"Alright! Thank you for waiting! Now we'll officially start distributing the loot! Each of these is worth a lot of money!" Nami announces, both hands settled on the pile of assorted gold whatevers on the table in front of her. For the first time in my career as a Straw Hat, we're rich as hell. I was never in it for the gold, but hey, I'm not complaining.

With a stifled laugh, I raise an eyebrow at Nami's wardrobe choice today: A dark tank top with the word "GOLD" written across the chest. Subtle, Nami, very subtle.

I'm the only Straw Hat to not crowd around the gold-filled table, instead choicing to sit back against the wall of the cabin, watching the proceedings with amusement.

"Yay!" Usopp shouts, followed with a wolf whistle, two fingers pressed to his teeth.

"Hurray!" Luffy cheers, hands thrown skyward. "Let's buy a statue! I WANT A STATUE!"

"Can I buy book!" Chopper asks, slamming his hooves down on the table.

"New pots, new pans, new silverware... And a few mouse-traps," Sanji lists, rubbing his hands together deviously. Not sure why we need the traps. The only scavenger we have on this ship is Luffy.

"Time for some sake!!" Zoro adds, with the biggest grin I've ever seen on him. I shake my head, casting my thoughts back to how we even obtained this gold. Skypiea was a beautiful, magnificent island in the sky... and I hope to never go back there in my lifetime. The White-White Sea was bad enough when Usopp almost drowned not even five minutes after arriving there using the Knock-Up Stream, but then we had to fight "god". Damn Enel... Nearly killed me, Zoro, Robin, and that old knight guy I've already forgotten the name of. Of course Luffy was immune to his Rumble-Rumble Fruit powers, seeing as how he's rubber and lightning can't hurt him. Me, on the other hand? Severe burns and some nasty internal damage that took Chopper forever to sort out.

Though I have to say, I'm grateful for the Dials we got from the Skypieans, the little shell-looking devices with different abilities. I'm sure they'll be useful, especially if Usopp is the one handling them.

I tune back into to conversation when Nami slides over a good portion of the treasure, separating it from the miniscule amount left. "First things first," she says with a bright smile. "My share is eighty percent of these."

"Hold on a second....!!" the boys chorus, sweat dropping and holding out their hands, palms up, to deter Nami.

"I was just kidding!" she insists.

"You better be!"

"You have to share equally!!"

I share a look with Robin, and we both break out into soft smiles. Everyone, including Zoro, trusts Robin now, and I'm glad. She's a great crew member, and I'd gladly put my life in her many hands.

The boys calm down when Nami starts to explain that the share isnt for her, exactly. 

"Repain the ship?" Luffy echoes. "Going Merry?"

"Yes," she replies. "The ship is just barely holding together right now." 

"That's true..." Usopp admits uneasily. I frown sympathetically at him, but only for a moment. Because Luffy laughs and shouts, "Let's do a super upgrade for the Going Merry!!" 

"Agreed!"

"We don't know how much it'll cost, so we'll sort out the rest of the treasure later," Nami says as we all sit down to the spread of food Sanji was preparing earlier. The gold now sits in the corner of the cabin, waiting for Zoro and Sanji to bring it down below so it'll be safer. I'm kinda surprised Nami didn't want to keep it in the girls' room, but whatever. It's not like anyone's going to steal it. Seeing as how we're all on the same crew, that would just be plain moronic.

"We really can't rely on Usopp to fix everything," Zoro says around a mouthful of the (sadly) delicious sandwhiches Sanji made. I'm tempted to scold him for talking with his mouthful, but seeing Luffy eat.... There's no point. "His repair skills are quite limited."

"I am a sniper," Usopp says indignantly. "S-N-I-P-E-R!"

"Hmm, let's go to a shipyard," Sanji suggests, offering Robin a sandwhich from the platter he carries. "A professional one, and get everything fixed up."

"Eh?" Chopper says, as he swallows down a mouthful of the roll he's holding. "There are people who can fix the ship better than Usopp?"

I smile at him frm my seat between him and Luffy. "Chopper, you're view of the world is really limited," I say, and his eyes widen. "Just because Usopp says he's a great Warrior of the Sea, doesn't mean he can do anything. There are people who build their lives around repairing and building ships, and they'll do a much better job than Usopp ever could."

The aforementioned sniper shoots me a glare, which I smile innocently at and shrug my shoulders. Not my fault it's true. Then he sighs and returns to eating and drinking what I think is either tea or coffee. I can't really tell, because the only thing I can smell from here is Zoro's sake. I don't know how he can drink it this early... That'd probably make me puke.

"Come to think of it," Usopp says, "the ship has been sailing without major repairs since we left my village. We should really have it looked at, big time. Otherwise we may sink before we know it."

"Ok, I've decided," Luffy says, throwing back the last of his water and swallowing down the remnents of his meal. "Our next crew member will be shipwright!!"

I almost spit out my juice, I'm so surprised. Luffy made a logical decision all on his own!

"If our journey is to continue, we'll need someone like that," he says, still smiling broadly. "Going Merry is our home. It's out lifeline! We need to find someone who can keep her in good shape!"

"Did he just..." Sanji starts.

"Yeah," Usopp replies. "He did just say those intelligent things.

"Alright it's decided!"

"Yup! It's decided!"

"Hopefully, we'll find someone like that soon..."

"Oh! We also need a musician, by the way!!"

"Not this again, Luffy!" I mutter, banging my head on the table. 

"Eh?!"

Of all the things to follow us around the Grand Line.... it had to be those bastard Sea Monkeys... 

We met up with them not long after we dropped back down into the Blue Sea, and here they are again! Causing another huge wave that threatens to capsize us!

The giant wall of water bears down on us, the three Sea Monkeys riding it lazily, chasing after us with those creepy, cheeky smiles on their ugly faces. 

"Run away! It's the Sea Monkeys!"

"They're here again!!"

"There's no wind!!"

"Pull up the sails!"

"We'll use the paddles!"

I stand around awkwardly as Luffy, Sanji, Zoro and bulked-up Chopper all maneuver the huge paddles we use to move the Going Merry when the wind dies down. I'm not strong enough, physically, to help them at all, and it's weighing on me. I mean, Usopp, Robin and Nami aren't helping either, but I just...

"Emergency! Emergency!" Usopp shouts from the Crow's Nest, where he's scanning the seas with a pair of binoculars. "Another ship, twelve o'clock!!"

"Eh? Enemies?" Luffy asks, looking up at Usopp. "No..." he replies uncertainly, as I quickly scurry up the ropes to the Nest, hopping in beside him. "On that ship... There's no flag and even a sail!" he reports. "What kind of ship is that?" I take the binoculars from him and quickly zero in on the ship he's talking about. It's larger than the Going Merry, but then again, most pirate ships are. But Usopp is right, they're not flying any flags or colors, and have no sail to catch the wind at all. There's a slightly demented-looking frog figurehead with sharp, unnatural teeth that makes me think, no matter what, these guys are pirates.

"Huh? They don't have anything? Why are they on the sea?!" Luffy shouts up. I shake my head as Usopp calls out, "I don't know but... the sailors look kinda strange."

"I second that," I mutter, lowering the binoculars and blinking against the glare cast off the water. "They're all just sitting there," I shout, hoping to reach my captain's ears. "They look like someone killed their puppies!"

Usopp snatches the binoculars from my hands, looking at me oddly. Ok, so I made a slightly macabre comparison. So what?

"What the heck?" Zoro yells. "Can that ship make it?"

"It'll get swallowed by the wave if it drifts like that!" Nami answers. 

As pull alongside the ship, I swing down from the rope-net-ladder thing connecting to the Crow's Nest from the deck and hop over to where Luffy is staring at the other ship from the railing. "Hey~~~~~!!!" he shouts. "You guys, the wave and the Sea Monkeys are coming!!"

"Seriously, turn around if you don't wanna die!" I add. A few sailors jolt from their stupor and train their eyes on us. I can just make out what they're muttering to each other.

"...Ah..."

"It's a ship.... A pirate ship!!"

They all start bickering with each other, some of them wanting to steal our treasure, others warning about the incoming wave, some shouting our orders than no others listen to.

"What's going on with them?" I wonder aloud, still beside Luffy. "They're like chickens with their heads cut off. It's kinda funny," I add, cracking a humorous smirk.

Seeing he can't get through to them, Luffy goes back to helping the other men, now including Usopp, in rowing the paddles. He sighs after a moment, casting another look at the disorganized crew. "That ship's crew lacks discipline," he says. 

"They said they want to rob us, let's just ignore them," Sanji says.

I watch in fascinated horror as the crew continues to yell and bark at one another, and their ship draws closer and closer to the monster wave caused by the Sea Monkeys. I wince and turn away when the wave breaks, crashing over their ship and sending it down to Davy Jones' Locker with a hissing laugh as the foaming water shifts back into the sea.

"Phew, it's over," Usopp sighs, slumping against the mast. 

"The temperature and humidity are stabilizing," Nami comments. "I wonder if we're near the next island?"

"Hey, Robin!" I shout, waving at the black-haired woman currently manning the Crow's Nest. "You haven't seen anything have you? Clues to the next island?!"

"Yes, a while ago," she answers, leaning down to look at the bedraggled crew. I sweat drop, grinning awkwardly up at her.

"WHAT?!" Usopp and Luffy shout together, arms stiff in the air. "Why didn't you say so earlier?!"

"You're on watch!" Usopp goes on. "So when you see an island you're supposed to say..."

"You guys~~~~~!!! I see an I-S-L-A-N-D!!" Luffy finishes. "Land ho!!"

"Now you do it," Usopp instructs.

"There's a heavy fog..." Robin says, once again ignoring our captain and resident sniper. 

"A fog?" Nami questions. She looks over her shoulder at Chopper. "There may be danger. Chopper, go watch the front."

"Yes, sir!" he cries, quickly scurrying off to carry out orders from our navigator.

"Do you know how much we want to see an island?" Luffy demands, still stuck on Robin's blunder. "I'm sorry," she says. "I'll announce it next time."

"That's better."

"Hey, you guys..." Usopp says, gesturing at the rest of us to come closer. "Don't you think that ship was kind of weird? The captain wasn't there.... or the navigator.... No flag, no sail... Then all the crew looked disheartened and lacked discipline... How could they have been pirates?"

Zoro shrugs. "Maybe they lost a fight, the captain died, and they lost all their stuff?" he offers.

"Not likely," Usopp says. "I checked out their ship and not only was there no sign of a recent battle, but there was nothing on the ship to suggest they were pirates!"

"So they weren't pirates," Sanji says, puffing out a cloud of smoke, newly-lit cigarette in hand. "No big deal.

"Maybe... but my instinct tells me they were pirates," Usopp insists, looking away. "I have a bad feeling about this."

"You always do," Sanji says as he climbs the stairs to the upper deck.

"I wonder if there's a town or a shipwright on the island!" Luffy says, slingshotting himself up to the deck with his Gum-Gum powers. "Luffy, don't go on the island before everyone else is ready!" Nami warns him. I very much doubt he's going to listen, but talking about it won't change anything.

"The shore is near!" Luffy calls down. "Get ready to anchor the ship!"

"Yeah!" Nami calls back.

"Oooooh! Everyone... listen to me...." Usopp moans, clutching at his stomach as though ill, one hand raised in warning.

"Chopper, Usopp is suffering from the die-when-going-to-an-unknown-island syndrome," Sanji informs our doctor sarcastically.

"Y-yes..." Usopp moans.

"I don't know how to cure that," Chopper admits, and I laugh. 

It isn't long until we break through the sensory-dampening fog, and dock at the island. I raise an eyebrow at the landscape. It is nothing but wide open space, filled with green, flowing grass, and the occassional tree, though they're unusual as well. Tall and straight and thin as a toothpick, they tower over everything around them.

"There's nothing!" Nami shouts out in exasperation.

"So big... so empty!" Luffy says, shading his eyes to peer at the large expanse of nothingness. "It's plain alright, Sanji agrees with an unimpressed expression on his face. "There's nothing to see."

"I wonder if it's inhabited," Robin says thoughtfully, familiar small smile lighting up her face. 

"YAHOO!!" Luffy shouts, flinging himself, along with Usopp and Chopper, off the ship and onto the island, where they begin to roll around at a frighteing speed.

Nami sighs, shaking her head. "We still don't know anything about this place and they..."

"This place is so empty, there shouldn't be any danger," Zoro reasons.

I hop up onto the bow railing, swinging my legs over in preparation for sliding down to the ground. "You're not going after them, are you Raya?" Nami asks. I smile at her over my shoulder. "Nope," I say. "I just want to get off the ship. I'm not leaving to follow my baka of a captain. i'm sure he'll get into trouble one way or another, and I don't want any part of it."

With that said, I push off from the railing and fall to the ground, jetting out a burst of flames from my feet at the last second to cushion my fall. It scorches the sweeping grass to withered ashes in seconds, and I shake the remains of green, growing things from my boots as I step away from the dead area.

I walk over to one of the strange trees, pressing my palm to the bark, and staring up at the distant, closely-packed branches. I can see fruit hanging from them, but they too cause one of my brows to raise in question. They're so oddly shaped, even though from here I can tell they must be apples, from the color and smooth-looking texture. But they're elongated, like bananas. 

I vaguely pay attention when the others disembark from the ship and follow my lead, studying the island. I'm too enthralled by the sight of what I think is a dog, though it's not like any dog I've ever seen. It walks past me without a second glance, all fifty feet of it. It takes about two minutes for the entire length of the dog to pass me by. But other than that, it looks like a normal canine. The hell? What's with this place?"

Something smashes onto the island, shaking the ground enough for the entire crew to feel it. I whip around and stare, wide-eyed, at the sight of two paw-like appendages digging into the ground on either side of our ship, attached by heavy metal chains to a giant ship that absolutely dwarfs the Going Merry. The ship itself bears a large fox figurehead, and sails that hold a skull and crossbones that resemble a fox with a freaky looking nose. The word "FOXY" is in the background in either side of the skull.

Sensing trouble, I dash back to the crew, skidding to a halt just as Zoro asks, "Who are you people?" 

"Come on and fight!" Sanji challenges calmly.

"What do they want from us..." Nami wonders breathlessly. "Blocking the front, and back of the ship..."

"Come out, cowards!!" Zoro shouts.

"We are the Foxy Pirates!" a voice shouts down from the deck of the creepy ship. "Don't be so anxious.... Our duel will begin shortly!"

"Did they just say 'duel'?" I question, tipping my head back to stare right into the eyes of the fox figurehead. Foxy Pirates? Never heard of them. And I know some pretty obscure pirates. Like the Smiley Pirates from a few years ago. Yeah, they didn't last long.

"Our captain will be challenging yours to a Davy Back Fight!" the same voice announces, causing a trickle of  sweat to spill down the back of my neck. Luffy... please tell me you won't....

"Davy Back Fight?" Nami echoes, sounding confused.

"Yes," the Foxy crew member replies. "The games begin when the captains from both ships agree to it."

"Our captain is proposing the game to your captain as we speak," a brutish-looking man adds with a sadistic grin that makes me want to cut an arm and a leg from his body. Purely out of spite.

"Proposing?" Zoro asks. "Why bother? We never back down from a fight."

"Zoro, these aren't the kinds of fights you win with brute force," I say, casting his a worried glance. He narrows his eyes at my expression, probably wondering why I seem so distraught over the whole thing.

"Yeah," Sanji says, backing up my point. "A Davy Back Fight is a gambling game played between pirates."

"That is correct," Robin says knowingly. "According to legend, the game was invented a long time ago on the 'Pirate's Paradise Island'. Many pirate groups have been using it to acquire good crews. It's the way pirate groups fight over pirates."

"Groups fighting over pirates...?" Nami repeats, sounding no more informed than before. "Yes," Robin repies, saying nothing further on the matter.

"You didn't even know that, and you call yourself a pirate?" one Foxy pirate shouts mockingly. A roar of onboxious chuckles passes through the entire crew, which must number somewhere in the hundreds. Man, we should have listened to Usopp and stayed away from this island... "Davy Back Fights are the "Contests for human resources"!" 

Well, that's a nice way of saying it's basically kidnapping pirates from their original crews...

"The format we is the 3-coins rule. That means three rounds per game!"

"The victor of each game may pick one crew member from the loser's team."

"The chosen crew member must then swear loyalty to the winning captain!"

"He will do so in the name of the great Davy Jones!"

"If you lose the game you lose a friend?!" Nami gasps.

"That's right! Lastly, is there is no desirable crew left in the losing team, the winner may choose to take the loser's pirate flag."

"In this game you ante up your friends and pride," Sanji says seriously. "If you win, you grow stonger. If you lose you can fall and never get back up again. It's a very dangerous game."

"This explains that ship we passed a while ago," I mutter, shaking my head. I should have realized. My parents used to tell me stories abotu famous Davy Back Fights. I never wanted to be in. I always thought there was too much at stake for a stupid little game of pride. And now, with the Staw Hats as my crew, it's an even bleaker future I face if we go along with this duel. "They didn't have a sail, or a captain, or their navigator... And with no signs of a battle..."

"Oh!" a pirate pipes up. "You must mean the Fang Frog Pirates! There were the loser of the previous game! Look! These are the new crew members we got!"

"Wooooh! Long live Foxy's Pirates!"

"I won't deny it. I was the captain of the Fang Frog Pirates," a man with a busy black mustache says, jerking a thumb at himself.

"I was the doctor!"

"I was the navigator!"

"I was the shipwright!"

"They played 3-coins and lost five timmes," a Foxy pirate explains proudly. "So we took four crew members and their flag! We literally stripped them of everything they had!"

"Yeah! Hahahahaha!"

"That's so foolish and meaningless!" Nami shouts, while I mutter, "Despicable bastards," under my breath. "We'll never play a game like that!"

"Idiot! It doesn't matter if a crew like you rejects! The game will proceed as long as the captains from both sides agree! You can cry, you can scream but as soon as you captain, Monkey D. Luffy, fires the starting pistol, you will all become ante of the gamble!"

"It can't be helped, Nami-chan," Sanji says reasonably, though I'm still burning with rage over these damn Foxy Pirates. "This is the 'law' of the sea. No matter how foolish it sounds. If you run away or play tricks, you'll become the laughingstock of everyone in the world."

"So?" Nami demands. "Let them laugh. Who cares?!"

"I do," Zoro says. "I would rather die."

"Me too, Sanji agrees in a miraculous turn of events. Whoever though they'd actually agree on something...

"What the heck is wrong with you?!" Nami exclaims. I sigh, stepping away from Zoro with one last glare and taking a place beside Nami. "I don't understand it either," I admit. "I'd rather keep my nakama safe, even if it meant killing my pride. Who gives a damn about something like that when it could mean losing everyone of your friends?"

"Exactly!" she says, looking a little relieved someone agrees with her.

Give a rest, Raya," Robin says with her signature cool smile. "Men are always like that..."

"Whatever," I growl, spinning on my heels and beginning to stalk in the direction I saw Luffy and the others take. "I'm going to stop this idiocy before it begins." 

"You're too late!" a pirate yells, causing me to skid to a stop and flick a glance behind me. "When the captains fire their guns one after another, the game starts. It should come any moment now..."

"Luffy, I swear to Kami, if you fire that gun, I'll personally--"

BANG

BANG

"--burn your hat to nothing more than ashes," I finish, hissing out the final words. I throw my arms wide in exasperation, and scream, "BAKA!!" as loud as I possibly can, hoping my anger reaches Luffy's deaf ears, wherever the hell he is.

"That means..." Nami starts.

"He accepted it," Sanji finishes.

"Perfect," I hear Zoro say, sounding waaaay to pleased for what's to come. Baka! 

"Intersting," Robin adds, as though it's a sotry in a book she'd just cracked open, instead of the intense situation only Nami and I seem to be able to see.

"CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!!" the Foxy Pirates sing gleefully.

I hang my head in defeat. This is going to be one hell of a day...