2. Wilderness Challenge
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: If you manage to go three months then I'll give you one of those air gliders that the Air Nomads from Avatar use, and it'll be reinforced properly so that way you can use it as a melee weapon as well. (My inner Otaku grinned at the thought of having something like that. Plus, it would be handy to have for long range scouting missions) 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.) Welp, that's all from me. Good luck, 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 glider 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. I remembered all of the times I found ruined tape in the garage after all and I didn't want to lose any of this tape just because the glue had boiled in the head. Next on the list was making 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 getting the glider in three months and using it to survey the island from the air.
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 an elemental 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. I then grabbed a handful of berries and put them by the water canteen before I took out the cursed Peach and morosely studied the spirals as I said "Man, I don't even like normal peaches, now I have to eat one that's a devil fruit. I repeat, this is going to suuuuck!"
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 held my hands in front of me as I mused to myself "Alright, so now I'm an Air Air Man now, how do I turn intoooh it cannot seriously be that easy."
I was deadpanning at the end because the moment I thought about wanting to turn into air my fingers disappeared, barely visible streamers of air replacing them. Frowning, I made my right arm up to my elbow turn into air before trying to get it and my left fingers to turn back into flesh and blood. That was slightly harder, almost like my body didn't want to change back but after a couple of moments my hands were normal again. Flexing my fingers once they were back, I mused to myself "Well, this should be an interesting six months if nothing else."
(Time Skip)
One month after my arrival, I was sitting on top of the cliffside trying to meditate. The first couple of weeks here I had been getting a basic grasp on my abilities, how to move while I was partially or fully air and getting the air around me to move how I wanted to. Right now though, I had put training my devil fruit to the side in order to start trying to learn Haki. Because Logia or not, the sooner I learned Observation and Armament Haki, the safer I would be in the long run from others who could use Armament themselves.
Due to what my Devil Fruit was, I chose Observation Haki first. It was a bit of a mixed bag though. When I became air my perception of things got a massive boost, allowing me to literally feel everything for miles around. This was not a good thing. I spent nearly an entire day trying to regain my mental stability from perception overload the first time I tried to 'connect' with the surrounding air in the atmosphere. Thankfully, after a week of careful experimentation, I could now put a limiter on how far I could 'see' so that way I was no longer overwhelmed but it was very touch and go for a while. However, my 'air sense' and Observation Haki were NOT the same thing. So far, I could only use the air sense when I was partially or fully transformed, which meant that while it was a useful ability, it was a bit situational.
Hence why I was on the cliff attempting to meditate as I tried to learn the real deal. Which would have been going a lot better if I could. Just. STOP. TWITCHING! Seriously, how was I supposed to 'clear my mind' if it made a note every time one of my joints flexed?! As a particularly bad full body twitch made me jerk back to awareness, I gave an almost literally explosive sigh and said "This is getting me nowhere really fast."
Idly sweeping the horizon, I noticed a two masted ship with black dots at the top of said masts on approach roughly five miles out. Giving another sigh, I stood up and said "Well, I could use a distraction I guess."
Turning fully into air, I shot away from the cliff and quickly made my way out to sea. Once closed enough, I circled the ship a few times to get a good look at it and its crew. Said crew seemed to be this generation's Rumbar Pirates given all of the instrument cases lying around, not to mention the Contrabass saxophones on either side of their skull and crossbones. (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?)
Shaking that thought out of my mind, I stopped my circling a hundred yards off the bow and created a large gust of wind for theatrics sake as I reformed my upper body and called out "ATTENTION PIRATE CREW: YOU ARE CURRENTLY INBOUND FOR THE ISLAND WHERE I AM GOING THROUGH A SURVIVAL CHALLENGE, THIS IS YOUR FIRST, LAST, AND ONLY WARNING: IF YOUR INTENTIONS ARE BENIGN CONTINUE YOUR COURSE, IF THEY ARE HOSTILE TURN BACK NOW BECAUSE I WILL DEFEND MYSELF!"
There were quite a few shouts of surprise from most of the crew at seeing me of course, but when I gave my warning they all fell silent, turning their attention as one towards where the Captain was standing. The big guy, an eleven foot tall man with a Contrabass Saxophone on his back and no obvious weapons, stepped forward and said "I am Captain Saul Nathaniel of the Roaming Orchestra Pirates, 17 million bounty. On the honor of our Jolly Roger, my crew is heading for that island behind you to restock on water and spend a day or two to spread our legs off our ship, nothing else."
I briefly pondered if a swear on a Pirate's flag actually held weight before I gave a small sigh to myself and nodded as I said "Alright, you can come in, but I'll be keeping an eye on you guys."
"Naturally." Nathaniel said with a grin before he cocked his head and said "By the way, I've introduced myself, it's only polite for you to do the same."
Humming to myself, I gave a bow of my torso and said "Matthew Bandstra, though I go by Matt or Tac, and as you can see, I ate the Air-Air Fruit."
"Indeed I can, you got rather lucky in what fruit you got it seems." Nathanial said before he grinned and said "This may be rather sudden, but I don't suppose you know how to play an instrument?"
Raising an eyebrow, I shrugged and said "Well I used to play a Clarinet then an Alto Saxophone but that's been years, just over a decade in fact."
Nathaniel's grin grew and he 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 gave another shrug, and with the ship having reached my position by that point reformed my legs as I said "Couldn't hurt I guess."
"That's the spirit!" Nathaniel said enthusiastically before he snapped his fingers and pointed at one of his crew members standing near a storage hatch to below decks and said "Taimin, go get us an Alto Sax from storage!"
"Aye Captain!" The man said with a salute before he hopped down the open hatch. As we waited for him to get back, I glanced at Nathaniel with a raised eyebrow and said "You keep extra instruments in your hold? I thought most of them were expensive."
"Oh for sure, but me and my crew stole most of them from a stuffy noble who hoarded a lot of them in an attempt to look 'civilized'." Nathaniel made air quotes around the word civilized before he snorted and said "Bah! He was merely a fake musician!" Now chuckling, he continued "That's actually how I got my bounty. I liberated his instruments and left a note telling him that I would put them to much better use. Besides, if anyone wants to join us then they need to either know how to play an instrument or be willing to learn how to play one so it's a good idea to keep some spares for new recruits."
"Fair enough." I said. It wasn't the strangest requirement to join a crew. My world knowledge included what Kaidou's crew was made up of after all and there was a little grain of memory showing a circus oriented crew that operated in East Blue as well.
When Taimin came back with the Alto, I set the case on the ground and opened it to find the instrument itself along with a proper cleaning kit and two reeds of each strength type. After assembling the saxophone, I choose a number two reed for the mouthpiece, saying as I did "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 called down from the rigging overhead, earning several sounds of agreement and good natured jeering at some of the other crewmembers.
"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 who had their hands free 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.
By that time we were getting close to the point where the ship would have to drop anchor so I disassembled the saxophone, though I did keep the reed in place, simply putting the mouthpiece's cap on with it attached so that way I wouldn't have to adjust it later. Fifteen minutes after that, I traveled alongside one of the crew's landing craft and then guided the group to the stream I used as a water supply. I also wound up trading some of my duck tape with the crew, exchanging thirty rolls from my supply for 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. Apparently, duck tape was as useful, if not more so on a ship as it was anywhere else.
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 wound 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, helped along by me blasting their sails with a strong gale of wind for a few miles before I gave my final goodbyes and headed back to the island to continue training. I still needed to figure out Haki after all. Joy.
Time Skip: Two And A Half Months Into Survival Challenge
I flowed through and around tree branches trying to keep as much of my cohesion as possible and considered how far I had gotten in my training. I was good enough at force projection to carve a ten foot wide trench for a hundred yards in the ocean with a blast of air from the beach shore, make ten mini tornadoes at once and keep them going for half an hour (I had Two Steps From Hell's To Glory on loop during that exercise), make one giant tornado and keep it going for fifteen minutes, and finally I had gotten my Air-Sense perception ability to cover the entire island. That last one could actually be much further but without anything but ocean surrounding the island I couldn't tell.
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. ESPECIALLY since most of them WEREN'T Logias who could detect things through their elements.
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 going intangible. 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 reformed already 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 an Air Glider from Avatar in its extended form just hanging overhead was not a sight you'd expect to see when you wake up. Sitting up, I grabbed the glider and its wings automatically folded up. As I looked the staff over 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. Picking the envelope up and opening it one handed, I pulled out the letter inside and flicking it open while still holding the glider read the letter out loud to myself.
"Hey there, Matt! Congratulations on making it through the first three months. As promised, here is your Air Nomad Glider. Also as promised, it has been reinforced to the point that it would take a giant standing on it to break it, and you can further strengthen it with Armament Haki but do us both a favor and don't take that as a challenge. (I sweat dropped a little at that. The thought of willingly allowing a giant to try and stand on this thing was crazy) I gave the glider operation controls a bit of modification as well. Normally, an Air Nomad would spin their staff to open and close the flight extensions but that seems rather silly to me so instead I gave it a mental switch, simply think if you want them to extend or retract and they shall do so. Finally, as you can see, I sharpened each end into a point so that way you can do piercing damage as well as blunt force damage. Well, that's everything, have fun with your new toy."
"Hm, well this should be fun to play with." I mused, looking at the glider in my other hand. Looks like I was going to learn how to fly a string less kite today.
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 both the glider and my knife along with 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 if they made landfall. Thankfully 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. Not that that really mattered since unlike the Roaming Orchestra pirates, I was NOT going to let this crew make landfall.
I extended my glider's wings but after a moment of thought I closed them again. While it was true that as a Logia even canon fire wouldn't affect me, I didn't want to needlessly put the glider through that if I could avoid it. So instead I dissipated myself and my weapon into air and shot off the beach. As I got closer, I could make out the details of the Jolly Roger which only confirmed that I didn't want these guys anywhere near my stuff. It 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.
Furthermore, 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 my Air Sense confirmed that this was the entire crew, and each and every one of them was radiating enough malice to make old Voldemort offer them a spot in his inner circle within the first minute of meeting them.
Seeing everything I needed to, I dipped low to just over the waves. When I reached the bow of the ship, I shot up reforming my human body as I grabbed the railing and swung over it, slamming my glider into the deck as I said "I'm only going to tell you scumbags this once: turn around this ship or die."
The captain was the first to get over his surprise of me seemingly have swam from the nearby island to their ship, coat and all. (Even the short amount of time I had been outside in the rain had absolutely soaked it.) Snarling, he drew both of his cutlasses and said "I'd be rather killing you and taking all yer valuables, both on your body and what you left on that island. Gut him boys!"
The crew all let out eager yells of agreement and drew their own cutlasses as two of them charged me. Sighing as they got close, I said "I did warn them." The next instant, the pair slashed through me in a pair of downward swings. I gave them just a moment to blink in surprise at the fact that they hadn't cut me to pieces before I stabbed the one on the right in the throat with the tip of my glider while the one on the left got a knife in his. Pulling my weapons out had the pair drop to the floor and I strode past them.
That spooked the other six members of the crew something fierce and the captain cursed out "It's a Davy Jones Dammed Devil Fruit User!"
"Yep." I said with a smirk before I roundhouse kicked sending a blast of wind that slammed into the captain hurling him through the air until he slammed into the wall of the cabin at the back of the ship. Before he could recover, I dissipated, shot forward past the rest of the crew, then reformed and slit his throat.
"D-damn it all!" The captain gurgled as he slid down to the deck. Taking an extra second or two to spit on his corpse, I turned around and cocked my head as I asked "So, who else want some?" Pointing at the right guy in the middle of the deck, I grinned and said "You, you want some."
"No I bloody don't-argh!" The man shouted before he screamed as I appeared in front of him and stabbed his foot with my glider. Letting it go, I spun around him, gripped his head with one hand on his jaw the other on the back and used 66 pounds of torque to snap his neck. The man dropped to the floor as I reclaimed my glider.
A gunshot rang out and a musket ball shot through the side of my head. Rolling it to the side, I gave my next victim a flat look. The pirate dropped the flintlock pistol he had somehow managed to fire in this awful weather with wide eyes and took a panicked step away from me. Rushing forward, I leapt up slamming my Haki'd right foot into his jaw snapping it upwards, the blast of wind I released hurling him screaming five hundred feet straight up. Landing back on the deck, I spun around and threw my knife into my fifth victim and he grunted as he tried to pull it out of his torso until I reached him and shoved my black fingertips into his chest and pulled out his heart.
Hurried footsteps had me glancing over to where the last two were running for the side of the ship and I dissipated, shot over towards them, and reformed with my glider in front of their necks and yanked back hard clotheslining them. They fell through me and onto the deck grasping their necks gasping for air until I put them out of their misery with a stab to both of their chests.
It was at that point that the man I had launched skyward came screaming back down, flailing his limbs right until he slammed head first into the deck. I jumped as I suddenly heard the voice of god cry out "FLAWLESS VICTORY!"
Getting my heart to stop trying to leave my chest, I glanced skyward and shouted "Really?! I haven't heard a word from you for four months, only getting letters, and you choose now to speak up?!" Shao Khan's laughter was my only response and even that faded away after ten seconds causing me to let out an explosive sigh and shake my head, muttering very un-nice things under my breath for a moment.
Giving another shake of my head, I looked around at all of the bodies on the deck and said to myself "I wonder what it says about me that I have no problem with what I just did." Letting out one final sigh, I mused to myself "Now what the hell am I going to do with this ship?"
A piece of paper blew in from off the ship and slapped me in the face. Scowling upwards, I pulled the paper off my face and read "This vessel and everything on it is considered spoils of war. I recommend you bring it to the island and take whatever you want from it. After that, I'll swap the ship out for the amount of beris it and whatever you leave on it is worth."
Raising an eyebrow, I muttered "What use could you possibly have for this tub?"
The writing on the paper faded then was replaced with You aren't the only person I've been dealing with. Also, word of advice, take a picture of the captain and grab the Jolly Roger, you might be able to use them as proof of death at the Logue Town Bounty Office.
Frowning, I said "Not the only-?" Giving a firm shake of my head, I said "Nope, I don't want to know." Tossing the paper away, which got blown away in the storm then faded once out of my sight, I looked around before I said "Well, guess I better get this thing moving again."
Making my way to the stern of the ship, I began blasting wind at the sails and the ship began to move towards the island again. Beaching the ship was a fairly simple affair, if a bit tricky in practice I just used my wind powers to carve out a channel out of the shoreline in a manner that turned the sand into ramps down to the level of the rest of the beach and blew the ship's sails until it bumped at the end of the little channel. Compacting the sand ramps and dumping some sand from behind via small tornadoes with 'wind tunnels' at their top that then pushed the sand into the new place I wanted it at made sure that it wouldn't go backwards.
Once I was finished an hour after my fight, and feeling like a member of the NCIS team that I so loved watching, I began taking pictures of the 'crime scene' with my phone. I snapped pictures of not only the captain, but also got a picture of each other member of the crew, just in case they too had bounties. After I had gotten the photographic evidence, (I should be able to send them to the snail version of a fax machine at the bounty office in Logue Town) I carved out a massive trench in the beach eight feet deep, making sure that it was high enough up the shore line that the waterline wouldn't reach it then went about the morbid act of looting the bodies for anything useful (Pretty much weapons and money of the small change variety) before putting them in the trench. Once all of the bodies were in, I put a cross at each of their positions before I shoved the sand back into place.
Mass burial of the crew finished, I turned to the ship itself. First to be raided was the kitchen. I left all of the perishable food in the fridge though I swiped all of the apple juice in it, that being one of the few things that could be left out of a fridge once cooled. No, what I really went after were the canned goods in the pantry, along with a can opener for some of the goods that were actually in cans rather than the reusable jars most sensible sea chefs used.
After that, I went down to the hold and found quite the stash treasure wise, which I had expected given what the captain had said about stealing my valuables from my corpse once he had killed me. There were two standard sized chests full of jewelry and other trinkets while another was filled to the brim with Beri notes of different denominations, with all signs pointing to the money just tossed in as it was acquired. (A later sorting would bring the final count to just over ten million beris) Finally, there were twenty pistols and ten rifles kept in the armory, cloth coverings over the rifles' trigger areas showing that these were to be used in wet conditions. Oddly enough, there were no swords. I would have thought that the crew would have had replacements for if their blades broke but I guess not. Keeping in mind about what the R.O.B. that had sent me here said about this ship going to someone else, I took half of the rifles, and half of the pistols, leaving the gun powder and ammo for said weapons for the next owners. The weapons I took could be sold at Logue Town if none of the Straw Hats wanted to use them.
The last rooms I went through were the crew cabins. Disgusting places really, clothes strewn about, bottles of rum left all over the place, and more than one blood stain on the sheets where the occupants hadn't bothered to patch, or more likely, clean themselves up after a fight before going to bed. Still, each pirate had kept a small bit of cash in their rooms along with a bit of choice trinkets so it wasn't a complete waste going through them.
The storm was FINALLY beginning to blow over as I brought the last of the loot under the large sail I had taken from the ship's hold and taped to tree trunks to hold it down. I'd make a proper storage tent for the stuff in the morning. But for now, it was past midnight and I was tired. So I made one last trip to the ship and grabbed their flag before I left the ship and went back to camp.
The next morning, the ship was gone and there was a chest that held an additional twenty million beris next to my hammock. The R.O.B. had even been kind enough to fill the channel where I had beached the ship back in with the surrounding sand, leaving me with only the storage tent construction to do that day.
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.
Given that I knew this crew of pirates, I was perfectly willing to wait on the beach as the ship drew closer. 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, almost going intangible from the force of his hug, 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." He then glanced over at the line of crosses that were just barely visible from our position on the beach and said "I imagine that's them over there."
Nodding, I said "Yeah, I wasn't too keen giving them a burial at sea this close to the island where they could wash up on shore so I buried them on land."
"And their ship?" Nate asked.
I let out a smirk and lying out of my ass to cover the R.O.B.'s involvement said "Those bastards had no sense of hygiene, if I wanted to keep that ship then I would have had to fumigate it. So after grabbing what I wanted from its hold I pushed it about twenty miles out to sea then used it for target practice before tearing it apart from the inside out using a tornado."
Nodding, Nate said "I see, good riddance to bad rubbish then." Gaining a concerned look, he asked "How are you holding up after killing them?"
I gave a shrug and said "Had a nightmare or two the week after but given that they were flying a Red Flag for their default, I can't say that I actually feel bad for ending a threat, especially given how you said their captain earned his bounty."
"True enough. Hope you saved that flag though, you could turn it in to a Marine base for the bounty when your challenge is over." Nate said.
"As a matter of fact, I did." I said before gesturing towards my camp and said "Care to see what I got from the ship? Mind you, I buried the treasure but there were a few odds and ends that I grabbed as well."
Nate let out a booming laugh as he followed me to the tree line and said "Buried it did you? We'll make a pirate out of you yet Matt!" I grinned at that as the surrounding crew all either laughed or let out similar statements of agreement.
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 Glider 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. 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.
With all of that done, the only thing left to do was to set my alarm so that I didn't miss the Straw Hats arrival and to settle down with my Switch and play some good old fashioned Super Smash Bros and wait.
END
Author's Notes: Schedule and Poll on Profile, please head there for a minute or two to vote on the poll.
Not as long as the other two versions, (No bullet proof vest and other things) but it still took quite a while to get this one done. Fortunately, the next chapters aren't anywhere near this long.
