Chapter 5

If you've read the first draft, THIS IS NOT A NEW CHAPTER. I just divided a slightly modified chapter 4 into two chapters. Actual chapter 5, now chapter 6, is actually new though.

*Somewhere in the Calm Belt, 10 years and six months before cannon*

After that encounter, I woke up about two weeks later and learned three things.

First, that I can sink into my plants, as I woke up inside a large root around the same spot I collapsed in.

I deny any accusation that I panicked on waking up on a completely dark place with pressure all around me (did not impede my movements though).

Second, that sinking into plants helped me heal, as while trying to figure out why my roots absorb me in I tested a theory by making a small cut in my arm, it healed in under a minute with the arm inside a tree.

Helps remove poisonous substances too, as the roots I woke in were a nasty green/purple and I felt great, nothing like as if I had just inhaled a cloud of toad poison.

And third, and one one that should be obvious, that I shouldn't bother unknown animals in a strange jungle for no reason... I should've at least poked it with a branch from a kilometer away before booping it.

Well, hindsight is 20/20.

After three more weeks of procrastinating, mostly settling my stomach after whatever that cloud was and stretching my muscles after the two week coma, I started getting productive again.

Deciding to forgo the native forest for a bit after my two not really pleasant experiences, I decided to explore the other biome of the island. Which is basically to say I started taking long walks along the beach.

The simple rush of exercise was still pleasant after the long stretches of absolutely nothing I did for most of the one and a half year of life I remember. Thus, walks turned into runs, which turned to strangely acrobatic maneuvers on the sand.

After 6 months of exponentially growing cardio sessions and some more experimenting/training with my powers -mastered growing vegetation through my body at least-, it happened once more.

The bane of being stranded without internet, I became very, very bored.

And being very bored has the weird tendency of giving birth to the most idiotic of decisions. Thus, here I am, once again at border of the natural forest, about to do something stupid.

Standing in the shade of the gigantic tree of all roots, covering now almost half of the original jungle with its ever-growing canopy, I once more doubted my moronic idea.

It started with trying to pump myself up for another exploration, but somehow the simple of thought of "I control pretty much all the vegetation around, that's 90% of the island surface, I can't be scared of some animals" changed into "let's fist fight a three armed gorilla".

It should be fine, I could easily kill it with my plants, and I now keep a constant armor of hardened bark around me that even a large boulder falling from a tree height height couldn't crack -I tried it- , even if I couldn't beat it, I can at surely survive it.

Sighing, I massaged my temples as I attempted, not for the first time, to stop such idiotic line of thought. Unfortunately, every attempt ended with the thought of "Hey, at least it'll be exciting".

Giving up on a rational line of thought, I decided to stop thinking about it and go find myself a gorilla.

Now not even needing to stop and focus, I sensed and followed a gorilla separated from its troop, moving deeper into the jungle.

Bypassing some full groups of the primates and two murder cats, I reached the lone gorilla.

It was mid way up a tree, eating a strange pineapple looking fruit that was rather common around the isle. Okay, now, how do I start a fight with a gorilla?

"Hey!... wanna fight?" I first yell at the gorilla, finishing in a whisper as I had no clue how to trash talk a gorilla.

It did not even look in my direction.

Sighing for what felt like the eightieth time today, with barely a thought one of the countless (31.388) roots spread through the island connected with the tree the gorilla was resting on, giving me control of it.

The thick branch suddenly moving as if clay, with the primate falling from it with a startled shriek.

I wanted to say a smart one liner or a pun before the start of the fight, but either it knew I was the reason of its fall or it wanted to break something and I was the closest thing nearby, because as soon as it got up the beast charged towards me.

I had to hold back my roots from instinctively impaling the beast, that wasn't the purpose of this.

Unfortunately, the gorilla crossed the distance between us in the time it took for me to do that, I was barely able to start turning my head to look at it when a hand almost the size of my torso threw me at the closest tree.

The bark armor proved its use, though I had a headache, I hardly felt that compared to my first gorilla hand to the face experience.

As soon as I started to get up, I had King Kong's three armed dwarf cousin all over me. I removed my head from the ground just in time for a closed fist to send it back in. I tried to roll away, but a punch to the gut put me back into the tree.

I kept trying to get up, but the gorilla going ape above me wasn't helping.

Eventually giving up on getting up on muscles alone, a group of vines grew from the tree I was thrown into, quickly stretching and holding the primate.

"Haaaaaah" I sounded, trying to stop the pounding still ringing in my head and focusing to force the eight copies of gorillas back into one being. The first one wasn't helped by the constant shrieks of the gorilla struggling against the vines holding it above me.

Still though my head was spinning and hurt like all hells, I'm sure that it would've popped without the armor. So I can cross, test armor effectiveness, out of the to do list if nothing else.

When the world finally stopped doing flips, I turned to my hanging foe.

"Let's try this again."

With a thought, the vines released the gorilla, which turned mid-air, falling on all fours, the third arm on its back pointed menacingly at me.

In a second it was in front of me, left arm swinging, a voice in the back of my head, strangely similar to how I felt while sensing through my plants, told me how dodge.

Following it, I dove to the left, the gorilla turned faster than I could exploit the opening though, catching me with a right arm to the torso sending me back to the ground.

Rolling away before it managed to go ape on me again, I began to get up before falling on my ass to avoid a right cross that would've sent me flying.

Jumping backwards from my fallen position, I barely managed to dodge two more punches while stumbling to try and find my equilibrium.

The third punch got to me, sending me once again flying at the nearest tree.

This time I wasn't able to roll away fast enough, the ape reaching my fallen form and managing nine punches before I gave up on getting up fairly and had my vines hold it again.

"Huuuurgh."

Getting up from my fallen fetal position, I half tried to stretch, before the ache everywhere force my to pull my members in.

"You certainly hit hard." I say to my sparring buddy.

"HU, HUAAAAAARGH!" It answers back, still struggling desperately against its bonds.

"Ah, relax, relax, I'll let you down in a minute" I said before closing my eyes. Gathering myself for a minute, I got up with another "huuuurgh" of exertion.

"Okay, okay..." I repeated trying to stay on my feet. Finally able to move without feeling like collapsing, I turned to the now giving up or tiring out gorilla.

"Well, thanks for the... sparring" beatdown "Let's do it again sometime."

With that I turned and left stumbling. A non-fruit bearing tree nearby mutating and producing some extra nutritional variation of the pineapple like fruit that were a favorite of the gorillas.

The vines would release it as soon as I got a bit farther from it, might as well pay it for the training session.

Stumbling through the woods, too tired to avoid any local fauna, I just ordered the flora to push anything away, making a straight path to my place.

Normally, losing and managing to escape alive but hurt from a gorilla would be a lesson on itself, it should highlight the stupidity of my decisions and convince me to never repeat it. Or maybe dread with some resignation if I was determined to learn how to fist fight gorillas.

Unfortunately, I just couldn't stop grinning.

I don't know if it was because it was the first really heart pumping thing I did on the island, if it was because the little dodging that I managed to do was the most exhilarating thing I remember doing or just because I don't remember it but am actually a battle nut.

But I loved it.

I'd mostly gotten beaten up, but the tension, the exhilarating feeling of barely dodging the attack, the expectation when I thought I could land one single attack myself. Fighting was surprisingly fun.

Reaching my safe zone, I stumbled pass the walls, made a cushioned recliner in front of me and fell into it face first, feeling it mold itself around me. The plants latching and growing onto my skin, connecting me to the extensive and growing network of vegetation and helping along my already unnatural healing.

Still grinning, I couldn't remove a single thought from my head.

"Can't wait to try it again tomorrow"

-2nd Attempt-

Finding the same gorilla again wasn't hard, it was almost in the exact same spot, seemingly storing one of the pineapple like fruit in a tree three trees to the right of the one it was in yesterday. He had felt small concentration of fruits near the gorilla troops, nice to know why.

Also nice to know it seemed my sparring partners liked to stay away from groups of others of the same species. Makes this easier for me.

Making use of the respite of it not noticing me, I took the time to actually observe it.

It was about as large as most of the gorillas, something between two and three of me laying down, it was a scarred thing, full of furless patches, where fur wouldn't grow back above the scarred skin, seemed old too, with some gray among it's maroon fur.

I would have no idea about it sex, as nothing was visible. But, unfortunately, my senses through the plants made more clear than I wanted that it was a male.

Done observing, growing restless with the memory of the heart (and general body) pounding of yesterday, I decided to try something different.

I attacked, though using the term loosely, I ran the distance between me and -as now identified- him while screaming like a lunatic. About as loudly but much slower than him covering a similar distance yesterday.

He turned with the quickness I came to expect of his kind, despite his size and apparent age, jumping from the tree and landing fine and running despite the rather large fall, meeting me midway.

It met me with a running upper cut to my general torso, listening to what could be instinct, my plants or haki, I managed to dodge its first attack, slide sideways and land a -way too awkward to have any weight to it- punch to its side.

Any high I might've got from the small victory of landing my first -useless- attack was gone as the forgotten third back arm literally held my head and threw me at the nearest tree.

Somewhat more expecting this time, I softened the tree to the point that -along with my bark armor- I didn't even feel the collision.

Falling from the tree feet first, just in time to barely duck a punch, couldn't react in time for the kick though, catching me right in the face, burying in the fortunately still soft tree.

Any respite from the fact the tree was basically a large pillow was taken by the prehensile foot ripping me from the pillow tree and in a surprisingly acrobatic movement the gorilla cartwheeled, burying my face in the still hard ground.

I'm sure that anyone normal would've had a concussion by now, and there was an annoying ringing in my ear, but my armor let me get out mostly fine.

My foe was determined to change that, throwing me a bit ahead and then pouncing before I could hope to react.

Between its 15-20th punch I managed to be conscious enough to change the stand by orders of my plants, a roots surging from besides me a second later surrounding and lifting the ape about 10 meters from the ground, giving me time to breath.

"Argh, that didn't work out as I hoped. About what I expected though."

"HRIAAAAARGH!"

"Hm, yes, quite."

With that out of the way, I moved to get up- and collapsed back in the ground. Uuuuuurg, everything hurt.

There were some cracks on the armor, but it was basically whole, that gorilla hit hard. I'm sure that he hits much harder than my two temporary fungi zombies did before they were zombiefied.

"Guess this is all for today, big guy."

"HRUUUUUUAAAAAAARH!"

"Yeah, I know it was kind of short, still I'll probably be up tomorrow. See you then!"

Smiling at the responding shriek, saying his heartfelt "Until then!", I'm sure, I focus for a second.

A root burst into the ground, this one directly surging horizontally beneath me and scurried back home. Another cluster of super pineapple look alike forming on the tree my sparring buddy had been staying in.

Closing my eyes and collapsing into the root (literally), I drifted into sleep.

-11th attempt-

I jumped to the side as a fist larger than my head passed by, I hooked my foot around it's ankles and tried kicking forward, my enemy stumbled, but didn't fall, his third arm reaching for my head, forcing me to stumble backwards to evade it.

Knowing that if I gave it space it would just charge faster than I could make room, I charged forward, ducking underneath its wild swing, managing to land a punch inside it armpit.

One that, for a change, it appeared that he felt it, as the ape gave a loud shriek in a higher pitch than normal and, for the first time since these fights started, took a step back.

Unfortunately, being so stunned by my own achievement of actually making my sparring buddy flinch, I didn't react and for that step back he took six more forwards, towards me.

Frozen for a second, I could nothing but brace before it shoulder tackled me, then ran me over.

Before I could recuperate from being stampeded, he reached down, grabbing me by my leg and swinging for a nearby tree. That I was unfortunately too distracted to turn soft or merge into.

Before he could remove me from the tree and swing again, roots surge from the ground and restrain him.

Released, I fall face first into the ground, groaning from the increasingly familiar ache.

"Ah, think that's about it for today. What you do you think?"

"Hu! Huuuaaarh!" He answers back offended. He actually started fighting back a bit less against the roots, the shrieks weren't as loud.

"Yeah, my bad at ending, got too distracted. But I got you there this time, eh? Eh?"

I swear the shriek back was annoyed.

-25th attempt-

I leaned to the side, using both my hands to push an arm the size of me slightly to the left.

Ducking my head under the third arm attempt of grabbing me, I kick the back of my opponent's knee. He stumbles forward, falling enough that I can actually land a large swing at his head.

It wasn't the first proper punch I landed, but I'm sure it was the most effective so far.

The gorilla fell for the first time since these battles have started, luckily, my experience allowed me not to freeze this time, jumping backwards as soon as the punch landed. Which was good, as the third arm swung around blindly just after.

Though it fell forward, it still did not make much difference, turning to face before I even landed on the ground.

I was able to brace myself for the shoulder tackle, going flying, correcting myself mid-air and landing on my feet.

But, focused on landing, I wasn't able to react to the following punch to the torso, barely managing to dodge the subsequent fist to the head.

I tried dodging forward to get behind him, like before, but the gorilla was prepared this time. The third arm caught me as I slid under the punch, it held both of my -comparatively- tiny arms and swung me straight up.

There was a brief sensation of weightlessness and flying, it was nice, then a hand almost the size of my torso pulled me down and a now familiar beating proceeded for half a minute. Before I gave up and the roots lifted my opponent away.

I guess the roots are getting familiar to him by now too, as he just huffs and waits in there. I swear that huff sounded smug though.

-44th attempt-

The gorilla quickly put his arm to the side of his head, defending from the flying kick with a scream of "Dynamic Entry!" as I started today's bout.

I was thrown to the side when he raised his arm, landing feet first on a tree close by, once again jetting myself into him. Not expecting the quick second offense, he wasn't able to put up a defense, taking a full two flying feet to the face.

As he stumbled backwards, I fell to ground and rushed forward, a heavy stamp to his foot keeping him in place for the one second I needed to throw a proper punch at his face.

Unfortunately, though he couldn't react he had been ready for it. The gorilla took the punch straight on, barring through and coming at me open mouth to the throat.

It wasn't the first time he tried to make me dinner, once those huge, way too pointy for a herbivore teeth almost broke through my armor.

But I was also ready this time, ducking under his head and landing a somewhat awkward punch to his lower torso, he probably didn't feel it, but at least I hit him while he missed.

I half dodged, half blocked the counter kick, jumping backwards in an awkward position while blocking said kick with both arms.

Couldn't block the following punch though, or the subsequent one from the third back arm, the two rapid sequence punches left me stunned, enough for my primate opponent to send a swinging right armthat knocked me off my feet.

Stunned and down, I couldn't react and he grasped my head and most upper torso with one hand and proceeded to bury me halfway underground.

Before it could continue with whatever it was it had planned, one of the roots encircled it. Another pushing me from my half buried position.

"Ahhh, not this time, I guess."

A still rather smug huff answered.

-55th attempt-

I walked through the woods with my eyes closed and my hands behind my head.

The strange, primal and full of odd animals woods that so scared me during my first year in this island lost much of its mystery with me taking regular walks through it to fight with my buddy.

These days most of my cardio sessions are walks through it, no longer the beach... Mostly because of that one time I attempted a somersault in the sand and accidentally landed up to my waist in sea water and almost drowned... again.

Still, now I was taking a leisure walk to the fight's clearing, cooling down a bit after said cardio section took me in a run through most of the island.

With my eyes closed, I felt as the paws softly landed one after the other as the long feline body almost slid through the forest in my direction.

No longer really concerned about it, already used to fighting giant animals after so many battles during my gorilla challenge and now with a solid belief in my plants ability to save my ass, I slow down a bit my walk and wait as the predator crept closer.

After a few minutes of waiting it slowly creep closer, the giant cat jumped through the bushes in flash.

Reacting with instincts trained by constant fights with a faster opponent, I turned, grabbing both sides of the open jaws of the feline, my armor making sure the teeth didn't puncture anything, holding it by its jaw, I turned the feline mid air and slammed its back against a nearby tree.

Punching its belly with all my might before it fell from the tree it was now embedded in, I could almost literally see the cat's eye bulging out, the breath leaving it as he fell to the ground.

It curled in itself and tried to stumble away after it, looking warily at me.

I did nothing as it slowly put distance between us, a bit stupefied it was so easy to take on the cat, it seemed a bit small compared to most other specimens around the island, but it was still the apex predator around... How the hell haven't I beat the gorilla yet?

-63th attempt-

It was once more time for time for the almost always bidiurnal sparring match.

I had healed up from the wounds before yesterday and was ready to try again.

Currently stretching before going to seek out my sparring buddy. And technically only friend, as I didn't remember anyone else and he was the only non floral life form I saw on a daily basis.

I had just finished the last lap around the island, both to work out and fire up, and was now ready for my second exercise of the day.

Getting up, I move towards the native jungle for the battle of the day, passing through the small but dense forest of fruit bearing jungle in the way. Ignoring the birds flying around and pecking me, my wood armor both making me not feel it and making some small berry like fruits for them to take.

They were the toucan like birds I had seen around most of the island. They had the shape of a toucan, only almost my size and in various colors, from blue, to green, brown, purple and red. With the beak always being a bright yellow.

My new companions in this isle, having moved into the free source of fruits that was this small magically made jungle about half way through my second year here.

They were annoying, had a tendency to attack anything that wasn't themselves and their sounds sounded like slightly, just slightly, quieter than fire alarm.

Still, they were the only life form around besides the murder cats, the gorillas and those damn toads. Might as well get along with them... Even if they were the only birds on the isle likely because they killed all the competition.

Well, anyway, they were still weak enough that their pecks didn't hurt through my armor and seemed smart enough not to get in front of me after I made roasts out of the few who tried pecking my face.

The armor might make it not hurt, but those screaming fire alarms flopping around in front of my face were both annoying and just volunteering to help test this vague idea on preparing chicken I had in my amnesiac mind.

I discovered both that I knew how to prepare chicken (and similar birds) and that I could make a variety of spices by wishing the flavors.

Exiting the lunch jungle, munching on a large purple fruit that tasted like chocolate, I quickly crossed the now larger and all green wall, composed no longer of wood, but solely of hair thin, rock strong vines coiled on themselves. The line of purple flowers still in front of it.

In a few more steps I was back into native jungle.

The flock of angry birds gave up on the pecking and returned to the fruit jungle about then.

It took about 10/15 minutes to reach the usual sparring place. I actually made it a small clearing, moving or removing a few trees to make a more open space. Fortunately, my friend was stubborn enough to remain by his trees -that I left untouched- despite the unexplained change of scenery.

Arriving at my self made clearing, instead of the common sight of a way too lazy gorilla either chilling or eating out of the stock of my super pineapple look alikes, I found a wounded and still bleeding gorilla and a dead feline on the floor.

The feline was a purplish black panther look alike, but with a wider head and a plated, prehensile tail. It was visibly older and more robust than the one that attacked me that one time.

Strange, could swear those were typically three times the size of the gorillas, but him and my sparring partner were pretty even in height.

Rushing to my training buddy/unwilling friend, I landed in a crouch besides him, on the run over I had already verified he was alive through my plants, now I needed to heal him... Somehow.

Having no idea on how to heal others, with my only knowledge of medicine being that sticking myself into a root helps me, I start encircling him in a cocoon of vines grown from my arm.

Focusing on it closing his wounds, giving him energy and nutrients, basically telling my plants to close any wounds and pump him full of anything beneficial to him around my roots, be in the ground, air or sea. I was steroiding the gorilla.

After an unknown amount of time later, I wasn't counting, I realized that my patient woke up as it started squirming inside the vines.

Releasing it, I jumped back in time to avoid the rather slow fist of my injured "friend".

The fist was rather slower than normal and it was made obvious why when I look at its owner.

Though the larger wounds were closed and the bleeding stopped, the gorilla still had various smaller wounds around his body and many new scars added to the already vast old collection.

"Ah, just lay down, will ya? We're not fighting with you like this"

He, of course, didn't understand me, struggling to stay standing straight, he took a single loose step in my direction, then brace himself against the tree behind him not to fall on his face.

I plopped down besides the tree he was leaning against, a cushion of grass/moss and the back of a chair forming to make it more comfortable.

Not like I had anything to fear, I could already at least react to any move he made and my plants could stop him at anytime and would've reflexively killed him if I wasn't consciously restricting them while fighting.

He just stared down at me, might've been a bit more scary if he didn't do it every time we fought and if he wasn't visibly fighting not to pass out.

"Just sit down you lug, you're going to reopen your wounds and I'm letting them bleed you to exhaustion if you do it."

Don't know if he understood anything from my tone or my actual words, but he stumbled two trees away from me and collapsed to the ground.

"Paranoid" I grumbled, rolling my eyes at the distance made.

With a quick thought, a thin patch of grass started growing from the ground up his skin. He startled for a second, trying to get up too quick, causing him to visibly wince and fall back to the ground.

Guess by the time he gathered his wits back he realized the grass was soothing his pain instead.

The medi-gel producing roots from earlier closed most wounds, stopped the bleeding and administered some general anesthetic.

This thin grass was an older invention of mine, it's both a anesthetic and a relaxant, basically a narcotic, it should help keep him calm as his wounds finish closing up.

"Eeeerrgh" he sounded out in a tired mumbling.

"Well, at least the other guy looks worse off" I comforted him, looking at the feline corpse with its too wide of a head caved in.

"Hueerh..."

"Hahahaha... I swear you sound prideful" I laughed while leaning into my chair.

"Hurff"

"You know, we've been doing this for almost a year already, it was the fastest it went by since I got to the island" I mused it out loud to the slowly passing out gorilla "I guess time flies when you're having fun..."

"Hu..."

"You should've a name you know, can't just keep calling you gorilla." though I when I turned to him, he was already asleep. Passed out from a mix of his wounds and the anesthetics.

"Yeah, see you tomorrow...Bob" I suck at naming, since the only other one I came up with was McGorillaface, I hope he appreciates the less idiotic option.

Since I was woken up by my plants stopping a punch inches from my face, with the usual spar starting seconds later, I guess he didn't.

-76th attempt-

I blocked a swing to the side of my head, the weight of the punch making me stumble sideways, still had enough footing to dodge under the following swing.

Inside the gorilla's guard, a open palm to the chin closed the open shrieking mouth with a loud thud, he wincing and stumbling back as a result.

Continuing the assault, I followed the stumbling primate, a punch to the lower stomach forcing his head down enough for me the reach with both feet planted on the ground, a hard punch throwing his head backwards.

A lot changed in this almost full year of fighting, one of those things was that it no longer could just brush of my punches.

I blocked the wide swing of his left hand, pushing it down, dodging under the following right and kicking the side of his knee before he could properly recover.

Kneeling, I was more was able to reach Bob's head, and once more delivered a hard punch now to the other side of his face.

Barely blocking the third arm that came to knock me away, the power of the swing still knocking me far from the gorilla, giving him the seconds needed to recover and come charging at me.

Jumping to the side, I managed to dodge his charge and charge back, the back arm swinging around wildly, hoping stop any possible attacks to the rear.

I dodged the first swing, jumping over the next one in a way that I stood over the 4 to six meters tall primate, twisting mid air to hit it with a spinning closed back hand to the ear.

Luckily it hit, disorienting my opponent enough for me to fall to the ground before the gorilla swatted me out the air.

Taking the opening from the loss of balance caused by the hit to the head, I charged him, dodging under a swiping blow, inside his guard I punched at the side of his knee, forcing him to fall into one knee, once again bringing his head into my range, which I hit with a spinning elbow.

Bob stumbled backwards, I quickly followed after him, hitting three consecutive heavy punch to the ribs, forced to stop to block a hit that would've got me in the head, not being able to block the subsequent upper that caught me right in the chin.

Sent literally flying, I tried to settle my head before hitting the ground, managing to do so and see the fist ready to hit me as gravity brought me down.

Twisting awkwardly mid-air, I managed to dodge the fist, landing heavily on my side.

Ignoring the slight pain and unbalance from the fall, I jumped up, dodging the hammer blow where I was fallen, landing on my feet and leaning backwards to avoid the third arm attempt at a grab.

A kick to head sent Bob, still kneeling from the failed hammer blow, falling to his ass on the ground.

Before he could react I jumped forward, knees first, each knee hitting the shoulder joint of the gorilla, my momentum and weight pulling him down, landing with me mounted on his chest.

I started hammering blows before he could react, managing to push away the weak punches Bob managed to throw in his awkward position and arms semi restrained. After something between the 15th or 20th punch, Bob stopped struggling.

I stopped for a second, waiting for him to throw me off and starting the fight again. After almost a minute of silence, I accepted that Bob really was unconscious, that I had actually won.

"Ha... hahaha... hahahaha"

Rolling from the immobile primate, I fall to the ground besides it laughing in joy at my first victory, a screen of vines and grass already starting on covering both me and Bob for healing.

"Ah, 75 to 1 now." I say before passing out.

-112nd fight- (almost 9 years before cannon starts)

After my first victory, it started getting kinda easy to defeat Bob. 70 to 1 quickly became 72 to 25, that's when I decided to start fighting without the armor or any other use of my powers.

It was difficult for a time, the hits I had grown used to suddenly hurt way more than remembered, 72 to 25, becoming 87 to 18. But eventually...

I jumped over the punch that broke and sank into the tree behind, using Bob's arm as a stepping stone I launched myself over to his head, grabbing his neck and doing a move that would doRandy Orton proud, twisting mid air while still holding his neck and burying the gorilla's head into the ground.

I landed on my feet, tense while looking into Bob's prone body for a minute. After a moment of silence and quietness.

"YES!" I scream with my hands to sky, collapsing to the ground a second later, covered in bruises slowly disappearing with this bullshit healing.

With this I had my first victory without any advantage from my powers. The feeling of fulfillment was even a bit greater than the last time when I got my first victory, period.

And this time I wasn't injured enough to pass out, so I made my excitement known with a totally cool and choreographed dance over the clearing, not just screaming yes while thrusting my hips to the air of course.

A grunt woke me from my commemoratory trance, turning to see Bob getting up while holding his head.

"Huuuurgh"

"Hahaha, great match, eh? Eh? Eh?"

Bob pushed my head away, annoyed with the repeated elbow pokes.

"Oi, don't be a sore loser, I took my 87 losses like a champ."

I ignored the judging eyes that were clearly reminding me of having roots that stop any serious injuries (on both of us, it's not that much cheating...) and a miiiinor breakdown on my 20th consecutive loss.

"Bah, don't be like that. Come on, I've been testing this one out for some time, let's celebrate."

With that a small stump of a tree grew from the ground between us, two large fruits growing from it.

I walked to it, grabbed both, and plopped down besides Bob, who was sitting covered in the healing grass and vines that should be familiar to him by now.

Seated besides the gorilla cousin with gigantism the size difference was never more obvious, at least three times taller and two times more robust than me.

I had by now realized Bob seemed larger than any other gorilla on the island, a quick comparison with the other gorillas I could sense/see/hear through my plants made that pretty clear.

My only idea on why, is it resulting from my nutrient bomb fruits that he's been eating since the spars started, and/or the root treatment. He wasn't like that at the beginning, I looked for a normal gorilla to get beat up by while I was an amateur.

Bob grunted and tried to take the fruit from my hand, I dodged and pushed his hand away.

"This ain't the normal stuff, you gotta go slowly."

It was true, rather the super nutritional mix, this was a result of one of my various casual attempts at alcoholic and narcotic plants. There were worse ones, but this version still packed quite the punch.

Handing the fruit to the disgruntled primate, I interrupted with a shove before Bob could take his first bite. Holding out my fruit in front of me.

"Kanpai!" I recited from my memories of One Piece.

After dodging multiple attempts of fruit theft, Bob finally understood that he was supposed to hit his fruit against mine. He did not look impressed with the tradition that stopped him from eating the moment he got the fruit.

Thus, after three years stranded, I had my first party in this strange island, getting drunk on fruits with a three armed gorilla.

Just wanted a somewhat realistic scene on learning how to fight, no idea how it became so long or where the gorilla came from. Bob may be the first crew member or may be removed, I'll think on it later, just wanted to release something this week.

MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION EVER: I used the classic "hahaha" since I couldn't think of one. But should the character have a strange One Piece laugh? And, if so, how should it be?