I stared at the rock. Its secrets had been driving me up a wall for days. It was durable enough to shrug off anything I hit it with. Testing its streak got me nowhere, because it seemed to have none. Even trying to scratch it got me nowhere.

Not even magnets got me anywhere. Despite the red coloration, I couldn't find any iron or feldspar. And feldspar was one of the building blocks of many forms of ingenious rock. No quartz or magnesium either. If it were an ingenious rock, it was not one I was familiar with.

I'd reconsidered my hypothesis. But it lacked depositional features, nor did it hold signs of deformation from heat or pressure.

If it wasn't deposited, it lacked ingenious minerals that should be there and lacked any signs of metamorphosis.

Then what was it? Hell, something of that size and likely mass could and should have been causing it just from the weight of the material above on its own. But it wasn't.

This was closer to something like concrete rather than an actual rock. But concrete was nowhere near that resistant and would still deform anyway.

I sighed, leaning back. There was something I was missing here. Underselling it aside, I was missing the entire picture. Nothing about this made any degree of sense. Sure, I'd gotten it out of the Red Line, but that was me just accelerating natural processes. I stared at it. Surely, it couldn't be some twisted version of a calcite.

Could it? I scrambled, trying to find hydrochloric acid or anything close enough that would resemble a substitute. Something that proved fruitless, as there was no fizzling from the rock. That was the most likely result, yes, but the fact that I had neglected such a basic test was telling. It wasn't like it being a calcium carbonite precipitate would have explained any of its features in the first place, but I should have thought to rule it out first.

Taking care to clean the acid before putting the red aggravating bock back in its box, I slumped down and sighed. The fact I had missed such an obvious test meant I'd been spending way too much time on this. But it wasn't like I had much else to do. I'd read just about every book I could get my hands on. Sure, medical journals were useful, but they didn't make for the most entertaining reads.

I could bother Crocus about his adventures on the seas, but he was letting me stay at his place already. I didn't want to poke that bear and risk getting kicked out. He was giving me a room, well, a whale, over my head just because he could. I wasn't going to risk that just out of idle curiosity.

Still, it was clear that I needed to do something other than ponder this mystery. It was driving me up a wall, though it was far from the only thing. At the end of the day, I was a bit of a homebody. I planted my roots and didn't like leaving one I'd gotten them entrenched.

But this? Wasn't home. Sure, Crocus was nice and all, but this place still wasn't home. I had a home. And while I had a way back in theory, that theory wasn't worth the paper or brain space if I didn't try to put it into practice. However my powers worked, it was increasingly apparent that just waiting for something to happen wasn't an option. I'd been training a bit ever since I ran into Mr. 9 and Ms. Wednesday, and while there was improvement, I was no closer to figuring out how to get more types.

It wasn't like water or normal was bad by themselves. Water was simply too useful with all the oceans, and normal always had its uses. As a combination, they were utter shit, with the only thing sporting that combination being Bibarel. And while that wasn't the worst thing in the world, what amounted to a magical beaver was not exactly the most useful thing I had in my toolkit with those two types alone.

But leaving had its own set of issues, even beyond my powers. Crocus set himself up on the Grand Line entrance of Reverse Mountain, one of the few ways to enter the Grand Line. It was also the entrance to be most likely used by pirates. Sure, I could try to swim my way to the other entrance and try to go from there. But it wasn't like I had any papers or any other documentation that I might need for that to even have a chance at working.

Never mind that Crocus's account of the Navy and the World Government didn't fill me with confidence. Sure, I operated under the rules of trust but verify. It was far from complete, but I highly doubted I'd like them a lot more than I would the average pirate. Especially the pirates were like the ones we had back home, during our golden age of piracy that had long since been smothered.

Sure, Francis Drake helped bring down the Spanish Empire on the British pound, but that wasn't saying much but his morals. Raping, pillaging, murdering, all things I wanted no part of. Finding a way back home wouldn't be easy, but I wasn't going to sacrifice other people's lives simply for that. That would mean I'd be going back home some type of monster, powers or not.

But I also couldn't swim through the Grand Line under my own power. Not yet. Even just among pure water types, I had options. Milotic was a good example. It wasn't a Gyrados by any stretch of the imagination, but Milotic was undoubtedly a powerhouse capable of incredible things. And it was pure water to boot.

The problem was that Milotic's evolutionary requirements were utter tripe. A Prism Scale was not something I was just going to find lying around and raising a Febas and its beauty stat was, a problem in its own right. The thought flashed through my mind.

How would trade evolutions work? How would stone evolutions? Or item-based ones?

Oh, that was going to be a problem I suspected. That alone just closed a lot of damn doors. Eevee just got slapped into uselessness if there weren't any stones around to fuel its evolutions. And it wasn't the only one to suffer from that. Unless this world just happened to have those elemental stones to collect.

Or who knows, it could just try and play by completely different rules. That's the least I could hope for at the end of the day on that front.

Shaking off my thoughts as I opened the door, I found myself face to face with an unfamiliar sight. Not the sight of the inside of Laboon's stomach. But rather, it's contents. I found myself blinking in surprise. Yeah, Laboon was big enough to eat Sea Kings regularly, but ships didn't seem to be part of his regular diet.

I tried not to look down when I had to swim through the acid.

"Crocus, I think we have guests!" I shouted, before turning towards the ship on the people on it. It looked like it had been rammed by something, the figurehead at the bow having been broken off. There didn't seem to be many crew members, at least ones above deck. One of them was a younger woman, with orange-red hair. The other three were younger men.

The first had green hair of all things, with three swords hanging from his waist. The second had blonde hair and was despite everything, smoking a cigarette. The last had curly black hair and the longest nose I've ever seen. We stared each other down, neither seeming to want to make a move.

Then the acid in Laboon's stomach began to churn, a warning sign I had quickly learned to recognize. In that split second, I did two things. The first was to grin, for Laboon had graciously given us lunch. The second?

Throw myself to the ground so fast I might as well have been a blur. Mere moments later, three harpoons flew through the door, skewering the Kraken-like Sea King with ease. Crocus was already reeling the beast onto the artificial island, as I went back to looking at the ship. At the top of the crow's nest sat a flag, flapping in the breeze.

It was a black flag, with a skull and crossbones. I squinted for a moment, adjusting my glasses to make sure that what I was seeing was the real deal. It was the skull and crossbones, a flag feared in centuries past, that was wearing a straw hat? One sporting a wide, toothy grin to boot? The seeming, whimsy of it all was enough to make me stop from bristling outright.

"Say something, damn you!" the blonde suddenly shouted, as I watched Crocus sit down in his fishing chair.

"You're the ones who've entered this whale, unintentionally or otherwise," were they affiliated with the two idiots? Unlikely, they would likely be trying to shoot up the place if they were. "Maybe you could introduce yourselves?"

"Zoro," the green-haired man stepped forward, as I kept one eye on his swords, and the other on the man himself. "I would ask where we are, but you already answered that. But who are the two of you?"

"Nathan," I said bluntly, crossing my arms. "And the old man is Crocus. Given how you're probably looking for a way out, the gate is over there."

Four heads turned in the direction I was pointing, and three of them shouted at the same time. I winced, resisting the urge to cover my ears.

"There are pictures painted on the inside of the whale's stomach!" One of them shouted as I smirked.

"I told you other people would find that weird," I jabbed as Crocus himself shrugged, unconcerned with my needling.

"You'll need a hobby in your old age too," he shrugged as I shuttered, trying not to think about how if this was what he considered an old age-appropriate hobby, then how much of a monster he would have had to be when he was my age.

It was at that exact moment when Laboon's stomach began to heave, I was used to the movements by this point. But that also meant I was familiar with the cause.

"Laboon," I whispered, before scowling. I hated seeing the big guy like this. A split second later, my body was already transforming, slipping into the water in a form that was much more capable of handling the stomach acid.

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All four of the present Straw Hats stared as the man transformed into a weird star, before slipping into the water without a care in the world.

"What was that!" Usopp shouted as he blinked in confusion.

"Was that a Devil Fruit power?" Sanji, despite himself, already had his foot on the Going Merry's railing.

"If it is, the kid has the strangest Devil Fruit I've ever seen," Crocus shouted back at them. "Besides, the kid's fine. Just look at him!"

Four heads turned to watch as the strange starfish sped across the surface, water shooting out from the red gem at its center pushing it along at a truly remarkable pace.

"This is one of the weirdest things I've ever seen," Nami muttered, though she was still loud enough that Crocus let out a hearty laugh before leaping into the water himself.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Being a mystical starfish jetting on the stomach acid of an island-sized whale was not exactly how I expected my life to go. Very little of how I expected my life to go was how things were going at the moment. Nor was losing to Crocus, who was already about halfway up the ladder despite my head start. He was about as spry as Professor Oak, probably even more so. I did try to scramble up after him, but the man was just as fast with something solid under his feet as he was when he was swimming.

I did my best to follow suit, but by the time I managed I reach the sedation room, Crocus had already administered the treatment. Laboon's bludgeoning against the Red Line ceased, the world no longer shaking around us. But that didn't mean I was pleased. I understood his desire to get back to his family, but all he was doing was hurting himself.

For now, Crocus was here for him, but the man was in his seventies by this point. He wasn't going to be around forever. In a world like this, he was pushing it, monster or not.

"You're thinking too much," both his voice and the ruffling of my hair. I tried to give a squawk of protest, but I kept silent. He was right. I was thinking too much. Sadly, Crocus had decades to work on this and never made a lot of headway.

"I just wish we could do more is all," I frowned. There had to be something beyond sedatives. Laboon needed therapy. It was a simple solution in theory. However, how does one go about getting therapy for a whale? One with decades of abandonment issues, at that? Nor was I a therapist in the first place. I sure couldn't do such a thing. It didn't take us long to reach the platform, looking down at the pirate ship. There were three more people down there. Another man, with a red vest and a straw hat, not too dissimilar from the one on the ship's flag.

However, that quickly shunted itself from my mind at the other two familiar faces.

"You two!" I ground out, as the two were already going for their weapons.

"As long as I live, you'll never harm Laboon!" Crocus shouted as I began to transform. Their weapons fired, running to intercept the projectiles. But by that point, my body had begun to change. An armored orange exoskeleton, with two large pincers for its size.

"Corphish!" Both pincers opened wide, energy gathering within them. A stream of bubbles condensed into a narrow stream slammed into the explosives, detonating them before they could get close to Laboon's stomach lining. I glared at the two of them with all the fury a two-foot-tall crustacean could muster.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Which was, in reality, a lot more than one might expect. Both pincers opened wide, and I hoped that the message was clear. Drop the weapons. Now!

They, unfortunately, did not, seeming to prepare for a second salvo. Then the man in the red shirt almost blurred, going from sitting down to punching both of them square in the back of the head. I paused, almost waiting for the two troublemakers to get back up. They didn't.

This kid straight up just punched the lights out of these two with only a single blow!

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Taking great care to make sure the two were tied up and going to stay that way. Luffy, the captain of this group of pirates was already on his way up the small palm tree Crocus had planted on his artificial island. It was a story I'd heard before. Crocus had explained to me how a group of fairly friendly pirates came over Reverse Mountain, Laboon hot on their heels. Not because of any wrongdoing on their end.

They adopted the little guy. Well, allegedly little. I had a hard time imagining a titan like Laboon being anything that resembled small, fifty years to grow or not.

So rather than pay much of the way of attention to Crocus's words, I watched the reaction of this group of pirates. Their captain did not seem to be paying much attention to the story from his perch. His brow was scrunched up as if he were concentrating on something.

Mostly, it was a combination of interest and apathy. Which weren't the worst things in the world, but that didn't give me a lot to work with either.

"That was fifty years ago," all of them were paying attention now due to those words, even the Captain and Zoro looking surprised. "He still thinks his friends are coming back."

It wasn't beyond the realm of possibility, depending on the age at which they left. On paper. Some would easily be pushing eighties, which frankly? If you were pushing that age, then you probably weren't spending much time sailing. Old age and the high seas did not seem like a pleasant combination.

"What about you? How exactly did you get here? Neither of you looks related," the blonde-haired man commented, removing the cigarette from his mouth.

"It started a month ago when I woke up in the body of a Seel," I said, starting from the very beginning.

"Don't you mean a seal?" the orange-haired woman interrupted me.

"No," I said as bluntly as possible. "I imagine they're related somehow, but at the end of the day, completely different species." To demonstrate, I changed into the small aquatic mammal, before shifting back.

"What type of Devil Fruit did you eat to do that!" The Black-haired man pointed at me.

"Unless someone force-feed me one of those in my sleep, I didn't," I answered honestly.

"EH!" Three of them shouted out at the same time beside their Captain, who seemed to be laughing, and Zoro.

"It's possible. I've run into a Zoan once, and their powers didn't work in the same way at all," Zoro said confidently.

"Anyway," I pressed on. "A Sea King decided that I would make for such a wonderful snack, followed by Laboon realizing that it would make for a great snack. I got swallowed along with it, while Crocus fished me out of Laboon's stomach acid not long after. And I've been here ever since."

I raised my hand to show off the scar that rested between my middle and index fingers. Probably not the most impressive thing in the world to a bunch of pirates. But it was still my scar, and it wasn't going away anytime soon.

"At the moment, I'm looking for a way to get back home," I said honestly. "I don't have the slightest idea of how I even ended up near here, and I can't find where I'm from on a map."

To be fair, that was because I was certain I wasn't in my world like some messed-up version of the Wizard of Oz. With Piracy replacing the Yellow Brick Road. But I wasn't going to tell them that. They were strangers at the moment, and would probably find that to be crazy anyway. There was no reason to share that piece of information.

I was reaching the point where I wanted to try Magikarping over Reverse Mountain. I couldn't swim against the current with any of the forms I had. Of course, trying to jump over an entire mountain, especially one that high was a tall task, even with a Magikarp.

"Oh, you could join our crew!" I felt my brain slow down for a moment, trying to process what was just said. I looked at the source of the voice, which was now far closer than I expected. Despite that, his arms were still attached to the top of the tree, despite his head only being a short distance away.

I was being offered a position in a pirate crew by a rubber man. The fact that the sentence made sense in context was all sorts of concerning.

"I'll think about it," I said, as I was no closer to having my concerns about such a prospect addressed.

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"IT'S A DRAW!" The announcement caused me to pause in place, as I had broken into a run to try and stop this dumbass from getting himself killed. Even Laboon, who had been in a rage because this dumbass had decided to rip the mast out of his ship and jam it into Laboon's open wounds had paused his assault.

"I'm pretty strong, right?" He continued as I stood there, slack-jawed. Was he? What was he doing? "Our match isn't over yet. We'll still have to settle it. Your friends may have been gone for good, but you've got a rival now."

"Me!" Luffy's mouth opened into a truly massive grin. My eyes widened, looking at Laboon's face. The titanic whale's eyes had begun to mist over before my gaze. "After we circle the Grand Line, I'm coming back here, and we're going to fight again!"

I was beside myself staring up as Laboon roared to the heavens, tears streaming down his face.

This pirate, went out of his way to help Laboon. For what? He just did so. No second-guessing, no second thoughts, no promise of reward. He just did. He went out of his way to help Laboon. Just because he thought he could.

One thought passed through my head.

I needed to pack.

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"Where did the kid run off to?" Zoro looked around.

"Nathan?" Crocus grinned. "I think that little display convinced him to sign on."

"Really?" Luffy grinned. "He seems funny!"

"He's a bit of a shy one, I will admit. But I think finally getting out will do him some good in the long run," Crocus nodded. "He's a kind person who marches to the beat of his own drum, in a lot of ways. I think he will find a way to get back home. He has a path already, or he at least thinks he has a way forward."

"Then why hasn't he?" Nami asked, frowning slightly.

"Because at the moment, he doesn't have the form necessary to do so," Crocus said. "I know he recognizes what he transforms into. At the moment, he thinks he could transform into even more creatures than he currently does. Though whether he can or not is something I don't know."

"Shishishishishi!" Luffy laughed. "He's going to get a lot stronger too? That's great!"

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It didn't take long to get packed up. I didn't own much, after all. Frankly, most of my clothes were hand-me-downs, and I was going to have to replace them eventually. No, what was important were my equipment and samples. Well, the Red Line sample, I didn't have any others. But most of my equipment was something I'd desperately need. Crocus described the Grand Line as a magnetic mess, where each island had its own unique magnetic signature.

Which was not the most out-there thing I ever heard. Magnetic rocks tended to have different bandings depending on when they were deposited as a response to Earth's magnetic field. Of course, this was on a completely different scale than that and those rocks tended to be from around divergent boundaries. Nor could they to my knowledge mess with a compass.

But I wanted to experiment with samples. If they were that magnetic, then there were some interesting things I could do with them.

"I'll be back to Laboon!" I shouted, giving the massive whale a pat on his side. I meant it. I wasn't going to leave this whale without saying goodbye at least one last time. Then I let my body transform once again, grabbing my bag in my mouth as Laboon slowly sunk beneath the waves.

I let my body float across the waves, just relaxing. Then I heard shouting from above. Looking up, I saw two shadows falling straight off the cliff. My eyes were poorly situated, even as I tried to tilt my body up to figure out what was going on.

But by that point, it was already too late. Both hit my blubbery body with a bounce.

"That was softer than expected," I heard Sanji say.

"Since when did Laboon have a kid!" Luffy shouted with both enthusiasm and wonder as I froze. This was our captain? This was our captain?

You know what? Just run with it.

"Wailmer," my form rumbled as I continued to float back to the lighthouse.

"Shishishishi!" Luffy's laughter coincided with the feeling of him flopping down against my back. "So your power lets you turn into all sorts of things? That's pretty cool!"

"Wailmer!" I hoped to be conveying what I intended with my words. This was something that couldn't last long term. I was going to have to try to do what Meowth did in the anime, wasn't I? Hopefully, the skill stuck between forms, rather than me having to do it one at a time. For each form. Individually.

"You aren't exactly moving fast though," Sanji was standing up by this point. I was a ball whale, what did you want from me?

Then I heard two, very familiar voices. Well, one of them, anyway.

"Since when was he able to turn into Laboon's child, Ms. Wednesday?"

I didn't even let that question hang in the air before introducing a Wailmer-sized water gun to the man's face.

"GHKT!"

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"Taking them along isn't a smart idea," Crocus said. I had to agree. It wasn't.

"Luffy knocked them out cold in a single punch, and I managed to beat them with a Totodile," I shook my head. I didn't trust either of them as far as a Machamp could throw them. But we could beat them in a fight as was. "I'll keep an eye on them and make sure they and their boss don't come after Laboon again."

"Thank you for that," Crocus smiled. "And stay safe out there."

"I should be thanking you. You put a roof over my head when you didn't have to. You gave me, a total stranger, a place to stay for a month. I cannot repay the kindness you have given me," I bowed my head in respect.

"You can pay me back by making sure you live," Crocus looked me dead in the eye, and while his expression was warm, his gaze was hard as stone. "The Grand Line is a madhouse. It'll push you to your limits, then go beyond even that."

"I will. I promised Laboon I'd see him again, too. And I intend to keep my promises," I grinned, though it was in part to steel my nerves. I was scared. There was no way I couldn't be nervous about something like this. Crocus may have not been family, and Laboon may have not been home, but they were familiar. In this world, they were the only thing I'd ever known. And it was hard not to be scared when you were leaving the one place you knew you were safe.

But I wasn't going to find my way home by being safe.

"I know you want to get your goodbyes in order, kid, but let's go already!" I heard Zoro shout.

"I'm twenty-seven! I'm not a kid!" I shouted back, annoyed.

"If you stopped shaving, you'd look older, I've told you this before," Crocus teased.

"Haha-ahahah!" I laughed before my face straightened out. "Never, old man." Crocus merely shrugged as I frowned at him.

"Stay safe," I extended my hand outward.

"You're the one jumping into the Grand Line. I should be the one telling you that, and have," he gripped my hand, shaking it. "You've gotten a stronger handshake."

I smiled. Yeah, it was stronger. I waved him goodbye as we set off, and Laboon as well, the sailing ship moving beneath my feet. But living in a whale for a month had left me prepared for the sea.

"What is a Totodile, anyway?" Usopp asked, giving me a look as I watched as Mr. 9 and Ms. Wenseday shuttered.

"It would be best if I showed you," I shrugged, shifting down.

"Croconaw!" I shouted. That, wasn't right. I. Evolved? How? Mission failed successfully!

"It's bigger now!" The pair shouted at the top of their lungs as I tested out my new set of chompers. This was a power boost if nothing else.

The only thing louder than them was Luffy's laugh, who was on his back, rolling around on the deck. I stared into the distance as the lighthouse slowly faded from view.

The first step on a journey home.

Oh, how I never expected how right that was.