"So this is Punk Hazard, huh?" Kaden commented to himself as he dropped from the air to land on the edge of a cliff overlooking the island, wincing as he did so.
It was a mess of a place. He'd landed on the front side of the island, which was a mess of dead trees as far as the eye could see and massive ruins of destroyed buildings that was probably the old research centre used by Vegapunk initially.
His body hurt like hell. Every moment sent a spike of pain through him. It had been just over an hour now since he'd fought Graydle.
It was a wonder he was conscious at all.
Well, he knew why he was conscious.
It was simple.
After he managed to drag himself from the crater he'd been smashed into by that bastard Graydle, he'd made a beeline for the doctors office in the marine tower and ingested a whole lot of pain relieving drugs.
They were great.
So now instead of every fibre of his body feeling like utter agony was coursing through it, it was just proper normal agony.
It would have been nice to stick around until he recovered back there and maybe get a hero's welcome Luffy style, since that guy always managed to get huge parties thrown in his honour.
He couldn't.
He'd just murdered an entire base of marines including a Vice Admiral. And he was massively injured.
He wasn't planning on sticking around and finding out who would pop up to deal with that fact and when.
And there was more of an urgency in him. He needed that copy of Kaido's fruit, yesterday! That was how urgently he needed it.
He was weaker than Graydle, that was a fact. He won through luck. That disgusted him in ways he couldn't put into words.
So after raiding the marine base for all its funds just like he had for G5, and adding the hundred and thirty or so million beri they had in the coffers to his loot, he'd rushed his way here despite the pain.
Thankfully after months of training himself to the limit and getting his shit kicked in by Commodore Yarisugu, his pain tolerance was pretty damn high.
'Besides…Zoans give enhanced healing abilities on top of enhancing the physical abilities at the base.' Kaden thought.
Though that Axolotl fruit was looking mighty tempting right about now as well. Devil Fruits tended to take the natural abilities of animals they were based on in regards to Zoans and ramp them up to the eleven.
That fruit probably had some crazy ass regenerative powers.
It wasn't an option for him sadly.
Well, it was in the sense that he was going to get it regardless, just not eat it. He'd need to recruit allies at some point, he was well aware that to accomplish anything of remote greatness, he'd need allies. He'd need allies regardless unless he wanted to just hide away from the world.
The devil fruit could be a good boost to an ally in the future. The same with the metal metal fruit. Or he could sell them for a shit load of money.
Even the weakest of devil fruits went for over a hundred million beri. A logia like the metal metal fruit? Five hundred million plus easily. And the same could be said for the Axolotl one too. The power to regenerate lost limbs and more? That was incredible.
So yes, sadly for Smiley, even though Kaden needed the absolute power boost and potential the dragon fruit would give him, he was still going to blow that lonely giant slime up and steal the fruit that gave it life for himself.
'Other side of the island it is.' Kaden sighed, kicking off the ground once more and launching himself into the sky, wincing in pain with every kick.
Honestly, it was almost anti-climactic in a way. Just how easy it was to accomplish his objective that is.
The entrance to Caesar's lab was easy to find, granted he already knew the rough area of it. And right now it wasn't hidden by a blizzard.
It was walled off by a huge metal door and a video transponder snail hanging out front keeping an eye on things.
He just had to wait for someone to step out, which didn't take long to be honest, and then with a quick kick off the ground and moving at rapid speeds with Soru, he was inside before the transponder snail could notice a thing.
It was a huge place with metallic walls and flooring spread into the side of a mountain. And it was sparsely populated.
The only residents of the place, were the crippled pirates who had been 'saved' by Caesar floating, who could only move around thanks to his inventions and Caesar himself.
And considering when Caesar wasn't busy in his lab he was drinking himself silly or ordering whores to attend to him and just generally living it up, it meant that he was more or less completely uncontested when he moved around.
And before long he found it.
'There you are.' Kaden's eyes lit up with glee and excitement as he stepped into an abandoned laboratory room and caught sight of his target. A large purple coloured apple with green spots all over it sitting quietly and alone within a display case.
The cloned version of the mythical zoan devil fruit - Fish Fish Fruit Model: Azure Dragon.
Kaden wasted no time, quickly he made his way over to it and with a quick punch of his fist, he shattered the glass display case and scooped it up.
Excitement so palpable rushed through his veins he felt his breath come out in short rapid bursts and his fingers trembled, "One of the greatest powers in this entire world, and you're all mine." Kaden laughed to himself gleefully.
Before quickly stashing it in his pants pocket. Right now, he was only wearing his boots, pants and red tank top, alongside a bevvy of bandages over his torso and arms, stained quick deeply with the blood from his wounds.
He turned on his feet and then disappeared in a blur of speed using Soru.
In just a few minutes he was back outside of the lab and retreating away from it, making his way towards a large alcove where he'd stashed his sack of belongings before infiltrating his lab.
He landed beside the sack, wincing as his ribs throbbed in pain but ignored it mostly and then reached into his pocket and brought out the fruit.
"Thanks a bunch Vegapunk, Kaido." Kaden grinned, before opening wide and biting down on the throat.
Immediately a disgusting, sour taste assaulted his taste buds. If he had to describe it in words, it tasted like rancid mouldy shit that had been left to fester at the very pit of an ancient sewer for a hundred years, and took in every steaming pile of shit everyone who had ever defecated and flushed their feces down into the depths of that ancient sewer.
That was how fucking disgusting it was.
Face screwed up in utter disgust, Kaden powered through and swallowed, before biting again and again and again until absolutely nothing was left.
As soon as he swallowed it all, he collapsed onto his backside, coughing and spluttering in disgust, grasping at his throat as he tried with all his might to force himself not to vomit.
Yet even as he did, he felt it.
Maybe it was thanks to his burgeoning Observation Haki. Or maybe it was just because he was so weak currently that the difference was absolutely notable from the get go.
But he felt it as a rushing sensation go through him, felt a tremble in his muscles, a lightness in his body and even the pain that was assaulting his entire body faded a bit somehow.
'…I've gotta check this out.' he thought, trembling with excitement as he called upon the status screen to see any differences.
And his jaw dropped.
Name: Kaden D. Freeman
Strength: 400.5/10,000
Endurance: 447.7/10,000
Durability: 449/10,000
Agility: 356/10,000
Hand To Hand Combat: 258/1000
Swordsmanship: 241/1000
Gunmanship: 28/1000
Rokushiki: (4/7)
Haki:
Colour Of Armament: 121/1000
Colour Of Observation: 134/1000
Colour Of The Conqueror: 5/1000
Devils Fruit: (1/2)
Fish Fish Fruit Model: Azure Dragon (Unawakened)
"Holy….shit." Kaden gaped, mind going completely blank.
What even…how? What?
What was he supposed to think here?
Beyond the crazy stat increases and his potential jumping twenty times over, what did it mean by one out of two Devil Fruits?
Did that mean he could eat two?
How?
'That's supposed to be impossible, isn't it that if somebody eats a second devil fruit they explode or something?' Kaden's thoughts raced a mile a minute.
But wait…Blackbeard ate more than one fruit.
There was a lot of theories amongst fans on why he could because Oda hadn't revealed why or how yet. But one of the common ones was that Blackbeard had multiple souls.
And each soul could have a devil fruit of their own.
But they were clearly physically oriented and not locked to the soul as well otherwise it would be impossible to clone a fruit like the one he'd just eaten!
But if it did work like that….did it have something to do with how he ended up here? After all, this wasn't his original body. Two separate souls had been in this body at one point and the devil fruit the first had, was long gone.
Did that give him like an empty slot…or something?
"Does…does that mean I could eat another devil fruit right now as well?" Kaden wondered, gaping stupidly up at the sky.
Like could he eat the Metal Metal fruit he had right now and become a metal logia on top of a dragon. Could he become a massive metal dragon logia?
Or wait, what about Smiley's fruit. What if he killed it and took its fruit? Wouldn't he get regeneration on top of everything he already had now as well? And Kaido's fruit had a lot…
And wait, it was a zoan as well so wouldn't it boost his physical abilities just like the dragon devil fruit just had for him as well?
Kaden's hands came up to quickly and agitatedly rub at his face as his thoughts began to rapidly circle.
"Stop, stop stop!" he smacked his forehead and forced himself to stop thinking so much.
It was crazy, out of this world and opened up so many possibilities. But he shouldn't get a head of himself. He just ate one fruit and hadn't even tried anything with it yet.
On top of that, it was best not to rush into things now. If he could eat a second fruit, he'd need to think seriously on the options available to him and what would be best for him.
"Beyond that though….how do I even use the fruit?" Kaden wondered, cupping his chin. He closed his eyes in thought and tried willing himself to turn into a dragon.
And then laughed, because no way it was that simple.
He opened his eyes and found himself very high in the air, "Eh?" Kaden blinked, and looked down.
He could see where he stood a moment ago over twenty feet below him, and a long serpentine body of crimson red scales alongside it, "EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH?!"
"What what what?!" Kaden panicked, head whipping around to look behind him and yep there it was, a huge, long scaly red boy with a mane of golden blond hair.
How. Why?
It shouldn't have been that easy right? Like, it wasn't easy for-
"No wait, Momo transformed as soon as he ate it, and I didn't." Kaden frowned. Actually, a lot of what Momo did with it didn't make sense. He didn't really train with it at all, but used its abilities by accident sometimes.
Yet when he did try to use it fully the first time, he was able to generate the flame clouds easily. And then managed Kaido's Blast Breath, a strong enough one to nearly take out a literal Admiral in one shot after just a few attempts as well.
And then there was his potential increase. He was expecting a big increase for sure….but not that.
"Is it because of Kaido's lineage factor?" Kaden wondered. The seraphim that inherited the Warlords lineage factor inherited their strength and even their skills.
Did the same apply just from the fact that he had consumed a fruit containing Kaido's lineage factor? Did he inherit some of Kaido's own potential through the fruit as well?
"And why am I red?" Kaden had to wondered, making his way over to a small lake near the alcove and look himself over.
He was utterly massive. He had to be between fifty and sixty feet easily. Not quite Kaido's insane size, but he was only fourteen, his size as a dragon would grow as he did, just like it did with Momo.
His scales were a bright burning crimson red, with a paler red underbelly. A long blowing mane of golden blonde hair akin to a cloud started from his skull and went right to his tail, a pair of shiny jagged multi spiked golden horns erupted from his head.
Golden yellow slitted eyes stared back at him from the waters surface, and Kaden had to admit.
"I look badass." he mused, opening his mouth to check out his new maw of huge razor sharp teeth.
Yet, he was strangely disappointed that he wasn't pink. He'd made cool one liners in advance for the last few months after he'd planned on coming to get this fruit.
Like 'only real men can wear pink' and stuff like that!
"This is amazing!" Kaden whooped in joy ten minutes later as he soared through the sky.
Dragons did not fly like a mere bird flapping their wings.
Dragons created clouds and ran through the sky as they pleased as if it were their garden to play in.
Orange clouds glinted around his clawed hands and feet as he tore through the sky, soaring higher and higher until he broke through the clouds themselves and hung there staring up at the giant, bright moon that shone down upon him.
It had taken a few minutes and a few tries to generate the flame clouds, but after he did, it was almost like second nature to him.
His heart thundered in his currently scaled chest and a whooping laughter left Kaden's throat. There was lightness to him he hadn't felt since he ended up in this world.
No…he'd never felt a lightness like this before.
"I get it now Luffy, I understand what you were on about all those times," a giggle left Kaden's maw filled with razor sharp teeth, "This is freedom isn't it? To have nothing chaining you down, to be able to go and do whatever you want. This is what you've always been about huh?"
All his life he'd been chained down. As an unloved orphan with nobody who cared for him. As a struggling orphan working multiple part time jobs and attending school to make something of himself. Then the oppressive weight he felt over himself the last few months after he ended up here and was practically jumping at shadows expecting monster pirates to burs tout of the woodwork and tear him apart, which only got worse when he found out the true origin of how he ended up here, where he felt like the whole world was against him somehow.
With this power though, he had broken his chains and all that tethered him down was now gone.
He could go anywhere he wanted now.
Do anything he wanted.
"…Mostly." Kaden grimaced. Even with this fruit it wasn't like he could fly off to Wano right now and stick it to Kaido and free all those poor people like Tama from the oppression they suffered under through Orochi's inept pathetic rule.
That disgusting freak.
"I could kill him pretty easily, he's trash…." Kaden mused, "One Blast Breath and he's gone for sure."
And if he remembered right, that buck toothed freaks fruit was based on a pineapple. Get in, snipe him in the face with a Blast Breath with a pineapple on hand and then fly away after getting his fruit.
It wouldn't do anything much for the people of Wano, but Yamato would refuse to be Shogun for sure still and then maybe somebody who actually cared about the people would come to power?
Kaden shook his head, "No, no that'd probably get me on Kaido's shit list," he snorted, if he got caught he was fucked, he was already gonna be a public enemy with marines, "It's a nice thought though, besides I've not even tried out the Blast Breath yet."
He cast a look above him, hanging onto the very sky itself between glittering orange clouds, before a grin formed over his large crimson red maw and he opened it wide, "BLAST BREATH!" he roared out with all his might.
A tiny puff of black smoke puffed into existence before fizzling away.
Kaden nodded, "Pretty impressive if I do say so myself!" he beamed at the pathetic little display.
After all, it was better than nothing.
If nothing else, he wanted to get the Blast Breath down before he moved on from Punk Hazard.
It would be perfect for taking out Smiley.
He originally just planned on throwing a few sticks of dynamite in, blowing the huge slime up and high tailing it out of the blast range when it exploded.
Now he could just Blast Breath from above, take it the fuck out and keep safe away from the blast range and with how decrepit the island was, he would definitely have the closest apples to where Smiley was and the fruit should reincarnate in one of his apples.
Granted, there were other things to work on. Like the azure dragon fruit allowed the user to generate lightning, wind and even ice attacks according to one of the games, not just fire. But the fire one was what he needed most right now.
Now to try again!
"BLAST BREATH!" Kaden roared, mouth opening wide and unleashing….another tiny puff of black smoke.
He was totally on the right path.
The next morning, Kaden awoke with a content sigh, eyes blinking open slowly he stared up at the ceiling of the alcove he had camped out in.
"Oh yeah…" he groaned, rolling over and snuggling into his bed for moment, "That was probably the best sleep I ever had."
His bed through the night?
None other than the soft, jiggly, luscious, snuggly, bouncy doughy vibrant orange flame cloud floating a few feet above the ground that he could produce now thanks to his shiny new devil fruit powers.
Flat out, his devil fruit was the best devil fruit in the history of ever, from this ability alone.
'Hmm?' he noticed something as well as he rolled over. He felt no pain at all. Sitting up, Kaden yawned as he felt across his body and stretched out a bit.
But…nope.
No pain at all.
Even without regeneration the recovery ability zoan users had was nothing to sneeze at, at all huh?
Smacking his lips, Kaden reached over to the large sack carrying all his possessions and pulled out a bottle of water.
He took a deep drink of it, before frowning as his stomach rumbled.
Loudly.
So loudly in fact it echoed audibly and sounded almost like a lion or some other big cat growling out loud.
…His stomach had never rumbled like that before, ever. Not in his last body, and not in this other either.
He was so god damn hungry he could eat a fucking Big Mom right now. not sexually though, because she was fucking ugly as sin.
But yeah he'd never felt this hungry before.
'Because of my devil fruit maybe?' he mused. He was in human form right now, but that didn't change that he could shift into a giant dragon with a single thought.
Or a human-dragon hybrid.
It was honestly surprising how easy it was for him to shift between the forms. It definitely shouldn't have been that easy though.
Which led more credence to his theory of him inheriting the skills and ability of Kaido, at least to a degree.
'Too bad this island is pretty much dead right now, nothing to eat here unless I raid Caesar's lab.' he mused.
And he'd really rather leave that fool alone for the moment.
There was really nothing for him to eat around here then. Besides his apples, but he wasn't touching them right now.
He needed them for Smiley.
Kaden sighed and nodded to himself, "I may as well go do it now I suppose." he mused. The quicker he did it, the better and faster he would be able to fly off and get some grub.
It wasn't like there was much to see around Punk Hazard anyway, it became infinitely more interesting after Aokiji and Akainu had a bitch slap contest and turned it into a magma tundra hellhole.
Oh and Monet turned up.
She was really the best thing about that arc.
Well her and Tashigi. Man did Tashigi get thicc later.
Shaking his head, Kaden jumped off of the flame cloud and with a wave of his hand it dissipated away into nothingness.
Something cool he'd found, was that just like Kaido he could use his powers outside of his beast zoan forms. Albeit, weaker than they would be in those forms, but still handy.
He put his bottle of water back in his sack, and made sure the apples were at the top of it before closing the sack and focusing.
His bright blue eyes shifted into a searing glowing yellow gold as his body rippled and grew, crimson scales replacing his skin, his spiky blonde hair growing in length massively and huge horns erupting from his skull as he shifted into his full on dragon form.
Swinging his tail around, he scooped up his stack of belongings before taking to the sky and heading towards his destination, back over on the first half of the island.
He'd noticed it from the second he landed on the island.
Felt it even.
He'd just been ignoring it first until he was ready.
The hugely threatening presence of Smiley. And how could it not be? Smiley was literally a bio weapon of mass destruction given life through a devil fruit.
It didn't do anything unless ordered by Caesar, but that didn't mean he wanted to be anywhere hear the toxic slime axolotl until he was ready to deal with it.
Before long, he arrived at his destination, hovering in the sky atop glowing flame clouds above a huge warehouse building.
The only building still in tact from the ruins left of Vegapunks old laboratory in fact. Honestly, it was very conspicuous.
Which made sense with Caesar being Caesar and all that. He was a picture perfect example of great intelligence not at all meaning wisdom.
Basically, for all his smarty pantsness, he was an utter moron.
Still not somebody he wanted to deal with right now though, especially when he could barely use any armament haki at all.
That gas gas logia fruit of his was no joke at all.
Kaden opened his crimson scaled mouth open wide, and flames began pooling and condensing in his throat-
Before he roared and unleashed his attack, "Blast Breath!" he declared as a massive blazing corona of pure heat erupted from his mouth in the form of a giant blazing conical blast of pure destruction.
The massive corona of destruction slammed into and through the warehouse as if it were made of paper mache and a moment later, erupted in a cataclysmic explosion.
Which was Kaden's que to get the heck out of dodge.
Swerving around like a majestic serpent swimming through the sky and totally not like a big noodly worm flopping around stupidly, Kaden tore his claws through the air and dashed high into the sky, just as a massive explosion erupted from the warehouse expanding to almost gargantuan proportion in both height and width and shaking the very foundations of Punk Hazard.
Straight up and up Kaden went until he hit the clouds and once more burst out of the other side of them thousands of feet in the air and far away from Caesar's ability to detect him.
"He's probably shitting himself right now." Kaden snickered.
Get fucked stupid evil clown.
Shaking his head in amusement, Kaden brought his tail around, dangling his sack in front of his face and opened it by poking one of his huge claws in the opening and peering inside.
And a wide massive green spread across his crimson scaled maw at what he saw.
Twelve apples sat at the top of the contents of the bag. Eleven of them were normal fresh red and juicy apples.
The twelfth and last though, was a dark blue, almost purple, with raised rigid swirling spots across its form almost like clouds in shape in a way.
"Yes!" he cheered. He'd more or less known it would work, because he was literally stealing this idea from Caesar himself.
But that didn't mean he wasn't excited as all hell for his plans to come into fruition like this.
God the last two days had just been crazy for him. Going from a down on his luck petty officer in training, to a Commander, now traitorous commander, with just over three hundred and thirty million beri to his name, slaughtered near a hundred marines, defeated and killed a Vice Admiral in one on one combat, claimed said Vice Admiral's devil fruit that got him that rank, eaten one of the strongest devil fruits in existence and now had just gotten his hands on another!
Everything was coming up Kaden D. Freeman right now!
"…Where should I go from here though I wonder?" he mused as he created a large flame cloud and shifted back into human form and sat atop it, while reaching in to grab one of the eleven non devil fruit apples and crunching down happily on it.
Eleven apples wouldn't satisfy his new hunger at all, but it would tide him by until he decided where to go from here at least.
Righto boys and girls, here we are back again with chapter uno, dos tres, quatro, cinco chaptera poo poo sexy slamming six.
And with this Kaden officially is now a dragon man. A dragon man of a completely different colour than he was expecting. And he is ever so sad about that. Honestly, initially I really was gonna go with the pink version, but people literally begged me to change colours to the point where they literally made photoshops of momo's dragon form to change the scales into a bunch of different colours from green, to purple to crimson red. I eventually relented and it was voted on to go red over any other colour. Honestly, I never saw the big deal in the pink, it looked good in my not so humble, rather grandly awesome opinion.
Anyway, Kaden got the surprise of a lifetime with how massively his potential jumped from the fruit. Anyone who is up to date with the manga currently and been following what's going on in Egg Head, will understand why the fruit giving him Kaido's lineage factor as well that it contained, is very important beyond just the potential.
Beyond that, is the big reveal Kaden can eat two devil fruits, but that won't be relevant for a while. On top of that, he now has two other powerful devil fruits to do as he pleases with. Weirdly, a lot of people thought he was gonna eat the metal metal fruit last chapter. Even one guy who was absolutely raging about it, and calling Kaden a pathetic simp because he stepped in to help some poor women being well, raped. Of course it was a Guest account though, because these people don't even have the balls to review like this on an actual account, but whatever man lol.
Well, whatever, we're up to chapter 13 on the Pa-atreon if you wanna read ahead or not.
Anyway, again, shameless Pa-atreon plug. I've got one, go by the same username on there, easy to find and all that jazz. Support me if you want, it'd be swell, but don't feel pressured lads and ladies, I'll be uploading my stuff outside it regardless and not keeping it all behind a paywall or anything like that.