A/N: Our young explorer makes a name for himself in West Blue, and just as he was about to return to Ohara, he receives some truly horrific news. Warning: Some swearing.
Chapter 3: The Good News, and the Very Bad News
"Hey there, young man, are you the one they call, the Fixer?" A nervous looking man in his early twenties approached the green eyed teenager who was lounging in the bar, his cream colored fedora perched on his messy, shoulder length black hair.
"Depends. Who's asking?" Harry replied lazily, blinking away the last vestiges of sleep in the harsh sunlight that was coming through the open entrance.
"I'm Del, someone recommended your services, said you could fix anything. I need help getting this vase repaired. Frankly speaking, if you can repair this broken ceramic ware, you can save my life, otherwise my wife is going to kill me for breaking this ugly vase her mother left her. I'm really hoping you are as good as they say." The man's voice turned pleading towards the end of his sentence, as he sat down heavily on the stool beside Harry.
"Here, let me have a look at it. Hmm…sure, I can fix this, but it'll cost ya. 3,000 Beli."
"What! Come on, I'm just a poor baker…"
"You are trying to tell me that your wife's vase, and your life, is not even worth 20 of those cabbage loaves you sell?"
"No! Of course that's not I mean…fine fine, you drive a hard bargain, I'll pay up after you get it fixed."
"Come back tonight after dinner, this will take some time." Harry held out his tanned hand to seal the deal, and the man shook it thankfully.
Truthfully, it would not have taken so many hours for Harry to fix the broken vase; he simply has to use his ability to repair things. Back when he was with the Dursleys, it would have taken him half a day, but his powers seemed to grow and become refined the more he used it, until now he only need a few seconds to get the item fixed. This special skill of his has come especially useful now that he is alone and needs to earn enough money to eat, live and occasionally buy any local specialty that held his fancy.
Life was good. Harry had explored most of the islands in the West Blue, excluding a few inaccessible places such as the 80th Branch of the Marine Base and the Florian Triangle, better known as the 'Zone of Demonic Triangle'. It is a stretch of sea covered in a fog so thick that it blocks out all sunlight. According to a few locals, many pirate and commercial ships mysteriously go missing every year in the Triangle, and sometimes a ship would be found sailing without any people aboard. Harry, though adventurous, was armed with a healthy sense of self-preservation and had no wish to disappear into the unknown before his thirteenth birthday, which is in about a month's time.
Some of the islands he managed to land on were pretty interesting. There was one that the villagers were unusually religious, and worshipped the supernatural. Harry was almost trapped on the island when the villagers discovered his ability to repair anything. They called him the 'God who Fixes', and the tribal chief tried to offer his fifteen daughter up as a virgin bride/sacrifice of sorts after Harry fixed the village's heirloom, a Magic Staff that has been passed down for many generations. The young teenager barely escaped with his clothes intact, and was extremely grateful for his teleporting powers at that harrowing moment. Harry was given the 'Talk' by Dr. Rin about how babies were made, and he had no wish to start joining the baby making process at such a young age. From this incident at the strange island, he learned not to flaunt his abilities openly and only uses them when no prying eyes are around.
He enjoyed the island he had been staying for the past one month in, Toroa, a peaceful village with excellent wine that he had developed quite the taste for. There wasn't much alcohol in it, and yet tastes like a fruit flavored drink that sends bubbles up his nose when he drinks it. The man who made such delicious wine owns the bar, and had a boy his age named Bryon. The blond haired teenager is multi-talented, being able to play many instruments and also following the footsteps of his father in winemaking.
The first time Harry met Bryon, they nearly got into a fight for the brunette had accidently stepped on the guitar lying on the floor and broke the blond's favorite musical instrument. Fortunately Harry managed to sooth the angry young musician by promising to fix it, which he did. Bryon was so amazed at his now repaired and almost good-as-new-guitar that the two quickly became friends.
Harry had much fun listening to Bryon's music while savoring the wine at the island's only bar. Alas, all good things have to come to an end, and Harry decided to return to Ohara, for he missed Dr. Rin, Professor Clover and his friend Robin. It was on this quiet night when he was waiting for the man to collect his wife's vase, when the local newspaper boy broke into the bar shouting something that turned his blood cold.
"The Government has annihilated Ohara! Citizens of the island were found attempting to use forbidden knowledge for global destruction!"
What. The. Hell! This must be a nightmare. 'Yes, I must have fallen asleep at the bar. This is not real!' The devastated boy tried to convince himself otherwise, but deep down, he knew it all felt too real to be a just a dream. Still, Harry refused to believe what he heard and had to verify the horrific news with his own eyes, so he teleported to his boat with a crack. He wished that he could teleport over greater distances, but it seemed that he is unable to teleport over large bodies of seawater for some strange reason.
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The thirteen-year-old boy woke up screaming. His sleep were plagued with the devastation wrought upon Ohara, his imagination running wild, dreaming up dead bodies everywhere, houses destroyed, trees burnt; utter and total destruction on the island.
When he returned to Ohara a few months ago to verify the horrific news, all he could see for miles and miles were the vast sea where the island used to be. Even the great Tree of Knowledge was gone.
There wasn't a single survivor on the island. Days of searching the seas around the island were futile, as he looked for any survivor – Dr. Rin, Professor Clover, and his best friend Robin. The teenager retched when he found the half eaten bodies of Professor Clover and Dr. Rin floating on the sea. There were also other corpses he recognized but he couldn't find Robin's. He had a small silver of hope that perhaps she had escaped before Ohara was destroyed, and wished with all his heart that she was now safe on another island.
Harry cried for ages, until all his tears dried up, and the skies turned dark and the sea started turning stormy. Looking around the empty space around him where the island used to be, Harry swore to find out the truth, and the people responsible for destroying Ohara. Though young, Harry wasn't naïve and certainly didn't believe the flimsy reason given by the Government that the citizens of Ohara were the devils trying to gain knowledge for global destruction.
First things first, he had to try and look for his best friend and possibly only survivor, Nico Robin. She may be able to shed light on this whole thing. In order to find Robin, he would need resources, and if he just earns them the usual way by fixing things, it would take forever to get a decent boat that sails faster and thus making the search quicker. Hardening his resolve, he searched in the sea for anything he could salvage, while carefully avoiding any dead bodies that were still floating around. Harry was able to gather some Beli and jewels that were hidden in wooden chests that survived the destruction. He did a quick calculation and estimated that all in all, his loot were worth about 300,000 Beli. Giving a quite prayer to the previous owners of assets, he took them all and left where Ohara used to be without a second glance back.
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Taking a quick bath in the local inn's facility, Harry started off the day with a stale loaf of bread and water. He had to save up more funds to buy the small cedar Caravel he has been eyeing on. Even if he could afford the ship, he would need to hire enough crew to navigate it. Sighing with frustration, Harry took a hard bite of the bread and flipped through the newspaper. The familiar face of a solemn looking Nico Robin made him dropped the half-eaten loaf.
His best friend's face was on a Wanted Poster, of all things! And the bounty was an astounding 79,000,000 Beli, wanted dead or alive by the Marines! What did the eight year old do to warrant such a huge bounty?
No, no, that's not the important thing here. This is the best news that Harry has had in a long time – the wanted poster indicated that Robin is still alive! She survived the destruction of Ohara against the odds…though how long she will continue to be safe is another story, with the Marines and other bounty hunters after her. Slamming his hand down hard on the table he was sitting at, Harry tugged his hair roughly and wondered how he could find Robin quicker than those after her life.
There was no use rushing head first into unknown territories with a half-baked plan that could get him killed before even reaching wherever Robin was. If there were anything that the Dursleys 'taught' him during the nine miserable years living under their roof, it was that people don't like difficult questions (such as the real reason why Ohara was destroyed) and you don't go against someone bigger and stronger than you head on, not if you want to come out of the situation in one piece.
Running through several options in his mind silently, he made up a few plans and nodded to himself. Yes…that could work. But first, he will need a decent weapon and develop better fighting skills than those self-defense moves Dr. Rin taught him years ago. He briefly considered finding a devil fruit and eating it to gain new strength, but there were a few things stopping him from doing so.
It was true that the mystical fruit can give the eater many different and varying kinds of strange and interesting abilities depending on the type and variation of the fruit itself. However, there was no telling what kind of ability or power the Devil fruit he eats would give him, and even if he could find one, there was glaring weakness. The sea rejects all Devil Fruit users and they become helpless while submerged in water. Given how much Harry loves to swim, it wasn't a weakness he wanted to have.
Harry made a mental list of his current strength and how he could capitalize on it to overcome his weaknesses.
Strengths/ Abilities
- Teleporting (limited to land only; he can't teleport over large bodies of water otherwise he wouldn't need a boat)
- Repairing broken items (and very proficient at it, earning the title 'Fixer' among the West Blue locals)
- Creating a green light in his hands (the largest and brightest light he ever made was filled the entire apartment above Dr. Rin's clinic and caused him to be temporarily blinded for about a minute or two)
- Changing the length and color of hair (his own and others)
- Shrinking solid objects (he had tried shrinking the nasty medicine had to drink when he was sick, but was unsuccessful though he certainly was motivated enough)
- Able to run pretty fast for long distances (his record was running around the entire circumference of Ohara island in less than 30 minutes)
- Reasonably skilled at first aid and basic healing (after he was trained by Dr. Rin, she frequently engaged his help in healing her patients in the clinic)
- Good fisher, able to catch his prey easier and quickly in the sea (though he must admit that sometimes he cheated by asking the local serpent like Sea king for help in herding the fishers to him)
- Able to converse with snake like creatures, such as the aforementioned Sea King and snakes in the forests (Harry still remember the first time Robin heard him hissing to a 6 feet long python that had its long coils curling gently around him. Her eyes grew so wide they nearly popped out)
- Fairly basic at self-dense moves, he would need to brush up on his fighting skills through practice and experience with real life opponents
As Harry's mind was going through this list, his feet were bringing him to the forest, where he can start doing some intensive training.
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Time flies when you are fighting for your life with the vicious creatures and hungry beasts in the forest. Harry had been spending half a year in the huge forest perched on the only mountain on a peaceful island on the outermost part of the West Blue. He trained hard, and survived mostly intact. His fourteen-year-old body was ridden in scars, courtesy of his 'opponents' attacks. Other than the lightning shaped scar on his forehead, his tanned face now bore a horizontal scar straight across the center of his nose when he narrowly escaped getting his head clawed off by a overprotective mother bear.
Harry was fortunate enough to defeat the huge bear in the end. It was in the evening after he had finished training his unique abilities, and was heading tiredly down to the river to catch some fish for dinner when suddenly he was faced with a family of bears – a mama bear and her two baby cubs – who had the same idea for dinner as him.
Using his superior speed, he ducked, swerved turned and did everything his weary body could but it wasn't enough. He simply didn't have enough energy to teleport or use any of his abilities to avoid the ferocious attacks.
Harry felt a sharp pain as the enraged bear scrapped her claws over his nose, and suddenly he was lying down on his back with a crushing weight on his chest. At that moment, Harry dug deep within his reserves, all his self-preservation and well-horned survival skills brought forth and the dam inside broke. To the hell with the fucking bear, he was Harry Potter and he isn't going to go down quietly like this. As the beast lowered her head to probably chew Harry's head off, the fear of being eaten combined with his will to survive no matter what coalesced into a scream filled with power he had never felt before. "NO!"
The word hang still in the strangely silent forest for barely a second, before a wave of something burst out of Harry's trembling body and like a shockwave the nearby leaves and branches were torn away from the trees, flying out in a circular manner with Harry in the center. The bear tensed, before falling down with a heavy thump, seemingly unconscious. In fact, all the creatures within ten feet seemed to have all been knocked out. Harry got the hell out of there and wondered what happened.
Through several trial and errors, he discovered that the new power he had could basically knock out others. Unlike his other abilities, this power was most helpful in avoiding weak-willed creatures he did not want to waste time fighting with. It was also a good finishing move after he had blinded his opponent with his green light, lengthened its fur so that it gets tangled up in the new grown fur, then shrunk the ground cover of the forest floor so that holes are created where it will trip and fall into.
Sometimes, Harry would skin the animal so sell the fur so that he can get some Beli out of it from the villagers. The meat of certain creatures taste especially yummy too. He made a few snake friends and fed them any leftover meat he had, though when he left the forest, none of them wanted to go with him after Harry announced his plans to sail out of the island. The snakes love the land too much to go out of their comfort zone and venture out there in the vast ocean.
The village was too small to have a decent weapon shop, so Harry ended buying a long, sturdy steel rod from a retired sailor. He could use his ability to shrink and lengthen the staff to surprise his opponents; it was a useful weapon all in all with his self-taught fighting style. Sitting on the sandy beach near the sea where his new ship was docked, Harry mediated and analyzed his progress over the past 6 months.
He is now able to utilize his abilities in battles quicker and more effective than before, with an additional bonus of his new power at knocking out others. His stamina and speed have increased significantly from running around daily in the forest. He has also gained quite a far bit of Beli from selling parts of the creatures he defeated.
So the good news is he has improved overall in physical and mental abilities, as well as gathering quite a small fortune of Beli that is sufficient to get the Caravel he had his eye on. Harry was even able to convince a few experience sailors to join him in his voyage and help navigate his new ship.
The bad news is, he had no idea where to start in his search for Robin. The newspapers gave no clues, though the updated Wanted Poster (Bountry of 80,000,000 Beli now!) gave him hope that his friend was still alive out there.
Opening up the Blue Sea map he won off a game of poker in the bar, Harry closed his eyes, randomly pointed to an area before peeking at where his finger landed on. His green eyes shone as he smiled at his luck at choosing the weakest of all seas since the 'Great Age of Pirates' began a few years ago. The Gecko islands in East Blue – this would be a wonderful place to start his brand new adventure and search.
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A/N: I'm writing the fourth chapter now, so it should be up over the weekend. For those who feel that Harry is too weak, note that this will not be a Super-Harry story, at least not so soon.
He is using his self-taught magic wandlessly, and that is already not an easy thing to do. There are limitations to what a teenage wizard can do without a proper wand and tutor, and Harry has to work around these limitations and use his imagination to work around them. Besides, I think I'm already rather generous giving him the power of 'Haki' so early in his adventure.
I'm still of two thoughts on whether to make him a devil fruit user or not, and if yes, what kind of power would he gain. If you have any ideas, feel free to pop them in your reviews, I will seriously consider your feedback.
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Sneak Preview/Teaser of Chapter 4
"Stop following me around, old man! I won't join you as another stupid 'Red Hair Pirates'!"
"Aw, come on, it will be fun I promise you! And I'm not all that much older than you!"
"Listen here, I'm not looking for fun, I have a goal and I have no time to be standing around here explaining things to you that's NOB!"
"NOB? What's that, huh? Hey! Where are you going?"
"Away from you! And NOB means 'None of Your Business', now leave me alone!"
Harry was ready to tear his hair out. Ever since he saved the Red hair pirate's crewmate from a hungry Sea King, the older teenager has been pestering him to join his crew. The emerald-eyed wizard had no wish to become a pirate, and come under the scrutiny of the World Government. That would make his search for Robin all the more difficult. Truthfully, if he didn't have the goal of finding Robin and ensuring her safety, he might consider joining the fun-loving and friendly pirate. However…