Welcome to the next chapter already!
Nothing much to say except I hope you enjoy the obvious chapter where our hero meets the Strawhats.
Lumen hummed a few random notes to himself as he walked through the thicket of trees on the island he'd landed on, playing with the Taka medal in between his fingers as he kept moving it around.
Eventually, he reached a small clearing, looking around and nodding to himself "Looks good." he muttered as he pulled the OOO Driver out of nowhere, a trick he didn't fully understand, but blamed on Rider physics being weird, and placed it over his waist, a silver belt wrapping around him with the scanner attached to the right side of the belt and the medal holder on the left side, though his own medal holder was customized and could hold even more medals than normal.
Flipping it open, he grabbed the yellow Tora medal and the green Batta medal, grinning slightly as he flipped the Tora medal into the air, slotting the Taka and Batta medals in, before grabbing Tora out of the air and putting it in the middle slot and tilting the driver down towards the left as it started to pulse while he grabbed the scanner and swiped it across, taking the same pose as the previous OOO, Hino Eiji.
"Henshin." he uttered simply as he rested the scanner over his chest as the holographic apparitions of all the medals appearing spinning around him, and catching his eye were apparitions of the orange and black medals even, making him grin as he realised what that meant, but before that…
"TAKA! TORA! BATTA! TA-TO-BA! TATOBA, TATOBA!"
The apparitions settled on the hawk, tiger and grasshopper images, forming a crest with all three animals that slammed into his chest, generating the armor over his body.
The armor was mostly black in color, with the head having a red, hawk inspired motif on the front with green, compound style lens over the eyes, and the portion of his chest emblem having a small hawk within it.
The arms and torso had yellow lines over it and yellow piece of armor, along with a set of claws on each arm that he could flip out with just a thought, making the tiger portion on his chest glow and growl each time.
Finally, his legs had green lines and armor bits on it, and the bottom portion of his chest symbol had a grasshopper in it, which glowed whenever he willed his legs into actual grasshopper legs.
Grinning behind his mask as he studied his morphed legs, he crouched down, before pushing upwards with all his strength, sending himself high into the air as he saw the ocean from a high viewpoint.
Then he noticed something getting close towards the island, and the eyes in his helmet flashed as they focused on what it was, letting him see a caravel with a goat head at the front, a boy with a straw hat sitting on it, and flying a black flag with a skull and crossbones wearing that same straw hat.
When his eyes trailed back down to the boy, he was staring straight at him in surprise, before he fell back down into the forest below.
Meanwhile, over on the Going Merry…
"Hey! Usopp! Did you see that?!" Luffy called up to the crow's nest from his special seat on Merry.
"You mean the thing that shot up into the air and then fell back down? Yeah, I saw it, not sure what it was tough, too far to tell." Usopp shot back down.
Just as he expected, Luffy had his grin in place as he looked back at the island "Alright! Full speed ahead! I want to see what the mystery thing was!"
"Well, I guess we could use the island to stock up on fruits and anything else we find, that way we'll be spending less money in Loguetown." Nami muttered, before nodding and turning towards the kitchen "Sanji! Adjust our course towards the west!"
"Your will is my command Nami-Swan!" Sanji called out as he immediately adjusted the ship's course.
"Stupid… cook…" Zoro muttered in his sleep, somehow being able to tell Sanji was obeying Nami's every word.
Meanwhile, back with Lumen, he had landed on his feet and undid his transformation, before walking towards the shore, recognizing the Jolly Roger as belonging to the main characters of the series, so he knew they wouldn't just outright attack him.
At the same time, he was working out a cover story to tell them, and he was sure he had one that would work well.
As he reached the beach, he saw the ship was much closer, close enough even that he could make out the people standing on it.
The captain, and idiot of a young man who ate Gum Gum Fruit and became a rubber man, Monkey D Luffy.
Up on the crow's nest stood the sniper of the crew, Usopp, known for being a chronic liar.
And the last visible person on the deck was the navigator, a young woman who loved collecting treasure, Nami.
He was sure there should be two other crew members as well, the three swords using swordsman, Roronoa Zoro, and the chef who can kick your ass and look stylish at the same time, Sanji.
"Hey!" Luffy called out to him and waved his arms up in the air.
"What are pirates doing all the way out here?!" Lumen shouted back at the ship.
"We saw something jump super high in the sky and came to see what it was, and we're grabbing anything we can find for food too!" Luffy called back, and Lumen could see Nami sighing at how open with their plans Luffy was.
"Come ashore then! I'm sure I can help you find what you're looking for!" Lumen called back one last time.
"OK! Thanks!" Luffy shouted before turning back to his crew and speaking at a more normal volume where all Lumen heard were murmurs as the ship steadily got closer.
When it did finally dock at the shore, he saw four of the crew members coming onto the beach, with Zoro staying on the ship, probably as a form of precaution.
"Welcome to this little island I've been exploring. In front of you you'll find trees, trees, oh, and trees." Lumen said with a joking grin.
It got him some amused reactions from the crew members, though Luffy was alright chuckling "You're pretty funny." the captain said with a grin.
"I do try sometimes." Lumen admitted with a shrug "So, you said you wanted to know what that thing that jumped up high was, right?"
"Yeah! Do you know what it was?!" Luffy asked excitedly.
Lumen slowly grinned "You're looking at it."
That threw them for a loop "Huh?" they all said at the same time.
"Ok, this is going to take a few minutes to explain." Lumen said as he figured out what to open with "Have any of you ever heard the tale of the Multi King?"
Nami, Usopp and Sanji's eyes widened, and Lumen was surprised by that little confirmation.
"I thought that was just a story parents told kids to keep them in line 'If you don't behave the Multi King will rise from the grave and steal everything you own.' you know, stuff like that, you mean he was real?" Usopp said in barely a whisper.
"As real as all of us." Lumen said, rolling with the opportunity "And I found some of his possessions right here on this little island, no tomb though, so I doubt this is where his kingdom was. The objects I found though were just as important as the kingdom itself though." he started before pulling out the Driver and three of the medals "What I have dubbed the OOO Driver, the object the king used to access the power of these, Core Medals, medallions created through alchemy that each harness the power of one animal, all coming in sets of at least three of the same color, and all following a theme." he said before switching out the medals for the three yellow medals "For example, this one is large felines."
"How many of these are there?" Nami asked as she eyed the medals with a curious eye, wondering if they had any monetary worth.
"From what I've gathered so far, there are at least 8 sets of core medals, all in different colors, and each representing a different animal, which thus give different abilities." Lumen explained.
"What kind of abilities?" Sanji asked as he let out a puff of smoke from his cigarette.
"Well, from what I've been able to translate, since the writing was old and a bit worn, the abilities are all related to the animal depicted on them. Such as the Hawk medal granting perfect vision over long distances, Tiger granting a powerful set of claws, and Grasshopper allowing the user to jump extremely high. From the ones I don't have, I know that the Gorilla medal would grant me super strength, and the Orca medal would let me breathe underwater." he listed off a few of the abilties. "And to use all three of the same color is called a Full Combo, with the abilities complimenting each other. Lion can emit a bright light, Tiger has claws as I already said, and Cheetah has high speed."
"How many do you have?" Usopp asked, curious.
"7 so far, two of which are full sets, however I can't use a Full Combo just like that, they are powerful, but they also tire out the user." Lumen added with a shrug.
"Did you test one out?" Sanji asked with a raised eyebrow.
Lumen knew this was a lie, but he was already certain of the effects, so it was acceptable in his mind "Yes, I only took the form for less than a minute and felt on the verge of passing out, though I believe it's possible to build up an immunity to it by enough exposure to Core Medals."
Luffy looked at him "So… you used the medals to jump super high then, right?"
"Exactly. I used these three to do it, as I found it's the combination to have the most balance." Lumen answered, showing off the Taka, Tora and Batta claws.
"Cool so you're like one of those… Cimora things, right?" Luffy asked excitedly.
"You mean Chimera, Luffy." Usopp said plainly.
"That's what I said." Luffy shot back, oblivious to his mistake.
Lumen laughed a bit at the byplay "Essentially, the armor does make me like a sort of humanoid chimera yes, and I decided to give it a name based on a few stories I've heard, even though the Multi-King wasn't worthy of the title."
"What's the name then? Must be big if the king wasn't worthy by your standards." Nami asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Kamen Rider OOO." Lumen said with a grin "You see, Kamen Riders are supposed to be heroes who save the weak and helpless from monsters, and I got OOO from some of information I found on the Multi-King which referred to him as King OOO."
"I don't think I've ever heard of Kamen Riders though." Sanji said in thought.
"That's because the stories about them are told only on my home as far as I know." Lumen said simply, already having figured out how to explain it.
"Hey, why was he called King OOO though?" Usopp asked, curious about that bit.
"It stands for Over Infinity, the first two O make the infinity symbol, while the third is supposed to symbolise going beyond infinity." Lumen said. "It's pretty obvious the king was overconfident in his abilities."
"How did you figure out most of this stuff?" Sanji asked, curious.
"Well, I managed to find a few old scriptures dating back to the king's time, but now their pretty much lost at sea after some dolphins that are far too smart in my opinion towed away my boat and left me stranded here." Lumen said in the most perfect deadpan possible.
They all looked at him, blinking a few times "Those dolphins sound like a pain alright." Nami muttered.
"So, what are you planning on doing now?" Usopp asked.
"I was hoping you could give me a ride to the nearest populated island, I'd be willing to work off the transport by helping around your ship." Lumen said with a shrug.
"I got a better idea!" Luffy said with a grin.
"Oh boy, here we go." Nami groaned with a facepalm, knowing what was coming.
"I want you to join my crew!" Luffy said, his eyes shining "It would be so cool to have a superhero on my crew, plus you're like, super smart, right?"
"Well, I'd say I'm more on the above average level of intellect than Super Smart… thanks for the compliment though." Lumen said with a smirk.
"Do you know your way around a ship?" Sanji asked, hoping that maybe Lumen would join so he could have someone to hold a conversation with.
"Yeah, my dad was a Marine." he said, altering the truth just slightly to fit into this world.
"Wait, seriously, your dad's a Marine?!" Usopp shouted in shock, looking a little worried.
"Keyword, Was, he's retired now after an injury." that part at least was the truth, his father was wounded in the line of duty, having his leg permanently injured and slowing him down, so he was honorably discharged.
"Well… I guess that's better." Usopp said with a relieved sigh.
"I hope it is, my mom was a Marine remember?" Nami shot at Usopp with a slightly annoyed face.
"Uh, right, sorry, slipped my mind for a moment." Usopp said with a nervous laugh.
"So, does that mean you know Marine stuff?" Luffy asked Lumen with a grin.
"I know how they run their ships and the most likely actions they are to take in case of battle." Lumen said with a smile, though honestly he was hoping that the Marines of this world acted like the Navy Seals did, with any luck, they did.
"Cool! Then you could be our Specialist on Marines!" Luffy shouted with a grin.
"That's… actually a good idea." Nami said, surprised as she turned to Luffy "And where did you learn the word specialist from?"
"My gramps whenever he visited back home." Luffy said with a shrug, and they accepted that response.
He then turned back to Lumen "So, what do you say?" he said as he held out his hand.
Lumen looked at it for a few moments, before smiling and shaking Luffy's hand "I say I'm happy to come aboard Captain."
"Great!... oh, hey, I just realised you didn't tell us your name." Luffy said plainly, making the others facefault.
Lumen laughed sheepishly as he picked himself up, and remembered that all the examples he had seen from this world put the family name first "Right, the name's Arcus Lumen, pleasure to meet all of you."
Luffy nodded with a grin "I'm Monkey D Luffy, the man who's gonna be Pirate King! That's my Sniper, Usopp, my Navigator, Nami, and my Cook, Sanji. And my swordsman, Roronoa Zoro, is on the ship right now. Oh, right! The ship is called Going Merry, almost forgot to introduce her."
They all nodded as they were introduced, except of course for Zoro who was out of earshot and the Merry, because, well, it's a ship, it can't nod.
"At least it's someone sensible this time." Nami said with a small sigh, before smiling a bit.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Usopp said with a glare.
"You're a chronic liar, do I really need to explain more?" Nami shot him a look that translated to 'Disagree and there shall be pain'.
In return, Usopp gulped fearfully and took a few steps away from her.
"Anyway." Nami cleared her throat, getting everyone's attention "So, Lumen, as you're part of the crew now, I just thought I'd let you know that I'm the one who handles our money, and, since I assume you lost most of your stuff because of those dolphins, I'll let you a bit of leeway with your next purchases and expect to be payed back with a portion of the next treasure we find, but, you can only buy essentials."
"Sounds fair, so, basically, all I need are a few shirts, pants, and I guess a coat." Lumen said with a nod.
Nami nodded as she did the mental calculations "Right, so if you don't get too much, I think that should go to 8000 Berries, and with the money we got recently… it's an acceptable purchase."
"I'm surprised you aren't asking him to sell those medals of his." Usopp said with a raised eyebrow.
"They create his armor right? So if he sells them, he can't fight, I may like money, but I'm not cruel enough to make one our members unable to defend themselves." Nami said with a shrug.
"If I may?" Lumen said while raising his hand, getting their attention "I found a cave earlier in the forest, it's got a low ceiling, but I think it might be possible to find ores and minerals in it." that bit was truthful, he had seen the cave while looking around for a spot to test the Driver out, and made sure to note its location in the back of his mind.
Nami grinned "Well, I guess in that case you can pay for your clothes in advance, if we do find anything worth it that is."
"Maybe we could find some salt rocks in it." Sanji muttered in thought.
"That would definitely reduce the amount of things we need to buy at Loguetown." Nami said with a nod before turning to Lumen "Can you take us there?"
"Sure, it's not too far from the beach." Lumen said as he pointed back into the trees.
"Alright, in that case, Sanji and I will go with you. Usopp, Luffy, you two grab fruits off the trees and get them back to the Merry." Nami ordered the two more childish members away, knowing bringing them into a cave was like asking for rocks to fall on their head.
"Well, before we go then, I should probably put the armor on." Lumen said as he brought the Driver up before putting it on his waist, making his new crew members blink at the belt that formed.
"Cool! I wanna watch this!" Luffy said with a bright grin.
Lumen chuckled at that "Alright then." he said as he brought out the three main medals, flipping Tora upwards as he slotted Taka and Batta in, before catching Tora out of the air and slotting it in as well.
Tilting the Driver, he passed the Scanner over it and placed it in front of his chest as he uttered "Henshin."
"TAKA! TORA! BATTA! TA-TO-BA! TATOBA, TATOBA!"
They all stepped back a bit as the armor formed on him, with Luffy's eyes practically turning into stars as he watched "That's so cool!"
OOO grinned underneath his mask at the words "It's pretty awesome yeah. So, when I'm like this, just call me OOO."
Nami rose an eyebrow before shrugging, not seeing any issue with the request "Alright then, we'll follow you to the cave OOO."
He nodded, and turned towards the forest before starting to walk, Nami and Sanji following after him, while Usopp went back to the ship to get baskets to carry fruit in.
As for Luffy, he sat down on the sand with a happy grin "A new crew member… awesome! Shishishi!"
Meanwhile, OOO, Nami and Sanji had quickly reached the cave, having to bend down to get inside, though it quickly widened out the further they got in, with OOO being able to identify mineral deposits near the entrance easily, though, most of it was rather worthless unless sold in bulk, but they did find plenty of salt rocks.
As they got deeper though, it started to get darker inside the cave.
"We can't see anything like this." Sanji muttered as he tried to peer through the darkness.
"Dammit, I can just smell the treasure nearby as well." Nami muttered in annoyance.
"I have something that can help then I think." OOO said as he switched out medals in the dark.
"LION! TORA! BATTA!"
As the new helmet was applied, OOO simply had to focus for a few seconds to activate its power, generating a light from it, illuminating the caves around them, and allowing Sanji and Nami to see the new helmet.
It was mostly black like the previous one, but had golden spikes around it to imitate the appearance of a lion's mane, the eyes being tinted a dark blue color as the small gem on the helmet's forehead shined. The only other change was a lion's head replacing the hawk on the top of the chest piece.
At the same time, Nami noticed something about the area around them.
It was glinting.
Looking around, her eyes widened along with her grin as she realised they were surrounded by bright looking stones embedded into the walls, ceiling and floor of the cave.
And bright looking stones equalled gemstones, which equalled lots of money.
She turned to OOO who had noticed this as well "I can officially say that you and I will get along just perfectly."
OOO chuckled a bit at that while Sanji smiled in amusement, before eyeing the stones around them.
"With this many gems we can probably get enough money to stock up on a month's worth of food, or more if we get a padlock for the fridge so Luffy stops going through it." he said as he thought about how to ration the amount of food they could buy.
"Padlock is added onto the list of things we definitely need to buy at Loguetown then, how much food will we have then?" Nami agreed with a nod.
"I'd say… 4 months worth of food." Sanji recalculated quickly and answered with a firm nod.
"Wait, Luffy is that much of a glutton?" OOO asked in surprise.
"Sometimes it's worse. Oh! Word of warning, keep your food safe when you're eating or he might try and steal it off your plate." Nami said with a sigh.
OOO nodded, grateful for the heads up, as he tried to find a way of easily digging through the walls.
It took some thinking, but eventually they settled on Sanji making precise kicks to loosen some of the rocks and OOO prying them out with the Tora claws.
They managed to get quite a good haul, judging by Nami's wide smile as she carried several precious stones in her hands and pockets.
When they got back to the shore, they could see the ship had been pulled slightly closer and that Zoro was helping to bring up the baskets of fruits onto the ship.
The green haired swordsman did notice their arrival though, turning to them with a raised eyebrow "So, you're the new guy right?"
OOO nodded "That's right, and I'm guessing you're Zoro?"
Zoro nodded, before looking at the armor with a curious eye "So… anything about that armor make you use swords?"
"Well, yes actually." OOO said before pulling out the Kamakiri medal and switching it in.
"LION! KAMAKIRI! BATTA!"
With the change done, they could see the new armor piece featured, obviously, a mantis in the middle of the chest, with green lines and pieces covering his arms, and a pair of blades on the underside of the gauntlets, which flipped forward and extended with a flick of his wrist, turning into a pair of reversed grip swords.
Zoro looked at the blades closely "These look pretty good… can you use them though?"
OOO shook his head "No, the most I know on how to use these would probably be horizontal swings."
Zoro nodded "Yeah, if you want to be able to chain attacks together quickly, but to really put power into your swings, make them rising, flicking the wrist up at the same time for a longer swing, though, you need to be able to throw a punch as well."
"That, I can do." OOO said with a nod, stepping back to demonstrate as he did a few practice punches, while also applying Zoro's tip.
Zoro studied his form closely, before nodding in satisfaction "Alright, you got the gist of it from what I can tell, but you aren't much of a fighter, right?"
OOO shook his head "Not really, I have had a few fights before, but I'm expecting a lot more from here on out, so I should get my body in better shape."
"Good thinking on that at least." Zoro approved, nodding at the logic.
"Alright guys! I made a decision on something!" Luffy announced suddenly, getting everyone's attention "We're going to stay here for a few days so Lumen can get up to speed on fighting, and we're gonna be training a bit as well!"
"I said to call me OOO like this." OOO muttered, but still nodded, smiling thankfully at his new captain from under his helmet.
"I guess it would be a good idea to brush up on our skills before entering the Grand Line, plus, we can try and extract more gems from that cave at the same time." Nami agreed with the order "Good call for once Luffy!"
Zoro turned to Nami with a deadpan stare "Money hungry witch."
OOO chuckled lightly to himself "This is going to be one heck of a cruise."
Marie, reading her brother's words as the chapter ended, smiled to herself, happy that he was in good hands from now on, and knowing he would be having fun.
Such was the life of a strawhat pirate after all.
And there!
That's right, off screen training.
Lumen needs it to be of actual use to the crew.
And yeah, Nami is already liking him due to find a large stash of gems and minerals XD
To anyone who thinks the ship is going to happen quickly because of that, don't worry, it's more that she sees him as a friend because of that.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed, and see you all next chapter.