Altar

Main pov

I shouted at the top of my lungs as I tried to catch the man's attention.

And oh boy did I succeed. The man came towards me with a speed of a rocket. He was using moonwalk so I assumed that he was a cipher pol agent.

"Oh shit!", I brought my hands up to block a hit from a projectile thrown at me.

It hit my gauntlets and bounced off, I caught a glimpse of it as I thought, 'Is that a boomerang?'. It had dented the gauntlets a bit but with a single thought it started to repair itself and looked as good as new.

The man landed on the ground in front of me as he grabbed the boomerang which had bounced off and flew back towards him.

"You look a bit different from the poster", the man muttered as he took out more boomerangs from his back and held two on each hand.

Seeing the white mask on his face I came to know that I was in a deep trouble.

"So a cipher pol aegis zero agent has been sent after me, I'm flattered.", I chuckled warily but was cursing myself inside my head. A CP0 agent was no joke and if I wished to defeat this man then I needed to rely on playing dirty.

The man tilted his head sideways , "It seems that you know a lot for someone who never entered the grandline.", he said with amusement.

 "How do you know all these information?", he asked as he grinded his boomerangs against one another prompting sparks to fly off.

"Why don't you come arrest me and find out yourself", I exclaimed as I brought my gauntlets infront of my face as several knifes formed around me.

Sweat formed on my forehead as my brain processed forming all my weapons. It was a tedious thing to continuously form objects and moving them individually.

'I need to train my ability and push it's limit further. Thanks to Boss this fight might be what I need for growth', my mind and body just needed more time to get used to all of the abilities or at least that's what I liked to believe.

The masked agent didn't take a step forward but kept circling around me at a constant distance. He spun the boomerangs around his hands as he gazed at me with scrutiny.

'He is keeping his distance. It seems that he knows about my ability and it's parameters . I just need to find a way to get closer to him.', I thought as I carefully walked towards him.

"Arrest you? No, I have different orders", he exclaimed as he crossed his arms and threw the boomerangs, finally deciding to strike first.

The boomerangs cut through the air at a high speed as it even went around me as it aimed to strike me from the behind . I shot all the knifes formed around myself at the agent as I turned back and used my gauntlets to block the boomerangs. Sparks flew as my jabs managed to hit both the boomerangs and the gnawing noise of metal clashing against metal was heard. The force behind the boomerangs was no joke as it even managed to push me back a bit before returning back to it's master.

I looked back to see that the man had dodged all of my knifes and was now holding more boomerangs in his hands.

'Where is he hiding all of them!!?', I thought to myself as I gritted my teeth.

 The boomerangs had dented my gauntlets furthermore but I had started repairing it again. My breath was already starting to grow heavier and I knew if the fight were to continue it would end up badly for me as his boomerang will keep on chipping away at my defense .

"Hemp, let's see you survive this", the agent said as he threw two boomerangs which flew with high speeds as they came barreling towards me.

The boomerangs then seemed to multiply and came spinning towards me. The two boomerangs now looked like ten boomerangs.

'Fuck!', I cursed at myself as my eyes darted all around to see which boomerangs were the real ones.

"There!", I shouted and punched towards two of the boomerang's after-images hoping for it to be the real one.

Unfortunately the image of the boomerang blurred out as two boomerangs hit my chest and wind escaped my lungs. I felt some of my ribs breaking as I fell upon my knees. I gritted my teeth and looked up to see another ten boomerangs zooming towards me.

"Fuck". 

XXXXXX

 Stella pov

"Grab the wooden staffs!", I heard the marines exclaim as they started marching towards the cliff. I was hiding in a bush on the way to the cliff where Tesoro was handling another problem.

I looked in front of me to see a slave girl that I had made friends with recently, her name is Carla, she was also hiding in a bush. She nodded her head and firmly grabbed the rope in her hand.

As the marines started to rush towards the cliff, we pulled a rope that made all the marines on the front trip and fall over. The marines at the back then tripped on the marines at the front of the march.

*thud**thud*

"Ugh", the marines at the front were pancaked by the marines at the back.

"can't you guy's walk properly!", the marines who fell over the other marines complained.

"Oi get off me", one of the first marines started to shove the person on top of him.

The marines started arguing as I prepared the next course of actions. I placed my palm on the ground as my fingertips turned white and small pieces of tic-shaped paper started crawling towards the marines.

"Hahaha!", one of the marines started laughing uncontrollably as he started to scratch all over his body.

"Hey, why are you tickling me?", asked a Marine to his friend on top of him.

"What I didn't do anyth-"

"HAHAHA"

"HEY! Now you are tickling me", they accused each other and started bickering.

This argument spread through out the marine squad before someone found out the reason for why this situation was happening.

"Guys there are white bugs crawling towards us!", exclaimed one of the marines as he pointed at the ground to bring all of the white bugs into attention.

"Ah! Get them off!", the marines started to pat their bodies aggressively in attempts to knock off the bugs but they seemed to be too resilient

"HAHAHA!", one of the marines with tears of laughter flowing down his face started to stomp on the ground to smash anymore bugs before they could latch onto their bodies.

'This devil fruit is really handy. I have to thank boss's devil fruit for giving this to me', I thought to myself with a sigh. I signaled towards Carla and thanked her for the help before motioning for her to go away least she gets into trouble.

Boss had shown us his devil fruit yesterday and how his powers worked. I was really surprised to see that he was a devil fruit user. It was a very weird power though.

I still clearly remember what happened yesterday after we left Bellemére-san's house.

XXXX

[last night]

I finally caught up to Tesoro who seemed to be in a very bad mood.

He suddenly punched a tree besides him and cursed, "Fuck! I'm still not strong enough to protect the people around me".

I was silent as I approached Tesoro. I agreed with him as I also felt that if we were stronger we could have assured Belle-mére-San that we could protect her and her daughters from the government.

I hugged him from the back as I patted his head. His body stiffened before relaxing himself. I didn't have to say anything to console him as we just stood there in silence before a voice interrupted us.

"Ahem! Ahem!"

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything too personal", boss came into our view as he teased us.

I stopped hugging Tesoro as I approached boss. He looked a bit confused as I stood before him.

"Boss, remember when you told us that you would train us in haki. We want to start right away", I exclaimed with full determination as I stared into boss's eyes.

Boss eyed me for a second with a stern expression . It lasted a second but felt like hours as it seemed that he was testing my will. At the end he smirked before letting out a thundering laughter.

"SASASASA!"

"Alright, alright I'll help you guys out. Come follow me. ", Boss started moving towards the shore.

Following him, Tesoro and me reached the shore and stopped as boss suddenly bent down and started drawing on the sand with his fingers.

"Umm, boss what are you doing?", I questioned as I tried to look over at what he was drawing in the sand. He was drawing a rectangular box with some writings inside the box. 'As a fellow artist I think this looks…. Plain', I thought and just smiled in a supportive manner.

"That's a weird drawing", Tesoro muttered and crossed his arms while trying to find some hidden meaning behind this drawing.

"Just watch", Boss chuckled and clapped his hands.

Just then blue light shone from the drawing and I felt some minor rumbling as an altar was being erected from the ground before me.

The altar looked like it was made up of marble with some emerald carvings. The altar seemed to be around my height with stairs leading to the top. There was even torches that suddenly formed at the corners of the altar.

"Boss how did you do that?", I question as I shakily pointed my finger at the altar.

"SASASASA! ", he placed his hands on his hips and turned his face towards the sky to relia thunderous laughter.

"No need to be so afraid, it is just my devil fruit ability. You see I ate the altar-altar fruit", Boss smirked as he put his arms out gesturing towards the altar.

"A devil fruit? Now that I think about it I never saw you swimming. ", said Tesoro as he rubbed his chin in a contemplative manner.

"It gives me the power to create altars that does various things. I can fast travel, teleport, shield, and store other things.", he explained with pride and puffed his chest.

"So it's combat utility is negligible", Tesoro stared at Boss with a smug look.

Boss raised his eyebrows and scoffed, "Who needs devil fruits to fight? I just need my fists and my trusty hammer".

I widened my eyes at the explanation of the devil fruit's powers as I recalled something, "Is that how we reached here so fast?", I now knew how we went from the west blue to east blue so fast.

"Bingo", Boss smirked .

"And what does this one do?", Tesoro came forward as he bent down to touch the altar in examination.

Boss grinned as his hands waved over the altar, "Well this one is a special altar. I can only use this one once every year, the rest of my altars have a week or a day of cool down".

"What's so special about this one?", I asked.

"This baby can help you guys' current desire, that is to become stronger.", Boss grinned before continuing, "It can help you by unlocking any roadblock your body has and makes one capable of reaching their peak version. It doesn't grant you strength instantly but it make the journey to be the strongest easier".

"This ain't Haki", exclaimed Tesoro with a sour expression . He seems to be still grumpy from behind kicked out by Belle-mére.

"We will do haki next time. Besides I'm not a great teacher and I can only show you guys the basics. " boss replied.

I pondered at bosses explanation , 'That means that we can get stronger faster and be able to protect whoever we want. It's perfect!', I thought with excitement.

"I call it, Potential Unlocking Super Strengthening Yourself altar or P.U.S.S.Y altar for short.", Boss laughed as he patted the altar.

"He's even worse than Minato", Tesoro muttered.

"Who's that?", I asked curiously.

"No one", Tesoro replied as he changed the topic, "So do we just get on top of it?", he asked Boss.

"Yes, one at a time please", Boss motioned towards the steps.

"Ladies first", said Tesoro as he motioned for me to go ahead.

I thanked him as I went to the top of the altar.

"Now just relax and whatever happens , don't move away from the altar", the boss said loudly as his hands touched the altar.

The altar at once started humming and vibrating. It started to glow blue as I got worried. I held my ground and refused to be scared and that's when a blue light engulfed me as I couldn't see Tesoro and Boss anymore. I could still hear Tesoro shouting my name and boss trying to calm him down.

After a moment or two the light dimmed and I could see again. I blinked rapidly as my eyes adjusted.

"Do you feel any different?", asked Boss.

I stretched my body and rotated my limbs around. I felt that nothing had changed but my mind felt a bit lighter.

"I don't think so. Do you think it failed?", I asked.

"It has never failed before", boss exclaimed as he held his chin.

"That's weird I guess", I muttered and was about to get down from the altar when my foot hit something.

I looked down to see it was a white colored starfruit with a zigzag patterns on it. I picked it up into my hands as it was small enough to be covered by my palms. As I stared more into it all my surrounding stimuli started to fade as all I could see and feel was this starfruit. It was calling to me and I was all ears. It felt like it was meant to be eaten by me and only me.

I was broken out of my trance by Tesoro's voice as he called out my name. "Stella are you ok?", Tesoro's worried voice was besides me as he placed his arms around my shoulder. It seems several seconds had passed while I was zoned out as Tesoro was now up on the altar with boss.

"Oi Stella what is that in your hands? ", asked boss.

I dropped the fruit in astonishment as boss called me out.

"What's that?", asked Tesoro curiously as he eyed the fruit that fell to the ground before picking it up.

I quickly snatched it from his hands as I felt that only I should be handling it. Tesoro didn't react at much except just eyeing me with confusion.

"Is that a devil fruit?", he asked.

"A devil fruit? SASASASA! It's not possible. The altar unlocks potential, it doesn't summon devil fruits….. I think", Boss now seemed less confident in his knowledge about his own powers.

"I think it is a devil fruit and I feel like it belongs to me", I exclaimed possessively.

Tesoro looked at me with a serious expression, "Stella I hope you understand the responsibility of eating a devil fruit. You don't even know what power it has yet. And besides It comes not only with powers but also weaknesses as you will not be able to swim anymore.".

I already knew that as I had talked with boss about devil fruits when I found out that Tesoro had a devil fruit power.

I nodded with confidence as I exclaimed, "I'm ready to accept any power that this grants me and I will make sure to avoid the sea.".

Boss and Tesoro shared a look between themselves before sighing and relenting. I bit into the fruit as a disgusting taste filled my mouth. I almost threw up but had to force myself to swallow as I didn't want to show a weak side just after my confident claim about eating the fruit.

Tesoro rubbed my back as I almost gagged after trying to force the fruit down.

"How does it taste?", Boss asked with a smirk.

I gulped the first bite down my throat as I suppressed the urge to vomit, "Tastes horrible", I mumbled.

"SASASA! Tell me about it", Boss grinned.

"So do you now know what power did you get?", Tesoro inquired.

I held the now discoloured fruit besides me as I closed my eyes to focus. As I thought about my powers information about the basics started sprouting in my mind.

I raised my hand as my skin turned into pages of paper and wilted over one another.

"It's Washi-Washi no mi. I'm a paper human now", I smiled as the pages started to fold itself and resemble origami creatures.

Tesoro and Boss seemed a bit shocked at the sight but quickly got over it as they congratulated me.

"I didn't know that there was a paper devil fruit", Tesoro grinned as he started to poke at the pages of paper. I chuckled as he looked like an excited child.

"Well I hope you get ready to train your devil fruit as every devil fruit power can get stronger with prolonged use", Boss explained, "But for now it's Tesoro's turn".

"I wonder if I'll also get a devil fruit.", Tesoro mumbled as he stood at the center of the altar as boss and I got off.

"Whenever you are ready", Boss gave a heads up to Tesoro as he got ready to start the altar with his palm outstretched.

Tesoro took a deep breath before nodding his head at boss.

The altar came to life at once when boss placed his hands on it. Vibrating and humming it now glowed with a golden light. Tesoro seemed to be having trouble with maintaining his balance as the altar shook more violently than before.

"Is something wrong with it!?", I asked boss anxiously as the altar didn't shake this much for me.

"I don't know, this never happened before", boss gritted his teeth, "In fact it's never acted this way before, forming devil fruits and whatnot. I don't think I know the full capabilities of my altar anymore".

A sudden golden beam suddenly engulfed Tesoro as he let out screams of anguish. The beam was being shone from the altar floor as the air around us grew warmer each moment.

"Tesoro!!", I shouted with worry.

"Fuck! I'll turn it off!", exclaimed boss as he went forward to touch the altar again.

"No!... I… can take it!", shouted Tesoro from within the beam of light.

I was worried for him but I decided to trust him and nodded at boss to continue the process.

After a few more minutes and dreadful screaming of Tesoro the golden light dimmed. I managed to make out the silhouette of Tesoro but it seemed a bit different.

"Tesoro are you ok?", I asked as Boss and me rushed to the altar.

On reaching the top of the altar the golden light had completely gone and I saw Tesoro clearly. He fell on top of me as I managed to catch him but he seemed way heavier than before and I struggled.

Boss can to help me out as we held Tesoro by his shoulder. I knew something was different as I felt that Tesoro's muscles was more dense and refined. I opened my eyes to observe his body properly that's when my eyes widened.

In front of me stood a shirtless Tesoro with bulging muscles and toned body. He seemed a bit taller and older, like he had aged two or three years. His hair seemed to have grown in length and he had a small stubble on his chin.

My cheeks reddened as my hands squeeze his muscles a bit, 'So strong…..so dense!', my thoughts ran wild as my brain short-circuited.

"Ugh….. My everything hurts", Tesoro groaned as he slowly opened his eyes.

"Easy, there Tesoro, easy, don't move too much. Your body seems to have gone through a drastic change so rapidly", Boss tried to lay Tesoro down without putting too much pressure on his body.

"Why do you guys seem shorter?", asked Tesoro softly as he blinked his eyes rapidly.

"Believe me buddy it's not us who's short", chuckled boss as he managed to place Tesoro on the ground.

XXXXXX

After a while of letting Tesoro rest he seemed to have rejuvenated again and was more energetic than before. It was a total opposite sight to how he had been sulking before.

*whoosh**whish*

He threw wild kicks and punches in the air while testing out his modified body. The sight excited me a bit as he was still top-less while practicing some unknown martial art.

"I thought you said we wouldn't be stronger instantly", I asked boss who was beside me but still kept my eyes on Tesoro.

*sigh*

The boss squeezed his eyebrows and muttered, "There are several things that have happened today when you guys used the altar that has never happened before with me".

I just smiled at the sight of Tesoro who seemed more energetic than before when we left Belle-mére-san's house, "Still, thanks helping us boss".

Boss looked at me funny before sighing and smiled , "You're welcome but I don't help others for anything in return so no need to thank me".

I chuckled, "Ok, ok got it".

XXXXXXX

[present]

'Time to test out my powers ', I thought as I brought a book before me and opened it to show fluttering pages. I had found that using a ready made paper made it easy for me to control them without tiring myself.

"White Grip!", I yelled as the pages from the book tore off and flew towards the marines. I had found that verbally announcing what you planed to do made it easier to control the action. It looked stupid but it's all I could do until I had more mastery.

White pages flew around the marines encircling them . It then attached itself to their bodies and covered them entirely. It restricted their movements as paper piled on top of one another.

"Ah!"

"What is this!?"

"PAPER!?!?"

"IT'S GETTING IN MY PANTS!!"

The marines shouted in fear but soon realized something as they fell quiet.

"It's just paper", one of them muttered as he stopped his struggling and calmly addressed his fellow marines.

"Ugh! We don't have time, let's go. ", the one who seemed to have been leading the squad shouted as he tried to take off the pages. He tried again and again but the pages seemed to have clung to their bodies.

I wasted no more time as several more pages formed a thick layer around their bodies. The Marines' bodies were now fully restraint as they were stuck in various poses unable to move a muscle.

"Shit!", the leader cursed under his breath as he continued to struggle under the thick layers of hard paper. His struggle was almost setting him free as the layers of hard paper was starting to crack.

"AHH!!", I immediately jumped out of the bush as I flew in the air with my arm raised above my head. Pages of paper twirled around my hand as it formed a thick paper club.

The surrounding marines watched with bewildered expressions as I brought the paper club down on the leaders head as it made a loud sound when the blow connected. Landing on the ground I wiped the sweat forming on my forehead before looking down to see the leader unconscious on the group as he was foaming from his mouth.

"Lieutenant Weld!!", the marines shouted in worry before turning towards me with furry.

"Oi lady! What do you think you are doing attack a marine like this in the public!! You will definitely be arres-", a marine screamed but was hushed by a page draping over his mouth as the same happened to the rest of the marines.

I sighed in relief as I managed to stall the marines . I turned towards the cliff as I ignored the struggling marines surrounding me. Just then I was about to go help out Tesoro but I saw a figure being flung out towards the village from the cliff as I caught a glimpse of a white clothed figure .

'Was that the agent?', I asked myself.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

[Cliff, a while ago]

General pov

"Fuck", Tesoro muttered as the ten afterimages of the boomerang headed towards him.

Time seemed to slow down for him as golden sparks crackled around his feet and in an instant two metallic tentacles protruded out of the ground and hit the real boomerangs bringing an end to the after images.

'He found the real ones. He stopped them by forming those metallic tentacles'

'It shouldn't be the power of the magnet-magnet fruit, even it's awakened form can't create metals out of nowhere', the agent Labet Fender thought to himself as he moved a bit backwards while assessing the complicated situation.

Tesoro huffed and puffed as the metallic tentacles now attached itself to his back ready to attack at his notice.

 ' I luckily managed to see the shadow on the ground and counter them with my tentacle. My physical senses seems to be heightened at a greater level than before. ', I thought to myself trying to catch my breath.

Labet asked curiously , "What exactly is your devil fruit power? ".

Tesoro smirked through the heavy panting as he brought his fists up before his face and started to careful walk towards the agent, "If you defeat me I might consider answering your questions."

'I want to try out something', Labet thought to himself as he slowly closed the distance between them and knowingly came within Tesoro's range.

'What is he thinking!?!? ', Tesoro without wasting any moment activated his ability trying to control the iron in Labet's body but was instead met with resistance.

The agent's body shivered as he felt a jolt running down his body but he was unharmed. He smiled behind his mask, "I see, so that's how it feels to have the iron inside your body be controlled. Kind of ticklish to be honest".

"Haki!?", Tesoro asked rhetorically a he guessed that armament must be the reason for this happening.

"So you also know about haki. I find you more interesting every minute. I can't wait to cut off all of your limbs and interrogate you with all of my sharpest tools", Labet snickered.

"You talk too much", Tesoro muttered angrily as he ran towards him. He made metallic springs on the heel of his shoe to give him a boost and close the distance between them as he readied his gauntlets and back-tentacles .

"I can fight more freely now", Labet laughed as he ran towards Tesoro with his boomerangs spinning in his hands creating whirling sounds.

The boomerangs flew off before their collision and struck the two tentacles while Tesoro and Labet connected their fists.

The clash created a booming sound. From the clash it seemed that Tesoro had a upper hand in the strength department as his arm muscles bulged through his sleeves but Labet was matching his strength until cracks started forming on the gauntlets as it exploded.

'Rokougan?', Tesoro though to himself before he was caught off guard and punched in the face.

Tesoro flew back wards and landed on his back as the tentacles were broken by the boomerangs.

"Ugh", Tesoro grunted as he tried to get up but before he could, near his neck was a sharp boomerang.

In an instant metal covered Tesoro's neck as sparks flew and the boomerang bounced off.

"Tch! That devil fruit is annoying", muttered Labet.

Sensing his defeat approaching Tesoro thought of a plan. He immediately raised his hands and shouted, "I surrender!!"

Labet flinched in confusion for a second but it was all the time Tesoro needed. Labet got distracted as light was shone directly at his eyes from a reflective silverware besides Tesoro .

In an instant several tentacles formed around him as they all attacked him simultaneously.

Labet used his observation haki to dodge and parry the metallic blows. He blocked and counterattacked until all the tentacles were broken. When he was done he turned his head towards Tesoro and grimaced as he saw what was coming but had no time to dodge.

"Iron bomb!", shouted Tesoro as a ball of iron exploded right in front of Labet as iron particles sprinkled in the air around him.

Labet accidentally breathed in the particles and clutched his neck as he coughed.

Tesoro tried to control the particles but the instant it went inside his body he lost his influence over it.

"Tch", Tesoro didn't dwell on the failed attempt and instead stomped on the ground as a pillar of metal rose from the ground beneath Labet and hit him in the chest sending him flying in the air.

Tesoro immediately used the spring on his shoes to jump high and punch Labet with a big gauntlet that quickly formed around his fist.

Labet's face met the full force of the punch as his body was sent flying into the town.

Tesoro hit the ground knees first and breathed deeply out of exhaustion.

"It's not over yet", he muttered as he stood up and chased after Labet.