A Little Bit of Metal.

So… this is my first Fanfic… damn I'm nervous, but oh well, I guess that I'll just have to soldier on and hope that at least some of you like it.

But enough about my nerves, it's time to explain what this is; this will be an OC insert fic (Yeah, an OC fic for my first fic, I know… ambitious), but I'm not going to start changing everything and making my character godlike or anything like that, I hope to make him a useful part of the SHC, but not an overpowered one. Oh yeah, he's joining Luffy's crew, because I like Luffy's crew.

Anyway, special thanks to 'serpentguy' for permission to use one of the Devil Fruits he created, and also to his fic 'Nine Minutes' for inspiring me to start writing.

On with the show!

(*)

Axel was running, they were after him, all because of that damn fruit. 'What in the hell happened to my grapes?!' he thought as he panted, trying to escape his pursuers. The colours green and brown filled his vision, he had entered some kind of forest. 'Or… maybe it's a jungle?' he thought absently, before he shook his head, now was not the time for thoughts like that. He ran deeper into forest, his chest burning in exhaustion from how long he had been running, and his ratty clothes in even worse state then they were originally, but he had enough energy left to glance down at the small brown sack he was carrying, which contained silver grape-like fruit that used to be a set of delicious purple beads.

He ran for another few minutes, his body powered by fear, before he was sure that he had lost them, he was surrounded by trees, and the sounds of wildlife, so he collapsed against one of the trees to catch his breath, and took out the fruit to get a better look at what it had become. "H… How did this happen?" he asked himself, brushing some of his spiky grey hair out of his eyesight.

*Flashback: before the incident.*

"Damn it you little thief!" an overweight fruit-stall owner shouted at a young boy of about 8 running away from his stall, a brown sack of grapes in his hand and a grin on his face. "Hah! You'll never take me alive!" the boy called back just before he ducked into an alley.

"Heh." Axel chuckled after a few twists and turns, he knew the back-alleys better than anyone, perks of being a street-urchin, and so in a few minutes, he had emerged from the alley, in another part of the city all together. "Okay, let's see today's haul." he muttered, opening the bag, to see that it was full of fresh purple grapes. "Nice!" he grinned, grabbing a few, and popping them into his mouth. "Not as tasty as apples, but they're good." He commented, and was preparing to get up and leave, before he froze at the sound of a gun being fired, and a body hitting the floor to the left of him.

Slowly, as if going any faster would give away his presence, he turned his head to face the sound, and paled at what he saw, his jade-green eyes wide.

"Hah! That metal body of yours didn't help this time, did it! Not when Sea-stone is involved!" an older, but still strong looking man with a beard, and wearing a long trench-coat laughed as he stood over a body, a puddle of blood slowly expanding under it, one of the body's arms had some kind of green cuffs attached to it. And for some odd reason, the man was clutching a bunch of grapes like they were a lifeline. "They will be mine!" the man raved with an insane grin, it was plainly obvious that this man was very unstable.

Axel almost cried out in shock at the sight, but he managed to slowly edge away without being seen, and he would have got away, if it wasn't for what happened next; the open sack that he was carrying started to glow, brightly, I might add, and suddenly began a lot heavier, as if a significant amount of the grapes were suddenly turned into metal. Axel snapped his head down to the sack, pulled it closed, and then looked back up, hoping beyond hope that the murderer in front of him hadn't seen anything, but his hopes were crushed when he saw that the man, along with the four men behind him, were looking right at him with murderous expressions.

"You…!" the man growled as he pointed his flintlock pistol at Axel, though the boy did notice that he had neglected to reload it. "Hand over that bag and everything in it, or I'll splatter your head all over the walls!" he raged.

Axel gulped, and looked between the men, they were armed with steel clubs and swords, and by the look of the smirks that they were wearing, even if he handed over the bag, something told him that he wouldn't be leaving here alive, he had just witnessed this man kill someone in cold blood after all. "W-Why do you want it?" he asked, trying to stall for time as he thought about where he was, the alleys around him were a no-go, most were dead-ends, and the rest led back to the stalls, it wouldn't end well for him back there.

"That doesn't matter! Now hand it over! Now!" the man snapped as he pulled back the hammer of his gun, seemingly not realizing that it was unloaded.

The grey haired boy flinched. 'Okay… so stalling is not an option here…' he thought as he narrowed his eyes, the lunatic in front of him had definitely forgotten to reload. "I don't know what's going on here, but something tells me that handing over this thing is a bad idea!" he stated, before he took off in a run, his only option now was to use the main paths and hope that he was faster than the psychopath and his goons.

Said psycho pulled the trigger on his gun as soon as Axel turned around to run, but he snarled as instead of the sound of a bang and the child hitting the ground, all that was heard was a pathetic click. "Get him!" he roared out to his four goons, who proceeded to charge the escaping boy.

*Flashback end*

"Why would he want this thing?" he muttered as he looked at what a large number of his grapes had fused into and become; it looked vaguely pineapple shaped, but instead of being a dull orange and having spikes emerging from its sides, it was a metallic grey, and had circles seemingly drawn in symmetric patterns around its sides, but the most notable thing about it in his opinion, was its weight, it was like he was lifting up a solid block of steel.

"That's none of your business, kid." A low, threatening voice growled out from in front of him, causing Axel to freeze, and clutch onto the fruit tightly, in front of him, was none other than the madman himself, but instead of a flintlock pistol, he held a thin curved sword. 'A sabre…' Axel thought idly, before he shook himself out of it. "H-How did you find me?" he asked fearfully, he was sure that he had lost them all, he was sure of it!

The man narrowed his eyes, before nodding. "Seeing as you're going to die here, I guess there's no harm in telling you." He said, his mind coming up with a demented sort of honour for the child in front of him. "I am Horton Jamas." He introduced himself like he wasn't planning on killing the one in front of him. "Do you know what you are holding at this very moment?" he asked as he began to inspect his sword, as if he was judging if it was sharp enough.

"N-No… but it's really heavy." Axel commented, seeing this as a chance to devise a plan of escape.

Horton nodded. "Yep, it's meant to be. Tell me, have you ever heard of the Devil-fruits?" he asked, his insane grin coming back to his face, as if the words 'Devil-fruit' were a trigger.

"Devil-fruits? Aren't they supposed to be a myth?" Axel asked nervously, not seeing any way to escape, those same trees that were covering him from sight were keeping him trapped with Horton.

"Oh… No no no no no no… no." Horton shook his head with each 'No'. "Devil-fruits are as real as you or me, they're just rare here in the East-blue, they're much more common in the other seas, hell in the Grand Line, they're practically common knowledge!" he said, before he pointed his sabre at the fruit Axel was holding. "Besides… how can you say that they're a myth, while you have one right in your grubby little hands." He revealed. "The Metal-Metal fruit."

Axel's eyes widened in shock, looking down at the freaky fruit in his grasp, it suddenly seemed a whole lot more impressive, but he still didn't get something. "But… this was just a bunch of grapes half an hour ago!" he exclaimed.

Horton nodded again, seemingly not surprised. "Yep, yep, that's the thing about Devil-fruits, once you kill the guy who's eaten it, it immediately leaves his or her body to search out another fruit to host its powers." He explained with a grin. "For example, the Rumble-Rumble fruit, which stores the powers of lightning itself, is usually housed in pumpkins!" he laughed slightly, as if he had just heard a funny joke. "Funny, the powers of lightning stored in a fruit anchored to the ground."

"So… this Metal-Metal fruit is housed in… grapes?" Axel asked despite himself, he was becoming interested in what Horton was saying, he was only a child after all.

"Got it in one kid!" Horton grinned, before that grin took on a more sinister edge. "Why do you think I was holding onto that cluster of grapes, I was intending to gain the Metal-Metal fruit for my own uses! And you took that away from me!"

Axel gulped, remembering that this was a madman. "You… were going to eat it?" he asked.

Horton scoffed. "Eat it? And lose the ability to swim? No thanks, my goal was much more simplistic." He said. "I was going to get the fruit, kill the goons I had hired so they wouldn't want a cut, and then I was going to sail to the North-blue and sell it! Devil-fruits have an average value of 100,000,000 beli!" he laughed. "And with a fruit as rare and powerful as the Metal-Metal, I could live like a king if I sold it!"

Axel clutched the fruit just a little bit harder as Horton turned his eyes to him. "But then you came along… little brat." He growled, and lifted his sword. "You and your bag of grapes… you almost took my fruit away from me, but you won't be getting the fruit! It's mine! Now DIE!" Horton roared, and lifted his sword, before swinging it down.

Axel couldn't think, his body reacted on autopilot as he saw the psychopath lift his blade up, his eyes widened, and just before the blade hit him he took a nice big bite out of the fruit, which was surprisingly easy to bite into considering its weight, and swallowed, the last thing he saw before the sword came down, was Horton's enraged and pale face.

'D-Damn it!'

(*)

And that's the first chapter done! This will be my first fic here on this site, and I intend to stick with it for a while yet.

Any feedback would be appreciated, good or bad, please, let me know how I can improve my fic, or my general writing, using the review section, I will make the next chapter as soon as possible, goodbye.

Cryostatus.