17 Watch Me Closely

If you want to support me, my patréon is Saintbarbido.

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"I can't. I have something important to do, maybe next time."

I told Ace. He looked at me for a while longer, sighed then calmly nodded.

"In any case, thanks for saving my little brother."

I adopted a thinking pose. Ace being here was an opportunity in and of itself.

"Help me out with something and we'll be even."

"What do you need?"

He asked me.

"You're a logia fruit user right? I want to see if I can touch you, while you're in your elemental state"

He rose an eyebrow at that.

"Although I'm curious as to why you would even want that, I won't pry. The name is Ace by the way but I'm guessing you already knew that."

I nodded.

"Call me Chris."

I channeled a little red in the palm of my hand and reached out to touch his hand. The outcome would be the deciding factor. My hand landed on his biceps and I breathed out a sigh of relief when I made contact with it. Ace, however, had a surprised look on his face.

"How did you do that? Only someone with haki or an opposing element can hurt me."

"What happened to not prying?" I smiled wryly at him.

H shook his head,

"You're right, I am sorry. The Marines will be here any minute though, I suggest you leave, before they see you. I already have a bounty but if you don't want one, then go."

"Marines? There's actually a marine outpost on this island?"

Ace answered while he was headed for Blackbeard's corpse.

"Yes, they're just too pre-occupied with maintaining order in this Chaotic place, to think about catching small fry."

I laughed at that bit. Then turned to leave.

"See you around, fire fist Ace."

"Yeah see you around Chris."

I left him, drinking Sake in a pseudo-mourning mood.

I made my way to the Going merry and just as I was jumping up on it, a fist slammed right on to my gut. I could have dodged it or blocked but didn't because I knew I had deserved it. I hunched over and rubbed my belly not expecting for the blow to actually hurt.

"That's for lying to me, you bastard!"

"Luffy! What are you doing attacking him like that? He saved us…"

Nami started chewing her captain out and wringing his neck. The rest of the crew were watching with different expressions on their faces.

Luffy flopped in her arms like a dead fish as Zoro snickered. Only to get yelled at too by the ship's navigator. I smiled and shook my head at their antics. I could see why they all had such trust in each other. Truthfully no matter how hard things got, because of my meddling, I had little doubt that they wouldn't prevail and come out stronger at the end.

I bowed down,

"Thank you for you and your crew's hospitality, Luffy. I apologise for lying to you earlier. It's time for me to leave but before I go, I want to show you something."

I said, gratitude rolling off of me.

They all looked at me and started paying attention, so I continued,

"Your journey is only going to get tougher. Your bounty is 100 million already, not to mention your swordsman's has increased to 60 million berries too. The current you would be killed by a vice admiral and at the most match up against a rear admiral."

I stopped to let that sink in.

"What's a rear admiral?"

"A rear admiral is the highest rank in the Marines, right under vice admiral, Admiral and The Fleet admiral."

Robin answered in a serious tone. Her face was grave and I knew that she, better than anyone else knew the dangers the top brass of the Marines posed.

I nodded.

"She's right, these ranks compose of the strongest people the Marines have to offer and they'll be gunning for you, and your crew. To even out the odds you all have to get stronger. Especially you Luffy."

"Huh?"

"Watch me closely."

I told him as I got into a wide super-saiyan stance. After continuously perfecting Overdrive, the amount of smoke produced from the form had lessened greatly though the pink tint still remained. I slipped into the imperfect form and I heard the gasps of the crew.

"This Luffy, is one of the ways to bridge the gap. The only people who can safely practice this skill are you and I. However, for you, it should be a last resort. The Trump card of all trump cards. I won't tell you the principle behind it but I'll give you a hint. Your rubber physique is your greatest asset. With it, you can do much more than you think."

I stepped lightly and placed a hand on Zoro's shoulder, before he could even react.

"The skill multiplies my strength by a factor of 10 but I can only do it for 10 minutes."

They all had wide open mouths in shock at seeing me disappear and appear instantaneously at Zoro's side.

I dropped it and smiled at them again.

"Now who's hungry coz I'm starving."

I had to take advantage of Sanji's cooking after all.

The next day at the crack of dawn, the crew was planning to visit Cricket, to ask him about the way to Sky island. I was dressed in a long coat, trouser and shirt that looked like Alucard's from Castlevania. All I needed was a sword to complete the image.

I slung the backpack containing the rest of my clothes and bare necessities at my back. I really need to get a storage space in one of the worlds I'll be traveling to, I mused to myself after a hefty breakfast from Sanji. I had additionally showed them all the basics of soru to prepare them for water seven. It all depended on them, if they learned it or not.

I had said goodbye to all of them and just as I was about to leave, Robin came to talk to me.

"You didn't mention my bounty to them. Thank you."

"You know Robin, I'll be leaving in the next 5 months or so. If you want I could take you with me when the time comes."

She sadly shook her head.

"There's nowhere, the world government won't find me."

"Trust me where I'll be going, the world government will never be able to find you ever again."

Still she refused. I knew it was probably because of the void century, so I let it be.

I formed a construct armor around my body akin to the iron monger metal armor and controlled it to go up, the Going merry getting smaller and smaller. I still couldn't make my constructs more compact but my control had increased greatly. The feeling of flying without a construct under me was exhilarating and I couldn't wait for when I learned to actually fly. Maybe...I stopped in the air and made a construct to stand on.

The orange armor around me disappeared as I tried something else. I couldn't cover my whole body with my orange but what if I formed wings out of them. I strained a little trying to copy a bird's wings physiology and surprisingly, I succeeded. Well, succeeded is stretching it a bit because two tiny wings formed on my back. I concentrated on making them bigger and they increased in size to match hawkman's.

The strange thing was that I could control them mentally. Normally I had to use my mutant ability to create and maintain constructs apart from when I mentally decided to enhance them with red, which took a lot of concentration. These wings however needed no conscious effort to maintain. They felt like an extension of my body.

I dismissed them and created them again. The ease at which they sprouted from my back with the backpack in between, assured me I could use them and still form other constructs without mental fatigue. I called upon the red and enhanced my body while the wings were still on. There wasn't the slightest hiccup and a smile fought it's way to my face. I flapped my wings and got pushed out into the air.

Flying was the real challenge now. After an hour of spiralling, involuntarily flipping and performing unintentional gymnastics I finally got flying down. I flapped my wings and shot up at a speed faster than when I was on my hovering construct. I formed a faint construct above me to help with the pressure and increased my speed even more. At this rate I would arrive at my destination in no time.

Sure enough the air started getting colder then warmer as I neared strange fluffy clouds. With my shield above me, I broke past the foamy water and found myself in a sea of clouds. Up ahead I could see an island, I stopped to first admire the surroundings. I felt short of breath but after getting used to it in addition to my Bio-kinesis adjusting things I got better.

'Now should I go to Angel Island or proceed straight to Upper yard? To tell the truth, I don't like the thought of wasting any more time. I'll just proceed to the 'sacred ground' and beat 'god's' ass before the Strawhats arrive and take all the fun. I'll leave the priests for them though. God knows I don't want to waste my time and energy fighting them' I thought to myself.

A 'guerilla' tried to attack me but I blasted him back into the sea cloud, shrugging. It was so effortless that I didn't even pay attention to him anymore. Though Gan fall appeared in a horse dotted with polka marks. Now, was it the bird that ate a horse horse fruit or the other way around?

"Hello stranger, I am Gan fall, the Knight of the sky…"

"Look man, no disrespect but I honestly don't care. All I want to know is where I can find your so called 'god' and kick his ass."

Suddenly a large majestic beam of lightning fell down on a 5 layered shield, I had instantly put up. Maybe, I was a tad too overconfident, I thought as the beam broke past 1 of my shields then dissipated harmlessly on the last 4. Huh, that's it?

"That was very…not cool. If you can hear me Enel, I'm going to make you pay for almost ruining my clothes."

Fuck the overconfidence bit. It's not overconfidence, when you know your enemies strength as well as yours. If this was Enel's full capabilities then he was going down. Hard.