Bad Omen

It's only been a few hours since they found the devil fruit, and they still don't know what to do with it and won't stop arguing about it.

That started the moment they got back to the ship.

"Alex, we have been through this, I can take it with this, I won't be a burden to you anymore to you." Nojiko said with a hoarse voice.

"Again, what made you feel like a burden? If I ever made you feel like that, you have to tell me!" He replied.

Sure, Alexander could understand if she felt that he was overprotective, but making her feel like a burden was never something he intensely wanted at all.

"Almost every fight you send me away, how should I not feel like a burden when you do that?" she said.

"I don't send you away because I feel like your a burden, I do it because I don't want to see you get hurt."

"But all this time I have spent training to be near you isn't this enough to make you feel that you can trust in my abilities."

After a few more rounds of fighting, Alexander finally gave in.

"Okay, you can take the fruit but, I hope you understand this fruit can both increase your strength or even make it even worse." he said with

"Yes." she said with a determined look on her face.

Alexander handed her the devil fruit Nojiko took it with slight hesitation before making her mind and taking a small bite.

"Hm, I didn't taste as bad as the stori.." before finishing her sentence, her face turned greenish like she was about to puke, but she kept herself from doing it.

After some time recovering from that, she looked at Alexander with pleading eyes and said. "Do I have to eat the whole fruit?"

Alexander wanted to tell her that eating the whole fruit was the only way to get the powers, but he just couldn't. It might have been funny for a while, but the aftermath would be dire.

"No, one bite is enough."

As Nojiko was standing there, something or someone whispered a word in her ear. It was a language she couldn't understand, but the word somehow just made sense.

"Nojiko! Is everything alright?" Alexander had noticed that she seemed a bit dazed.

Nojiko woke up from Alexander's call, and the voice disappeared, but one sentence stuck with her.

"Dryad..." Nojiko muttered, and Alexander heard her and instantly connected it with the devil fruit.

"Are you okay?" he asked in concern.

"Yea, I'm fine. It's just that after I ate the fruit, it was as if someone whispered a word to me as if telling what it was I ate."

"So you're telling me your devil fruit is that of a Dryad?" Alexander couldn't help to get a bit excited.

"So what exactly is a Dryad?" Nojiko asked as she's never really heard of it, so it was just out of pure curiosity.

"So from what I can remember, Dryads are tree spirits which inhabited trees or forests and protected the woods, and usually took the shape of beautiful young women like yourself.

"Oh... so I can control nature and plants?" Ignoring his speedy comment, for now, she asked.

"Well, I think so we won't know until you've tried, and knowing that you're a Dryad, that would mean that you have eaten a Zoan type."

"That's the type that transforms to animals and other kinds of creatures, right?"

"Yes, but let's get started trying to figure out what you do as. Sorry if I seem a bit too excited."

"Don't worry, Alexander, I'm excited myself."

Walking towards the middle of the Island as they needed more space and the trees were perfect for this opportunity.

"So how exactly do I get started?"

"Seeing that both you and I are new to this even I don't know, but you try imitating how we trained Haki."

Nojiko understood what he meant, so she looked towards one of the trees nearby and focused all her energy trying to get some reaction from it.

She stood there for over 1 hour staring at the tree without getting any reaction. Just as she was about to give up, the tree started shaking, and one branch sprouted and grew a few inches.

"Alex, Alex, did you see that? I just got it to do something." Nojiko excitedly said, and like a little girl, she stared at Alexander with puppy eyes like she wanted him to compliment her efforts.

"Amazing Nojiko, I'm so happy for you." Alexander noticed her eyes and just told her that, and he gave her an affectionate hug.

---------------------

On top of the Red Line in the holy land of Mary Geoise were five elders gathered in the Room of Authority.

"Why did we get summoned?" one of the five elders said with glasses and a white gi, holding a samurai sword.

The other four elders looked at each other with slight confusion, they had thought that maybe one of them had summoned the rest, but it wasn't the case.

Just as one elder with sports blond hair, a beard of the same color, and a scar on his chest wearing a suit was about to speak, a marine hastily opened the door.

The marine was gasping for air as he handed an envelope to the elder with sports blond hair. He took the letter and dismissed the marine.

Opening the envelope and reading the letter, the sports blond man instantly got chills over his whole body.

The other Elders stared at him wanting to know what was going on and why he looked so pale.

"What does it say?" one of the Elders asked. He was bald and had large birthmark spots on his forehead and a large white mustache.

"They have contacted us again..." the sports blond man said.

"Who contacted us again, speak clearly." the white mustache elder told him with a heavy tone.

"The Behemoth..." when he said that, all the other Elders in the room turned quiet.

"What does he want...?" the white mustache elder said with a solemn tone.

"All it says is he wants us to remove someone's bounty, and that's all nothing else other than the pirate's name." he said with slight relief.

"And who's this pirate he wants us to remove their bounty from?" a tall and thin bearded Elder with long white hair reaching the middle of his back asked.

"Golden Eagle, Alexander"