Yep, another surprise story people!
I've had this plut bunny in my head for a little while, and I finally got around to making it.
Hope you enjoy what's going to be my most shocking story to date.
Brown eyes blinked several times in confusion at what they saw before them.
An old man with a very long beard, sitting in front of them across a tea table.
A blonde eyebrow rose in confusion.
"You have no idea what's going on do you?" the old man asked.
A mop of short blonde hair shook "Not really, last thing I remember is falling asleep."
"Right… did you know you had a stalker?" the old man said with a raised eyebrow.
It took a moment for the young blonde man to connect the dots and groan "Oh you have got to be joking. I was killed in my sleep by a psycho bitch?!"
"If it helps I'm making sure she goes to hell when she dies." the old man added helpfully.
The blonde nodded, not being surprised now that those words confirmed the old man before him was God "I guess that's a nice revenge."
Silence for a moment "To be fair, she was pretty much destined to hell after what she did to you after and before killing you."
More silence "I SERIOUSLY don't want to know."
"Good, I'm horrified just thinking about it to be honest." God said with a barely restrained shiver.
"Right… anyway… is this a reincarnation thing?" the young man asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Exactly that, though this one is special, I'm mixing two worlds into one… and letting you pick, since I'm curious what you'd come up with." God said with a laugh.
The young man slowly grinned "I like this idea. Now… what worlds to merge?" he muttered as he adopted a thinking pose for several minutes before looking back up at God with a grin "One Piece and RWBY."
"Interesting choice. Very well then, now, I'm not the one finalising your rebirth there, someone else is… have fun with them, they can be either a pain or hilarious depending on the day." God said jovially, before snapping his fingers, making the young man disappear before he could even utter a reply.
"You know, it's been awhile since I've done this whole rebirth thing twice in the same decade." God muttered to himself before shrugging.
When the young man blinked again, he found himself… nowhere, everywhere, everything? Ouch.
"Sorry about that, first time bringing someone here." a calm voice spoke from his right, as he fell down on his knees and gasped.
A few more gulps of air later, and he could finally speak "What just happened?"
A more sinister voice from his left replied to his question "That's what happens when a mortal becomes omnipresent for the first time, be happy we cut that even quickly or you might have mentally shattered."
He nodded, slowly, before finally standing, and looked at both side of himself.
Standing to his right was a white, featureless being, tall, muscular, basically the usual description of a manly person.
To his left was black, featureless being, tall, gangly, and essentially the normal description for a creeper kind of person.
He blinked, and the two beings now stood in front of him, the white one tall and proud, the black one hunched over and seemingly uncaring.
If he was right in his assesment, then these two beings would be The Two Brothers, the ones who brought light and darkness to Remnant.
Well… that explains what God meant by this being either a pain or hilarious.
"Right, so, we've been informed by the god of your world that you've requested to be reborn in ours, or at least, something of an offshoot of ours, and we have been granted all the required information on this offshoot." the white brother stated.
"I find these Devil Fruit things rather interesting, and their name leaves a nice taste on my tongue." the black brother chuckled lowly.
The white brother cleared his throat "Right, well, we figured since these Devil Fruits are one of the most prominent things of that other world, we'd let you pick one for yourself, amongst all that exist."
The young man nodded, though inwardly, he was grinning, already knowing which Devil Fruit he wanted, and wondering how to make this more interesting.
Quickly, he knew what to say "I want to have what Donquixote Doflamingo had." he said simply, barely restraining a grin from forming.
"A simple request." the black brother said.
"And one we can agree on granting you." the white brother added, as a pear shaped fruit, white in color with swirls on it and a curving stem appeared in front of the young man, grasping it in his hand, taking a bite out of it, he knew the taste would be repulsive, so he merely frowned at it before swallowing it down and letting the remaining useless piece drop from his hand.
"Now then-" the white brother started, only to be cut off.
"Hold on now… I said what he had… not just his Devil Fruit, and the two of you agreed to my words." the young man said, displaying a wide grin that would have made the previous owner of his fruit proud.
The two brothers stilled, before an audible growl was heard from the black one "Impudent mortal… how dare you-!"
"No, brother… though it pains me to say so, he is correct, we agreed to his terms… and we must give him what he asked for." the white brother said, cutting off the other, and the young man could feel a withering glare directed at him.
He grinned "Well now… Doflamingo had many things to him, such as the ability to use Haki, though only Busoshoku and Haoshoku are confirmed, I'd like to think he did have Kenbunshoku as well… though if you don't understand those terms, they are Armament, Conqueror, and Perception, respectively. He also essentially owned the Donquixote Family… but, seeing as you can't just give me the people, I'll… settle, for their Devil Fruits, all the ones that have been associated to a member of the Donquixote Family at some point, either current at the time of death, or former."
He could feel the displeasure rolling off of them in waves as they weaved their hands through the air, feeling something… spring forth would be a good term, within himself, and after several moments, a large briefcase appeared before him, which he opened to find a large number of Devil Fruits within, his barebones Perception Haki actually being able to whisper out to his mind what one or two of them were. Something to work on he supposes.
"Now, begone from our realm mortal." the black brother hissed out, and the young man was gone.
A groan, as a somewhat short form shifted and came to being awake.
"Dear lord, why does my body hurt all over?" a boy's voice spoke, sounding roughly 10 or so years old.
He then stopped suddenly "Is that my voice? Why do I sound like a kid?"
Then a mirror fell into his lap, making him blink in confusion before he picked it up.
What he saw… wasn't what he expected.
His hair was still blonde, but it was shorter than it normally was, his skin was more of a tan coloration, and his eyes were red. Plus his facial structure was completely different.
If he was honest he looked like… oh.
He just noticed the note attached to the back of the mirror, which read 'You asked for everything Doflamingo had, so we grant you his appearance as well.'
He blinked a few times at that, processing it, before grinning a very Doflamingo-like grin and shrugging it off.
"Look out Remnant, because a new player is on the stage, even if he's just a kid." he said with a laugh as he stood up, looking around and finding the suitcase, slowly weaving his fingers to create strings and attach it to his back.
It would definitely take him a lot of time to get the proper hang of his abilities, but the payoff was very much worth it.
A week had passed since his arrival on Remnant, and he'd made it as productive as he possibly could.
First, he decided that since he had the appearance, he might as well take the name, and after an hour of mental debating, called himself Doflamingo Donquixote, the hour of debating was for deciding if his family name should come first or last.
He'd also worked on his abilities from the String-String Fruit, and found puppetry to be quite entertaining.
He mostly practice on animals, small ones, and when he felt confidant enough, he moved up to humans, starting with kids, and not obvious movements, twitches in their bodies, before trying his hand at straight up full movement control, the people around the child thinking he had a full body spasm before he was rushed off to the hospital, making him cut his strings lest he be discovered.
He quickly found an adult to test it on, a sleeping vagrant in the middle of the night, making him perform a short dance to see how well it worked.
Being confident in his Parasite ability (for now) he worked on using his strings more subtly, such as grabbing things away from him and pulling them in… or pickpocketing.
Obviously when he was able to get a nice stash of money from someone who no doubt just got their new paycheck, he went to a clothing store, coming out of it with a white button up shirt and a pair of burnt orange pants, slipping on a pair of familiar pink shades over his eyes.
He couldn't help but grin at how lucky he was to find Doflamingo's sunglasses, in several different colors, choosing pink just because he felt like it.
Making a mental note to remember this store as he hit his next growth spurts in the future (and the dreaded moment when puberty kicked in again) he started focusing on the sights of the city around him, as well as mental notes on as many businesses and people as he could.
He was also on the lookout for anyone… interesting seemed like the best word, to join his family.
He had a nice idea on some of the people he wanted, but he was on the lookout for anyone else who'd be interesting.
Obviously though, he also had to practice his Haki, though, Conqueror's needed an area away from humans to test it on animals instead… and maybe on Grimm when he felt confident enough, he was curious as to how well Haki would work on them.
He did make sure to try and train his Perception as much as could though, wanting to use it to identify which Devil Fruit did what.
It was as he leaned back on the branch of a tree, in the rather large park in the middle of Vale, that something caught his eye.
A woman was walking briskly through it, and she had features that he recognized somewhat, but they were different.
Black hair, and amber colored eyes, she also seemed to prefer the color red.
But, she wasn't the person he associated those traits with in his head, because this woman was clearly older.
"Hmm… Her mother maybe? If so, I'm here VERY early, but perhaps that could be used to my advantage." he muttered in thought, smiling slightly at how he could use this to benefit him.
Silently, he followed her, making use of his strings to keep himself suspended in midair, attached to the trees around him, since he wasn't confident enough to try attaching himself to a cloud of all things.
He ended up following the woman silently, and thankfully, undetected, for several hours, eventually following her to an area near the city's edge, in the more run down portion of it, mostly due to being older than the rest of town.
He chose not to comment on what exactly he saw her do during the day though, because a lot of it was stupid, and the rest was pitiful, but mostly, it was her trying to get money and booze.
As he dropped to his feet silently next to the apartment building she'd gone in, he spread his threads inside, and up the railing on the stairs, being able to judge which floor she stopped on, and on which side of the building, requiring him to go on the other side and go up to the third floor, and what he saw sickened him.
The woman was clearly abusing the young girl living with her, her daughter obviously, what with the resemblance, and this did not sit right with him.
Abuse was something he frowned upon, remembering friends from his old life who had experienced it, some being able to move past it, others… he prefered not to dwell on them too much, but let's just say he missed those friends dearly.
Back to the matter at hand though…
"Let's see how you deal with someone who's your better." he muttered darkly before going back down, using the stairs to go up to the third floor, standing in front of the door, wondering which method to use.
After a few moments, he shrugged, raising his hand up, strings shining in creation, reflecting the different colors of the rainbow "Five Color String is too long of a name sadly, so the japanese one it is." flexing his fingers, he swiped his hand forward "Goshikito!"
A beat passed, and the door fell apart into pieces, letting him see the stunned face of the woman, and the young girl's face, a mixture of pain, curiosity, fear, and a tint of hope.
Before the woman could move another muscle, he flexed his fingers, moving his strings to grab onto her "Parasite, now, you are under my command." he uttered with a grin as he walked into the apartment, forcing the woman to move away from the girl, though he could notice she was trying to break his control on her, he simply made it more apparent by wrapping his strings tightly around her.
Slowly, he got to a knee, pulling up his sunglasses to let the young girl see his eyes "Hello… would you like to leave this place behind?"
The girl was obviously surprised by his words, before, slowly, she nodded.
Giving a more soft smile, he reached his out to her, watching her shakily take hold of it as he pulled her to her feet, letting him see she was about a head shorter than him, making him assume she was either his age or just a year younger.
When he heard the woman take in a breath of air, no doubt to protest, he wrapped a few strings around her mouth, muffling any noise she made.
Slowly, he guided the girl outside, already making a mental note to buy her new clothes as all she had was an ugly red rag.
Once they were on street level, he made sure they were far away enough, before flexing his fingers in a seemingly random pattern.
A few seconds later, an audible splat was heard on the concrete of that road, putting his arm around the girl to stop her from looking back at the new corpse.
They simply kept on walking, until he reached his usual area he slept in at the park, where he'd pulled a bench behind some rather high edges within the small forest of the park.
Helping her sit down on the bench, he waited until she was comfortable before speaking to her "What's your name? Mine is Doflamingo."
The girl looked at him for a moment, apparently she was still unsure about everything, before nodding slightly "I'm… I'm Cinder."
"It's a pleasure to meet you Cinder." he said, taking her hand and kissing her knuckles, chuckling lightly as he saw her smile a bit and her cheeks tint with pink.
After getting comfortable, he leaned back into the bench, looking at her out of the corner of his eye as she observed the area, probably being curious about the place.
"So… do you have any other relatives?" he asked after a minute of thought.
She turned to him, before slowly shaking her head "I don't know."
He nodded "I see… then I suppose you can stay here if you want."
She blinked at him "You mean… I don't have to go back to my mom again?"
"A little hard to do that to be honest, but yes, that's exactly it." he then grinned slightly "I could even grant you power, if you so desire."
She perked up slightly "What kind of power?"
He mentally grinned, somewhat glad that her wanting power stemmed back to her childhood "Have you ever heard of a Devil Fruit?"
She shook her head, making him nod in understanding "They are, essentially, magical fruits, that when eaten, grant whoever ate it a unique power, for example, I ate the String-String Fruit, letting me create strings from my fingers… and I've found several other fruits as well."
She nodded, wide-eyed at his explanation "So, you can give me one?"
He nodded as he moved his fingers, pulling the suitcase to him from where he'd hidden it, clicking it open as he let her observe the several different fruits.
"If you'll give me a few moments, I'll figure out which one to give to you." he requested, making her nod as she sat calmly and waited for him to make his choice.
In all honesty, he already which one he wanted to give to her, he just needed to identify it.
Slowly, he focused his attention on each fruit, one at a time, until his Perception whispered it's identity to him.
After the tenth fruit, he finally found the one he wanted.
Picking it up, he observed the blue orange with swirls on it, confirming it was indeed the fruit he wanted, before showing it to her "This is the Calm-Calm Fruit, it turns whoever eats it into a Silencing Being, perfect to avoid being detection."
Slowly, Cinder reached out, taking the fruit from his hands, looking at it carefully, before looking back at him "So… this could make me really hard to find then?"
"Essentially yes, along with a few other skills you might find useful. A word of warning, Devil Fruits taste horrible, and when ingested, their users lose the ability to swim." he made sure to warn her, that way she couldn't say he didn't.
She nodded, before looking back at the fruit, peeling the skin off, and biting into one of the orange slices, trying not to retch at the disgusting taste.
After several moments, she felt… something, settle inside her, though she wasn't sure how to describe it.
"How do I use it?" she asked him after a few moments.
"I know of two ways it can be used, the first, you simply snap your fingers, creating a sound barrier around you, stopping any sound from getting outside of it, perfect for having a secret discussion with someone." he said with a grin, making her laugh slightly before he continued "The second… I don't quite remember, but I believe clapping your hands together might work, it stops any sound you might produce from being heard, as well as any sound created by any weapon you may fire, like say, throwing a grenade would be completely silent."
She nodded after a few moments, before clapping her hands together with the intent of not being heard at all.
It took a few tries, but eventually, all she produced, was silence, even when she clapped a hand on the bench, no noise was heard, when she threw a rock at a tree, no noise was heard either.
After a bit more testing, and figuring out how to turn the ability off, she sat back down, and snapped her fingers, seeing a blue dome of see through energy surge forth from her and surround them both, before it faded, yet, she could still feel it was there.
"So… what now?" she asked him after a few moments.
He rubbed his chin in thought "Now… now we try to find more friends, the two of us are young, so we can't be taken seriously… but before that." he grinned, thought it was more in amusement "You need some new clothes."
She looked down at herself, before smiling a bit and nodding back at him.
Doflamingo offered her a smile back, before leaning into the bench, an action she copied.
There was a lot of work to be done, especially now that he was able to establish a timeline of events due to how old Cinder was, easily guessing that the future teams RWBY and JNPR weren't even born yet.
For now though, he had to hunt down certain key figures.
After all, better they were on his side than on Salem's side.
Yep!
It's shocking because our main character is not a true hero!
He's doing his own thing, which includes getting most of the villains on his side.
And, for those curious, there's a reason Cinder got the Calm-Calm Fruit, and no, it doesn't mean she's going to betray him.
It'll become clear in later chapters.
Hope you enjoyed this!