Bab 2: New Boss Part 1
New Boss
\____-o(X)o-_____/
"But momma! I don't want to be a pirate! And I'm not even old enough to care about wench's yet!"
*Thwap!*
I cringed away from the swat even as my momma shook the newspaper at me, "You are going to be a pirate worthy of your family name and treat wenches right! Now how do you treat a wench?"
With a sigh, I recited what she wanted me to recite, "I will always smack a wenches ass if they bring me an extra beer, which I don't like because it tastes like horse piss–" *Thwap!* "Gah! Alright! Ugh. I'll slap her ass if she brings me an extra beer. If she slaps me forehand then she's interested. Backhand means try again later that night. But if she punches me it means she's taken."
"And what do you do if she's taken?"
"Leave her alone, obviously!" *Thwap!* "Gah! What'd I say?!"
"No! You catcall her to show your appreciation! You don't touch the wench again but I won't have any son of mine disrespecting a wench!"
"I'm the only son you've got," I said petulantly, only for the rolled up newspaper to swat across my ass hard, "Ack!"
"All the more reason for you to get it right! Now repeat it again!"
-oOo-
The poop deck was aptly named, seagulls shat on it a lot. The brush in my hand made a soothing swish-swish noise as I lost myself in the simple task–
"Hey! Ironhide!"
STEEL!
*BONGGG*
A heel dug into my back, denting it and making me cringe, "Ow."
"Make me somethin'!"
"Woman." I grunted, having been forced to my elbows and knees by the sudden kick by my new 'captain', a.k.a. - the chick in charge of the ship I was bumming a ride from, "Can't do that while you've got your heel in my back–"
A quick motion and I rather suddenly had a boot in my side. *BONGGG!* "Gah! I think you dented a rib!"
"You'll be fine!" A quick snap of her leg and there was a boot back in the same spot, the muffled bong resonated through my body. It only kinda hurt despite the fact that it actually dented me this time, "Now make me some pizza you idiot!" *BONGG!*
"I will if you–" *BONG!* "Stop!-!" *BONG!* "Kicking me!"
I finally stumbled up, flailing my arms about as I backed away from the kicking fiend, glaring at her as I held up my hands to ward off any further kicks.
Bonney was glaring right back, her lips curved down into a frown, "Pizza. Now."
"Stop kicking me, now." I rebutted even as I turned, giving my torso a twist as I turned away. With a muffled whump, the dents she put in my back popped out.
The rest of her crew rather pointedly didn't say anything as I headed towards the kitchen.
---
*WhumpaWhumpaWhumpaWhumpa*
"Never seen that style of pizza dough..." Rodger? I think it was Rodger, one of the several cooks on this ship, was commenting on my style of kneading the dough. He looked like a chubby Italian guy with a fro, a scruffy soul patch, and with a small mustache.
I grunted as I continued punching the dough for the pizza demanded of me, "Learned it from my mom."
Little fib there, because my momma didn't teach me this, she encouraged it though as a side bit of training. But my mom, my old mom... from before all of this, she'd been the one to teach me to do it sorta like this. Giving the dough a solid but precise beating, sweeping your hands through flour between folds to make sure nothing stuck. Beat up the dough, karate chop plus sweep with the other hand to fold it over, back to beating on it.
A rapid fire bit of punches radiating outward thinned it out into a vague square.
Apparently, I'd swam onto an island that Bonney had hid some stuff on, and they'd been swinging by it to pick up the treasure they'd hid there before heading off to the Grand Line. No way they'd help me look for my family, but they were willing to let me tag along till the next port. Well, so long as I did some shit jobs around the place and pitched in when it came to cooking for The Glutton. That encounter had actually not gone as bad as you'd expect aside from the increasingly angry kicks Bonney had been giving me for the lack of coconuts and... well, the lip I'd been giving her.
'Hmm... texture's wrong...' I added a bit more yeast in this dough so it'd rise more than normal, but this was gonna be a deep dish pizza, seafood style, with some extra layers... it was almost a lasagna really.
Bonney was a pig, also smoking hot, but a pig. Her table manners were horrific, mom would've torn her a new one for it. Momma wouldn't have minded though…
Taking it and dropping it into the dish that I'd already oiled it up and started layering down the cheese.
Actually, Momma probably would've loved Bonney. Bonney was a pirate, a successful one, an attractive one, and one who took no shit and gave no quarter but wasn't needlessly cruel as far as I could remember from the series as well as what little I'd seen on her while here. Long pink hair which looked a lot more natural in real life than it had in the series, mostly western-esque features with a hint of latino and Asian to her. And honestly, dat ass.
Momma would've loved her and tried to set us up.
I was mostly trying to avoid getting on her bad side after having eaten all of the coconuts she'd been intending to eat at the island–
"Where's my pizza?!" the shout came from the kitchen.
But, ah... she... wasn't making it easy. "Cooking you crazy wench!" I hollered back as I poured on some light marinara.
"Cook it faster then!"
"Get your panties out of the crack of your ass and calm your damn tits!" I snapped even as I deliberately added a layer of cheese sprinkled with bits of slightly cooked crab.
"My tits are calm dumbass! It's my stomach that needs the food!"
"Sorry!" I called out, "I just thought that all that food went into your huge udders!"
A moment of silence, and I grinned, not really noticing as Rodger scooched back. 'Hah! Won that one–'
"Oh you are dead!"
STEEL!
The door to the kitchen burst open, nearly flying off the hinges as the pink-haired captain flew in feet first–!
*BONGGG!*
"Ow! Stop–!" *BONGBONG!* "Kicking–!" *BONGBONGBONG!* "Me! You psycho!"
---
The steel that was my spine groaned in protest as I twisted slowly, trying to straighten it back out, "I think you knocked my spine out of alignment."
I'd only been on the ship for a day so far, and I was hesitant to test out my abilities amongst people I didn't really know yet. I didn't know what my limits or abilities were beyond what I'd already discovered. Apparently I could pop dented portions back out, though... y'know... metal, kinda hard to actually do that much force if I was in solid metal mode.
"Y're shoul'nt of inshulted me!" Bonney said through a mouthful of pizza.
"Tch, ya shouldn't have been so impatient," I countered before letting out a sigh of relief as my back cracked back into place and I relaxed my power, letting it return to being just flesh and bone, "Besides, it wasn't really an insult, you've got a great pair of tits."
There was sudden silence in the kitchen and I blinked, turning to find the other members of Bonney's crew glancing back and forth between me and Bonny rapidly. I looked to her to find a suspicious glare on her face… which was kinda ruined by the bit of crab meat hanging out of her mouth. She swallowed it down and scowled, "And what's that supposed to mean?"
Despite the low danger in her voice, I just raised an eyebrow and held her gaze, "That you're really attractive? Seriously, there's nothing more to it than that."
Mind you, I flexed all of my insides into steel just in case.
"So you're not hitting on me?"
"Not particularly? You're hot, but your attitude isn't my type."
Her glare intensified and I shrugged, "What do you want? I'm telling you the truth."
The silence hung over the kitchen as we scowled at one another before she snorted and took another bite of the pizza, "A' leasht you make a good pizza."
My scowl melted into a smile even as the rest of her crew sighed in relief, and I gave a nod, "That I do."
\____-o(X)o-_____/
"I–! Said–! I don't wanna–! Be a pirate!" with a snarl I stumbled backwards, being a midget even for a five year old didn't do me any favors.
"Hehahahaha! Like your mom will let you Nerd!" the tall and lanky swordsman of the crew laughed as he stopped pressing the attack.
"Tchuh!" The sword I was holding clanged uselessly against Barley's as he knocked it aside. With another clenched exhalation I swung again, "Tchuh!"
"Come on Nerd! You can do better than this!" He didn't even budge an inch as he deflected my blows.
"Shove it Barley!" I snarled at the thin man, my broader sword easily deflected by his rapier.
My next semi-flailing swing went wide at the sudden shout from my mother, "Jacob! What did I tell you about that kind of language on this ship?!"
"Sorry Mom! Shove it so far up your ass that you choke on it Barley!"
"Much better sweetie!"
The blonde swordsman guffawed even as some of the other deckhands chuckled and I blushed in spite of myself.
-oOo-
"The hell are you doing…?"
I blinked, looking up from the wood I was working with to raise an eyebrow at Bonney, "Making a plum bob."
"… a what?"
"A level so I can rebuild the tools to rebuild my gun." I said, looking back down at the pieces of wood, ensuring they were properly measured for a third time. As my dad from before had said, measure twice, then measure again, cut once.
"We've got pistols." The captain pointed out, hands on her hips.
"Yeah, but they're… I hesitate to say primitive since it's the standard… but my gun was better."
"Uh-huh."
Satisfied with my measurements, I held up my right index finger and began to wiggle it back and forth rapidly. A soft blue glow appeared at the tip of my fingernail and a quick flick of my wrist sent a glowing blue arc straight through the piece of wood at an angle.
Bonney blinked before scowling, "What was that?"
That made me blink and look up at her, "… that was the Rankyaku? Or a minor variation of it at least." I admitted. The techniques the CP9 used in the anime and manga actually weren't difficult to figure out the basics of, at least if you knew they were possible. Figuring them out in the first place was probably a bitch, but recreating them from knowing they're possible? Not unfeasible.
"The what?"
"It's a technique based off of the Art of Destruction and Haki," which were really just different manifestations of the same thing, "You basically create a willpower infused vacuum-shockwave of air."
It wasn't the leading edge of the effect that actually created the cutting bit! It was the trailing end and the vacuum it created that was filled with haki that was destructive. It glowed because it was essentially pure haki.
"… how?" I looked up as I placed the pieces in place, making sure they fit perfectly. Bonney's eyebrows were high, nearly at her hair-line.
"Basically move the body part or sword really fast while infusing the vacuum you're creating with your intent–"
"No." I stopped at her scowl, "How did you learn this? That's a Marine technique."
My eyebrows went up, I'd been assuming that she didn't know the technique, "I figured it out. It's not that hard honestly once you have the basic idea. It just takes practice."
Her eyes narrowed now and her hands went to her hips, "And what about the rest of the Rokushiki?"
"Conceptually? Not hard. The problem is the training required and true mastery. I mean, what, Tekkai is just flexing really hard? Shigan is just training your finger to survive the stresses of a high power punch? Soru is kicking the ground really hard really fast to do a jump. Kami-e is a deliberate and conscious relaxing of your muscles. Rankyaku and Geppo are the only ones that are conceptually difficult really."
"And how do those work?" she questioned.
Eh, why not? I kinda did want to stay on her good side since this was her ship, "I've mentioned Rankyaku, but Geppo is basically kicking the air hard enough that it explodes."
The look she gave me expressed her disbelief quite well, "Really."
"Seriously. The best way I've found–" and only way I could do it so far, "–is to sort of cup your feet together as you kick downwards to compress the air and then flicking your feet to set it off."
She pondered that for a moment as I returned to my work, gluing the plum bob into shape.
"So… you know how to do them?"
"The basics, and only those. Can't even do Shigan… not unless I turn my finger and hand into iron to survive the impact…" which is something I can do now, holy shit, "I honestly favor sword and pistol over the pure physicality of the Rokushiki."
"So you can do Tekkai."
"Mhm…?" I glanced over at her as I held the plum bob in place, finding her scowling once more, hands on her hips.
"Why weren't you using it when I kicked you?"
I blinked. Well for one, I hadn't thought about it too hard yet and to combine it with my iron body, "Well, it's rude to break the foot of the captain who's letting you on their ship."
Bonney's scowl disappeared for a moment in surprise before she smirked, "And turning into iron is different?"
"Oh don't give me that," I snorted as I watched the plum-bob carefully to make sure it wasn't getting out of alignment, "You're the one who's denting somebody made of steel. You have no room to complain about it."
"You didn't even notice when I kicked you lightly," she growled and a heel suddenly dug into my side, making me cringe, "So I hit you harder."
"Tch, bite me."
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New Boss Part 1 End
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone