Growing Crew

I do not own One Piece or any other works that I may have referenced or took inspiration from. They all belong to their respective Authors.

~3 Week Time Skip~

Apoo's crew was headed to a different next island, and it was just coincidence that caused them to meet on the seas. They parted ways the same day they met, having just had a rap battle and left it at that. Apoo promised that the next time they met that he would be a better rapper.

The crew were coming up on the next island and had just received a new World News newspaper from a news coo, which's front page read "Straw Hatted Devil destroys Enies Lobby!" This told Carter that they were almost approaching the time for the Sabaody Arc.

Carter was already fully adjusted to the final Kairoseki Ring now, and his strength was almost back to full. He was fairly confident in his current resistance but would need to find some way to increase it even more, the strongest being should not have a single weakness, after all.

He had also decided it was time to retire his blindfold as his progress with Kenbunshoku was slowing down, and now he wanted to try to integrate his two methods of vision together. He could use his aura sense with his eyes open but could not manage to see everything around him unless he closed his eyes. His brain could just not currently process all of the information, but like any muscle in the body, Carter was trying to train it to be able to function properly.

Arriving at the second last island in this route of the Grand line, they realised that this island was truly dead. The entire island seemed only be about one hundred meters across and was just a large group of rocks. Because this island has a magnetic signature, it was likely once a full island, but had been destroyed by a battle of some kind in the past.

There were rocks that were melted from intense heat, parts that were completely crushed, and completely straight gorges running throughout the island reminiscent of giant sword slashes. The only thing on the island was a small wooden sign near the centre that read "Log Pose Reset Time: 2 weeks"

This means they would need to stay on this desolate rock for at least 2 weeks, with no where to restock their food stores. The only good thing about this situation is the fact that they now have two weeks on a large open island to train properly. All of their spars thus far have been confined to the small area on the ship, as the other crew members do not know any of the Rokushiki, so they do not have the aerial mobility needed to fight over water.

~11 days later~

The middle of the night, 11 days later, all members of the crew were asleep, except for Harry, who was on watch duty. It had been a quiet 11 days, so everyone had started dropping their guard, believing this to be the first island in their trip where nothing bad happens. But they were wrong.

Suddenly, the waters around where their ship was anchored started being filled with unnoticed shadows. The Ginette Amore started slowly lowering down into the water, as the water around it started slowly rotating, like water going down a plug.

Suddenly, the water beneath the ship was pulled down, disappearing below them. At this, Carter was startled awake and only had seconds to act. His Kenbunshoku active, he felt the ship being pulled straight downward, trying to force the whole crew into a very watery death, and a large group of humanoid figures in the water surrounding the whirlpool. He immediately, almost instinctively, started moving.

He used his maximum speed to move to the next room over and grabbed the 3 sleeping male members of the crew, he rushed outside and threw them up in the air, before turning around and repeating the process with the two female members who share the captain's room.

Once they were all thrown into the air, he grabbed Harry from on top of the Mast, and Jumped above the ship, using his Geppo to kick himself up into the air. He then threw Bonney and Leone toward the island, grabbed Tom and Dick to him, and left Spencer to float himself over with his metal control.

Leone and Bonney both came crashing down heavily toward the island, but they were more than strong and skilled enough to land on their feet with no problem.

Once all members had landed on the island, Bonney had recovered enough from her sudden awakening to yell, "What the fuck was that?"

"We were just attacked," Carter started, closing his eyes to try to get an accurate image of their attackers, "By about 35 fishmen."

"Fishmen? What are those and why are they attacking us?" Leone questioned, confused about the new term.

"Fishmen are one of the races that live in this world. There are quite a few different races. You have your regular human, the long arm and long leg races, the winged races that live on the sky islands, you have giants and dwarves. Merfolk and fishmen, Minks which are animal hybrids, and quite a few others." Spencer informed. "Fishmen are said to be at least 10x stronger than a human at birth."

Carter chimed in then, "Humans have been capturing them to sell into slavery for centuries, so there are groups that take their anger out on any humans they find."

While they were having this discussion, their ship had already sunk into the depths of the ocean and had filled completely with water. The fishmen regrouped and decided to go onto land to deal with the humans they were trying to kill.

The fishmen all started jumping out of the water and onto the land and gathering into an army, multiple members held weapons, but there were also many who were wearing Martial Gi's. and used either a wooden staff or their hands.

Suddenly, an almost 11-foot-tall, Great White Shark Fishman launched out of the water, and landed on the ground in front of all the other fishmen with water coating his hands. He had a muscular frame with a large, round belly. The right side of his stomach he had a red design that looked like a human with no head, and a cross through it, surrounded by a circle of fire, as if to say, "All humans will be executed."

He looked derisively at the group of humans in front of him, and said, "I hope you end up stronger than the rest, so you can offer my men some actual training, humans." He spat humans out at them like it was the worst insult imaginable.

'This guy was the main antagonist of the Ryugu Kingdom arc, Hody right?' Carter thought, 'So he was attacking ships to train his soldier more than two years before the advent of that arc, then.'

Hody Jones had once been a staunch follower of Arlong, viewing him as the ideal for fish-men and hoped he would one day be his right-hand man. He grew up in the fishman district, wear the racism against humans was the most prevalent, and often heard other fishmen preaching about the need to kill humans.

When Hody found that Otohime, the former queen of Ryugu Kingdom, was close to achieving a piece treaty with the World Nobles, he engineered a human to burn the ballots while he assassinated her, leaving the human to take the fall. He used this event to spark mass hatred towards humans among the population of fishman island, as Otohime was well loved by all people on the island.

He had done these six years prior to the current event and had already had his Energy Steroids at that time.

"The guy in the front is too strong for you guys" Carter said. Among the rest of the members he could not see a single person who was an officer of the New Fishman Pirates. "You guys handle the rest; I will keep him from interfering with your fights."

"Whatever," Bonney growled, sick of being treated like she was weak, "Spencer, do it"

Spencer said, "Yes, Captain." As he lifted his hand, pulling all of the metal on the enemy group up into the air above them, before he floated up into the air to join it.

Carter and Hody started fighting pretty soon after. Hody did not have a devil fruit, so he didn't have to avoid using his fists for this fight. He decided to slip into some of his old fighting styles that he had trained extensively in South Blue.

Hody opened the fight with some regular Karate, not bothering to using the water controlling powers on who he saw as a weak pirate, so Carter had no problem with just playing with him for a while using his superior skill in hand-to-hand combat.

Only five minutes after the fight started, the Bonney Pirates had already knocked all of the Fishmen onto the ground, with them groaning in pain. Hody, seeing them getting beaten up by weak humans, got mad and yelled "Eat the Steroids, you useless bastards!"

All of the 34 different pirates simultaneously pulled out bottles from within their shirts. Downing the contents, they each started standing back up, as the Bonney Pirates just watched on with curiosity.

Carter knew what this was, but wanted to give his crew a bigger challenge, as the best chance to learn your shortcomings is in an actual fight. Hody, with anger on his face, started using his fishman karate now to fight against Carter, so he was forced to dodge far more. He could have tanked the attacks, but he didn't really want to get wet, after all.

The attacks of the many fishmen became far more instinct based, and uncoordinated, as the energy pills increase their strength, speed, and stamina, in return for lowering their intelligence and decision making.

The fight from there was a lot more even, as the fight lasted over an hour with the Bonney pirates constantly knocking down the enemy fish men, but they would not stay down. Their muscles were all enhanced which gave them a durability similar to Tekkai. Although Bonney and Leone could quite easily take them out, they wanted to give the weaker members a chance to truly fight it out, and experience constantly fighting with their lives on the line.

Especially Spencer. This was his first ever fight, and although he just manipulated metal from a distance, it still took a massive amount of power to stay focused on all enemies and to dodge any attack they send up at him. Guns don't work underwater, so there was no fishmen with guns, but they did use their strength to throw rocks at him and some were good enough at fishmen karate to throw water bullets.

Finally, Bonney noticed that her crew were getting too tired, and decided to finish it off. "Leone, start killing them now." She said calmly, before using her agility to turn the ones she passes by into weak old men for Leone to finish off.

Leone didn't mind killing, as she had done it for years as an assassin. Especially a group of racist pirates who had harmed their precious ship. Pretty soon, the only one left was Hody.

This turn in the fight only took less than a minute from when Bonney decided to end it, so Hody didn't even notice until he was the last remaining fish-man.

He normally wouldn't have even come out in a hunting party like this, but he wanted the chance to see some humans get slaughtered, and maybe capture one for a slave to torture for a while. So when he saw the weak humans wiping out his enhanced soldiers, he was incredibly surprised, but also incredibly angry.

The soldier he had brought with him were recommended to him by one of his Officers, a hammerhead shark fishman named Dosun. He had made the claim that they were all the most elite in the New Fishman Army, and yet they were wiped out by a small group of humans that they heavily outnumbered.

He had also been struggling to crush the small human man in front of him without enhancing his own strength, so he pulled out his own pill bottle, and stuffed its contents into his mouth. He wasn't prepared to have to fight someone strong today, so he only had 2 energy steroids on him, but he believed it would be more than enough.

Hody's body almost immediately began to bulge from the power it now contained, as his started glowing red. He immediately launched himself at Carter, throwing out his strongest punch which was redirected by a casual backhand of Carters into the ground. The ground that was hit was cracked, and the cracks spread instantly over a distance of 15 meters in every direction.

Carter started almost dancing around his attacks, attacking back with fairly casual punches and kicks, not worrying at all about using Busoshoku, as Hody wasn't so much of a threat that he had to take him out quickly.

"Hurry up, Carter." Bonney called, "Just get rid of him already, so we can work on getting our ship back from where they dumped it!"

Remembering exactly what the bastard fish in front of him had done to his lovely Ginette, Carter decided to take a bit of revenge out on him. Carter raised his speed to be too much for Hody to deal with, without resorting to using Soru, and started hitting the man with Busoshoku enhanced punches and kicks.

Hody Jones, when using the energy pills, was far more durable than could be expected. Each energy steroid roughly increases strength by two-fold, so his durability, while nothing compared to the version that Luffy versed who consumed four pills, was still at the least 4 times more than he normally is.

Carter continued smashing him around for around 2 minutes, before deciding to end it. He Soru'd towards Hody, and switched his weight to around 5 metric tons, before giving Hody a full force kicks in the stomach. He knew that with the force he used it probably wouldn't kill him, but it did serve to send him flying over a kilometre away, skipping along the water with his red eyes staring blankly. By the time he had landed in the water and started sinking, his organs had already taken massive damage and he would need at least a few weeks to recover.

The crew then proceeded to throw all of the dead fishmen around them into the water, to let them sleep eternally in Davy Jones's locker.

The whole crew stood in the water, looking towards where their beloved ship used to sit. The way the fishmen sunk her, she likely wasn't too damaged, but there is no way she will be completely fine. All of the strongest members on their crew were Devil fruit users, so they couldn't swim down and try to pull it up, and Tom, Dick, and Harry would likely not be able to do so at all.

Carter thought for a moment, before saying, "Spencer, can you feel our ship down there with your power?"

"I can sense a lot of bits of metal down there, and I'm not sure which one is our ship," Spencer answered.

"Ok, here is what we are going to do. Spencer, look for bits of metal down there that resemble an anchor, and try to pull the anchor up. Our ship was anchored at the time it was sunk, so it is likely that the anchor and chain will be completely out of the ship." Carter said.

Spencer nodded, before he sat on the ground and focused on feeling the pieces of metal on the ocean floor. He wasn't currently strong enough to pull them all to him, given the distance and the weight of the water on top of it, but if it was a single anchor, he should be able to manage it.

After focusing for around ten minutes on feeling out the metal, his eyes grew wide as he found what he was looking for. A small anchor directly below where the ship used to sit, with a chain leading off into something he couldn't feel. He immediately activated his powers on that piece of metal, pulling it up with all of the power he has trained for so far.

It was a slow going process, but the chain slowly started making its way up to the surface as Spencer sweated from the effort. Before it could reach them, it seemed to reach the length of the chain and would no longer move forward, but was still ten meters underwater.

"It is still not all the way here, but it isn't moving any more. What do I do?" Spencer asked, with tears starting to lace his eyes. He didn't want to fail the first task asked of him after all.

"Just try to get it out of the water, so send it straight above where the ship is," Carter said, "I will handle the rest."

Once the chain peaked its anchor out of the water, Carter took his eight Kairoseki Rings off of his fingers and placed them on the ground, getting ready for what might be his greatest challenge so far on the Grand Line. The Grand Line, at it's Deepest, is about 10km straight down. Because they are currently quite close to an island, the water is far less deep, but it is still over 300 meters down. To pull the ship out of three hundred meters of water, the weight pressing down on it as he tries to pull it out would be almost 1000 tons.

That is a weight that is almost 60 times what he can turn himself into, and he may have to do so with Geppo, which will take even more toll on his body, so he needed all the strength he could spare.

Carter hopped over to the anchor with his Geppo and grabbed it. He focused all of his Busoshoku on his legs and hands, to ensure that he doesn't break them by trying to force this weight up, while putting all his willpower into lowering his own weight and the weight of the object he is holding.

He continued using Geppo at a rate of about 5/s, causing wind to fly away from him at every kick and sending large waves out, for almost 10 minutes, but he had only managed to raise his height by ten meters. By this point, his legs were already screaming at him and without being blacked by Busoshoku, all of the muscles in his legs would have likely torn. He Refused to give up, however.

The Ginette Amore had sailed with them for the entire journey through the Grand Line, and he definitely felt great affection for her. Since the start, he had treated her like the most precious member of the crew. He refused to let any cannonballs hit her and looked after her when the weather was bad. When sparring on her deck, he refused to let their attacks damage any part of her.

He knew about Klabautermann, and that ships can develop their own through love and affection. He also knew that all the greatest ships had them, and that with developing his Kenbunshoku Haki enough he will be able to speak to a Klabautermann.

Carter was still constantly Geppo-ing, his arms that were not covered in Busoshoku slowly tearing from his shoulders as his durability was not able to keep up with the weight he was pulling, but his hands refused to let go and his legs refused to stop moving.

Although his body wanted to give up, his mind refused to, and his willpower grew as he forced himself to keep moving, but the ship refused to budge more, until suddenly the Ship felt like it got a little lighter.

It felt like suddenly his mind was awakened to possibilities he had never before thought of, as if he could control the weight of the entire world with almost limitless ability. He focused harder on the ship, while his tired body still moved, "RISE, MOVE DAMMIT!" he yelled.

"Do not give up on us yet, Ginette!" now, he was starting to rise through the air much faster than before, and his speed was only increasing, as he forced the ship to move through the water. Faster and faster, he shot up into the air, dragging the submerged vessel back up to the surface.

Suddenly, when he was 330 meters above sea level, Ginnette Amore suddenly burst through the surface of the water. Carter still kept an eye on her position, and the moment she left the water he dropped the anchor, but instead of the ship falling immediately, she seemed to softly float in the air as the water slowly drained out of her. As if she refused to land back in the sea before she was empty.

After the water stopped draining, she slowly floated down to the water and nestled softly into the water, before Carter stopped focussing on lowering her weight, and his mind stopped functioning. His Haki was the first to go, showing the state of his muscles underneath the Blackening. His fingers and hands were covered in purple bruises, while his legs underneath his white pants showed the exact same state.

Next, his devil fruit gave out, returning his normal weight to him. As he plummeted down to the water below, all he could think was "Fuck!"

The final thing to go was his consciousness, but he refused to just fall unconscious like that. As his body's speed started increasing, he couldn't think of a single way he could get out of this. His body completely refused to move, his Haki was fully spent, and his mind was too tired to focus on using his devil fruit.

He could only lay there as his back became closer and closer to the water below him and stare up at the sky with blank eyes. 'I have a long way to go' he thought.

The last thing he could see and feel, before his eyes finally closed was a lock of pink hair, and a pair of strong arms cradling him to them.

The rest of the crew were confused as to what Carter wanted to do when he went and grabbed the ships anchor. Didn't he know how heavy that would be? They had seen him do feats of strength before, but most of his fighting style relied on his speed. His pure physical strength did not be that overwhelmingly strong. Sure, he had shown himself capable of throwing really heavy opponents around, but that is after hitting them at super high speeds.

This feat he was trying now was far more impressive when it comes to pure strength than anything else he had done.

They watched with baited breaths as he started using Busoshoku Enhanced Geppo, and barely saw him moving. The winds blowing towards them, and the massive waves sent in all directions showed how overwhelming the strength he was using was, and yet he didn't seem to move at all.

Slowly, they noticed that he had changed position. He was moving so slowly that it didn't look like he was moving at all, and yet over the minutes he got progressively higher. They saw his legs start slowing down, and his arms start trembling as he screamed in pain, but no matter how exhausted he became, he refused to stop.

They saw how all of a sudden, his body seemed to gain a second wind and he started rising through the water at an immense pace, rising higher and higher into the sky, still holding the massive chain in his blackened hands.

Suddenly, the saw the Ginette Amore burst through the surface in all her glory. Well, most of her glory. Her sail had been torn apart, her Mast had snapped, and there was damage coating her entire Hull. But she still looked as beautiful as ever. You never truly appreciate something until it's gone, and if you can manage to get it back, you will never let it go again.

That is the feeling that the crew were having at the moment. The watched as the ship seemed to float in midair, as if there was no weight to it, as it drained of water. Then it placed itself down and Bonney looked up, as if waiting for something.

Suddenly, she saw it. A small black dot falling from the sky. It slowly got larger and larger as it approached them at gradually faster speeds. Finally, she could fully see what the dot was, it was Carter.

She watched as he fell limply toward the water and realized when he was only 50 meters above the water that he wasn't moving. Without even thinking about it, she was already running towards him at her fastest pace. Normally, this would be a horrible idea, as she would have just run into the water and sunk to the bottom, but because of her putting all of her strength into her legs in each step, she didn't sink.

Instead, she used a weaker version of Geppo, like Sanji's Blue walk that allows him to use Geppo underwater, she ran straight across the surface of the water. Catching him in her arms, she didn't stop running, for another twenty meters, where she had reached Ginette Amore, and she jumped onto her deck.

He was already unconscious in her arms when she caught him, and now was lying limply in her arms as she stood on the deck of their ship, unsure what to do.

~Line Break~

His eyes opened to a roof he was very familiar with. The same roof above his bed he had lived in since he first joined the Bonney Pirates, the roof within the Doctors Cabin on board. He thought back on the idiotic stunt he had pulled, last time he was awake.

He tried to lift a weight that he had previously mentioned to be almost impossible, a weight that Garp had managed in one of the Gag episodes of One Piece. His whole body would have very well been obliterated if he weren't using his Busoshoku to protect himself.

The only reason that he was able to succeed at all was because of the awakening of his devil fruit. He had been using his devil fruit almost constantly since he got it 11 years ago, and for the last few months he had been wearing Kairoseki and forcing his devil fruit to work through the energy greatly increasing his control. Paramecia fruits like his are some of the hardest to awaken, as the ability seems very straightforward and can be hard to improve past a certain point.

Carter pushed himself up out of bed, wincing at the pain, before he put his legs down on the floor. He could feel every muscle still sore after however long he was out, but he knew he needed to get out of here. He lowered his weight as much as he could and was surprised when it didn't stop at only 1kg. His weight continued to get lower, as it passed .1kg, and reached .01kg. A 100 times improvement from what it used to be. His weight was so low now that his body felt no stress from standing and moving at all.

He still moved slowly to not be too jarring, as he made his way out of his room and up to the deck. Coming out of the door onto the deck, his eyes struggled to adjust to the light. First, he had kept his eyes covered for months straight so they weren't used to processing light anyway, and then second, he had been unconscious for an unknown period of time, and now had a massive headache. He was not at all game to use Kenbunshoku until his body has recovered a bit more.

He looked around and saw Tom, Dick, and Harry working under Spencer's orders as they fixed the mast and tried to get a new sail up and working on Ginette. He also saw Bonney and Leone standing in front of a table covered in a pile of Sea King meat. Who exactly had killed it, he didn't know, but he was sure that Bonney, Leone, or even Spencer could have managed it.

He felt his stomach rumble and started making his way over to the table, prompting Bonney and Leone to notice him.

"Carter!" Bonney called, as she hopped up onto her feet and rushed over to check on him, beating Leone by only milliseconds to get to him first. "Why did you do such a stupid thing?" she asked, with tears in her eyes, while Leone just hugged her arm to her chest.

"Talk later, Food now." Carter said, too tired to talk without more energy.

"Sure, sure, come sit and eat." Bonney said, leading him over to her seat.

Carter immediately started digging in. His body was badly damaged, so he needed the energy to heal. Using Seimei Kikan, he devoured all the food and immediately used the energy it provided to heal his body. There were multiple people within the One-Piece anime capable of using a power similar to Seimei Kikan to heal, but never showed the other abilities like hair control.

Luffy had the ability to eat a massive amount of food, and quickly digest it to force his body to heal, and had shown it multiple times, like in the escape from Impel Down. Bonney also seems to have such an ability.

He focused the energy onto actually healing the problem, but not the skin, so it didn't look like there was any healing actually going on. After finishing healing the muscles and bones, he then started healing the skin.

Carter slowly stood up and started making his way around the ship slowly, to ensure everything was ok with his body.

"What are you doing?" Bonney asked, concerned as he stood up.

Leone jumped in with, "Yeah, you need to rest."

"I know my bodies condition best; I am fine now." Carter said with a laugh.

'My body feels fine now,' Carter thought, 'Seimei Kikan really is an overpowered ability. That would have kept most people out for weeks, but I am almost fully healed the same day.'

After confirming his body's condition, he checked Ginette's condition. He slowly closed his eyes and focused his Kenbunshoku Haki on the ship he stood on. He could see the cracks in the hull, the damage to the mast, the tears in the sail, and the microfractures throughout the whole ship. But worst of all, he could feel the crack running right down the middle of the Keel.

A ship that is built for the Blue Seas will never be able to handle sailing on the Grand Line for long, and they are especially not built to handle the pressure three hundred meters under the sea. If that wasn't enough, Carter then pulled her up from the bottom of the ocean, putting a lot more stress along her entire body.

The very fact that she was still in one piece was a miracle, as by all means she should have cracked to pieces and fallen to the floor of the ocean. Carter could feel something else though, a presence living within Ginette.

He had never been able to feel her presence before, and he didn't know exactly why he could now. Whether it is because his Kenbunshoku is stronger now, she felt closer to him after he almost killed himself to bring her back from the ocean floor so is showing herself now, or she was never damaged enough before for her will to concentrate itself, he didn't know but it didn't really matter to him.

His Ginette was back, and with her Klabautermann she should be capable of eating a devil fruit. If she does, she will be able to heal up, and then we may be able to upgrade her with stronger materials without harming her. And he had the perfect fruit for it.

He walked back into the privacy of his room and pulled out his blindfold, he tied it around his eyes so he couldn't see with his eyes at all, pulled out the Devil Fruit he thought of and sat down with crossed legs, before turning off his Kenbunshoku. Klabautermann are notorious for being shy, after all.

"Ginette" he said softly, "I know you can hear me. Would you be able to come talk to me?"

He waited in silence for about 5 minutes with no answer, but he didn't mind, he was patient after all. He would be capable of waiting for hours if need.

"Thank you" a small voice said, close to him. "There were so many ships down there, dead on the bottom of the ocean to be forgotten forever. You didn't let me die, Thank you."

The voice was very quiet and sounded like a young girl. Carter just sat there calmly for a moment before saying softly, "Your time is not up yet, Ginette. The way you are now, we won't be able to sail on you for much longer as you are too damaged. If we were to try to heal your keel, it would kill you and become a different ship." He sighed lightly.

"But there is a solution. There is a way for inanimate objects to eat a Zoan Devil Fruit and become half-object half-animal. If you choose to eat this devil fruit, your entire body would be considered a living creature, and it would be possible for you to heal over time. You would also be able to get stronger through training."

He sat once more with no response, before the voice piped up, "I'm not done yet, I don't want to die." She said, "I want to go on more adventures!"

He felt the devil fruit disappear from his hand, and before hearing a thump of the fruit landing on the ground.

The reason he was so adamant about doing this, is because of how sad he became after watching the episode of merry. It was like watching one of the crew members dying, and the most innocent member at that. Merry had done nothing wrong, and only wanted to sail, but he was unable to keep up with the crew.

Carter couldn't stand that happening to a crew member he had been close to for that long. That is why he refused to get a ship when he was travelling around the South Blue by himself. He didn't want to get rid of them when he left to go to the Grand Line, but also didn't want to take them somewhere they would get destroyed.

Merry had been through a lot more than Ginette had before they developed Klabautermann's, and it was likely Carters act of not being willing to leave Ginette behind that caused her spirit to develop. She likely awakened at the depths of the ocean, and instinctively used her own willpower to hold herself together under the pressure of being pulled up.

Carter reached up and removed the blindfold before opening his eyes. The first thing he saw in front of him was a small brown devil fruit with white swirls on it and two white stems, with a small bite out of it.

'That confirms it,' Carter thought, 'She has eaten the Mythical Hebi Hebi no Mi, Model: Bakunawa. The fruit that turns the eater into a sea dragon that isn't harmed by the aura of still water.'

This fruit should allow her to heal properly, but also gain some minor control over the water to make it easier for her to sail and allow her to train not only her physical strength, but also Haki. If they were to change the wood that makes up her body for wood from the Adams tree, she would also instantly gain even more durability.

Carter then went back up to the deck to talk about what happened with the rest of the crew.

~Line Break~

It had been an extra 2 weeks after Ginette had eaten the Devil Fruit. Carter explained that she had eaten it, and then stubbornly refused to set off until she had healed up a bit more, so they stayed on the island for the two weeks.

Carter had experimented with his powers now that they had awakened and found that he could increase his weight by about 100 times his previous maximum, but if he did his body couldn't handle it and start to break down. That is most likely why the awakening stopped him from doing so earlier. If the fruit increased his weight by that much before he trained, every muscle in his body would instantly tear and he would be left on the ground, screaming in pain.

He would need to restart his daily training regimen to work on his overall body strength, but this would definitely give him the power that he needs to become the Strongest Being Alive. It is likely that no user of the Kiro Kiro no Mi had ever trained their bodies to anywhere near the extent that Carter had, so they probably hadn't awakened.

Carter could also lower or increase the weight of anything he is touching, that is not attached to something else, and can leave the weight changed for about 5 minutes, though he could cancel it at any time. He didn't have enough objects to test his powers, but at that moment he could lower the weight of Ginette Amore with ease, allowing her to move easily over the water, as if she were just skipping along the surface.

Today, Ginette had healed up enough for Carter to be happy to let her sail once more, especially when he is lowering her weight to take the strain off of her. Bonney was incredibly happy at this, as she was sick of sea food once more, and was looking forward to having a bunch of feasts once they get to Sabaody.