7 Getting Stronger

It's been six months since Percy at the darkness fruit. With the help of his teacher Admiral Zed, he quickly realized that he needed physical power, speed, and endurance in addition to learning more about his devil fruit. The first 2 months were dedicated to strictly training his body and making sure that he is growing every day. It was hell for Percy. In addition to muscle training, he was also forced to endure pain tolerance training from the admiral. For the first half of the day, Percy ran, lifted weights, and tempered his body to perfection.

The next 4 months were different. After establishing his foundation, in addition to his morning work out schedule, Zed made sure to teach him the basics of of rokushiki or the martial arts of the marines. He was asked which art he would like to master first and Percy quickly selected tekkai or the iron body. He had to ensure that he could take a hit successfully because of the weakness of his devil fruit. Receiving double damage for every hit was harsh for Percy, but the upside of his devil fruit was still worth it. Next he learned soru, the martial art that allows the user to move at superhuman speeds. He figured that with his speed, no one would be able to catch him and he can use his abilities from a far distance to attack. This proved to be a deadly combination for Percy because after sparing with Zed, he noticed that he was able to get closer to hitting his teacher with each passing day. Not once did he touch Zed during training and the fact that Percy getting closer to his goal of finally beating up his teacher brought a smile to his face.

*punch* "what are you smiling about, want to smell the bottom of my shoe again" Zed said while laughing at the struggling Percy.

He knew that his teacher had nothing but the best intentions for him, but the face that Zed had a shit eating smile every time they fought only made Percy angrier which each passing session.

[one day, I will finally be able to kick your ass old man] Percy internalized. He of course would not say that out loud because of fear that Zed may knock him out again.

After 2 months of learning tekkai and soru, Zed had told Percy that he really needed to learn geppo and kami-e next because of its axillary uses. Geppo would enable Percy to walk on air and "fly" for certain distances while kami-e would make it almost impossible to hit him without putting in extra effort.

These two techniques were trained with the addition to his devil fruit.

As Zed was preparing to help Percy learn more about his power, his den-den mushi started to to ring. *purupurupuru purupurupuru

Zed picked up the snail. *katcha*

"Hello this is admiral Zed"

"Sengoku here, listen I noticed that Percy is about to embark on his quest of learning more about his devil fruit. Is this true."

"Yeah it is, I was wondering where I should take him because it's obviously dangerous to have him train here because of the nature of his power."

Sengoku paused for a moment before responding, "take him to Sikla island. Pirates just slaughtered the town there so it's empty. It will allow him to train without any interruptions, plus it can let him have a taste of the horrors that pirates have upon the world. We need to teach him now because he is at an impressionable age and cannot let him turn rogue."

Zed thought about and replied, "alright, it's not too far away from home and we can destroy the place as much as we want."

"Good, me and Kong are looking forward to hearing about his progress after all. Keep us informed."

The snail hung up and Zed paused before yelling at his new student,

"Percy, we're going"

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On Silka island, Percy and Zed were standing where a town used to be. They both had solemn looks on their faces as they started at all the destruction caused by pirates.

Zed broke the silence, "if you want to prevent this from happening ever again, then you must get stronger. The navy is not omnipotent, we need as much help as possible in order to bring peace and justice to this world."

Percy stood there contemplating Zed words, "you're right teacher. I must get stronger."

They then turned away and found any empty place to train. After the morning work out routine, Percy sat down and listened to Zed's teaching.

"Listen son" Zed started "you're ability is powerful, so powerful in fact that it is seen as the most dangerous fruit by the world government and the navy. If you don't want to be a tool by those celestial dragons, then you must wield a certain amount of authority in order to escape your fate."

Percy listened and nodded his head, [either I defect before that happens, or I climb so high in the marine's rankings that I am untouchable]. Of course Percy knew deep down that this was impossible, the gorosei had complete control of the world government. At any time they can dismiss a fleet admiral, let alone him.

"For the next 2 months you are going to train your devil fruit in close quarters combat. After that, we will work on long distance techniques so that you can be an overall powerhouse." Zed informed Percy.

"You're power over darkness allows you to manipulate gravity, the element of darkness, and something scientists call dark matter. I don't know what dark matter is, but I'm sure you can figure it out because you're young and smart. Gravity is gravity, it's self-explanatory. The element of darkness on the other hand, is hard to describe, its nothing but everything, the end of everything. One of your innate abilities is to cancel out other devil fruit users. Why do you think Sengoku was reluctant to fight Xebec, it's because Xebec would grab Sengoku and negate his power in order to defeat him. The second innate ability of darkness is to suck in everything around as you noticed and crush anything that darkness touches. It's powerful, so powerful that nothing escapes once it touches darkness. Think about it for a while as I figure out how long we are going to stay on this island."

As Zed walked away, Percy was lost in his own thoughts,

[Zed's right. I never really considered what my power is, I need to learn as much as possible about it while I am away from every one else. This may be one of my best opportunities to learn more about the darkness within my body. As he said, gravity is gravity, it's the other parts that are confusing, what is darkness and how can I exploit it.]

Percy was sitting in the same position thinking about his powers and all of the sudden had a smile on his face,

[I guess if any one was going to watch this, they would be watching a training montage].