One Piece Fan Fiction ❯ Sitting on the Waves ❯ Examination ( Chapter 1 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

ONE PIECE
SITTING ON THE WAVES
CHAPTER 1
BY
Sgamer82

     In a tavern, a man and woman sat together. They had no connection. He had his goals, she had hers. It just so happened that their goals had happened to intertwine.

     “So, have you done it?” the man asked.

     “Yes, I have.” the woman answered, “The effects will begin immediately, but will only gradually develop.”

     “Good.”< br>
     “I just don’t see why I couldn’t have done it all at once like I usually do.”

     “It’s not possible. It would attract too much unwanted attention this time. We can’t risk that. Not with these people. We’d best be careful if this is going to work out like it should.”

     “Yes,” the woman said, “You’re right.”

     The both looked out a nearby window, which had a great view of the harbor. Docked in that harbor was a pirate ship, a Caravel. The mark decorating the sail and flag depicted a skull and crossbones, with the skull wearing a straw hat. * * * * *

     Redisca village, in the vast equatorial sea called the Grand Line, was known as “the town of second chances.” Any could enter the village, no matter their past deeds, so long as they behaved themselves. Even pirates were allowed to come and go as they pleased. The pirates, for the most part not stupid enough to lose a good thing, never harmed the village. Not when sober anyway. So nobody really cared about the arrival of pirate Monkey D. Luffy and his one hundred million Berry reward. Nor did they think anything of Luffy’s crewmates, Roronoa Zoro and Niko Robin, who had sixty and seventy-nine million Berry rewards respectively.

     For the Straw Hat pirate crew, this was the perfect place to relax for a little while. They had learned from the villagers that the Log Pose (the navigational tool required to navigate the Grand Line) required a few weeks to set itself to this location and begin pointing to a new island. With no worries ahead of them, the crew took full advantage of the time.

     On the deck of the Going Merry, the crew’s doctor, the human-reindeer Tony Tony Chopper, convinced the crew to do something he had been wanting to do for a while now, but they had been too busy for.

     “Ah, that’s cold!”

     “I’m sorry, but that’s how a stethoscope’s supposed to be.” Chopper replied to his patient.

     Chopper was giving the entire crew full physicals. Currently he was working on Nami, the crew’s navigator, measuring her heartbeat with the stethoscope under her T-shirt.

     “I know… I’ve just always hated those things, ever since I was a kid.”

     Chopper wrote down some notes on a clipboard and removed the stethoscope, putting it around his neck.

     “Okay, we’re done.”

     “Finally!” Nami exclaimed. “I don’t see why this was so important. Didn’t you do this when you first joined us?”

     “I just took some basic measurements, like height, weight and such.” Chopper explained, his usual shyness not present as he talked about the field he was most confident in, “this is the first chance I’ve had to do real thorough examinations.”

     Nami looked at Chopper’s clipboard, which had several papers clipped to it, each with information regarding the five other members of the crew and herself. As much as Nami understood the practicality of having detailed records of the crew’s health on hand, she really would much rather have been looking through shops in the village. They didn’t have anything spectacular, but they did have a lot of good traveling clothes, and much of Nami’s wardrobe had begun wearing out with all the adventures the crew had had.

     As Chopper started flipping through the clipboard Nami got off the Merry to start her trek to the village clothing shops. She wondered if she could meet up with Robin on the way. Or even Luffy, whose almost pathological inability to lie made him a great judge of how she looked in a given outfit.

     Chopper looked over his notes and noticed something odd. Something didn’t match up right. A set of measurements from now and one from the first time he took them were different. Chopper knew that both should be accurate, he was very careful both times he took them. So it was quite strange that the two numbers wouldn’t match up.

     Chopper wouldn’t be bothered if the current number were higher than the old one. But, since when do humans get shorter in height at the age of eighteen?

     Puzzling.

BRIEF AUTHORS NOTE: The Luffy-as-clothing-judge joke isn't mine. But is instead borrowed (with permission) from chapter 6 of Icka M. Chif's fic, Drabbles.