Confession time! And fic post
Aug. 10th, 2008 11:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainsometimesI haven't done that much on the still-going-strong ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
op_fanforall thread: only made five prompts/requests and filled out four requests. Wrong kind of imbalance, I know (hangs head). But most requests seem to ask for smut, which I can't write, and/or interpretations of a character that I don't favour. Or just seem way too hard! ;)
I've already owned up to the Paulie het fic when re-posting it here, and also in a comment to this Usopp/Smoker fic (second part here), sequel beginning here, which may be the crackiest thing I've ever written, unless that honour goes to my Coby-as-Sailor-Chibi-Moon fic.
I've also written a short PG-13 thing with Nervous Usopp/Stoic Zoro. This is less cracky (in my eyes, at least) but fairly humourous -it's also probably the most suggestive thing I've ever posted, but that frankly isn't saying very much. ;)
And then finally I also wrote a four-part fic in answer to the request "Oldest fic plot EVER, I know but... some member(s) of the Mugiwara get de-aged, and the remainder are left to cope. Actually kinda hoping for seriousness along with probably-inevitable wackiness." However, every single installment of that fic was so riddled with typoes, word omissions and other embarrassing errors that I refure to link to it here. Instead I'm going to post a revised version here on LJ. I've taken care (I think) of the most glaring errors, but it's always easy to miss some, so constructive criticism would be extra much appreciated on this one!!
Title: Now We Are Six (Part I)
Rating: Part I and IV are probably PG, for swearing; Part III is PG-13 for more and coarser swearing. Part II is probably G. But except for language, the whole thing is entirely worksafe.
Setting: Vaguely post-TB.
Summary: Strawhats as kids, as requested in the prompt cited above. Initially I’d looked at the prompt and was interested, but felt stomped at trying to figure out the whys of the transformation. Until I came up with the brilliant (?) idea of simply stealing shamelessly from another manga. ^_^
Flavour: This came out as rather plodding, everyday slice-of-life-ish, no great drama or huge insights or awesome comedy. Meat-and-potatoes, style of thing!
DISCLAIMER: These guys belong to Oda. They’re used without permission.
Entertainment without profit is this writer’s sole ambition.
NOTE: Title nicked from A.A. Milne’s classic collection of verse written for children.
Cause and cure of de-aging nicked lock, stock and barrel from chapters 3-5 of volume 31 (Japanese volume 33) of the Ranma ½ manga, by the great Rumiko Takahashi. My only addition was the effects of mustard.
When Robin came back to the campsite with a large bag hefted over her shoulder, there seemed to be no change in the situation. The only notable difference was that most of her crewmates were now wearing extremely makeshift clothing so that they could move in their current unexpected sizes. Otherwise, almost everyone seemed just as confused, unhappy, irritable, panicky, dazed or wound-up as they’d been when she left camp a little while ago. Only Luffy and, possibly, Brook were acting just as usual, even though Brook was the one with the more unexpected change.
“Hello! Hello, will you listen? LISTEN UP, EVERYBODY!”
Her little girl’s voice rang out shrilly around the camp-fire, but it drowned in the ruckus. Robin looked frustrated as she bit her lip. There was no help to it; you simply didn’t sound very authoritative and knowledgeable with the voice of a six-year-old.
Robin took a deep breath, clenched her fists and muttered ”Boca de fleur”. In the next moment, thirty mouths opened all around her crewmates. The thirty Robin-mouths all opened up at the same time, shouting, ”HEY! BE QUIET AND LISTEN TO ME!”
“Ow! My ears!” cried Usopp.
“Hey! We could hear you fine,” muttered Zoro and glared at her, sounding rather whiny in his six-year-old voice. That hedgerow haircut didn’t really look very good on a six-year old kid, Robin reflected momentarily.
“What’s the matter, Robin-honey?” said little Sanji, running towards her with a big goofy grin on his face. They were the same age now, and yet Robin couldn’t help but find it slightly disturbing seeing a six-year-old boy carry on as if he was nineteen even around his agemates. She found herself frowning at the diminutive chef, as she wouldn’t have done in her adult body. Hm. Maybe she really did have less self-control as this, even though she’d been such a quiet child.
“Look, everyone!” she insisted. “We need to go through what exactly has happened and what to do about it. I think I’ve got a few good ideas.”
“Why should I listen to you?” snapped the six-year-old Nami, looking up from trying to tear Franky’s hair out. “I dunno who any of you guys are! I wanna go home!” She glared at Robin, angry tears forming in the corners of her eyes.
“Yeah, me either, man,” said little Franky, looking suspiciously at the others. He stopped kicking Nami on the shin, however. “I got no freakin’ clue who any of you people are and what the hell I’m doing here, anyway.” Robin had to admit the swearwords sounded rather cute when said in that shrill boy voice. “Do you know my ol’ man, or somethin’?” the little shipwright – now mysteriously de-cyborgised – went on.
“I’m afraid we don’t. But please be quiet for awhile and I’ll tell you,” said Robin. She sighed, and took a deep breath. This really shouldn’t be her doing this – it should be Nami. But Nami couldn’t right now, so she had to step in.
“Oh!” said Chopper, eyes shining. “You know what made this happen?” Chopper was the only one who hadn’t been visibly changed, but he looked very worried and harried as he sat nearly buried in a mountain of medical textbooks. “You’re so smart, Robin! Did you remember it from something in a book? Or from some old legend? I haven’t been able to find a thing in my books, not yet…”
Robin shook her head. “No, I just went and found someone who lives here,” she said. “It’s a farmer who’s used to these woods and spends a lot of his time warning newcomers, but he says he’s often too late. See, it’s all about these mushrooms we had for dinner…”
She explained to them. It took them some time, and she had to use several diagrams and a large pointer and some more judicious use of her devil fruit powers, but at last the gist of it seemed to have sunk in.
“So, it’s the mushrooms fault, huh…” mumbled Sanji, pale and trembling as he lit up a cigarette. Even if his mind wanted one, however, his young body didn’t like the taste of it at all, and he started to cough violently for a good while. “I – I don’t get how this could happen!” he burst out, looking miserable and not meeting anyone’s gaze. “The shitty old man drilled me really hard on mushrooms! I always check them really well before serving them to anyone, even Luffy, who can eat almost anything! And these ones looked exactly like hameshi mushrooms, and that’s a delicacy! Hell, they even tasted like them!”
“Probably a sub-species,” said Robin. “These Time Mushrooms, as they’re called, only grow on this one island, so it’s no wonder you didn’t know. And the ones we all ate happened to be around six centimetres, hence our current age.”
“I’ve said over and over again that mushrooms are dangerous things,” muttered Usopp. He looked pointedly at Sanji. “Maybe this will teach you not to sneak them into my food again.”
“But I sneak them into your food all the time,” said Sanji, “and nothing like this has happened before!”
“Whaaat?!”
“Right,” said little Zoro, leaning against a tree and ignoring the squabble that just broke out between chef and sniper. “I think I understand.” He thumbed at Nami and Franky, who had stopped fighting with one another but still were standing looking very confused and extremely suspicious at the others. “So, how come those two have lost their memories as well, but the rest of us haven’t?”
Robin sat down on a log, her small body feeling tired after standing up in the centre of attention like that. “I asked about that,” she said, “and the farmer said the Time Mushrooms normally only affect your body. The exception is if you eat them with mustard. Then for some unknown reason your mind changes right along with the body, losing your memories if your body grows younger. If you get older than you really are, you can’t see into your future, but maybe you will think more like an older person would.”
“Nami-baby does love her mustard so…” sighed little Sanji, looking regretful as he tried to shake little Usopp’s angry grip on his makeshift shirt off him. Sanji at six seemed to have pretty much the same strength as Usopp as six, but Sanji at six with the mind of Sanji at nineteen still didn’t seem to like to use his hands for fighting or to kick Usopp too hard, so he didn’t seem to have it too easy.
“I don’t believe this at all!” snapped the little Nami. “This all sounds like some weird joke you guys are pulling on us. Probably there’s some mean grown-ups around just standing behind the trees laughing at us!” She glared over her shoulder at the surrounding forest, then raised her voice, “HEY! JUST YOU WAIT ‘TIL I TELL BELLE-MERE ON YOU! SHE’LL KICK ALL OF YOUR ASSES, YOU KNOW!!”
Little Franky nodded, crossing his arms and looking wary. “Yeah, I mean if I were, like, twenty-eight years older and had built a really great ship and had turned my body into a machine I think I’d remember it. Y’know?”
“Yeah, you should remember it, it’s really weird that you don’t,” little Luffy told him seriously. “’Cause you’re a pretty cool guy and we’ve had all sorts of adventures with you already.” He laughed. “Man, those stupid mushrooms sure got us good, though! Even Sanji got fooled! Well, at least I can still stretch.” He leaned back on one elbow to look up at the darkening sky, and stretched his free arm as high as the nearby treetops, then let it snap back.
This made Nami and Franky gape in stunned disbelief and then back further away from the others.
“And I can still talk and think and switch forms,” said Chopper, changing into Heavy Point and Horn Point and then back into Brain Point as he spoke. “So the Rumble Ball probably still works, too.”
“You look just the same, Chopper,” little Usopp pointed out as he and Sanji dusted themselves off, looking somewhat dishevelled. “Are you sure you even ate the mushroom?”
Chopper nodded, changing into Heavy Point again and picking up a heavy tree branch that lay on the ground. “I’m not as strong as I should be,” he explained, bending the branch over one knee and breaking it after five seconds. “See? I should be able to do that much faster. And my reflexes seem to be quite a bit slower, too.”
“I can also still use my powers, as you’ve all seen,” said Robin. “And as for Brook…”
Everyone but Nami and Franky turned as one pirate to look at the musician.
Brook still towered over all of them, but not because he hadn’t eaten the same Time Mushrooms as everyone else. He was as tall as an average ten-year-old, which probably translated to his actual height when he’d been six, if he’d been unusually tall back then as well. But that didn’t mean he’d gained any skin, flesh or living organs – no, he was still all bony: a child skeleton with an afro.
Strangely enough Nami and Franky seemed to take a talking and moving skeleton in stride, as they had with Chopper as well. Maybe they were both too young to realise the oddity of this; maybe they recognised talking animals from nursery tales and talking skeletons from ghost stories. And Robin supposed skeletons weren’t that alarming when you were too small to realise that’s what you look like under your skin - and how you will look one day. But they would probably never have heard stories about rubbermen, so that alarmed them.
“Ah, my,” said little Brook. “Why such surprise in your eyes? I, too, have been given this second shot at childhood! And frankly, I can’t see why you all seem so upset! Why not enjoy our regained innocence, the yet-unsoiled vista of life as it lies stretched out before us?” He bowed and waved his cane grandiosely, then stumbled and toppled over from lack of balance. “Though it is sad to see the beautiful curves of Miss Nami and Miss Robin disappear, I do admit…” he added, sitting on the ground.
“Maybe devil fruit powers are just so strong that no other strange things can override them,” said Chopper tentatively.
“Anyway. We can’t go on like this,” said little Zoro, glaring at the skeleton boy. “We all have dreams we want to pursue. How can we even try to reach them, with our bodies in this weak and pitiful state? It’s not even that we’ll be easy prey for any strong enemy this way! How can we man and sail the ship when we’re less than half our real size?”
“That’s a decent point, and I’m surprised old Mosshead here came to think of this, since he doesn’t really do much on the ship except regale us with his sweet snoring,” said Sanji, his fingers searching for a cigarette which he then put away when his mind caught up with him. Sarcasm didn’t come through that well in a high little boy’s voice, but Zoro still looked aggravated. “Anyway,” Sanji continued, “we can’t really sail with Nami-baby having lost her memory, either.”
Usopp nodded. “Yeah, she’s the one we really can’t do without, not when we’re sailing. And it’s tough with Franky being that way, too,” he pointed out. “’Cause if anyone does know how to adjust the ship so that a shorter crew can work it, it’s him. I haven’t the faintest idea myself if that can be done. Except perhaps for the cannons, I think I might be able to manage them…”
“What? You guys have cannons on your ship?” Franky looked up at this, with a new interest in his eyes. “So it’s a battle ship? How many? Does it have a lot of armour and reinforcement and stuff? And weapons for underwater fighting? And does it have catapults, and grappling hooks, and what about…”
Nami wrinkled her nose at him. “You sound reaaal stupid,” she said. “What do you want to do when you’re on a ship, just to fight people or to actually get somewhere? I’d never let you on a ship I’d be navigating! You’d just sail us into battle! Bleah!”
Franky scowled. “Battle ships are cool! They’re super!” he insisted. “You’re just a dumb girl who’s probably never gonna dare come out to sea ever! Just stay at home and be safe with your mommy!”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah!”
They flew at one another again, their temporary truce abandoned. Robin ignored them this time, instead waving the rest of the crew over to gather around the big bag she’d brought with her. Very carefully, she took out the five small baskets filled with wood and placed them on the ground. Tiny little mushrooms were growing out of them, as yet only a few centimetres long. She’d wanted to pick bigger ones but hadn’t been able to find any.
“These are the cure I tried to tell you about before,” she said in an urgent whisper. “Once they’re as tall as we want to be old, we eat them. So Luffy and Usopp will wait until we get 17 centimetre-mushrooms, then they’ll eat them and go back for normal. Nami will eat an 18 centimetre one, Sanji and Zoro will wait for 19 centimetres, and so on. Brook, I don’t think you need to wait for your actual age, it should be fine with the same age you were when you died.”
“Do they get to be that tall, then?” asked Sanji, giving Robin a worried look – probably thinking of her 28 years, she thought. “Though of course if some of us would prefer to look a few years younger that wouldn’t be a problem at all!” he added hurriedly.
Robin smiled at him, feeling happy to convey good news. “They can get to be one metre tall in good conditions,” she said. “They have to be kept somewhere dark and humid, of course.”
“Of course,” said Luffy, nodding sagely several times. “They had mushrooms like that on Little Garden, remember? You could probably use them as chairs…” he added dreamily.
“Well, you’d better not eat them,” said Usopp, glancing at him suspiciously. “Or you’d get to be a hundred years old!”
“Ooh! I could have… I could have a really long beard!” exclaimed Luffy, stars in his eyes. “I’d trap birds with it and everything! And, and I’d get a cool-looking cane, just like Brook!”
“All right, so it’s decided, then?” said Sanji. “We all stay here on this island for a while to wait for the mushrooms to grow and for Nami-baby to get her memory back! And Franky, too,” he added as an afterthought. “They will get it back, won’t they?” He looked at Robin again, his young voice high and thin with anxiety.
“They will,” she said, nodding and giving another small but genuine smile. “Either when their bodies turn back to normal, or when the mustard gets out of their system, which will probably be earlier. That’s what that farmer told me.”
“Yeah!” said Luffy. “And we’ll have fun, too! It’s better to be grown-up and stronger, but being a kid doesn’t have to be that bad, so there’s no need to be down! Maybe we’ll even have some cool adventures on this island!”
“Not too scary, I hope!” said Usopp. “But you’re right about the fun part. Let’s go explore the beach! We can look for neat seashells and also crabs and oysters for dinner!” He and Luffy and Chopper took off already, and there was no normal Nami around to groan and roll her eyes at them.
As for Robin, she smiled to herself again, feeling both relieved and exhausted. Soon she’d have to get up and try to reassure the navigator and the shipwright as best she could. They’d been silent for too long now, and that wasn’t good. She’d also have to move the mushrooms to a suitable place – no, wait, Sanji was already doing that, and Zoro was moving their things about the campsite to prepare for the night. For now, Robin could just here a while, letting her small body gather some strength.
Without meaning to, her thoughts wandered to another forest long ago and far away, a forest that had been burned to a crisp along with the rest of the island. There might be young trees growing there now again, though. She looked at her two child hands, and closed her eyes, remembering the giant who had tried to teach her to laugh.
“Dereshishi…” she whispered softly. “Dereshishi…” Her crewmates, if they had happened to look at her, must have thought she behaved oddly, just sitting there and grinning with her eyes closed. But they didn’t say anything. And this time, her grin stayed a grin for much longer.
She was very glad she had chosen to forgo the mustard today.
To Be Continued
op_fanforall thread: only made five prompts/requests and filled out four requests. Wrong kind of imbalance, I know (hangs head). But most requests seem to ask for smut, which I can't write, and/or interpretations of a character that I don't favour. Or just seem way too hard! ;)I've already owned up to the Paulie het fic when re-posting it here, and also in a comment to this Usopp/Smoker fic (second part here), sequel beginning here, which may be the crackiest thing I've ever written, unless that honour goes to my Coby-as-Sailor-Chibi-Moon fic.
I've also written a short PG-13 thing with Nervous Usopp/Stoic Zoro. This is less cracky (in my eyes, at least) but fairly humourous -it's also probably the most suggestive thing I've ever posted, but that frankly isn't saying very much. ;)
And then finally I also wrote a four-part fic in answer to the request "Oldest fic plot EVER, I know but... some member(s) of the Mugiwara get de-aged, and the remainder are left to cope. Actually kinda hoping for seriousness along with probably-inevitable wackiness." However, every single installment of that fic was so riddled with typoes, word omissions and other embarrassing errors that I refure to link to it here. Instead I'm going to post a revised version here on LJ. I've taken care (I think) of the most glaring errors, but it's always easy to miss some, so constructive criticism would be extra much appreciated on this one!!
Title: Now We Are Six (Part I)
Rating: Part I and IV are probably PG, for swearing; Part III is PG-13 for more and coarser swearing. Part II is probably G. But except for language, the whole thing is entirely worksafe.
Setting: Vaguely post-TB.
Summary: Strawhats as kids, as requested in the prompt cited above. Initially I’d looked at the prompt and was interested, but felt stomped at trying to figure out the whys of the transformation. Until I came up with the brilliant (?) idea of simply stealing shamelessly from another manga. ^_^
Flavour: This came out as rather plodding, everyday slice-of-life-ish, no great drama or huge insights or awesome comedy. Meat-and-potatoes, style of thing!
DISCLAIMER: These guys belong to Oda. They’re used without permission.
Entertainment without profit is this writer’s sole ambition.
NOTE: Title nicked from A.A. Milne’s classic collection of verse written for children.
Cause and cure of de-aging nicked lock, stock and barrel from chapters 3-5 of volume 31 (Japanese volume 33) of the Ranma ½ manga, by the great Rumiko Takahashi. My only addition was the effects of mustard.
When Robin came back to the campsite with a large bag hefted over her shoulder, there seemed to be no change in the situation. The only notable difference was that most of her crewmates were now wearing extremely makeshift clothing so that they could move in their current unexpected sizes. Otherwise, almost everyone seemed just as confused, unhappy, irritable, panicky, dazed or wound-up as they’d been when she left camp a little while ago. Only Luffy and, possibly, Brook were acting just as usual, even though Brook was the one with the more unexpected change.
“Hello! Hello, will you listen? LISTEN UP, EVERYBODY!”
Her little girl’s voice rang out shrilly around the camp-fire, but it drowned in the ruckus. Robin looked frustrated as she bit her lip. There was no help to it; you simply didn’t sound very authoritative and knowledgeable with the voice of a six-year-old.
Robin took a deep breath, clenched her fists and muttered ”Boca de fleur”. In the next moment, thirty mouths opened all around her crewmates. The thirty Robin-mouths all opened up at the same time, shouting, ”HEY! BE QUIET AND LISTEN TO ME!”
“Ow! My ears!” cried Usopp.
“Hey! We could hear you fine,” muttered Zoro and glared at her, sounding rather whiny in his six-year-old voice. That hedgerow haircut didn’t really look very good on a six-year old kid, Robin reflected momentarily.
“What’s the matter, Robin-honey?” said little Sanji, running towards her with a big goofy grin on his face. They were the same age now, and yet Robin couldn’t help but find it slightly disturbing seeing a six-year-old boy carry on as if he was nineteen even around his agemates. She found herself frowning at the diminutive chef, as she wouldn’t have done in her adult body. Hm. Maybe she really did have less self-control as this, even though she’d been such a quiet child.
“Look, everyone!” she insisted. “We need to go through what exactly has happened and what to do about it. I think I’ve got a few good ideas.”
“Why should I listen to you?” snapped the six-year-old Nami, looking up from trying to tear Franky’s hair out. “I dunno who any of you guys are! I wanna go home!” She glared at Robin, angry tears forming in the corners of her eyes.
“Yeah, me either, man,” said little Franky, looking suspiciously at the others. He stopped kicking Nami on the shin, however. “I got no freakin’ clue who any of you people are and what the hell I’m doing here, anyway.” Robin had to admit the swearwords sounded rather cute when said in that shrill boy voice. “Do you know my ol’ man, or somethin’?” the little shipwright – now mysteriously de-cyborgised – went on.
“I’m afraid we don’t. But please be quiet for awhile and I’ll tell you,” said Robin. She sighed, and took a deep breath. This really shouldn’t be her doing this – it should be Nami. But Nami couldn’t right now, so she had to step in.
“Oh!” said Chopper, eyes shining. “You know what made this happen?” Chopper was the only one who hadn’t been visibly changed, but he looked very worried and harried as he sat nearly buried in a mountain of medical textbooks. “You’re so smart, Robin! Did you remember it from something in a book? Or from some old legend? I haven’t been able to find a thing in my books, not yet…”
Robin shook her head. “No, I just went and found someone who lives here,” she said. “It’s a farmer who’s used to these woods and spends a lot of his time warning newcomers, but he says he’s often too late. See, it’s all about these mushrooms we had for dinner…”
She explained to them. It took them some time, and she had to use several diagrams and a large pointer and some more judicious use of her devil fruit powers, but at last the gist of it seemed to have sunk in.
“So, it’s the mushrooms fault, huh…” mumbled Sanji, pale and trembling as he lit up a cigarette. Even if his mind wanted one, however, his young body didn’t like the taste of it at all, and he started to cough violently for a good while. “I – I don’t get how this could happen!” he burst out, looking miserable and not meeting anyone’s gaze. “The shitty old man drilled me really hard on mushrooms! I always check them really well before serving them to anyone, even Luffy, who can eat almost anything! And these ones looked exactly like hameshi mushrooms, and that’s a delicacy! Hell, they even tasted like them!”
“Probably a sub-species,” said Robin. “These Time Mushrooms, as they’re called, only grow on this one island, so it’s no wonder you didn’t know. And the ones we all ate happened to be around six centimetres, hence our current age.”
“I’ve said over and over again that mushrooms are dangerous things,” muttered Usopp. He looked pointedly at Sanji. “Maybe this will teach you not to sneak them into my food again.”
“But I sneak them into your food all the time,” said Sanji, “and nothing like this has happened before!”
“Whaaat?!”
“Right,” said little Zoro, leaning against a tree and ignoring the squabble that just broke out between chef and sniper. “I think I understand.” He thumbed at Nami and Franky, who had stopped fighting with one another but still were standing looking very confused and extremely suspicious at the others. “So, how come those two have lost their memories as well, but the rest of us haven’t?”
Robin sat down on a log, her small body feeling tired after standing up in the centre of attention like that. “I asked about that,” she said, “and the farmer said the Time Mushrooms normally only affect your body. The exception is if you eat them with mustard. Then for some unknown reason your mind changes right along with the body, losing your memories if your body grows younger. If you get older than you really are, you can’t see into your future, but maybe you will think more like an older person would.”
“Nami-baby does love her mustard so…” sighed little Sanji, looking regretful as he tried to shake little Usopp’s angry grip on his makeshift shirt off him. Sanji at six seemed to have pretty much the same strength as Usopp as six, but Sanji at six with the mind of Sanji at nineteen still didn’t seem to like to use his hands for fighting or to kick Usopp too hard, so he didn’t seem to have it too easy.
“I don’t believe this at all!” snapped the little Nami. “This all sounds like some weird joke you guys are pulling on us. Probably there’s some mean grown-ups around just standing behind the trees laughing at us!” She glared over her shoulder at the surrounding forest, then raised her voice, “HEY! JUST YOU WAIT ‘TIL I TELL BELLE-MERE ON YOU! SHE’LL KICK ALL OF YOUR ASSES, YOU KNOW!!”
Little Franky nodded, crossing his arms and looking wary. “Yeah, I mean if I were, like, twenty-eight years older and had built a really great ship and had turned my body into a machine I think I’d remember it. Y’know?”
“Yeah, you should remember it, it’s really weird that you don’t,” little Luffy told him seriously. “’Cause you’re a pretty cool guy and we’ve had all sorts of adventures with you already.” He laughed. “Man, those stupid mushrooms sure got us good, though! Even Sanji got fooled! Well, at least I can still stretch.” He leaned back on one elbow to look up at the darkening sky, and stretched his free arm as high as the nearby treetops, then let it snap back.
This made Nami and Franky gape in stunned disbelief and then back further away from the others.
“And I can still talk and think and switch forms,” said Chopper, changing into Heavy Point and Horn Point and then back into Brain Point as he spoke. “So the Rumble Ball probably still works, too.”
“You look just the same, Chopper,” little Usopp pointed out as he and Sanji dusted themselves off, looking somewhat dishevelled. “Are you sure you even ate the mushroom?”
Chopper nodded, changing into Heavy Point again and picking up a heavy tree branch that lay on the ground. “I’m not as strong as I should be,” he explained, bending the branch over one knee and breaking it after five seconds. “See? I should be able to do that much faster. And my reflexes seem to be quite a bit slower, too.”
“I can also still use my powers, as you’ve all seen,” said Robin. “And as for Brook…”
Everyone but Nami and Franky turned as one pirate to look at the musician.
Brook still towered over all of them, but not because he hadn’t eaten the same Time Mushrooms as everyone else. He was as tall as an average ten-year-old, which probably translated to his actual height when he’d been six, if he’d been unusually tall back then as well. But that didn’t mean he’d gained any skin, flesh or living organs – no, he was still all bony: a child skeleton with an afro.
Strangely enough Nami and Franky seemed to take a talking and moving skeleton in stride, as they had with Chopper as well. Maybe they were both too young to realise the oddity of this; maybe they recognised talking animals from nursery tales and talking skeletons from ghost stories. And Robin supposed skeletons weren’t that alarming when you were too small to realise that’s what you look like under your skin - and how you will look one day. But they would probably never have heard stories about rubbermen, so that alarmed them.
“Ah, my,” said little Brook. “Why such surprise in your eyes? I, too, have been given this second shot at childhood! And frankly, I can’t see why you all seem so upset! Why not enjoy our regained innocence, the yet-unsoiled vista of life as it lies stretched out before us?” He bowed and waved his cane grandiosely, then stumbled and toppled over from lack of balance. “Though it is sad to see the beautiful curves of Miss Nami and Miss Robin disappear, I do admit…” he added, sitting on the ground.
“Maybe devil fruit powers are just so strong that no other strange things can override them,” said Chopper tentatively.
“Anyway. We can’t go on like this,” said little Zoro, glaring at the skeleton boy. “We all have dreams we want to pursue. How can we even try to reach them, with our bodies in this weak and pitiful state? It’s not even that we’ll be easy prey for any strong enemy this way! How can we man and sail the ship when we’re less than half our real size?”
“That’s a decent point, and I’m surprised old Mosshead here came to think of this, since he doesn’t really do much on the ship except regale us with his sweet snoring,” said Sanji, his fingers searching for a cigarette which he then put away when his mind caught up with him. Sarcasm didn’t come through that well in a high little boy’s voice, but Zoro still looked aggravated. “Anyway,” Sanji continued, “we can’t really sail with Nami-baby having lost her memory, either.”
Usopp nodded. “Yeah, she’s the one we really can’t do without, not when we’re sailing. And it’s tough with Franky being that way, too,” he pointed out. “’Cause if anyone does know how to adjust the ship so that a shorter crew can work it, it’s him. I haven’t the faintest idea myself if that can be done. Except perhaps for the cannons, I think I might be able to manage them…”
“What? You guys have cannons on your ship?” Franky looked up at this, with a new interest in his eyes. “So it’s a battle ship? How many? Does it have a lot of armour and reinforcement and stuff? And weapons for underwater fighting? And does it have catapults, and grappling hooks, and what about…”
Nami wrinkled her nose at him. “You sound reaaal stupid,” she said. “What do you want to do when you’re on a ship, just to fight people or to actually get somewhere? I’d never let you on a ship I’d be navigating! You’d just sail us into battle! Bleah!”
Franky scowled. “Battle ships are cool! They’re super!” he insisted. “You’re just a dumb girl who’s probably never gonna dare come out to sea ever! Just stay at home and be safe with your mommy!”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah!”
They flew at one another again, their temporary truce abandoned. Robin ignored them this time, instead waving the rest of the crew over to gather around the big bag she’d brought with her. Very carefully, she took out the five small baskets filled with wood and placed them on the ground. Tiny little mushrooms were growing out of them, as yet only a few centimetres long. She’d wanted to pick bigger ones but hadn’t been able to find any.
“These are the cure I tried to tell you about before,” she said in an urgent whisper. “Once they’re as tall as we want to be old, we eat them. So Luffy and Usopp will wait until we get 17 centimetre-mushrooms, then they’ll eat them and go back for normal. Nami will eat an 18 centimetre one, Sanji and Zoro will wait for 19 centimetres, and so on. Brook, I don’t think you need to wait for your actual age, it should be fine with the same age you were when you died.”
“Do they get to be that tall, then?” asked Sanji, giving Robin a worried look – probably thinking of her 28 years, she thought. “Though of course if some of us would prefer to look a few years younger that wouldn’t be a problem at all!” he added hurriedly.
Robin smiled at him, feeling happy to convey good news. “They can get to be one metre tall in good conditions,” she said. “They have to be kept somewhere dark and humid, of course.”
“Of course,” said Luffy, nodding sagely several times. “They had mushrooms like that on Little Garden, remember? You could probably use them as chairs…” he added dreamily.
“Well, you’d better not eat them,” said Usopp, glancing at him suspiciously. “Or you’d get to be a hundred years old!”
“Ooh! I could have… I could have a really long beard!” exclaimed Luffy, stars in his eyes. “I’d trap birds with it and everything! And, and I’d get a cool-looking cane, just like Brook!”
“All right, so it’s decided, then?” said Sanji. “We all stay here on this island for a while to wait for the mushrooms to grow and for Nami-baby to get her memory back! And Franky, too,” he added as an afterthought. “They will get it back, won’t they?” He looked at Robin again, his young voice high and thin with anxiety.
“They will,” she said, nodding and giving another small but genuine smile. “Either when their bodies turn back to normal, or when the mustard gets out of their system, which will probably be earlier. That’s what that farmer told me.”
“Yeah!” said Luffy. “And we’ll have fun, too! It’s better to be grown-up and stronger, but being a kid doesn’t have to be that bad, so there’s no need to be down! Maybe we’ll even have some cool adventures on this island!”
“Not too scary, I hope!” said Usopp. “But you’re right about the fun part. Let’s go explore the beach! We can look for neat seashells and also crabs and oysters for dinner!” He and Luffy and Chopper took off already, and there was no normal Nami around to groan and roll her eyes at them.
As for Robin, she smiled to herself again, feeling both relieved and exhausted. Soon she’d have to get up and try to reassure the navigator and the shipwright as best she could. They’d been silent for too long now, and that wasn’t good. She’d also have to move the mushrooms to a suitable place – no, wait, Sanji was already doing that, and Zoro was moving their things about the campsite to prepare for the night. For now, Robin could just here a while, letting her small body gather some strength.
Without meaning to, her thoughts wandered to another forest long ago and far away, a forest that had been burned to a crisp along with the rest of the island. There might be young trees growing there now again, though. She looked at her two child hands, and closed her eyes, remembering the giant who had tried to teach her to laugh.
“Dereshishi…” she whispered softly. “Dereshishi…” Her crewmates, if they had happened to look at her, must have thought she behaved oddly, just sitting there and grinning with her eyes closed. But they didn’t say anything. And this time, her grin stayed a grin for much longer.
She was very glad she had chosen to forgo the mustard today.
To Be Continued