2. Renting Gilligan's Island
Quick AN: Zaboomafoo and High Winds are versions of Tailor where a different fruit was chosen. This means that while most abilities in the stories are unique to each fruit and thus different events are played out differently, the events on the island remain relatively the same. Because of this, some copy and pasting has been done this chapter.
Story Start: East Blue
As I was getting depressingly used to, as soon as the darkness came it left, leaving me staggering a little from the startling shift of scenery. That staggering led to me losing my balance completely and I fell onto the ground with an 'Oomph!' of expelled air. It took me a moment to get my senses back in order but when they did, the first thing I noticed was that I was currently sitting haphazardly on sand. Getting back onto my feet, I looked around and saw nothing but ocean in front of me, a stretch of beach that seemed to bend inwards about a mile out to the left, stereotypical island forest behind me and a beach that ended at the bottom of a set of two-hundred-foot-high cliffs on the right. Also to my right about ten feet away in stark contrast with the natural scene was a five foot tall pallet of duck tape wrapped in Seram wrap, the same kind of knife Special Agent Gibbs from NCIS uses sitting on top keeping a sealed letter envelope from flying away in the strong breeze. Seeing the not quite expected sight, I let out a sigh of relief.
The next sense I took closer notice of was my hearing. The pounding of waves hitting the shore was obvious, as was the howling wind that swept past, occasionally the stronger gusts picking up minute bits of sand in mini tornados. From behind were the sounds of local birds calling and if I strained my hearing then I could just barely pick up the movement of land bound animals moving through the undergrowth.
Scent was next, and while I would be the first to acknowledge that my sense of smell was usually rather terrible, I'd have had to have had no nose whatsoever to not smell the scent of the ocean in front of me or sheer scent of wild in the forests behind me. There wasn't a single hint of any of the industrialization that I had learned to ignore over the decades of living in human habituated locations. Honestly, it was a little startling to not even catch a trace of car exhaust, human scent coverers, or even bug spray or sunscreen.
Taking a minute to absorb all that, I then walked over to the pallet of tape and picked up the knife and letter. The envelope had no writing on it and I frowned at that fact before flicking open the knife and opened the top. Pulling it out I read:
Welcome to East Blue Mate: As promised, here's your knife and pallet of tape, I'm sure you'll put both to good use. Now, I know I told you that you'd probably do great as an action figure but I'm feeling a bit like watching some Man Vs Wild. (I felt the beginnings of unease fill me at those words.) You are also going to need time to properly learn how to use your Devil Fruit on a location that doesn't have salt water less than twenty feet away from you on all sides. Therefore, I've inserted you at a point where it will be six months before the Straw Hats run into you. (I swear every drop of blood shot from my head down to my toes at that.) Before you panic though, know that you do have an out if it gets too much for you. Simply carve Time Skip into a tree with that knife and I will 'fast forward' you to the day before the Straw Hat Pirates show up. However, I'm not a needlessly cruel being so on top of the chance to train I'm going to give you an incentive to go the whole half year: Because you chose the Zoan rather than the Paramecia or Logia, you're going to need a medium range weapon sooner or later. Because of this simple fact, if you manage to go three months then I'll give you a personalized weapon that won't require any fancy shmancy training before you can be any good with it, though it won't be a guaranteed one shot weapon either. (Wouldn't be fun to make you OP after all ) (I blinked at that and spared a moment to wonder what I could possibly use without 'training' to be any good at before I shrugged and kept reading.) Manage to go the full six months and I'll give you back your Switch with the same modifications as your iPhone, AND as a little added motivation to go all the way, all of the games you had on your 3DS XL. (That had my eyes almost literally lighting up in flames of determination. Having my Switch could be the one thing keeping me from dying of boredom while on a ship out at sea in between islands.) One more thing, as a final gift/chance for you NOT to die an ignoble death, I've hidden a bullet proof vest on this island that you will have to find. I will say that it is neither buried or in water but beyond that you're on your own, happy hunting, and try not to make the upcoming weeks too boring, won't yah?
There was no signature at the bottom, not that I expected one. I folded it up and put it back into the envelope. Putting it back on top of the pallet and absentmindedly putting the knife on top of it in order to keep it from blowing away, my eyes flicked from side to side as my mind drove down a metaphorical highway at about a hundred miles per hour. The unknown weapon and Switch meant that I was going to do my damn hardest to make it through the six months, no question about that at all. The problem was how to properly use my large but still finite supply of duck tape to make it work.
Thanks to the Mythbusters duck tape island special, I had a pretty rough draft of what to do. I could skip making the SOS sign since I actually KNEW someone would find me even if it would be half a year until then. Of course, given that this was a world where the primary method of travel was by sea I couldn't discount others possibly showing up between then and now. Hm, would have to be sure to look for good places to hide in that case, wouldn't do for some well meaning Samaritan Marine to drag me from the island and thus make me miss my meeting with the Straw Hats. I shook my head and shelved that thought for later and instead got back to more immediately important things. I needed food and water, the latter more than the former. And while I would have to wait to explore before I knew what I had to work with food wise, (Thank God I was a boy scout until I turned sixteen!) I could make a start on the water portion now. Besides, I needed to get the duck tape out of the sun soon or it could all get ruined.
It was at that point that I finally realized I still had on my capable of keeping me warm in below freezing temperatures Carhartt jacket and it was rather WARM outside. Quickly shedding it, I moved the devil fruit from the outside pocket to the inside pocket (I was NOT going to eat that thing until I had AT LEAST a quart of water to drown out the taste, YUK!) and put it on top of the stack of tape before I began carefully unwrapping the tape. Once the wrapping was off (and not a single tear to boot!) I brought the long strand of clear plastic and a couple rolls of tape over to the nearby forest where I could use some of the trees as a quick workstation. A quick estimate of length done by walking along the strand and then a few quick calculations done on the Calculator app of my phone had me quickly making a duck tape net that would get the most out of the Seram Wrap.
Top of my future Solar Still done, I made a nice big Gallon sized bucket out of duck tape, complete with carrying handles, and then went back towards the water. I made sure I knew where the waves stopped and then went back another twelve feet before I started digging. Once I reached a depth where there was water in the bottom I put my collection bucket in the middle before putting the wrap cover on top, being sure to have it dip rather than be taut, something helped by the small bit of sand I put in the middle, and used a couple of collected rocks and broken sticks to keep it in place, through tabs of tape I had thoughtfully added as an afterthought rather than the valuable plastic.
Long term water acquisition taken care of, (two hours of operation wouldn't even give me a full cup, but the solar still required no further input from me to work making it good for long term use) I began moving all of the tape AND the wooden pallet underneath to underneath the nearby trees. Unfortunately, despite my thoughts that my dubious benefactor may have been childish enough to hide the Bullet Proof Vest under the pallet that I would have probably not found until about five months in if I hadn't remembered all of the times I found ruined tape in the garage, the Vest was not in fact that easy to find. I didn't dwell on that long though, instead moving onto rope, wrapping the beginning of a roll of tape around the thinnest tree I could find before I began slowly but steadily twisting it as I unrolled the rest of the twenty five feet roll. I did a second roll then stuck the still attached rolls into a stick before twisting the strands into a semi proper strand of rope. A little more tape wrapped around both ends and I had a tool that I could use both for exploration and pulling anything I needed.
With rope made, I used three more rolls of tape to make even more tightly wrapped strands of 'twine' that I would use to seed the island with snares as I went searching for fresh water. At least one of them should be able to net me some small critter to eat later. After that, I made three six litter canteens out of tape, watching the part of the Duck Tape Island episode where Adam did the same on my phone to double check that I did it properly.
With those tools made, I switched gears and made a quick shelter out of a large sheet of duck tape that I hung from the middle and secured the corners with strips of tape to tree trunks to protect me both from wind and rain and put a hammock directly underneath to keep me off the ground and hopefully the majority if not entirety of this island's bug population. I had even made a sleeve in the tent roof to keep the R.O.B.'s letter in. As a final touch, I made a tarp to put on the ground underneath so that way I could properly sit and put on my shoes. I made sure my camp had just enough trees between it and the beach that it wouldn't be easily visible from the sea since again, I didn't want to be spotted by Marine patrols, or Pirates for that matter.
Roughly five hours after my arrival onto the island and after all of the immediate preparations for my long stay that I could think of were made, I put my jacket back on, left unzipped of course, stuck my knife in its right pocket, gathered my three water canteens, my snare rope and 'exploration' rope, then grabbed ten more rolls of tape which I made a sling to hang off of and began walking along the forest line towards the cliffs I had seen before, leaving quarter width rings of tape around trees every thousand feet or so as trail markers.
It would be four hours past sunset before I came back to my little camp, the flashlight on my phone guiding me, three canteens filled with fresh water, and a two foot by six inch basket full of nuts and berries I had used my former Boy Scout experience to tentatively identify as safe to eat slung over my shoulder by a long strap that let it hang down like a computer bag would. Unfortunately, none of my snares had caught anything when I checked on them on the way back but that was alright since I was too tired to make a fire and wait for any meat to cook right now. Securing the food in a way that I was pretty sure would keep out the animals, I checked to make sure my Solar Still hadn't been torn at all and transferred the meager amount it had collected into another water container, this one with no less than five layers of tape making a five gallon drum which was secured to the thickest tree I could find. I also poured two of the canteens into it leaving the other one full for tomorrow's exploring expedition.
Long term water containment secured, and now feeling thoroughly exhausted from the long day, I made one last check of the area before I turned off my light, took off my shoes, and allowed myself to slump into my hammock bed with a tired groan of relief and used my jacket as a blanket. Making a note to myself to make some actual bedsheets out of tape tomorrow, I drifted off with fanciful thoughts of making an ultra-light out of duck tape and bamboo and using it to survey the island from the air. (It was a nice thought, even if I knew it wouldn't work.)
The next morning, I woke up and looked around in confusion for a moment before I remembered my current circumstances. I gave a jaw cracking yawn and carefully got out of my hammock before I did a quick bit of stretching that had my joints pleasurably popping. A little bit of water poured from the still full canteen to the face finished waking me up and I quickly checked to make sure no animal had made off with my food stash while I slept. The little claw marks at the top of the tape lid showed that something HAD tried but I smirked when it became obvious that four layers of tape had been enough to keep whatever it was out. Peeling off the sealing strip between lid and basket, I grabbed a few berries from their side of the basket (There was even a dividing wall of tape to keep them separate) and munched on them before I chose a couple of nuts to finish my breakfast. Resealing the basket, I took a few swallows of water before I turned back towards my bed and frowned.
On that bed and still in my jacket pocket was a fruit that could potentially make my stay here a hell of a lot easier. Unfortunately, it also meant that I would never be able to swim again, something which I rather liked being able to do. But then again, I couldn't exactly not eat the Fruit since as the marks on my nut and berry basket showed there were wild animals around that could take a shot at it. The thought of some critter getting a transforming ability that they'd probably never even realize they had left a rather sour taste in my mouth. The only reason why whatever animal had been here hadn't gone for it was because it had been right next to me as I slept. Which meant that what I had to do was clear.
Giving a deep sigh, I said "OH, man, this is going to SUUUUCK!" I gave an anticipatory full body shiver at the horror I was about to experience before I stripped naked. There was no one around to see and it was possible that I might automatically transform as soon as I ate the Fruit. I'd rather be naked rather than struggling to get out of my only set of clothes with clawed hands and feet if they weren't part of my transformation the first time. I then grabbed a handful of berries and put them by the water canteen before I took out the cursed Apple and morosely studied the spirals as I said "At least I only have to take a single bite for this to work."
Giving another shudder, I let out a small whimper before I closed my eyes and took as big a bite as I dared. My eyes immediately shot open at the taste that was indescribable beyond simply NASTY! I struggled to chew twice before I forced it down with a quick gulp of water before I grabbed the berries and rubbed them against my tongue for a solid minute trying to get the taste out before I desperately grabbed the canteen and quickly took a deep pull that I gargled for a solid minute. Spitting it out as far from me as I could, I took ten deep pulls from the canteen before I finally stopped drinking and panted for air.
Panting, I said "Oh sweet Primus and Unicron, that was absolutely RANK!" Giving another full body shudder at the remembered taste, I looked at my smeared hand and busied myself with washing it off in order to take my mind off of the ordeal I had just endured. Once that was done, I sat back down on the tarp and pulling my phone out of my jean pockets I set the camera to forward view and propped it up on a roll of tape before I hit record and sat down in its view. (I was mildly curious to see what this transformation would look like) Phone recording for future reference, and feeling just a little bit like a Mythbuster, I said "Alright, Second 'What the hell am I doing?' moment. Heh, I really should have said that before eating that blasted thing. Focus Matt, first try at a full transformation, starting…now."
(Time Skip)
A month later I was sitting on top of the cliffs near base camp trying to meditate. My first few weeks on the island had been getting a grasp on my new shape shifting ability. It was surprisingly easy to shift to and from my ring-tailed lemur form. Feeling much like a Harry Potter verse Marauder after becoming an Animagus on that first day, I named my lemur form Zaboomafoo after the tv character that was Chris and Martin Kratt's animal companion in an animal show that went by the same name.
On a side note I was quite surprised to learn that despite what I had thought, Lemurs don't actually HAVE claws on their fingertips, and in fact only had a single claw on their second toes on the back feet which in turn was only for grooming purposes. Anyways, like I said, full body transformations were easy. I could even control how fast I shifted. It was the partial transformations that gave me any real sort of trouble.
It took a good deal of focus at first to only go into the half and half form, and even more to attempt to only change one part of me and nothing else. It took me three days before I managed to only transform only my hands without getting fur on my arms as well. It took FIVE in order to be able to grow a tail and not change anything else. Still, I could form the tail quickly now, though unfortunately Lemur's don't have prehensile tails like the more 'genetically advanced' monkey species. Still, being able to form a tail at my back that I could use Armament Haki on in a pinch was sure to come in handy down the road, which was actually why I was currently trying to meditate. I was trying to learn how to use Haki.
More specifically, I was trying to train Observation Haki. Having Armament Haki imbuing my limbs would be Grade A badass but if someone managed to hit me either behind or with a lucky shot, GAME OVER, especially since I hadn't found that bullet proof vest yet. So, Observation first, then Armament. So far though, I had Zip, Nadda, Diddly Divided By Squat, a Hole Riddled Bucket. I blamed the fact that I couldn't stop twitching every once in a while breaking my concentration. As a particularly bad full body twitch went through me I opened my eyes with a deep sigh.
Only for them to widen as I saw a two mast ship with black dots near the top coming towards the island, roughly five miles out. Briefly thanking my lucky stars that not only was I NOT in the habit of making a fire unless absolutely needed, but that my base camp was far enough past the tree line to not be immediately found, I quickly turned into Zaboomafoo and darted over to a duck tape repelling line I had attached to a convenient boulder on the edge of the cliff and quickly wrapped it around my tail. The fur there allowed me to rapidly descend without worrying about friction burns as I descended before I darted over to my solar still and rolled a sand encrusted duck tape tarp over it. With the only visible sign of my presence covered, I darted to the tree line and quickly clambered up, hoping that both no one had seen my actions through a spy glass as the ship got closer, and that these were friendly pirates rather than stereotypical pirates. What I did next heavily relied on those two things after all.
This was because while black pirate flags may mean they were coming peacefully, it was actually red that meant no quarter while white meant surrender, something that almost 'everyone' seemed to have gotten mixed up, but that could have been a trick to make anyone who saw the flag lower their guard. Speaking of the flag, when it got close enough I saw that the Jolly Roger had two saxophones on either side of the cross bones of all things. And not little alto saxes either, as a former player of said alto instrument I recognized those things as the giant great granddaddy of the sax family, Contrabass, AKA the Saxophone usually taller than its player at six feet four inches.
Blinking several times at the unusual Jolly Roger decoration, I turned back into a human and took out my phone from my jeans pocket and zoomed its camera so that way I could get an early look at the crew. I may have been new to this world but even I knew that they wouldn't have such a monster of an instrument as part of their Jolly Roger without a damn good reason.
And they definitely had said reason, there were several different instrument cases strung across the deck of the ship, some right by the people on said deck, most of them underneath the rope ladders leading up to the sails' rigging, a quick bit of counting showed that the number of instruments matched the number of people up in the rope works. It seemed that the modern day equivalent of the Rumbar Pirates had shown up. (And why would I specifically know what a Pirate crew that sailed over fifty years ago was famous for? Clearly, I had learned about them somehow but that was before even ROGER's time so it couldn't have anything to do with the story line could it?)
Still, just because they were obviously music lovers did NOT mean that they weren't also a bunch of bloodthirsty cutthroat marauding psychopaths. So as the ship pulled in closer I did my best to try to determine if they'd try to kill me at first sight only for my jaw to drop as a man in a tricorn hat who was easily eleven feet tall came out of what I suspected was the captain's cabin and made his way over to the helm. It was one thing to intellectually know that the height charts of this place were out of whack compared to Earth's but seeing it the first time was still a shock. And on another note, I now knew why there was such a large saxophone on their Jolly Roger, the guy was so tall that the Contrabass seemingly clamped to his back looked more like a Baritone sax.
Apprehension filled what little remaining space I had had in my chest when I saw him and how he kept that instrument on his back like some swordsmen wore their swords and no obvious weapons on him. If that guy could actually use that thing as a weapon then I was in trouble. Giving a nervous swallow as the ship's anchor was dropped and long boats were dropped for landing parties, I shifted back into Zaboomafoo, wanting to be a smaller target in case bullets started flying.
The boarding parties quickly reached shore about five hundred feet from my position and pulled their landing craft far enough out of the water that they wouldn't be washed back into the ocean but not so far that they weren't easily pushed back in either. It made me think that they were here for supply runs and would likely go back to the ship and back to land multiple times. I didn't have much time for guessing their future actions though because less than a minute after everyone was out, one of the crew members who had traveled along the beach called out "Captain! Someone's been here recently!"
Ice filled my veins as the Captain called back "How can you tell?"
"There are tracks here that are too fresh, couldn't be more than a day old!" The sailor called gesturing at said tracks before cocking his head and said "Seems like some kind of animal was just here as well.
"Scrap!" I cursed under my breath as the rest of the crew including the captain came to see what the sailor was talking about. The tracks the pirate was talking about lead straight from the solar still to my camp, the human ones at least. Those animal tracks though lead straight to the tree I was hiding in. Stupid! Why didn't I use my tail to wipe out the tracks as I ran?! Worse, the tape tarp was quickly found and rolled back revealing the solar still underneath.
As the pirates gathered around the still, the captain said "No doubt about it, someone's living here." Glancing around, he said "Be on your toes lads, we don't know if this person is friendly or not."
"Aye Captain." His crew answered, pulling out weapons though I was somewhat relieved that the ones with pistols and rifles didn't cock their hammers just yet. Still, as some of the crew began following the human tracks towards my camp, I desperately wished that these guys had come when I had whatever medium ranged weapon my benefactor planned to give me. Still, if I couldn't use firepower, then I could at least use trickery to even the odds.
As the small group of three pirates came to the tree line, I gave a small call and made my way down the tree. One of the pirates had aimed his pistol my way at my call but he pointed it away from me with a laugh as he said "I think we just found our mystery animal."
"Seems like it." Another said while the last one sheathed his sword before squatting as he said "Hey there little fella."
When the squatter pulled out a piece of candied orange, I cocked my head in the manner of curious animals worldwide before I walked over at an unhurried pace, my long nose twitching as I smelled them. I didn't smell anything that told my instincts that these three were actually dangerous to me but I was still ready to go half and half and sock 'em one if they made any statement about me possibly being good eating. As I warily accepted the orange piece and nibbled at it, the squatting pirate smirked and said "There you go, see what you think about that."
The pistol wielding pirate shook his head and said "I can't believe you gave that critter one of your orange slices. You don't even let one of us eat those things."
"That's because you guys always want more than one." The generous pirate said sternly and despite myself, I let out a chittering laugh.
"Seems this little guy's intelligent." The still standing sword user mused with a raised eyebrow.
"Primates usually are." The pistol user said with a shrug.
Finishing the slice, I cocked my head at the still squatting pirate before I chattered a little then sprung up to sit on his shoulder. I earned a surprised "Whoa!" for my actions but the pirate chuckled as he stood up and said "Friendly little guy ain't he?"
"Yeah, just be careful he don't bite you, those teeth on him look like they'd hurt." The pistol user said with a smirk.
"Aw, he's not going to do that." My mount said with a grin before he began leading the way into the trees again.
When we reached the camp a minute later, the non lemur mount sword user whistled and said "Boy, whoever's living here has it pretty nice."
"I'll say, look at all of that tape he's got!" The pistol user said gesturing at my pallet of tape that was still half full.
"Think he'll be willing to trade for some of that?" My current ride asked.
I chuckled from my position and said "Depends on what you're offering."
My mount jerked in surprise and the other sword user let out a surprised "What the?" The pistol user though cursed as he brought his pistol up and said "Damn it, Devil Fruit user!"
"Whoa, whoa! Don't point that at me!" My ride said in alarm even as I leapt off of him. Shifting forms in mid-air, I quickly put the guy in an arm lock with his pistol facing away from the other two as I said "Now, now, let's not fire that thing at anyone. I'd rather not have to fight you guys if I don't have to."
"Let him go." My former mount said, drawing his sword and leveling it at me, all friendliness gone from his features.
"Soon as he uncocks then drops the gun." I said, wishing that I could get my knife out of my pocket but unable to if I wanted to keep the guy I was holding from pointing his weapon at me.
We were all tense for a moment before the other sword user said "Do as he says Jay."
"What, are you out of your mind Rico?!" Jay asked incredulously.
"He was perfectly friendly until you pointed your gun at him, and he says he doesn't want to fight. Let's all just calm down and discuss things rationally." Rico said, sheathing his sword then holding his hands away from his body.
After another tense moment, Jay tsked before he pushed the hammer of the pistol back forward then dropped the pistol. I let go of his arm and pushed him over to his buddies, pulling out my knife once I did so but leaving it closed for now as I kept my gaze on the only pirate with a weapon still out. We stared each other down for yet another tense moment before Rico said "Tyler."
Tyler sighed before he sheathed his sword as well. Nodding, I clipped my knife to my belt where I could get to it easier than in my pocket, though I kept my hand off of it as I said "Alright, the weapons are away, let's try to keep it that way."
"Fine by me, though I don't appreciate that trick you pulled." Tyler said with a huff, muttering something about how he never should have offered the orange slice.
I smirked and said "To be fair, it's just me on this island and I had no idea what a group of pirates would do if they found me. For all I knew, you guys would just kill me right out the gate and leave my corpse here to rot as you claimed all of my supplies for your own."
"Harsh, but true." Rico said with a slight chuckle before he moved to lean against one of the nearby trees and said "You got a name buddy?"
"Matthew, though I go by either Matt or Tac." I said, moving to lean against my own tree.
"So what are you doing here all on your own Matt?" Jay asked, picking up his pistol. I tensed as he did so but relaxed as he simply wiped the dirt off of it then holstered the fire arm.
"Wilderness challenge. An acquaintance made me a bet that I couldn't last six months here if he only gave me a pallet of tape and a knife." I said before I smirked and gestured at my camp as I said "I've been managing fairly well so far."
"I'll say." Rico said with a chuckle.
"Speaking of which, any chance we could trade you for some of that tape?" Jay asked, before he smirked and pointed as he said "Better yet, think you could make me one of those hats?"
He was pointing at the Stetson hat I had made out of duck tape, something I had made a week into my time on the island during a passing rain storm. Shrugging, I said "I don't mind making you one, but you're going to have to trade me for the tape used."
"I'm sure I'll come up with something." Jay said easily.
Tyler shook his head with a smile and said "Come on guys, you can discuss that on the way back, we need to tell the captain about what we found."
"Right." The other two said, and Rico gestured for me to head back to the beach. Giving a slight sigh, I quickly walked over to grab my hat then followed Tyler as he led the way out onto the beach.
As we left the trees, Tyler raised an arm and said "Yo Captain, I've found our Islander!"
"So I see!" The big man called back with a grin. I idly noticed that he was the only one still by my solar still, the rest of his crew back at the long boats getting out barrels, most likely for water given their size. Striding over to me, the Captain kept his grin on his face as he offered me a hand and said "Captain Saul Nathaniel of the Roaming Orchestra Pirates, 17 million bounty, at your service."
Shaking it, I said "Name's Matthew, call me either Matt or Tac. Just a simple guy doing a survival challenge."
Jay snorted and said "There ain't nothing simple about Devil Fruit users Matt, even Zoans like you."
"Oh, you've made a deal with the devil have ya?" Nathaniel asked with a raised eyebrow.
"You could say that. I hate not being able to swim but the being able to leap through the trees as easily as walking on the ground's been cool." I said with a smile.
Nathaniel let out a bark of laughter and said "Ha, then you'd be that critter my boys were playing with earlier I take it."
"Yep, Ring Tailed Lemur Zoan." I said with a nod, my tail forming behind me and waving for a bit before going away again.
Nathaniel chuckled at that and said "Smart of you, approaching pirates in that manner. Not every crew is as nice as ours is after all." He then frowned and said "Course, some people would probably just as soon shoot an animal as offer it a snack."
"True, but I'd be a smaller and faster target than if I was human size." I said with a shrug.
"Fair enough." Nathaniel said with a nod before he clapped his hands and said "So Matt, I don't suppose you know how to play an instrument?"
"Well I used to play a Clarinet then an Alto Saxophone but that's been years, just over a decade in fact." I said with a shrug.
Nathaniel grinned and said "Well why don't we see if we can't knock some of the rust off and you can join us for the night eh?"
I blinked at the suddenness of that before I shrugged and said "Sure, I don't have anything better to do." It wasn't like I was going to play a game on my phone with these guys here. Friendly pirates or not, I didn't want to tempt anyone into stealing it.
Nathaniel gave a hearty pat on the back that had me stagger a couple of feet forwards and he laughed as he said "That's the spirit!" The Captain then all but shanghaied me to his ship in his enthusiasm to get me an instrument, and soon I was on board and assembling an Alto Saxophone. Choosing a number two reed for the mouthpiece, I said "Fair warning, after all this time I'm probably going to sound like a strangled cat."
"Wouldn't be the first time we've heard that sound on this ship!" A snickering female crewmate that had stayed on the ship called down from the rigging overhead.
"She's right, hazard of being on a ship where you have to pick up an instrument to join." Nathaniel said with a grin.
Shrugging again, I flicked my tongue over my lips then stuck the reed in my mouth for a few seconds then attached it to the mouthpiece. I played a quick scale and winced at the squeaking sound I made, making an adjustment to the mouthpiece before I tried again. This one came out much better and I managed to knock the rust off of my memory in order to play the theme for the Andy Griffith Show.
When I finished, Nathaniel and the other crewmembers still on the ship gave a quick round of applause and Nathaniel grinned as he said "There you go! Just like riding a bicycle!"
"So it seems." I said with a nod.
Clapping my shoulder with his hand, Nathaniel chuckled as he said "You can get with the rest of the sax players after lunch to see what we plan to play tonight. For now, I don't suppose you'd be interested in trading for some of that duck tape Tyler said you have back at camp? Stuff's rather useful on a ship after all."
"Well, I could use a few wilderness tools like a fire starter and an axe of some kind." I mused to myself.
"That's the spirit!" Nathaniel said with a grin and soon I had put my loaned Alto back in its case and we were making our way to my camp with the ship's quartermaster to see about an exchanging of goods.
Lunch that day was great. It might have just been plain sandwiches to most, but after a month without even being able to make bread I was practically in heaven, especially since the crew's chefs had bacon for us to eat. After we had finished eating I did wind up with the rest of the crew's saxophone players who had claimed their own spot on the beach with chairs, stands, and sheet music. They helped me get used to reading said music again, being rather patient with me as they did so. It took a couple of hours, but soon enough I was once again able to properly read the music and play it without having to pause in order to think of what note corresponded with which combination of holes covered or opened. The fact that I could now play the much lower notes easier then back in high school came as a nice surprise, though the higher notes still came out more as squeaks half the time.
Dinner was even better than lunch, the chefs having dug out a large fire pit in the beach during the day and using a carefully controlled fire to slow cook soup in five rather large pots. I swear my mouth all but exploded at my first taste and I honestly didn't care about how I had moaned in delight earning laughter from all around me.
After dinner, even more chairs and stands were brought from the ship and placed in a large semicircle and that night, I got a personal look at why the Roaming Orchestra Pirates got their name. They put on quite the show, seemingly pulling out all of the stops as we played under the light of several torches stuck into the beach, the cooking fire turned into a massive bon fire cheerfully blazing a safe distance away. It made me glad that I had taken a moment to set my phone to record before I had sat down with the other Saxophones.
As fun as that day turned out to be though, the Roaming Orchestra Pirates only stayed for another full day in order to make any necessary repairs of their sails and the outside of their ship before leaving on the morning of the third day. They left behind a three sectioned spy glass, a harmonica with the crew's Jolly Roger painted on the top, a small hatchet and whet stone set, and a magnesium and flint fire starter, taking with them about thirty rolls of duck tape. All in all, not a bad exchange.
Time Skip: Two And A Half Months Into Survival Challenge
I let out a whoop of glee when I finally found the bullet proof vest. It was hanging from the top of a tree three quarters of the way around the island beach. I must have walked under it at least six times when I had been exploring the island and had only found it now because I had been seeing if I could traverse the entire edge of the island without actually touching the ground. I was pleased to note that the vest was the kind that used specially woven fibers rather than metal or ceramic plates to resist bullets making it much lighter than it could have been. I was rather certain that I would be thankful for that fact in the future whenever I had to fight for a long time with it on.
After I had slung the vest on over my shirt, I continued hopping from tree to tree and considered how far I had gotten in my training. I had gotten much better with being able to change only certain parts of my body into that of a Lemur's, or in the case of my eyes, keeping some of my human parts when I changed. For all that they had excellent night vision and even pretty good day vision, lemurs didn't actually see in color so I had to juggle whether I wanted the slightly extended sight or see more details when I changed. The nose on the other hand was leagues better than my old one and my hearing skyrocketed as well. Of course, there were my limbs to consider as well. I had gotten to the point where I could turn everything on my legs from my ankles up into Lemur legs under my pants and literally leap a dozen feet from a standing start. That ability to hide the change would definitely come in handy during a fight down the road I'm sure. I had also learned how to only change the palms and soles of my feet to those of a lemur's making it much easier to climb things.
Haki though was a bit of a mixed bag. I had finally gotten the extreme basics of Observation going entering the second week of my second month here and I now had a fifteen foot range of Observational Haki up most of the time as a multi task challenge. The amount of plant and animal life I picked up if I wasn't careful in registering what I was sensing was absolutely insane! Seriously, there should NOT be that much insect life inside of trees for Log's sake! It was fascinating on a scientific level if I focused on only one tree but downright terrifying if I allowed myself to think about what I knew the higher level pirates and Navy personnel were supposed to be capable of with this thing. The thought of being able to sense things over the god dammed ocean with all of its microbiological life and being able to pick up individual, and even SPECIFIC sentients on nearby or even far islands was a mind boggling display of information sorting.
Armament Haki was pretty interesting as well. I had started working on it three weeks ago and I was already making small amounts of progress. I could now make my finger and toe tips completely black. And while I thought that was good progress for being self taught, it was a far cry from allowing me to wade through a sea of bullets without worry like Superman. Still, I was somewhat hopeful I'd be able to cover multiple limbs with the stuff once my training period was over.
I was brought out of my musings when I reached camp and blinked when I found an island chicken pecking at my nut/berry storage bin. Grinning down at the bird from my vantage point in the tree above it, I dropped down on it and cackled as it squawked in surprise when my hands wrapped around its body. Lifting the struggling bird up so that I way I could look into its eyes, I grinned and said "Hello, dinner." I was going to be eating good tonight!
Time Skip: Three Months After Arrival
When I woke up this morning it took my brain a moment to process what it was seeing, though I couldn't honestly blame it. After all, seeing what looked like my NERF N-Strike ELITE Battlescout sans ten dart harmonica style ammo clip floating in the air and spinning over my hammock like what weapons would do in the Doom games first thing in the morning was a rather strange thing to see indeed. After a moment of just blank staring, I sat up in my hammock and grabbed the gun by the top rail where you could add a camera module and looked at it in confusion.
It looked like my Battlescout, with the removable shoulder stock attached and the Battlecamo colors of grey, white, blue, and orange all in the right spots. Heck, it even had the light purple stains on the right side which I had never actually figured out where they came from. But a closer examination of where the ammo slot was supposed to be for the harmonica clip showed that it didn't actually have an ammo slot, the area in front of the barrel instead one smooth bit of plastic on the right side while on the left there were four small lights, starting with green closest to the center of the gun and then going to the barrel as yellow, orange, and ending with red.
Frowning at the weapon in my hands, I asked "How is this supposed to be an actual weapon? I can't even shoot the darts it's meant to shoot!"
An envelope floated down into my lap and my head jerked up instinctively trying to see where it came from. But of course there were no holes in my tent roof and I glanced back down at the envelop. Putting the Battlescout facsimile down, I picked up and opened the envelope, pulling out the letter inside and read the letter out loud to myself.
"Hey there, Matt! Congratulations on making it through the first three months. As promised, here is your medium weapon, and yes, this is a weapon, don't let the exterior fool you. As you've probably surmised by now, I took the Battlescout you owned before you arrived in this world, I thought it would be fitting to take something you previously owned and modify it to serve you better.
For starters, I've given it the rough environment treatment. You can bury it completely in sand or leave it in the ocean for a full day and it will still work perfectly fine. I did that with an automated cleaning spell so you don't have to worry about taking out all of the little screws to maintain it. Also, the outside shell is now a hundred times more durable than before. It can still be broken if a large enough amount of force is put on it but it would take something like a giant stomping down on it to do so, and putting Armament Haki in it will make it even harder to break.
I'll admit, what to use for ammo stumped me for a short while. You obviously couldn't expect NERF darts to be of any help in this world after all. But then I remembered the Minks and thought 'Ah, why not?' I'm sure you know that on top of being comprised of several anthropomorphic animal species, Minks are known for being able to channel their bio-electricity, AKA Electro, as weapons. Your Battlescout now does something similar which combined with your Lemur Zoan fruit makes you into a facsimile Mink. Should be interesting when you reach Zou, no? Anyway, I should probably explain just what exactly your weapon fires.
To put it simply, your Battlescout is now a wireless zap gun. Notice the lights on the left side of the gun just before the barrel? Those show how much of a charge each shot has, green for the lowest possible charge with red being the highest. Think of it in terms like the Fire Emblem magic system: You've got Thunder, Elthunder, Arcthunder, and Thoron. As you might have guessed, the charge levels are controlled by the pump mechanism underneath the lights, one pump per level of charge which means you can pump the gun four times before you need to fire. It should also be noted that you need to pump at least once every time you want to fire this weapon.
That's ammo, let's talk range. Obviously, how accurate you are determines how far away you can hit a target but the 'bullet' of electricity you fire will also impact that distance. The higher the charge, the longer that bullet can travel before dissipating. The general rule of thumb for this gun is twenty five feet per pump, giving you a max distance of one hundred feet. In order to aid you with aiming purposes, I have left a laser equipped scope and a distance doubling rifling barrel attachment on top of the cliffs near your camp. But of course, the fact I left them there rather than with the gun itself means it won't be so easy getting them as just climbing up there. You have to complete a time and accuracy based shooting challenge first.
The challenge involves multiple moving targets within twenty five feet that you will have to get bullseyes on within a single minute, with each new target appearing only after you have gotten a bullseye on the previous target, twenty targets total. You can try this challenge as often as you like and there are even harder levels once you do finish it to help you further train with your weapon.
Good luck with your new Battlescout Matthew, you are definitely going to need it down the road."
"Well that's certainly not ominous at all." I said dryly to myself when I read the last line of the letter. Then again, I was in a world where Pirates and Marines could field literally armies against each other so the thought of me and the Straw Hats eventually running into an army on army level situation wasn't too far out there.
Shaking my head free of that thought, I got out of my hammock and put on my shoes, intent on getting some breakfast before I went to see just what this challenge looked like. Of course, in order to reach said challenge, I'd have to get not only me but the Battlescout up there as well. Luckily though, there were two bandoleer clip mounts on the gun, one directly behind the rear sight and the other on the bottom of the handle so I was able to easily make a sling out of duck tape to hold the weapon close to my body as I climbed. It felt rather awkward on my back like that due to it bouncing and as I climbed up I made a mental note to work out some kind of sheath for the weapon, though the pump handle at the front of the gun would make it a bit of a challenge to make one that wasn't too loose to properly hold the gun if I had to bend forward or even go upside down for whatever reason. Maybe a clip harness once I got back to civilization?
Regardless of how comfortable or not the Battlescout was, I was soon at the top of the cliff and I let out a low whistle as I said "Man, when this guy wants to make a challenge area, he doesn't do things by half."
The two hundred foot tall cliff of the island was vaguely rectangular shaped, the side facing my camp a sheer ninety degrees while the opposite side sloped down to the rest of the island at a less severe but still respectable sixty degree slope. Its back area was another slope, in between the two different angles as you went from one side to the other, roughly five hundred yards long and a hundred wide, a few trees scattered on the inland end but otherwise barren rock. Or rather, it was barren rock.
Situated in the middle of the cliff was a completely smooth metal floor made out of ten foot square panels two hundred feet long and fifty feet wide, a small wall of metal coming up to my waist surrounding three sides leaving the side facing the rest of the island open. There were ten foot tall arches three feet thick and made out of metal every twenty five feet with a red line mirroring them on the floor and the walls and all of the arches were connected together by a metal beam going down the middle, the metal of the beam all one piece and slotted so that its top was only six inches taller than the arches. On the underside of said beam and arches were black domes, only an inch separating them from the ones next to them. The open end of the arena had the metal floor continuing ten feet past the walls and as I walked onto said floor, a holographic image of a bull's eye with words over it appeared in front of a four foot by four foot square in the middle who's forward edge was connected to one of the red lines going across the width of the shooting gallery.
At the sight of what the holographic words were, I couldn't help but chuckle and said "Target Practice For Dummies, Really?" Shaking my head, I stepped into the square and intuitively 'tapped' on the hologram. Instantly, the image changed to a quick bit of tutorial text. Pretty standard all things considered, there were challenges for each range, including all of the distances from my spot to a selected spot, you had your choice of accuracy, timing, or both, along with the difficulty settings of standing or moving targets. At the end was a reminder that if I passed the first speed and accuracy challenge for twenty five feet then I would be able to get the two Battlescout upgrades. Directly under that was the question of if I wanted to try said challenge right away or practice shooting at the targets first.
Deciding that I really should get the action of pump-aim-shoot down before I tried the challenge, I selected the latter and the hologram faded out. A moment later, the shooting range began making the humming sound of large electronics powering up and several human shaped hard light holograms formed on the range, starting at ten feet and going all the way down to the hundred foot line. Cracking my knuckles, I brought the Battlescout into position and looked down its sights before giving an experimental pump. Seeing the green light immediately light up, I took a deep breath and said "Alright, let's see what you can do."
As soon as I pulled the trigger the gun spat out a bullet of electricity which hit the bullseye of the closest target's chest. I had a second to see that the bullet had some actual penetration to it and there was a brief arc of electricity over the hologram before it faded away. Seeing the penetration, I let out a soft 'huh' of thought then very deliberately pumped the gun four times, sighted, and fired. I got three targets in one go for that one, though the bullet noticeably dissipated far from the described hundred foot distance. Nodding to myself, I said "So the bullet loses some cohesion as it travels through solid objects as well as the air, good to know."
With that little fact noted, I settled my stance and began trying to build up an appreciable firing rate. Accuracy could come later, I still had three months on the island after all, and it didn't matter how accurate you were if the enemy shot you before you could even get a shot of your own off.
Time Skip: Four Months In
There was a rather large storm going on outside of my camp site making me glad that I had used five layers of tape when making my tent. A sudden feeling of danger had me looking up from my game of Pinball on my phone and I frowned as I turned it off and moved to the entrance of the tent to look outside. There didn't seem to be anything immediately near the campsite but the feeling remained and so I put on my coat and grabbed the Battlescout and my three section telescope heading for the beach. Nothing seemed obvious on the beach so I took out the telescope from my coat pocket and began scanning a wider area. Even with the lights on board it took me about ten minutes of constant searching before I finally spotted a ship in the stormy weather that was on approach. What I saw on that ship had me paling as I muttered "Ah, hell!"
The ship was still too far out for me to get a good look at the Jolly Roger but what I saw was enough to tell me that I was in trouble: the flag was predominately RED. The crew must be particularly blood thirsty if they used that color as their standard flag color meaning it was highly unlikely I wouldn't have to fight them when they made landfall. The only things I had going for me was that the ship appeared to be a Caravel so I wasn't dealing with a very large crew and there was very little chance they could have spotted me since my camp was hidden by the trees and I wasn't stupid enough to have my cellphone's light on when I came to the start of the beach looking for what had set off my danger sense. No wait, I did have one other advantage.
Turning away from the approaching ship, I quickly sprinted back to my camp and took my coat off before quickly putting on my bullet proof vest. Pulling the straps taunt, I redonned my coat and now feeling much more confident of my chances went back to the beach. By the time I was back, the ship was now close enough that using my spy glass I could both see its Jolly Roger and some of the actual crew.
The Jolly Roger had devil horns on the skull and the cross bones were a sword with blood drops on it crossed with a pistol that had a musket ball shooting out of the muzzle, complete with gas fire ball at the end between weapon and ammo. The crew seemed to consist of the type of bulky muscular men who mainly worked as Mafia enforcers, the man wearing the captain's hat the meanest looking of the bunch with no less than five flintlocks strapped to a bandoleer going across his chest and two cutlasses hanging from his belt, one on either side. Counting him, there were eight men on the ship that I could see, and as they got closer my much improved over the months Observation Haki confirmed that this was the entire crew, and each and every one of them radiating enough malice to make old Voldemort offer them a spot in his inner circle within the first minute of meeting them.
Seeing all of the flintlock pistols the crew carried I tsked to myself and said "At least all of this rain will keep those guns from working. Still, you'd think a crew that's as ready for violence as this one would have a counter for the rain…oh what the hell!?" I gripped the spying glass harder as one of the crew mates went into a cabin and came back with rifles that had cloth coverings over where the dry powder igniters were and began handing them out. Gritting my teeth, I hissed out "Murphy, you are such a god damned bastard!"
Growling to myself, I snapped the spying glass closed and said "Right, well no way I can just play hide and seek, there's too much gear at the camp to move it all quick enough and these guys would definitely take it all if they found it. Looks like I'm going to have to just kick their collective asses and force them to leave."
Gritting my teeth in determination, I watched as the ship came closer to the beach before it dropped anchor no more than a hundred feet down the beach from my location in the trees and a landing skiff loaded with barrels was dropped from the port side, all but two of the crew members climbing a rope ladder down into it once it was in the water. The landing craft was a tight fit for the six men but they positioned themselves in a way that said that they were used to this as they rowed towards shore. The crew quickly beached their landing craft and the Captain shouted over the storm "Alright boys, you know the drill! Let's get the water then get out of this rain!"
"Aye Captain!" One of the sailors shouted back just as lightning flashed through the air.
I gave the sky an unimpressed look at its sense of theatrics before I glanced back down and watched as just like the Roaming Orchestra Pirates my unwanted visitors immediately began heading in the direction of the closest source of fresh water. Clearly my little island retreat was a popular resting stop for traveling pirates in this part of the East Blue if not one but two crews were already familiar with the local geography. I shook those thoughts from my head and turned on the laser sight for the Battlescout and made sure it's six inch rifling barrel attachment (RBA) was properly locked in place over its much more stubbier barrel. Then I pumped the gun four times and put it to my shoulder. I took in a deep breath as I lined up on my first target then squeezed the trigger.
With how dark it was coupled with the downpour, my first shot could have been mistaken for an overhead lightning bolt, it was visible so shortly. The bullet slammed into the captain's right kneecap and he went down with a roar of pain. As the rest of his crew dropped their barrels and scrambled for their weapons, I switched targets and the man immediately behind the captain on his right went down from a similar shot. One of the remaining pirates got his weapon up just a little quicker than the others and fired a shot into the woods. His bullet hit a tree fifteen feet to my right and I gave him a bullet to his right shoulder as a consolation prize dropping him just as effectively as if I had gone for the kneecap. By that time though the remaining three pirates had their rifles up and were firing into the tree line. A bullet slamming into the tree trunk at where my head would have been if I was standing had me quickly darting behind the tree.
Putting the Battlescout onto my back, I shifted into Zaboomafoo and quickly darted to my left and once I was three trees down scampered up the tree onto a branch before I shifted to my half and half form and brought my weapon to bare again. By that time, the Captain and the other guy I kneecapped had struggled into a kneeling position and had joined in with their own fire at where I used to be. Putting the red dot of my laser sight on the next uninjured pirate's forehead, I muttered to myself "I gave them three warning shots, let's see if they get the message now."
The pirate I had sentenced to death jerked once as little arcs of electricity briefly sparked around his forehead before he dropped to the ground. That did what my limb shots hadn't and the Captain shouted "Retreat!" The others didn't need any further encouragement and the two uninjured pirates quickly grabbed the captain and the other kneecapped pirate by the backs of their shirts and rapidly dragged them back to their landing boat, the one I got in the shoulder right on their tails leaving the body of their comrade on the beach along with his gun, the shoulder shot's gun, and the barrels that were supposed to hold the crew's new water supply.
I sent more lightning bullets after them, this time having the rounds impact the sand around their feet but I had to stop with a blink of surprise as the Captain shouted out "Fire the forward cannon!"
"Say what?" I muttered to myself with wide eyes before there was a flash of light from the ship. I leapt out of the tree just before it exploded and I landed in a roll as I snarled out "Alright, now I'm pissed!" I immediately began firing again but the pirates had gotten back to the boat and they were using the barrels that they hadn't taken off the skiff yet as cover even as the two unwounded rowed like mad back to the ship, quickly getting out of my range. Adding to my irritability, the ship fired a second cannon round that I had to quickly drop back to the ground to avoid. Scowling as I lifted my head from under my hands, I growled as I saw the pirates quickly being brought back onto their ship and I muttered "Yeah, you better run away you bastards."
I warily watched as the pirates quickly brought up the anchor and the ship moved away from the island, watching them through my spyglass until the lights on their ship disappeared. Once I was sure they were gone, I sighed as I said "Hopefully they don't come back here again." I then made the mistake of looking at the body that they had left and I felt my stomach heave a little at the sight. Managing to not throw up, I trudged over to it and scowled as I gave the corpse a light kick and said "Great, now I've got to bury your sorry ass."
I'd honestly be a little more scared of just how nonchalant I was about having just killed a man except for one very important thing: Their flag had been RED. Anyone who flew under a flag with that color as the default deserved whatever they got coming to them. Shaking my head, I looked up at the still going strong storm and said to myself "I'll bury you when the storm ends, it's not like there's coyotes or other scavengers on the island."
Turning away from the corpse, I grabbed the dead pirate's rifle as well as the shoulder shot's dropped one and brought them to camp. I could probably sell them for some cash once I got off the island and reached an island with a weapons store on it. I'd bring the barrels to camp as well when the storm died down. Barrels were always useful after all. I made a mental note to check the corpse's pockets tomorrow as well for anything useful. After all, the guy was dead, what use did he have for what he had in them now?
Thankfully for me, the storm blew over during the later half of the night leaving relatively clear skies of only a few large white clouds. After searching the guy, I came up with a dagger that looked to be of inferior quality to my fold up knife, a small stack of five beri bills in one thousand denomination, and a compass. That done, I dragged the body by its shirt down the beach at least two thousand feet away from my solar still and dug a six foot hole in the sand about five feet from the tree line. I had to make a rather ugly looking shovel out of a pair of sturdy sticks in a cross formation held together by tape which also formed the shovel head but coupled with the sand of the beach rather than hard packed dirt I managed to get the hole dug by lunch. Once I dumped the guy in and moved all of the sand back, I left the typical cross made out of two sticks in the sand marking the place before I walked back to camp, just wanting to get my mind off the whole thing.
Time Skip: Five And A Half Months Into Training
I was just putting the collection bucket back under my solar still when I heard what sounded suspiciously like a lighthouse's fog horn coming from the ocean. Snapping my head up, I scanned the ocean before I squinted my eyes when I spotted a dot in the distance. Quickly heading to camp, I grabbed my spy glass before I sprinted back to shore and pulled it open and looked towards the distance. A few minutes later when I could finally make out details of the approaching ship I let out a rather large grin as I saw a familiar two masted ship, the Jolly Roger becoming clear four minutes later only confirming my knowledge. It looked like the Roaming Orchestra Pirates were coming back for a visit. Going by how Captain Nathaniel was standing on the bow and blew into his Saxophone making the fog horn sound again they were being 'polite guests' and 'calling in' first. Seeing the pirate with his own spy glass standing by the captain and looking towards the beach, I gave a wide sweeping wave of my free arm and saw the man say something to Nate who nodded with a grin as he put his Contrabass Sax back into place on his back and crossed his arms.
When the crew reached the island Nathaniel was the first off the landing craft and he grinned at me as he pulled me into a hug and said "Matt! Good to see you still alive!"
I let out a 'oomph' as he made a good try at crushing my ribs with pure arm strength before he thankfully released me a moment later without prompt and I grinned up at him and said "Captain, it's good to see you again. I've got to be honest though, I didn't expect to see you again, at least not on this island."
Nate chuckled and said "Aye, I don't blame you. But I thought it would only be polite to check on you before we headed out to the Grand Line."
My eyes widened and I said "You're actually going into that mad house?" I didn't doubt the crew's abilities per se, it was just that they hadn't given a single hint that they were going to change oceans, especially not to that pirate graveyard.
Nate nodded with a hum and said "Hm, indeed, we've been in East Blue for the last five years, and the North Blue for five years before that. It's time we moved on again so we're heading for our next ocean."
"I see. You guys have a Log Post yet?" I asked a rather sensible question in my mind.
"Hah! Of course we do, ten of them in fact! We bought them the last time we were in Logue Town and we're probably going to use all of them too given how crazy even Paradise is supposed to be compared to the Blues. It'll be a wacky five years before we make a try at the New World but fun nonetheless." Nate said with a grin that wouldn't be out of place on the face of a stunt pilot before the biggest air show of the year.
I gave a nod at that. From the world history and geography part of my memories that I was allowed to keep it most likely would be a 'wacky' bunch of years for the crew.
I was drawn from those thoughts though when Nate's grin went from slightly demented to more eager as he said "What about you? Did you get any more visitors while we were gone or have you just been stuck lounging around in your hammock all day?"
I snorted and said "I have NOT just been lounging around all day you overgrown organ grinder monkey."
"Ha!" Nate barked out a laugh at the insult before he fell silent as he saw my face turn serious and I continued "And I did have more guests though they were nowhere near as nice as you guys."
"Oh? I'm assuming it was another pirate crew?" Nate asked curiously.
I nodded and said "Yeah, I didn't get a chance to find out their name but they had a Jolly Roger with devil horns on the skull and a bloody sword and a fired gun as the cross bones."
Nate winced and said "The Bloody Path pirates, Captain is named Kenchi Kikaro, bounty is currently at twenty five million beri after he and his crew completely slaughtered the small port town of Seagull's Roost." Giving me a quick look over, he said "They didn't manage to hurt you anywhere did they?"
I shook my head with a snort and said "They tried, even fired their ship's canons at me a couple of times but no. They didn't tag me." I then smirked and pointed down the beach and said "One of them wasn't as lucky though."
Nate and the rest of his crew currently on the beach followed my arm and when they saw the cross further down the beach Nate let out a soft "Ah." Turning back to me, he looked at me with a different type of concern and said "How are you holding up?"
I gave a shrug and said "I had a nightmare a week after the fact but they were flying a red flag as their default color, I can't exactly say that killing one of them could be considered a bad thing. And it made the rest of the crew get the hell off my island so I would probably do it a second time if I had to redo that fight."
"Fair enough." Nate said with a nod and gave my shoulder a pat before he began barking at his crew to get back to work, and that was that on that topic of discussion. That night, there was another bon fire and concert given, though this one was completely free style without any sheet music at all. just playing whenever and whatever each crewmember felt fit with the current music. I actually joined in a little with the harmonica I got as part of the trading I did with the crew a few months back, though I mostly just hanged back and made sure my phone was recording the whole thing. When the last piccolo fell silent at one o'clock, Nate stood up gathering everyone's attention.
The captain gave a fond glance around as he said "Lads, and lasses." He nodded at where the few females on his crew were sitting together before he continued "Tomorrow we begin heading for the Grand Line, which will be our new home for the next five years. Once we leave this island, it will be full speed ahead to Logue Town, and from there, to Reverse Mountain. Rest well tonight and as we travel to the end of this chapter of our journey, remember the times we have had here, both good, and bad. The friends we've made," He lifted an imaginary mug towards me in toast with a grin, an action several other crew members copied, "and the enemies we've left defeated and crying frustrated tears." Chuckles filled the air at that and Nate's grin got just the little bit wider before he finished "Cement those memories into your minds my Nakama, for they are what make us who we are, and then look towards the future as we continue to build on that foundation. And you can't build well if you're tired, so off to bed with you lot, we'll be lifting anchor at 0800 hours tomorrow."
With that slightly less than profound ending to his speech, Nate sent his crew back to the ship. As some of the crew made sure the fire was out before they joined the others in heading back, he walked over to me and held out his hand as he said "I know we'll be saying our goodbyes in the morning, but I still wish you luck for the remainder of your challenge."
I accepted it as I said "And I wish you luck as well. Stay on your toes when you get to Reverse Mountain, I've heard stories that an Island Whale has been camped on the other side for the last fifty years." (And again, the lines of world knowledge and story line memories were once more blurred as I tried to figure out why I would know that.)
Nate blinked at that before he nodded with a smile and said "Thanks for the head's up, we'll be careful."
He shifted his grip from my hand to a pat on my shoulder before he bade me good night and made his way over to the last landing craft and headed to his ship. I waited until I was sure he was on the deck before I let out a sigh and said "Two more weeks before I follow you guys." Shaking my head from those thoughts, I made doubly sure that the fire was out before walking back towards my camp. The last thing I did before I went to sleep was to set an alarm for 0700 so that way I would not miss my friends' departure.
The next morning was full of final goodbye hugs and words exchanged. When it was time for them to leave, I climbed up to the cliff top and watched through my spy glass as they slowly disappeared over the horizon. Giving a sigh and wishing them luck, I said to myself "Safe journeys you guys." I remained on that cliff long into the day and only got off around five in the evening when my stomach finally demanded food too loudly to ignore.
Time Skip: The Day Before The Straw Hat Pirates Arrive
Waking up that morning to the sight of my Switch next to my Battlescout put a grin on my face, and not just because I now had said Switch to play with. It meant that the six months of no indoor plumbing, none of my favorite foods, no temperature control, and all of the other hardships I had endured were coming to an end soon. Getting out of my hammock, I grabbed the letter that was next to the Switch and opened it up to read the letter inside.
Hey there, Mate. First of all, I'd like to say CONGRATULATIONS! You've made it through the entire six months on the island. True, you had SOME help with that roaming group of musicians but I never actually said you had to go it completely without help so I'm letting that slide. Besides, if I wanted you to have no contact I would've just made it so that anyone who came would just move to one of the surrounding islands, so like I said, no biggie. Now we get to the fun bits. The Straw Hat Pirates will be arriving onto the island at roughly 0900 hours so make sure you're awake by then. I won't be saying where they're making landfall though so keep your eyes and ears peeled. Also, the firing range will be gone after midnight so make sure to get any last training you want done with the Battlescout before then. Finally, a deal's a deal, so here's your Switch back. Don't go turning into a gamer vegetable now that you have it again, and good luck out there.
Still grinning, I put the letter away with the other two and turned on the Switch. I planned to spend the next few hours between now and lunch getting reacquainted with this beautiful piece of technology.
After lunch I spent the afternoon collecting all of the duck tape traps I had scattered around the island. The animals caught in them all got stays of executions and I swear more than one of them gave deep sighs and had sweat drops of relief. I decided to leave the tape markers on the trees since I'm sure the people who visited the island after I left would appreciate them. (And it would be funny if some of them tried to find an inhabitant that wasn't there anymore. *Snicker*) Once all of the traps were collected, I made sure that my five gallon water container and three water canteens were full since you could never have too much potable water when on the seas after all.
After dinner, I spent a few hours on the firing range, doing my best to complete the last few challenges that I hadn't before. I was actually pumping the Battlescout for another shot when the firing range just suddenly vanished leaving the rock floor the cliff top had from before. Blinking at the complete suddenness of the act for a moment, I fired my charged shot off to the side and said "Well that's over I guess. He could have given me a five minute warning at least."
Shaking my head, I turned on my phone's flashlight and climbed my way down the cliff back to camp. There really wasn't anything else I could do now but get some sleep then track down the Straw Hats tomorrow morning.
END
Author's Notes: Poll and Update Schedule on my Profile
Alright, and that's the second chapter done, and we can already see how the differences in fruit make similar events occur differently.
For those who want an idea of what the Battlescout looks like, I took a picture and posted it on my Deviant Art account, just go to the link below. (Make sure you put dots between the triple w, dev, and com as well as take out the spaces behind each slash)
www deviantart com/ shinobidigidestined/ art/ NERF-Battlescout-790654965
