Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck! I had no idea where I was. I had no idea how I got here. Hell, I didn't even know how I got into this marine body. What did I know?

Is that something wanted me as a snack. And that whatever it was, it was in my best interests for me to not get caught. I pushed my body to its absolute limit, tail flailing as I tried to push past whatever it was that was chasing me. So much so that I didn't register anything else around me.

By the time I noticed the looming shadow from the deep, it was far too late. It ate me, and the creature after me, in a single mouth full, not even needing to chew. I struggled against the current as it swallowed, desperately trying to find purchase on anything that could keep me out of this colossal monstrosity stomach. But there was nothing within reach of my newfound flippers or tail.

The forces that pulled on my body were much, much too great. I struggled to keep my eyes open as I fell deeper and deeper into its gullet until darkness began to claim me. Was this really how I was going to die? Eaten by some strange aquatic monster?

No, this had to be a dream.

Or a nightmare.

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The first thing I felt was the feeling of burning on my skin The second? A piercing pain in my hand. Flipper. Whatever.

My eyes cracked open, finding myself face-to-face with a man. He looked fairly old, and his hair was almost like that of a flower. I blinked at him.

"Well, aren't you the strangest seal I've ever seen," the man said, almost to himself. I twisted against the line, desperately trying to shake myself off the hook.

I went to open my mouth, despite there being no way anything that could pass off as human speech could exit my mouth. "Seel".

The man stared at me. I stared at him, my struggling against the hook ceasing. There was a surprise there for both of us. How could there not? But the name? I recognized that name. How could I not?

"A talking seal. Now that isn't something you see every day either," he said as I opened my mouth.

"Seel." Yeah, wasn't sure I was expecting, either. Pokemon were not known for their conversation abilities. Nor known for being able to convey that I'm a human.

Oh, oh god. How do I get back to being human?

"Son of an ass!" I shouted in pain as my body contorted in pain, the hook through my hand going from a persistent pain to one that felt like I was being stabbed! That answered that question but left me in agonizing pain. The old man, much to his credit, managed to get me off the thing in short order.

"Well, you're a lucky Devil Fruit user, if little else," the man said, as I winced as he bandaged my hand.

"Devil Fruit?" I frowned, still wincing from the pain. The man's face formed a scowl as he looked me over. "I have no idea what those even are, or where I even am."

"And you aren't with those people who are trying to kill Laboon?" His eyes narrowed.

"Laboon? What's a Laboon?" I scowled back. "Look, the last thing I remember is waking up in, that, being chased by something, before being eaten. So if you could just point me towards Kansas, that would be great."

"I can't tell you where Kansas is, as I've never heard of the place," the man scratched his chin. "As for Laboon? He's the whale we are currently inside."

"What?" That was the only thing that could come out of my mouth. We were inside a whale? I looked at the clouds and the peaceful blue sky, before narrowing my eyes. They weren't moving. At least, not in a way clouds should move. How big is this thing?

"If you want out, the exit is over there," the man pointed. "But unless you're willing to try your luck in the Grand Line without a ship." I wanted to scowl, bristle, and tell the man to get bent. Being eaten by this Laboon probably, no, certainly saved my life. I was in my debt to a massive whale, only large enough to have a gate in its side and an island in its stomach.

Wait, a gate? I double took towards the structure. The man even pointed it out and I still missed it! How exactly did this old man manage to build something like this? It was massive! I'm pretty sure a modern naval vessel could fit through there! Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I looked at the old man.

"Well, thanks for fishing me out, I guess," I rubbed the back of my head with my left hand awkwardly, before extending my right hand. "My name is Nathan."

"You can call me Crocus," the man gripped my hand as I bit into my lip from the pain. Why was I forgetting that I'd literally just been impaled? "A soft one, aren't you? Let's get that wound cleaned out properly."

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My eyes lazily opened. This wasn't my bed.

It wasn't the bed I'd fallen asleep in, either. This was what I would expect out of being in the stomach of a whale. Darkness, nothing, the feeling of utter oblivion.

But it was the feeling of oblivion. Just on the outer edge of my vision, I swore I saw something move in the darkness. Something massive, shifting through the void. Something was out there, watching, waiting. Almost hungry.

Did it notice me? Could it have?

For the second time in a day, I was asking myself if what I was seeing was even real. This, I was certain, had to be a dream. There was nothing else it could be. This was just a dumb dream, and all I needed to do was wake up.

Any second now. I closed my eyes, opening them just as quickly as I felt something brush past my leg. Trying to find the source, my head whipped around wildly, only to see nothing but oblivion. Whatever it was could still hide. And it frankly didn't need to. What exactly was the play here? Try to fight? It had to have felt me.

What did I have access to? Just water? No. There was a tingle in my spine. I wasn't sure how I knew, but I had more than just that. I had close to everything. Light spilled from my body, energy building up around me. In the blinding light, I could see it, its talons extending around the light, reflecting it like a dark piece of glass. It hovered ominously as if waiting for something as my eyes continued to widen.

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"Necrozma!" My body jolted awake, sweat poring down my face.

"That was quite the sneeze," I heard Crocus say from the other room. I wanted to raise my voice in protest, but it wasn't going to be worth it. Even trying to explain what Necrozma was wouldn't even be worth the effort. I throw on a pair of clothes, trying and failing when it comes to not thinking about my dream. What did it mean?

Necrozma wasn't even a Pokemon, at least technically speaking. Kinda. It was from another dimension, but Beast Balls weren't as effective on it. And in the Ultra games, it was able to absorb light to restore its original form. But that didn't explain anything. Sure, the mon was a psychic type, but that was far from anything to do with dreams. So why was it there? Sure, I could do, something, with light. But what did that have to do with Necrozma? It could eat light. Did it want to eat me?

No, that seemed like a stretch. I shook my head, chasing out the thoughts. Frankly, it was just a stupid dream, anyway.

"And you better not go for a swim until the wound has completely healed!" I heard the man say as I rolled my eyes.

"My mom was a nurse! I know that salt water and open wounds don't mix," I responded in kind, as the man huffed. That wasn't to mention the stomach acid in Laboon.

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"This should have healed already," I stared at the retired doctor, eyes narrowing. "It isn't infected, but an injury should have been completely healed a few days ago."

Sure, the injury was nowhere near as bad as it could have been. When I changed back, the hook missed the bone by thin margins, but it was going to leave a nasty scar right between my thumb and index finger.

"Not where I'm from," I scowled. "Frankly, for something like a hook through my hand, this is looking pretty good for a week in." Crocus made some muttering sounds I didn't exactly like.

"You are from an isolated place that I've never heard of," I heard him say, a frown on his face. "Which is truly saying something. And yet, you say you have no idea how you got here. People don't fall out of the sky."

He paused for a moment. "Often."

The fact he needed to clarify that fact was not a good sign. How did someone fall from the sky? And live? Living was kind of the key thing here. Skyrim space program, I was not interested in you.

"I'm sensing there is a story there," I offered, hoping to distract away from the conversation. I was fairly certain I was in a place I'd never heard of. Sure, the oceans were by and large unexplored, but most of the stuff that hung out regularly in the depths tended to stay there. Giant squids could get big, sure, but this whale was beyond anything that should have been possible.

"Quite," Crocus shuffled through some papers. "Now, these maps are by no means complete, but do you recognize anything on them?"

I gave them a look, eyes gazing over the stacks of papers. Maps. They weren't exactly my primary wheelhouse, at least ones on this large of a scale, but I could read them. My geography knowledge was decent enough, but nothing I was seeing even had the hint of an American coastline. I expected that, between the giant whale and my newfound shapeshifting abilities.

However, one thing stood out. On every single one, one feature stood out. One common feature.

"I'm not recognizing anything, but what the hell is that?" I pointed to the feature.

"That would be the Red Line," Crocus said, scratching his chin. "If you really don't know what that is, then you've come quite a long way indeed."

"The Red Line? What can you tell me about it?" I asked.

"Not much more than anyone else, I'm afraid," Crocus frowned. "It circles the entire globe, goes all the way down to the ocean floor, and rises as far up as the clouds. Nobody knows had it got there, or why. It's practically indestructible, and Reverse Mountain is one of the few ways to bypass it entirely."

Global spanning ring continent?

If giant whales and magical powers weren't proof enough, that sealed the deal. I was officially not on Earth anymore. Groaning into my hands, I tried to gather my thoughts. I had no idea where I was. Getting back home was impossible because I was apparently in a different world now with a supercontinent that spanned an entire globe with casual ease. Seriously, how do you even get something like that? I could buy an island chain, maybe, formed through igneous processes, but nothing on this scale.

No, focus on the problem at hand. I was in a strange world. All I had were my brain, the clothes on my back, and the ability to turn into Pokémon.

Pokémon? The. Ability.

I'm an idiot. That's how I get home! There are Pokémon that can teleport! Hell, there were Pokémon could teleport things between dimensions! What was its name again? Hoopa? Yeah, that was it. Psychic and Dark type, if I remember correctly? Okay, just think about it.

And, nothing. No power came to me. There was no tingle in my spine, no light, no shift. Nothing. I scowled. Should have figured it wasn't going to be that simple.

Still, the idea was solid. I just needed to get more types. Somehow. The problem was, that I had no idea how to get more types. Was it a matter of strength? Did I need to do something to prove myself? If I did, what was I needing to prove it to?

"You seem to be taking things better than I thought you might," Crocus said as I raised my head from the table.

"Because I think I might have a way home," I frowned slightly. "I just don't have the right pieces, is all." The old doctor seemed quiet for a few moments. Sure, I had no idea where those pieces were, or how to even begin looking, but it was a start.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I would make my way home, no matter what.

"Good. But having a goal will only get you so far on the Grand Line," Crocus's gaze pierced straight into my soul and made me shutter. For a brief moment, it felt as if the man could push my face out of my rear end. And then it was gone, just as quickly as it appeared.

"Still, I'd like to see this Red Line sometime," I said. If I could identify its mineral composition, then it would help tell me what it was. It being a sedimentary rock was unlikely, by its very nature. An igneous or even metamorphic feature would be much more likely. Even if it didn't seem right, either.

Sure, maybe different rules were in play here, but this? You didn't get a nearly unbreakable landmass that circled an entire globe. It wasn't exactly linear, but did it matter if it wasn't? You didn't get something that high, that ran that deep and outright called indestructible naturally anyway. Was it natural? Could it be natural? Surely, it couldn't be. Right?

"Well, Laboon is close to Red Line most of the time, so all you have to do is head out the exit," Crocus said, my ears perking up at his words.

"Really?" I pushed up from the table, preparing to head towards the exit before I found my arm in a firm iron grip.

"What did I tell you? You aren't leaving until your hand is fully healed!"

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To an ordinary passerby, I'd probably look like an ordinary seal resting on some rocks. Anyone paying any attention would notice the single horn on its head and its white fur, something odd for an animal not close to a cold environment. Nobody knew what I was doing, nor would they have noticed.

It wasn't easy going. If Laboon couldn't break the Red Line with pure force, then nothing I could do could so much as scratch it. At least, not directly. Crocus had oversold its indestructibility to an extent. No mistakes were made, the rock formation was imposing, truly titanic in size. I highly doubt any number of conventional weapons could even leave so much as a dent. But where humanity lacked, Mother Nature provided. She provided in spades. Erosion was still ongoing here, whittling away at a feature that could easily outlast a human lifetime. The more I gazed up at it, the more I was taken in by its majesty.

And the more convinced I became that it was not a natural formation. Man-made? Absolutely not. There was no way a man, or even multiple people could build something like this. How or why alluded me as well. What it was made out of was a mystery as well. The red coloration of the rocks made me believe that there could be a relation to banded ironstone, but that would imply that either a significant portion of oxidized iron was found here, or that the sedimentary bed had been displaced.

The vertical angle wasn't exactly impossible. If it were local, rather than on a global scale.

Thus, the need for analysis. But doing any tests out here was, unideal. With the pounding surf, I'd be washed out to sea in seconds. Not the biggest problem now, but I couldn't do anything out here. Which was why I was speeding along nature's processes. Not an easy task, nor was it one that had born fruit.

Yet.

It was a painstaking slow process. The heat made it quicker, as the ice began to melt under the sun's rays, so I could start all over again. A small crack made larger over time. Freezing and thawing. Freezing and thawing. Over and over as the crack became larger and larger. It'd taken days for even this much, and with a pop, the rock came free.

I scooped it into my mouth with little effort, not having hands to hold it. One of the few things I'd learned was that Seel, ironically enough, had an interesting sense of taste. And despite the fact these rocks had been battered by the ocean waves for hundreds of years, I didn't taste a single pinch of salt.

It didn't take long to make my way over to the lighthouse, as I shifted back into a human body. There, I examined my prize. It was small enough to fit in the palm of my hand and was surprisingly heavy for its size. There were no strata either, no sign of it being deposited. A cohesive mass.

No clear cleavage plane either. The edge where I broke it off was rough, so it wasn't a clean break. I took great care to place it on one of the tables, packaging it up in a small box. Getting it under a magnifying glass or even a scope would help. Taking great care to make sure the package was sealed, I let the transformation take hold.

Making my way to Laboon was a trivial task. Despite my initial fear of the truly colossal leviathan, he was a big sweetie. Honestly, I felt bad for him. Five decades and he still missed friends who were by all rights, never coming back.

But there wasn't much I could do on that front. Other than trying to help Crocus keep him from smashing his face in against the Red Line. I gave Laboon a few brief pets before slipping into the hatch. How he didn't feel any of this was a mystery to me. But Laboon seemed completely comfortable.

I slowly made my way through the passageway, removing my earbuds. Keeping them and my clothes, even if the latter seemed to become part of my body, was always a nice bit of upside. But I was still wet, meaning I'd need a new change of clothes once I got back.

Navigating through the tunnels and canals by this point was second nature to me now. That wasn't the issue. The issue was that I heard unfamiliar voices reverberating off the walls.

Crocus was out at the lighthouse at the moment. That meant there was nobody else it could be than the people trying to kill Laboon.

I poked my head around the corner. A pair, obviously, one man, with a crown on his head, and a woman with blue hair. I slowly set my prize down, taking note to remember where it was.

"Yo, what the hell are you doing here!" I shouted at them. The pair whipped around by surprise and. Those were guns. They had guns. Yeah, I wasn't sure what I was expecting either.

"Who are you?" I heard the man shout, raising the weapon towards me.

"Would you like paper or plastic?" My mind came to a stop as if to process what I had said. Oh God, those were going to be my last words, weren't they?

"What?" The pair lowered their weapons, sharing a confused look. It took a second for my brain to catch up. I couldn't waste this chance! I felt my body shift down to a smaller size, shrinking into a compact blue body covered in scales.

"A Devil Fruit user?" The man gave a confused look at his partner, even as he began to raise his weapon again.

"I mean, it looks kinda cute," the girl said. Her partner opened his mouth to respond, only to be hit with a spray of water. Well, his gun, anyway. It clattered across the metal walkway, followed by the gun of his partner.

They both stared at me, both glaring at me and my wide-open mouth.

"Why you little!" The man charged at me, bringing up a metal bat concealed on his person.

"Mr. 9! Wait!" The young woman shouted. Water wrapped around my body, propelling me forward into his stomach, knocking him back. As he slid backward, Mr. 9 brought the bat down toward my face, and I blocked it the only way this body could.

Crunch!

Teeth met metal as a rumble exited my throat, I yanked on the weapon before releasing it, sending it and Mr. 9 rolling across the metal floor.

"Totodile!" The growl that came out of my throat was straightforward in its intentions. Please surrender. Sure, someone surrendering to what amounted to a Two-foot tall bipedal crocodile was weird, and no doubt an embarrassment.

But it was better than the alternatives. She looked at me oddly for a brief second, before she pulled two weapons out of her shirt. In a moment, she charged at me, both weapons spinning in the air. I opened my mouth, releasing another blast of water that knocked her off her feet.

"Ms. Wednesday!" Mr. 9 shouted, already back on his feet. "You'll pay for that!" The swing from his bat clipped me upside the head, but even a glancing blow was enough to send my smaller body flying through the air. A blast of water cushioned my fall, but I still skidded on the metal.

Right. Don't let yourself get surrounded in a fight. Idiot. I pushed myself up to my feet, staring the two down. Opening my mouth again, I saw the two split, Mr. 9 going right, and Ms. Wednesday going left. But my attack wasn't aimed at them. Not directly. Water covered the floor, what once provided a firm grasp was now slick. Both tripped and fell as I opened my mouth once again. Would this even work?

I had a moment of hesitation as Mr. 9 was pushing himself up.

And in one moment of his hate-filled gaze, my hesitation died.

Ice Fang!

My teeth couldn't dig through the metal, but they didn't need to. The water that covered the floor quickly turned into ice, trapping the two against the floor. I took a moment as they struggled to break free of my makeshift prison. To see if it would hold just as well as I thought it would. I let the seconds tick by, before finally resuming my human form.

"Are you going to leave under your power, or am I going to have to make you?" To hear my voice make that type of threat was weird. But it wasn't like I had much other choice. I had to put up a harsh front on this one.

"Shut up you brat!" Mr. 9 snarled at me. "Do you have any idea who you're dealing with?"

"Firstly, I'm in my twenties, dumbass. I'm probably older than you are," I looked down at him. I did tend to have a bit of a baby face, but it wasn't that bad. "Secondly, I'm the one that froze you to the floor. Who you are is completely irrelevant to me. Other than the fact you are trying to kill this whale."

"Maybe you should worry about yourself!" There was a crack, as time seemed to slow down, a spinning bat heading right towards my skull. I didn't have enough time to think of a change. I just, shrunk, my body falling in upon itself. "Ha! I got you!"

"No, he shrunk again," Ms. Wednesday corrected, clearly the real brains of this operation. "That is the weirdest rabbit I think I've ever seen."

Rabbit? I caught sight of my stubby pink arms as a pair of yellow ears flopped in front of my face. Oh. Well, this worked. I took in a deep breath. Sorry Laboon, this was probably going to feel, weird.

"WhisMMUURR!"

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"What's that boy doing to create such a racket!"

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"Good, you're awake. You walked into that Imperial ambush, just like us," I couldn't tell if the confused look from my words came from the fact that they just didn't get the reference, or if it was because they were probably deaf. Temporarily, most likely. I didn't think they were bleeding from their ears, but they'd be nursing a headache for a hot minute. Taking their weapons and stashing them away took some time, but it was worth making sure they didn't have anything to surprise me with. Even then, I was keeping my distance.

"WHAT!" Ms. Wednesday shouted as I rubbed my ear. Yeah, should have figured that.

"Okay, I'll talk in a way I'm sure you will understand," my eyes narrowed to slits. "Stay away from that whale!" I pointed at Laboon, who was wailing away at the Red Line again.

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"We'll need to go back for our spare equipment," Mr. 9 growled. "Nobody can find out about our failure here."

Ms. Wednesday nodded, despite herself. It would be best for the rest of Baroque Works never heard about this encounter. When they were given this assignment, there was no indication that there would be someone who supposed the power of the Devil Fruit. Not that such should matter to an agent of Baroque Works.

Still, she had to wonder, if such a power would prove useful in her own goals.