The courtyard of Drum Castle was a pristine field of white, save for the chaotic tracks of a rubber man and a sniper who were currently trying to bury each other in a snowdrift.
Ben walked out onto the terrace, the crisp mountain air filling his lungs. Beside him trotted Chopper, the little reindeer still eyeing Ben with a mixture of wariness and intense curiosity. To Chopper, Ben wasn't just a pirate; he was a walking anomaly. He smelled of ozone, old books, and something unidentifiable.
"Hey, Luffy! Usopp!" Ben called out.
The two popped their heads out of the snow, looking like powdered donuts.
"Ben!" Luffy cheered. "Come play! Usopp says he's the Snow King, but I'm gonna dethrone him!"
"I am the Snow King!" Usopp declared, adjusting his goggles. "My frozen fortress is impenetrable!"
Ben chuckled. He looked down at Chopper. "What do you say, Doctor? Think they need a common enemy?"
Chopper blinked. "Enemy?"
Ben drew the Elder Wand. He didn't aim at the boys. He aimed at a massive, undisturbed mound of snow in the center of the courtyard.
The magic flowed from the wand, a stream of silver light that soaked into the snow.
The mound shuddered.
Luffy and Usopp froze. "Uh... did the snow just wiggle?"
Suddenly, the mound rose. Two massive legs of packed ice formed, stomping onto the ground. A torso thick as a barrel materialized, followed by a head with glowing blue coals for eyes (transfigured from stones).
It was a Snow Monster. A ten-foot-tall Yeti made of magic and ice.
"W-W-W-WOAAAAAAH!" Luffy and Usopp screamed in unison, their eyes turning into stars. "IT'S ALIVE! A SNOW MONSTER!"
Chopper gasped, his hooves clattering on the stone. "You... you made life?!"
"Just animation," Ben smiled. "Watch this."
He flicked his wand again. The Snow Monster raised its right arm. The snow shifted, compacted, and reshaped itself into a distinct, cylindrical shape.
A cannon.
"Fire," Ben commanded softly.
FWOOMP!
A snowball the size of a watermelon shot out of the cannon-arm. It flew across the courtyard with perfect aim and slammed directly into Luffy and Usopp, knocking them both backward into a drift.
SPLAT.
Silence. Then...
"HAHAHAHAHA!" Luffy burst out of the snow, wiping his face. "THAT WAS AWESOME! IT SHOOTS SNOWBALLS!"
"IT'S A WAR MACHINE!" Usopp yelled, scrambling for cover behind a pillar. "THE SNOW KING IS UNDER SIEGE! MAN THE BATTLEMENTS!"
"Chopper," Ben said, crouching down. "Go get 'em."
Chopper hesitated. He had spent his whole life running from humans. Humans threw stones. Humans shot guns. But these humans... were laughing. They were being hit by giant snowballs and laughing.
Ben nudged him. "Go on. It's safe."
Chopper took a step. Then another. He scooped up a snowball with his hooves. He looked at Luffy, who was currently trying to wrestle the Snow Monster's leg.
Chopper threw it.
Bonk.
It hit Luffy on the back of the head.
Luffy stopped wrestling. He turned slowly. He saw Chopper.
A grin spread across his face—a grin brighter than the sun on the snow.
"OH! THE REINDEER WANTS TO FIGHT TOO! GET HIM!"
"Eep!" Chopper squeaked, but he didn't run away. He ran behind the Snow Monster.
"I'm on the monster's team!" Chopper yelled, his voice trembling with excitement.
"TRAITOR!" Usopp shouted, popping up and firing a barrage of snowballs. "TAKE THIS! USOPP SNOW-STORM!"
For the next hour, the castle terrace was a battlefield of joy.
Luffy and Usopp vs. Ben, Chopper, and the Snow Monster.
Snowballs flew thick and fast. Ben used lazy flicks of his wand to shield Chopper from direct hits. Chopper, realizing he was safe, grew bolder, transforming into Heavy Point to throw massive boulders of snow, then shrinking to Brain Point to hide.
Luffy eventually managed to tackle the Snow Monster, causing it to collapse into a pile of powder, burying Ben and Chopper with it.
They laid there in the snow, breathless, staring up at the grey sky.
"That..." Chopper panted, his breath misting in the air, "...was fun."
"Shishishi! Yeah!" Luffy laughed from somewhere to his left. "You're pretty good at throwing, Reindeer!"
Chopper blushed, wiggling. "Shut up! Complimenting me doesn't make me happy, you jerk! Hehehe!"
---
"Okay," Ben said, brushing snow off his coat. "I'm freezing. And I have a feeling our Cook is getting lonely in the kitchen."
"Food!" Luffy shouted, leaping up.
They trooped inside, shaking the snow from their clothes. The castle was drafty, but the kitchen was a haven of warmth. The massive hearth was roaring with a fire Sanji had stoked.
"Sanji!" Luffy yelled. "We're hungry!"
Sanji looked up from a pot of soup intended for Nami. "Quiet down, you rubber-mess. Nami-san is sleeping upstairs." He looked at the group—wet, shivering, and smiling. "You guys look like you wrestled a polar bear."
"A Snow Monster!" Usopp corrected proudly. "Which I defeated, obviously."
Ben walked to the heavy oak table. "Sanji, we need something warm. Do you have chocolate?"
"Chocolate?" Sanji frowned, checking the pantry. "No. This castle hasn't been stocked with luxuries in years. Just meat, potatoes, and dried herbs."
"No chocolate?" Luffy looked devastated.
"Not a problem," Ben said. He rolled up his sleeve.
He tapped into the Momo Yaoyorozu template.
Creation.
He visualized the molecular structure of Theobroma cacao. Not just the beans, but the processed, rich, dark chocolate liquor, mixed with cocoa butter and sugar. He understood the chemical bonds, the lipid structures, the crystallization points.
His skin glowed with a soft, iridescent light.
From his palm, a dark, rich, block of material began to emerge. It grew, solidifying into a massive, one-kilogram brick of pure, high-grade dark chocolate.
"Here," Ben said, tossing the brick to Sanji.
Sanji caught it. He stared at it. He sniffed it.
"This..." Sanji looked at Ben with wide eyes. "This is premium quality. The aroma... it's perfect. Where did you... never mind. I don't want to know."
Sanji grinned, pulling out a grater and a pot of milk he'd found.
"Hot Chocolate à la Sanji, coming right up. With a pinch of sea salt and cinnamon."
Ten minutes later, the four of them—Luffy, Usopp, Ben, and Chopper—were sitting around the wooden table.
In front of each of them was a steaming mug of the richest, most fragrant hot chocolate imaginable. Marshmallows (which Ben had also 'Created') bobbed on the surface.
Luffy took a sip and melted. "Mmmmmm! Tasty!"
Usopp sighed. "This warms the soul of a brave warrior."
Ben sipped his, nodding. "Good work, Sanji."
Chopper held the mug with both hooves. The steam warmed his blue nose. He took a tiny, tentative sip.
The sweetness hit him. The warmth spread through his chest, chasing away the cold of the mountain and the cold of his loneliness.
"It's... sweet," he whispered.
"It's good, right?" Luffy mumbled, his mouth full of marshmallows.
The kitchen was quiet, save for the crackle of the fire and the slurping of drinks. It was a comfortable silence. A domestic silence.
"Hey," Luffy said, his voice casual, as if commenting on the weather. "Reindeer."
Chopper looked up, a chocolate moustache on his lip. "Hm?"
"Join my crew."
The words hung in the air.
Sanji stopped wiping the counter. Usopp froze, mug halfway to his mouth. Ben smiled into his cup.
"Let's be pirates together."
Chopper stared at Luffy. His eyes went wide. The mug trembled in his hooves.
"J-Join?" Chopper stammered. "Pirates? Me?"
"Yeah!" Luffy grinned. "It'll be fun! We're going to the Grand Line! We're gonna see everything!"
Chopper shrank back in his chair. He pulled his hat down over his eyes. The old fear, the old rejection, clawed at his throat.
"Why?" he whispered. "Why... do you want me?"
"What do you mean why?" Luffy asked, genuinely confused. "Because you're a cool reindeer! And you transform! And you're funny!"
"That's not..." Chopper shook his head. "That's not it."
He stood up on the chair. He looked at them—the humans.
"It's true!" Chopper cried out, his voice cracking. "I... I want to be a pirate! I want to go to sea! I want to live like Dr. Hiriluk said!"
Tears welled up in his eyes.
"But... I can't!"
"Why not?" Usopp asked softly.
"Because..." Chopper stepped back, his shadow stretching long against the wall. It looked monstrous.
"Because I'm not a human! And I'm not a reindeer! I'm a monster! I have a blue nose! I have antlers! I talk! Humans hate me! Reindeer hate me! I don't belong anywhere!"
He looked down at his hooves.
"I can't go with you. I'll just... I'll just bring you trouble. I'm a freak."
He looked up, forcing a tearful smile.
"So... thank you. Thank you for asking me. I've never... no one has ever asked me before. I appreciate it, really. But... I'll stay here. With Doctorine. This is where monsters belong."
He sniffled.
"But... if you guys ever feel like it... come stop by again. We can drink tea. And play in the snow. And..."
"SHUT UP!"
The roar cut through Chopper's speech like a thunderclap.
Luffy stood up. He wasn't smiling. His face was shadowed, intense.
Chopper flinched, terrified. Here it comes, he thought. The rejection. The disgust.
Luffy slammed his hands on the table.
"I don't care if you're a monster!" Luffy shouted, pointing at him. "My crew is full of weirdos! I am a guy who ate rubber fruit and became rubber! I have a guy who fights with three swords! I have a wizard! I have a giant duck! One more monster is nothing to me!"
Luffy's eyes burned with absolute, unshakeable conviction.
"You're fun! You're strong! And you're a good doctor! That's all I care about! I don't care about blue noses or antlers!"
He grinned, the scary intensity vanishing, replaced by pure warmth.
"You are my nakama now! So you're coming! That's final!"
Chopper stood there, stunned.
The logic of the world—the logic that said monsters were hated, that different was bad—shattered against the rubber will of Monkey D. Luffy.
He wasn't being invited despite being a monster. He was being invited because he was Chopper.
Ben smiled. He stood up and walked to Chopper's left side. He placed a hand on the reindeer's shoulder.
"You heard the Captain," Ben said gently. "In this crew, the word 'Monster' is a compliment. It means you're strong."
Usopp walked to the right side, leaning on the table.
"Yeah!" Usopp grinned. "Besides, if you don't come, who's gonna fix me when I get the 'I-can't-go-on-this-island' disease? I need a specialist!"
Sanji, from the kitchen counter, lit a cigarette and chuckled. "We could use a doctor. Luffy gets the crew into a lot of trouble. And Nami-san needs looking after."
Chopper looked at Ben. He looked at Usopp. He looked at Sanji.
And finally, he looked at Luffy, who was waiting with his hand outstretched.
The dam broke.
Decades of loneliness, of hiding in the woods, of being shot at, of being called a Yeti, a freak, a mistake... it all washed away.
"UWAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
Chopper threw his head back and wailed.
Thick, heavy tears streamed down his furry cheeks. He cried so hard his hat fell off. He cried with the pure, overwhelming relief of being wanted.
"I... I... I WANT TO GO!" Chopper sobbed. "I WANT TO BE A PIRATE! I WANT TO SEE THE WORLD!"
"THEN LET'S GO!" Luffy laughed.
Chopper wiped his eyes, sniffing loudly. "B-But..."
"But what?" Ben asked.
"Dr. Kureha..." Chopper sniffled. "She... she taught me everything. She took me in when Hiriluk died. I can't... I can't just leave without telling her. I have to say goodbye properly. She's... she's like my mom."
Ben nodded. "Of course. We wouldn't expect anything else."
"Don't tell her yet!" Chopper pleaded, panic rising again. "If she knows I'm leaving, she might... she might kick me out! Or get mad! I have to tell her... at the right time. Personally."
"Okay," Luffy said. "We'll wait. But hurry up! We gotta set sail soon!"
"I will!" Chopper promised. "I'll tell her tonight!"
He jumped off the chair. He looked at his new friends. His nakama.
"I... I'm gonna go check on Nami! Just to make sure she's okay!"
He scurried out of the kitchen, his little hooves clattering. But he wasn't running away this time. He was running toward his job. Toward his crew.
Ben watched him go.
"Well," Ben said, picking up his mug. "That went well. Emotional trauma healed in record time."
"Luffy has a way with people," Sanji noted.
"Yeah," Usopp agreed. "He's stubborn."
Ben looked out the window at the snow.
The Doctor was recruited. The Navigator was healing. The King was deposed. The Satellite was ready.
Everything was falling into place.
"Now," Ben thought, his mind turning to the next problem. "The escape. Kureha isn't going to let Chopper go easily. She's going to make a scene. A big, violent, explosive scene."
He grinned.
"Perfect. Just the way we like it."