Headway/Nexus Quest 1.16
Location: Loguetown, Naval Protectorate of the Polestar Islands, Sekai Seifu(World Government), Earth, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth-Mayim, One Piece Multiverse, One Piece-jcw3
Date: Sunday, April 10, 1532.
You enter Middle Musashi's dojo for your usual swordsman training. It's a bit disappointing, really. You don't see any increases in swordplay or reflexes, but you do feel your combat instincts improve a little. Musashi seems satisfied with that, but you aren't. You were so close to another increase! Still, you suppose you can always get it later. Still, you get quite a bit of practice with both of your new swords (you eventually settled on buying both Kishi-ko and Kerimakureisho, to cover both extremes), and you're pretty sure you could use them in combat.
Next up is your tailoring lessons, which do end up significantly better than the swordplay ones. You see a impressive growth in tailoring, and small growths in fashion and sewing. Miss Rebecca praises you on your success, calling you a natural, but it looks like Headway's turned you into a perfectionist. You're not happy until something's absolutely finished.
Still, you can't help but be pleased with even the slightest growth. But the desire for more power still lingers, which is why you're boarding the Whistling Barnacle, a privately-owned sailing vessel that travels from Loguetown to Furskin Island, taking a good portion of the day to get to the small island community.
The boat ride is entirely uninteresting. Occasionally, the bored mercenary guards will amuse each other by shooting seagulls or albatrosses, or whatever other birds exist on Mayim, but you spend most of the day reading your book. You find out that you can transition back to Bet while on a ship and end up in roughly the same position, but you don't feel like drawing awkward questions about your absence.
You spend most of the day reading, and enjoying the tropical temperature. When you arrive on Furskin Island later that night, you find a private spot on the island and transition back home, going to sleep.
Location: Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, United States of America, Earth, Sol, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth Bet, Worm Multiverse, Worm-jcw3
Date: Tuesday, November 30, 2010
After breakfast, you enjoy a productive training session with aikido, where you move on past peak human, and also see an increase in your overall martial arts mastery. Well. That's a nice little benefit there. That's essentially the only time you spend on Earth-Bet these two days, besides stopping in every now and then to fill Dad in on your current situation.
Location: Furskin Island, Naval Protectorate of the Polestar Islands, Sekai Seifu(World Government), Earth, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth-Mayim, One Piece Multiverse, One Piece-jcw3
Date: Monday, April 11, 1532.
Furskin Island is a small island for Earth-Mayim, population-wise. Only a little over twelve hundred people live here, making their living off of the native furfish, an amphibious creature with high quality skinnable fur. The furfish live in the center of the island, near Lake Kegawa (original name, huh?) and the village dots the entirety of the coast, with a series of paths and trails leading to the lake.
The reason for this becomes obvious when you see the fur fish for the first time. Some of them are enormous, up to five feet in length, crawling on land with little centipede legs, and just casually avoiding humans as they do. You see burly men with spears and fishing lines walking by them, occasionally patting the furfish on the side.
"Firs' time 'ere?" a local fisherman asks, his accent blurring the words together. It seems vaguely...Cajun, maybe?
"Yeah. Came here looking for new sights, new ways to make a living."
The man grimaces. "Yer not gonna find much 'ere in da way a' earnin' t'ings. 'Rest a' da world jus' likes us fer our ferfsh."
It takes you a moment to realize he means furfish. "So, not many jobs besides skinning and fishing?"
"Nah."
"Any...monsters, or bandits, or anything?" you hazard a guess.
The man pauses to think, before gesturing back at Furskin Village. "Ahm...check da bar. Got lotsa bounties and such."
"Thanks," you reply, as the man waves goodbye, before heading back to Lake Kegawa. You take one more look at the odd centipede-fish-giant-squirrel thing gnawing on some weeds. Wow. That's...surreal. You spend a while just watching the environment around you, before you finally decide to go to the village.
The Furskin Bar has a simple name, and given that it's the only one of its type for around two hundred miles, you suppose it doesn't need a complex one. You weed through the requests for gardening help, and pocket the help wanted ads for fishing, as well as the bounties for rabid or dangerous animals.
Most importantly, however, you find the bounty for 'Snowborn' Tawanda, who lives in the snowy hills of the forests to the west of the island, and occasionally raids the village. Mountain bandits, then. He's said to have six men, including his right hand man. 1,000,000 beri for him, with 100,000 for his henchman, and 50,000 for his remaining men.
You also listen on some local hunters who are planning on taking down a bloated furfish on the north of the island, but are short on men. "I can help," you offer.
They give you an appraising look, before their ringleader frowns, speaking in a more normal accent than most of his compatriots. "You? You're, ah, a bit tiny, kid."
You scowl back. "I think I'd be pretty useful," you say, gesturing to your zweihander, and you lift Kishi-ko from its straps on your backs, and raise it with your right hand alone. It's a bit of an effort, but you can do it without looking silly, and so you use it to make your point. With your left, you lightly tap Kiramekureisho, your medium-length scimitar.
The leader laughs. "Alright, kid, you're in. I'm Allain. These are..."
He introduces his companions, and after some basic explanation of what the six of you are planning on doing, you head to the north side, where the giant fur fish awaits. In terms of an appearance, it's literally a scaled up version of its smaller brethren, only at about ten feet in length and six in height.
Allain hisses at the five of you. "Maude! Dagobert! The javelins, now!"
Two fishermen to the left of you whirl throwing spears through the air, and they peg the giant fish in the middle of its forehead and its tail respectively. The latter hooks into the fish's furry flesh, but also ends up sticking in.
Allain, as well as the other two Furskinners, draw muskets/flintlocks/whichever types of guns those are, and open fire, aiming fire at the fish. One splatters out on its stomach, but two hit its face, one grazing, and the other taking out an eye.
From there, the six of you follow the previously agreed upon plan. Run in and stab the thing with everything you have, while trying not to get bit, stepped on, or smacked with its tail. You're proud to say that you completely sliced through its tail with the zweihander. It took a few stabs, but this is an impressive sword, and you're an impressive swordswoman. For the purpose of slaughtering giant monsters, Kishi-ko is ideal.
You feel the Headway tingle as the beast goes through its death throes, and the hunters throw up their hands in joy. "Good work, everyone! We killed the bastard! You too, kid! Nice work there!"
You grin, and shake Allain's hand. Dagobert offers to take everyone out to drinks, but you politely refuse. You accept the ten thousand beri bounty, and leave the area. Your next move is to hire local fisherman and hunters to teach you their tricks and a bit of their knowledge. It's ultimately a successful venture. In exchange for a pittance from your funds, you gain valuable leaps forward in hunting, tracking, and fishing. At worst, you're average in these areas.
After that, you have a bear of a time, in more ways than one. Your original shape changing ability, the ursine form, doesn't increase at all from training, which is unbearably annoying. Still, you can bear with it, as long as your next theory is correct.
Earlier, you picked out a small bounty on some rabid, starving bears deep within the Furskinner forest. Turns out that while the furfish are the dominant species on Furskin Island, potentially counting humans, there are still a variety of other animals, particularly far away from Lake Kegawa. A hunter on expedition to track down rogue colonies of furfish found the cave a few days ago, and only escaped due to trickery.
There's a small bounty out on them, mostly due to their distance from town, and since you think your bear form might increase a bit from killing them, you're taking the job. You wash off Kishi-ko, before you head out.
You arrive at the cave, a simple little hole in the middle of a forest. You note two bears in the cave, one sleeping, and the other gnawing on a small furfish, with its mouth foaming over already. Eugh. This isn't going to be easy.
Hmm. The scimitar doesn't have the sheer force behind it to dig into the bear's flesh, half-starved or not. The bears can barely fit in the cave, let alone you with a zweihander. So...maybe some trickery's in order here. You grab a medium-sized rock off of the ground, and toss it at a tree. One of the bears is still sleeping, but the one eating a fish growls lightly, before walking out of the cave.
Thankfully, its senses are almost completely gone, and so it doesn't notice your zweihander ramming into its neck, not quite decapitating it in a single blow. It doesn't seem alive, but you still use Kiramekureisho to finish off its neck just in case.
Whew. That...was the first real animal you've killed so far. The giant furfish doesn't really count, it was kind of an unrepentant monster. But that...that was an actual animal. A dangerous one, but one you would have found on Bet, maybe even in the Bay's suburbs. Did it really deserve that? Do you really care? It's a bit unsettling, but you think the answer's yes.
Your pragmatic side knocks on the metaphorical door in your brain and points out that the other bear is still there. Luckily, it seems to be pretty deep in sleep. It doesn't even twitch when you toss another rock down there. You feel another surge of guilt as you sneak up on it, and slam your scimitar into its neck, before dragging it to the left, killing the bear.
The poster said that you would need proof of the bear's deaths. You take a look around the cave's exterior, seeing a growth of vines, and you wrap it around the two creatures' decapitated heads. Eww, eww, eww, ignore the squishing sound and the snapping noise and eww, eww, eww! You're going to wash the scimitar. You are so, so, so going to wash it. Keep in mind that these were dangerous creatures. Yes. Dangerous creatures. Very dangerous. Huh. It's almost enough to make you proud.
This is going to get you stares, you just know it. You stop by the docks, to see Lebeau, the man who issued the bounty. He's surprised, but since he's the one who survived their attack, he clearly recognizes them. After politely asking you to wash your hands and get rid of the heads, he gives you the five thousand beri, apologizing for not having more.
Lastly on your agenda, you trek up the hills to the Snowborn bandit camp. The location of the cabins where the marauders make their lair is common knowledge, and the locals have appealed to Loguetown for help, but Smoker's been unable to show up, with his responsibilities of guarding Reverse Mountain. As for the Marine outpost on Furskin Island, they're just a bunch of clerks. Mind you, Smoker would take the trip here, if Tawanda were stupid enough to make regular attacks.
But no, 'Snowborn' is a relatively canny guy when it comes to spacing out his attacks, and they only occur every few months, and usually no one's killed. He's earned his bounty for sheer longevity, having been around for nine years. Ultimately, though, his camp is available for any brave, heroic adventuress to go in and take his organization down.
You make your way up the hills, ignoring the temperature and pressure drop thanks to your cold resistance and fitness, and you find the general sleeping hall of the bandits relatively quickly and easily. You see that all but one are sleeping. It doesn't match the image of Tawanda or Eliot, so you're guessing it's some random lookout.
He's standing by a window, so you plan this next move out carefully. You enact the best thing you can immediately think of. You change your vocal cords to that of a bear, and let out a low grunt. The man perks up, muttering something, and walks out the door, drawing his cutlass. You're ready for him, and enact a series of complex maneuvers with aikido and Kung Fu, silently and quickly dropping the man. You deftly grab the cutlass before it hits the floor and makes a noise, before pushing the downed bandit onto the ground outside.
You slowly close the door to the hall. Four other men in the room...your next move is slow and mechanical. You go up to each and every one, and choke them into unconsciousness. Not...exactly a tactic you imagine Alexandria using, but effective nonetheless. No rope to tie them up with. You'll settle for leaving them where they are while you take down the chief henchman and leader.
Eliot goes down similarly easy, so you're a bit overconfident when you enter Tawanda's home. He's a taller man, around seven feet tall (one of those people with giant's blood, you guess), with a tanner complexion than most. He's completely bald, shirtless, and wearing only a pair of jeans. He's got that same annoyed grimace on his face that he had on his bounty poster. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" he demands, grabbing a kanabo from beside his desk, glaring at you.
Fuck. Nothing to say here. You doubt 'please surrender' will work, so you'll have to make this fast. You blitz 'Snowborn', selecting your scimitar for its speed. You were relying on Tawanda to pull out his club and drop it on you, and your expectations were met. You use the scimitar, and after sliding out of the way of the bandit's attack, you bring your scimitar in a downward slice on his arm, nearly severing his right hand. He screams out loud, and you take advantage of his discomfort, punching him square in the nose, before spinning the man with all of your strength, pulling him towards you and putting him in a choke hold. He goes out like a light.
You grab some bandages and patch up his hand. He won't ever use it again (which is a bit of a disturbing thought), but he won't die from bleeding out. You find some more vines outside, and you use those as a rope, right after going through the process of making sure the Snowborn Bandits don't have any more weapons on them.
Now it's time for the fun part. Loot. Or at least, it would be fun, if you got something besides cheap weapons. Some rusty longswords and fishing spears, and one hatchet. The kanabo is something that should fetch a few thousand beri back in Loguetown, but that's about it. Tawanda and his men had a collection of books, most either mystery, folklore, or pornographic. You take the former two categories, while trying not to touch the last one.
After transferring the important loot to your family basement, you empty a cart filled with furs, and pile the unconscious forms of the Snowborn Bandits downhill into town. You certainly gave the clerk at the front desk a bit of a fright, but after a rather awkward conversation, you get 1,150,000 beri for the criminals, and the knowledge that Tawanda will be heading to Impel Down, which is supposedly a very secure prison. Sort of like the Birdcage, you guess.
Well, that was a productive day. You head to sleep, readily awaiting another.
Headway/Nexus Quest 1.17
Location: Furskin Island, Naval Protectorate of the Polestar Islands, Sekai Seifu(World Government), Earth, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth-Mayim, One Piece Multiverse, One Piece-jcw3
Date: Tuesday, April 12, 1532.
You spend most of the morning taking advantage of the cool weather on Mayim by buying some time from local fishermen and hunters. They make excellent tutors for the ways of the wild, and you gain a level in hunting. Unfortunately, you don't really feel Headway at work outside of that, which is disappointing. Still, said skills should be easier to get next time, plus being in the wilds is just naturally refreshing.
The hunters and fishermen often like to talk about much more than just what you're paying them to do. One man's a retired Marine, who helped take down an 11 million beri pirate in his day. Another claims to have wrestled a baby cub in his youth. It's a bit embarrassing, though, because you have to clam up whenever someone asks where you're from, or you have to be incredibly vague about it.
You go onto training your bear form, but you don't have any success there. Maybe next time. After a few hours of unsatisfactory training, you pay the beri to go on the boat to Shigeki Island, the third and last civilian community in the Polestar Islands. It's a fairly mundane shipping village, but it might have some bounties or adventures to come across. New powerscould always be useful.
The boat ride is pretty boring. You help along your skills in seamanship by observing the crew at work, and your knowledge grows heartily, with Headway pulling additional knowledge out of thin air to help you along.
For actual training, history is your first step, a little boring, but Earth-Mayim has huge gaps in its history. You don't make many inroads with history, but geography sees a small increase, and you begin to learn more about Mayim's myriad far-flung islands. Science is a bit more tedious, but physics and geology still see impressive increases.
You take out your flute, too, for the first time in a long time. Headway lets you gain power and skill at an accelerated rate, so why shouldn't it work for music? You hesitantly put your lips on the instrument...and you play. Personally, you think you did alright, but you can do a lot better. This...this is for Mom. She deserves no less.
All in all, though, the trip was a bit tedious, and you're relieved to see the ship arrive at Shigeki Island later that evening.
Location: Location: Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, United States of America, Earth, Sol, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth Bet, Worm Multiverse, Worm-jcw3
Date: Wednesday, December 1, 2010
You return home to find your Dad waiting on you. "Hey," you say lamely, having just transitioned into the kitchen.
"Hey."
You scratch the back of your head. "Um...I didn't talk to you about what I did yesterday."
Dad shakes his head. "No, you didn't. Take a seat," he says, gesturing towards a wooden chair conveniently pushed back from the dining room table.
You wince, before following instructions. "I'm...sorry, Dad. I had a long day yesterday, and just fell right asleep when I got home."
He wraps his hands around his face in a tired manner, before putting them down. His next question is born of confusion and curiosity alike. "Why were you tired?"
"I was fighting."
A simple response, that has a (in hindsight, anyway) predictable response. "Fighting who?" he demands in a tone clearly indicating that he's holding back his anger. "Are you alright? Are...they...alright?"
You could lie here. It would be easy, Dad wouldn't be worried, and you'd get off scotch free. But...dammit, you've already trusted him with enough. He's been there. Even though it would be so easy not to worry him, to not make it awkward...you have to tell the truth. "I...got into three fights yesterday."
He lets out a breath, exhaling heavily from his cheek, before looking at you expectantly. "Two rabid bears. They were both distracted, so taking them out was easy," you explain. Killing them might have been easy, but cleaning your scimitar wasn't. "I helped some local fisherman kill a giant land...um, I guess it's a centipede-fish-giant thing. It went down easily. I think one of the locals got a scar. I got around twenty thousand beri for it, I think."
"More bears, Taylor?" Dad smiles softly. "Really. So, rabies. You didn't get bit, did you?"
"No. I sort of used trickery to take them down."
Dad nods. "So...did you kill them?"
You grimace, shuddering at the memory. "Yeah. It was...nasty."
He laughs. "Well, at least I don't have to worry about you going Rambo on the world. Are you alright?"
Go what? "Yeah. Neither of the animal fights hurt me. The, uh, third one didn't either," you say that last part a lot quicker than you intended, mostly out of nervousness.
Dad frowns. "What happened during the third fight?"
"'Snowborn' Tawanda. A mountain bandit with a million beri bounty," you start, and you wince again when you see Dad draw in a breath. "I snuck up on them when they were sleeping. Choked them out, then tied them up. One of their mooks put up a fight, but I took him down without any trouble."
He arches an eyebrow. "Even their leader? A million beri, and you just choked him out."
"Ah, no. He was actually awake when I went in. But I was better than him, I guess. Cut up his wrist a bit, used a little aikido, and down he went."
"Are you alright?" he asks. You nod, but he doesn't seem at all relieved.
Dad scratches his forehead. "I...did he deserve that? Did his men?"
"As far as I could get from the locals, they killed a couple people. They weren't, like, Kaiser, or anything like that, but they deserved to be arrested."
He rubs his face with his hands. "Well...fine, I guess. I...I'm just worried. It's a dad thing, I guess. I'm just really frustrated. Why-I wish I could do more for you. Hell, you're gone for most of the day, and you're only fifteen, talking so casually about killing animals. I'm...not disappointed. That's not the word. Confused, maybe? I don't know," he admits. "Sorry, I'm...rambling.
"...dad," you murmur. "Dad, I'm fine. I have powers now. I'm making a difference for these people. Monsters are dying, bad people are going to jail. I'm making money doing that!" you exclaim the last part, which was perhaps a bad idea.
Thankfully, Dad doesn't think much of it. "Logically? I get that. I know you have superpowers. I know you want to get more, to do more, all that stuff. But that doesn't change the fact that I worry. I...I don't really know what to say. I'm sorry."
"Dad...you don't have to be sorry. I'm going to stay safe."
He smiles. "Yeah, I know. You're just like your mother, with that can-do attitude," he lightly jokes. "Just...promise me that you'll stay safe."
"I promise."
"Thank you."
Location: Shigeki Island, Naval Protectorate of the Polestar Islands, Sekai Seifu(World Government), Earth, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth-Mayim, One Piece Multiverse, One Piece-jcw3
Date: Wednesday, April 13, 1532.
You spend the morning on Earth-Bet doing what else, training. Judo and capoeira, two more physical combat styles, see awe-inspiring increases that you can thank your martial arts mastery for. By the end of your sessions, you're average in both.
After proving how much of a badass martial artist you are, you then prove how much of a geek you are, by studying more science textbooks. You see a growth in chemistry, geology, and biology, but baseline science continues to elude you. Still, you're a burgeoning scientific genius, and you suppose you can be impressed by that.
Stealth is your next move, with you sneaking into Shigeki's forest to hide from the local wildlife. You idly realize that you haven't spent much time in the town proper, and aim to fix that later today. Your training efforts are unsuccessful anyway, and you leave after an hour, having made little progress.
You leave for the village itself, a small little enclave from the untamed wilderness by the area's natural harbor. Apart from the inn and several other nondescript buildings, the town's buildings are only one story tall. Most of the community lives in small, closed off shacks, built back when this town had a monster problem (Smoker spent a few days here, that problem vanished).
That curiosity aside, you walk into the village inn, mostly for the bounties. There are the usual big names, Don Krieg, Arlong, Buggy, Kuro, and so on. Animal bounties and help wanted bounties are also few and far between, but you do spot one interesting notice. 'ENORMOUS BIRD CONSUMING LOCALS. CONTACT CHIGUSA FOR DETAILS. 150,000 BERI REWARD.'
Turns out Chigusa is the woman who owns the local inn. She gives you an odd look when you ask about the man-eating bird. "You sure you want to try that, kid? Damn thing's eaten three men already."
For several seconds, you seriously contemplate transforming into a bear right then and there, but you think better of it. "I've got some tricks up my sleeve."
She shrugs. "Suit yourself. You better not die, I'm not telling your parents you died hunting some animal."
You muster up the self-control needed to resist the urge to roll your eyes. Some exposition on the bird, apparently an albatross, follows. It hides in a seaside cave to the other side of the island, and preys on anything that strays too close. Most people are smart enough to avoid it, but it's grown hungry enough to start hunting outside of its range. Therefore, the bounty notice. A teenage boy guides you to the area, and you draw Kiramekureisho when you see the large white bird.
It's pretty much exactly what you expected. A bird with a fifteen foot wingspan, around five feet in height. It's got blackened wings typical of the smaller variety of its species, but the more abnormal thing about it (despite its size) is the dried blood on its otherwise unmarred beak. Upon further inspection, you note that the albatross' flat feet are cut into claws, apparently naturally. Disturbing.
The battle's end is obvious. A competent, essentially superhuman swordswoman who's incredibly close to surpassing human limitations against a big, dumb bird. It charges you, and you cut into one of its wings. The gesture injures it, but doesn't finish it. A spurt of adrenaline overcomes you, and you swing the scimitar to the right, clipping its neck.
With that series of motions, you've eliminated its left wing as a threat, meaning it's permanently downed anyway. You catch the creature's talon with your arm, and pull. Ew- it comes right out of the socket. Again, ew. You try to shove that thought out of your head as you imbed the scimitar into its skull.
You stab the heart and eye, just to be certain, and then you slice off a wing, bringing it to the back door of the inn, as previously instructed. "Well, hot damn," Chigusa mutters, seeing its corpse. "I'm gonna mount that fucking thing right above my counter. Good job, kid. Money well earned."
You accept the one hundred and fifty thousand beri, before heading to the docks. You were kind of curious to see them, since being on Earth-Mayim has rekindled your childhood interest in the harbor. Of course, your meandering around the docks is interrupted by a ship with a Jolly Roger. You curse under your breath, before looking at the flag. A skull and crossbones with broken shackles for bones. The Freedman Pirates.
Led by Fengten, they're a group of escaped slaves, as well as random folks who wanted to be pirates, who place emphasis on the freedom of the seas, and the fact that they can commit any crime they want. Maybe you can disabuse them of that notion.
Where are the Marines? Unlike Furskin, Shigeki has a full division of them- ah. There are the gunshots. You see several Freedmen fall off of the rope ladders they're using to get down to shore, but Fengten has a disproportionately large crew when compared to the rest of the East Blue. Someone rings a church bell, which you suppose is their equivalent of an alarm.
Your observation of the battlefield distract you from the real situation, and you almost don't notice a woman with a cutlass rushing at you. Luckily, she's using it as a club rather than an actual sword, and you can use your scimitar to disarm her. Fortunately, that's not a literal statement, you just chop into a few fingers, and she drops her weapons. You then drop her with a few well placed martial arts moves.
You engage another pirate, this one a man in a chest plate, quickly switching to Kishi-ko for its sheer stopping power, which you use as a bludgeoning tool to bring him down in one fell swoop. You'll check him later to make sure he's alright, but in the heat of combat, you have other concerns.
A shirtless, tattooed man with a Mohawk and a really odd limb condition enters the battlefield, and you aren't sure whether to be relieved or frightened. Potentially both. 'Freedman' Fengten, a pirate with a 5.5 million beri bounty. He's using his typical set of spiked brass knuckles, and is giving you a sneering look.
"Shinchu...satsuei!" the pirate shouts, as he throws his right brass knuckle forward with alarming speed, and you barely manage to dodge the incoming blow. What...what was that? That was way beyond human speed! Did he really just launch a blow that powerful by shouting Brass Shoot?
His next blow is markedly slower, as is the next. The zweihander really isn't the weapon for this situation, at least, if you don't want to bisect the guy, so you switch to the scimitar, dodging backwards. This unfortunately lets Fengten get the upper hand in combat, since he's free to go on the offense, and his freakishly long limbs allow him the advantage over you in reach and speed. Your reflexes are good enough to dodge his blows, even the ones punctuated by vocal commands.
He's a brawler. His punches are sound, strong even, but he doesn't know much beyond basic savagery. Therefore...you go in for the cheap move, kicking him in the ankle. He swears out loud, screaming, and he falls to his right side. Some quick thinking on your part allows you to flip him so that he'll land on his back, and you help his descent by jamming your geta-covered feet into his chest. Fengten goes down.
You deck a pirate trying to avenge his captain, largely ignoring his swearing oaths of revenge since his swordplay is sloppy and easily disabled, and with that, the battle between the defenders of Shigeki Island and the Freedman Pirates ends.
Lieutenant Katayama, the leader of the local Marine base, orders his men to capture the Freedman ship. You're sure it has a name, you just don't know it. While doing that, he walks up to you. "You took out Fengten and three of his crew, huh?"
No introductions? You've heard Katayama was a by the books fellow, but that's a bit blunt. "Yeah. Fengten was pretty easy. A one trick pony."
Katayama snorts. "One trick ponies usually don't massacre entire islands. You're Hebert Taylor?"
Wait, he wiped out an entire island? Damn. "Uh, yes," you reply lamely. It takes you a moment to remember Mayim's naming scheme is backwards from Bet's.
"Captain Smoker mentioned you in the weekly dispatch to his officers in the Polestars. Anyway, my men are clearing out the ship-" a few gunshots ring out from inside the pirate vessel, as if on cue, "-so after that, I'll get the money to you."
"Thanks."
"No problem. Nice to see a bounty hunter actually doing something to help the Marines out."
You nod in response, and Katayama joins his men on the Freedman ship. The Marines allow you retrieve whatever you'd like from the forms of the four you took care of. You get two cutlasses, a baseball bat, Fengten's spiked knuckles, a flintlock without any ammo in it, and 100 beri from his wallet. Yes, one hundred. Clearly he was free from money.
More importantly, you feel the Headway tingle, and it's different from your existing shape changing abilities or general skills you've gained thus far. Something new! How wonderful. You find a private spot and transition back to Earth-Bet, making several trips with your new items.
Headway/Nexus Quest 1.18
Location: Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, United States of America, Earth, Sol, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth-Bet, Worm Multiverse, Worm-jcw3
Date: Friday, December 3, 2010
You're getting back to the boring yet necessary basics in terms of training. You spend a significant amount of time practicing Kung Fu, capoeira, and judo, and see appropriate increases in all of them. Logically, such a variety of martial arts increasing would have your overall mastery go up as well, but Headway is obnoxiously fickle. Despite that, you're feeling spectacular in terms of martial arts, and you have virtually no complaints in your existing skill level.
Well. There went your morning. Still, you're significantly better at three combat styles, even if your overall learning speed won't increase by much. Dad's at work, so you leave a note with the time you left clearly labeled on it.
Location: Shigeki Island, Naval Protectorate of the Polestar Islands, Sekai Seifu(World Government), Earth, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth-Mayim, One Piece Multiverse, One Piece-jcw3
Date: Thursday, April 14, 1532
You transition back into a ravine nestled away in the forested part of Shigeki, dealing with the increasingly familiar nausea. Increasingly familiar, but still just as disorienting. After it passes, you draw Kiramekureisho and your best sword you looted from either some pirates or bandits. You don't know which one, but it's of a reasonable quality, and Kishi-ko isn't really meant for dual wielding at your current strength level.
You're a good enough swordswoman to know that you have to give your unnamed sword a name in order to truly use it well. After a moment of contemplation, you deem the longsword Baiyokohai, or Cultured Devastation. With that effort you put into naming it in mind, it's almost disappointing how unsuccessful training Dual Wielding went, only gaining the basest of knowledge.
You have a more bearable experience with your bear form, seeing a single increase, to the point where you think the ability is combat viable. You aren't going to test it just yet, having only innocent forest creatures or fish nearby, and not really feeling like murdering defenseless animals.
Towards the evening, you head back into town, and a notice by Chigusa's inn catches your eye. 'CHILDREN OF THE GREAT BIRD BASTARD STILL SURVIVE. 10,000 BERI TO THE HERO WHO SLAYS THE ABOMINABLE SPAWN.'
Bit melodramatic. Well, it's a job. You tear the paper off of the blackboard, and make your way to the seaside nest where the albatross was slain. The battle isn't difficult in any way, and the creatures die easily to Kiramekureisho. You feel a pang of guilt as you stomp on cracked eggs, but according to the locals, the giant albatrosses have always been problems, and all these poor things would have done is kill innocent people.
You feel the Headway tingle as you slaughter the last of the still-living children, who, judging by their current state of fitness, would have just died in a few days anyway. You try to reassure yourself that this was necessary, but there's just something about ripping baby birds into pieces that makes you feel guilty, even if they are three times the size of a normal grown albatross.
Chigusa hands you the ten thousand beri when you bring fifteen or so mutilated wings, as well as telling her about the broken eggs. You end the conversation as quickly as possible, still feeling a bit awkward about your recent actions. The money's good, as is the new shape changing power you can vaguely feel, but the guilt...eugh.
Your nasty feelings thankfully come to a conclusion with your last practice of the day. Shigeki Island's main village mostly closes at eight o'clock, meaning that after that, you can freely practice freerunning on the small village. It's probably one of the best places to try it, since the buildings are all only one story. By the end of your session, you've unlocked that particular area of knowledge.
Location: Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, United States of America, Earth, Sol, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth-Bet, Worm Multiverse, Worm-jcw3
Date: Friday, December 3, 2010
Dad got back home an hour or two ago, and you take the time to sit down with him at the dining room table. You did mention the defeat of the Freedman pirates last night, but not in such detail as you're about to. "...so I talked to the head honcho on Shigeki, Katayama, today. The reason they were so easy to take out was because that the Marines had already had a battle with their ship. A different branch, sure, and they lost, but the survivors were able to call ahead to Shigeki and warn of a likely raid."
He gets your drift. "So a bunch of starving, wounded former slaves against a well-organized, prepared militia. Yeah, I get it. So you really weren't in that much danger, I guess."
You shake your head, feeling a bit awkward. When you put it like that, it seems a lot less heroic. "I doubt it. From what I've heard, that crew barely had ammunition for their flintlocks before the Marines took them out. They weren't really thinking about the future."
Dad nods. "So you're alright? No injuries?"
"No. Fengten never laid a hand on me, neither did any of his crew."
"Good."
Now you have to drop an unfortunate bomb. "I'll...also be gone for most of tomorrow, into the night."
"Why?" he frowns.
"I'm taking a boat from Shigeki Island back to Loguetown. It's gonna be around a fifteen hour sailing period. That's not long enough to drop anchor, but enough to be a pretty long trip."
Dad hesitates, before asking a question. "You're sure this isn't dangerous?"
"I'm not gonna to lie to you, Dad, it...might be. That's more because Earth-Mayim's a very dangerous place rather than me endangering myself, though."
"I get that, I get that. Um...just please stay safe, okay, kiddo?"
You nod. "I'll do my best."
He smiles tightly. "Love you, Taylor."
"Love you too, Dad."
Location: Polestar Sea, East Blue Sea, Earth, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth-Mayim, One Piece Multiverse, One Piece-jcw3
Date: Friday, April 15, 1532
You spent the money you gained from the baby albatrosses to buy passage on the ship heading to Loguetown. Ten thousand beri isn't that steep of a price, not for a trip of several hundred miles. You probably could have flown with your giant albatross form given a few weeks of training, but Shigeki Island doesn't have enough to offer in the way of training to make it worthwhile to stay there.
So you shore up on secondary skills you wouldn't ordinarily train. Over the course of the day, you spend a haphazard amount of time observing the sailors and enhancing your ability as a seaman, not by much, but by enough for it to have not been a waste of time. Ollanketo, the crew's boatswain, even teaches you a few of her tricks.
You spend a bit of time trying to study some Bet fields of knowledge, but all you do is waste a few hours on mathematics and history. By the end of the session, you're endlessly frustrated, and you try a different tactic, with a standard exercise/fitness routine. That's also unsuccessful.
You're about to try a bit of fluting when you hear an odd clomping sound coming from the port side of the Naughty Hurrah, before you hear a whooshing sound, and then something lands on deck. You draw Kiramekureisho, before you hear a sound almost akin to a gunshot.
"Mizugomu-dan!" a gurgling voice that's obviously not human exclaims, as it holds a glob of water in its hands, before tossing it in the general vicinity of the Hurrah's passengers. That means...water...rubber bullets? You barely have time to finish that thought when around fifteen passengers are knocked to the ground by the sheer force of the hydrokinetic attack.
"Oi, oi, oi, listen up, ningen," the apparent leader sneers in the direction of the assembled humans. "You're gonna give up all your valuables, all your guns, all your pointy metal sticks-" the creature, an odd blue humanoid thing with a long, jagged nose, almost like a swordfish, gestures towards your drawn scimitar. He sort of looks like a shorter, skinnier version of Arlong, but with a longer nose.
This is a fishman attack. You're worried now. Aside from general outliers like Smoker and Mihawk, Arlong Park was the toughest fight the Straw Hats faced in the East Blue. Fishmen are supposedly ten times as strong as humans, and with low level Brute/Blaster/Striker ratings to boot, not to mention any further knowledge of Fishman Karate they might possess.
"-or else we do this," he threatens, drawing from a sphere of water floating aimlessly above one of his palms. It'd be a neat trick if your life wasn't in danger. "Mizudangan!"
Water Bullet. Fuck. You don't have any time to react, as the rapid attack rips into a female passenger, leaving a large hole where her chest should be. She falls to the ground, dead almost instantly. No! You tear your eyes away, don't look at her corpse, no no no. You don't think you can beat them, maybe if you surrender your swords, they'll leave- a gunshot rings out, and a porpoise fishman takes the shot in his eyeball, falling to the ground.
Oh god fucking dammit. You're...excited and terrified in equal measure. The swordfish's eyes almost immediately narrow, and his sphere of water expands to make up for the already expended water. Drawing moisture from the air? "Mizubakudan!"
The water from the swordfish's sphere is almost entirely used up in this attack, and the man it hits just...erupts into a shower of gore as the deep pressure blast essentially swallows him whole. "Kill all of the fucking ningen!" the swordfish orders, and his three surviving minions shout in gleeful, savage agreement.
You're not about to fight them in your baseline human form with a scimitar, you might as well throw candy corn at them. It takes ten seconds for you to take the form of a bear, enjoying the brief primal sensations as your brain adjusts to adapt the form of a wild animal, as well as the straining sensation from growing in size and hair spontaneously appearing all over your body. Your teeth tickle as canines come out, and you feel your senses change drastically, enhancing to accommodate your new form.
You barrel towards a fishman with the rough appearance of a goldfish, slamming into his legs with your paws. That blow would have liquefied a human's leg, but it just makes the goldfish man stumble a bit, dropping its claymore on the ground as it does. That's fine with you, you still hold the advantage in this fight.
Your right paw is in an awkward position, but you can grab on to the goldfish's stomach fairly easily, drawing blood as your claws dig in, and you yank, intending to not only make him bleed, but also to drag him down.
The sound of screams and gunshots indicate that the trend that the battle between the mercenaries guarding the ship and the fishmen is going poorly for the defenders. You'll need to hurry this along. Your yank doesn't have the intended result, instead ripping a chunk of flesh off of the thing's belly. It yells out in pain, but it's not down for the count.
With almost practiced brutality, you ram your bear form's head into the fishman's injury, before biting down on the flesh. It screams, but it's still not done. You improvise, and again, you smack its leg in the same place where it was originally injured, bringing it to its knees. You bite into its shoulder with all of your might, and you feel flesh break beneath your feet, and maybe a bit of cracks in his bones. Again, it makes time for to slam the thing into the ship, and you bring down both of your paws on the goldfish, one on the bite in his shoulder, and the other right on top of his face, aiming for the eyeballs.
That thing's down for the count. Headway tingles, but you ignore it, choosing to review the ongoing events. The two other fishmen minions are both dead. The Naughty Hurrah had around twenty or thirty civilian guards, and while the raiders made mincemeat of the ones only armed with swords, there's only so much they can do against bullets tearing into your flesh. You briefly note the corpses of the flounder and the guppy, before you barrel towards the swordfish, who's about to finish off the last surviving guard, holding his sphere of water threateningly. "Mizuyaj-" you don't intend to let him finish.
This is a stupid idea. He's the strongest enemy you've ever faced. But somehow you don't think that man's family would accept that excuse. You aren't going to run away. You lunge at the swordfish fishman's side, tackling him into the ship's railing, shattering the wood with the sheer force of your jump. To make the attack even more rewarding, you succeed in giving him a shallow wound in his side by impaling him on a broken bit of the railing.
"An Akuma no Mi, eh?" he spits on the ground, turning his attention to you, before rushing towards you. You return the favor, charging at him. Tactically, it's a bit of a dumb idea, but the priority here is keeping the man (and, you belatedly realize, the civilians he's protecting) alive. "Let's see how you like the ocean. Furisuro!"
Free throw? You barely have time to think that over, before he grabs you and literally hurls you in the ocean, before jumping in after you. No! This is bad. Fishmen are absurdly quick and strong in the ocean, while you'll just be slowed down. You seem to remember Sanji only surviving his underwater fight with Kuroobi thanks to trickery.
You'll have to learn from his example. Before you even hit the water, you catch the swordfish off guard by smacking him with your paw. It's the equivalent of a light slap to him, but it annoys him, and that allows you to get the upper hand. That's significantly less important in water, a three-dimensional arena, but you need every advantage you can get.
The two of you splash into the water two seconds after you both fell, and the fight starts in earnest. The swordfish throws a lazy blow towards your neck, clearly thinking that you're going to be paralyzed like a normal Devil Fruit user, but you surprise him by raking him with your claws, only barely damaging his chest, but catching him off guard nonetheless.
He scowls, before using another bit of Fishman Jujutsu. "Mizutaiho!" he warbles, his voice sounding much different underwater, and another sphere of water, this one barely maintaining shape, let alone that of a sphere. You can't let that hit you. It looks that attack that he used to liquefy the poor bastard who shot the dolphin, and you'll die, even in the bear's more durable form.
You didn't even think about it. That's what most worrying to you, in hindsight. You just jerked forward, and bit down on his neck, before pulling, tearing out the swordfish's throat. He gurgles for just a moment, and his attack explodes over both of you. You let out a low whoof as the kinetic force rips into you like a particularly nasty punch in the gut.
Swimming in the bear form is easier than in human form, so you make it back to the ship fairly easily. Bears are good climbers, too, so despite your severe injuries, you land roughly back on the wooden ship, climbing over an intact part of the ship railing. You morph back to human form, before realizing that was a terrible idea. You let out a low wheeze as you collapse on the deck.
After a few minutes, the man you saved helps you up, with the help of a man in merchant garb. "You'll be fine, girl, don't worry. Stay with us."
"T-thanks. It...it hurts. Doctor, please," you almost beg, reflexively trying to clutch your belly, but with the two men holding your shoulder, it's problematic. God, it hurts. You don't think the bruise has even appeared yet and it's already throbbing.
"Is Arakaki dead?" the mercenary asks a more pertinent question, looking straight at you. It's the last question he asks, before the three of you arrive at the doctor down at the deck. You grunt in affirmative, since you think that's the swordfish, as you take in the room. You expected a lot more wounded, but there are only three others. One's a merc, who's essentially lost his arm. There are two civilians, one with a chest wound, and the other whose right cheek has basically been turned into paste.
The doctor, an older man with graying blonde hair, guides you to an operating table. "What happened?"
The mercenary helps you down on the table. "She took out Arakaki and one of the gillers. Now she's hurt."
The doctor rolls his eyes. "I got that, but what hit her? Kinetic force, cutting, what?"
You answer him. "He used an attack called Mizutaiho. Think it was kinetic force. He didn't get a chance to finish it."
He pulls out some sort of snail- wait what the fuck- and puts it on your bare stomach. The snail doesn't move whatsoever. It just sort of stands there. "No internal bleeding. Looks like he just hit you hard with that attack," the doctor explains, doing a few basic check ups in addition to the snail test- seriously, what was up with that?
"Um, doctor?" you ask. He turns to look at you, rubbing something you presume to be anesthetic into the woman without the cheek's remaining nostril. God, that's horrible. You wince at the sight, and do your best to ignore the pang of guilt. "What...was with the snail test?"
"Den Den Mushi are good about picking up internal injury. It's because of their radio wave generation ability. They basically chat with your body, to give us a good look into what's wrong on the inside. When you don't have x-rays, they're the next best thing."
Huh. Weird.
You ask the mercenary to fetch your stuff from your room, and he does so. Well, he helped you out and you saved his life, so you might as well use his real name. Dairan's a bounty hunter who's a bit out of work in the Polestar Islands, which are a relatively lawful area. The two of you chat while you go through law studies and science. Dr. Fonsca might have forbidden you from physical activities for the next two days (no disagreement there, your torso yelps at you when you so much as twitch), but that doesn't mean you can't use Headway.
"Hey, Taylor," he says. His beard actually bounces when he talks, and if you weren't injured, it might even be funny. "Do you have a crew? I'd be willing to join. You saved my life and all, I was wondering if-"
He'd be willing to join a teenage girl's crew? How progressive of him. You shake your head, trying to be polite. "No, I don't want to have a crew yet. I don't even know if I want one."
"Why not?" Dairan frowns.
"Not strong enough to survive the Grand Line, and I don't want to stagnate in the East Blue."
Dairan tilts his head. "You've, ah, got that bear power, though. That's more than a lot of hunters or pirates, maybe even Marines, in the Line."
"And it's also a lot less than most of them. Do you read the newspaper?"
"Occasionally."
"Eustass Kidd, that rookie pirate with the two hundred million beri bounty? He crucified a Vice Admiral last week, with the metal from his own ship. Vice Admiral Momonga? He just took down two Devil Fruit users without any power of his own, beyond whatever tricks they make those guys learn. There are a lot of monsters in Paradise, let alone the New World. I want to get stronger first."
Dairan nods. "Makes sense, I guess."
The bounty hunter has to leave to take care of the goldfish fishman when it regains consciousness. Blinded, with a broken leg (apparently), it was easy for Dairan and two civilians to take it out with flintlocks left over from the corpses of the Hurrah's defenders.
You relax for the rest of the day in the infirmary, under doctor's orders. The woman with the ripped cheek dies while you're in there, and it's almost depressing how little you think about it. You...killed a man today. It might not have been human, but it could think, reason, feel, all the works. You saw ten or twenty people die within a single minute.
You feel numb. Was that...was that your fault? That you couldn't save them, that you only took down two of the invaders? No, no. It can't be your fault. Arakaki shot that woman, then the mercenary (God, you don't even know his name), then the fight happened. Could you have saved more people? A dark voice in your head says 'maybe if you had gone for the goldfish's throat.' You do everything you can to ignore that voice, because that's a nasty, nasty route to go down.
You force yourself to play the flute, trying to keep Mom in your thoughts, but all that does is make you think of death. After a while, Dr. Fonsca politely asks you to stop playing, as to not depress the other patients.
Later that night, around eleven o'clock, the crew docks in Loguetown, remarkably only an hour behind schedule. You leave, sneaking out to avoid questions or anything like that, before you find an alley, and transition back home.
Location: Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, United States of America, Earth, Sol, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth-Bet, Worm Multiverse, Worm-jcw3
Date: Saturday, December 4, 2010
Holy fucking shit, the transition nausea mixed with the biggest bruise you've ever had is the worst thing you've ever felt in your life. It takes you about a minute to even begin to shakily stand up again. Dad walks back into the kitchen, having heard you slam into the floor. "Taylor?" he asks cautiously. "Are you...okay."
The waterworks commence, and you start blubbering. You don't even say anything, you just hug him, with everything you have, and he returns the favor.
Headway/Nexus Quest 1.19
Location: Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, United States of America, Earth, Sol, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth-Bet, Worm Multiverse, Worm-jcw3
Date: Sunday, December 5, 2010
"Ice cream for breakfast?" you smile softly, looking to your left at your Dad.
He adjusts the car's rear view mirror, before leaving your driveway. "I think both of us need it after...what happened last night," he explains, hurrying through the last part of the sentence.
You almost flinch. Arakaki's death was unavoidable if you wanted to live. He murdered seventeen people personally, and his crew killed sixteen more, and that was just on the Naughty Hurrah. And you still feel guilt over it. You aren't sure why. Well, of course you know why. You killed another person, even if he wasn't human.
"Taylor?" Dad asks gently. You look at the car clock, a minute's passed.
"Sorry. Got lost in thought."
"Understandable," he admits. "Do you...want to talk about it?"
You hesitate. "Ah...not really. It happened, yeah. I'm just...not sure how I feel about it. Well, that's wrong. I feel guilty. I feel a bit sick. But...if given the choice I'd do it again."
You spend an agonizingly long few seconds worrying about what Dad's going to say next. It's deceptively simple. "To save people."
"Yeah. I saw how the fight against Arakaki's gang was going, even with my help. By the time I finished with the goldfish, they had almost killed every single guard on that ship. I had to fight, to start with. But...I don't think that's the real reason I killed Arakaki."
He frowns, and it's not just because you're stuck in traffic. "What do you mean?" he asks. Yeah, you're really worried about what Dad's thinking right now. Usually when he gets mad or worried, he tends to ramble or rant, now, he's sort of like a blank page. This is incredibly worrying.
"I think I did it to save my own life. Hell- sorry, heck, I know I did. In the ocean, he was way stronger and faster than me, and in a bear form, which is way less maneuverable than a human form, he would have slaughtered me. I didn't have the control or ability to take him out peacefully, so..."
"Killing him was the only option," Dad finishes for you, in a sad tone. Oh no. "I've thought this over, too."
You look at him. "Does...does this make me crazy? Or evil? Because that's how I feel. No matter how I try to rationalize it, use a utilitarian mindset or whatever, I just feel like...shit," you end your sentence lamely, slumping into the passenger seat.
Dad pulls over to the side of the road, unbuckles his seat belt, and hugs you. "You know the answer to that, kiddo. You're a hero. And you'll never be anything less."
Oh come on. You're crying. Again. "T-thank you," you sniff.
"I will always love you, Taylor. Your mom will always love you. We've always wanted the best from you, and that's what you've given us each and every time. Please...please don't put yourself down like this. It doesn't just hurt you!" his voice breaks, and he hugs you tighter.
At this point, it's not just sniffling, it's outright crying for both of you. The two of you spend around fifteen minutes in the car, permanently ruining handkerchiefs, before you continue driving to the ice cream shop.
"You know, Dad, maybe ice cream in November wasn't the best idea," you say as you exit the car.
Dad grins impishly. "December now."
"Dad, it's cold enough to snow," you gripe, rubbing your hands together. It's mostly for show, your cold resistance lets you ignore the cold a lot more than he can.
"It'll put hair on your chest."
"Dad, I'm a girl."
He laughs, and ruffles your hair through your beanie, before waving a slip of paper around. "Come on. I've had this coupon to Sparkle Sprinkle for months now, and it expires next week. Let's see about that Neapolitan deal."
Your favorite type of ice cream has always been the Neapolitan mix from Sparkle Sprinkle, since it combines your favorite parts of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. The plain texture of vanilla keeps the ice cream grounded, the chocolate adds a bit of variance to the mix, and strawberry gives it a fruity taste that takes away from the comparatively bland vanilla/chocolate flavor blend. Dad's a lot more boring, he just likes chocolate.
Despite it really being the improper choice for the weather, it...does make you feel a lot better. Your chest still hurts, it's hard to get that image of Arakaki's throat out of your head, but...you think it's going to get better. There's hope, and you think that's all you need to start getting...better, for lack of a more appropriate term.
The ice cream breakfast ends, and you return home with Dad. "Thanks for the ice cream, Dad."
"Don't mention it, kiddo."
You leave your snowy boots by the door, and change into your sandals, which you only use for Earth-Mayim. Dad frowns when he sees you starting to put them on. "Hey...you're going back to Mayim? So soon?"
"I can't let my guilt stop me, Dad. I've got work to do. I've gotta get stronger, help people, and maybe both at the same time," you reply. Almost as if on cue, your chest pangs again, not for the first time today. "Well, maybe not while fighting. Not for a day or two, anyway."
He sighs, before scratching the back of his head. "Just...stay safe, kiddo. Mentally and physically."
"I'll do my best, Dad. I promise."
Dad laughs. "That's all I could ever ask for. Knock 'em- um, good luck."
Location: Loguetown, Naval Protectorate of the Polestar Islands, Earth, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth-Mayim, One Piece Multiverse, One Piece-jcw3
Date: Saturday, April 16, 1532
After waving goodbye, you transition back to the alley where you left Loguetown from last night. Your injury feels at least a bit better, since the nausea from the changeover combined with your chest wound doesn't completely put you on the ground.
When you recover, you go through a series of independent training sessions in the woods. If you didn't have the Nexus ability, this would be a much worse idea, but with it, you can just go back to Bet if you need medical assistance from your wound exacerbating or something.
Your training sessions are ultimately almost entirely unproductive, maybe because of the wound. Perception? Nada. Albatross? Zip. Bear? 'Course not. The only skill or power you see even the slightest increase in is the swordfish fishman, which must be a cruel twist of fate or something. You unlock the very basics of the power, being able to slightly alter your skin tone to Arakaki's color. You don't actually look that different, besides that. Your skin texture doesn't even change, and your nose just gets a bit more jagged.
After your time in the woods, you walk back to Miss Rebecca's store in downtown Loguetown. She's still offering tutoring sessions, to your relief, and surprisingly, doesn't even ask where you've been. Then again, the two of you don't speak very much, especially since Saturday is a typically busy day for her shop.
Your last move of the day is contacting Damascus, the town blacksmith. An shorter, elderly Arab-looking man with an impressive white beard, he gives you an odd look when you enter. "'The hell are you?" he asks, not in a rude tone, but in a curious and blunt one.
"Hebert Taylor. I'm a bounty hunter, I've worked with the Marines in the past."
He arches an eyebrow. "On who?"
It takes you a minute to realize he's referring to pirates. You decide to leave out Arakaki's band. "Fatty Boy, 750,000. Snowborn, a million. Fengten, a pirate with a 5.5 million beri bounty."
"Not bad," he admits, and you note his abnormal accent. It doesn't sound Middle Eastern, but it doesn't match up with the exaggerated American/Japanese hybridized accent most Mayimites have. "'Name's Damascus. I'd shake your hand, but it's covered in coal, grease, and all sorts of nasty stuff. How can I help you?"
"I'm looking for some tutoring in smithing. Do you have the time?"
"For free? Hell no. For...let's say, twenty five grand in beri? Be happy to help."
You reach into your pocket and give him three ten thousand beri bells. He grins as he sees them, and after giving you your change, begins your tutoring session. The exact details are unimportant, all that really matters is that you got nowhere. You're disappointed, as is Damascus, but he's willing to keep teaching you, as long as you keep bringing the money. Now you just have to get something for your singed fingers.
You transition home, and after telling Dad that you're fine and nothing happened, you go back to sleep.
Location: Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, United States of America, Earth, Sol, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth-Bet, Worm Multiverse, Worm-jcw3
Date: Monday, December 6, 2010
You don't really spend much time on Bet today either, choosing to simply continue with your Japanese lessons, which you suppose go alright, but they don't max out like they could have. You contemplate staying in this world (wow, that's a weird sentence) for a while longer to study survivalism and its related skills, but you can probably do that a lot better on Mayim, even if it might be a bit painful with your chest wound.
Location: Loguetown, Naval Protectorate of the Polestar Islands , Earth, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth-Mayim, One Piece Multiverse, One Piece-jcw3
Date: Sunday, April 17, 1532
You spend quite a bit of time in the woods again, going through an unproductive perception session, before seeing an ever so slightly useful practice with survival. Both the main skill and its subskill of tracking see increases, one each. Albatross doesn't go anywhere, but swordfish fishman does. Again, twist of fate. You think it might be because you killed him, which is a morbid thought. You knew that killing things made it easier on Headway, but you didn't think that people would be included in that.
Miss Rebecca's tutoring is a lot more helpful today, and you see definite increases in tailoring, sewing, and fashion. She's incredibly excited about your performance, and has started calling you her 'apprentice darling.' Meanwhile, Damascus, the smith, is beginning to have an impact on your learning curve, and now, you're just a below average smith rather than a complete imbecile, as he so generously puts it. He's actually kind of impressed by your learning growth, which makes you embarrassingly proud, especially given your currently pitiful standing in the area.
You head home after you finish with Damascus, and tell Dad about your day. It doesn't take much to reassure him that you're fine, which is a bit relieving. You think you'll take another day to recover from physical activities, before returning to your usual schedule.
Headway/Nexus Quest 1.20
Location: Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, United States of America, Earth, Sol, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth-Bet, Worm Multiverse, Worm-jcw3
Date: Tuesday, December 7, 2010
You start the day with some linguistic studies, which goes...poorly. You're a bit surprised, you thought you had this in the bag. It's not that important, you speak Japanese almost fluently now, but you have a bit of trouble with some dialects, as well as some of the more archaic prose. Not only that, but you're fairly certain that 'finishing off' Japanese would help move other languages along in the future, sort of like how programming languages are easy now.
That's about all you do on Earth-Bet for today. Dad's already left for work, so you leave a blank sticky note on the fridge. That's become the tradition since you gained your powers. It lets Dad know you're gone, and just reading the note wouldn't tip anyone off that you had left the home, let alone the universe. Man. When you put it in those terms, it sounds really surreal.
Location: Loguetown, Naval Protectorate of the Polestar Islands, Earth, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth-Mayim, One Piece Multiverse, One Piece-jcw3
Date: Monday, April 18, 1532
Your chest wound is almost completely healed, to your immense relief. Granted, the nausea you get from interdimensional travel is still awful, but it's nice to not have pain added on to that feeling. After recovering, you head out into Loguetown's woods to find a nice spot to train.
Perception training is unsuccessful, but you at least feel close to a breakthrough. Still, you're happy with your existing vision, given how undoubtedly exceptional it is. The remainder of your time is spent on shape changing, or mastering your forms. Bear and albatross see slight increases, which are far more valuable in the former's case, since that's the closest to finishing off altogether.
You're a bit disappointed that aren't yet able to fly with the giant albatross form, that's something you were really looking forward to. It's no Alexandria, but it's a start. You also try to train swordfish fishman, but that doesn't go so well, with no increase whatsoever.
You head into town for tutoring. Miss Rebecca hugs you when she sees you, which is a bit awkward, but she's sort of like that extended family member who's overly excited about everything. You can let it slide. You work on designs in her backroom while she handles customers. According to her, your designs are finally good enough to sell, which does make you pretty proud. She even offers you a job, which you politely refuse, not wanting to be tied down in Loguetown.
Damascus is a lot less nice about his training, and insults your 'pathetic, shoddy excuse for a crowbar' when you try to make a dagger. You don't get much out of his training, besides a new area of knowledge revolving around armor smithing.
Location: Loguetown, Naval Protectorate of the Polestar Islands, Earth, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth-Mayim, One Piece Multiverse, One Piece-jcw3
Date: Tuesday, April 19, 1532
More time is spent in the woods today, mostly because it's a convenient and private place to stay. Perception finally sees an increase, and you grow a bit in your albatross form as well. You briefly transition back home for some fitness exercise, and you see some impressive gains in fitness and weightlifting, particularly in the latter. Your build doesn't seem to be growing as you'd expect from this type of exercise, instead your body's continuously streamlined into a fitter, slimmer form with toned muscles.
Stealth is a skill you haven't trained before, and it's a lot more stressful than it has any right to be. You're just hiding from rabbits, seagulls and the like, but you're quite a bit anxious about doing it. Maybe it's that nervousness that fueled Headway's rapid growth in this area. You still aren't comfortable with using it to hide from real people, but it's a good start in that direction. Maybe you could end up something like that guy in Piercing Glare, that movie you saw a while ago. Heck, maybe even better.
You try to go for a bit of training with your fishman abilities, but you find yourself frustratingly unsuccessful. You don't unlock either fishman karate or another level in swordfish fishman. That's obviously annoying, but you can deal with it. You belatedly realize that you're feeling a lot better, and that your chest wound has essentially disappeared altogether, and that you can finally resume physical training.
There is something new, though, that's a lot more important than either of the two previous skills could be. You can breathe underwater now. Yeah. It's absolutely insane, but you can breathe with perfect ease underwater or above water. You figured it out when transitioning back from your swordfish fishman form, and realized that you didn't need to come back up for air. The interior pool you've been using in the Loguetown wilds isn't deep enough to have significant pressure, so you don't know how it work in the ocean.
The last order of the day is going to Miss Rebecca's shop for some tutoring. You enjoy success here as well, as all of your knowledge in the area increases impressively. She's amazed at your increases, and tells you as much. There's a really rather embarrassing moment where she shows one of your dresses to some tourists, and proudly exclaims that her 'darling apprentice' made it. You were even more embarrassed when they bought it.
Location: Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, United States of America, Earth, Sol, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth-Bet, Worm Multiverse, Worm-jcw3
Date: Wednesday, December 8, 2010
You return home later that night, and you never thought you'd say this, but you enjoy the nausea you get from world changing. There's no longer any pain involved in it. It seems that interdimensional transitions cause any injuries on your body to flare up in agony, and that's, obviously, almost always a miserable experience.
Dad's at the kitchen table reading a newspaper. You already know what's involved in it, thanks to your power. The Brockton Bay Settlers beat the New York Giants 23-8, Communion, the geokinetic in charge of the PRT's Kansas branch, said something really stupid about gay people and atheists, and there was another mass shooting in Switzerland on the part of EU forces. Oh, and more war in Africa. Some guy in East Africa's created a cyborg army of unwitting dissidents. God. It's almost worrying how unconcerned you are by that revelation. It seems that there's a new apocalyptic warlord showing up there every other week.
"Hey, kiddo. Feeling better?" he asks, looking up from the paper. You don't know why he doesn't just watch TV, but that's just you.
"Yep. The chest wound pretty much finished healing yesterday. I started physical training again today."
"Thank you for not training with that injury. That would given me so many gray hairs. So, any neat developments with your powers? Maybe...ah, the fishman powers?"
Dad was initially a bit reluctant to talk about the new powers, and so were you, but the two of you got over it fairly quickly, all things considered. "I tried, but the fishman abilities I told you about are beyond me at the moment. The albatross got a bit better, so did the bear, but the fishman stuff...nope."
"Well, come on. Show me something. Um...not the bear. That might be a bit too lifelike."
You accept his request, and adopt your giant albatross form. It takes you around half a minute, but you can force yourself into a hybrid form, with horrible little protrusions on your back that will one day mature into wings. You become a bit lankier in form, bones thinning out, with a light yellow beak poking out from where your nose and mouth should be. Your skin is dotted with feathers and the like that eventually fold into a protective layer. Dad thinks it's impressive, but you can't say you agree. Then again, that's more because of the practical reasons, rather than the appearance.
"So...," he hesitates briefly, as if deciding whether or not to say his next statement or not, before deciding. "...are you going to lay eggs?"
"Dad!" you shout, scandalized.
+1 Shape Changing: Bear (8)
+2 Shape Changing: Giant Albatross (3)
+2 Tailor (6)
+1 Sewing (5)
+2 Fashion (5)
+2 Stealth (2)
+1 Fitness (8)
+1 Perception (6)
+2 Weightlifting (6)
Perk Unlocked! Waterbreather
Skill Unlocked! Armorsmith (0)
-25,000 Beri (Smithing Training)