One Piece (Love Story) [Part One]

Chapter Forty Five [Rewritten]

-Chapter Forty-Five-

"Shit! Nami!" I cursed before sighing in relief when the ginger suddenly pulled her arm out from underneath her sleeve, revealing that it was alright and that the gator hadn't bitten it clean off like I had first thought. "Almost gave me a heart attack there" I shakily laughed, holding my chest.

"I'm trying to lure the gator in close enough so that he'll bite this cage apart" Nami simply explained.

"Hey, that's not a bad idea" Usopp praised.

"It isn't, but couldn't you do it in a way that doesn't involve you almost losing your arm?" I worriedly frowned.

"What? Worried about me?" she asked, lightly blushing as I gave a firm nod. "Well, what else am I supposed to do?" she asked.

"I don't know, maybe anything other than sacrificing your limbs" I shrugged.

"Yeah! Come and get us you stupid banana! You rotten banana!" Luffy suddenly screamed, clearly on board with Nami's plan of having the gator bite open the cage.

"Yeah, do something like that" I nodded with a content smile as I motioned over toward our screaming captain, causing the navigator to sweat drop.

"Look, I told you, that thing isn't a banana" Usopp scowled. "It's an alligator with a banana growing out of its head" he once more tried to explain.

"But it's called a Banana Gator" Luffy argued.

"Just because it has the word banana in its name doesn't automatically make it food" I pointed out.

"How do you know?" Luffy asked.

"I don't know, Luffy, how do you know it's a banana just because the word is in the name?" I threw right back at him, causing him to frown and take a second to really think.

"Here, let me explain it to you" Usopp offered. "You've heard of the Monkey Dance, right?" he asked, grabbing hold of the captain's shoulders so that he could force the man to look at him.

"It's a banana!" Luffy angrily shouted, determined that he was right in his assumption that the reptile before us was nothing more than a piece of fruit that just so happened to have an animal growing out of it.

"Shut up and listen for a second!" Usopp snapped. "Okay, look, there's a dance called the Monkey Dance—you follow? Even though it's got the word monkey in it, it isn't an actual monkey" he explained before smacking Luffy's hand when he finally noticed that it was resting against the cage's bars. "Don't touch those bars!"

"How do you know they're not bananas if you haven't eaten one?" Luffy childishly asked.

"Pray tell, how would one go about eating one of those things?" I curiously asked.

"You'd just eat it like you would eat any other banana" Luffy huffed.

"Of course, how could I be so foolishly not to know that" I deadpanned, watching as he proudly puffed out his chest and nodded with a grin.

"Watch out!" Nami cried out as the cage violently started to shake thanks to the gator now clamping down on it in an attempt to rip it open. We tried our best to keep our balance thanks to the harsh movements of the cage before eventually watching in awe as the gator started to whimper, its teeth now cracking.

"The cage is too tough!" Usopp whined in realization.

"The Banana Gator didn't even dent it!" Luffy loudly complained.

"Aw, poor guy, that must have hurt badly" I frowned, feeling sympathy for the animal as it backed away from the catch and began attempting to nurse its aching mouth.