It has been fifty-seven years since the execution of the Second Pirate King, Monkey D. Luffy, and he has left a legacy in his wake so great that some say he was more legendary than the First King, Gol D. Rogers. But like the last Pirate King, at his execution, he told the world that he had again hidden the One Piece for the world to find. Many saying it was the start of the next Age of Piracy, but then, war broke out among two families: the Monkey family and the Cobra family. After four decades of bloodshed, the war finally subsided. And nineteen years later, a member of the Cobra family set out on a quest to obtain the One Piece, his name is Cobra D. Red.
Chapter 6: The Big Reveal! Red's Secret!
West Blue, The Island of Doeter:
Monaku smiled like a mad man as he felt his blade sink into the stone wall behind Red, knowing he was impaled to it. He turned to see the shocked looks of the two men and reveled in their faces full of horror. He laughed out loud at the fact that he had killed one of the Cobras, and looked down at his victim, expecting to see him gasping for his last few breaths of life, but instead, saw him curiously looking up at him. He was flabbergasted at the sight of him, staring at him like that, and even more so when he noticed there wasn't even any blood, instead, the place where he had stabbed was much more transparent then a normal chest should be. It almost looked like…
"Water?" said Monaku incredulously, not knowing how to react to the situation he was in.
Red, with an even more confused look on his face, looked back up to Monaku, then down to his chest, where the sword was piercing his newly liquid chest, and back up to Monaku, and said something nobody on the battleground expected.
"Holy shit! I forgot I could do that!"
All three onlooker's jaws dropped at the sentence that had come out of his mouth. All of them couldn't tell whether he was stupid, or pretending to be stupid. But Monaku snapped out of his confusion, and looked down at him, "You ate a devil fruit?"
Red looked back up to him, giving him a ridiculous grin, "Yeah, I ate the Aqua Aqua Fruit!" said Red through his grin, "that makes me a water human."
"So no matter what I do, I can't harm you."
Red flashed another grin, "Yep!"
"Well then," said Monaku, reaching his right hand down to his boot, "Will this gut you like the snake you are!" with a blur of motion, he pulled a blue tinted knife out of his boot, and brought it in downward motion to Red's heart.
Time slowed down. All Red could see was the fast approaching knife, closing in on his heart. He could tell that the knife was made of Sea Prism Stone, and that if he let it go in the track it was going in, then he would surely perish. Better to have an injury that will heal then one that will kill me, thought Red, as he brought his shoulder out to block the knife's direction, and he screamed in pain when the bitter blade sunk into his shoulder. Monaku then saw that he had been to slow, and had allowed his target to block his strike, but he would not miss again, then he started to yank his knife out of the wound when he heard fatal words ringing across the battlefield.
"1,000 Degrees Crosshair!" shouted Miles as the metal of his crossed blades carved cross shaped canyons that spilled blood, but was quickly calloused over by the heat of the steel. Monaku fell to the ground and passed out from the sudden pain and wound he had received, while Miles just stood there and looked down on him, a pitiless expression on his face, "that's what you get for stabbing my captain… twice."
"Nice going there Miles," said Red, adding the extra sarcasm, "now would you please pull this sword out of my chest, my brain is starting to hurt."
"First off, how the hell do you have a devil fruit," started Bede, completely shocked at the turn of events, what with his maybe future captain having a devil fruit, and his swordsman companion's blades nearly bursting into flame, "and two, if you could make it so that the sword passes right through you, then why didn't you do the same with the knife?"
"The first one, I can't answer, it would take too long, and we have to go kick some Monkey ass," started Red, showing more and more that he was beginning to be irritated by the sword, "and the second one, two reasons. One, it was Sea Prism Stone, so even if I had tried to, it still would have stabbed me, and two, I haven't really trained my devil fruit. Sure I can do a few attacks and what-not, but I'm not able to turn my body to water on reflex, so I can only do one portion at a time, and it requires a lot of concentration for me to keep it water, which is why you need to pull this sword out of my chest before I lose it, and I am actually stabbed."
The two looked at each other, wondering how they got to this point. But then they came to a resolve, and walked over to either side of Red and grabbed the handle of the sword and started to pull it out. It was tough at first, with it being so far into the wall, but finally they managed to pull it out and easily plucked it out of Red's chest which was still water. After the experience, Red fell to ground and gave a sigh of relief, letting his chest transform back to its original state. The two let him relax for a couple of minutes, not knowing what kind of stress it put on his mind, but then they had to move on, so they woke him up from his nap the only way Miles saw fit: by punching him.
Red in his relaxed state didn't know the fist was coming until a split second before the knuckles made contact with his flesh. In a yelp of pain, he grabbed the right side of his face, which had started to swell from the impact of the hard bone. He looked up at Miles, at first perplexed, then realizing that he was his captain, donned an angry look, "The hell was that for Miles!" shouted Red, pissed that Miles had punched him while he was resting, "I'm your captain and I can make you walk the plank and… why are you smiling?"
Through his yelling, Miles was smiling, only managing to hold back his laughter, "With what boat will you make me walk the plank on?" just now letting some of the laughter out, "I just wanted to make things even."
With that a look of comprehension slid on Red's face, "OK, sorry about that."
"You're so god damn forgiving its almost insufferable!" shouted Miles, wondering how his captain could possibly function.
"In any case, if you two are done arguing, I suggest we get going," said Bede, while the other two looked at him, "I doubt those bullets you fired into the woods earlier would scare off those informants for long. They probably came back and saw Miles finishing off Monaku and ran off to tell Gratto, I doubt he'll wait idly by for hours on end just to sit and watch for us. He'd probably as soon as have the forest torched then have us come casually walking in. He's probably at this point growing impatient with us, having taken so long to recuperate after that fight."
Red and Miles looked at each other, then nodding in agreement, turned back to Bede, "Alright then, let's go, best not to keep our next roadblock waiting if he's like what you said, but while we go there, tell us about what he's like.
"Alright, but we're gonna need to start going, so are we ready, Red, Miles… Miles?" Bede started looking around, confused at where Miles could have possibly gone, but then he spotted him, squatting next to the nearly destroyed pile of barrels, using his hands to scoop out the rum from inside the barrel, and drinking it, letting it run down his bare chest. When he saw the two watching him, he looked up in an angry quizzical way, simply putting, "I'm thirsty."
He then looked down at his chest, realizing that he didn't have his vest on, he turned to Red, "Can I have my vest back?" Red, stared at him, then realization dawned on his face, but that then turned to a look of guilt, not looking at him and starting to whistle. Confused at these actions, Miles asked, "Wait, where's my vest?" Bede the ever-so-vigilant doctor, who was face palming at what had happened, pointed to somewhere below Miles, who, in his confusion, stared blankly down at the vest that had been soaked in rum, torn several times from smashed planks catching on the fabric, and had been trodden on by one of the swordsmen and had a large, muddy footprint on it. Miles stood up, staring at the ruined vest, gave a sigh of annoyance, then kicked the vest into the woods, "Rest in peace, vest," then looking at the two, he said, "Well then, shall we get going," and without waiting for an answer started a steady pace that went up the track, leading to the Monkey stronghold.
Red and Bede looked at each other, wondering if Miles was waiting somewhere up the track to ambush them for not taking care of his vest. Deciding not to let Gratto get the chance to torch them, they started up the track, taking their chances at any sort of ambush, either from friend or foe.
Along the way, Bede started to wonder about Red's devil fruit, unsure of how to go about starting the conversation, he just started, "Nice weather to beat up someone, eh?" Red gave him a side look, wondering what kind of question was that, to him, any sort of weather was perfect weather to beat someone up in. Bede, not sure what else to say continued the conversation, "so, what about your devil fruit abilities, can you really not control them that well?" Red gave another side glance, but instead replied, saying, "yeah, I really didn't get that much training in my devil fruit abilities, although one trick I learned while in my days as a bou… anyways, one trick I learned was to speed up the closing of my wounds." Bede, perplexed at this, said, "wait, how would you do that, it's just water, isn't it? It wouldn't speed up the healing process that much." To that Red gave a smile, making the doctor unsure of his own profession, "Well you see doc, because the human body is made up of seventy percent water already, I can manipulate that water in my blood stream to stop up the blood flow, leaving enough for it to scab over, which I can make go faster by concentrating, and then finally the scab falls off, see," and lifting up the sleeve, he gave Bede a good look at the wound that had been caused by the knife, which he had estimated to take several weeks to heal, was already scabbing over. Amazed at this, he wondered what other limits in medical science that Red broke due to his powers. But before he could ask, Miles interrupted their conversation.
"Do you guys get the feeling that we're being watched. I know we were already being watched, but this is a different sort of feeling, almost like we're being… targeted." They looked at him, just now coming to realized that they had had that same sort of tension, pushed to the back of their minds because of conversation, for the last ten minutes. Suddenly, they were on guard, knowing that at any moment they could be attacked. They didn't want to take their chances at another ambush, so instead, they watched the woods to the side of the rode intently, looking for any signs of unnatural movement, but all they saw was flat-out nothing. That is, until they heard the whistling of a falling object coming from down the road. The trio looked up just in time to see a round object come hurtling past their heads, and landing a few feet behind them, causing a big explosion that knocked them off their feet. Dazed, they looked up to see a man casually strolling down the road, tossing what looked like a cannonball up and down in his hand.
"Hmm, I was hoping that explosion would kill at least one of you, but no matter, looks like I'm going to have to dirty my hands over Monaku's mistake," said Gratto, as a smirk spread across his face.
