Chapter 28

Author's Message: Hey everyone these few following chapters are meant to clear a few minor plot holes in the story, (nothing too important) also to get to know more about Porche-chan! Hope you enjoy!

…

[Porche POV]

[During Beginning of Ambush]

Cade-Kun and I are currently running towards Carina-san in order to protect her and finish off the weaklings by her side.

Carina said the instigator of the problem goes by the name of Lamp Burger or something, I don't really know, and I don't care to remember names of weaklings.

Once, I used to pay close attention to any other weakling, and I used to memorize their Bounty Posters in order to recognize them at first glance.

Back then I thought it would help in my chosen dream, which was to support my former boss, Foxy.

He was a very kind man, especially to me.

We met as children in our hometown, Longnose Island here in West Blue, I know, the name is a bit on the nose… anyways we were childhood friends, and when my parents were killed by pirates at a young age, he helped me get over the hatred I had for pirates at the time.

At a young age I always knew that my plights and problems weren't of any concern to the wider world, I always knew that if I died of starvation or something unfortunate happened to me, no one would care.

Following this mindset, I became someone that always wanted to uphold justice, I wanted to become someone that would care for others' plight, even if the rest of the world didn't.

My goal at the time was to become a Marine, or at least a follower of someone who would uphold justice on the behalf of others.

However, fate didn't have that planned for me in the end, and that's due to one thing and one thing only: because I was friends with Foxy, a child sycophant of anything pirate related.

Since a young child he was always dreaming of being a pirate and having a crew of over 100,000 men.

Going on adventures with his humongous crew and showing off that he is the captain of so many people.

And due to him being the only one who cared for me at the time, I chose to disregard my own wishes of being a follower of justice, and instead chose to follow my dear friend, Foxy, down the road of pirate hood.

Oh, how wrong that choice was.

At first everything was going swimmingly, before our departure Foxy had heard of an ancient pirate game where two crews play a series of non-lethal games, and the winner of said games gets to take a member of the loser's crew as their own.

It was simply a perfect game for us at the time because we were weak.

We always knew that, as soon as we got into a confrontation, Foxy would try to knock his opponents out with the famous boxing techniques he learned as a young child, but it would never work.

We would always get beaten by the opposing party, luckily, we never encountered truly cruel pirates, and simply encountered mild pirates or pirates who simply didn't like to spill unnecessary blood, otherwise we would have been goners a lot sooner.

However, this streak of luck soon ended, and everything went crashing down, really quickly.

We were arriving at a well-known island in the West Blue known for their special flowers and the effects they produce – here in these seas they are considered an expensive commodity – this island is known as Lily Island, when suddenly Foxy and our few other crew members (We had won a few games, earning ourselves a crew of 43 members), had spotted the flag of a well-known bloodthirsty pirate crew here in the West Blue.

The pirate captain of said crew was known as Jack the Machete, because he was always seen walking around with one, and because wherever he goes, he used said machete to bludgeon his opponents until only pulp remained, He had earned himself a bounty of 25 million on his head.

Seeing this pirate group, Foxy, his usual careless self-wanted to challenge them at a round of Davy Back fights, and capture said pirate for his crew.

He was known for his ruthlessness, but he was also known for his strength and overall intelligence.

Therefore, Foxy wanted to have him join us as our subordinate, when I heard this, I was speechless, because not only was that pirate a bloodthirsty man, but he had a bounty of 25 million, while Foxy barely had a bounty of 4 million, a huge difference in bounty.

I just couldn't see a way for him to win in this situation, no way someone of that might is going to follow someone weaker than themselves.

It would ruin their prestige and fame.

I told this to Foxy, but he didn't listen, he was set on getting Jack in our crew, long story short, it didn't end well.

We challenged the opposing crew to a game, they accepted, as it's known throughout the pirate community that pirates who reject a challenge in the Davy Back fight are cowards and deserve to be removed from said life.

Then it went as it usually goes, we cheat in order to get the W, a strategy that Foxy came up with due to our lack of talent, but this time something went wrong.

Due to the fact that Jack was actually smart, he saw right through our schemes, and he even called us out on them, but in the end, he couldn't do anything according to the rules of the game, so he lost.

However, instead of turning himself and a few of his crew members into our crew, he instead attacked us straight away, and his crew followed his actions.

This began a pirate fight right outside Lily Village, and unfortunately for Foxy and I, we were the targets of Jack the Machete.

He attacked us, and with no strength whatsoever to defend ourselves, we ran away from him, through the forest trees, and right to the edge of a cliff.

And not long after that, Jack cornered us, confronted us, and finally, butchered us.

I myself wasn't touched, but I felt like I truly died that day, my only loyal friend in the world was butchered right in front of me, and it was due to my weakness that I could do nothing about it.

That's when I met Cade-kun, apparently, he was spying on what was happening, and when he saw dear Foxy getting butchered, he couldn't stand it, so he threw up, loudly, even I could hear it through my grieving emotions.

This made Jack take notice of him, and that's when the situation suddenly turned around, apparently, not long ago he had consumed one of the legendary fruits known as Devil Fruits.

Something that while not rare in West Blue, is extremely sought after and very uncommon.

So, Cade-kun used his newly acquired powers, his 'slow-slow beam,' something I still think sounds dumb to this day, and defeated Jack quite easily thereafter.

When I saw this my eyes brightened, not because of the powers or of Cade-kun, but because Jack, the 25 million berry pirate, the murderer of my best friend, was now unconscious, and bleeding not far away from me.

Seeing Cade-kun about to finish him off with another attack, I intervened and asked him to let me have my revenge, something which he graciously accepted, and I went to town on the butcher of my best friend.

It was that experience, where I simply let go and battered his skull in until it was nothing but mush, where I first got my first taste of what real power is like.

Sure, I didn't win directly in the end, but I got to smash and smash Jack as much as I wanted, and he couldn't do anything about it. In the end he died, and we threw his body in the ocean for the sharks to eat.

And that's when Cade-kun interrupted and asked for directions to Lily Village, I gave it to him, and we went our separate ways.

He went on to stop the conflict near Lily Village, which the villagers were thankful for and treated him nicely, and I went to bury Boss Foxies body near a beautiful stream in the forest.

I cried for a long while, before deciding to go back to civilization, not knowing how my life would take a drastic turn from then on.

Chapter 29

When I arrived at the village I was greeted by the sight of Jacks and our crew being tied up by the villagers.

When they saw me arrive, I was immediately surrounded by weapon wielding villagers, and I didn't really put up much of a fight.

Firstly, I was outnumbered and weak at the time, not able to do anything even if I wanted to, and secondly, I had no motivation to continue pushing forward in life, if I was captured and sent to Impel Down by the Marines, then I would consider it my punishment for surviving what Foxy hadn't.

However, contrary to what I believed would happen at the time, Cade-kun came to my defense, not directly mind you, but he did state that I was the one who killed Jack and rid the village of the problem of dealing with him.

Therefore, when the surrounding villagers heard him, they assumed that I was a bounty hunter or something, I didn't really have the energy nor the will to say otherwise.

Therefore, I was led to my own shack and stayed there for a whole week straight.

Mostly crying and mourning and thinking of my past decisions and what went wrong in order to lead to this. I came up with one answer, I was weak, and I nor Foxy had any strength whatsoever to dictate our paths in life.

And coincidentally, just when I thought this, I looked out of the shack window and saw the man which I now know as Cade-kun, running laps with a few rocks tied behind his back.

I was immediately intrigued by what he was doing, because from my point of view, the slow-slow powers he showed were quite powerful on their own, so there's no way that someone so strong is working so meticulously in order to get stronger right?

So, I then stepped out of my shack for the first time in a week and asked him why he would do such a thing.

And the answer he gave me blew my mind.

Apparently, he was boasting that he was strong, which I myself believed, until the old village chief reprimanded him due to his false sense of reality, which eventually led to them having a sparring match, which the old village chief apparently won with ease.

When I heard this, I was amazed!

Not at the fact that Cade-kun lost per se, since he was clearly quite weak physically at the time, I mean I could do what he was doing at the age of 13, but still, for an old man to defeat someone with a strong devil fruit like Cade-kuns?

It blew my mind and blew away any preconceptions right out of the water that I previously had of the world.

Therefore, from then on, I followed Cade-kuns example and worked out vigorously.

And, one day when I was doing upper body exercises Cade-kun confessed to me his background, that he was actually a young master of a family in the East blue, and that his uncle was a marine Commodore, and that he actually arrived here in West blue because the ship which they used to cross the Calm Belt, something that I didn't know marine ships could do, was actually attacked just as they crossed, and as every strong marine was fighting the enemy force, Cade ran away using a row boat, something that he admitted to feeling guilty about, but in the end the fear got to him and he ran away.

Unluckily for him, what followed was a rain of bullets that, while completely missing him, hit the boat, so it began to sink. He quickly rowed away from the enemy as fast as he could, and in the end, it seemed that they didn't really care for him, because they let him go.

However, the small row boat was sinking quickly, yet according to him, by the time he was prepared to die in the vast sea, he suddenly caught sight of a small island not too far away, so he swam as hard as he could to reach said island.

He got to it, barely.

And that's when he apparently found the Devil Fruit on the beach, ate it, and suddenly spotted the conflict that was taking place not far away from him, which again leads back to where we currently are.

Anyways, what he confessed is that due to being the nephew of a commodore, he got to have certain privileges that common folk don't have.

One of them is being allowed to rummage through his uncles' personal papers when he was bored, something that his lazy uncle supposedly allowed because he didn't really care too much about what a 15-year-old teen could do with the knowledge.

And there he read about a martial arts style known as the Rokushiki, which are the following: Shave (Soru), Iron Body (Tekkai), Tempest Kick (Rankyaku), Finger Pistol (Shigan) Moonwalk (Geppo), and lastly the Paper Arts (Kami-e).

With the knowledge of these martial arts and how to perform them, he made a deal with me.

He would teach me these martial techniques and help me get strong, and in return I would follow him on his future adventures, be it as a marina, pirate, revolutionary, or anything he chose.

I didn't really have to think about it all that much, Cade-kun was a very attractive and interesting man, he intrigued me, and he was also the one that ultimately gave me a second chance at life.

So, without hesitation I vowed that I would follow him as my new boss, and maybe something more in the future.

Anyways, six months later, we left Lily Island and traveled towards Ballywood Kingdom, a place that I really like, in order to not only enjoy some free time, but to apparently recruit our new member, Carina, who he once again found about through marine reports.

Throughout our voyage to the island, we had a blast, we partied in the boat, we got much closer and regularly snuggled, and we even fought and killed some scum of the sea.

We even lost our virginities together in that voyage, an activity that we have been regularly repeating from then on.

However, when we got to the island, we quickly found a problem in our plan: Carina, our supposed new member, was being wanted for stealing something of great importance from the Royal Family.

Hearing this I was quite hesitant to continue our quest to acquire her companionship, but in the end, it was Cade-kuns decision, and so I followed his orders.

We searched for almost a whole week, until we found her, unharmed and singing on stage to a crowd of zealot fans.

We eventually got in contact with her and convinced her to follow along with us on our journey, and to support Cade-kun on his quest to steal a manual of a powerful martial arts style from the widely known Chinjao Family.

Something that I myself found crazy, but oh well, I chose to follow this crazy man, and that's what I will do.

Anyways, unfortunately for us, Carina's business with the Island wasn't over, she actually had yet to complete her operation, and what an operation it was.

Apparently, what she stole is something extremely valuable, a mythical devil fruit, something that Cade-kun told me about, and if what he said is true, this fruit could go for billions on the market.

Anyways after Carina found out more about the fruit from Cade-kun, she eventually decided she actually wanted to retrieve the fruit and eat it, for all of the amazing powers and abilities it granted to its user, a decision that I completely support, and now here we are, about to ambush and beat up the fat man and his three muscle balloon guards.

But just as we were moving, something strange happened, an ornate knife landed in between Carina-San and the rest of the party, and 5 gray clad individuals suddenly appeared out of thin air.

Luckily Cade-Kun immediately reacted by using his newly dubbed Slow-Flake Beam, which is actually an amazing technique, even if the naming could use some work.

I momentarily closed my eyes at the time, so I got to witness the results.

1 of the 5 individuals actually escaped from his technique, and not long after, I saw a red-haired woman appear in front of Cade-kun.

Making a strange pose and presenting herself in a unique manner, followed by immediately attacking Cade-Kun.

However, I wasn't worried, he's been working his butt off for almost 8 hours a day in order to get stronger, and stronger he became, I have full confidence in his victory, so I decided to let him battle it out while I go and protect Carina-san and knock out the remaining opponents.

However, just as I was about to take a step towards their direction, a large macabre looking projectile flew by me towards the direction of Carina-san and the rest of the frozen group, intending to impale and butcher them.

When I saw this happen, I didn't hesitate and used shave, which I learned not long ago, in order to get in front of its path, I then tried to hold it off for a second, until I realized that the sharp object just would not stop no matter how hard I tried, therefore I quickly brought back the end of my new slick black baton, and whacked the object to the side, changing its course in order to miss the frozen Carina-san, and hitting one of the gray clad individuals near her.

I looked at the direction it was fired from and there, in the shadows, was a humongous humanoid rat-like creature, looking at me as if I just butchered his whole family or something.

And with that malicious look I saw on the creature's face, I knew my first battle was upon me.

Chapter 30

*Woosh*

*BAM*

*BOOM*

*CRASH*

I just dodged another projectile fired off by this horrendous looking giant of a rat.

We have drifted a bit far from the original location, and we find ourselves in a more populated area of the island, and due to that fact, a large thick brick wall that was behind me a second ago, was peppered with four large projectiles, causing it to explode in a cloud of dust.

It's been 1 minute since I've encountered the large rat and all I have been doing so far is dodging what appears to be his teeth, that even though he is firing them like there Is no tomorrow, seem to regenerate as quickly as he fires them, if not faster.

However, what was once a 20-foot large monstrosity, now appears to be a 15-foot large monstrosity, apparently those teeth don't come free.

This creature's appearance is that of a dark colored brown rat, with patches of dirty matted hair covering its entire body, and what appears to be dried blood and dust crusting its exposed skin.

It's a horrendous sight, and due to its humongous size, its sharp pointed head, large beady eyes, elephant sized wrinkly ears, and long dirty claws, it appears very menacing to anyone that looks upon it.

That is the reason, that not long after the wall broke behind me, I once again hear the screams of the civilians on the other side, fleeing from the fight, but mostly from this creature.

However, as quickly as the screams began, they abruptly stopped, and a quick look behind gives me confirmation of what happened.

Another large rat, identical to the first, about 5 feet tall, just butchered and ate said screaming people in a few quick, bloody bites.

This disgusting scene has been repeating itself, again and again for the past minute that we've been in combat.

And Due to the fact that the smaller rat looks identical to the larger rat, and that for some reason, when the smaller rat eats a victim, the larger rats get stronger, more energetic, and once again grows in size by a small margin, I once again act and quickly dispatch said rat with a bloody beheading.

Yet no matter how many of those adult sized rats I eliminate, more keep appearing, they seem like an endless wave of rat clones or something.

However, contrary to my expectation, after killing this specific rat, I'm greeted by not the usual tooth projectile, but by a booming scratch-like voice, "Woman, Shee! Enough with your insolence, Shee!"

I hesitate for a second before replying with a cold voice "Oh, the rodent speaks! What do you want creature?"

It replies with an angry voice, "Why, Shee! Have you gotten in the way of my attack! SHEE! It was not even aimed at you, it clearly passed right by you, not harming a hair on your tasty body! Shee!"

Hearing this I shudder a bit and reply with a colder voice, "You were aiming for my companion you beast, what other reason is there for me to stop you!?"

Hearing my reply, all that's heard is deep silent before a cacophony of, "SHEE, SHEE, SHEE's" ring out in what seems to be mad laughter from the creature.

"You, Shee! mean to tell me that you stopped my projectile for a mere companion, Shee? You Cretin! SHEE! You have just opposed I, the great Rat king of the Gambino Family, Ratto Gambino! SHEE! And you shall suffer greatly, SHEE! Before I go back to your friend and devour her whole, SHEE!"

When I heard him say this, I froze for a second, before continuing as if nothing happened, the reason for this momentary freeze was because the Gambino family is well known to be 1 of the 5 great criminal families here in the West Blue.

Everyone knows that these great families have their hands in everything here in this sea, and offending any of them is considered suicide, it doesn't matter if you're a 100 million belly pirate, or a Marine Commodore, if you stay in this sea, and you offend someone from the great families, you are bound to disappear, no other way around it.

However, recently there have been obvious signs of great disturbance when it comes to these 5 great families.

The grapevine has it that the new family head of the Capone Family, another of the great criminal families, has been causing chaos by backstabbing and killing off the majority of the major players in this dark game.

That's the major reason why I quickly calm down my racing heart, in a period of great chaos like this one, no one is going to care about me and this rat that I have never heard about, and if they do care, they are welcome to try, I believe myself capable of defending myself, and either way, in 6 months' time Cade-kun and I are going to leave for the Grand Line, a place that not even the 5 great families would be able to reach me.

And as I think this through, I suddenly hear another loud *WOOSH* before a sharp tooth again demolishes the building that I was in.

However, this time, I didn't dodge it, no, it didn't even come close to where I was, during that short stint of inaction, I was secretly and slowly moving around the large rat and flanking the creature, communicating back by throwing my voice in the direction of the building, making it seem as if I was still present inside said building.

And due to this, the rat-man, now known as Ratto, didn't notice that just as he fired off his disgusting saliva covered tooth projectile, that I appeared right at his side, jumped, and slashed at his neck with my hidden blade inside of my new baton.

However, this didn't last for long, because just as I jumped up and tried to cut off his head, he seemed to finally use those oversized ears of his for something and reacted by barely softening the blow with one of his long wrinkly rat ears.

That, unfortunately, prevented me from completely beheading him, but as a result cost him his ear and a large gash on his neck.

"SHEEEE!" he loudly screeches, and leaps back by around 10 meters and lands on top of a ruined building not far away.

*Thud*

"YOU BITCH! SHEE! YOU'VE DONE IT NOW! SHEE! YOU MADE ME DO THIS! SHEE!"

He howls, and just as he says this, he rapidly starts ballooning in size, going from 15 ft tall to over 80 ft tall! Dwarfing all of the surrounding buildings, and he doesn't stop whatever he's planning with just that, he inexplicably opens his ginormous maw wide, making him seem as if he's regurgitating something, and not a few seconds later an increasingly high-pitched noise can be heard coming from inside said mouth.

All that can be heard are soft screeches coming from inside, and not long after, there begin to appear a number of vicious looking brown rats the size of my head coming from within.

However, the ringing sound continues to increase in volume and in pitch, and in accordance with that, the trickle of rats starts becoming a rain of rats, then a downpour of rats, and finally a large waterfall of brown rats!

He's spewing out a torrent of rats!

And as the rats become a brown furry wave; they begin demolishing their surroundings, devouring everything in their path, and utterly obliterating everything in sight, even the dirt road isn't left untouched.

And the worst part of this all? The huge rat wave Is actually heading right for me! Coming at me like a ravenous monster!