11 Chapter eleven- Loguetown and Devil fruits

Gabriel relaxed as he leaned on the railing of the going merry looking out at the ocean, it was the evening of the third day since they had left Cocoyashi village. Nami has told them it would take at least another two days before they arrived at Loguetown.

He had been spending that time alternating between exercising and resting, there wasn't really all that much to do on the ship while they were at sea and Gabriel made a note to see about buying some books when they reached land so that he would have something to keep his mind occupied outside of training.

His training had been going as well as can be expected but he knew that if he wanted to see big improvements then he would have to keep it up until he got more points to add to his combat skills.

Speaking of points, he had taken his time to go through the system and had found the screen that detailed the groups that he could aim to beat to get points.

Pirates were graded by bounty classes, and marines by rank. The pirates started at five million and went by various amounts ranging all the way up into the billions, while the marines started at commander rank and went all the way up to fleet admiral.

Much to his dismay it didn't show the rewards he would get for beating them so he would have to wait for that but if it was anything like when he beat Chew then he guessed he'd get a single talent point and a set number of affinity points as well for each of the first times he beat them.

He had noticed that unlike when he had beat the first fishman and gotten ten AP he had only gotten what amounted to five AP from the other ten he beat at Arlong park, so he suspected that the amount of AP went down with each time he beat someone in a certain category and that talent points were kept for only the first time wins against strong opponents.

He had also noted that he didn't receive any points for beating Nezumi outside of the quest, so he wouldn't be able to find weak opponents and just pound on them to farm points.

That was fine with him as it would mean that he would only mean he would grow stronger with every tough opponent he beat.

As he leaned against the railing, he kept an eye out for any marine ships that might try to sneak up on them. If he remembered correctly with Luffys bounty now out in the world it attracted the former Lieutenant "iron fist" Fullbody to try and capture them to get his revenge.

But the punk had yet to show up and Gabriel doubted that he would at this rate. Sighing he shook his head, "I guess with my added twenty three million even an idiot like him would realise that a crew with a fifty three million total bounty is beyond his pay grade" he muttered to himself but never the less kept a weather eye on the horizon for another few minutes before going back to training.

Time skip

It was a few days later when Gabriel was resting below deck in the shade when he heard Usopp call out from above, "land ho"

Gabriel's grey eyes blinked open and he smirked before climbing out of his bunk, "finally" he muttered and made his way up to the deck.

Everyone was gathered at the front now looking out at the island in the distance, Gabriel came up behind them to see the silhouette on the horizon.

"So that's the island of the beginning and the end," he commented and a smirk, "our last stop before we head to the grand line"

Luffy nodded, "yep, we'll have to make sure to get everything we need here before we set off"

Gabriel smirked, "we'll have to do so discreetly, I heard that the marine captain on this island is a logia type devil fruit user, captain Smoker. They call him the "white hunter""

"Hmm why do they call him that?" Luffy asked

"and what's a logia devil fruit?" Nami voiced.

Gabriel sighed, "a logia devil fruit is one of the three types of devil fruit and one of the more rarer types of devil fruit, paramecia types like the ones that Luffy and I have are the most common, our body's remain the same appearance wise but we gain certain abilities," he explained, "Zoan devil fruits are the second tying, those that have eaten them can change forms into an animal of some kind and also into an animal human hybrid"

"Wow that sounds cool" Usopp commented with stars in his eyes.

"It certainly sounds beneficial, especially if the person grows stronger in their animal and hybrid forms" Sanji agreed.

Gabriel nodded, "yes, and then there are Logia, these devil fruits actually give the one who ate them power over the elements, the three admirals of the marines are all logia types, and are extremely powerful" he explained, "but the most troublesome thing about logia users is that they not only can control an element but they can change their body into their element, and by doing so they can complete ignore any kind of physical attacks"

"What!!!" Usopp gaped while Sanji, Zoro and Nami had looks of shock on their faces.

"So, they are like how you are when you dodged my attacks, my fists passed right through you?" Luffy asked seriously.

Gabriel nodded, "in a sense yes, my abilities allow me to mimic that ability by my body shaking so fast, but it takes a lot of energy for me to do so. While Logia users can do it as easy as breathing. Captain Smoker is rumoured to have eaten the Moku-Moku no mi and can turn his body into smoke to cover a wide area. It's because of him that the number of pirates travelling from the east blue to the grand line have dropped over the past number of years, they've all lost to him and the few that have gotten past have only done so my skipping this island entirely or keeping out of his notice"

"M-maybe we should skip this island then, if he's really that tough then we should resupply elsewhere" Usopp suggested swallowing hard.

Sanji shook his head, "no can do our supplies are already starting to run low, I don't think we'd have enough to manage the journey to another island"

"Even if we did I don't want to run" Luffy voiced sternly, "Loguetown is our destination, it's where the last pirate king was born and died, I won't run just because some guy makes things a little hard, and I won't sneak around either"

Gabriel smirked and nodded, "I thought you'd say that."

Over the past few days Gabriel had gotten to know Luffy's personality a lot better. While he wasn't as clueless as his anime counterparts, he was just as stubborn, when he set his mind on something there was no changing it. The only reason he wasn't knowledgeable about things was likely due to the east blue being the weakest of the four blues and the fact that he had lived on a single island all his life and had no way of getting the knowledge he needed, this Luffy would be a whole lot more dangerous than the anime one.

"So what's the plan then, captain" Zoro asked with a grin.

"Simple, nothing's changed, we go stock up and set sale as soon as possible, if the marines give us trouble we handle them as we need to, if we can't we run" Luffy stated plainly, "I'll leave you guys to do your own things, but I'm going to see where the king of the pirates died and no smoke guy is going to get in my way"

The determination in his voice made everyone nod, Gabriel nodded with them, that was the plan then. They wouldn't sneak around; they'd just walk on in and deal with things as they came.

Gabriel crossed his arms with a smirk, "this is going to be fun"