The waters were turbulent as always. The clouds hanging high above in the sky were dark and stormy.
As they always were. From dawn to dusk.
Still, Kaden, a young freshly graduated marine of fourteen years in age sat atop the ramparts of the marine base he was stationed in, staring out over the churning waters that threatened to rise up into a wave of titanic proportions and sweep over the base.
That was just a typical Tuesday for this place though.
The New World was like that.
"Aaaaah! Please, stop, I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" the shrill scream of a pirate being burned alive down below him echoed.
He hid a wince and stared out into the murky horizon, lips pursed still. Pirates screaming for mercy was a daily event here for the most part after all.
Marine Base G5 after all, was just like that. The Marine Base where the toughest, roughest and most cruel…or problem children marines were sent.
Like himself.
Or at least who he used to be.
The reason actually, why he was sitting up here and not down there joining in with his fellow marines tormenting some of the fresh loads of pirates that had made their way into the New World and quickly found themselves ill equipped to deal with it.
"Ah, screams of trash, it makes the morning so pleasant doesn't it men?" a cruel laughter from below drew his eyes down.
Followed by laughing cheers of agreement.
The pirate below, the only one remaining of his crew was some idiot who thought himself a hotshot because he had a bounty of forty seven million. Neither he, nor his crew lasted twenty minutes when the marines of G5 fell upon them.
The tormentor of the only remaining pirate, was Commodore Yarisugu. A man well into his fifties with a huge, misshapen build measuring over seven feet and dressed like a queer straight from Okama Island, wearing nothing but an oversized fur coat and armoured thigh highs with a huge sword strapped to his back.
Spoiler
He looked like a total fool, but his strength was the real deal. He'd crushed the pirate he was tormenting right now easily.
The second strongest person in the entire G5 branch.
Kaden resisted the urge to tell them to shut the fuck up. His head was pounding and he was feeling very…very lost.
The sickening scent of burning flesh tickled his nose as the pirate screamed in agony, but he ignored it and sighed.
It came with the practice after all.
Though the practice was not his.
It was true his name was Kaden, and he looked the same as he remembered and was the same age, albeit right now his build was a decent bit broader than usual.
…But he was not born Kaden D. Freeman.
Kaden D. Freeman was a boy who grew up in the world of One Piece, who came to despite pirates after his parents were murdered by pirate raiders. From then on, he despised pirates with everyone he was worth, and the world itself that was ruled by pirates with the ushering in of the Great Pirate Age after the death of Gold Roger.
Or as he personally knew him from his own experiences, Gol D. Roger.
One Piece for him after all, was a fictional series he loved, only to suddenly one day after waking up, find himself in the world of it, real.
Yes, he was not Kaden D. Freeman.
Yet…he had all the memories of the boy. Had since he found himself waking up in this body this morning just a few hours ago and it had taken until just a half hour ago for him to calm down and think about his situation.
And…he did find some discrepancies with the former holder of this bodies memories.
To be exact, he only remembered roughly a third of the last month, maybe a bit more. There were huge black spots in them.
Not like days at a time, but specifically he could remember up to a point, then there would be a point he couldn't remember, before it continued on. Basically, there were gaps, lots of them in the memories over the last month.
…The only thing he could specifically remember relating to them, was a revolting taste just before they started.
Which made him think of a Devil Fruit.
But he checked and he could move even after submerging himself in water. So it was clearly not a Devil Fruit.
…Unless the other Kaden had died in the process of whatever the fuck he was doing during those gaps in the memories and the fruit disappeared with it.
He, Kaden sighed rubbing his temples, it didn't matter to be honest at this point. He was here and he'd established it was real, he could feel pain and think properly after all.
"Ah, he's dead already?" the disappointed voice of the commodore below broke teenager from his thoughts and he looked down to find….yep, the squirming shrieking body of the pirate had gone limp.
Kaden watched blankly as the commodore ordered two of them to uproot the stake the corpse had been tied to after putting the flame out and drag it over to the ocean and toss it in.
Absolutely horrible, yet, somehow, he didn't find himself gagging in disgust.
Thanks to the original owner of this body. His hatred of pirates was intense. So much so, that it fuelled him to join the marines and train himself into the ground. It usually took most marines multiple years to finish their training and graduate.
He did it in one.
A prodigy he was called.
Only…he was as hate filled and ruthless as he was skilled, always picking fights, especially with anyone that even hinted at playing devils advocate for any type of pirate, or even unconfirmed pirates.
Not to mention, his cruel merciless attitude in regards to pirates. It was so bad, the original Kaden of this body, had been transferred to G5 despite only being a fresh recruit from an early point in Paradise.
In other words, he was a complete cunt and his memories of gleefully torturing not only pirates, but minor law breakers as punishment for their crimes had made him retch when he first processed them.
'Ah…I'll need to clean that.' he remembered. He'd vomited right next to his bed after all.
Well, whatever caused him to appear here. He was sure the original Kaden of this body had something to do with it.
And there was a simple reason for that.
He focused.
A screen fizzled into view in his vision. One that only he could see apparently.
Name: Kaden D. Freeman
Strength: 30/500
Endurance: 28/500
Durability: 28/500
Agility: 28/500
Hand To Hand Combat: 55/1000
Swordsmanship: 50/1000
Gunmanship: 26/1000Haki:
Colour Of Armament: 0/1000
Colour Of Observation: 1/1000
Colour Of The Conqueror: -/1000
Devil Fruit:
It looked like a screen straight out of a video game, or a story about a character with a video game system. It listed not only his name, but his proficiencies in combat.
…And even his abilities with Haki and if he had a devil fruit or not.
Yet, there was no level system or experience system. No quests, not even an inventory. He couldn't even interact with it beyond bringing it up to view.
And he'd never seen anything like this in the original Kaden's memories.
The weird thing was, in the Haki side of things…he had a single point in Observation. Which again did not make sense, because he had no idea how the fuck to use that and as far as he knew, the original Kaden hadn't even known what Haki was.
Though it was interesting that Conqueror's Haki was listed, did that mean he had it and just hadn't unlocked it yet?
Kaden sighed and shook his head, so many things to think about…and that wasn't even getting into the biggest part of it all.
He was in One Piece.
A world where powerful pirates and corrupt marine alike roamed, the world was filled with people that could and would slaughter thousands of trained soldiers like himself with barely any effort.
There was literally a guy who if he got pissed off enough, could create sea quakes that could destroy the entire fucking world.
And there were multiple people out there who could trade blows with, match him or even in a few cases, surpass him.
Kaido was fucking literally preparing for a whole wide world war.
And he was currently stationed at basically what amounted to the entrance of the New World, where all the strongest up and comers would pop up after they'd gone through Paradise.
Hell, even if he wasn't, there was literally not a single place in this entire world where he could go, where there wasn't a decent chance of some monster sailing in and destroying the place in a temper tantrum.
He couldn't even leave to a safer sea like the East Blue if he wanted anyway. He was a marine, he had a contract with the World Government and couldn't just quit.. He'd be declared a traitor if he abandoned his post to go to a different one, he wasn't some big shot like Garp or something after all.
And he wouldn't even be allowed a transfer to a safer sea even if he asked because of the complete and utter cunt who previously owned this body being a ruthless, merciless piece of shit.
He was literally stuck here.
Where by the way, had a Vice Admiral in charge, who was actually an undercover agent for Donquixote Doflamingo, a tyrannical pirate whom had immunity from the World Government as one of the Seven Warlords.
Anyone connected to a Warlord's crew could rape, kill, pillage and more as they pleased with all the backing of the World Government.
And Doflamingo was the literal worst of them all besides Crocodile. And was currently ruling over a kingdom he'd taken over called Dressrosa which…was not far from here.
Just a few days sail.
'I….am literally up shit creek without a paddle.' Kaden, letting his head fall back with a groan to stare up at the murky dark….and now rumbling clouds above, his golden blonde hair shifting in the wind that was beginning to pick up even more.
All he had….was a useless status screen that told him what he could do in a numerical value, which he couldn't even compare to anyone else.
And his knowledge of the world.
Which he couldn't even use to get his hands on anything that could potentially help him.
Because he couldn't leave here.
'Granted, I suppose there's some things I can use to my advantage.' he mused, eyes drifting to one of the huge marine battleships stationed at the rickety port of the G5 marine base.
And…perhaps one of the greatest advantages he had right now, was that he knew when he was…roughly at least.
Just recently after all, it was announced in the papers that Portgas D. Ace, a notorious Super Rookie had joined Whitebeard after popping up as a pirate nearly a year ago.
There was roughly a year before Monkey D. Luffy set out to sea and turned the entire world upside down. And probably at most a year and a half before the War Of The Best happened.
Where some of the strongest people in the world would duke it out. A place he had no desire to be involved in, at all.
Not a whole lot of time to prepare to be honest and he had two options. Get strong enough to survive the War Of The Best.
Or get strong enough to survive if he jumped ship and abandoned the marines.
Literally in between two armies of super powered freaks.
Lovely.
Just his luck.
All my stories are way farther ahead on my Pa---tr---eon if you guys wanna read ahead, the link to it is in any of my story summaries.