He was falling. In slow motion. Or at least it felt like slow motion to him, slightly dazy, and with debris from the explosion all around him. It probably had to do with the recent blow to the head.

If he were honest to himself, he sometimes thought he must be crazy. Then again, can a crazy person know they are crazy? Isn't that the whole point of being crazy, that you don't realize so? I mean, once you… oh right, falling to his death, yes, priorities.

Not that he was worried. It may be due the daze, or the fact he really was, as he sometimes thought, crazy, but it most likely was just because, after a point in his life, he began to take things in stride. One day you are at home, back in the old country, listening to your papa's made up stories. The next day you are chasing royalty through space. That's life for you.

Of course, the first few months after falling into that pipe were… not quite as easy on his mind. It is unsettling for any Italian teen to be cheerfully greeted by a thing that by all means should have no mouth. Worse yet was finding out it was an one-way trip down the rabbit hole, since re-entering the sewer pipe only led him back to where he first exited.

In some ways, he was glad papa and mama had passed on by then. It was a terrible thought, but he knew he would never be at peace at night thinking how worried they must be for him and his brother.

But after you spent long enough down the rabbit hole, wonderland starts getting same old same old. Magic talking bean people? Been there. Having a race over the rainbow? Done that. Chase royalty through space while rescuing sugar-high baby stars from turtles? Bought the shirt. After a decade of living in his new home you sort of zoned out of the 'logic' stuff. Hell, he could remember that time where he didn't twice before jumping inside a painting hanging in the wall and it worked. After that, a planetary hopscotch was nothing he couldn't handle with ease.

Well, for a certain amount of 'ease', the voice in the back of his head chipped in, while the gravitational pull of the globe intensified. He was fairly sure he hadn't landed on this planet before; too huge. Almost the size of-

And then he lost consciousness.

"Lightning?! It was hot just a second ago!" Nami, the navigator of the Strawhat Pirates, looked surprised through a window. "And now it's snow?!" It was her first experience with Grand Line weather patterns, and it was as inconsistent as she'd heard. Of course, hearing is a thing and seeing is another.

From behind her, the two people she'd come to think of as "The Freeloaders" frowned. One of them wore a crown and had two 9s tattooed on his cheeks. The other was female and had long, blue hair tied up in a ponytail. She was the first to speak, bluntly:

"You really seem like an amateur. Have you even checked your Log?"

"Yeah, I checked it just a while ago…" Nami looked at the compass-like object tied to her wrist and promptly kicked open the door to the deck of the ship, where the crew was making snowmen. "WE HAVE TO TURN BACK 180 DEGREES!"

Luffy, the captain, looked up at her with one brow raised, halfway through the act of putting a carrot on a snowman.

"Eh? You forgot to poop before leaving?"

He was immediately hit on the face by a snowball.

"AS IF! We are going in the wrong way! I looked away from the Log Pose for a second and we already seem to be heading in the complete opposite direction!"

From behind her, the freeloaders sneered and went into a tirade about how much of a newbie she was at this and how much better they were at her job, at which point she promptly kicked them into the deck.

"If you two have time to brag, then steer!" Nami turned back to the crew "Usopp, go to the back and keep watch! Sanji, you control the rudder!"

"Whatever you tell me, Nami-swan~!"

There was a gust of warm wind from her left, even though it had been snowing. Soon after, a giant wave nearly turned the ship.

"Hot air, now?! Stop changing already!"

In the deck, Usopp ran up to Zoro, who was loudly snoring on top of a barrel. Against his best judgment, he put both hands on the swordsman's shoulders and shook violently.

"OI, ZORO! WAKE UP! WE HAVE AN EMERGENCY!"

The swordsman grumbled something incomprehensible and changed his pose slightly, but made no effort to remedy the situation. Suddenly, Luffy let out a scream:

"OI! NAMI!"

Nami turned worriedly to look at the captain.

"What?!"

Luffy was smiling and pointing excitedly to the horizon.

"There is a dolphin over there! Can we go see it up close?!"

"THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR THAT!"

The ship was again thrown sideways, and the weird climate of the Grand Line started getting, well, weirder. Soon orders were being yelled and obeyed, and the air filled with a jumbled mess of sentences;

"The waves are getting stronger!"

"Nami-swan, there's fog over here!"

"I think we hit an iceberg back there!"

"There is a leak starboard!"

"Would someone just punch that shitty moss head awake?!"

"Is that a typhoon?!"

"Oi, what's up with this heat?!"

"The route is changing again!"

"H-hey Nami, I think I can see- *THUD*

The last sound was of something blunt falling into someone's head, specifically, a yellow box, on Usopp's.

"B-boxes, now?" Nami turned to the freeloaders who, as much as she hated to admit, where much more knowledgeable than her about this sea:

"Is this a Grand Line thing as well?!"

The man with 9s tattooed on his cheeks looked at the box, confused.

"N-not that I heard of- AYEEE!" his sentence was cut off when another yellow box narrowly missed his head and landed in the deck in front of him.

They all looked up. Luffy's eyes lit into stars.

"Oh man, this is SO COOL!"

Above them, the fog remained thick, but behind it there seemed to be something akin of a light show. Flashes of colored light danced in the mist and reflected upon the sea in mesmerizing ways, and here and there air around the Merry seemed to almost… shimmer, there was no other word for it.

The crew, save Luffy and Zoro, took a step back as a small, colorful comet fell on the deck, followed by small trail of rainbow, and if that were not strange enough, instead of damaging the deck in anyway, the comet simply… bounced as if made of cotton.

All around them, similar comets started raining down, on the deck and on the sea, where they would float. Luffy quickly raised his arms up, and grabbed one mid-fall.

"Oi, Luffy, be careful, we don't know what that is!" Usopp was still massaging the lump in his head, caused by the box.

Luffy, following the instincts and curiosity most commonly found in kids of the age three to six, asked out loud "I wonder if this is edible" before promptly shoving it inside his mouth.

He gasped and went wide-eyed. Sanji approached worriedly

"You idiot! Don't just go putting stuff in your mouth like that! Are you alright?!"

"SWEET!"

"Eh?"

Luffy grabbed another light meteor mid-fall and bit it with gusto.

"This is delicious!"

Sanji looked at the glowing shard in Luffy's hand incredulous. Surely it was a rock? Who ever heard of a mineral which was sweet?

He grabbed one of the shards from the ground, slid a finger over it, then licked his finger.

He said "?!"

He then added; "It really is sweet…? What even are these things?"

Nami picked one of the comets near her feet and licked it. Then absent mindedly looked back up to the light show behind the fog .

"Is this… common?"

The freeloaders seemed as flummoxed as the Strawhats, and the man shook his head vehemently.

"No!"

"Even for the Grand Line, this is too weird!" the woman agreed.

The light show and the comets had some eerie beauty to it. For a brief moment, that was enough for them to forget the dangerous sea they were in.

For a brief moment.

Like, two seconds.

Another yellow box fell on the deck, landing with a heavy THUD. There was a black question mark engrave on its sides. Yet another fell to the sea, where it floated. And unlike the gracious and delicious comets, these boxes carried the definite threat of injury, as Usopp's bump could attest. They also didn't look particularly tasty, though Luffy made a mental note to ascertain the fact once opportunity presented itself.(1)

"Hey, we better get inside, these things can really hurt!"

"Eeeh? But I want to watch the lights some more." The captain made a pouty face.

"Eek!"

The blue haired girl flinched as a box almost fell on her, but was saved as Sanji jump-kicked it from above her head, directly into the face of the crown-wearing man, who fell back with some white foam coming out of his mouth.

"Usopp's right, this is getting too dangerous, let's get inside!"

They all ran to the covered area of the ship (a protesting Luffy being dragged by Usopp, and the foaming man being dragged by the blue haired woman), and just in time for the box rain to intensify; the sounds of thuds became frequent, as well as the splashes on the sea. Usopp started worrying out loud if the Merry was going to be okay.

Nami looked at the Log Pose and sighted.

"At least the storm is over. And it seems we are on course again."

The crew became silent for a while, listening to the sounds coming from the outside. Sanji had brought a bit of comet and sat, eyeing it up and down with a thoughtful expression. Usopp sat on the ground, trying to stay as far as way from the freeloaders (who he did not trust in the slightest) as possible. Nami was sitting with the two of them (the male having woken up by now, and did his best to hide the square-shaped red wound in his head) at the table, and Luffy's was trying to look at the lights from a porthole.

"Ah." It was Luffy. Everyone turned to look at him. He half-turned and stared back at the crew. "Zoro's still outside."

He said it in a monotone, simply stating a fact.

Usopp crossed his arms, closed his eyes, and nodded sagely.

"I see, outside." He then nodded some more.

Sanji puffed some smoke of his cigarette, still looking at the shard intensely. "Now that you mention it, yes."

Nami looked at the ceiling. "Yes, he is out there."

There was some more silence, with some thuds coming from outside, Nami spoke again.

"Should we help?"

Sanji frowned. "That shitty marimo can go **** himself."

"W-well I'M not going out there!" Usopp hastly added.

"OI! NAMI!" Luffy was gesticulating wildly at the porthole

Nami quickly turned to Luffy "What happened?!"

His eyes gleamed.

"The dolphin is still out there! Let's turn the ship to-" Nami punched him in the head before he finished the sentence.

"SHUT IT ABOUT THE DOLPHIN!" then some gears clicked in place on her head "…wait, if you can see a dolphin out there then the fog…"

"H-hey guys, I think it stopped" it was Usopp, still sitting cross-legged by the door. He was holding a hand to his ear.

The crew listened. There was no sound coming from outside.

Meekly, Usopp opened the door to see the sky, then sighted in relief.

"All is clear, the sky included."

The group walked out, and indeed the fog was gone, and so was whatever it was that caused the light show to begin with.

The deck was a mess; there were colorful, glistening comet fragments scattered everywhere, including the sea, much to Luffy's delight, and yellow boxes of various sizes, from small enough to hold in one hand to big enough to hide a crouching adult inside, where scattered all over. In fact, Zoro was sleeping while sitting on top of one of the bigger boxes, barrel nowhere in sight.

Sanji picked up one of the bigger shards of comet, and puffed some smoke.

"I think I could use these." He looked at the sea, where more fragments and boxes were floating around. "Usopp, you think you can make something to fish the ones in the water as well? It would be a waste to lose food this unique."

Usopp scratched his head thoughtful

"A fishing net would probably do it, but where did these things even come from to begin with?"

"There was a typhoon."

The crew turned. It was the blue haired woman talking.

"During the confusion, remember? There was a typhoon at one point."

The man with 9s in his cheeks nodded.

"I see. There must have been another ship we couldn't see inside the fog. And this," he taped one of the boxes "is what is left of it after the typhoon."

Usopp started sweating.

"Y-you mean that an entire ship was reduced to rubble just like that?! T-that could have been us!"

The woman chuckled.

"Of course it could, and it probably would as well, with your navigator's skill."

Nami grinned darkly.

"Excuse me?"

"It's as I said. If we hadn't warned you, you would not have reacted in time; we would probably be deep inside the typhoon by now."

"W-well, that is…"

"Do you get it now? The Grand Line is not like the calm, peaceful Blues you are accustomed to, it is not a place for amateurs playing pirate!"

Nami looked shaken.

A voice suddenly spoke behind the blue haired woman, startling everyone;

"We are not playing, though."

Zoro was standing just behind the freeloaders, munching on a bit of comet. "Hey, have you guys tried this? It's pretty sweet."

Usopp slapped the air "Don't you go just putting random things in your mouth too!"

The woman glared at the swordsman.

"What you mean by that?"

"I mean what I just said; we are not 'playing' pirates, we are pirates."

"How can you say that with such confidence after what just happened?!"

Zoro looked around, frowning.

"Why, what happened?" There was a moment of silence. "Why are you two here?" More silence. Zoro took another bite from the fragment, and added with his mouth full "…fwat are fese bofses, by fe way?"

Nami grabbed Zoro's sholders, smiling, with a dark, looming shadow over her eyes.

"Zoro-kun…"

But whatever threat she might have wanted to say was interrupted by Luffy, who was pointing to the sea;

"OI! NAMI!"

"LUFFY YOU CAN TAKE YOUR DOLPHIN AND STICK IT U-"

"No, not that!" he pointed again "There is a guy over there!"

(1)He later did. They tasted like crap.

A/N;

And do it begins. Again.

For the people who were wating for me updating my Persona/Discworld crossover... I am truly sorry, but this is,I hit a writers block hard on that one. I know where I want to take the plot to, I have all the major points laid out in my head, but whenever I sit up to put it down I keep hitting corners and writing myself into dead ends. I truly wish to continue that one, but I write for fun, not as a work, and I realised I was having no fun writing that anymore. If I ever manage to overcome it, I'll go back to writing it in a heartbeat.

Will this one be different? I hope so. This is a plot bunny so old, it actually preceds that other fic of mine by a whole year. And it is easier to write since all I'll do is slightly alter an already existing plot instead of creating one from zero.

I'll be keeping this fic Mario-centric. Basically, if a scene won't involve Mario or is affected by him existing, I'll skip it over, and you can assume it went the same way as in the original manga. The reason I do this is to avoid just copying dialogue from the original manga, which the average One Piece fan has already read.

I'll also heavily summarize and cut down some of the original dialogue, because while I love manga, I'll be the first to point out it is many times really, really, really redundant. In the same page, characters will sometimes point out the same thing using different words over and over again; "we can't win! It is useless! He is too strong! We are losing!" and so on. I'll cut down those to them saying just two sentences and call it a day. I'll also alter and paraphrase a lot.