A/n: Just dropped a new fanfic on cricket. Cricket: Template system. Check it out.
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While Ben was having the scientific equivalent of a religious awakening, Ryu was getting more and more agitated. He was groaning, a deep, rumbling sound.
"He says we're close!" Apis yelled. "He says... he can hear them!"
They rounded a final bend, and the plateau opened up into a massive, massive caldera. Inside was a paradise. A lake of what looked like liquid gold—not metal, but pure, life-giving thermal water—steamed in the center.
And surrounding it... were dragons.
Not Wyverns, or Drakes, or Serpents.
Sennenryu.
Hundreds of them. Babies, small as cows, were playing tag in the air. Adults, the size of Ryu, were sunning themselves on the cliffs. And in the center, on a high perch, were three Ancients, so old they looked like they were carved from the mountain itself, their scales a deep, wise-blue.
Ryu, seeing his home, his family, let out a roar.
It wasn't the weak, pained rasp from the cave. It was a full-throated, sky-shaking, joyful roar that echoed off every peak.
Every dragon in the valley stopped. They turned. They saw Ryu, floating in the river, and the tiny, ridiculous-looking sheep-ship that had brought him.
"This," Nami whispered, tears in her eyes, "is... impossible."
"So cool..." Luffy breathed, his usual goofiness replaced by pure, unadulterated awe.
Then, the dragons moved.
They flew up, hundreds of them, a living, breathing, beautiful storm. They swarmed the Going Merry, not attacking, but greeting. They cooed and rumbled, nudging Ryu with their snouts.
Ryu (via Apis, who was sobbing with happiness): "They... they... they waited! They knew I was coming! They WAITED!"
Two of the largest Sennenryu gently, gently, lifted Ryu from the water, their strength immense, and carried him toward the golden lake. They set him down at the water's edge.
Ryu, with the last of his strength, slid into the golden, steaming water.
He submerged.
For a moment, the world was silent.
He burst out of the water, a new roar ripping from his throat! The faded, dull scales were glowing. The cloudy, dying eyes were now sharp and bright. He wasn't a dying old man. He was home.
A baby Sennenryu, overcome with curiosity, landed on the Merry's deck. It waddled over to the strangest-looking "tree" it had ever seen. It sniffed Zoro's green hair. It decided it must be grass.
And it began to chew.
Zoro, who had been meditating through the entire emotional scene, opened one eye. A baby dragon was contentedly gnawing on his head.
"Get... it... off," he grumbled, not moving.
"AWWWWW!" Luffy and Usopp shouted.
"Can we keep him?!" Luffy begged, his eyes sparkling. "Please, Ben! You're magic! Can we keep the dragon-puppy?!"
Ben wasn't listening. He had his wand out and was already at the railing, a dozen sterile glass vials floating around his head.
"Fascinating... the golden water... ? Must be the geothermal mineral content combined with localized... magic!" He was frantically scooping vials of the lake water. "This could be he;pful in making potions!"
Sanji, meanwhile, had dipped a finger in the water. "It's... perfectly... warm. This island is... paradise!"
The moment was perfect. Which is why, of course, it had to be interrupted.
A loud, ugly, man-made sound—a cannonball—screamed into the valley, smashing into one of the crystal cliffs, shattering it.
BOOM!
"FIRE AT WILL! SEIZE THE MILLENNIUM DRAGONS! THEIR BONES WILL GRANT ME ETERNAL LIFE!"
On the river they had just come up, a fleet of gray, ugly Marine battleships was pushing its way in. Commodore Nelson, his face twisted in a mask of greed, stood on the flagship. They had followed the Merry through the rainbow barrier.
The peaceful dragons, confused and scared, began to panic.
"Nelson!" Apis shrieked, her joy turning to terror.
"They're messing up our adventure!" Luffy growled, his face going dark.
Ben looked at the Marines. He looked at the panicking, peaceful dragons. Then he looked at his satchel, which was now brimming with samples. Scales, blood, saliva, crystal shards, feathers, and vials of golden water.
"Ben," Nami said, her voice shaking. "We have to get out of here!"
"Not yet," Ben said, a slow, dangerous, mad-scientist smile spreading across his face. "Nami, get us ready to leave. Usopp! I need... your biggest cannonball. The hollow one."
"The... the Special Pepper-Exploding-Star?"
"That's the one! Bring it here!"
As Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji leapt onto the shore to hold back the first wave of Marines, Ben got to work. He wasn't just a wizard. He was a Dumbledore. And Dumbledore, for all his kindness, was a terrifying force in a fight.
Ben didn't bother with conventional spells. He opened his satchel of samples.
"Usopp, hold the cannonball."
Ben started inscribing a complex series of runes onto the cannonball with his wand, "is a... Transmogrification Maledicta. A Polymorph-Hex. A... Dragon's Revenge."
"Luffy! Buy me thirty seconds!" Ben roared.
"Shishishi! Gomu Gomu no... PISTOL!" Luffy's fist shot out and cleared the deck of Nelson's flagship.
"It's ready!" Ben yelled. He and Usopp loaded the glowing, fizzing, hissing cannonball. "AIM FOR COMMODORE NELSON'S UGLY FACE!"
"FIRE!" Usopp yelled, lighting the fuse.
The cannonball shot out. It hit Nelson's flagship... and it didn't explode.
It puffed.
A cloud of shimmering, multicolored, foul-smelling smoke washed over Nelson's ship.
"Hah!" Nelson sneered. "Is that all, you fools?! You missed! You—"
He stopped. He looked at his hand. It was... red. And... scaly.
"Sir!" a Marine screamed, pointing at his own face. "My... my... feathers!"
A second Marine tried to shout, but only yipped and zipped into the air, Drake wings sprouting from his back.
Nelson looked at his reflection in a polished breastplate. His skin was turning the thick, pebbled-hide of a Dragon. His nose was elongating into a Wyvern's snout. And, most humiliatingly, two tiny, useless, fluffy Draco Pluma wings were sprouting from his... posterior.
"WHAAAA... SKREEEE... BLAARGH?!" he roared, his voice now a hybrid of a man, a dragon, and a very confused poodle.
The dragons, seeing this, all laughed.
A dragon's laugh is not a subtle thing. It is a tectonic event. It sounds like a fleet of ships capsizing during a thunderstorm. The sheer force of the sound, combined with the sight of the Marines spontaneously growing scales and feathers, was enough.
The entire Marine fleet, now partially transformed into a comical, horrifying menagerie of dragon-parts, turned and fled, their crews screaming in terror.
"A temporary, non-lethal, and deeply humiliating hex," Ben said, dusting off his hands. "Dumbledore would be... moderately disappointed in my lack of subtlety. But I find it hilarious."
The valley was peaceful again.
Apis was crying, but they were happy tears. She was at the water's edge, hugging Ryu's massive snout one last time.
"He... he says 'thank you'," Apis translated, her voice thick. "He says... you are strange... and loud... and the rubber one is... very stupid. But... you are good."
Ryu opened his mouth, and gently deposited a single, perfect, razor-sharp tooth at Luffy's feet. It was the size of Zoro's Wado Ichimonji.
"He says... a gift," Apis sniffled. "For the future... King."
Luffy picked up the tooth, his eyes wide. "SO COOL! I'm gonna make a... a... necklace!"
"You can't, Luffy," Nami said, laughing. "You'd tip over."
Apis turned to her crew. "I... I'm going to stay. My grandfather is on Warship Island, but... this is my home now. I'm... I'm the Dragon Attendant."
Luffy grinned. He walked over and patted her head. "Good. You gotta be strong, then, Dragon Attendant!"
She hugged him, hard. "Thank you, Luffy-san! Thank you, everyone!"
The Going Merry, her paint slightly scorched, her deck covered in... (Ben was cataloging)... dragon slobber, turned. The crew waved.
"Bye, Apis! Bye, Ryu! Bye, dragon-puppy!" Luffy yelled.
"FAREWELL, MY BRAVE DRACONIC FRIENDS!" Usopp sobbed.
As they sailed back toward the rainbow barrier, which was already fading, Ben was in the galley. He was meticulously labeling his new, pristine, and complete set of Sennenryu samples, including a vial of the golden water. He had scales, blood (humanely drawn from Ryu while he slept), and even a shed claw-clipping.
His "shopping" was complete.
"Man," Luffy said, leaning on the railing as they burst back into the normal, boring blue sea. "Dragons are so cool."
Zoro, finally free of the baby dragon, was grumbling as he tried to dry his hair. "I'm covered in dragon spit."
Ben just smiled as he locked his new samples case.
"Indeed they are, Captain," he murmured. "Indeed they are."