Chapter 12: The Climb up the Mountain

At the edge of the wintry island, a very large, most familiar ship docked not too far from the Going Merry. Disembarking and clearing a path, the Wapol Pirates made themselves known by killing every single townsperson waiting and guarding the dock. The man himself left his ship while riding a giant hippo, laughing all the way. "My beloved Drum Kingdom! Your king has returned! Why would you fire upon us? All I want to do is play king again!"

"My lord..." Chess worked up the courage to talk. "The kingdom appears to be in good shape. What would you like us to do?"

"I already told you! I want to go home and rethink my life!" Wapol argued. "Why is that so hard for you and Kuromarimo to understand?"

"Well, Your Majesty, you never had those thoughts until you had that paint mark on your back," the mustachioed man brought up. "If you would just let us..."

"No! Only the king may touch the Royal Wardrobe! Let us make our way to the castle!"

A random underling took the moment to run over to the king of Drum Island. "Your Majesty! I have an urgent report! It's the pirates from yesterday! Their ship is docked by the river!"

"What?! If this were the old me I would execute them all on sight...but the priority is to return to the castle! I will think about their fates there! Does anyone have any objections?!"

"No, sir! We would never question you, King Wapol!"

*AGITR*

Petrea was afraid.

She knew that she was in trouble the second the bubble popped. This was always an issue for her since she ate her Devil Fruit. The power to change her weight was an interesting ability on its own, but the ramifications of it being out of control was not one she had considered initially. The first time it happened, she nearly destroyed the restaurant she was working at.

Damian knew (of course) that it was a problem the second the two started working with each other. Given the variety of places Mr. 0 sent them, getting sick was inevitable. Thankfully, he had come across a set of Seastone ropes and had used them to tie her down to her bed. Despite being made of the one thing that drained the energy of Devil Fruit users besides water itself, being tied down and weak was better than accidentally destroying their ship with a roaring cough. Unfortunately, those ropes had been left behind at Little Garden.

The former Miss Valentine saw her partner and her new cooking companion attack the rabbit creatures and her heart sank. 'If I am responsible for them being frozen to death, I will never forgive myself.' Admittedly, Petrea had been in a bit of a self-hating mood since joining up with the Straw Hats, but that was due to her dealing with her own demons. She knew Damian was hurting the same way, hence his training with Zoro.

Thankfully, she seemed to brighten up whenever Steven was with her. There was something about the boy that Petrea couldn't quite put her finger on, but he always knew just what to say to get her to appreciate herself just a bit more. The boy was one of the most optimistic people she had ever met and while she formerly dismissed it as being childish, even the hardened killer had to express a feeling of refreshment at the changes in her life.

This feeling doubled when "Straw Hat" himself offered her a chance to right her wrongs with his crew. How had she gone from mocking optimism to embracing it? Why was she lucky enough to know people who would look past her flaws and assist her at the risk of their own life?

As the impending doom of being lost in a snow storm sunk in, Petrea noticed a pink light in the distance. The light's glow started out low...then it started to grow. It took her a moment to realize that this light was actually from both Steven and Luffy.

What the hell was going on over there?

The light faded almost immediately and her heart sank. It seemed like Steven had vanished and Luffy was the only person left in sight. Had the boy been swallowed whole by the storm? However, it dawned on her that the figure in the distance wasn't exactly Luffy either. His hair was poofier, almost like Steven's. He seemed to be wearing Luffy's red vest...but it looked like Steven's star was on it too? What had happened to the jackets they were wearing?

It was only then did she remember what Steven had pled in Little Garden: "Now's she's stuck fused at the bottom of our ocean with Jasper and there's nothing I can do to help her, especially when I'm stuck here in this world!"

'Is...is THAT fusion?!' she thought before the shock of the situation took over her. Once again, she had passed out and started to plummet to the snowy surface below.

*AGITR*

Luffy and Steven both saw the rapidly falling figure of Petrea in the distance and started to panic.

"Okay, are you ready to throw me?" Steven asked him before stopping to realize something. "Wait...this isn't my voice..."

"Where are you, Steven?!" the same voice cried out. "I can hear you but I can't see...wait...this isn't my voice either!"

Luffy and Steven both went to feel their face when they realized they were doing everything in sync. The being blinked rapidly before knowing exactly what had just happened. "I fused with Luffy! Wait...'fusion?' What's 'fusion?' Oh! That's what that is! Wait...how do I know what fusion is?" the Fusion talked aloud.

It was then that Petrea snapped him out of it. There were only mere moments before she would crash and undoubtedly become lost in the snow drift. Thankfully, the Steven-Luffy hybrid knew exactly what to do:

"GUM-GUM QUARTZ BUBBLE!"

The Fusion's arm stretched out as far as it could go. Closer and closer, the rubber arm reached out toward the woman's still (yet falling) body. As it reached closer, the Fusion's stomach began to glow and the light traveled all the way through the outstretched hand. Like a burst of energy, the pink light surrounded Petrea and shielded her once more. The hand then did the same thing to the ground that Petrea was about to hit, causing the bubble to bounce in the air once more.

"GUM-GUM QUARTZ CATAPULT!" the Fusion yelled.

The hybrid now curled up its legs into a coil and somehow willed the shield to throw them in the air, this time to the area where Petrea was hurtling. Now that she was properly in range, he stretched his arms out once more and grabbed the ball, dragging it back to his body. The second it returned, the Fusion dissipated the bubble and formed a new one around the thre...two of them.

By this point, the avalanche had concluded. The bubble landed on the top of the snow and the Fusion finally had a moment to appreciate itself.

"So...so we merged together...that is so amazing! How did we do that, Steven?" the Fusion asked itself. "Well, I've only ever fused before with Connie...so this is pretty new to me! But why did we fuse?"

The Fusion thought it over before glancing at the slumbering woman in their arms. It all clicked instantly. "Our compassion for our friends! Of course! Fusion is all about emotions and feelings! It all makes sense! I guess this makes us...Lufven? Stuffy? No...Lufven," the Fusion smiled. "That's a cool name! I...WAIT! WHERE ARE SANJI AND DAMIAN?" Lufven slapped himself on the back of the head. "We need to find them! No...I need to find them!"

After a few moments of searching, Luufven came across an interesting sight: the baby lapahn from earlier digging in the snow. "Did...did your parents get caught in the avalanche?"

The bunny started to growl defensively, but the Luffy-Steven hybrid merely dropped the shield and pulled out the shivering form of the adult lapahn. "I know how it's like to lose the people you care about. Take care of them."

He examined the landscape until he noticed two sets of shoes sticking out from the ground. Lufven rolled over and pulled out Sanji and Damian. They were battered, bruised, and weak from the frozen landscape.

"My friends...I need to get them to the castle...fast!" the Fusion told himself. Using his increased strength, he wrapped his arms around the two of them and retied Petrea to his back. Then with the speed of two people, they flew fast in the snow.

Along the way, they came across a procession of people were walking through the tundra. The largest and most recognizable one was King Wapol riding on his noble hippo steed. He turned his head over to the oncoming Fusion. "Look, men! A giant pink ball is heading our way! Maybe we can use it to get through the snow faster!" The oblivious king waved his hands. "Hey! Stop! In the name of the king, I demand you to..."

Wasting no time to talk, the pink sphere plowed through the people, knocking Wapol off of his ride. The king fell into the snow, soaking his clothes along with his body. His loyal aides, Chess and Kuromarimo, immediately pulled him out. Instantly, they noticed that the paint mark from before had finally been wiped clean.

"Sire! Your clothes!"

"You idiot! Why didn't you wipe my clothes earlier?!" Wapol roared. "I was clearly under that painter's spell! My first new law as the returning king is to execute any and every painter in our kingdom! My second is to kill every person who bowls over the king! I want that 'Straw Hat' bastard dead!"

Wapol's men loaded their rifles and started to run after their targets, but were immediately ambushed by the lapahn tribe from before. "What are you doing in my way?! Move now!"

"Sir, it seems as if they are trying to block us from 'Straw Hat!'" Chess cried out in shock.

"Impossible! You can't tame these beasts! They hate humans! Men, let the slaughter begin!"

*AGITR*

"Retreat! Retreat!" Wapol called to his men after a few moments of fighting the killer rabbits. "We will find another way to the castle!"

*AGITR*

The sphere containing Lufven and his friends finally made it to the mountain where the castle stood. Panting, Lufven stared up. "This...fusing is taking everything out of me. We...I need to be strong enough to get up there."

Creating a pink bubble at the base of the mountain, Lufven prepared himself to jump. However, a thought struck him. "Wait...if I don't make it up, everyone will get hurt! I can't risk that!"

He weighed his options and realized there was only one thing to do: climb the mountain by hand. Stretching his arms and tying them in knots around Damian and Sanji while also securing Luffy's famous straw hat (that was given to him by the infamous "Red-Haired" Shanks), the Fusion started to climb. He had to be very careful. Every movement of his arms could cause someone to fall. Petrea was secured and knocked out on his back while the two men kept being pulled up and down with each arm as it climbed. If he did not keep his intense concentration, they would break apart into Steven and Luffy, damning everyone to a snowy grave.

Hours passed as he climbed. His body was near frozen, his knuckles bloody and bruised. A normal person surely would have died by this point. But Lufven was no ordinary person. As a fusion of two beings with immense will, determination, and optimism, there was no stopping him from reaching his task.

At long last, the Fusion reached the top. The castle was a marvel to behold. Towers reached high into the sky and the windows were covered in a layer of ice and snow. It was something out of a fairy tale. Untying his charges, Lufven smiled and weakly cried "Doctor...!" before collapsing into the snow.

Unfortunately, the snow the Fusion collapsed into was unstable and Lufven began to drop down the side of the mountain that he forced himself up by sheer willpower alone. Thankfully for him, a large furry creature grabbed him and pulled him up. It appeared as if he were a yeti wearing a hat. The eyes of Lufven weakly opened and turned into stars with a skull and crossbones inside of them. "A...a Wookiee!"

Then he collapsed once more into the beast's hands. The creature jumped back in shock. "Ahh! Doctor! Doctor! Come quick!"

An elderly woman wearing sunglasses and a short sleeved shirt walked out of the castle and chugged a bit from her bottle of sherry. "What's this, Chopper? Guests at this hour?"

The creature (who turned into a miniature reindeer) started dragging the near-frozen bodies into the castle. "They climbed the side of the mountain, Doctor Kureha! This one did it with his own bare hands!"

"What?!" she said in an awestruck voice. "Drum Rock is more than five thousand meters high! How is that even possible?!" The doctor bent over and examined Lufven. "This is the worst case of frostbite I have ever seen. We need to run a hot bath immediately!"

"What about them, doctor?" Chopper asked, pointing to the unconscious forms of Sanji and Damian. "It looks like they broke a lot of ribs and the blond-haired one's backbone is broken! May I please treat them?"

Before Doctor Kureha could answer, she spied the still form of Petrea beside the others. She turned over her neck and grimaced. "This one takes priority! She's been infected with a disease from another island. We need antibiotics now!"

Just as the doctor was about to lift Petrea up, Lufven managed to pick himself up to look at his saviors. "Kid, what are you doing?! You are going to die if you keep pushing yourself like this!"

"C...can y...ou save th..them?" Lufven managed to get out.

"Of course I can! I'm the best damn doctor on this island, and the cutest too!" she laughed. "Chopper and I will take care of everything."

Lufven started to laugh. "Shihashihashiha! Then...then I did...it!" With that, the Fusion glowed brightly and revealed the bloody and bruised forms of Steven and Luffy. Both shared the same injuries and both were now out like a light.

Chopper jumped back in shock and pointed his hoof at them. "Did...did you see that, doctor?! What happened?!"

"Isn't it obvious, Chopper? They did everything they could for their friends," the doctor replied with a smile. "Get them inside. We've got work to do!"