Chapter Three: Up In Flames
Rory was stumbling through the streets, barely able to trail the marines as they marched their way to Weston's house. They may have thought that he would be out for a good while, but they didn't anticipate that the boy had ingested a devil fruit as a young child after his mother bought it at the store when she thought it was a rare vegetable.
Rory had eaten the Zoan fruit called the Horn Horn Fruit, which gave him the strength of a wild bull, and the stubbornness of one to boot. In addition to gaining superhuman strength, healing, and speed, he has two transformations that he can use in case of an emergency. The first is to change into an actual gigantic wild black bull, but since turning into it gives him tunnel vision and almost no control, he has promised himself to only do that in case of an emergency. The other form Rory can take is a humanoid bull, one that stands on two hooves and has the head and arms and horns of a bull, but instead of hooves on his hands, he has actual gigantic, black human hands that are about two times the size of an average man's head, but he has nearly all control of his body in this form. He had only used this transformation once by accident in Kiro Village, and the reason behind it was that while his uncle was chopping down a tree, it fell on top of him. The only thing that kept him from being crushed under the gigantic weight was that Rory had unwittingly morphed into his human-bull form and stopped it. The villagers had called him Minotaur afterwards, but stopped when Rory looked like he was going to crush them.
He wasn't at his full strength, but he figured it would be enough to at least alert Weston before it was too late. The marines rounded the corner a few blocks ahead and went left, going to a small house on the coast. "I've gotta hurry, I can't let that guy get hurt because of me." Rory thought to himself. He saw the marines had stopped and were being given orders form Leerie. Rory looked around for a way he could get past the guards, but he couldn't see any way around them, at least not without the risk of being too slow and not being able to warn Weston. Rory's thoughts were racing through his head when he saw that one of the marines was carrying a giant flamethrower on his back. "Oh my god," Rory thought, "They're going to burn him alive!" Rory felt scared and helpless but he made up his mind. "There's no other option, I've got to transform." Rory's eyes began to glow a bright shade of red, and he felt his muscles tightening up in his body when he heard footsteps coming up behind him.
"What the hell are you doing here kid?" Rory's eyes returned to the blue shade they normally were when he turned around and saw Weston Black himself standing behind him. "Y-you…you're not in your house?" Rory stammered. "No, I'm not. What the hell were you doing out here? Were you going to rob me, or kill me in my sleep or something? Well, I'm right here, you sneaky prick, come at me." Weston said with a look in his eyes that showed Rory he was about to swing. "Wait Weston, stop! I came here because earlier tonight the marines showed up on my ship and beat the hell out of me, and they said they were coming to do the same thing to you! I followed them here, and one of them has a flamethrower. They're going to burn you alive inside your house man! Oh, but thank god you're here." Rory sighed with relief that the guy was going to be alright. That's when Rory looked up at him and saw a look of distress on his face. "My family is in that house you son of a bitch!" Weston exclaimed. With that, he ran off at the marines in a blaze of speed. Rory didn't have time to think on this one, his eyes started to glow red again, and as he was running behind Weston his body began to change. His arms grew enormously large and muscular, and his hands turned a dark black. His torso grew out to where every muscle was covered in short, thick black fur and raised his height up to about 6'5. His legs began to grow as well, growing the same fur that covered his abdomen, and his feet changing into solid hooves, sending his height to over 7'0 tall. Then his head began to change. He grew a long snout, and out of his temples on his head he produced two three feet long white horns, and on his backside he grew a long tail. When the change was over, Rory blew smoke out of his nose and let out a loud bellow of a roar. Weston looked back to see what all the commotion was and stopped dead in his tracks. The young man his age that was behind him morphed into a very large bull that looked very, very pissed off. Rory stopped in his tracks next to him and looked down at the man he now dwarfed. "Let's go get your family back." Rory said to Weston. The other man simply nodded his head. Weston looked down the street at the marines and his mouth dropped open. The house was totally up in flames, and the roof was about to give in. "Let's go!" Weston shouted.
Weston and Rory sprinted down the road, with Rory going even faster than Weston because of the longer strides. "SALT-DOGS!" Weston screamed at the top of his lungs. The marines looked behind them and were flabbergasted. The man they were supposed to kill tonight was charging at them full speed, and to his left was a…Minotaur? The marines started shouting and scrambled about frantically. Leerie looked behind him to see what that commotion was and saw Weston and Rory charging at them full speed. "What the hell are those two doing?" he asked. "I'm getting the hell out of here! Men, hold those two off! Do not let them through no matter what the cost may be!" Leerie exclaimed as he ran off down another path leading to the safety of the Marine base.
The men were scrambling but just barely made a blockade of troops between Weston and his house. That didn't do much to stop the two young men though, because Rory grabbed Weston by the collar of his shirt, spun around and slung Weston forward at the guards, and followed in suit. When Weston's flying body reached the guards, he balled his fist up and slammed into one of the row of guards, with the one in the front receiving a broken jaw at the powerful blow to the head. Rory charged forward at the other guards, lowered his head and gored several rows of guards, impaling at least four on his tough horns. Weston landed on the ground with a hard thud, and it would've broken a bone if he hadn't landed on a few marines. The other guards quickly surrounded him, but they were simply not a match for his inhuman speed. He pushed up off of the guard's body that he was lying on top of to where he was just above the surrounding guards' heads, and parallel to the ground. He rotated his body, balled his fist up again and smashed it into the guard to his right, and while still rotating in the air, stretched his leg out and kicked the guard that was to the left of him right in the nose, pushing the guards back. He broke the man's nose and cheek bones that he kicked, as well as both of his orbital bones. The guard he punched had a fractured skull as well, but none of that mattered to Weston. The remaining guards around him picked up their friends and rushed off after Leerie. "I'll deal with you later, you damn bastards!" Weston shouted. He rushed off into the raging inferno, hoping to get his family out in time.
Rory was already inside the building. The guards that surrounded him quickly fled at the sight of a 7'0, 2500 pound monster in front of them. Rory saw that the roof was about ready to cave in and hurriedly jumped in to save whoever was inside. When Weston entered he saw the massive humanoid bull bearing the weight of the roof on his shoulders, getting extremely burned in the process and crying out in pain with a mixture of low roars and deep cattle moans. "Hey kid, just keep up the roof while I get out my family, and when that's done, you need to bolt!" Weston screamed over the inferno's crackling. He commenced looking for his family. "Mom, where are you?! Toby?! Michael?! Annabeth?! Dawson?! Anybody?!"
He quickly went from room to room and behind each door swathe same horror as the last one: his family's burned carcasses and seared flesh in their beds, on the floor, or wherever. Weston was getting burned fairly intensely, but more importantly, Rory was about ready to drop the roof. He was already on one knee, using his skull and horns to keep the roof up, but it looked to Weston like the strain on his thick neck was going to break it. On top of all that, the smoke they were breathing in was poisoning their lungs. Finally, he heard a small child's voice call out from a back room. "Wes, help me!" It was a small girl's voice crying out in pain. Weston became wide-eyed and rushed the door. "Dawson, I'm coming!" He grasped the metal handle and reeled his hand back in pain from the burn. He stepped back and planted his foot firmly in the center of the door, busting it down and rushed in. He saw Dawson crying in the corner of her room, with burns on the right side of her body from her head down to her waist. "Come on Dawson!" Weston shouted and scooped the young girl up out of the flames. He rushed out of the room and burst out the door, all the while Dawson was screaming about the fire, the smell of smoke and flesh, and the gigantic satanic demon bull that was in their living room. Weston leaped out of the house with Dawson through a large glass window and fell to the ground. He looked back at the house and screamed out "Kid, get the hell out of there!" At the same time, he heard a loud, painful roar as the roof caved in.
The large bull tumbled through the wall of the house just as the entire foundation toppled over in a heap and burned slowly to ashes. Rory slowly transformed back into his own body, but was badly burnt. Weston was in total shock of what had happened today. His house was destroyed, his family was killed except for Dawson, barely, and this guy risked his life for him even though he didn't owe him a damn thing. He snapped back to reality at Dawson's crying and Rory's voice. "Weston…get us…back…to the ship." Rory said, coughing up smoke in between the words. "H-how do I know which one it is?!" Weston yelled at him. "Y-you'll know it…when you see it." With that, Rory blacked out. Weston's mind raced for a second, and then he scooped up Rory, slinging him over both of his shoulders behind his head, and picked up his little sister in his arms. He raced as fast as he could to the dock, but he was still pretty slow since he had a girl in his arms and this guy over his shoulders. Finally, Weston reached the port and looked for a ship that he thought was Rory's. "How the hell am I supposed to know what one it is?" he said to himself. Just then, he noticed a ship with a large bull as the figurehead of the ship. He walked over slowly to the boat and put Dawson on the deck. Then, with Rory still over his shoulders, he grabbed two ropes that were hanging over the edge and climbed his way off the dock and onto the boat. He dropped Rory off on the deck, and grabbed his sister who was passed out. He checked her pulse to see if she was still alive, and she was. He picked her off the ground and led her to two doors under the wheel of the ship. He opened them and saw a bed and two sofas. He tucked the little girl in the bed, and went back outside, picked up Rory who was still passed out, and led him to one of the sofas. He went to the other one and took off his shirt, exposing his warm flesh to the cool night wind. He got up, closed the doors, and lied back down on the sofa where, despite how hard he tried not to, cried himself to sleep.
