Fish Bone [Chou Chou Challenge]

[juusan]

Yokatta Ashita lay flat on his back on the shore of Organ Island. He had his arms crossed over his chest, staring at the sky, and looking relatively less pissed off at the world. He actually look a bit more confused. "How..." Ta-kun moved onto his elbows and looked up over to the town that wasn't but 20 feet behind him. He looked back out at the sea. "How'd I get here?" The half-Fishman asked himself frowning.

He sat up the rest of the way and then hopped to his feet. He checked his bag to make sure he had all of his things, including his two arm-blades, then he looked down at himself to determine if anything had happened. He was fine. The part-Fishman muttered something and thought of what he could last remember. He was sailing with that pirate kid, attempting to navigate through a storm. He remembered being jerked overboard, then, next thing he knew he was here.

"The hell? I musta blacked out, or something." Ta-kun muttered out-loud looking around to try to gather the shape of the island. He could only get the basic idea of on side of it though and tried to look for any other clues. He knew he was still in East Blue. "Guess I better just go ask the people then." He thought once he found that he couldn't identify the island he was on. Ironically as soon as he hiked over to the town there was a large sign proclaiming he was at "Organ Island". Immediately Ta-kun remembered the maps he'd seen and what this village had and what islands were around it. As far as he could remember it was supposed to be a peaceful town, an easy target for pirates, but also a friendly, neighborly community.

Ashita walked down the street, unusually not followed by stares, but that was probably because there was no one to stare at him. So where was this friendly community? It took Ta-kun a few more minutes to find it, where all of the people had gathered at the center of town. They were arguing over something, but Ta couldn't make head nor tails of it. Some were saying something about 'we have the money so just give it to them!', some were saying 'but what about the next time they pull something like this? We can't afford to keep paying them off!', others were saying 'we can't let them push us around! It's all of us against them!', and finally some were yelling 'and get ourselves killed?!'.

"What's with ya'll?" Ta-kun asked without really expecting to be answered, but a little girl nearby overheard and told him. "The doggy Chou-Chou got kidnapped by the bandits, and got held for ransom. But everyone is arguing over if they should give them the money or not." She told him very straightforwardly before putting in her own two cents. "I don't think we should give those mean bandits money. Someone should just go take Chou-Chou back. Chou-Chou's a good doggy. He always guards the Pet Store."

Ta blinked down at her. "That right? Well you seem to have a good head on your shoulders Missy, I wonder why no one's listening to you."

[falken]

"Ah ah," Javilheim hummed as he got off the boat at Organ Island. Surprisingly, he was the only one who got off. The rest seemed to head towards the direction of legendary town of start and end, Loguetown. That was also place he'd like to go to at least once to too. However, right now was his mission and purpose was in Organ Island, where his brother was last seen.

The sunlight beat off on his raven hair as he walked along the docks. The town was small, but there was an abundance of repair and woodwork materials abandoned at the site. With the amount of carts, the town was surely thriving to an extent. To his left, Javilheim could see the line of houses being rebuilt with rapid teamwork. Obvious to say, it was oddly strange to see buildings being repaired in a line.

In a way, Javilheim was glad; it just wouldn’t do if the town was too boring. Interesting things usually lead to other interesting things. It would be great if he found something of significance here. Needless to say, the boy had already forgotten about his actual intention of coming to this island. The wish was granted as something attention-grabbing, well, grabbed his attention.

Javilheim circled the crowd tip-toed with his nose in the air, hoping to sneak a peek at the source of commotion. To his disappointment, his lack of height ruined his chances of completing his objective. Settling for less, the boy opted for some harmless eavesdropping, not that anyone would know. A certain conversation between a little girl and, oddly enough, a fishman was what caught the most interest.

“Sorry to interrupt, but I couldn’t help but overhear your chitchat,” the young male adjusted his glasses with the tip of his finger. “Is something going on here?”

[juusan]

The half-Fishman bristled a bit, temper flaring at someone coming closer to him. It wasn't anything that was too unacceptable, but he still had a angry harshness to his tone when h replied, "It's bad to eavesdrop. You do know that, right koi?"

The little girl didn't seem to notice Ta's attitude and turned around to face the two grown-ups with a small frown. She addressed the new man first. "Well, a really good dog named Chou-Chou was kidnapped mister. And I don't know if we'll ever get him back." She said sadly. "No one's gonna listen to me because I'm a little kid, and no one listens to little kids."

Ta-kun frowned and actually thought for a minute. He figured she was right, that someone should go get the dog themselves, a crowd would just panic the bandits, and they'd probably kill the dog and take off, while paying them would be an invitation for others to do the same. He could probably go get the dog back himself, he didn't really think the bandits would be all that big of a problem for him. He wasn't sure how a dog could be that important to the humans, but he decided to ignore that for now.

It was around that time that the little girl actually took a good look at him and asked, innocent as can be, "Hey, mister, why are you purple?" and Ta-kun's though process came to a screeching halt.

"Cause I feel like it! You got a problem Missy?!" The half-Fishman snapped before he could even think about it, though luckily he wasn't as loud as he usually was when he goes off, and the girl didn't look all that scared. Still the outburst drew the attention of the crowd and Ta quickly cursed his temper as he suddenly found the entire crowd looking at him.

[falken]

“Sorry, sorry,” Javilheim apologized purposefully, “I’m usually not like that. My curiosity just kind of overtook me right then and there.”

As the little girl explained the situation, the young archaeologist was enlightened of the oddly horrible event that took place. ‘Poor girl,’ the thought to himself; he knew the feeling of being ignored by older and more experienced people. That was actually partly why he ran away from home in the first place. Lightly, he fluffed the girl’s hair in a manner of comfort.

However, the adults weren’t really with fault on this one. Organ Island has had more than their fair share of pirate attacks in the past, especially the one that seemed to have the largest impact, where Buggy the Pirate had destroyed almost half the town. It wasn’t surprising that the townsmen were being extra cautious, hoping to avoid unnecessary conflict.

The raven haired youngster sighed, if Wankyriheim was ever kidnapped, he didn’t even know what he’d do. That fuzzy atrocity was certainly going to be the death of him someday. Wait, where was that silly Valkyrie Wolf anyways?

“Grr…”

Curses! Javilheim hurriedly place his large leather backpack on the ground and fully opened it. A small furry head popped out, its eyes shone of anger, sadness, and disappointment. The boy had accidentally forgotten all about his pet hiding in there. The stupid boat didn’t allow creatures onboard and sneaking the rare animal was the only he could think of.

The fishman's sudden outburst caught his attention again. This time, it was worst now that everyone in town decided staring was the best option. With another sigh, Javilheim carefully placed Wankyriheim in the little girl's arms. He then leaned towards the purple half-fish being.

"Maybe you shouldn't have done that," the boy whispered across, "You do know that Cocoyashi Village just around the corner here in East Blue absolutely hates fishmen after the Arlong Park event right? Your kind isn't seen very often and with such an explosive attitude, you're practically telling people to suspect and arrest you. Just take it easy alright? I'm sure the girl only meant it in curiosity. There's no need to take everything at face value, you kno..."

An elderly man stepped out from the group of villagers and walked forwards, towards the both of them.

"Yikes," the boy continued, it was hard to tell if things took a turn for better or for worse. "So what do we do now?"

[juusan]

Ta glared a bit defensively at the crowd. Being a solitary type of Fishman, he was irritated just being around one other person, but crowds really set him on edge, especially when they just kept staring at him. He scowled a bit and partially opened his mouth to say something he didn't completely plan through. Luckily the human from before spoke up, and though his words were even more annoying, he temporarily forgot about the crowd.

His glare turned to the human beside him, whispering things he already knew. He knew where Cocoyashi Village was (along with every other major village and island in East Blue) and what had happened there, he also knew that because of these events the tension around the area would be high. He even knew the girl had just been curious.

As a matter of fact, it as very rarely that he got in trouble for something he didn't know. It was usually what people didn't know about him that got him in trouble. For one thing, even the people in Cocoyashi (not to mention these people), who had been terrorized by a large gang of Fishmen for 8 years, probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between himself and a regular Fishman. Why shouldn't that tick him off if he was just as much human as he was Fishman?! He didn't have any webs between his digits, his gills were far too small and thin, and he had skin covering most of his body. Sure, it was a light purple-blue, and scaly in some places, but otherwise it was normal human skin that even wrinkled if he stayed in the water for too long (which he often did).

Those things were always lost on humans. In fact, he had yet to find a human who could tell he was part-human, before a Fishman informed them of it. Which was the second problem: he had yet to find a Fishman who couldn't tell he was part human. And that pissed him off just as much! Those geezers telling him he was defective or the missing link or something. He was just as much a Fishman as he was a human, too.

But things like that, he liked to say, got his human side mad, and that side he could control. He didn't do it often, because he wasn't usually opposed to getting angry at those people and Fishman, but he could control that anger. Just like he controlled it with this koi next to him, using "your kind" like there was really even a handful of others truly his kind. No, it was the other stuff that was a problem. His fish side was the problem in most cases, which he figured that it naturally had to hinder him a much as it helped him sometimes. There were actually very specific things that set his Betta side off, but they were broad enough that it seemed like he got mad at everything.

They were all very personal peeves, people looking at him or straying within his 'territory' which happened to be wherever he happened to be at the time, though since he joined the Gear Pirates that territorial attitude has since adopted their ship, then it was anyone who spoke about his appearance (the mistake the Missy had made), then anyone who spoke about him who was not speaking to him (which even included just saying his name). Those were the categories he divided his natural instincts into, and those where involuntary. It was just a side-effect of being bred from a very volatile, territorial, and vain type of fish.

So, regardless of the situation, he was going to become angry at those things, and even if he could hold off the reaction at first, he still wouldn't be able to hide it for very long. Another thing humans didn't understand, he couldn't just 'calm down' or 'let things go', it just wasn't in his nature to do so.

So as he looked back up to the crowd and watched as a human elder walked over to them, Ta just crossed his arms and muttered, "Dumb koi." to the human standing next to him.

The man, Ta noticed, had hair and armor that made him look like a poodle dog, almost, and that was enough a distraction to actually look at the geezer without automatically attacking him for getting near him. The elder man looked defensive, but also nervous enough that Ta eased up on his scowl some and moved his golden-yellow eyes away to land on the little girl, who still didn't look scared as much as she looked a bit confused. He kept his eyes on hers while the elder spoke.

"Excuse me, um, gentlemen." The geezer began, attempting to but some nerve in his tone. Ta twitched on eyebrow, but otherwise kept looking at the girl, who kept looking at him. The old man continued "We're not prepared to welcome guests to Orange Village at the moment. We have a.. situation that effects the entire town. So if you don't have any particular business here, I could suggest going to Citrus Village not far from-"

"Are you guys very strong?" The little girl asked, not really meaning to cut off the mayor. She looked between the two visitors with curious but hopeful eyes.

[woohah]

Suddenly, while the crowd stood focused on Takun and Javillheim, a shout emerged from the docks!

"HOOOOOOOOYY!"

Gear stood at the helm, staff raised overheard as the galleon bumped against the stony walkway. Gear threw the anchor overboard to dock it there, and leaped off onto the wooden dock, not missing a beat as he barreled towards Takun. "Hey, Bro!"

He wrestled his way through the crowd, all hundreds of pairs of eyes looking at him. Anyone unlucky enough to cross Gear's path as he charged his way to the center was tossed aside. Finally, he managed to get to the center, and took a moment to breathe, before standing back up. "Takun, you're damn lucky I was able to find you! Some of your drawing ink was left in the water while you were Poseidon's plaything, and once that ended, I saw this was the closest island. So, I followed you here. Based on the crowd, did you go into one of your rages and accidentally kill someone or something?"

Gear also had remembered the storm, and since he had his Devil Fruit powers, he managed to cleave into the deck with his Gear Gimp, anchoring him to the deck. The ship tossed and turned in the gnarly waves, throwing the Greatest Gear Pirates' ship back and forth. After the waves had died down a little, enough to allow the Gear Man to run across the ship without having a serious risk of being tipped over to his death, he adjusted the sails, threw down the anchor, and ultimately managed to keep himself safe, although he had lost Takun in all the confusion.

[rei]

Traveling across the Sea after the storm had knocked him away, Dr. Vegas stood atop the deck of his small ship that read 'Traveling Doctor' on the sail. He smiled as he finally spotted an island in the distance, and whats better was he noticed the pirate ship of the aptly named Gear boy, Gear.

"Hya-hya-hya-hya! If it isn't my old friends." He smiled. He activated his Suru Suru no Mi and his eyes focused in on the distance like a pair of Binoculars. Smiling once he confirmed he was there, He let out a loud scream.

"Oiiiiiii! Mr. Gear!!" Vegas smiled to himself as he put up the sail and began traveling fast in their direction, before reaching the ship in no time, when there he applied extra strength to his leg and easily jumped upon the deck of Gear ship. He took a few steps around and a firm look at everything and said, "Hya-hya-hya-hya! I was right, it reallu was you guys!" He smiled as he took off his monocle and began to polish it firmly with his usual smile, the, 'I promise I'm not going to try and dissect you' one. He jumped down off the ship and walked toward them.

[falken]

Javilheim frowned at the fishman's frustrated and troubled expression. Perhaps it was something he said, perhaps not. There wasn't really a reason to dwell on it, really. However, the grumbled mumble under purple man's teeth was obviously directed towards him. Whatever it was, Javilheim hated when people keep things from him, insults or not, it felt like someone was thought that he couldn't handle it because he wasn't old enough or something.

Before the boy could retort anything to lecture the older man, the chief and little girl had brought up their problem once again. Javilheim lightly ruffled the girl’s hair in an act of consideration and comfort, “Sorry, but I don’t think I’m that strong… But I’m sure we’ll think of something if we put our minds to it right?”

The conversation between the two was quickly interrupted by a rather odd man. By the looks of it, they were the fishman’s companions. Overall, they didn’t seem too bad from their physical appearance, but by the looks of their ship… Pirates. Javilheim wasn’t sure if the events were turning for better or for worse. Although he wasn’t one to judge others based on their external factors, it was hard to ignore the chilling feeling of danger in presence of those ruffians of the sea. Perhaps these people weren’t of those stereotypic types; after all, they were friends with the fishman.

However, the louder man, former of the two of who enter the scene made a dangerous point worth noting. These were men who have already shed the blood of many, their hands stained dirty with the deaths of their opponents. For now, they were not to be trusted, no matter their friendliness or not.

[juusan]

Takun took a step back when the kid reached over to ruffle the little Missy's hair. He clenched her teeth and crossed his arms, attempting not to clock the kid for reaching past him like that. He didn't like the annoyed and distrustful vibe the kid was giving him either. After the kids statement, however, Ta couldn't help but grin. "Well, Missy, I do happen to be very strong. Unlike some other humans." He laughed, but not without a bit of mocking, which set the mayor even more on edge. Still when he grinned down at the little Miss it was genuine, and overall relieved she'd gotten over his brief temper flair.

The little girl had been looking up at the kid in wonder, probably trying to figure out if there was something they could do, however at Ta-kun's statement she seem a bit more hopeful. "Really? You are? Then..." She began looking between the two strangers once again, "Would you please..."

Ta was pretty sure what the girl was going to ask, and by the horrified look on the mayors face, so did he. He was actually ready to accept the mission, if only to help out the little Miss. Plus he was sure he had some time before a certain idiot found him.

The call that interrupted all of their thoughts told Ta that he spoke too soon. Ta's initial thought was spoken aloud, "Oh, what, you found me already kid?" Followed shortly after by a reflexive, "Who the hell are you callin' bro?!"

Gear's explanation of how he found this place so quickly only served to make Ta worry about his ink and maps, then get him pissed all over again by suggesting he killed someone. "What are you saying? You trying to pick a fight ya guppy? This crowd was here before I even washed up!"

The second voice that recognized him made Ta automatically bare his sharp teeth a bit. Glaring over at that quack doctor who'd arrived uninvited before the storm hit, Ta half yelled and half growled out, "WHY ARE YOU STILL FOLLOWIN' US YOU CODFISH?!" Ta found it almost ironic that even though people he knew had arrived, he seemed even angrier than before. He did notice however that he was a lot less uncomfortable.

Ta Key
Gear - Guppy
Vegas - Cod(fish)
Javilheim - Koi {Japanese Carp}

[woohah]

"BAKA! You know I invited him to the crew! We got mixed up in the confusion in the storm!" Gear yelled back. "And if you're going to continue to call me some kind of fish, can't you make it something cool, like a great white shark or a blue whale or something?"

The little girl was about to say something before Ta exploded with rage, as usual. Based on the fact that the Betta half-fishman had apparently had a conversation, the Gear Captain had to ask. "So, if these guys weren't here because of something you did, why are they all up in a crowd?"

The poodle-looking old man, with barrel armor, stepped up. He looked at Gear closely through his spectacles, and a sudden flashback went back through his head. Gear's optimistic smile, it reminded him of that kid, the one with the straw hat. What was it about him that made him think back to that. "Well, stranger, we're in a bit of a crisis right now...."

Mayor Boodle proceeded to explain everything that had happened since Ta arrived and Chou-Chou's dognapping. Strangely, nothing about Chou-Chou's past with his owner and then the Strawhats was mentioned. Finally, the girl walked up to the easily-irritated half-gyojin and asked, "Would you please save Chou-Chou from those evil people?"

Gear was inspired. The dog defended the store, his treasure, and these people just up and took him. The question may not have been asked to him, but Davis was more than ready to give the child an answer. "LET'S GO SAVE THAT DOG!" He unhooked the Gear Staff from his backpack and extended it to it's maximum length.

"Let's go, Ta-Kun, Doc." Gear charged south, and the whole crowd looked shocked.

"YOU IDIOT, YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!"

Note: A whale is not a fish, it is a mammal

[rei]

"Kya-kya-kya!" The doctor smiled and laughed to himself as he followed Gear closely. "Mr. Gear, you really do like putting yourself into situations, don't you?" Vegas said as he took a look at the boy. He had a strange sense about him that Vegas couldn't quite describe, but for some reason it intrigued him. On the other hand he completely ignored the 'man' yelling at him, calling him a type of fish.

"You know Mr. Gear, just maybe I'll consider joining up... But first I want to tag along for a bit, before I make any final decisions." He said, both hands in his Lab Coat. Thoughts of his sick wife flooded his mind as he realized that within the next several years, he had to find a cure and return to give it to her. Would he be able to find it if he stuck with these people?

He now wrapped his mind on the situation by looking around. Small Island, East Blue, Dog, Kidnapped. The works. He smiled and began humming a small tune as he followed Gear and basked in this nice fair weather. It was quite a beautiful day, wasn't it? Of course, this Air headed doctor was also following Gear, who was going the wrong way to begin with.

[falken]

The boy half plugged his ears as the three pirate companions continued their conversation. By all means, Javilheim loved excitement and parties as much as the next guy, but listening to these people was like trying to commit audio suicide. He wouldn't be surprised if he found himself half deaf in his left ear after this event.

Javilheim watched as the two blondes continued to busied themselves with the crowd and their crew member. They didn't exactly seem to get along very well; tolerating each other at the least. In any case, it didn't really matter to the kid. As long as they were going to save the dog, it would all be fine. However, the angry banter between the three continued on and Javilheim briefly wondered if he should just get on with saving Chou-Chou himself. As a owner of a Canis Genus-typed species himself, the raven haired boy knew the feeling of worry for his pet. Such a thing as a ransom was deemed unforgivable.

Lightly patting the little girl's head once again, the young archaeologist knelt down to her eye level. "I'm going to leave Wan-Wan with you for now, alright? I'm sure we'll be back really soon."

Without sparing a look to the two new silly adults who decided to take charge of this rescue mission, Javilheim approached older fishman. As temperamental as the guy was, he seemed like he was the only sensible on of the three pirates. "Come on, Aqua-man. Times a'wasting. Those mountains aren't going to climb themselves, and the dog isn't going to rescue himself either. The sooner we get this done, the better it'll be for the village and Chou-Chou... 'Cause something tells me there's going to be trouble ahead, whether we like it or not."