The Drums of Liberation
Disclaimer: I Don't own One Piece
Chapter 1: Reborn
DEET DEET DEET DEET DEET DEET
"Uuuuuuhhhhhgg" I groaned as my alarm sang the song of its people, and I rewarded it with a smack on its head. "I'm up, I'm up" I told it tiredly as I flipped the covers off of me and shifted my legs off the side of the bed. The alarm of course, said nothing, because alarms can't talk.
I stretched my arms above my head with another groan, and when I was done, I got up for the day.
As I shuffled my way over to the bathroom for a shower, my brain fully booted up and I stopped in my tracks, "wait…it's Friday isn't it?" I sighed heavily, ducking back into my room to check the date.
Yup. Friday.
Damnit.
A few weeks ago I had switched over to the evening shift on Fridays for time and half, which was great for my paycheck and bad for my social life. Yeah yeah, I should have changed my Friday alarm already. I know. The point is, I didn't have to clock in till 1:30pm, and as of right now, the sun hadn't even risen yet! Sighing again in frustration, I immediately went to turn off the light again, but got a nasty electric shock from the switch.
"FUCK!" I jumped and yanked my hand away, almost falling on my ass in the process. I caught myself and kept on swearing, wringing my hand to stop the tingling.
Flexing my fingers, I let out a long, frustrated growl and gazed forlornly at my bed. I was awake now, and probably wouldn't be able to go back to sleep even if I wanted to. I was still pissed at the light switch, it had never done that before! Shaking my head, I walked back into the bathroom. "If I'm up for good, I might as well get ready. I can see if there are any new games on steam." Content with my plan, I went through the motions of getting ready for the day.
After I was showered, dressed, and groomed properly, I headed over to my computer with a bowl of cereal in my hand. Sitting down in my chair, I scooped a spoonful of grape nuts into my mouth and munched away as I powered on my pc and typed in my password.
My set up wasn't super expensive or high powered or anything, but it did the job ok and I've had a lot of fun with it ever since I got it. My favorite type of games were RPGs, not online multiplayer, so I didn't really care so much about the frame rate being absolutely perfect. What I cared about alot more were the characters and the story! I loved open world games the best if they were done well, but a lot of times they were either empty or repetitive, which was a disappointment.
As I opened up the steam store to check what they had, I immediately noticed something new in the 'Featured and Recommended' section! It looked like a One Piece game and was called 'the Drums of Liberation: Rebirth'. I was immediately interested as One Piece was one of my favorite shows, but I was also puzzled. If this was an official One Piece game, shouldn't I have heard of it or seen a commercial for it or something?
My eyes nearly bugged out of my head when I saw that it required 185 gigs of storage! what kind of cell shaded anime game took up that much space?! On one hand, that was ridiculous and super inconvenient, but on the other hand, just how big was this game?! I smiled excitedly as I thought about it. One Piece: Odyssey, which was the latest game before this, was only 35 gigs! And while it was definitely an anime game, it was still really fun for what it was!
I took a look at the summary.
Experience the world of One Piece like you never imagined you could! Travel across the blue seas and the grand line as you see fit! Gain strength and allies! Fight in tremendous battles! Will you be a marine? A pirate? A revolutionary? A bounty hunter? Will you meet up with familiar faces? Or will you forge your own destiny? The stars are the limit in this thrilling sea faring adventure!
Holy Shit! It almost sounded like some type of One Piece fusion between Dragon Ball Xenoverse and Sea of Thieves! And what did they mean the stars are the limit? Doesn't the saying usually say the sky's the limit? Wait…COULD YOU GO TO SKY ISLANDS?! Holy shit! This is hype as hell!
Apparently they were doing a first day limited release discount, which while strange, sorta made sense to me as they probably needed to make up for the lack of marketing. If a geek like me only hears about your anime game on the day of release, your marketing team isn't doing its job.
I was surprised at how steep the discount was though! It went from costing $69.99 Al the way down to $14.49!
Ok… that's WAY too strange. Did the game suck or something? The hype was wearing off a bit. Still, I checked Google for the reviews, and when I typed the title of the game in the search bar, I got the wheel of death.
What!? What the hell is with the Wi-Fi? Am I having electrical problems?
Finally the page loaded, and what I saw got me hyped out of my mind once again! The game had a TON of reviews, and they were overwhelmingly positive! It had an average score of 4.8/5 stars!
Scrolling through I decided to read some of them.
This game literally sucks you into the world of One Piece! 5/5
I snorted. "Wrong use of the term literally, but ok. At least they're enthusiastic!"
What a great start to my adventure! A word of advice for first time players, Haki is absolutely ESSENTIAL at higher levels, and if you don't specifically select conquerors at CC, your chances of unlocking it are ACTUALLY 1/1000000. And that's not an exaggeration! Best adventure I've ever had in my life! 5/5
Wow…literally 1/1000000? That seems… unforgiving. But the best adventure of their life? A bit dramatic, but ok. I'll definitely take the advice about haki though, it will be my only sure defense against logia types, and in the show, all the most powerful haki users are the ones with conquerors unlocked. I went on to the next review.
When I got the chance to play this game, I almost blew it off, but I'm so glad I didn't! This game literally saved me from death and gave me a second chance at life! 5/5
Wow! Did playing the game prevent this guy from committing suicide or something? That's pretty heart warming actually! It must have a great story!
I'd pretty much made up my mind already about buying the game, but just out of curiosity, I wanted to see the worst reviews. I scrolled down and found the only review other than a 5 star, a 1/5. The only problem was, it was in Japanese and I couldn't read it.
Undeterred, I copy pasted the review into an online translator, and the result was… let's say interesting.
I don't like wan pīsu at all now and still went in game when don't know I don't want to. A truck hit me and died. I want to see my family again!
I sighed in frustration at google translate. What the hell does any of that mean?! I wish I knew Japanese so I could tell what the reviewer was actually complaining about! Well whatever. All the other reviews were good, so it probably wasn't that important.
I went back over to steam and bought the game. When I did, a message popped up.
Congratulations on starting your very own adventure in the world of One Piece! Because you purchased the game during the limited time discount period, you will have access to special golden perks during character creation! Once you download the game, go to the special promotion menu and enter the code:
FH55G4H8752K5K7BE09
Thank you for your purchase! ;)
Huh. Cool! I checked how long the game would take to download, and to my disappointment, it would be a few hours. Damned Wi-Fi!
However…if my math was right, it should finish a good bit before I had to take the bus to work. I'd have enough time to play a little!
As the hours ticked by, I checked on the download progress and got more exited the closer it got to completion.
By 12:15 it was almost completely done with an estimated time of 5 minutes remaining. The bus that got me to work on time stopped by at around 1:05pm, which meant I needed to leave my apartment at 12:55 if I wanted to be at the bus stop with enough time to spare.
I thought about it for a bit, wondering if I had time to play a bit. I normally wouldn't risk it, but there was a strange feeling of urgency in my chest, almost like starting the game was important somehow, which was ridiculous! I waffled back and forth about it until the game finished downloading, at which point the game automatically launched, showing me the start screen and began playing We Are.
I smiled in nostalgia.
"I should be ok to check out character creation at least" I decided as I settled back into my chair. I kept one eye on the clock as I typed the promotional code in, and after the extra content was unlocked I clicked on the button that said "New Game". With the sound of crashing waves it took me to the Character Creation screen, and I squealed in excitement! In a way that I assure you was very manly!
Extremely manly! And tough! Like a cowboy or a mariachi singer!
Ehem. Anyway.
The character creator was every bit as bonkers as you would expect a one piece game to have! You could even give your person an extra joint in their arm like Scratchman Apoo! I didn't end up selecting this option, but the fact you could do it was amazing in and of itself!
You could slam all the sliders one way or another and give your character some seriously fucked up proportions, and the funny thing was, none of it looked that out of place for the world of one piece!
Massive upper body with tiny little chicken legs? Douglas bullet. Max size legs and tiny upper body? Longleg tribe. Lean body with massive beefy forearms and giant hands? Franky. It was so bizarre looking and yet so fitting at the same time!
I rubbed my hands together in excitement, "Now the question is, do I want to make myself hot? Or do I go full on Monster factory?" I checked the time. "Hmmmm… I don't have time to really go all out with each and every slider, and a half assed monster is just sad. I'll be serious about it."
Having made my decision, I went to the preset body types, selected masculine, and picked a preset that was a good mix of lean and muscular. If I had to draw a comparison to the bod of an existing character, I'd say it looked similar to Ace or maybe Zoro.
I bumped up my character height to the tallest it could be while still being in the 'normal' height bracket, which was 7 foot 2 inches. He looked a little too lanky now, so I boosted the muscle mass just a little to maintain the look that I wanted. I went over the body type selection, and made sure his legs were just as well built as the rest of his body. I realize that the Johnny Bravo body type is pretty common in One Piece, but it wasn't gonna fly for me!
Happy with the body type selection, I nearly went on to the Face section when I noticed one of the individual sliders off to the side, which was titled 'Endowment'.
I paused, shocked. "Is that what I think it is?!" I went over to the slider, and when I attempted to change it, a message popped up asking me if I was over the age of 18!
Flabbergasted, I nearly shouted, "What the fuck is this game rated?!"
Morbidly curious, I checked the box confirming my age, and was promptly met with full frontal nudity on my computer screen!
Even though I lived alone, I couldn't help the reflex to look over my shoulder to make sure no one had materialized in the room just to catch me looking at CGI video game schlong.
Both horrified and fascinated, I clicked the 'erect' option, slammed the slider all the way to the max, and fucking lost it laughing.
It was fucking massive!
I'm serious! It looked like it was at least two feet long, and as big around as a baby's head! There wasn't a woman alive who'd ever agree to taking something like that!
And then I realized!
Some Women got BIG in One Piece. Like REALLY big. Like Big Mom big.
Big Mom…
Eww.
Now erasing that particular train of thought from my brain!
Curious, I slammed the slider all the way to the other side, and was briefly stunned to silence as it shrunk down to the size of an unripe acorn.
A second of silence went by as my brain caught up to what my eyes were seeing, after which I immediately began a spot on impersonation of a territorial howler monkey.
I laughed so hard tears were in my eyes. My face was red as an apple, and I started getting desperate for breath. I laughed harder than I had ever laughed in the last ten years at least! I was dizzy and loopy and happy as a clam! I hadn't laughed like that since middle school! And that was before… well before shit happened.
There's a reason I live alone with no visitors.
Finally getting control over myself enough to start breathing again, I wiped the tears from my cheeks and refocused on the game.
Giggling childishly, I considered leaving it on the lowest setting.
It would be REALLY funny.
But no. I had decided to go serious, so I'd go serious.
After I had settled a good amount past the middle of the slider, but not too far, my guy had a cock any man would be proud of. I made sure both flaccid and erect sizes were both in order, and then finalized the body.
Moving on to the face, I was again tempted to get really particular with every slider, but one glance at the clock told me I was getting short on time.
I pressed the randomize option until I got a pretty decent one with no super ugly features. My guy had a pretty good jawline and chin, but nothing too crazy. A Straight, well shaped nose that was a bit small, but a few tics on the slider changed that.
The eyes were a tiny bit intense for my liking, sorta like a resting bitch face, but they were well shaped and had good eyebrows that were prominent, but not bushy or cavemanish. I could have fiddled around to make him look more naturally kind, but this was good enough for the time I had, and honestly, his resting expression looked kinda badass!
When it came to colors and hairstyles, I started off with skin tone. The preset body I had started with had been quite pale, so I darkened the skin tone to a healthy tan similar to Red Haired Shanks. For his hair, I messed around with the color wheel until I settled on a deep vibrant purple that reminded me of Spyro the dragon. After making sure his eyebrows, eyelashes, facial and body hair all matched with his head hair, I moved on to eye color.
While it wasn't as wacky as cyberpunk 77, there was still a lot of color options! I eventually ended up picking a wonderful shade that reminded me of liquid gold, which went very well with the purple hair.
Something that was interesting though, was that while there were options for hair quality, there was no option to change the hairstyle! I looked around a bit and found a note at the bottom of the hair options that explained the lack of options.
Hairstyles can be customized in game by people capable of cutting hair.
As for hair quality, I went for the type of spiky wavy flame-like locks that seemed to only exist in anime.
I looked around for tattoos and scars, but a similar message to the hairstyle was there
Tattoos can be gained in game from a tattoo parlor.
Scars may be gained in game based on player action.
Super strange right? I checked back over everything, and finding it satisfactory, I went on to the final section of the character creator.
Perks:
These will determine the strength and talents of the player and the circumstances with which you start the game.
I scrolled through the list and looked for a perk that would guarantee conquerors haki like that one review recommended. The only perk I could find that did, was one of the two golden perks that had been unlocked by that code I got. The two perks were:
Prodigy of Will
You have an inborn talent for all three types of haki. Your natural instincts will guide you to use and develop your haki in the most efficient and powerful way possible. It is extremely difficult for you to pick up bad habits when it comes to any of the three types of haki. Note: while observation and armament haki can be unlocked deliberately through training, conquerors can only come forth in genuine adversity.
A lucky find:
As soon as you start the game you are given a high class devil fruit. Note: High class devil fruits include ancient zoans, logia, and mythical zoans.
Note: the player may only select one golden perk.
It was honestly pretty hard to decide. I know that one reviewer said conquerors was the most valuable option, but potentially getting a logia or mythical zoan right off the bat was pretty nuts!
Then again, even if I didn't get a good fruit now, I could potentially find one later in the game. If I didn't lock down conquerors now, it was pretty much guaranteed I would never obtain it.
Well, when I thought of it like that, the answer was pretty obvious.
I selected Prodigy of Will, and A lucky find immediately grayed itself out. Now that I had selected a golden perk, I had some regular perks to select as well. Unlike golden perks, these weren't free. They cost perk points, of which I had six. Some of the perks had a point cost of more than six though, which confused and irritated me until I realized that you could take on flaws that gave you more perk points.
After looking over both the list of perks and the list of flaws, I realized that I needed to take at least one flaw.
Why? Because the perfect perk to pair with Prodigy of Will costed 8 perk points.
Monster bloodline
Your body performs on a level outside the norm, allowing the player to rise to the pinnacle of strength, speed, healing, toughness, and stamina. -8PP
If haki functioned in this game like it does in the manga and the show, then great haki is best paired with great physical ability!
Think about it. What use is sensing something coming if you're too slow to get out of the way? What good is having great amounts of armament to multiply the force of your attacks, if the base attack is weak as hell?
So yeah. I don't know exactly how the game mechanics will work, but I'm willing to bet these two perks will get along like chocolate and peanut butter!
There were other perks that boosted the players mental performance, including one titled "genius" that was also 8PP, but I figured in One Piece that wasn't as important, as I could just gather intelligent allies.
Anyway. I went over the list of flaws, and most of them were quite unsavory. Almost all of them change the player character's "personality" in some negative way. And while I wasn't sure how that would work in terms of game mechanics, I didn't want to end up being limited in my dialogue choices or end up with one of my favorite characters hating my guts because I have an "offensive personality" or something.
However, there was one flaw I could get behind:
Unnerving History
Your backstory unsettles most people who hear it. The people who know of your origins most likely view you as an unnatural existence, and the truly superstitious will view you as a demon and may even attack you with minimal provocation. +4PP
While the explanation was a little odd, this was the only flaw that gave a decent amount of perk points and didn't directly affect the players "personality" in any way.
And if I have a creepy backstory, so what? I'll enjoy freaking out NPCs and getting into even more fights! It's a win-win as far as I'm concerned!
With the flaw taken I now had 10 total perk points to spend, and immediately spent 8 of them on Monster bloodline.
With that perk taken, I had 2 points left.
Looking through the remaining perks I eventually picked these two:
Driven:
The player feels restless when not engaged in something productive. The player is able to perform difficult tasks for a longer amount of time. -1PP
I figured it would let me grind more efficiently or something. And the second was:
Pleasing scent:
You almost always smell nice. It takes a lot to make your BO noticeable, and so long as you wash regularly, you never have to deal with smelling bad at all. Animals are more likely to be friendly, and women are much less likely to think you're disgusting.
That last one I'll admit is kind of useless, but I needed some charisma benefits to offset my creepy backstory or whatever, so that's the one I picked.
Checking the time, I only had 5 minutes before I had to leave for the bus, and after looking over my selection, I realized I was quite pleased about it. Making doubly sure everything was in order, I picked a good voice that sounded strong and masculine, but not too gravelly or ridiculously deep. It sounded like the voice of a strong, capable, young adult male.
Alright! Let's get this game started! I'll have to save and quit right away, but I was actually super pleased with my character, so I didn't have a problem with it.
As I clicked the 'Start My Adventure' button, my adult character shrank into a small child version of himself, about age 10 if I had to guess. His hair was quite long, and seemed to defy gravity, sticking out in every direction in a mane of soft spikey locks. Like an afro of purple colored super saiyan spikes.
Wow. I was definitely heading to an in-game barbershop or whatever and changing my hairstyle as soon as possible after I got home from work.
However, instead of playing an intro cutscene or some type of narration, another message popped up:
Congratulations! You have successfully set up your journey in the world of One Piece, and saved yourself from permanent death! Begin soul link?
What in the hell kind of Isekai style role play is this?
Oh well. Not my cup of tea, but could be fun anyway.
I clicked on 'Yes', and immediately my computer shut off.
"What the hell?!" I checked the monitor connection, and the power chord, but everything was plugged in properly! My lights and ceiling fan were still on so my power hadn't gone out, but my computer had died! I checked the run lights on the computer block itself, and they were all completely off. I tried pressing the power button, but nothing happened no matter how many times I tried!
"Fuck!" I sat in silence for a few seconds, and on top of everything else, I noticed I had developed a nasty headache. "Oh fuck me with a cactus! Did I just get hacked?!"
Looking at the time and realizing I had to go, I massaged my temples to try and get rid of the headache, but it didn't get any better. I got up and grabbed my coat, putting it on. I grabbed my keys off the hook by the doorway, and made sure I had my phone and my wallet with me. I grabbed the lanyard with my security ID for work on it and threw it around my neck.
Lacing up my shoes, I continued cussing up a blue streak, and my weird headache progressively got worse. Going out my door and locking it behind me, I jogged down the flight of stairs and started speed walking toward the bus stop.
Suddenly I started remembering all the weird shit about the game. "I'm such an idiot!" I realized, "what kind of triple A game is that heavily discounted on the first day?! And One Piece Odyssey only came out a few months ago!" I shook my head in frustration as I weaved my way through pedestrians, who looked at me like I was crazy for talking to myself. My headache only got worse and I winced in pain.
As I arrived at the bus stop, I checked the time on my phone, and relaxed a little when I realized I had time to spare. Putting my phone back in my pocket, I sat down on the empty bus stop bench and continued berating myself, this time keeping my thoughts non verbal, "Seriously what was I thinking?! If there was an actual One Piece game that massive, It would be revolutionary! It would be advertised all over the place! I should have known it was too good to be true! But wait…I looked it up online and there were reviews! Lots of reviews!"
My train of thought was interrupted as I began to hear the sounds of the bus' engine, and I stood up from the bench and came closer to the curb to make sure I would be visible to the driver. The public bus chugged around the corner and came noisily to a stop, its old shitty brakes making a shriek like nails on a chalkboard.
I winced at the noise on account of my headache, but didn't pay it any mind. The bus always sounded like that. So long as it did the job, I didn't care if it wasn't the most glamorous. The sound did seem a little bit worse than usual though, but that was probably just because of my headache, which was STILL GETTING MORE PAINFUL.
It had turned into a full throbbing Migraine, and the pain was weirdly spreading down my neck to my upper back. The bus doors opened and I got on and found a seat by a window. As the bus started driving again, I put my head into my hands, and gritted my teeth.
This was bad! The pain had spread all the way down my back to my tailbone, and now my limbs were tingling and my chest felt tight!
I was just about to call in sick, because I couldn't work like this, when all of a sudden I felt a weird pop, like a chiropractic adjustment, and the pain disappeared!
I coughed a few times as it was suddenly easy to breathe again. "What the hell was all that? Should I get myself checked out?"
My thoughts were interrupted by my text tone sounding from my pocket. Checking my messages, I had some new ones from someone named 'One Piece Rebirth Manager' which was impossible, as I had never added any such person to my contacts! Was this a prank? The messages read:
(Soul link compete)
(Congratulations! You're
now all set to begin your
adventure!)
(You're welcome ;))
I immediately texted back.
(Who the hell is this?!)
…
(Just like it says on the
contact name! :))
(You'll thank me later 3)
(You would've died anyway
and vanilla death sucks! XP)
(Very boring!)
I scowled at the excessive use of emojis while trying to decode what the hell they were talking about. Their name had One Piece in it, were they talking about dying in game? Or were they threatening me?!
The bus' suspension groaned as it went down a hill and its worn out brakes started screeching again as it prepared to stop for a red light. As I was wincing at the noise (it was worse than normal) suddenly it was accompanied by an awful low pitched grinding sound.
Just as the other passengers and I started looking around nervously, there was a loud metallic snapping noise. The bus made an awful lurch, and then we started freely accelerating down the hill with no brakes.
My stomach dropped like a stone, my eyes wide with fear. I made a weird gagging noise and reflexively kicked the air under the seat in front of me, my leg looking for a brake pedal that didn't exist.
I could hear the desperate thumping of the bus driver's foot against the now useless brake pedal, and she quickly put the hazard lights on and slammed her hand on the center of the steering wheel and kept pressure on, blaring the horn. A marvelous job under pressure all things considered.
It wouldn't matter.
There wasn't anyone in front of us to rear-end, but all that meant was that we freely rolled straight into the intersection. I looked out the window to my left, my right hand against the glass, and the last thing I saw was a Cadillac Escalade barreling full speed toward us, the driver on his phone.
A/N: Howdy everyone! This is my first attempt at fan fiction and I hope I've done a good job so far! If you couldn't easily tell, my MC is male lol. I think I checked all the boxes, including having him recognize the make and model of the SUV about to kill him. XD
Hopefully I didn't overdo it, I want him to be a character, not a caricature. I'm trying to shoot for a sad grumpy dork that still has a good heart and sense of humor!
I'll try to update again soon with some events actually taking place in the one piece world, but since this is a casual thing, I'm not sure exactly when that will be.
I love comments and appreciate constructive criticism, so if you see an error or a typo or just want to share your opinion, feel free! :) Y'all have a great day!