The Mad Doctor of One Piece - Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Getting out of the rain made everyone feel better, though they were all at least slightly surprised that the sun had set. The world had been so dark beneath the thick rain clouds that it was impossible to tell night from day.

Peter wanted to begin experimenting right away, but the moment his feet touched the deck of the Coming Storm, a name that now felt ironic, exhaustion washed over him. He made his way to his cabin and collapsed into his bed where he immediately fell asleep.

The rest of the crew, on the other hand, stood on the deck of the ship. Alex looked at the members who left with Peter and asked, “How did it go?”

Merlin giggled behind her hand, “It was quite exciting. Why, we ran into a Marine Admiral!”

Alex was instantly on alert, Admiral's were the most powerful weapons of the Marines, not taking one seriously was the same as suicide. Seeing Domino slap Merlin's shoulder playfully had him lowering his guard slightly. Domino sighed and gave a full accounting of what happened from her point of view. When she was done, Artoria gave a succinct account of her time with Peter.

Alex crossed his arms over his chest as he went over the information he'd given them. After a moment he asked, “So, the threat is neutralized?”

Domino shrugged her shoulders, “The big ones, probably. There might still be goons running around but I think we got the strongest ones. Even if they already had one foot in the grave.”

Alex nodded and let his mind go over how things could have been done better. Eventually, he sighed, “I'll speak with the Captain about not rushing into the unknown in the future. We'll focus on preparations for anything. There's no reason we can't have kits for many different scenarios with our ability to make space storage items.” He looked at Merlin, “Please get on it and make one or two for everyone along with Vivienne. You two are our enchanters and we can't just ask the Captain to make them for us.”

The two women nodded in agreement, so he continued, “We also need to be sure to buy proper supplies at the next opportunity. I'll also speak to the Captain about taking an extra few days to get some training in. I'd feel more comfortable if the Captain could use Geppo at least.”

Everyone agreed again and after some discussion about watch rotations, they all made their way to their beds for the night.

-----Line Break-----

Peter awoke the next morning feeling excited. He quickly got dressed and made his way to the lab area of the ship. He was rather surprised to find he was the first one there. Valeria and Vivienne were the two most enthusiastic creators on the crew and were usually first to arrive in the morning.

At his designated area, he retrieved the syringe he'd used on Cain and studied it with excitement. Now he just needed to inject the goo within the syringe into a fruit. The question became, which fruit? His Essence gave him access to every fruit in existence, that was a lot to choose from!

When it came to his ingredients and recipes, he truly did not know what their limits were or everything that was available. When he wanted a recipe he just thought about his end goal and a list of possibilities would be presented to him. Only after he picked one would he get the recipe and know what ingredients to get. The sheer number of options he got when thinking of a 'healing potion' were insane. He needed to filter through them to find one he found acceptable. The same applied to ingredients. If he thought of something he knew, he could most likely find it. The limitations were pretty lax.

In this case, he decided he wanted to revive the Kaze Kaze no Mi within a fruit from legend. Which legend? He wasn't sure just yet! So he started to think of various legendary fruits such Immortal Peaches from Chinese mythology, or Golden Apples from Greek mythology. But one fruit popped into his mind and he couldn't resist its call.

A light orange colored fruit, slightly larger than an apple and covered in small spiky protrusions, appeared in his hand. He smirked at the looked at it, a single fruit from The Tree of Might. The fruit was of the highest quality, but he had no idea how much it would increase someone's power when eaten. More important than that though was that it would increase the potency of the Kaze Kaze no Mi.

Peter wasted no time in jamming the needle into the fruit and pushing the plunger down. Nothing happened until the very last drop was injected. The appearance of the fruit began to mutate as soon as the syringe was empty. It was almost creepy to watch as the skin of the fruit seemed to wiggle and shift until it looked like he expected a Devil Fruit to. The kin color had changed from light orange to light green. The little protrusions had faded and been replaced with swirls that looked like pictographs of wind. Lastly a thick stem popped from the top of the fruit and took on a T shape with a single leaf.

Peter stared at the fruit sitting in the palm of his hand. The temptation to eat it was intense. This was a Logia, and not just any Logia but the WIND Logia! And not just that, but he'd put it into a Tree of Might fruit! Depending on the source that could either mean a straight fifteen times increase or something like three hundred thousand on a scouter, whatever that translated to. At fifteen times he expected his roughly ten ton strength would jump to one hundred and fifty tons. That was no joke.

That didn't even factor in the possibility of learning unassisted flight and ki attacks!

It took a supreme effort of will for him to set the fruit down and not simply devour it. First, they needed to study the fruit. Once they understood it better, only then could someone eat it. In the meantime... He summoned an even dozen fruits from the Tree of Might and set them to the side. They were an easy power up for his crew that didn't require anything special. Hell, even if they only doubled their strength it would be worth it!

He'd wait to eat his along with the others. If only he'd considered the fruit in the past. Well, he couldn't change the past but the future was looking even brighter!

He was pulled out of his thoughts by Merlin walking into the workshop. Seeing her immediately distracted him as she was hardly wearing anything. Today she wore a simple bikini in dark blue, heeled boots in a matching color, and a white lab coat. With the way her hips swayed and the coy look on her face, it was clear she expected, even wanted, him to look. She moved right over to him and took a peek at what was on his table, “Ara? What do we have here, Captain?”

Peter swallowed and looked away from the vast amount of cleavage that she'd shoved right next to his face while leaning over, “I reincorporated the Kaze Kaze no Mi and summoned some fruits I'd forgotten about that, when eaten, will make us all much stronger.” He coughed to clear his throat when Merlin moved even closer so one of her breasts rested on his shoulder, “I'd like you an Vivienne to examine the Devil Fruit. I used one of the other fruits as a base so you can use it as a control to see the differences.”

Merlin hummed and turned her yellow eyes to look at him, “Fascinating. I'll get to it with Vivi after breakfast. Erina sent me to fetch you.”

Peter took the excuse and quickly slipped away from Merlin to walk to the stern of the deck he was on where the kitchen and mess were. Just stepping out of the workshop let him catch a whiff of what Erina was cooking. Opening the door to the mess bathed him in the heavenly aroma of her cooking. With just his home cooking skills and her enhanced taste she'd become a godly chef.

The impossibly rare and expensive ingredients probably didn't hurt either...

He took his seat at the head of the table, where the others insisted he sit as the Captain of the ship. Soon the table was covered with food of all kinds, courtesy of Irena and Sakuya dishing it out for everyone. As they were eating, Alex spoke up for the crew as their first mate, “Captain, we had a small discussion last night and wished to inform you of it.”

Peter made a 'go on' gesture while he fought very hard not to throw away his utensils and instead rip into the food with his bare hands to get as much as possible into his mouth.

Alex continued, “Given how dangerous the world is, going into the stormy side of the island without proper preparations could have gone significantly worse than it did. We're lucky none of us can actually get sick or catch any diseases. On top of that, if the Ex-Admiral you ran into had been any younger or smarter, you could have died at his hands. We got extremely lucky and we can't rely on luck to see us through. From now on, we will be insisting that proper preparations be made before we do any exploring.”

Peter, rather than being upset, was very happy to hear their opinion. Granted, he'd been thinking the same thing himself, but the fact that they saw his mistake and were working to correct it was a good sign! He did not want a bunch of yes men always agreeing with everything he said or did, that would lead to a disaster of some sort down the line. He gave them all a bright grin and nodded his head, “I agree wholeheartedly. It was stupid to go into that storm without even thinking ahead enough to wear waterproof clothing, at the minimum. We won't go back until we deal with that, then we'll find the Stormheart Obelisk and see what it's all about!”

As he finished he felt a glare burning into the back of his head. Glancing over his shoulder he saw Sakuya staring at him without blinking, her face completely flat and devoid of emotions. E cleared his throat, “And, uh, naturally I won't go out without you again, Sakuya.”

She finally blinked and gave him a small smile before looking away. Peter swallowed and reminded himself that he did make Sakuya to be his maid slash bodyguard and leaving her behind was kind of stupid of him. She could have handled the Ex-Admiral all on her own without breaking a sweat. Possibly the only people in the world who could match her in speed would be Enel and Kizaru and only due to their Devil Fruits. Even the future predicting Katakuri wouldn't be able to dodge her.

Once breakfast was finished, the scientists of the crew, Merlin, Vivienne, Valeria, and Momo made their was to the workshop. Merlin and Vivienne would be studying the Devil Fruit and the Tree of Might fruits. He'd pass those around later so everyone could get a nice power boost. Vivienne and Momo were working on more scientific pursuits to help explore the stormy side of the island.

While they studied and worked, Peter worked on making a waterproofing formula that could easily be poured onto anything that needed it. He was the first finished with his work, his Essence being the complete cheat it was. After providing materials requested by the girls, he made his way out onto the deck where Alex was instructing the rest of the crew. He quickly joined them.

He knew he'd gotten lucky against the Ex-Admiral. Extremely lucky. He couldn't count on that luck in the future so he worked hard to get better at fighting.

-----Line Break-----

It was a little after noon when the news coo came flying in. Peter quickly fetched the required money and paid for one of the papers. It paid to keep up with the news, especially since he was on the hunt for specific things. He grinned widely as he spotted what he had been looking for, bounty posters!

He smirked when he came across Luffy's first bounty for thirty million. He doubted anyone seeing his first bounty would imagine just how far he would go. Last he could recall, Luffy's bounty had reached a few billion. Along with Luffy's bounty he found Zoro, Sanji, and Nami's. Then he got a pleasant surprise, “Hey! Alex!”

When his first mate looked over, Peter showed him his bounty post, “Fifty million! Not bad man!.” Next he turned to Domino and smirked while holding up a poster for her, “Sixty-five million for you 'Bomber' Domino.” Next he turned to Artoria and showed her poster, “Eighty-five million for you 'Iceblade' Artoria.”

Alex looked a little confused on why he had a bounty poster, until he remembered the minion he'd copied Soru from and defeated. He supposed whoever that had been had at least some skill so he got a bounty. Domino just sauntered over and took her poster to study it. She smirked at the image they had of her aiming with the revolver and its barrel smoking. Artoria's picture showed her usual stoic appearance as she rarely showed much emotion in public or where she could be viewed. When Peter showed it to her, he could see a light blush on her cheeks. Alex's was just a picture of him standing on the deck of The Coming Storm.

Sadly, no one else had a bounty on them and unless they did something the marines noticed, wouldn't be getting one anytime soon. Peter was certain that if the marines knew he'd killed an Admiral, even an Ex-Admiral, they would have slapped him with a fat bounty and been gunning after him hard. He, honestly, was slightly jealous they all had bounties before he did. Then again, he hardly did anything back on Hana Island so it made sense.

After the fun with the bounty posters and a nice lunch, they returned to training for a while. Peter was taking a short break to catch his breath and watching Mera work with her Hydrokinesis to manipulate the ocean water around them. It was fascinating to watch her change it's shape into various animals, his favorite so far was when she turned the water into a massive eastern dragon. Just thinking about it made him wish he had access to Chakra so he could try to do the same thing.

He could give everyone access to Chakra pretty easily, just a simple potion and BOOM! Chakra. The problem came down to how to use it, specifically the hand signs. Not only did he not recall them with any clarity, but there were also so few shown in the anime. They could all get the basic boost of having Chakra that would make them stronger, and he fully remembered the training for tree walking, water walking, and the Rasengan, but nothing else. It was too bad they couldn't all become Chakra gods...

Peter lifted his right hand and summoned a fruit that had him cackling in absolute glee. What appeared within the palm of his hand was a peach shaped fruit that was blood red in color. It was a Chakra Fruit from a God Tree. Unfortunately, that made it pretty dangerous and not something he was just going to chomp down on. While there was no God Tree to worry about pissing off by eating the fruit, it still had some issues. Due to it being grown using death and blood, eating it was not good for ones mental health. That much darkness could corrupt anyone, even him.

No, the fruit needed to be purified. A thought brought him the recipe he would need to do so. The downside is that it would take months for the fruit to be purified. The fruit had literally absorbed millennia of pain, fear, and blood, that would take a while to remove. Which... Peter grinned. Which would be a good thing because he just had a genius idea.

Ignoring the rest of the crew, Peter hopped to his feet and dashed into the workshop. He immediately began the process of making yet another Homunculi. He ignored the girls still studying the Kaze Kaze no mi and any questions directed his way, he was in the zone. He was also looking forward to having another man around. He loved all the eye candy, but sometimes a guy just needed to hang with the bros. Now with the creation of this new Homunculus he would have another guy to hang with. When he got to the last two ingredients, he added blood from Tobirama Senju, and himself, as always.

He'd original thought of maybe creating Madara, Hashirama, or even Hagoromo, but Tobirama always struck him as the smartest of them all. He could only point to two huge mistakes Tobirama made. The first, sacrificing himself for Hizurzen Sarutobi, the second appointing Hiruzen Sarutobi as the third Hokage. Peter was certain that if Tobirama knew that the two founding clans of Konoha would be completely destroyed under the rule of Hiruzen, he'd have left the man to act as the decoy when they were about to die.

Well, either way, Tobirama was the genius behind things like the Shadow Clone, Flying Thunder God, and Impure Reincarnation techniques. It would probably take the man some time, but he had no doubt that a genius like Tobirama could easily recreate a multitude of ninjutsu techniques.

Once Tobirama was growing in the tank, he turned to purifying the Chakra Fruit. Well, fruits, actually. He summoned another nineteen of the fruits to purify them all at once. He had no idea if he was going to have that many people on his crew in six months or not, but he would be prepared if he did! He mixed the purification recipe in a wooden barrel and sealed the fruits inside of it when he was done. Only then did he pay attention to an impatient looking Merlin.

Merlin had her arms crossed under her bikini clad ample chest and was tapping one of her feet while she gave him a mild glare, “Are you done now?”

It took a supreme effort of will for Peter not to stare at her cleavage when he answered her, “Yes. I just had a brilliant idea so I had to act.”

Merlin playfully rolled her eyes, wondering who the new woman on the crew would be before she explained, “We've made some progress on examining the Kaze Kaze no mi, but there's a problem. The fruit you placed it within has too much of its own power and is making our readings... fuzzy, for lack of a better word. Can you move it into a normal fruit?”

Peter nodded, “That's not a problem.” He repeated the process he'd performed on Cain and turned a normal apple into the Kaze Kaze no Mi, “There you go.”

Merlin took the fruit back and immediately began to examine it once more. Peter chuckled and made his way back out of the workshop to return to his training. Tomorrow they would have a new crew member and be heading back to the island to look for the Stormheart Obelisk.

-----Line Break-----

Peter, Alex, Sakuya, Artoria, Domino, Merlin, and Valeria, all walked through the rain in relative comfort. They all wore long coats and hats that Peter had turned water proof. On top of that, Merlin and Vivienne had enchanted them to keep the wearer nice and toasty. As long as they kept the hats on and the coats closed, they were pretty much impervious to the rain and kept nice and warm. It was a significantly more enjoyable romp through the forest to the abandoned town than the first time.

On top of being warm and dry, Peter had created chemical lights bright enough to let them see through the gloom of the clouds. He'd made a ton the day before, after finishing his training for the day, so he was tossing them out pretty often to improve their view. Doing so allowed them to find their way to the center of the storm. It was rather shocking to step out of the perpetual rain and into a clear well lit area. It was like the center of a hurricane, without the hurricane.

Within the storm center was a squat building that was in significantly better condition than the ones out in the rain. While it was somewhat overgrown and crumbling here and there, it still had a roof and even a standing door. This had to be where the Obelisk was. Together the group moved to the door that Alex insisted on being the one to open.

The interior was recently lived in, obviously by Cain and his pirates, and filled with various things like beds, chests, and clothing. A quick look netted them a single chest of gold coins. For a pirate group led by an Ex-Admiral, they didn't have much money. They didn't find anything else among the items worth taking and moved on.

They explored the building but didn't find much. The place had clearly been cleared out in the past and was now only filled with pirate trash. Eventually, they did find something interesting. At the end of one hall was a massive steel door with five numbered dials, four in a square around a central one. He door was covered in scratches and slash marks making them think Cain had tried to open it through brute force.

Peter turned to Merlin and Valeria, “You're up ladies.”

The two women walked up and began to examine the door. Valeria pulled tools out of her own storage ring and began using them to check things. Momo had been an amazingly helpful addition to the crew and especially to Valeria. Together Valeria and Momo were already approaching what Peter would consider 'modern' technology. Granted it was more skewed to what was immediately helpful, tools and such, instead of less useful things like computers they couldn't power, yet.

Working together, Merlin and Valeria got the locks opened in just a little under an hour. Alex pulled the door open and everyone stared at what was inside. The room was huge, but had comparatively little within it. The most interesting thing was also the first thing they saw. Standing in the middle of the room was a pedestal about three feet high. The whole thing was covered in wires that came out of the floor and went to the top of it where they were sticking out in random directions around what was obviously a Devil Fruit.

“Don't touch anything.” Peter warned.

The next thing they noticed was a desk off to the side covered in papers. He walked over with Merlin and Valeria at his side. At first glance, the papers were written in a language he'd never seen before, but as he looked at them he realized he could read them. He quickly, but carefully, gathered them up and began reading them. A lot of it was technobabble he had trouble following, but he managed to get the gist of it after a while.

“These people were either geniuses or bat-shit insane.” was Peter's opinion.

Merlin looked at him in question, “Do explain.”

Peter continued to read papers as he moved toward the Devil Fruit pierced by wires, “According to these, this Devil Fruit is the Zaza Zaza no mi, the rain rain fruit, and is responsible for the weather outside. They were experimenting to see if they could use the power of a Devil Fruit without someone having to eat it. Obviously, their experiment worked. Until it didn't.”

He turned through a few more pages and huffed, “They managed to get it to do its thing, making it rain, but only in the most basic sense, like we see outside. The problem was, they couldn't get it to stop. They turned off their equipment, disassembled it all, and still the rain persisted. Essentially, they turned the Devil Fruit on at it's weakest setting and it became self reliant. Moving the fruit just moved the storm.”

He looked at the Devil Fruit, and the wires stuck up around it, “Since they had no idea how to shut it off or what would happen if someone ate an active Devil Fruit, they abandoned the project and sealed it off. There's not much else, just technical notes, but I think we can guess what happened by what's left of the town outside. No one would want to live in perpetual rain so they all left over time, about... two hundred years or so ago.”

Valeria whistled, “That's kind of impressive. I can see what they were thinking too. Just imagining what could be done with control over the weather at the tips of my fingers gives me a lot of ideas, even if it's just turning the rain on and off. You'd definitely never have to worry about a drought ever again.”

Merlin walked up to the fruit and studied it, “So, what are we going to do? Leave it here?”

Peter snorted, “Fuck no.” He pulled a familiar syringe out of his storage space, “The current incarnation of the fruit is active, so I'll 'kill' it and move it to another.”

True to his word, Peter went through the process of extracting the essence of the Devil Fruit just as he'd done to Cain with the Kaze Kaze no Mi. Once it's power was removed, the Zaza Zaza no mi transformed into a normal looking mango, for a few seconds. Moments after its power was removed the mango began to deteriorate at an accelerated rate until little more than some dust remained of it.

Upon returning outside, they found the sky clear for the first time in at least two hundred years. The ground was still muddy and everything was soaked, but the stormy side of the island was no more. Now the whole island would share the same weather.

It didn't take the group very long to return to the ship. The found gold was just dropped in Peter's storage ring. No one on the ship cared about the money as they could all have as much as they needed. Peter wasn't greedy and money meant very little to them since they could produce anything they needed between himself and Momo.

After injecting the essence of the Zaza Zaza no mi into a new mango, they officially owned two rather powerful Devil Fruits, even if the Zaza Zaza no mi was a Paramecia. It was definitely one of the Paramecia that could destroy and entire island, similar to the Gura Gura no mi Whitebeard had. Peter couldn't help wondering what someone clever could accomplish with the Zaza Zaza no mi. He didn't know who would eat it, or when, but he did know that Mera was forbidden from ever eating a Devil Fruit, or at least natural ones. What would be the point of her being Atlantean if she couldn't even swim?!

As he studied the two Devil Fruits and frowned. There was no way in hell they weren't getting eaten by members of his crew, they were too powerful to sell and too convenient not to use. The problem was, that would make two people whose power could be labeled as 'storm' powers. Add in Mera's own Hydrokinesis and all the bullshit Tobirama would be capable of and the 'storm' theme would become even stronger. Hell, if he stole Enel's Goro Goro no mi, he'd have lightning on his crew as well. Then he remembered what he'd named the ship why trying to be all ominous, The Coming Storm.

Did he predict the future? He sighed and looked up at the pirate flag with the golden cauldron on it. Yeah, 'The Gilded Cauldron Pirates' was starting to feel completely inaccurate and like a mouthful and they'd only been using the flag for a couple of days! He sighed and thought of a new name, something storm related.

“The Stormborn Pirates?” he muttered to himself. He shook his head, “No no, the Stormbringer Pirates!” He nodded his head at that, “The raging storm that changes the world.”

He smirked and had to admit it was a lot better than The Gilded Cauldron Pirates. He looked at the two Devil Fruits and contemplated if he should eat one of them.

While he was tempted to eat the Kaze Kaze no mi himself, it would be a powerful Logia in his hands, he was still focused on getting the Mera Mera no mi from Ace. Fire was a powerful natural force and one he wanted to get his hands on. He also had an excellent chance of getting it from Ace without a fight by promising to fix Whitebeard. Which, in turn, would make him hugely popular among the Whitebeard pirates. Possibly popular enough to get some training out of them in the use of Haki. They would also make powerful allies and quite possibly, friends.

Now, he just needed to find and convince Ace.

-----Line Break-----

Peter yawned while he relaxed on the forecastle deck in a hammock where he could see the new jolly roger flapping in the wind. It was still a classic skull and crossbones, but now it had a thick stormcloud over the skull with lightning and rain falling from it. All around the sides were little swirls meant to represent wind. Lastly, there were small flames in the eye sockets of the skull, representing his intent of getting the Mera Mera no mi in the near future. It looked way cooler than the old flag had!

Off to the side Tobirama was experimenting with hand signs and writing notes about his discoveries. It had been a shock to the crew when Peter had actually created a man. Tobirama had gotten the same treatment as everyone else, the Spider Venom and a Powerful Healing Factor. It seems that both had helped improve his chakra pool drastically, which was already rather big. Peter had also given him skill potions that contained everything he could even mildly remember from the Naruto series.

As if to prove his genius, Tobirama had mastered wall and water walking in a few hours, then proceeded to master the Rasengan in just a day. Seeing the Rasengan in person had been thrilling, but less so than Peter had expected. It would probably be more meaningful if he did it himself. He might get the chance on whatever island they landed on next. Their six log poses had split evenly between three island choices. Mera had picked on at random and they'd left a few days ago.

There was the occasional trouble one would expect on the Grand Line, but the ship was manned by super powered geniuses, the random bullshit of the Grand Line was no bother. Mera really got to push her Hydrokinesis in the storms. She would focus on keeping the rain from hitting the ship while simultaneously keeping the ocean beneath the ship as calm as she could. What should have been towering swells threatening to capsize them had calm tunnels bored right through them that they sailed through. Truly, he'd really chosen properly when he picked her as his navigator!

Once more, he had no idea where they were going and that was quite alright with him. They would arrive at Arabasta when they were meant to and not a moment sooner. They had a descent lead on Luffy and his crew so as long as they didn't land on an island with a crazy Log Pose set time, like Little Garden, they should be fine. Hell, as far as he could tell, Little Garden was an outlier when it came to reset times. Most places only took days or a couple weeks.

As he sipped on a wonderful fruity beverage Erina had prepared, he contemplated their current weather. Things had calmed down a day ago and the air had been getting hotter. He expected they wre coming up on a summer island and should hear about it any...

Alex called down from the crow's nest, “Land ho!”

...Moment now. Yeah, like that.

It was a little while longer still before they got close enough to see the island in person. It was... unique for sure. It was definitely a tropical island and not very large either. The geography was interesting as it looked like it was made of two layers. The bottom layer was the largest and covered in buildings of all sizes. The second level, in the center of the first, didn't have any buildings. What it did have was an enormous tree that could probably give the mangroves of Sabaody a run for their money in size. Possibly in weirdness too as the leaves of the tree were fanned out like a striped parasol that covered the island in shade. Lastly, at the very top of the tree there were several multistory buildings.

Everyone on deck looked at the island with a fair bit of awe. As they got closer they could see a lot of the buildings had archways, balconies, and swimming pools. Even as they drew closer their jolly roger didn't attract too much attention. In fact, as they got closer to an empty dock, they spotted a couple of other pirate ships and even two marine ships. They might pose a problem, but that may be dealt with later.

For now, they pulled up to the dock and were greeted by the dock master and a few of his assistants, “Welcome to Kyuka the resort island! While here we ask that you act as proper guests. How long do you believe you will be staying with us?”

Peter quickly asked, “How long does it take for a log pose to reset here?”

“Ah! You found us the old fashioned way, eh? That's rare. Most use Eternal Poses to come here for vacation. It will take two weeks for your Log Pose to reset. I take it that is how long you will be staying with us?” At Peter's nod, he continued, “Ah, wonderful! Rental of the dock for two weeks will cost you one hundred and forty thousand Belly.”

While Mera and Alex tied off The Coming Storm, Peter made his way down the gangplank and paid the dock rental fee. Ten thousand a day didn't seem too bad. The dock even looked like it had good security to justify the price. Regardless, one of the combat crew would always be onboard. No sense in risking the ship getting stolen!

With all the formalities taken care of, Peter addressed his crew, “Alright, it looks like we're going to be here for two weeks. I think that's perfect. I want us to eat the fruit from the TOM Fruit and take the two weeks to get used to our new strength while also trying to learn some basic techniques utilizing the Ki energy the fruit will give us all access to. By the time we leave this island we'll be the strongest, and most skilled, crew in Paradise. I also want you all to take some time to relax while we're here. We've been going almost non-stop since I made Alex and I feel like we should take a break. I'd really like to take this chance to get to know everyone a little better.”

Momo, who had turned into a rather exuberant and outgoing woman, ran over, grabbed Peter's arm and very deliberately stuffed it between her breasts, “I call first dibs!”

Peter had to fight off a blush at the feeling from his arm. Momo as a sixteen year old girl had a rather impressive bust, as a woman in her mid twenties it was even more impressive. It didn't help that, like the majority of the women, she was only wearing a bikini top, which seemed to be the major fashion choice for the female crew. Once his arm was free, and ignoring the teasing smirk Momo was giving him, he started summoning TOM fruits from his storage ring and passing them out. He'd made enough for everyone and then one extra for the lab girls to study.

Once everyone had their TOM fruit, Peter held his up as if making a toast, “To making the world a better place and finding your dreams!”

Everyone lifted their own fruit in response. Then, they all chomped down on them.

Peter's eyes widened as he felt power surge throughout his entire body. All of his muscles swelled to multiple times their normal size when the energy flooded through him. A scant few seconds later his muscles contracted to a smaller size that was still larger than they had been previously. He'd already been in excellent shape thanks to all his hard work and training with Alex, but now his muscles looked like they were carved from marble. He felt euphoric and strong, as if he could take on the entire world and crush everything beneath him.

It didn't help that he now had the power and ability to literally blow up the entire planet. Vegeta popped planets with a power level of only eighteen thousand. Peter had no idea what his would be measured as, but he was certain that such a perfect TOM fruit would at least give him the strength Turles had in the movie, around three hundred thousand. Once he learned how to fire a beam of Ki energy, he would have all he needed to destroy the whole world, no Devil Fruit required.

Not that he wanted to blow up the world, he kept all his stuff here.

He came out of his thoughts and looked at his crew. Everyone looked physically stronger, but not to an obscene level. The guys all had much more masculine forms with strong swimmers builds and sculpted muscles. The women looked strong, but their muscles didn't stand out as much as the men's, thankfully. Still, as the women flexed and moved, their muscle definition could be seen, each of them having a six pack that many men would be jealous of.

Once the whole crew called down from the power high, Peter addressed them once more, “Take it very easy for today and be sure to try and be gentle with everything until you get used to your new strength. The last thing we need is to draw attention by accidentally destroying everything we touch. Other than that, have fun!”

The crew cheered, then began to disembark, all except Tobirama who volunteered to stay behind and guard the ship. He wanted to continue to experiment with his hand signs.

Momo grabbed Peter's arm once more and gave him an impish grin, “So, where shall we go for our first date?”

Peter swallowed heavily before looking Momo over. Aside from the bikini top she was wearing a skirt that went to the middle of her thighs leaving plenty of leg on display, as well as some sandal wedges that made her legs look great.

Due to the weather, Peter was wearing a simple vest, shorts, and going without shoes. Neither of them were dressed properly for a date so he spoke up, “I think we should get changed first. We can't go somewhere nice looking like we do. No need for something fancy, just more... normal.”

Honestly, he wouldn't have even gone to McDonalds wearing what he had on in his last life. No way in hell was he going on a date with Momo wearing it! They split up and went to their cabins to get changed. Peter put on a plain black tee shirt that was a little tighter now and clung to his skin showing off his muscle definition. Thankfully he always bought loose fit jeans so they were still a little loose when he put them on. At least his waist size hadn't changed, his legs were just a bit thicker was all. He slipped on his favorite pair of boots and called it done.

He only had to wait on the deck for a few minutes for Momo to come out. His jaw dropped at the sight of her. She'd changed her shoes to a different pair of white wedges with matching straps that wrapped around her legs up to her knees. She'd chosen to wear a pure white sundress that went down to her knees and firmly cupped her bountiful chest. On her right wrist she wore a simple white rose corsage to finish the outfit.

Taken all together her outfit projected an image of purity that had Peter wondering if he was worthy of dating her. While his Homunculi were all inherently loyal to him, he gave them complete free will otherwise. None of them had been given any kind of orders to be attracted to him or to serve him in any sort of sexual manner, even though he could easily do so. They were his crew and he didn't want to trat them like machines to be ordered about, used, and abused at his whims. That's not the kind of man he'd ever been and not the kind of man he wanted to become. Seeing Momo as she was filled him with temptation. He ignored it, but it was there, whispering into his mind that he made her, he 'owned' her, and could make her do anything he wished.

He ignored the dark temptations in the back of his mind and gave Momo a bright smile and sincerely said, “You look wonderful.”

Momo blushed a little and gave him a soft smile, which only made her look even more beautiful, “Thank you, Captain.”

Peter offered Momo his arm, and when she took it, he led her down the gangplank and into the city. They drew some attention from other people but only because they were, objectively, a good looking couple clearly on a date. Thanks to everything he'd done to himself, Peter looked a little older than he actually was so the difference in appearance age-wise wasn't too bad, though Momo did still look a little older.

Eventually, they found a moderately nice restaurant and made their way inside. Once they sat down and placed their order, Peter looked across the table at Momo and couldn't help asking, “So, why did you want to go out on a date with me?”

Momo gave him a coy smile, “Oh, many reasons. You're cute, the captain, gave me life, gave me purpose, and more.”

“You know, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do, that's not one of your duties, right?”

Momo nodded and smiled brightly, “That's another reason. All of us know you could treat us like nothing more than toys to slake your lust with, but you don't. We've seen how other men look at us, the way they want to own us, and then there's you. You could literally do to us what they wish to and we wouldn't be able to object. The fact that you don't speaks volumes to all of us.”

Peter shrugged, a little uncomfortable, “I made you all for a purpose. I won't deny one of those purposes was eye candy, but you're all amazing at what you do and that's the most important thing. All of us, together, make for a great crew with unlimited potential.”

Momo blushed a little, “You've done the most for the crew. All our strength comes from you. Using my Quirk to help Valeria is the smallest way I can pay you back for giving me my life and everything that comes with it.”

Peter chuckled a little, “We'll see if you still feel that way once the world is truly against us. If I manage to pull my dream off, which is looking more and more likely, then the entirety of the World Government will be after us. They will hate me even more than they hate that other Dragon.” He gave a humorous snort, “Probably doesn't help that we're both named Dragon.”

Momo giggled at that, then sighed and smiled brightly, “I think you underestimate how much you mean to me, to all of us. When the world comes after you as their worst enemy, we'll be right there by your side ready to fight until we win. We'll follow you until the very end, Captain.”

Peter smiled at that and nodded in acceptance, “Just know, if you find your own dream, let me know so I can help you fulfill it.” He would let the others know the same thing later.

Momo smiled wistfully, “I know the woman you used as a base for me wanted to be a heroine, protecting the innocent and stopping villains. Part of me feels like I will be fulfilling her wish by helping you destroy the Celestial Dragons. It may not be my dream, exactly, but I do feel a little compelled to help you accomplish it, to defeat the villains controlling the world. Maybe I'll find a real dream once that's accomplished?”

Peter smiled at that. He'd never hidden the memories he had of the people he'd based his Homunculi on. They all knew everything he could remember about their counterparts in other worlds. He felt it was a requirement if they were to use their natural gifts properly.

“The moment you have a dream, tell me and we'll do whatever it takes to fulfill it.”

After their meal, they made their way back toward the ship, stopping every now and then to do some window shopping. Clothing was about the only thing anyone bought anymore. Though Momo could make it, it was just easier to buy, especially for anything with a design on it. Momo wasn't quite to the point where she could produce truly complex designs.

As they were walking hand in hand, Peter spotted something that stood out like a sore thumb and jogged his memory. Walking in the opposite direction as them was a man of average size that looked a little frail. He wore tan colored pants and a shirt that would be hard to forget being vertically striped in white and blue with frills near the buttons and a red bow tie to top it off. His most distinct feature was not his shirt, or the glasses he wore, but rather a topknot in the shape of the number three.

“Mr. 3.” Peter muttered, catching Momo's attention.

Momo quickly caught sight of the man and hummed to herself before asking Peter, “Do you know what he's doing here?”

Peter shrugged, “I don't know. I'm not really sure what he was up to before he met Luffy and the others on Little Garden. If he's here, so is his partner, though I have no idea where. I highly doubt he's here for anyone on our crew. We haven't really done anything public since we got to the Grand Line so I doubt anyone knows where we are. Additionally, we did change Jolly Roger's after leaving the last island.”

Momo considered that, then shrugged her shoulders, “It doesn't matter if he is here for us, we'd crush him with a flick of our fingers.”

They had both been extremely careful with their improved strength. Even with a feather light touch, Peter had managed to deny his fork at the restaurant. He didn't want to know what would happen to a human body if he punched them full strength.

They walked past Mr. 3 without a care in the world. The only person in all of Baroque Works who posed any threat at all was Crocodile, and he was all the way over in Arabasta. They had nothing to worry about, yet.

-----Line Break-----

Peter stood in front of his entire crew, minus Tobirama, on top of the mountain in the center of the island, right next to the roots of the massive parasol tree. Tobirama refused to do anything until he mastered the hand signs that helped ninjutsu function. Not just being able to perform them easily and quickly, but mastering his understanding of what they did to the chakra in his body so he could begin crafting techniques. Peter was certain that if food and sleep weren't necessities of a well functioning mind, Tobirama would have given them up too in his single-minded pursuit. Still, it meant he would be able to teach the rest of the crew quite a lot by the time the Chakra Fruits were purified.

Today wasn't about that though, no, today Alex had insisted that Peter attempt to teach them how to fly. Not that he knew how to actually do it! Though, he did remember the gist of what Gohan taught Videl in Dragon Ball Z, and they all had significantly more Ki to work with than Videl would have had. He took a breath and addressed his crew, “The first step to harnessing Ki is to control it. Meditation is the first step. Sit down, relax, close your eyes, and sink into your body. Search for the energy within you. When you feel it try to guide it between your hands and form it into a small ball.”

Taking his own advice, Peter sits down and begins to meditate. It takes him almost no time at all to notice the new stream of energy within his body. Between it being foreign, massive in size, and his medical knowledge, it can't hide from him at all. Getting it to move as he wishes turned out to be not quite as easy as finding it.

Trying to get it to move was hard because it was like trying to reroute a raging river with his bare hands. He'd get a little bit to move, but the rest would ignore his attempts. He didn't know how long it took but slowly he managed to divert small streams of his Ki to his hands. Opening his eyes let him see the small weakly glowing yellow sphere of energy between his cupped hands.

Looking at the others, he noticed they were either doing better than him or about the same as him. He returned to focusing on his control, trying to get the ball of light to look more stable while increasing his control over his Ki.

They continued to do this until everyone could conjure a solid looking ball of energy between their hands. Peter felt a thrill when he got his ball to stabilize and could maintain it. He stopped feeding it energy and looked at the rest of his crew, “Alright, this next part will take a little artistic license to describe. Now that we can all feel and have mild control over our Ki, we need to hold it within our bodies while guiding it down to push ourselves into the air.”

Peter slowed his breathing and closed his eyes to focus on his Ki. He gently urged it to move 'down' to try and lift himself off of the ground. He was shocked out of his focus when he felt his body get slightly lighter. His eyes snapped open and he could see the grass around his feet gently swaying still. Thrilled, he closed his eyes and focused once more. He maintained his focus as he felt his body lighten once more, but lost it when he heard a feminine yelp.

Opening his eyes he saw Ai, of all people, floating a few inches off of the ground. Wind whipped around her entire body and pushed against the ground ruffling her clothing and the grass on the ground. Peter may, or may not, have seen a flash of her panties. Skirts were clearly a bad idea for flying attire. He clapped his hands, “Way to go Ai! Just like that!”

Of course, a moment later, Alex began hovering as well after taking a peek at Ai. Peter playfully grumbled about cheating bastards with unfair skills before he returned to trying to fly himself. Once more focused, he pushed and felt himself lightening up once again. Soon he felt a weird mix between zero-g and normal gravity. He could feel gravity pushing down on him, at the same time he felt like he was floating weightless.

Upon opening his eyes, he found himself hovering just a couple of inches off of the ground as the wind whipped around him. He threw his hands in the air and shouted, “Yes!” only to immediately lose it and fall to the ground in a heap.

Soon enough everyone had managed to float a few inches off of the ground. They focused on maintaining it, trying to make it into a muscle memory, something they didn't even need to focus on to do. As they got more comfortable with it, they slowly flew higher. Within a couple of hours, just as the sun was beginning to set, they all managed to actually fly. They didn't go too high, only around ten feet, but everyone managed to maintain controlled flight!

Peter grinned as he hovered in the air with his arms crossed over his chest and watched everyone fly around and laugh. They'd started a game of tag and it was really helping them get the hang of things even better. With this step, they just became one of the most dangerous crews in the world. They could literally fly anywhere and launch surprise attacks anytime.

Once he felt ready, those shitty Celestial Douchebags wouldn't know what hit them.

-----Line Break-----

An

Just over 9k words this time.

So, the crew found some interesting things, eh? BTW, I want to make it clear finding both the Kaze Kaze no Mi AND the Zaza Zaza no Mi was something I randomly generated! I don't think I mentioned that about the Kaze Kaze no mi so I wanted to officially say that. The Zaza Zaza no Mi was actually rolled first and what I based the whole island on with the Obelisk and such.

And now we're on a whole new, not nearly as hostile, island. I made the reset time two weeks so the crew could practice with what they've gained, research their Devil Fruits, and master their Ki to some extent.

As for the Chakra Fruit and Tobirama, that just popped into my head and I had to include it. Though I made the fruit mostly from memory and I think I recall it being said that eating the fruit caused Kaguya to go mad. I dunno if that's cannon or me misremembering. either way, that's how the fruits he got worked because I didn't want to go instant Chakra God on the entire crew. lol, they're kinda broken as is.

So, let me know what you all think! Until next time!