"Wealth, fame, and power. Gold Roger, the king of the pirates, obtained this along with everything else the world had to offer- and his dying words drove countless souls to the sea.

  'You want my treasure? You can have it. I left everything I gathered together in one piece- now you just have to find it.'

  These words lured men to the Grand Line, in pursuit of dreams greater than they had ever dared to imagine. This was the start of the great pirate era."

  The cook Joey was talking to gave him an incredulous look. "So you're telling me," he said, "that you can recite that story from heart… but you don't know what a sea beast is?"

  Joey shook his head. "Never heard of one."

  "They're really big monsters- basically, giant versions of land animals that live in the sea. They aren't as dangerous as sea kings, but they're still nasty little buggers."

  "That is sick," Joey said, laughing a little. "I want to see one someday."

  The cook looked at him with a solemn expression on his face. "If you see one of those on the ocean, alone? Pray that you aren't already dead." Joey ignored him, and went back to washing dishes, mulling over this new information. In the story he read, something similar existed- though strong pokémon like Dragonite and Gyarados filled their roles instead.

  The past week at the Baratie had taught him a lot about this new universe. Berries were the name for the local currency, for example, and not all of what he was used to as berries were berries- some were called fruit instead, and all of them looked slightly different from what he knew, though they tasted similar. Perhaps the most sobering fact of all was that pokémon didn't exist here- replacing them were something called animals. He was still trying to wrap his head around it, but it was starting to make sense.

  Animals were like pokémon, but much weaker. While they lacked the intelligence and powers that pokémon had, they made up for it in diversity, filling practically all niches possible. About seventy thousand species of pokémon were known to mankind, compared to over a million species of animals.

  Joey was snapped out of his thoughts when an alarm started blaring throughout the kitchen. The staff looked up, acting surprisingly unperturbed.

  "Speak of the devil," the cook muttered. "You said you wanted to see a sea beast? Now you'll get your chance."

  "Sweet." Joey said. "But also," he added, "how are you not panicking right now?!"

  "Patty and Carne will take care of it," the cook responded, shrugging.

  Joey rubbed his hands together excitedly. "Oh, I gotta see this," he said, watching the two chefs dash through the kitchen wielding lobster-shaped bazookas.

  "Out of the way!" Patty yelled, throwing open the doors to the dining area. "We've got a pest to get rid of!" Some customers jumped in shock, while others, likely the regulars, simply resumed eating. Joey ran up to the kitchen windows, and sure enough, a large creature that vaguely resembled an orphaned Tandemaus was looming over the restaurant. Patty and Carne ran out onto the side of the boat that was facing the monster, and readied their weapons. Though it was heavily muffled, Joey could just barely hear Patty shout, "Take this, you overgrown rabbit!" as he fired his bazooka at the behemoth.

  The impact seemed to irritate it, but if anything, that only made it more aggressive. Patty muttered something under his breath, then both of them opened fire, blasting the monster with a volley of bullets. It was fun to watch at first, but after a full minute of gunfire without the monster leaving, Joey began to grow bored. The cooks had gone back to work, and most of the customers were eyeing the windows nervously.

  He was about to just return to cleaning, hoping that the situation would be resolved soon, when an idea came to him.

  'Not sure if this is worth it, but if it shuts up the alarms sooner, I might as well try,' Joey thought to himself, attempting to tap into the aura plane. He was half worried that he wouldn't even be able to use aura in this world- he hadn't tried it yet.

  After a few seconds, however, he felt something shift around him, and he could see the telltale blue light of aura; the force that flowed through all living things. He focused on the sea beast, and tried to pull at its core- give it a suggestion that maybe, just maybe, it might be better for it to leave the Baratie alone.

  Instead, its aura felt cold to Joey, like iron. Completely impenetrable. In hindsight, he realized just how flawed the plan was. He only knew the basics of aura, and what he had just tried was an advanced technique. Not only that, but it had been a few weeks since last used it, he figured, and-

  'Wait. It just swam away. Did it actually work?'

  For a brief moment, he reveled in the feeling that he had managed to deter such a huge creature using just his mind. Then he saw the numerous bruises and impact wounds covering it, and realized, with a sinking heart, that he hadn't really done anything.

  He turned away from the window to see one of the cooks looking at him strangely. "What was that about?" he asked. "It looked like you were trying to fart or something."

  Joey glared at him. "I have standards, you know!"

  "So you did fart," the man said, snickering.

  "I will beat the shit out of you," Joey growled.

  'Great. Bet I'll never hear the end of that,' he thought, turning back to the sink with a scowl on his face.?

  Over the next few days, Joey took to practicing his aura powers every evening. Realizing how dangerous this world was, he knew that any sort of advantage would be paramount to staying alive. The first couple of nights saw little progress; after the space-time distortion business had started, he hadn't had the time to attend his weekly aura lessons with the Kimono Girls, and for someone like him, who wasn't an Aura Guardian, any time spent not using aura only made it harder for him to use it again.

  Slowly but surely, though, he could feel the aura around him becoming more malleable, to the point where he could almost control it.

  Finally, on the fifth day of aura practice, he was able to 'charge' one of his punches with aura. While it was one of the most basic uses of the power, it was a start, so even after trying to punch a hole in the wall and nearly breaking his hand, he was still in a good mood the next morning.

  Since his shift didn't start until eleven o'clock, Joey took the time to sleep in a bit and relax. Or, at least, he tried to, but he kept getting woke up by some sort of commotion. Eventually he gave up trying to rest, and decided to spend the remaining half-hour practicing aura before heading downstairs. As he entered the kitchen, hunting down some leftovers for breakfast, he heard two voices arguing, and moved towards them, curious.

  "...do you know how many pirates we've chased off? If yer so scared, then quit!"

  "That's just what you told the waiters, wasn't it! It's 'cause of you that we're so overworked!"

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Joey smiled, and joined the crowd surrounding the pair of bickering chefs. "Patty and Carne fighting again, huh?" he asked.

  "Oh, you missed all the action," the cook next to him said. "One of Krieg's pirates barged in earlier, and demanded we give him food!"

  The guy on Joey's left laughed. "Patty took care of him, though! Real piece of work, he was."

  They kept talking, but by this point, Joey wasn't listening. As soon as he heard the name 'Krieg', he began to panic. "Krieg?" he asked. "As in Don Krieg? The guy with, like, thirty battleships?"

  'Please be someone else please be someone else please be-'

  "That's the one- and it's fifty, actually. The whole crew's arguing over what to do now. Knowing Sanji, he'll probably feed the guy anyway."

  'shit shit shit shit-'

  "Hey, blockheads!" Chef Zeff's voice cut through the clamor, drawing everyone's attention. "Get back to work."

  "Aye, aye!" the cooks chorused, resuming their duties. Meanwhile, Joey hurried over to the broom closet, grabbing the cleaning equipment. 'I'm supposed to mop the floors today, so I might be able to avoid him,' he thought, moving back towards the kitchen. 'I am not ready for this.'

  Joey rounded the corner, heading towards the door to the dining area. Seeing that a particular straw-hat clad boy had not yet arrived, he breathed a sigh of relief, picking up the pace as he moved closer towards the entryway.

  'Thank god… I think I made it in-'

  "Oof!" he grunted, slamming into someone at full force. He struggled to keep his balance, but badly misjudged his angle, and fell on top of the cart he was pulling behind him. It toppled over, and when he hit the floor, he was completely soaked.

  "Ugh, shit…" he groaned.

  "Are you okay?"

  Joey looked up to see Monkey D. Luffy peering down at him with a frown on his face. Naturally, he was rather overwhelmed- all he could say was, "Uh… probably."

  "Good!" Luffy said, grinning. "In that case…" He crossed his arms, then loudly proclaimed, "I'm Luffy! But for now… I'm chore boy! Reporting for duty!"

  He then immediately sat in a chair, leaning back and relaxing as Joey struggled to stand up.

  "Hey!" Joey called out. "Being a chore boy means you do chores. You don't just sit around all day."

  "Oh, right!" Luffy said, getting out of the chair and grabbing the cart that Joey was standing next to. "I'll go and mop the floor!"

  "I was using that…" Joey moaned. He sighed, defeated. He'd only interacted with Luffy for ten seconds, and he already felt his brain melting.

  'I'll just take orders instead,' he decided, and after a quick detour to his cabin to find a change of clothes, he grabbed a pad of paper and a pencil. He walked out into the dining area and looked around to see a green-haired man flagging him down.

  'I never thought I'd see the day when Zoro the motherfucking pirate hunter ordered food from me.'

  Joey walked over to the swordsman, who was sitting with two other instantly recognizable people, and gulped. "Hello, and welcome to the Baratie, what would you like to eat today?" he asked, trying desperately to keep a straight face.

  "I'll have a buttered lobster and some sake," Zoro said, lounging in his seat and grinning.

  Usopp looked down at his menu, frantically scanning the page. "Uh…" He scratched his head, panic spreading across his face as Zoro glared at him.

  "Oh, just pick something already."

  "But there's so much to choose from!" Usopp responded.

  Nami smiled at Joey. "He'll take the fried tofu dish and some water."

  "Hey! You picked the most boring things on purpose!"

  "Well, that's what you get for taking so long to decide," Nami said. "I'd like the clam dish and some croquettes, please."

  Joey nodded as he wrote their orders down on his paper. "The food will be out soon. It might take a little while since we're short on staff right now."

  "That's fine," Zoro grunted. "It's not like we're going anywhere."

  Nami looked at him, annoyed. "Can't you be at least a little bit more polite?" she asked.

  Joey took the chance to slip away, heading towards another table. Once the trio was finally out of earshot, he let himself relax for a moment. This was way more stressful than he had expected- though he supposed he hadn't really expected this to happen so soon. He had been hoping for at least another couple of weeks before the inevitable attack on the Baratie occurred.

  As it was right now, he had barely relearned his aura powers, and was pretty much defenseless in the face of ruthless pirates such as Don Kreig. It didn't help that he was far less durable than the average person here; he attributed the insane recovery time and physical strength of this world's humans to a combination of slightly different physiology and a protein-rich diet. He was slowly beginning to acclimatize, but it would be a while yet before he would be on par with even a relative weakling like Usopp.

  Alas, there wasn't much he could do about it right now, so he reluctantly went back to taking orders.

  'And hey,' he thought to himself, 'It's better than missing the action completely.'

  "Oy, waiter! I ain't got all day here!"

  "Oh, right." He had gotten lost in his thoughts again.?

  Joey was eating a bagel with cream cheese and prosciutto- it wasn't much, but after he had finished taking orders, he realized that he hadn't eaten breakfast yet, so he decided to whip up something quick and easy. Unfortunately, he made the mistake of putting in meat.

  "Please can I have some?"

  "Cut it out!" he said, pulling away his food before Luffy could steal it. The man was a menace to society… and the Baratie's pantry. Honestly, he was amazed that a person could be so enamored with what was essentially chopped up and cooked corpses- he had to remind himself that the produce wasn't from sentient creatures, and even then, he still felt a bit squeamish eating the stuff.

  Joey lifted the bagel to his mouth to take another bite, only to chomp down on thin air.

  "How the hell did you do that?!" he shouted, then groaned as he realized that Luffy was long gone. He grabbed another bagel, taking care not to put any meat on it, then went to his cabin to eat where Luffy wouldn't follow.

  Unfortunately, the rubber man was already in there. And, to add insult to injury, he was eating the same bagel that he had stolen from Joey.

  "Mmm!" he said through a mouthful of food. "This is really good!"

  Joey stood there, his thoughts reduced to TV static as he tried desperately to figure out what the fuck was going on.

  "W-what are you doing in my room?"

  Luffy laughed. "Shishishishi! This isn't your room!"

  "Yes it is!" he screamed.

  Frowning, Luffy took another bite of the bagel. "The old guy said I could stay in here. He didn't want me sleeping on my ship 'cause he thought I was going to run away."

  Joey cursed under his breath. 'If Chef Zeff weren't so damn intimidating, I'd give him a piece of my mind.'

  "Well, I was here first, so…"

  "We can sleep together! It'll be like a sleepover!" Luffy looked over at the cot. "Do you think there's room for two on there?"

  Joey blanched at the idea. "Probably not," he said, walking up to him and patting his back. "You can sleep on the floor."

  Luffy said nothing, taking a bite out of the uneaten bagel.

  'Wait a second-'

  Joey looked down. His bagel was gone.

  "Get out of here! Go clean or something!" he yelled. "And give me back my bagel!" he added, snatching it from him as he walked by.

  "Hey, no fair!" Luffy complained.

  Joey shooed him off, then collapsed in his cot, already exhausted. He wanted to be excited about this- and sometimes, he really was. But right now, he was drained, and all he felt was uncertainty. What if he couldn't get back home?

  What if he was stuck here?

  What if he never saw his pokémon again?

  For the first time in years, Joey cried.