17: new crew mate and travels

leaving alabasta the strawhats lost all but three marine ships, but the merry was taking on water from when they were hit during the escape woth bon clay, this caused them to start slowing down.

luffy sanji and zoro were about to go and destroy the ships following them when they tripped over metal poles that usopp collected from the marines attack, this caused the, to decide to just dump the poles by throwing them at the marines following them disabling the ships.

usopp worked on patching the holes in the merry while the rest of the crew worked on rowing it forward as they weren't getting much wind for the sails.After losing the marines the crew minus zoro all got upset as they missed vivi, causing zoro to say that we could have just taken her by forced before being insulted by everyone on deck for being a brute, while this was happening a door opened and miss all sunday stepped out congratulating them for escaping the marines. The screw instantly went on attack mode before she explained how it's luffy's fault she was there, as he saved her life so as compensation she should be able to join his crew.Luffy easily agreed causing everyone but alex, who was laughing at how similar this was to how she joined, to have their mouths drop open while yelling at luffy. Usopp ends up questioning her and find out her name was robin, she's an archeologist,and that she was on the run from the world government since she was eight as she can read poneglyph's, and that she was good at assassination, this freaked usopp out saying she was to dangerous to have on the crew.

Robin ended up making friends with everyone but zoro who was to suspicious of her and alex who went back to sleep in her tree. while saile the crew came across what looked like an island, sailing closer they a lot onto the island. The crew split up to search the island while gathering supplies while chopper stayed on the ship to watch over it, robin stayed to read her books and alex was still asleep. in her tree. Chopper ended up breaking a water barrel cause he freaked when robin walked into the same room as him, so they both left the ship to gather more water leaving it alone with alex. having no interruptions during her nap alex was in a great mood that night when the crew gathered for a bonfire, ending up drinking most of her rum stash before passing out next to robin. As the crew sailed to the next island alex spent her time between naps tying to get a deeper understanding of her fruit

'i should be able to completely understand what my fruit is once i'm able to merge the shadow with the fire.'

alex thought while playing with fire in her right hand and shadow in her left

'what qualities would the fire gain if i add the shadow to it? what would the shadow gain if i add the fire? what if they are equal, what would happen to my zoan shape when they merge?'

these are the thoughts of alex while trying to understand her fruit. Bringer her hands closer together she can feel the shadow want to consume the fire and the fire wanting to burn the shadow, but she kept them separated while trying to balance them. after a couple days of trial and error that left part of the deck scorched and missing, alex was finally able to balance the shadow and fire when she brought her hands together

"I did it!"

alex screamed in excitement before it exploded in her face as she lost concentration on it. now i just got to make that happen naturally and it should change everything about my fruit alex thought while rushing to celebrate with the crew about her success. another couple days since the success alex was still having trouble merging the full power of fire and shadow together, no matter what she tried one always ended up failing before the merge causing her to stop trying or risk explosion in her body. one day before els was able to start her training a giant water cyclone appeared in the merry' so way causing nami who was making maps in her room to leave and to start giving instruction about what to do if they want to be able to escape from it, but after making it away she just disappeared back into her room to continue her maps.

the next couple of days were also hectic causing alex to not get much practice in her fruit merging, but entertained her all the same, as we ended up picking up a marine cook while surrounded by marine ships who couldn't see us due to the fog. sanji decided to help the cook make curry for all the captains as he had the sa,e dream as him, and alex decided to raid each ship for valuables and information.

sneaking onto the ship with luffy and sanji, alex switches into a marine outfit before making her way around the ship with full confidence that she was supposed to be there, causing any marine to pass her to just greet her before moving on. making her way around the ship a;ex was able to make a total of 1,500,000 berries and gathered some information she though might be important for another time, before she ,add her way back to the merry alex left a note in each captains cabin thanking them for their generous donations.

Seeing luffy being chased by the marines alex quickly grabs him when he and sanji were about to sling away and returns to the ship with them.

Back on the ship we quickly sail out of the fog and away from the marines with nami's navigational talent, before alex went back to training. two days later alex made more progress with merging her powers into one and managed to get them to merge for a single second before it started to react badly causing her to stop.

'so that's how i do it! now it's only a matter of time before they become one.'

alex though with a smile

Arriving at the next island the crew was treated to a fireworks displayand celebration as usopp helped one of the islander fire a 200 pound firework that they forgot how to use for the first time in years. The crew ended up getting chased by the marines again causing them to go into a heavily foggy area that had reefs and rocks everywhere making it almost impossible to travel through, luckily they had nami to get them to an island in the middle of it. Docking at the island the crew is set upon by a group of goats before chopper scares an old man out of a tree by shifting into his human point, where they learned he was the one giving the goats orders to attack them.

the old man after getting threatened by sanji jumped into a bush amd got stuck making zoro cut him out, but the old mans heart stopped as a result making zoro look as if he killed the man. Once the old guy woke up he guilted the crew into working for him for a day before going to sleep, leaving the crew to their own devices, which might have been a bad idea. Zoro after getting lost stumbles across a pirate ship at the top of a mountain, before making his way back to the crew to tell them about it. Arriving at the ship the crew explored it before nami said that the old guy was probably the last member of a pirate crew, as he is the only one who arrived here.

chopper during his examination of the old man found out he has a heart condition that made it so he won't live for longer than three days making the crew decide to keep him company during these days. alex knowing she's not good at helping others decided to just stay on the ship and train instead of catering to the dying old guy.

'hmm maybe i can try merging in my beast form now that we're on land'

alex thought before shifting into her giant cat form and bringing the powers of fire and shadow together much easier than when she wasn't transformed.

Finally after repeated failures alex was able to merge the power of shadow with the power of fire, this caused her to finally understand what her fruit was and able to use all the basic powers pre-awakening grants her.