One Piece: Romance Dawn 4

So tempting. So, so tempting. He wasn't ready. Just grab your blades and lop his head off before he even realized what was going on.

But, he was a ticket for you even further down the avenue of strength. You had to see him in action if you wanted to learn anything from him.

So, instead of drawing your swords, you shot forward, the world blurring around you as you used Soru and your fist impacted his face a moment later. You felt the resistance of his flesh for all of a moment as he was lifted up off of his feet from the blow, before that resistance utterly disappeared as his body melted into a silvery metallic substance and flowed into the air away from you.

He reformed about fifteen feet way, rubbing his cheek and glaring at you, "...That was Soru," he accused, before snarling, "I don't know who you are boy, but do you know who I am?"

"The fact you don't know who I am says enough about you," you snorted, crossing your arms, "You're just a foolish dog who gets off on feeling stronger than the weak."

"You dare insult me!?" he growled, his body taking on a silver metallic sheen and then he lashed out in a kick, "That will be your last foolish mistake boy! Rankyaku!"

Perfect! He took the bait.

From his leg, massive blue blade of wind shot towards you at blinding speeds, spanning the entire width of the bridge. You were just about to dodge out of the way, when you realized the pink haired girl was behind you.

You turned on your heel and shot towards her with Soru, and then realized she was already in motion to take advantage of things as well. She jumped high enough to avoid it while positioning the chains holding her down below.

You spun around her grabbing her by the waist and allowed her to complete her little plans. The huge wind blade severing right through the chains holding her easily and freeing her.

"You alright?" you asked as you landed a moment later, holding the girl under one arm.

She blinked for a moment before giving you a bright smile, "I'm fine, thanks though!" she beamed up at you from under your arm.

You nodded, "Alright," you said and set her down, taking a moment to grasp the remaining chains around her and tear them off, they were mere iron so they couldn't handle your strength, "You should probably make your way to the other end of the bridge while I deal with this guy."

"Wow, you're strong," she looked at the remains of her chains in wonder before nodding, "I suppose that would be a good idea. I'm definitely not strong enough to beat him myself. Oh, I'm Rebecca by the way!" she introduced herself.

"Magnus," you replied, before gently pushing her her behind you, "Now on you go, we can speak when I'm finished with this guy."

"Alright!" the pink haired beauty nodded vigorously and began running down the edge of the bridge towards where Carina was. You watched her go over your shoulder and admired as the wind blew up the edge of her tiny white robe as she went displaying a pair of gloriously round tan cheeks.

What a girl.

"BOY!" Graydle's voice roared angrily and you stepped to the side, just in time for a long lance of metal to pierce into your previous position.

You'd been keeping an eye on him with your observation haki even while busy with the girl, Rebecca. And as expected, totally ignoring him after attacking him had inflamed his temper massively.

The lance of metal retreated into the air, revealing it had actually been his arm stretched out like a tentacle and hardened while he jumped in place high above, keeping himself aloft.

Geppou now, huh?

And that was how it was done. You'd noticed how he used Rankyaku. He was tensing the muscle of his legs at the second he kicked out to massively increase muscle power to create the force needed to generate the blade. And now with Geppou, he was doing mostly the same thing, only kicking out with the soles of his feet with enough explosive power to create small waves of force that propelled him upwards.

They were more or less using the same basic principles of Soru. You had a good idea on how to go about them now.

"So Geppou and Rankyaku huh?" you whistled, clasping your hands behind your back and making a show of casually looking up at him, "Got any more?"

"You...." Gradle twitched, a vein throbbing on his head even through his shiny metallic looking skin, "You think to mock me!? Two of the six powers may be my limit, but it shows greatness in that I can use any at all and it is all I will need to defeat you!"

"Cool story bro." you nodded idly, unclasping your hands and sticking a finger up your nose boredly. Nothing angered people more than anything else, than an ignorant brat not taking them seriously.

"I am going to smash you flat!" he raised his right hand into the air and his fist stretched up like an elastic limb before growling rapidly in size until it was easily thirty feet in height and length before morphing into a very spiky looking mace, "Die!" he swung it down towards you.

You jumped back avoiding the blow and the massive mace tore through your previous position, and much of the bridge itself, sending tons of debris flying and a destroying a massive chunk of the bridge. A tower to the side of it gave a low groaning sound as it toppled over and fell into the bridge below.

Gradle used his massive mace fist to pull himself down and kicked off of the air at the same time, exploding down at you in a blur of speed far faster than anyone had ever come at you before.

His hand snapped up and left the mace behind, forming into a new one and formed two thin short swords in his hands.

You juked to the side avoiding a stab aimed straight for your head, then ducked as he spun and tried to cleave your head off. It was too bad for him, you were faster.

You lashed out with an elbow and caught him in the nose, but like before, his body turned into flowing metal liquid and avoided the blow. This time though, he spread out in a wave of liquid metal and tried to drown you.

You sprang backwards, clearing twenty feet in a blink of an eye, feet dragging on the bridge as you escaped.

Graydle reformed, his lips pulled back and baring his teeth at you and your haki warned you his intent. He held his hands up and formed a massive sphere of liquid metal that suddenly split into tens of hundreds of small metallic bullets and shot towards you.

You shot forward with Soru weaving between the mass of thousands of bullets and closed the distance, your fist plowed through his face and he separated into liquid metal once. This time though, you spun with both arms out like a windmill ad the sheer force of it released enough wind pressure that the liquified man was splattered all over the bridge.

The liquid splattered all over the bridge, before growing and surging up, each one turning into metallic silver copies of Graydle, while about thirty feet in front of you, Graydle himself appeared. You could tell the were mere extensions of his devil fruit with your haki, only the one gave off an actual aura of being alive.

"Hmph," he scoffed, crossing his arms as he glared at you, "Let's see how you deal with this then!"

'This fruit is something else.' you admitted internally, impressed. Your eyes flickered to the massive spiked mace as the metallic copies rushed you from all sides. Not only was it a logia that had amazing shaping ability, it could also freely create metal.

If you had someone with this on your crew, you'd never need to buy cannon balls or the generic weaponry at all.

You tilted your hide to the side avoiding a sword aimed at the back of your head and spun around, lashing out with your fist and slamming it into the skull of the copy and turning it to liquid once again.

You caught another by the arm and used it to block a tentacle bladed from another, before lashing out and grabbing two pincering you from the side around the necks and slamming their heads together hard enough to make them splash apart and then blurred forward with Soru and tore through the rest in a flurry of kicks and punches that tore them apart.

You winced as you finished and looked down at your hands. They were red and throbbing. 'Each one of those is more sturdy than your typical suit of armor.' you mused, shaking out the stinging pain in your hands.

"That it?" you raised an eyebrow at Graydle, "So far, I'm not impressed. If you weren't a logia, you wouldn't be standing right now." there had to be more to him than that. Sure, he had probably lazed on his ass here for years in the weakest sea. But his aura didn't lie. He felt strong.

Or were you perhaps just a terrible opponent for him?

"Not like a piece of trash like you could hope to touch a logia like myself regardles," Graydle spat before clenching his fists together, "But I've had enough of this! Skilled you may be boy, but I will crush you here and now with my strongest form! Ooooooooh!"

You felt his aura spike and then his haki itself begin to concentrate in his fists. His metallic body took on a glowing, steaming red appearance and the ice cold wind of the bridge was suddenly beginning to rapidly heat up, "Blaze Metal Mode!" he declared grandly/ He was using the power of his devil fruit to rapidly heat up his metal body. But you were more focused on his hands. "Armament: Hardening!" more and more haki was compressed within his fists until suddenly, they went from glowing molten orange red, to a metallic black.

Flame exploded from his feet and he shot towards you so fast your eyes widened. Even without Soru, he was faster than you were right now with this! If it weren't for your Observation Haki, you wouldn't have been able to react t all.

You threw up a cross guard just as he was upon you, lashing out with a black metallic fist the connected with both of your arms and overwhelmed you completely. You were lifted up of the ground and sent flying backwards.

You bounced across the bridge like a stone skipping across water, each time the force of your flight created a small crater in the bridge before you smashed into and through a tower hundreds of feet away from your previous position and came to a halt.

'So that's Armament Haki huh?' you thought in a daze as you lay amongst the rubble. Your arms were throbbing like hell, as was your back.

You'd never taken a hit that powerful before.

'So he wasn't a weakling after all.' you mused and gingerly pushed yourself up. That black fist thing alongside what was it he called it...Blaze Metal Mode? It was quite the powerful combination.

If he knew Soru, he'd be a real scary guy.

'Time to get serious.' your eyes narrowed as you pushed yourself up and pulled on the power within you. Your body bulked up and grew massively, white fur grew from your skin and a moment later, you stood as a white furred tiger man in your hybrid form.

You could feel him coming. His inferno like aura having practically doubled in size and the mass concentration of haki in his fists was like a beacon to your senses.

You shed your coat and unsheathed your blades and then exploded out of the rubble of the tower you were plowed into and through and rushed him, sea stone dao blades held out in your arms like a pair of pincers.

You met his glowing molten form halfway across the bridge and his eyes widened in shock as he took you in, "Yo-" he only had time to say before you flashed past him, one of your blades carving his arm off at the shoulder and sending it flying through the air.

Graydle screamed as the sea stone carved through him. But that wouldn't stop a logia.

You beat your tail against the air hard, generating a burst of wind pressure that halted your momentum ever so briefly and allowed you to use it to spin and turned around swinging out with both blades in a slash aimed for his chest.

A metallic body double sprouted from his back and took the blow. You cleaved right through it, but it was enough for him to shoot flames from his feet and get away from you.

"Bastard!" Graydle snarled as he skidded along the bridge and swerved to face you, his stump bubbling and a new arm forming, but you could see blood dripping from it.

Even with his limb being cut off with sea stone, he could still regrow it even if it hurt. And it wasn't a real arm, just a prosthetic. He hadn't been able to becoming full liquid and go around the blade fast enough.

Again. That was quite the devil fruit. Something like an actual element like wind wouldn't be able to do that because it didn't have a proper physical form.

A pair of swords formed in his hands and you watched with interest as the dark black gleam on his fists encroached the blades and turned them black as well.

"Blaze Storm Blade! Ra!" Graydle roared and swung both of the blades out in a rapid slash towards you. You felt as his haki concentrated upon the tips of the blades and the muscles in his arms contracted like when he used rankyaku, while the heat of his body began to rapidly vibrate through the swords.

A split moment later, two massive wind blades clad in burning black flames erupted through the air towards you, criss crossing over each other like a cross and tearing right through the bridge itself, burning, melting and shaking it apart. Thousands of tons of rocky surface built upon the ocean being destroyed as the attack roared towards you.

It was too large of an attack to get around or above quick enough. There was only one option.

Go through it!

"RAAAH!" the world shaking roar of a tiger left your throat and you spun, lashing out with two lightning quick slashes as hard as you could.

Twin massive white blades of wind erupted from your blades and shot towards the rapidly approaching flaming slashes.

They impacted together and sliced right into each other, the force behind the two erupting into massive shock waves that erupted in every direction and forced them to converge together into a storming tornado of blazing black flames that towered hundreds of feet high and took up the entire width of the bridge.

You could feel exactly where he was even with the massive flaming vortex blocking your vision.

You shot forward with Soru and launched yourself through the air, spinning and cleaving right through the vortex of roaring wind and black flames with both dao blades and continued on.

Graydle's eyes widened in shock as you appeared before him. His molten body rippled and you could feel him attempting to counter. You weren't going to let him though.

You tossed one of your blades ahead of you, forcing him to block it. His hand came up, forming into a massive molten red and steaming shield and blocked your thrown blade.

You whipped your tail as you appeared in front of it, bleeding off some of your momentum and repeating your earlier maneuver, you spun around the shield like a rotating top, switching your grip on your blade so it ran up the bottom of your forearm.

Graydle only had time to raise his prosthetic arm to try and block as you swung down, cleaving right through it and bisecting him from shoulder to hip and skidding to a halt, your feet leaving craters in the bridge.

Graydle screamed in agony as half of his torso slid off and slammed into the ground with a meaty, wet thud, the lower half following a moment later. "No! No! Fuck no!" the Vice Admiral snarled clawing at the ground, "Why! Why! Why! Why did you come here you monstrous child!?"

You shrugged, "A girl wanted you dead before she'd join my crew, so I came for your head, nothing more, nothing less," you replied, and then smirked at him, "She goes by the name Carina, has purple hair, you apparently beat her mother to death?"

Graydle's eyes widened, "Oykot Carina!" he snarled, "That filthy waste of royal blood! I should have twisted her neck from her shoulders years ago."

Your eyes widened lightly. Oykot. As in, the Oykot Kingdom? A kingdom of East Blue like your own that was destroyed in a clash between a massive amount of pirates and marines?

You'd learned all about it in your studies as a child.

"I swear I'll kill that bitch for this! With my fruit, this is nothing, I can fix thi-" Graydle's promises of vengeance were cut off as you swiped your sword through his neck, separating his head.

"Thanks for your tutelage Master Graydle, I learned a lot thanks to you." you bowed your head lightly, in slight respect for that, if nothing else. Your time together with your latest teacher was short, but he had a lot to pass on.

Not only had you found out about your new crew members past from him you'd gained a decent grasp on how you would go about training to learn Geppou, Rankyaku and even Armament Haki.

You picked up the separated head of your now former teacher by the hair and then spread your haki senses out to the limit.

It didn't take you long to find what you were looking for.

Back down the way you came to find Graydle, you could fee the distinct aura of a devil fruit. Or well, a second one. Since you could already feel the Shout Shout fruit back on your ship.

You sheathed your blades and with your bounty in hand, made your way back down along the bridge towards where you felt the aura of the devil fruit.

You had to admire the destruction you had caused in your fight as you went though. Hundreds of feet of the bride was gone, collapsed, while even for a while down that remained, there were tons of craters, slash marks and such.

That had to be a good two or three years worth of effort right? 'I should destroy even more of it.' you mused. This was a seven hundred year old construction using slave labour, and a project of the Celestial Dragons. It would really stick it to the marines and with you killing a Vice Admiral, it would make your bounty soar all the higher!

You wondered if you could break a hundred million before ever leaving East Blue? That would be a record you think. Not even Gold Roger had gotten a bounty of over one hundred million before entering the Grand Line.

It was a fun thought. But you put it out of mind for now as you reached your destination. One of the towers along the bridge. You felt the fruit on the bottom floor of it so punched the wall apart sending debris flying everywhere and stepped inside. You found your quarry there.

Sitting on a small wooden table, in a metal fruit bowl, was a set of grapes. Though unlike the usual grapes, they were a shiny silver in color with sharp edge like markings on them.

'Wonder if Carina will want these?' you thought to yourself as you picked them up by the stem and left the building behind, making your way back towards where you could sense Carina.

From what you could feel, most of the slaves were all congregated onto marine ships, preparing to flee on them. The only ones still on the bridge itself were Carina and Rebecca.

You took off with Soru to reach them quickly and it took only a few moments with your top speed to cross the thousands of feet and reach them.

"Magnus!" Carina shouted from where she was standing on the edge of the bridge alongside Rebecca overlooking the ships when you appeared, and you felt a rush of emotions from her, happiness, fear, elation, disbelief, hope and so many more it almost had you staggering, forcing you to shut off your haki for the moment. She rushed towards you before skidding to a halt as she approached and going wide eyed when she saw what you were carrying in your right had, "Is...that?" the purple haired beauty gaped.

You tossed the head over to the ground in front of her, "There you go," you smiled at her, "One Vice Admiral Graydle head, all for you."

A laugh of disbelief left the purple haired woman and she sunk to her knees staring at the head. "Just like that..." she muttered in disbelief, reaching down to pick up the head of her childhood tormentor and holding it up in the air. You switched your haki on for a moment and felt a mass surge of glee from the woman as she surged to her feet and lobbed the head over the bridge, "How do you like that! Not so tough now are you SHISHISHI!" she crowed joyously.

You let her laugh for a few moments, and pretended to ignore as she wiped tears from her eyes.

"So," you spoke up, holding the metallic silver grapes up, "I got his fruit as well. You want it?" you asked.

Carina turned away from the edge of the bridge an her eyes went wide with shock once again when she saw the fruit, "..You're just..offering me that?" she gaped at you, "It's a Logia devil fruit! Do you know how much you could get for that? Graydle only got it as a gift from the Celestial Dragons for doing their dirty work for them!"

"A good five hundred million beri easy,probably more," you replied with a shrug and Carina choked on her own spit, and if possible, her eyes went even wider, looking like they were about to pop out of her eye sockets, "But as much as it's worth, it would be a lot better in the hands of someone on my crew I'm thinking."

Carina stared long and hard at the fruit before smirking, "No thanks, you do what you want with it, sell it or give it to someone else, I don't really care to be honest," she replied and straightened up, puffing her lovely bodacious chest out proudly, "I want absolutely nothing to do with it. Frankly, I'd much rather have El Drago's fruit than that thing."

"Oh, so you'd prefer the Shout Shout?" you raised an eyebrow and shrugged, "Well if you want it, you can have it."

"Eh?" Carina cocked her head to the side and stared at you in confusion.

"It's back at the ship," you replied, "It ended up in the kitchens when I killed El Drago, so I just stuffed it inside the chest in my bedroom."

She blinked slowly before laughing lightly, "You really are an odd one Magnus, shishi," Carina replied, shaking her head in amusement, "People have murdered in the thousands for things like this and you'll just happily give it to me?"

"Why not?" you stepped forward until your chest was pressed against her own and stared down into the older woman's eyes, "It's more pragmatic and practical, and call it a a byproduct of what I was taught as a kid, but I take care of my people. And, since you're joining my crew, you're one of mine too, right?"

Carina's cheeks darkened a bit and she took a deep shuddering breath that did delightful things to her chest, but a smile spread across her face, "That's right, I'll officially join your crew if you'll have me captain." she winked and gave a little salute to you.

Your lips wide into a wide grin, "Awesome," you replied and stood back a bit, giving her some personal face, "So Oykot Carina huh? When were you going to tell me you're a princess."

"Oh, you found that out huh?" she giggled, "Former princess actually, just like you're a former prince. I suppose we're a good match like that huh?"

"I guess so," you laughed, "It's almost wild to think that considering our ages, if our kingdoms didn't get destroyed, I'd probably meet you at some marriage interview or something."

"Are you proposing?" Carina laughed and sniped back, "As nice as a devil fruit gift is, it's not quite an engagement ring captain of mine." she winked teasingly.

Before you could reply, Rebecca cut in, she had been standing silently watching and let you both finish talking until now, "You guys are former royalty?" the pink haired girl beamed and asked before flashing you a thumbs up, "Me too!"

Huh?

"Another one?" Carina's laugh grew, "Well aren't we three peas in a pod."

You turned to look at the pink haired girl, "You as well huh?" you mused. How small the world actually was, "How'd you end up here? My kingdom was attacked by the Germa 66 while Carina's was destroyed by pirates."

"Germa 66 huh, I've heard that name somewhere before," the pink haired girl tapped her chin in thought before directing her smile at you, "I'm from the Kingdom of Dressrosa, when I was a little girl Doflamingo attacked and took over."

Your eyes widened, "Dressrosa?" you said loud, "As in, the kingdom in the New World?" your father had told you all about the New World, or at least, what he had picked up. He hadn't been strong enough to handle that kind of ocean apparently. And Dressrosa itself was covered in your studies, since it was one of the one hundred and seventy countries alongside your own that formed an alliance that became the World Government. Dressrosa was in fact one of the original twenty that came together first, and was originally ruled by one of the Celestial Dragon families before they left it behind to live on Mariejois.

"Mhmm." Rebecca nodded.

And a marine sanctioned pirate had overthrown her kingdom and taken over. Well, wasn't that lovely. And just more proof of how useless the marines in power really were.

"So how did you end up all the way out in East Blue?" you repeated your earlier question.

Rebecca laughed sheepishly and scratched her head, "I tried to kill one of Doflamingo's subordinates and steal his devil fruit, but then stopped in the middle of it because....well, I don't like killing," she admitted, "And well, Doflamingo dragged me out here to punish me, said working here for a year should be some good punishment before he tosses me back in the gladiator colosseum." she shrugged lamely as she finished.

Well, that would do it you supposed. But Gladiator Colosseum huh?

You focused your observation haki on her. And you felt her start a bit as she felt it. She was already observing you with her own it seemed, gauging you. She was pretty good.

You could barely feel anything from her, she was hiding her feelings well. But, it wasn't quite enough to hide the massive, massive well of sorrow in her. She was putting on a brave, cheerful face, but inside, she was hurting a lot.

You sympathized with her. Her and Carina actually. How could you not? Your circumstances were all practically the same.

This girl needed a hug.

So you gave her one. You threw your arm around her shoulder making her blink and pulled her into your side, "Well, you're in good company," you told her with a smile, "And you feel pretty strong. How about joining up with me as a pirate? I'll be heading to the New World at some point, I'll kick Doflamingo's ass for you if you want."

"You think you can beat Doflamingo?" Rebecca looked up at you in shock.

"Pfft, Doflamingo is small time compared to what I'm aiming for," you snorted, "I'm aiming to be the strongest in the world and surpass the Yonkou, but to get there, I need a good crew and I think you'd fit well."

Rebecca just stared at you for a moment before slowly, "Well..okay," she agreed, "I don't really have anywhere else to go anyway, and you did set me free."

Your smile turned into a grin and you looked at Crina, "See, now why couldn't you make things this easy? I had to go kill a Vice Admiral to recruit your pretty little ass." you teased.

"My ass isn't small, I'm curves for days captain," she replied and raised an eyebrow at you, "Besides, you just offered to kill a Shichibukai for her, I think that tops Vice Admiral. Really who would ever have fought the famous and terrifying Red Magnus whispered about in terror was the type of guy who couldn't say no to a pretty face."

"The curves help." you shrugged and winked at Rebecca, drawing a giggle from her.

Carina eyed the pink haired girl under your arm and nodded, "I bet they do," she replied dryly before shaking her head and sobering up, "So we're up to three members now I guess, what now?" she asked.

You slipped your arm from around Rebecca's shoulders and got serious yourself, "We'll round up everything of value around here," you replied, turning to face the mass of marine ships, only one of them was a battleship, and you pointed to it, "Get everyone off of that ship, we'll be taking it. And then we'll split what we grab with the slaves down the middle and send them somewhere safe to escape to."

"Aye aye captain." Carina gave you another little salute.

"Before that," you pointed at Rebecca with your chin, "Can you give her some clothes that fit her? And while on the ship you can grab the Shout Shout fruit, it's as I said, in the chest in my bedroom."

"Will do." Carina agreed.

You turned to Rebecca next and held up the grapes in your hand, "You want these?" you asked, "It's the devil fruit from Graydle, the metal logia." she ended up here after trying to get her hands on a devil fruit. So if she wanted one, you didn't mind giving her it.

You may have known her for far less time than Carina, and she could hide much of her emotion from you with her own haki. But, even with that, she was much more see through than Carina.

She was far too earnest to jump ship after being given the fruit. Especially with your offer to take down Doflamingo for her. Or barring that, make her strong enough to defeat him herself.

Rebecca went wide eyed at your offer, "Eh, really?" she gasped, looking at the fruit. And you could feel the desire for it in her that she couldn't smother fully with her haki.

"You alright with it?" you asked Carina.

The purple haired beauty shrugged, "I told you, do whatever you want with it." she replied and then started making her way towards the ship.

"Yep, I'm fine with it," you turned back to Rebecca and handed her the fruit, "You go with her and grab some clothes from her and you can eat it on the way. Though word of warning, they taste like shit mixed with sewage mixed with rotting meat."

The pink haired gave a small, dazed giggle at your words as she accepted the fruit, "...Thank you.." she whispered, and surprised you by wrapping you in a great big hug.

You let her, and wrapped your arms around her shoulders again. She kept the hug up for about a good ten seconds before pulling back and smiling brightly at you, "I won't forget how kind you've been to me." she beamed, then she blinked as something seemed to occur to her, "Wait, if we're going to the ship, what are you going to do?" she wondered.

You smirked and jabbed your finger over your shoulder down the distance of the bridge, "I'm gonna raid the living quarters up here and destroy as much of the bridge as possible." you replied. And you were going to have a lot of fun doing it!