Human Human Fruits

After they set sail, Cabernet excitedly approached Cherry to tell her about her first outing by herself.

Cherry listened patiently and was particularly interested in Chopper. Having another sample of the human human fruit had the potential to further her understanding of devil fruit by leaps and bounds.

When Cabernet reached the part of her tale where Chopper used his Rumble Ball medicine to give himself additional devil fruit forms, Cherry looked across the deck at the little reindeer with greed in her eyes.

'A talented doctor with insights into the workings of devil fruit? Perhaps he is the one I am looking for to help supplement my lacking knowledge in the art of pill refining?' She pondered, but there was no point in just thinking about it in circles. So she simply went over to talk to him directly.

"Hello, I'm Harpin D. Cherry. It's nice to meet you." Cherry introduced herself. She held out her hand to him and gave her best business smile, which was the only way for her to deliberately look less menacing.

Chopper looked at her hand in confusion, but then he realized what she wanted from him. He could barely contain himself at the thought of his first handshake.

He reached out a tiny hoof, but stopped himself. He transformed into his large form, the only one with proper hands, and clasped Cherry's hand gently, eyes twinkling with wonder.

"Weren't you shouting about being a man before? A man has to have a firm handshake, like so!" Cherry said and clenched his hand hard.

"Geh!" Chopper winced, but he quickly gripped her hand in turn.

"Hehehe, there you go. I knew you could do it." Cherry said, releasing the handshake.

Chopper rubbed his hand seeming proud of himself.

"Cabernet told me that you have a medicine that can influence your devil fruit powers, can you tell me more about those?" Cherry inquired.

"Oh, my Rumble Balls! Hmm, I suppose I could tell you, but you might not understand..." Chopper clearly wanted to go on a passionate rant, but was worried he'd go too far.

"Don't worry whether I'll understand, just let loose and I'll ask questions where I need to." Cherry encouraged.

Chopper kept things simple at first, explaining the basic idea of the wavelengths of devil fruit and how the Rumble Balls distorted them to create new forms. However, as Cherry asked her questions, he quickly realized he could go into the deeper nitty gritty details.

The two of them chattered away for hours throughout the night before their hungry stomachs forced them to pause their discussion. The others aboard the Going Merry stopped understanding what they were talking about 10 minutes in and gave up trying to follow along. Except for Luffy and Cabernet, who were completely lost almost immediately.

While the group ate breakfast, Cherry compared the devil fruit inscriptions of Cabernet and Chopper with her Life Sense. She noted the various similarities between the two, then a thought occurred to her.

She shifted her Life Sense over to Luffy who was currently trying to eat from everyone else's plates despite not even having finished his own.

"Luffy, are you sure the fruit you ate was a paramecia?" Cherry asked, prodding his thieving hand with a fork.

Previously she had noticed some similarities between his and Cabernet's devil fruit inscriptions, but had not thought much more about it. However, she realized now that the areas of overlap between Cabernet and Chopper's devil fruits overlapped a great deal with Luffy's devil fruit as well. She did not think this was coincidence.

"Of course it was a paramecia, Shanks told me so." Luffy answered with a mouth full of food.

"Hm, I don't think that's right though. I think your devil fruit is a zoan type. Specifically one of the human models. It bears many similarities with both Chopper and Cabernet's devil fruits." Cherry speculated.

"I've never heard of any humans with rubber bodies, though?" Nami posed. The others indicated they hadn't either.

"Well, it's not like you've seen all the kinds of people in the world. It could even be a mythical model like the Fleet Admiral Sengoku's human human devil fruit. He can transform himself into a golden Daibutsu. At least that's what Don Chinjao told me." Cherry responded.

"Mmm, it doesn't matter either way, does it?" Luffy asked, not seeing the point.

"Well, to put it in a way you might be interested in, it could mean you can transform." Cherry said.

'Oh, wow. His eyes are shining so brightly it actually hurts to look at him directly.' Cherry thought, covering her eyes with her hand.

Luffy jammed the rest of his food into his mouth in one go, then rushed outside.

The rest finished up as well and went outside to see what he was up to. Luffy was doing various poses while shouting different words and phrases, trying to trigger a transformation presumably.

"I can't figure it out. Chopper, how do you transform, tell me pleeeeease!" He begged, grabbing onto Chopper's leg.

"I don't know, I just do it! Let go of my leg now!" Chopper tried to pull his leg away from him.

"Oh, I know! Give me one of your Rumble Balls, Chopper! That'll let me transform, right?!" Luffy demanded.

"I created those through years of painstaking trial and error! They'll only work properly for me and my devil fruit!" Chopper insisted.

While the two were arguing with one another, Cherry was thinking. 'Was I wrong after all? Then what could it be that makes them the same? Perhaps mythical zoan fruit work differently? Maybe I'll get a chance to see the fleet admiral in action some day and confirm it.'

...

About 5 days into the voyage, the ship was running low on food supplies thanks to a few idiots. Said idiots were currently being forced to fish with little luck.

They spotted a large amount of steam directly in their path, which Nami explained was safe enough to pass through.

When they passed through to the other side, they were greeted with a strange sight.

"PLEASE, HELP ME SOMEBODY! ANYBODY!"

A little ways ahead they spotted a ship that seemed to be drenched in blood manned by a crew of cannibals.

How did they know they were cannibals, you ask?

Because they were currently roasting a man dressed in strange swan-themed garb over a bonfire.

Naturally, the Straw Hats could never ignore a cry for help and decided to interrupt a perfectly good meal.

They sailed full speed ahead and leapt onto the other ship once it was close enough, almost slipping in the disturbing amount of blood soaking the deck.

"Who are you bastards!" Cried the 'nameless' goons who were promptly swept away by more important characters.

Cherry landed next to the swan man. "Hey, not to be a DOWN-er, but it looks like your GOOSE is COOKED. Hehehehehe."

"THEY'RE SWANS, DAMN IT! OUCH! UNTIE ME ALREADY, YOU FOOL!" The swan man shouted.

Cherry cut him free and he took part in kicking goon butt with a rather... "flamboyant" martial art. Cherry didn't feel that it was really her style, but it seemed decent enough that if she had the chance she would consider learning it. One could never have too many weapons in their arsenal.

"Oi Oi Oi. What's going on out here?" A deep voice issued forth.

A man wearing a leather apron covered in blood and wielding a massive cleaver came out onto the deck. He stood 4 meters tall, had an enormous gut, had not a single hair on his body, and had teeth filed to points.

"Captain Butch! They're too strong for us! Please help!" A goon shouted near him.

"HAH!" Butch swung his cleaver cutting the goon in half. The blood from the corpse flowed unnaturally fast out onto the deck. "Coward, don't come to me to solve your problems."

Luffy, ever the proponent of the bond between friends, was naturally enraged at the sight of this betrayal. He charged towards the cleaver wielding brute without any other thought than to pummel him into the ground.