Chapter 4 Time Moves Forward

While Bellemere and Robin were chatting it up, I was approached by a pair of tiny miscreants. Nojiko looked at me warily and seemed to be more concerned about what Nami would do. While little Nami stared at me with twinkling eyes and a sly look on her face. "Hey, hey mister. Those clothes you're wearing look expensive. So you must have a lot of money. How about investing into two kids with a low-income single parent?"

It seems even if she's just a little tyke she still has that trademark greed for money. Nojiko gave an exasperated sigh and pulled her sister back, "Sorry mister, just ignore my sister. It's nice to meet you"

I just ruffled their hair and gave them a warm slime. "It's alright, it's nice that you guys are so lively. It means your mom is taking great care of you guys. I'm sorry little Nami but I'm not that rich, just a few million berries."

Nami just stared at me in surprise before you passed out, muttering a few million over and over. Luckily Nojiko caught her, but she was pretty flustered herself. "Mister I don't know if you know this, but a million berries is a lot of money."

"Just call me Uncle Eli, and for this island a few million might be a lot of money. But on the Grand Line things are more expensive."

"If you say so. But Uncle Eli, how did you make so much money then? You look too lazy to work a real job to me."

"Ouch your words really sting little Nojiko. Well I'm a part time bounty hunter, so I beat up pirates for their bounties."

"Hmm you must be pretty strong Uncle Eli. Is that why Auntie fell for you?"

"Haha maybe that's part of it, but it was mostly because of my charming personality." I responded with confidence and a proud expression.

"Ehhh. You look kinda unreliable to me Uncle. Whatever bye." While she walked away with Nami I slumped over on the porch in depression. I may look a little lazy but I'm a pretty cool guy, right? Right!?

I woke up from my self questioning when Robin came over and placed my head in her lap. Looking up I could see her beautiful smile that she only ever showed when we were alone. "What's wrong Eli?"

Shrugging off Nojiko's comments I just gave her a loving smile. "It's nothing, just didn't know kids could be so vicious. How about you? Did you have a nice chat with our new neighbor?"

"Fufufu, yes Bellemere is a nice lady. She told me if I need anything in the future that I shouldn't hesitate to ask for anything. This really is a peaceful island…" She had a complicated look on her face as she looked into the distance.

"What's on your mind Robin?"

"... Is it alright? For us to be here? This island is so peaceful and the people are so nice. Whenever I look at them I can't help but feel like I shouldn't be here. If something happened to this place because of me I don't think I could bear it…"

There was a solemn silence between us as I watched Robin's face fill with grief. "I don't know whether it's right or wrong for us to be here. What I do know is that everyone deserves to be happy, and being alive isn't a crime. Even if we don't end up staying here forever, I will always protect our family wherever we are."

"*sniffle* You're right, I'm sorry it must be the pregnancy making me so emotional."

-6 Months Later-

It's been a long time since that day we had that somber discussion, and Robin seemed to brighten up after. Although she had her melancholic moments, she was still able to keep on a hopeful outlook on our situation. As for Bellemere and her little munchkins, they came over to visit often and invited us for meals at her home. Nojiko is the same as always with her forward personality, but always trying to be the most responsible sibling between the two. Meanwhile Nami… well she is the same as when I first met her, always thinking about making money. However, what has changed is her interactions with me. It began with her coming to our home and asking for an allowance for 'my cute niece'. Then it started to escalate to her trying every method she could think of to try to extort or blackmail me. I haven't given in to any of her tactics, but I think Robin is secretly giving her a little spending money every now and then.

Anyway the biggest change in these few months, besides Robin's growing belly, would be my strength. After regaining my motivation for increasing my strength I went all out with my training, which I tried to keep secret from Robin. But I have a feeling she knows about it anyway, because she started to be gentler around me and holding back on her black-bellied remarks.

I began by training my biggest advantage and weakness, my super regeneration that heals any damage I take but inflicts the pain to my brain. I wanted to get accustomed to the pain of various types of wounds so I could get accustomed to it and not let it affect my combat ability. So I bought a bunch of weapons and started self-inflicting any kind of wound I could think of. From being pierced in multiple locations, losing a limb, and taking a headshot. Eventually I got to the point where I didn't even flinch from the attacks from the weapons I bought, and the worse that would happen was a headache that followed after.

Then I began thinking about my speed, because I remember all those cliche plots where the hero was too late to save their loved ones. I didn't want to experience those hero story archetypes, so I began to brainstorm how I could create huge bursts of speed with my current powers. Eventually I remembered this one character from a show called Fire Force, where they did something with the expansion of the universe and heat. So my first task was working on increasing the heat of my flames that I could produce with my phoenix powers. Eventually I was able to do it, after I began to remember some of the theory behind it. It involves the Law of Relativity, Hubble's Law, and Thermal Expansion. Making my velocity and acceleration relative to the expansion of the universe by making my flames' heat vibrate at speeds causing the universe to expand around me. Then I use my ice fire to cool it down, it slows the natural speed of the universe. Making everything around me seem to be moving in slow motion, while making me move at speeds unregistrable to my surroundings and those in it. In a more concrete description 1 second for everyone else is 3 seconds for me. I called this technique after the inspiration for it, 'Severed Universe'. The downsides are that I can only use it for 5 seconds at a time, it takes an enormous amount of stamina to use, I can't take anybody with me as they would turn to ash, and there's a long cooldown period between each use.

The last thing that I worked on developing is my Zoan transformation. I made it so that I could only transform certain parts of my body during combat, and increase the speed of going in and out of those transformations. The transformation I'm most proud of is being able to conjure my 3 pairs of wings on my back while keeping my arms, allowing me to carry more things when I take flight. Unfortunately I wasn't able to practice more because I was interrupted from my daily training by a flustered Robin running towards me.

Ignoring my sweaty upper body she runs into my arms, and I can see tears running through her eyes. "Eli it's terrible! There are a group of fishman pirates raiding the village. They're killing people who can't pay them. Bellemere! *hah* Bellemere is in trouble! Please Eli help her!"

"It's going to be alright Robin, be careful about being so active during this delicate time. It's not safe for the baby or your health, let's go back to the house. You hide there while I take care of the pirates."

Carrying Robin in a princess carry I start sprinting to our home, once there I hide her inside. Normally Robin should be able to take care of herself, but because of the pregnancy she's been in a frail state for a while. It's gotten to the point that I think I'm going to have to find a good doctor. After putting on a black zip up sweater, I quickly sprint towards Bellemere's home.

Once there I see a horrifying scene, a large fishman standing over a bloody and beaten Bellemere with a pistol aimed at her. The fishman has the features of a shark with sharp teeth, a fin on his back and blue skin. He's wearing a black fedora, an open black coat with a green scarf hanging from his neck. On the sides are some villagers, Nami and Nojiko crying on the side. I watch in slow motion as he begins to pull the trigger. Seeing as I don't have any time to stop them, a burst of blue and yellow feathered flames start heating up the space around me and everything around me begins to slow down to a crawl. I can see a bullet slowly inching towards the downed Bellemere.

So without hesitation I quickly appear in front of her and catch the bullet and melt it with my flames. Cooling down steam begins to erupt from my body and time begins to flow normally. In the perspective of everyone else Arlong shot the bullet and out of nowhere I appeared out of nowhere and a flurry of flaming feathers were falling in the area. The fishmen look stunned by my sudden appearance. The expression on the shark fishman known as Arlong changes from disdainful to serious. Meanwhile, I can't help but feel like taking a page from a certain red haired pirate's book.

"Hey Fishmen, if you want to keep fighting, you'll suffer pointless casualties. If you still want to fight… Then come! I'll be your opponent."