, puppies, kittens, unicorns, rainbows."

"When did rainbows become cuddly?"

"All right then, scratch rainbows and replace it with bunnies or something. And be quiet, Janx."

After a general uproar from the crew at having their thoughts controlled, Lyon took his previous seat five minutes later, somewhat amused by the absurdity of the argument he had just had with his crew. Of course, Janx had to put in his two cents now that the official meeting was over.

"So, what now?" he said, looking around at the crew. "Shall I send word to the Marines that we would prefer to be known as the Cuddly Pirates from now on?"

Lyon pushed Janx off the staircase as a response and took another swig of rum, trying very hard not to laugh at it all himself. This was definitely one of those times.

And there we have it, my first ever chapter of my first ever One Piece story.

I think Janx is my favorite OC so far. He's going to be quite fun to write.

Oh, and random translation.

Kiku = listen in Japanese.

So, the Kiku Kiku no Mi is just the name of this particular devil fruit, or at least what Lyon has decided to call it.