One Piece (Love Story) [Part One]

Chapter One Hundred and Twenty Six [Rewritten]

-Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Six-

"Uh...look, I tried...but it didn't matter how hard I fought—he still kept burning everything..." Chopper nervously explained, too scared to really look the sharpshooter in the eyes. "I promise, I did everything I could!" he quickly defended, not wishing for his friend to think that he had just sat by and let some stranger damage the Going Merry without a fight.

"Yeah, well, are you going to be okay?" Usopp asked, causing the reindeer to hesitantly nod. "You must have been scared facing that guy by yourself, it's a good thing he set the mast on fire instead of you, right?" he softly chuckled. "We can figure out the details later" he assured, causing the doctor's eyes to widen in slight awe as he realized that his friend wasn't really mad at him like he had feared.

"I promise to be a more dependable man starting right now!" Chopper boldly proclaimed as he climbed on top of one of the railings—puffing his chest out as he made this declaration of his.

"Chopper, stop yelling at the altar and tell me something" Luffy spoke up as he interrupted the reindeer's moment. "How did you get rid of that Priest?" he curiously asked.

"I used the whistle that the Sky Knight gave us and he showed up to rescue me" Chopper explained.

"Smart thinking" I nodded, patting the top of his head as he bashfully smiled at the compliment.

"Oh! Where is he? I don't see him" Luffy's head quickly started twisting around from side to side as he began to look for the old man. Motioning with his head, Chopper led us all toward where he had the man currently resting. "He's willing to risk his life this much for us, even though he gave us that whistle for free?" the captain questioned as he bent down to look at the resting man.

"If it wasn't for the Sky Knight, you guys probably wouldn't have a ship and I'd sure be dead" Chopper pointed out.

"Seems this stranger's done quite a lot for us in such a short period of time of knowing us" I said, nodding in agreement as I realized that what the reindeer was saying was true. If it wasn't for the old man coming to our friend's rescue, things could have turned out a lot differently for us.

"I've got a bunch of questions for him, but I guess I'll wait for him to wake up" Sanji sighed before looking towards Pierre. "We owe you some thanks as well" he gently smiled at the bird that stood guard over his owner.

"His right, you both did such a wonderful job protecting our ship and dear friend" I brightly smiled, gently stroking the top of the bird's head as he made sounds of contentment at the affectionate gesture.

"Luffy!" Chopper squealed when the rubber man suddenly grabbed ahold of the old man's beard without warning and yank it, quick was he in ushering the captain away from the man and all of us back out onto the deck of the ship so that we could no longer bother the old man while he slept.

"The Going Merry is trashed and it'll be dark soon, so there's no chance we'll make it back to Angel Island 'til tomorrow" Sanji summarized as he assessed our situation. "We should hop over on land and make camp for tonight" he suggested.

"Why there?" Luffy asked.

"Because if we stay here and someone attacked us, the first thing to take a beating will be our ship!" Usopp frowned. "Would you use your head, Luffy?!" he irritably snapped.

"Not to mention it's easier to fight from land than from an altar floating on a cloud" Sanji added.

"Basically, it's just better if we slept on land than on the ship" I summarized, feeling that giving the captain the simplest response would make it easier for him to understand what we were telling him.