One Piece - Rise: Romance Dawn 1 (Patreon)

"Jango was a fool for ever introducing you to the whores," Kuro huffed in annoyance early the next morning as you both made your way through the village and down towards where you had stowed you dingy, "You understand of course, that I am supposed to be caring for this girl?"

"What's the big deal?" you smirked at your former captain, "She'll be dead to the world until next morning at least with how much I wore her out, you'll practically be getting a day off."

The man let out a put upon sigh, adjusting his classes, "You were much more tolerable as a child, you were always ever so eager to learn from my example," he shook his head. He frowned after a moment and shot you a serious look, "That said, are you seriously going on this fools errand to the Grand Line? There is a reason I stayed far away from it."

Yes, that was because Kuro was extremely cautious. He wasn't quite a coward, but he strayed towards it at times.

"What I want is on the Grand Line," you shrugged, and waved him off, "Don't worry, I know enough about the Grand Line to get by as is." your father told many a story of the place. It was why you knew to get a log pose in advance.

"Well, I tried to warn you, don't blame me if you get killed," Kuro shrugged before snorting as you came to a stop at the bottom of the slope at the end of the village, "Don't tell me you intend to go there in that? I hope I taught you better than that." he pointed at the dingy you had stored on the shore.

"Course not," you snorted, "I'll be going out to take a ship from either some big name or the marines, they're the only ones that'll have a good enough ship to get anywhere in the Grand Line early on." the marines were probably the best bet. You remembered what your father told you long ago, that among other things, most of their battleships had sea stone on the bottom that warded off Sea King's and let them traverse the Calm Belt.

"Is that so?" Kuro mused, eyeing you curiously for a moment, before smiling at you, "Well, if it's big names you're looking for, then I know for a fact that El Drago isn't far off from here, he's been hanging around the islands a bit south of here looking for something, a gold mine or something no doubt considering the fools tastes."

That gave you pause. El Drago huh? He was one of the 'big names' of the East Blue. He had a bounty of ten million beri and was known to have a decently powerful devil fruit. That, and his fascination, no, fetish for gold was well known.

"Thanks for the info." you inclined your head in thanks, making your way over to heave the dingy up over your shoulder with one hand easily and move it over to the water.

"No need for thanks," Kuro chuckled, "Quite frankly, he'll attack here at some point, the gold obsessed tool that he is. You'd be doing me a favor by taking his head."

You laughed. That was just like him. Giving you the information so he didn't need to get his hands dirty.

"I'll take it into consideration oh ex captain of mine." you replied, hopping into the dingy and grabbing the oars.

"Please do." Kuro responded, before lifting his hand in a light wave.

You gave him one in return, bidding him goodbye, and then began rowing the oars, setting sail.  

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It was tempting to head to the 8th Marine Branch. They had a few battleships, and over the years you'd learned the branch was headed by a real corrupt Commodore, a real piece of trash and the type of marine you loved killing. And they apparently had a powerful bounty hunter that worked for them that had a type of wind Devil Fruit.

But, El Drago was much closer. The 8th Marine Branch was not far off from Logue Town, the last stop before Reverse Mountain, the entrance into the Grand Line.

And now that you had a devil fruit, you didn't really fancy going all that way in a little dingy. And it may have been the big cat in you now, but you wanted more leg room to chill out in, the sooner, the better.

So you put your absurd strength to put the durability of the oars to the test, speeding through the ocean at speeds that would make a cruiser jealous.

Even then, it still took you a good six hours to reach your destination. A trio of small non human populated islands. And you found your target in the middle of them.

A large golden colored, about a third of the size of a Marine Battleship. With dark ebony black motif trimmed across the middle of it, leading up to the front of the ship, a figure head of a roaring golden lion.

'Well, at least he has taste.' you chuckled. It reminded you of your father's Devil Fruit form from years ago.

'Wait.' you paused and focused on the lion figurehead with your haki. 'That thing's solid gold!'

God, that guy really did love his gold didn't he? Oh well, it would do well in your own coffers you supposed.

You could have waited until night came around. But honestly, while you could be quiet and sneak a bit, you didn't have any training when it came to that kind of thing at all.

Subtle, you were not. You had never needed to be.

And you had no need to be subtle here. Not in the East Blue when you'd never encountered anyone stronger than you. You once thought your father was invincible. But as things were, you were sure you were a decent bit stronger than he was now.

Back in the day you could never fathom being that strong. Now it was just too little for you to settle for.

And you could clearly sense the crew of El Drago. There were only around thirty of them, including El Drago himself, and another two. One of them was while not as strong as El Drago, not too shabby at all for an East Blue resident, and while the other was quite a bit weaker, they, she from what you could sense, wasn't quite fodder like the rest.

And, you could feel the anticipation from her as she hid below deck, away from any others. 'A thief?' you mused. Poor El Drago, even if you weren't coming for his head, it seemed whoever this chick was, she'd be making off with his stuff.

You rowed over to the boat and stood up in your dingy. You were about to jump up when a thought occurred to you. 'This will be a good time to test my new strength with my Devil Fruit.' you nodded to yourself. Beyond getting a hang of the two forms you'd gained with it and moving properly, you hadn't tested your new strength.

You didn't bother drawing your blades, and instead just drew upon your new power and transformed into your hybrid tiger form and then launched yourself up into the air in a powerful jump, landing on the deck of the ship a moment later.

"Eh?" a random pirate gaped at you as you landed beside him, only to gurgle and collapse as your razor sharp claws tore through his throat a moment later.

All around you, the dozens of other pirates on the deck stood shock, staring at you.

You ignored them for the moment, eyes going to the golden throne sitting in the middle of the deck and the huge dark skinned, red haired man sitting in it, and the other towering dark skinned man with a massive katana on his back.

El Drago.

And if you were not mistaken. The Pirate Mercenary, Golas. A man who's name echoed alongside the likes of Roronoa Zoro, the Pirate Hunter.

They'd be a good test for your new strength, you supposed. You'd leave them for last.

You disappeared in a blur of speed, kicking off the ground twelve times rapidly and began tearing through the fodder pirates on deck.

In less than ten seconds, you stopped in the middle of the deck, staring straight at El Drago with a smirk on your lips, blood dripping from your claws.

"..My crew..." El Drago growled, a vein bulging on his temple. A snarl left him, before he turned to the towering man beside him who hadn't made a sound and was staring impassively, "Golas, I will give you one thousand gold coins if you bring me his head."

Golas' eyes lit up and his move stretched into a massive grin. He nodded, and reached up over his shoulder to pull his massive katana free and shot towards you, his form blurring slightly.

"Rah!" he roared and swung out at you, his blade glinting in the dimming sunlight, the air rippling with the strength behind his blow.

Instead of dodging you thrust your clawed hand up and met his slash. The entire ship rocked from the force, and a shock wave blasted out from the collision that sent the bodies of the pirates all around you flying over the railings to drop into the ocean.

This guy had quite an absurd amount of strength behind him, you had to admit. By far the physically strongest person you'd met in East Blue, besides your father. But, he wasn't as strong as you, even without your devil fruit form. And in it? Well, by your estimates, all your physical abilities had doubled.

Golas' eyes widened in shock when you parried his sword upwards with the claws of your right hand and threw him off balance and he had no chance to react as the claws of your left hand rent his throat open in a shower of gore. He let go of his sword, grasping at his throat as he choked and bled out, before collapsing backwards.

"Useless!" El Drago spat as the man fell, a golden aura of power raging around his form, drawing your eyes to him, "This is why the only thing worth believing in, is GOLD!" he roared, and you felt the energy within him spike, and then, from his mouth, fired a massive bright beam of energy.

'How the hell does the Shout Shout fruit shoot a beam!' you gaped for a moment as you juked to the side and avoided it. It shot past you and straight off into the distance where it slammed into a large rocky plateau on one of the islands that was a good fifty feet tall and reduced it to rubble.

You whistled. 'The power behind it isn't bad at all.' you mused.

"Stand still fool!" El Drago growled before lunging towards you, "Ra! Ra! Ra!" with each small shout as he came at you, he released head sized energy bullets that zoomed towards you, faster even than bullets themselves.

Good thing you were faster, you kicked off the ground in a blur of speed with Soru, dodging them easily and appeared in front of El Drago a split moment later.

To his credit, as your claws went for his throat, he lashed out with his right hand, clad with golden tipped claws themselves and parried your blow. He flinched back though when the force of the blow still made his hand let loose a loud cracking noise as his bone fractured.

And it left him open for the knee strike that caught him in the stomach, lifting the huge burly man into the air. El Drago gagged as his ribs went snap, crackle and pop as well. Your hand came back down forming a fist aimed for his skull, but, "Ra!" he shouted quickly, point blank and released a bullet of energy from his mouth.

You crossed your arms and blocked it. To your surprise, what was behind it, was pure physical force in the shape of energy, no heat. It pushed you back a step, but it wasn't hard to overpower the force behind it and parry it up into the air where it disappeared into the sky.

"I see," you hummed as El Drago quickly backpedaled away from you, "That's why it's called the Shout Shout fruit. It lets you turn sound you make into a beam of pure kinetic energy."

And that was why the beams were easily as fast, if not faster than bullets. They were traveling at the speed of sound.

You could see why such a fruit had let him reach the top of East Blue and remain relatively unchallenged. With his decent physical abilities and that fruit, you could very well see him being capable of taking down Buggy, Kuro or Krieg.

"RAAAA!" El Drago pulled himself to his feet about twenty feet away from you, a massive golden aura exploding out of his body, "YOU CAN'T HAVE MY GOLLLLLLLDDDD!!!!!" he roared in absolute fury and unleashed a bright beam of kinetic energy easily five times the size of the first one he fired at you. It was so big it blotted out his form and spread to nearly the width of the entire ship deck.