Well then, I wanna thank everyone who read Chapter 1 of my story! Only a little bit under a week since the release, I wanna get this out more. I'm having a lot of fun writing this stuff to you guys and wanna keep going, but let's hear some reviews first!
SpiritWarriot: Thanks! There isn't much that we know about DF and I wanna spin my own tail before my dreams and ideas get crushed by canon. Other than that, there is no "scientist" role in the crew, I mean Chopper and Robin come close somewhat, but no one directly.
Hysaky: Yeah I know, but I wanna spin that piece of canon into my story. How? You gotta wait to know!
Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece, Oda does and he wouldn't let me get near it.
"Well, that was disappointing," Lyson says as he exits the marine base. After trudging through the busy streets, he finally got to the base with no incident only for the marines there to tell him that Smoker already left.
"Now, if I were a strong marine Captain, where would I go?" Lyson pondered as he looked down in thought.
"Daddy, look! Now I have 5 scoops!"
Lyson stops at the sight of a young blond girl holding an ice cream cone. Next to her is a man, presumably her father, who's hoisted the girl over his shoulders for her to sit on. Lyson stares a bit too long as he watches the giggling girl and her father.
"I wanna thank that big scary man for the ice cream!" the girl tells her father.
The father gives a nervous laugh, "Sweetie, you shouldn't call Captain Smoker a scary man, he's a very nice man."
The name drop does not go past Lyson's ears as he slowly makes his way closer to eavesdrop further.
"OK Daddy, where is he then?"
"Probably at some port to stop some pirates honey. It's their job to protect us from the bad guys, right?"
"Yeah! When I grow up, I wanna be like Smoker!"
"W-well, let's not go that far."
Lyson digests the information he heard. 'So he hangs around the port? Makes sense, a pirate needs to come to the island somehow and that place would make it easy to come unnoticed.'
Lyson decides to ask for some directions to the port by asking a local. The first person he spots is a blond young man. Lyson taps on his shoulders and the man turns around and lets Lyson a better look at his appearance. The man sees to dress nicely judging by the black suit with golden buttons and the blue striped shirt underneath. His face is partly obscured by his blond hair, covering his left eye, and an unlit cigarette laid between his teeth.
"Oh, why hel-Oh, it's a guy." The blonde man's face started out joyful but was instantly replaced by annoyance, "What do you want?" he spats at Lyson.
"Ummm," Lyson is taken back by the quick emotional change but asks, "Could you direct me to the port, please? I'm new to the island and I need to meet a friend of mine."
The blond ponders for a moment before answering, "Well, I dunno how you got here without going through the port, but it's that way." He points in the direction that's to the right of Lyson, "Just keep walking until you see a bunch of storage buildings near the sea."
Lyson looks in the direction and nods to the blond man, "Thanks!" he says before making his way to the port.
"Don't sweat it," The blond mutters and by the time Lyson was gone, he starts to look around wildly, hearts in his eyes, "Now where did that beauty go?"
Lyson follows the instruction of the blonde man to the port and made his way there but notices that the amount of people in the area begins to steadily decrease significantly until he's walking by himself in a lonely street.
"Did that guy just tell me a bunch of crap?" Lyson grumbles before something catches his nose.
Sea salt.
"Okay, it's this way then!" Lyson jogs in the direction his nose takes him until he hears the loud sound of shuffling coming from the front of some of the warehouses by the sea. Lyson hurries to the side of the closest warehouse and peeks around the corner and his eyes widen. There are dozens of men hauling boxes upon boxes of supplies such as food and water and transporting them to a ship. A ship with a Jolly Roger crossbones.
"Pirates?" Lyson says to himself, "I thought that this island is supposed to be pirate-free?" He observes the pirates smuggling the material before a thought passes through his head. 'If there are pirates here, then Smoker would no doubt come over!'
Lyson looks around and finds a ladder that reaches the tops of the warehouse and begins to climb it, trying to be as quiet as possible. When makes it to the top, he lays on his stomach as he watches the pirates steal the goods. Not so long after, a man makes his way from the ship to the front of the warehouse. Lyson can deduce by his outfit and his stride that he's the captain.
"HA HA HA" he laughs as the men continue to haul the crates."Have at it boys! No need to be shy on my account! I, Gally the Cresent, hereby proclaim all of your food to be of service to the future King of the Pirates! So don't bother trying to hide anything!"
'I never even heard of him, must be one of those wannabes.' Lyson thinks to himself, 'That guy has more of a chance being a marine Admiral than the King of Pirates.'
"Hey." A deep voice calls out. Lyson turns his eyes to the man who just arrived. The man has silver-tinted hair and wears a large white-and-blue open jacket that's lined with cigars on the right side. His jacket has nothing underneath, exposing his muscular chest, dark blue pants, and brown combat boots. In his mouth laid two cigars and on his back was a long weapon strapped to his back.
"Isn't that a jitte?" Lyson asks himself, observing the weapon.
"Who's in charge here?" The man asks, not bothered by the fact he's surrounded by pirates.
Gally the pirate captain narrows his eyes at him, "I think you need to leave."
"So you're Monkey D. Luffy?"
Lyson's eyes widen as he focuses more on the mystery man.
"You're not worth 30 million. I guess your not even worth my grandma's false teeth."
Gally gets even more angry at the man, "Don't you dare speak to me like that! Got it! Get 'im!" he orders his crew as they draw their weapons.
The air around the man wavers as smoke begins to whirl around him, causing Lyson's eyes to widen. "There is no way that stuff is natural. Is he...?"
'Smoker? If he's not Captain Smoker, then I'll eat my left shoe' Lyson thinks as he reaches and grabs the leather book at his side and furiously opens it. As the pages fly by one another, Lyson stops at a page and reads:
The Moku Moku fruit is a Logia-type devil fruit that allows the user to generate, manipulate, and become smoke. The smoke is able to tangle and capture targets using the different densities and tangibility of smoke. The user may be able to use the natural rising nature of smoke to achieve flight, but it has not been tested. The user is immune to physical attacks (Unless seastone weapons are in use) and has a high tolerance against noxious or harmful gases. Being a gaseous Logia, the user can theoretically invade one's body via the lungs and cause internal damage, a common technique used by pirate Captain " Coughin' " Cobalt, a previous holder of the fruit.
Lyson finishes the passage and gazes back at the smoke-human. The pirates all try to cut, bludgeon, or shoot him, but their efforts are in vain as the attacks harmlessly pass through him, leaving smoke trails at the areas of impact. Lyson silently observes the Logia-user as he fights.
'So this is a Logia user in a fight. I wonder how that works with clothes?' Lyson asks himself, 'I mean, the clothes on him aren't a part of his physical body. I'm gonna make a note of that later.'
The smoke man quickly takes care of the pirate crew, at that point a marine soldier showed up with a large bundle of rope over his shoulder. He nods to the marine that arrived.
"You got the rope? Good. Hand it over." The smoke man orders.
"Yes, Captain Smoker sir!" The soldier replies. When the soldier hands the now identified Captain Smoker the rope, the captain holds one end of the rope in one hand and the other end at another before holding it straight in front of himself. Smoke begins to form from his arms until the only thing connecting his hands from his shoulders is a long coil of smoke. The disconnected hands begin to separate from their owner and gathers the knocked-out pirate until they were all tied together like a bundle of wood.
Lyson watches in amazement for the use of Smoker's Logia form. The scientist then pulls out a small notebook he got from the store and a pen and begins to sketch the captain, making notes about his various attributes.
"Incredible, Captain! You beat Luffy's crew all by yourself!" The marine soldier praises.
"Are you're eyes just for decoration? This is obviously not Luffy's crew, anyone could see that."
Lyson, still listening in on the marines, stops writing and raises an eyebrow at the mention of the unknown pirate.
"If this garbage is worth 30 million, I'd become a pirate." Smoker says.
"S-so where's Luffy?" the marine stutters out.
"Why the rush? He'll be here soon enough."
"I'm here..." A new voice rings out. Lyson, still on the rooftop, cranes his neck to see another person at the port, seemingly lost. The new person seems to be a teen around his own age wearing a red sleeveless vest, blue shorts, and sandals. From Lyson's point of view, he could only see strands of black hair mainly covered by a straw hat.
"How did I end up at the port? Where's the execution platform?" the teen asks to no one in particular until he sees Smoker. When he does, he shouts to the marine, "Hey! Could you help me?!" making his way towards him.
The teen stops in front of the towering man, "Hi, I need some help. Do you know where they execute people around here?"
Lyson's face morphs into one of confusion at the bluntness of the question.
Smoker answers, unfazed by the question, "The platform?"
The teen looks around the port, "Yeah I know, I can't seem to find it."
"I haven't seen you here before." Smoker states.
"Yeah, this is my first time being on this island. This town is a whole lot bigger than Fusha Village."
'Fusha Village? Must be where he's from.' Lyson thinks as he continues to observe.
"So why do you want to go to the platform?" Smoker asks, eyes narrow.
"Personal quest. I wanna see where the King of the Pirates died." The teen states confidently, getting a reaction from the marine captain.
A tense moment passes though, no one speaking, until the teen says, "Huh, I guess you don't know." and begins to walk away-
"Hold it, kid." Smoker stops the teen. Lyson sees the smoke coming from the cigar begin to act strangely, bending and warping until it left a trail coming from the marine around the corner of one of the buildings. "Just follow the smoke."
'Woah, so he had independent control over smoke that's around him? Unless he's making his cigars smoke themselves, then why smoke at all?'Lyson thinks as the straw-hat-wearing teen chases after the smoke, thanking the marine.
Smoker looks back at the running teen before he turns his gaze right at Lyson's hiding spot. Lyson, seeing he might have got caught, jerks out of view of the marine, holding his hands over his mouth to silence himself.
"I know you're out there, so show yourself." Lyson doesn't need to look to recognize the gruff voice of Smoker. The scientist decided the best course of action was to stay still and keep as quiet as possible to avoid getting caught. A few tense minutes pass and Lyson has not moved an inch from his spot.
'I-I think they should be gone now.' After steading his breath, Lyson takes a peek over at the location of the marine soldier and captain and saw no one there and the pirates that were beaten by Smoker were gone as well.
Lyson sighed in relief, "I guess they both just took the pirates and left..."
"No, I had my underling do that."
"Oh, well that makes more seEEEEEEEEEEEEEHH!?"
Lyson turned around mid-sentence to address the voice behind him before realizing that Captain Smoker was right behind him, crouching down on the roof to meet with his eye level, staring him in the face.
Lyson getting up from his position began backing up and stammering, "U-uhh, H-hello M-mr. Captain S-sir..." but accidentally took a wrong step and began falling back from the roof, but was caught halfway by a rough grab on his shirt from Smoker, leaving himself a complete hostage to the captain.
"So, here's what's going to happen," Smoker starts, "You are going to answer my questions, and if I'm not satisfied, you're gonna have a nasty fall." Smoker begins to soften his grip on Lyson's shirt before Lyson scrambled to latch on to the marine's gloved hand. As soon as he did, the teen's face scrunched up in discomfort, but Smoker ignored it and began his questioning.
"Are you Monkey D. Luffy?"
Lyson's eyes widened and began to rapidly shake his head.
"Are you a pirate?"
"No, I'm not a pirate," Lyson answered truthfully.
Smoker narrowed his eyes trying to detect any lies coming from him. "Why were you watching me?"
Lyson gulped at the complexity of the truth and began stammering, "Ummm, I uh, just wanted to see the famous Smoker. Yeah, that's it!"
The grip on his shirt began to lighten.
"Ah! I mean, I actually just wanted to watch!" Lyson yelled as he scrambled to keep his grip on Smoker's hand and wrist. "I'm a scientist and wanted to meet you!"
Smoker raises an eyebrow at the last statement, "Why would a scientist want to meet a marine?"
"I-I...," Lyson stammers and shuts his eyes close, "I can't tell you."
"Why." Smoker's voice has no emotion in it.
"I swore to my mentor to never speak to anyone about it." Lyson opens his eyes to stare into the eyes of the marine, who has an unreadable expression on it. After a minute of silence passes, Lyson feels the tug of Smoker's hand jerk him back on his feet. Lyson lets go of Smoker's hand and falls to his knees, clenching his heart due to the terrifying experience.
As he's catching his breath, he hears Smoker's voice again, "Next time you want an interview, wait at the base. You're lucky that today's a special day. Now scram." Lyson gets up and makes his way to the roof ladder and climbs down, trying not to make any eye contact with the marine captain along the way. When he gets back to solid ground, he books it, making as much distance between him and the Logia marine. After a few minutes of running, Lyson finds himself at a fountain that has barely any people around.
Lyson looks and sees an alley that seems to be empty and makes his way over there without looking suspicious. He finds a few crates and sits down, pondering about what happened, not nervous, but focused.
'I managed to get skin contact for 7 minutes and 47 seconds. That should be about 8 hours of use.' Lyson thinks as he looks through the alley. There are only a few people around, not one of them close enough to see or notice him. Lyson looks at his hand and focuses on it, a light buzzing sound filling his head, which causes him to wince and lose concentration.
'Why does Logias feel so weird?'
Lyson focuses again, trying his best to ignore the buzzing, and stares at his hand. For a moment, his hand begins to flicker and began spewing little wisps of white gas.
"Kopī*: Moku complete" he whispers, a smile growing on his face.
Kopī = Copy
THERE WE GO! If you want more confirmation about Lyson's "abilities", the story will explain it in more detail, but you can certainly speculate.
Serious-time: I wanna know if the people reading this want the chapters to be a bit longer. A lot of the success stories on this site have about 8k words per chapter and I'm struggling to do that a bit. If you want the story to go 3-4k words per chapter like normal and I can post like I normally do or do you guys like your meals HEAVY with 7-8k words.
Other than that, reviews are my life source!