Here again with another chapter that I hope most of you will like, but first, two guest reviews:
Mystery56: I'm very happy that you liked, but I'm not going make any promises of more frequent updates, sorry.
Guest (Sep12): Happy that you like.
You got that right, his crew will still have some low-rank marines as without name to help run the future operations, but also like Luffy will have special members, kind like in mobas with minions and champions. Some will be canon characters, like Tashigi, but a few will be OCs just like Torlo.
I don't know what the final number will be, this is something we will have to figure out together XD.
DISCLAIMER: I don't know if I should do this or not but whatever, I don't own anything here apart from my OC's.
May have grammar errors
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Marine Base, Mel Island
"Now everyone listens, here on the base…"
After entering the base the marine leading the crew from Marineford, CPO Jeorge turned and gave them a brief introduction of the rules of the base, they are nothing of new, and just by looking at the way the CPO talked all of them could see that this was just a routine procedure.
"…Everyone got that? Right, now we goi-"Having finished with the rules the CPO Jeorge was about to proceed when a deep voice called:
"Lucas, come here boy"
The marines recognized the voice was that of Commander Triscratches, that man at that moment was standing not far from them in the path leading to the main building while calling the young Monkey D.
Not expecting being called Lucas was taken aback for one second before recovering and walking to the Commander "You called Sir?"
Triscratches nodded "Boy, I'm impressed with the strength you showed earlier today, who knows when I would have finished that pirate if not your timely arrival"
Hearing the Commander's praise Lucas smiled "Thank you, but I'm sure the commander would have beat that crazy pirate even if I hadn't done nothing"
"Hehoho Your words would be true if said a few years ago" the commander chuckled a little before sighing "I'm getting old, plus those old wounds are making my battle efficiency lower than what used to be"
In the past Triscratches was a very well-known marine, his achievements in sabermanship gave him an astounding battle prowess that earned the respect of his peers and even from some higher-ranking marines. Sadly the many battles that earned him a name also left many deep wounds all over his body, his age also started to get advanced making him slowly turn from a middle-aged man to an old man.
If Vorax had fought a younger Triscratches the fight would have not been much of a fight and instead, it would be something more akin to an annoying fly going against a tiger. The Triscratches of now still had his skills with the saber, making so that Vorax couldn't really do much to him, but neither could the Commander quickly deal with the crazy pirate thanks his body.
"Putting this aside, Boy, I called you to talk about the bounty you earned"
"Bounty?" said a dazed Lucas.
"Yes, bounty" Triscratches confirmed, making Lucas's expression even more dazed "This is just something you rightfully deserve, your actions not only saved you fellow marines but also helped uphold Justice by taking down those pirates"
"No Sir I ca-"
"Not only you can, but will receive the reward" before Lucas could say anything he was cut by Commander Triscratches stern voice "That pirate, Prictus, had a bounty of seventeen million berries over his head, going by the rules, as the person that brought him to justice you have the right to receive his bounty"
"Serious?" Thinking back now Lucas faintly recalled when the MCPO Allex told them about the bounty over Prictus head, but because of the easy fight Lucas ended up forgetting about it, only now it came to him that he had earned the bounty over a pirates head! 'This easy? … Huh, I thought it would take longer for something like this to happen'
"Well he didn't felt like that much, but thanks anyway sir" said Lucas with a happy smile. Collecting the bounty of a pirate was something he expected to do more down the line, to collect one now was something that made him genuinely happy and giggly.
"Hehoho Just take it" Triscratches chuckled "Part of the bounty of Vorax should also belong to you, but because of the hole you made that part will be used for the repairs on the ship"
"Haha" at that Lucas could only smile.
"You can go back now" saying that Commander Triscratches gave the other marines an approving nod, and before walking away he said "Also, you and your other friend should expect promotion of rank coming soon"
"Yes!"
Lucas saluted the bald green-bearded commander and then walked back to his position.
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Having talked with the white-haired young marine, Commander Triscratches made his way to the main building of the base, that as the name suggests is the core of the base here on Mel Island, and where the instructions for basically all the marines operations in the island flow from.
Walking past the marines that, although busy, did not forget to salute when they saw him, Triscratches went up the stairs to the top floor where the office of the highest-ranking marine on the island was. He turned left after leaving the stairs and then walked a couple of meters before arriving in front of a tall and imposing double door.
Knock! Knock!
The commander knocked two times on the door, then opened and walking in before the person on the other side could answer.
Being a clear reflection of the rank of its owner the room was bigger and better decorated than other rooms in the base, in the end of the room was a big window that had a very good view of the base and the rest of the island, in front of the window was a person sitting behind a desk made from some exotic material.
The person sitting behind the desk was an average height tanned man with short black hair that was already half white and some wrinkles on his face, wearing a very well-cut grey suit with the 'Justice' coat of the Marine over his shoulders.
This was the man leading the marine operations here on Mel Island, Captain Ricardo.
Initially, Ricardo was focused on a stack of paper on his desk but the sound of the door made him raise his head and look at it.
"You finally came" a friendly smile appeared on his face when he saw that was Commander Triscratches. Getting up he greeted his friend with a handshake while saying "I heard something unexpected happened on your way here"
"You could say that" said Triscratches with his deep voice, seeing his friend made his usual stern expression become softer "Some daring pirates thought they are good enough to make a move on a ship from Marineford, they had been dealt properly"
Nodding Ricardo gestured for Triscratches to sit in the chair in front of the desk, which he did. Sitting back on his chair Ricardo looked at his friend and said with a slightly amused tone "Sure, but according to this report here those pirates had been mostly dealt by a young marine, a seaman apprentice to be more precise"
"The crew this time was mostly composed of logistic personnel that was not very used to combat, only I and my boys that I brought along could put up a fight. But I'm not apt to this anymore, getting too old. If not that boy things wouldn't have turned the way they had" told Triscratches with a tired sigh in the end.
"You are talking about getting old… to me?" Hearing his friend's tone made Ricardo also sigh, for a moment the age signs on his became even more prominent before going back to normal "At least you still can sail around and exchange blows with pirates, as for me? I'm stuck here, day-after-day having to deal with mountains of paper inside this office" saying that he began to reminisce about his younger years, a time where he and Triscracthes would sail around dealing with pirates.
The friendship of Triscratches and Ricardo, that is a few decades old now, hadn't started in very good terms, and started with the two not even being able to stand each other presence, it only after a very intense battle against pirates that both of them had participated that thins had started to change.
At some point during the conflict, Ricardo ended up lost amidst the chaos of the battle, leading to him being besieged by a group composed of ten enemy pirates.
He that had never been someone with good battle skills was getting beaten hard by the pirates, he screamed and called for help, but the chaos in the battlefield, which was already filled with a cacophony of sounds, made so that his call of help wouldn't travel far.
At the time Ricardo began to have despairing thoughts, but then finally someone heard him.
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"Ur-rrba? Why… why are you here?"
Laying bloodied in the ground behind a hill the Ricardo of twenty-something years old struggled to lift his head and look at the green-haired figure standing before him, the figure of the last person he thought he would see in this type of situation.
Ten pirates stood in front of them and on the sides with swords and other weapons on hand, some that still had some of Ricardo blood on them, and with vicious expressions on their faces.
But unfortunately for them, their expressions of nothing mattered as the green-haired man named Urba stood without fear with his back straight and with a saber in hand between the pirates and the bloodied Ricardo on the ground.
"What it this question?" told Urba to Ricardo without taking his gaze off the pirates "I may not like you, but that doesn't mean I will stand still when you are in this situation. To hear a call for help and not answered it, is to go against the type of justice I stand for!"
Ricardo was baffled by what the sabersman before him said, never had he thought Urba of all people would come to his help, especially not on this type of situation.
"You…" That moment for some reason Ricardo felt that his beaten body didn't felt that hurt anymore. With a grunt he got up from the ground, picked his sword, and stood by Urba's side "Better not act so mighty with me… huff… I can still fight!"
"Is that so?" a small smile appeared on Urba's face.
"HUAHHGUEGGG The both of your sure know how to make a scene" The pirate that appeared to be the leader of the group, a giant man holding a big double battle-ax, hearing the words exchanged between the two marines laughed in disdain " Come on let's end this two clowns!"
With a battle-cry the giant man and the other pirates dashed forward with their weapons in hand, the two marines too did not stay still and also dashed forward with battle-cries.
Clash!
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The fight against the ten pirates was intense, but after a couple of minutes a marine squad came and joined the two, the pirates immediately got overwhelmed and taken down.
After that Urba, that later became Triscratches, and Ricardo became very good friends even to this day. Not even the fact that later Ricardo got promoted to captain thanks to his administration skill, and became superior to Triscratches in terms of rank, was able to shake their deep friendship.
"Anyway" with another sigh, Ricardo put the talk about age aside "Did you find anything on the pirate ship?"
"We found a lot of valuables like gold and jewels there inside some crates marked with an insignia, and if I'm not mistaken they had been looted from some merchant group. Some of our weapons and guns have been found there too"
"This attack of pirates was not coincidental, any clue of how they found about the schedule?"
"I found a very poorly kept transaction log, alongside a den-den mushi inside the pirate captain's cabin that by its size is not a very long-range one"
"Huh… That means that whoever they had been contacting is either here or in one of the nearby islands" Ricardo sighed "Another headache"
Triscratches smiled lightly "It is, but, luckily for you in this new batch there are a few seedlings that may help you with that"
Hearing that Ricardo recalled that special young marine "So tell me, what the files I received said are true?"
"They are" The Commander gave a firm nod "That boy, Monkey D. Lucas, is the grandson of Garp the Marine Hero, and also the user of a Mythical-Zoan devil fruit. The boy is already stronger than me on my prime, and that's just the beginning"
Reclining on his chair Ricardo close his eyes sighed deeply "I almost couldn't believe it, to think one day I would have someone with that type of devil fruit was a marine on my base… "
Because of their rank and experience the both of them knew a little more than others about the rare types of devil fruits, for instance, they never met the man, but they knew that Fleet-Admiral Son Goku was a user of a devil fruit called Mythical-Zoan.
To them this was a type of power too far away, so to hear about a young man with that type of fantastic power was a great shocker to them.
"The girl Tashigi by his side is also quite promising, her skills with the sword are very deep to her age,. That other boy, Torlo, is a tad less impressive than the other two but still had some potential. I would suggest promoting Lucas and Tashigi to first-class while keeping an eye on the boy Torlo and wait some more development"
"It will be done by tomorrow" saying that Ricardo though more for a moment "In fact, I will send an application to the headquarters for a higher rank for them, especially to the young Lucas… after all, is a shame for someone with a Mythical-Zoan to have a low rank"
To those words, Commander Triscratches could only nod in approval.
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Marine Base Dormitory, Mel Island – A Few hours later
After Lucas returned from his talk with the Commander Triscratches, the group of newly arrived marines was taken to a quick round around the base and shown the location of places around the base they should know. After that, the group got divided and led by a few marines to the rooms where they would be staying while in the base.
The base had a lot of space, so not only high-rank marines would have their own individual rooms, a few low-rank ones could get one for themselves too. Also, the three friends didn't know if it was a coincidence or not, but the three of them ended up in rooms not far from one another.
Having already been dismissed, the three friends decided to get together in Lucas's room to chat. The room was somehow similar to the ones inside the ship, but with the clear difference of being way bigger.
"What is a Mythical-Zoan devil fruit?" asked a curious Tashigi, she remembered Lucas saying this name during the fight earlier that day. Like most people she doesn't know much about devil fruits, so her curiosity got aroused when Lucas said this name.
"Oh, that? It's just the name of the type of devil fruit I had, which is considered the rarest type of devil fruit" replied Lucas in a nonchalant tone, apparently not noticing the shift in expression of his friends caused by his words.
"Wait-wait… you can't just drop this type of information with this tone!" exclaimed Torlo in an anime way.
Tashigi, who is getting used to being shocked by Lucas's actions, quickly composed herself "Could you tell us more about the types of devil fruits? The myths say about a fruit that gives supernatural powers to whoever eats them, but never mentioned types"
"Devil fruits can be divided into three general types: Logia, Zoan, and Paramecia" Lucas looked at his friends and nodded seeing both following his words "A paramecia fruit is the most common type of fruits, and they give their users very unique superhuman powers, like a rubber body or the ability to create shock-waves. You can guess if the fruit is paramecia by an elimination process, if the fruit is neither one of the other two types, she will be paramecia"
"So what are the other two?"
"Logia devil fruits is supposedly the rarest and most powerful type of devil fruit, they grant elemental powers to their users. Making whoever who eat one of those be able to create, control, and transform in their respective element. Basically, everyone that ate one of those is an absolute monster. Zoan fruits are in the middle in the question of rarity, they are not as common as paramecias but also not as hard to find as logias. They gave their users the power to turn into an animal, be fully or just a hybrid form between their original form and the animal form of their fruit, and in general, a zoan user will have a tremendous boost of their physical capabilities and their senses"
"Wow…"
"Awesome!"
Finishing that Lucas looked back at his two friends and smiled when he saw their amazed looks and sparkling eyes.
After digesting the information Tashigi turned a confused look to Lucas "What about Mythical-Zoans?"
Torlo followed "Oh yeah… you didn't talk about them"
"Zoan fruits have two sub-categories amidst them, the first category is called Ancient-Zoan and it's rarer than normal ones. It acts just like a normal zoan, with the difference of turning their users into some extinct type of animal which gives way stronger physical boosts compared to normal zoans. Mythical ones are the last category of zoan and are rarer than even logias, they allow their user to turn into mythological creatures, not only granting their strong bodies but also their supernatural powers"
Zap Zap
Smiling Lucas raised both his hands, then calling upon his powers made two small lightning spheres "Like I said before, my fruit is that of the Lightning Dragon, so I have his strength, scales, and power over lightning"
Both Tashigi and Torlo exclaimed in amazement when they saw Lucas's dragon powers, more so when Lucas walked to them and placed the two lightning spheres on their hands, willing for them to hover above its friend's hand.
""Amazing!""
For safety reasons these two spheres had a way smaller power compared to Lucas's standard ones, but even then the feeling of holding a piece of heavens wrath was not lost. A warm smile was on Lucas's face seeing his two friends giggling like two kids
A few minutes later Lucas dismissed the two lighting spheres.
"Hey Lucas, could you show the hybrid form you told?" asked a still very excited Torlo.
Lucas thought it about for a second, seeing nor harm on it he nodded.
Taking a few steps back to the center of the room he called forth his inner dragon.
Roar
Followed by a low rumbling roar his body began to grow and change. Black dragon scales started to appear all over his body, his head turned into that of a dragon with grey lighting filled eyes, both his feet and hands became dragon claws, a sharp-pointed tail appeared behind him and a pair of dragon wings on his back.
When the transformation ended Lucas had turned into his Lightning Dragon hybrid form, an almost four and a half meters tall humanoid dragon (a Dragonoid if you want).
"Uoho"
"Crazy"
Seeing Lucas's transformed form Torlo gave a dazed One Piece expression, while Tashigi almost fell on the floor if not for Lucas reaching with his giant hand and grabbing her up.
The difference in size between the three was more than clear.
One just needed to look at Tashigi that almost looked like a doll when held by Lucas's hand on his hybrid form to be sure of the difference.
"Hahaha" With a laugh Lucas put the meito specialist back on the ground, then with a thought he called back his powers and quickly returned to his human form "What you guys think?"
"What I think?" a still somehow dazed Torlo bluntly said "I think you are overpowered"
Lucas was taken by surprise but then laughed "I admit that I'm, but know one thing my friends, on these seas… I'm not the only one like that!"
Thanks to his knowledge about the canon Lucas knew pretty well about some of the monsters that exist in this world. Later as he grew his grandpa Garp began to tell stories about the feats he did in the past and the bad guys he had beaten, making Lucas understand even more about the heights of power in this world.
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In the living room of the Monkey D. family on Dragon Island the three years old Lucas was sitting on the lap of his grandpa Garp. Who at the time was wearing his casual clothes and still had most of his hair black, and was there looking after his grandson while his daughter-in-law Branca had gone out to buy some groceries.
"Grampa, tell tory!" asked the cute baby Lucas.
"Bwahahaha Sure, hmm… what about that time I trained using eight mountains as sandbags for my fight with Chinjao?"
"Yeah!"
"Bwahaha that's a good one, the face of that pointed head at the time was priceless!"
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By hearing about the fights of Garp, especially those never told during the canon, made Lucas for a long time realize that, while as the Lighting Dragon he was an overpowered monster in the making, many others around the world are too.
Especially those old monsters that had already reached their peak and are standing like immovable mountains at the top of this world.
'But still... I really want to face these monsters one day in the future and see who is the most overpowered...' Thinking about the old monsters he may find in the future made his fight spirit got aroused, his eyes turned dragon, turning back to normal a second later when he looked back to his friends.
"Really?" asked a surprised Tashigi, at her side was Torlo that also had a look of surprise on his face after hearing Lucas's words.
"You two will know in the future"
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The three friends talked more for a time, but as the sky started to get dark they decided it was already enough and that they should end for the day.
"Goodnight"
Standing by the door Lucas bid farewell to his two friends the got back to his room and closed the door.
Back inside Lucas looked around a little before walking to a window at the side of his room.
"The sky is quite clear tonight…"
With only a few clouds hovering around the night sky was quite beautiful at that moment.
To someone that was used to see the lusterless city sky of Earth, the starry visage of the sky of the One Piece world, where you could even gaze at the far way borders of the galaxy, was something Lucas would never get tired of seeing.
"…"
The white-haired young man gazed at the starry sky in wonder for a time while recalling about his day, then about ten minutes later Lucas decided to go fly around a bit before going to sleep.
Roar
Lucas jumped out of the window, which is in the last floor of the dormitory he was in, and while in mid-air turned into his hybrid form. Then with a low draconic roar, he flew away into the clear night sky.
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That was the chapter.
With a direct continuation of the last one our MC discovered that he now has seventeen million waiting for him, I didn't worked the bounty system too much on this here because I will focus on it more later on.
The little flashback of Ricardo was something that hadn't thought doing at first, but thinking about it a little I decided it was a good way of giving more development for characters apart from the main trio. Lucas explaining about the devil fruits was done because I thought that they knowing this type of information that is common sense for us on this point would be a good heads up for them.
That quick flashback of Lucas was also something I didn't think of doing at first but later decided in doing it. Everyone that has a grandma, grandpa, or really any older person in their life knows that they are filled with great stories, the only difference here is that Garp's stories are way more fantastical.
In the next chapter, we will see what Lucas will come across during his night flight.
Like always thanks guys for reading, we arrived at the insane number of 370/505 favorites and follows, again, you all are awesome.
Constructive critics are always welcomed.
Fiquem Bem.