The Misadventures of Chopper and Shanks

Shipwrecked. Again. Another stinking storm had blown the Going Merry into some huge rock that just happened to be in the middle of nowhere. Luckily, Chopper caught one of the broken off planks before he sank to his death. After hours of drifting, his exhaustion took over, and the poor little reindeer fell asleep, still clinging to the board.

When Chopper woke up, he was surprised to find himself on dry land, a beach actually. As he sat up, out of the corner of his eye he saw a man with flaming red hair. This man also happened to be horribly burning bacon.

Hearing Chopper rustling, the man turned his head and gave the reindeer a cheesy grin that looked shockingly like Luffy’s.

“Hey Mr. Reindeer! You’re awake!”

Chopper only blinked.

“My name’s Captain Shanks, what’s yours?”

Chopper still only blinked.

“Hey, are you alright little guy?”

Blink.

Shanks waved his hand in front of Chopper’s face. “Hellloooooo…”

While Shanks was trying to figure out what was wrong with him, Chopper’s mind was racing. Red hair, one arm, happy-go-lucky personality? Not to mention the fact that the guy could pass for Luffy’s older brother.

“You’re really Captain Shanks!” Chopper shouted out of nowhere.

“The one and only, now are you gonna tell me your name or what?”

“I’m Chopper. Are you really the guy who gave Luffy that stinking old, mulched straw hat?”

“Hey, hey, hey, whoa, don’t insult that…. wait a second. You know Luffy?”

“Yeah, I’m the doctor of his pirate crew!”

“HAHAHAHAHA! He’s really pulled a crew together then? Heh, how many men does he have?”

“Well...” Chopper thought for a second. “Six.”

For a second Shanks just stared at Chopper. Then he broke into gales of laughter.

Chopper later concluded that if it hadn’t been for Shanks’ leg catching on fire, he probably wouldn’t have stopped laughing for quite a long time. Luckily, the charcoal that was formerly bacon, seemed to agree with Chopper in the fact that Shanks’ laughing was getting kind of annoying. The “bacon” fell off of the makeshift grill and into the fire, causing sparks to fly and catch on Shanks’ pant-leg. The fire spread insanely fast, and for the next few minutes, Shanks was smacking his flaming leg, emitting a yelp of pain every so often. The second Shanks got the fire out however; he was completely carefree and easygoing again.

Throughout that day Shanks proceeded to astonish Chopper in ways the little reindeer never knew could be done. Chopper didn’t even think Usopp would believe him when he told everyone that Shanks was actually WORSE than Luffy. But it was true. Chopper actually witnessed a random alligator come and latch itself onto Shanks’ already burnt leg, and Shanks proceeded to pat it’s head cheerfully like nothing had happened. Even when the alligator tried to tear off his remaining hand, Shanks simply pulled it off and escorted it back to the trees. Only when the alligator came back did he pick it up and toss it back into the woods like it was nothing.

Later that night, Chopper decided that he should make dinner. As he proceeded to do this, he went over the events of the day. He had made a good friend out of Captain Shanks; he had learned that there really was someone weirder than Luffy; And he had been assured by his new friend that compared to some of the stuff he’s seen, that Chopper was completely normal. Shanks had even asked, since they were stuck on the same island and all, if Chopper would like to sail around on a raft he had made until they found their crews. Chopper, of course, had accepted, conveniently forgetting to mention the fact that he couldn’t swim. Until Shanks mentioned the Hito Hito fruit at least.

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“So, you know that I can’t swim?” Chopper asked slightly crestfallen. “Yup.” Shanks replied. “But then, I’ve never known a reindeer that could. Even if it hasn’t eaten a cursed fruit, so don’t worry about it. What I’m worried about is dinner. I’m starving. Are you done yet?”

“Oh yeah sorry.” Chopper said as he took the food off of the fire, and pushed some at Shanks. “There you go.”

“Thanks!” Shanks said with a new gleam in his eye, and set about destroying his food. This too astonished Chopper. Shanks literally attacked his food. Very literally. He even started growling at it, until he caught the way Chopper was looking at him. He paused for a few seconds, cleared his throat, and with a quick “Sorry about that.” continued with his food.

The next morning, Shanks pulled the raft out into the shallows. Chopper wasn’t too sure about this. It looked pretty rickety, and it wasn’t exactly very big. Shanks waved his oar, and called to the frightened little reindeer. “Hey! It’s all right, come on! I won’t let you fall off! It’s okay, let’s go!” And very tentatively, Chopper walked over and clambered on. “See?” Shanks asked with a reassuring smile, and pushed off of the beach. Chopper watched with awe as Shanks got them out into the deep water with one arm, and continued to row until they were out past sight of the island. “Okay” Shanks said. “Lets drift for a while from here.”

Chopper was finding it rather hard not to slide around and was clinging to the boards for his life. Shanks on the other hand, was simply sitting there with his legs crossed, and (though Chopper didn’t know it) keeping a close eye on Chopper.

It took them about two days to eat the small amount of food that they had brought with them. They drifted around for days, with nothing to eat, just sitting there. And to make matters worse a storm struck (at Shanks’ prediction) on the fourth night. In that storm they lost the oar, though they weren’t really using it, so it wasn’t much of a loss.

As they were passing a large rock island you could call it, a seagull stared at Chopper, Chopper stared at Shanks, and Shanks stared into outer space. Something caught everyone’s eye. It was a fish, trapped in a small tide pool in the side of the rock. Shanks and the seagull looked at each other, then the fish, then each other again. They both dove at the same time. Though the seagull was closer and had wings, Shanks was faster. Even yet, he wasn’t fast enough. Just as he was about to get to it, an Albatross swooped down, and grabbed the fish from what was about to be Shanks’ grasp. Shanks just sat there, treading water, his hand twitching slightly, staring at the place where the fish had been. He then slowly turned around and swam back to the raft. He kicked off the rock and him, and Chopper carried on drifting.

After another two days, they finally saw an island that had trees. That meant some kind of food, so they made landfall, and looked around. All they found were some berries and roots, but that was enough for Chopper, and Shanks didn’t seem to care what they did. So Chopper made a supper of everything they had found, and after that they both fell sound asleep.

When Chopper woke up, he saw something large and white before his eyes. He turned his head slowly to look at Shanks. Shanks was staring at one of them too, though with much less interest. He didn’t seem to care that, on his chest, was a very large marshmallow. All he seemed interested in was the fact that it was talking. They were on the island of the Marshmallow People.

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“What the-?” Started Chopper, but Shanks cut through. “These must be the Marshmallow People! I’ve heard of these guys. They all ate the mushy-mushy fruit and were cursed to be mushy for eternity!”

“Wow! Really?”

“No actually, I just made that up.”

“Welcome travelers.” The marshmallow said in a disgustingly gushy voice, the way you sound when you eat too much peanut butter.

Very fluently the marshmallow on Shanks’ chest went from English to muttering it’s native tongue. As it did, another marshmallow appeared from out of the nearby trees. Then another, and another. Soon, there were at least 20 or so of the mushy things surrounding our unlikely heroes. They all fell down (about 3 in.) on the ground in front of the team, and began chanting. “Pureshiosu Niiiiiiku. Pureshiosu Niiiiiiku.”

“What do you think they’re saying?” Asked a relatively frightened Chopper.

“Pureshiosu Niiiiiiku.” Came the marshmallows again.

“Uhhh…Let me think.” Shanks said, concentrating hard.

“Pureshiosu Niiiiiiku.”

This chanting carried on for a minute or two, the marshmallows moving forward about half millimeter every time.

“I got it!” Shanks exclaimed. “I think they’re saying “Precious Meat!”…Oh no, not good.” He finished with a sigh.

As if this were a signal, all of the marshmallows moved at once, piling on top of Shanks and Chopper. Shanks began to send marshmallows flying, but more and more advanced. Somehow, they removed Shanks’ sword, and some of them went to the task of squishing themselves and sticking the two misfortunate pirates’ hands together. Hand-cuffed, sort of, they were taken into the woods. Flanked by their squishy captors, they were forced to march for several miles. The two decided to bide their time, and see what happened.

Perhaps an hour later, they were roughly pushed to the ground, and left there in a clearing, guarded by three monstrous, puffy sentries. Slightly larger than all the rest, they were about five pounds heavier, and wore cuirasses of the finest chocolate in all the seas. Wielding spears of pure sugar, they were a force to reckon with.

With nothing better to do but wait, Shanks surveyed his surroundings. There was nothing special about the clearing, but then he smelled it. A peculiar aroma of exotic spices and smoke. Following his nose, he noticed a column of smoke rising from the trees to his right. “Hey Chopper, smell that? I think they’re making dinner! These marshmallows sure are nice!” Before Chopper could reply several of the natives, laden with baskets approached.

“So guys, what’s cooking?” Shanks asked cheerfully.

Wordlessly, they opened their baskets and dumped the contents onto the ground. This done, they turned and left.

“Man, for such nice people they aren’t very good hosts.” Said a disapproving Chopper, staring at the items littering the ground. There were empty ears of corn, old hamburger buns, a Cheerios© box, and a full jar of mayonnaise.

Shanks looked at the “food” for a few seconds, then the whole left side of his face twitched. “They expect us to eat this!” His said incredulously.

“They’re trying to fatten us up!” Chopper exclaimed “And once were fat, they’ll cook and eat us! We’ve got to get out of here!”

“I here you, and the food bites too” Replied Shanks spitting out a piece of cardboard.

“So, any ideas?” The red-haired idiot asked his furry companion.

And then it dawned on him. He started stretching his squishy shackles, and began to chew. Chopper saw the merit of his plan, and started on his own bonds. As the two proceeded to free themselves the guards took notice, and brandishing their weaponry advanced upon the captives.

Shanks’ hunger took control, and he quickly consumed the guards. Licking his lips, he carried on with freeing himself.

When they were both de-squished, Chopper picked up one of the sugar spears and tossed it to Shanks. Not catching the meaning, Shanks caught it in his mouth, and started another feast.

Sighing, Chopper tossed him the spare, and picked up the last one for himself. They set off into the trees, to regain their equipment, and find a way out.

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“Okay, so which way now?” Chopper asked. As they ran through the woods, they had come across a path, so they followed it. In silence they ran on, till they came to a fork, which leaves us at Chopper’s question.

“Well that’s easy.” Shanks replied. He laid his uneaten spear on the ground, and gave it a spin. “Left.” He said, even though the spear was pointed to the right. Shanks slipped his foot underneath the spear and expertly flicked it up into his waiting hand. They carried on.

“Oi.” Chopper thought. All he could see were trees, and the thin path on which they were treading. They walked on for maybe five more minutes before completely out-of-the-blue Shanks quarter turned on his heel and dove, with Chopper in tow, into the trees to their right.

Chopper tried to speak, but Shanks’ hand was firmly planted on his mouth. Chopper looked up at him. Shanks’ eyes were trained on a single spot in the trees opposite them. His hand relaxed a bit, though he seemed slightly tense. “I couldn’t have been hearing things, I NEVER hear things.” He muttered to himself indignantly. “There it is again!” He hissed. “There’s what again?” Chopper asked confused. “You don’t hear that?” Shanks asked finally taking his eyes off the spot, and putting them on Chopper instead. “Hear what?”

“The racket in the woods, down that-a-way.” He gestured in the direction he had been staring at with his chin. Chopper looked, heard nothing, and put his attention, along with a raised eyebrow back on Shanks. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Oh come on, it’s not as loud anymore, but there’s definitely something panting in there.”

“It was probably just the wind.” Chopper said, trying to reason with his stubborn companion.

“What wind?” Shanks asked sardonically.

About this, he did have a point. In that entire time when they were walking, there hadn’t been, and still wasn’t, a single breath of wind.

“Oi Shanks, we’re wasting time, we’ve got to get off of this island.”

“Okay, okay, but if we get attacked by something, not my fault.”

In the trees, two slightly squished faces looked at each other as if in question. The black one gave a small snort, which was followed by another somewhat louder one from a tan creature opposite it.

Sometime later, Shanks and Chopper got to the main Marshmallow camp. It was horrifying. There were marshmallows EVERYWHERE. Up trees, coming out of tents, going into tents, having friendly conversations with each other, and worst of all, prodding the fire under a very large pot.

“Ohhhhhhhhhh good.” Chopper sighed.

“You know what, I think you were right about them not being very nice.” Shanks said.

Chopper looked up at him confused.

“Look over there.” He said, followed by a mirthless chortle

The innocent little reindeer’s face filled with horror at what he saw. Over off in the corner, just shoved to the side, was a small pile of bones.

“Now we’ve really got to get out of here!” Chopper half squeaked, his eyes still glued to the remains of the last things that got stuck on this island.

“I hear you. You got any-” Replied Shanks, but he was cut off by a gushy voice. “Oh you‘er not goin’ anyvere!” “You been issewd an invite to dinner by ar’ clan chieftan, an’ I’d hate fer you to miss that.” The marshmallow uttering the words’ mouth then broke into a maniacal grin as he ordered his troops to apprehend the two.

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Once again they were marching. Through the woods, toward a wonderful smell, that, were Chopper not tied up, and being shoved through the woods to be cooked, would have made his mouth water.

“Well, at least if we die we’ll taste good.” Shanks blurted out, resulting in a sharp prod in his side with one of their “escort’s” spears, which Shanks returned with a hard kick. Too bad the gooeyness of the marshmallow absorbed most of his strike.

Unobtrusively sniffing at the air as they went, Chopper subtly leaned over in Shanks’ direction and whispered. “What do we do now? We have to act fast or we’ll be eaten, in the chance that you haven’t noticed.”

“Nothing, we wait and see what happens.” Came the reply.

“Wait! They’re going to eat us! If we’re going to do ANYTHING, we have to do it now!”

“Alright kid, it’s you’re call.” And with that Shanks began dispersing the marshmallows. In about two minutes there were knocked out, and squished marshmallows everywhere. The majority of their captors had somehow found their ways into Shanks’ mouth, leaving barely even a fourth of them strewn about in random places.

“SHANKS!” Chopper half shouted indignantly.

“What?” Shanks asked confused.

“Why didn’t you do that before!”

“I didn’t have a good enough reason then.”

“So being captured, mistreated, fed trash, and being threatened, DON’T count as good reasons?”

“Nope.”

Chopper shook his head and sighed, letting it drop. “Come on. We have to keep going if we want to get out of here.”

About ten minutes later, the trees began to thin. Warning our heroes that there was an open area up ahead.

As the two of them neared the clearing they heard more squishy voices. Yet one of them sounded somehow regal.

“WHAT? YOU LET THEM ESCAPE?”

“Yess chief, I’m sorrey. I shall retrieve zem”

“You had better…or you shall be next to enter the sacred melting pot. Now go.”

From Shanks and Chopper’s vantage point, they could hear all of this as it passed. Another thing that they could hear was a troop of marshmallows readying themselves to storm the woods.

“Uh…Shanks…” Chopper said unsurely. “Can we run now? Shanks...Shanks?” But Shanks was already half way up a tree.

“Shanks what are you doing?” Chopper hissed.

“Looking for our raft.” Came Shanks’ voice in return.

Chopper then concluded that maybe Shanks wasn’t as stupid as he had thought. Chopper himself had completely forgotten about the raft.

“Okay, it’s on the far side of the clearing with the rest of our stuff. I’m surprised they didn’t use it for fire wood.” Shanks said as his feet made contact with the ground again.

“Do you have any plan of how to get it?” Chopper asked him.

“It’s not really what you would call a plan. Basically we just make a mad dash across the clearing, pick up our things as we go, run to the beach and set off.”

“I can’t think of anything else so that’ll have to do.” Replied Chopper. And with that they ran.

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Simultaneously, the head of every marshmallow there turned to see the oddly matched pair begin their sprint across the clearing.

It took a full three seconds for the marshmallow chieftain to acknowledge what was happening, giving our heroes enough time to clear about a fourth of the camp.

“STOP THEM!” Came the mushy voice of island’s enraged overlord.

Immediately the hoard of marshmallows barraged Chopper and Shanks. Just as he was hit, Chopper transformed into his strongest Hito Hito fruit form, and started swinging his now, gigantic arms. Shanks too began to, once again, send marshmallows flying.

The strange duo was, with some difficulty, dealing with these squishy adversaries, but the armed puffballs proved to be much more of a pain. By holding their sugar spears out in front of them, they made it hard for Shanks and Chopper to get close, and neither of them had long-range weapons. Even yet, the wacko redhead, and his reindeer companion were painstakingly slowly making their way across the clearing.

“FOOLS! Why is this taking so long! SEIZE THEM!” Came the chieftain’s demonically squishy voice again.

Still, no matter how hard the marshmallows tried, Chopper and Shanks continued to make, at least a small amount of headway.

Fidgeting as much as only a marshmallow can, the lord of the island’s lust for meat was simply too great. “Marshmallows…AMALGAMATE!”

Upon this command, every single marshmallow then jumped into one huge pile of mush, and merged together as one gigantic mountain of marshmallowy evil.

With an evil cackle from the chieftain, monster moved towards Shanks and Chopper.

“…Shanks, what do we do! WHAT DO WE DO! A frightened Chopper half squeaked, half screamed.

“Go around it.” Shanks replied rather calmly.

“Gyah! Giant marshmallows don’t even phase you!”

“Why should it? It’s just a bigger version of the last thing? And anyway, I’m NOT dying to a marshmallow, no matter what the size.” He replied defiantly.

Hearing Shanks say this, gave Chopper new light. Changing out of his strong form, Chopper joined Shanks in, yet another run to get away.

As they ran around, the blob, not being able to turn fast enough, tried to fall on them. Luckily, this it also did rather slowly, giving Shanks and Chopper just enough time to get around the thing before it landed on them. Another lucky thing was that it had taken every single marshmallow, not including the leader, to make this monster. Leaving no one to stand in the runway.

Running as fast as they could, Chopper and Shanks got to the other side of the clearing, to their things, and a good thirty feet into the trees before the giant had picked it’s self up again.

They were making good time, but all of this running was taking its toll. Chopper was slowing considerably down.

Looking back Shanks saw how far behind the reindeer had fallen. Running back as fast as he could, and not even bothering to talk, Shanks scooped Chopper up, sat him on his shoulders and kept running, dragging with him the raft, in the direction of the beach.

As they broke through the trees, Shanks could hear crashing tin the woods behind them. Dragging the raft into the water, and setting an exhausted Chopper onto it, Shanks began pushing their ticket off of the island into the water.

He had it a good way into the water, when the giant marshmallow came crashing out of the trees.

In a final attempt to drown them in mush, the marshmallow threw itself into the weathered sand with such force, that it sent a tidal wave of sinister squishiness straight in their direction.

Just as it was about to hit them, an outgoing riptide caught hold of the raft and pulled them far into ocean.

The great surge of sticky white hit, and mixed with the water, leaving their great chieftain as the sole survivor of the vast and powerful race of marshmallow people.