章 43: Chapter forty three- shhh. be vewy vewy quiet. I’m hunting wabbits

Grinning like a loon Gabriel sat up and pushed his way out of the snow that he had landed in, eager to try out the new feature that he had unlocked in the quest, if it meant what he thought it did any free devil fruit in the area he would be able to find, it would mean that he wouldn't have to spend obscene amounts of money in the store to acquire devil fruits.

But as he pushed his way out of the snow both Sanji and Luffy came running up to him.

"Oi what happened, where's Nami," Sanji yelled as they came up to him.

"what happened why did you fall off the mountain?" Luffy asked as well.

Gabriel sighed, oh right these two, "Relax Nami is fine, I took her up to the castle and got her settled in, but there's a problem, no one's up there in the castle"

"What!" Luffy and Sanji both yelled in shock.

"Calm down, the witch is probably just out doing house calls in some of the villages, Dolton said she came down some times to do that remember, she'll be back shortly" Gabriel told them to calm them both down.

"then why the hell are you down here, you just left Nami alone up there" Sanji yelled as he lashed out with a kick at Gabriel.

Gabriel sighed as he phased letting the kick pass through him before he lashed out with a punch catching Sanji in the jaw and knocked him on his ass, "of course not you dumb ass," Gabriel yelled at him with annoyance, "No one is up there, I tucked her into a bed I found to keep her warm before I came down to look for the two of you, last I saw you were both running from the avalanche, I thought I had best come dig your asses out" he shook his head.

Luffy nodded understanding, "alright then let's get climbing we can wait for the doctor to come back when we get up there" Luffy said as he began to approach the mountain only for Gabriel to stop him.

"hold on Luffy, I have a faster way up," Gabriel told him before gesturing for him to hold onto him.

"Oi, what about me?" Sanji piped up.

Gabriel smirked, "you can find your own way up," Gabriel said as Luffy wrapped his arms around his waist from behind before he kicked off the ground and started his assent once more, "consider it payback for trying to kick me!" he called as he began to climb into the air once more.

"Bastard!!!!" Sanji yelled as Gabriel shot into the air and went even higher with Luffy cheering as they flew up.

Gabriel landed with Luffy up atop the drum Rockies panting as he landed but no where near as bad as he had been the first time with Nami, he still felt tired but knew that he could get his energy back with his points from the last quest.

"Wow that was fun, I didn't know you could walk on air," Luffy said as he unwrapped himself from Gabriel and stood back from him.

Gabriel smirked, "it's a new skill I picked up," he said before gesturing to the castle, "Nami's in there, second floor first door on the right" he told him as he sat down, "you head on, I'm just going to catch my breath here for a bit then I'm going to go explore the island some,"

Luffy nodded and went to go to the castle but paused, "Oh just a heads up, that big mouth from before is here on the island, me and Sanji ran into him before we met up with you again, but it was way down the mountain, we kicked his ass but he's still around somewhere"

Gabriel nodded and waved him off, "Don't worry, a weak ass like that won't be a threat to me, I'll leave him to you to deal with if he comes here" he told him.

Luffy laughed and nodded before continuing to the castle. Once he was out of sight Gabriel sighed and stood up, 'System, put seven hundred affinity points into combat stamina' he mentally ordered and instantly took a deep breath as he felt his body fill with energy, way more than he had before. He began hopping up and down on the spot as he felt himself even lighter than before and grinned as he looked to the edge, 'here we go again' he thought before running and jumping off the ledge with an excited cry.

Freefalling once again Gabriel looked out at the island and smirked seeing the wide open space all around him, it was time for some exploring, 'system, activate devil fruit radar' he thought attempting to activate his new system feature and much to his amusement a mini map much like the one he had for navigating came up, only this time it was all black and showed coloured dots on it, multiple were red and there was a single green one. Watching them for a second, he could see the red ones were moving and he guessed those were devil fruits that had already been eaten.

'hmmm, that would mean that one is Dalton, that one is the fatso, and that one is Chopper, the one behind me is Luffy which means that green one hasn't been eaten yet, perfect' he thought as the ground approached and he turned earlier to start kicking to slow his decent, this time he landed without crashing into a pile of snow, though as he did so he passed Sanji who was in the air and getting higher kicking off the ground as he passed him.

"Suck it vibrator boy" Sanji yelled as he climbed higher into the air.

Gabriel blinked as he watched him go and shook his head, he'd get him back for that later, apparently Sanji's legs were strong enough to use Geppo as well as Soru, but it didn't matter to him, the straw hats were getting stronger that was alright with him, meant he didn't have to actually train them himself, he could start to focus on his own crew in the future

'never mind him now, I have a devil fruit to hunt down and a bunch of overgrown rabbits to beat' he thought to himself as he began to follow the mini map in his vision and headed towards the green dot on his mini map.

It took him a while but he eventually got closer and closer to the green mark that signalled the devil fruit, he was on the other side of the mountain so it was a rather long and irritable walk in the snow to try and find it oddly enough he hadn't come across one Lapahn during the trip which he found a little worrying, had they all been buried beneath the snow on the other side of the mountain.

As he got closer to the marker, he lined the green dot on his map up with what he could see and was able to get a rough idea of where it was. Vast forest stretched out in front of him between the rising slopes of the other mountains, but amidst all the trees there was one that was much taller than the rest and from what he could tell that was where the devil fruit was.

So with his goal in sight Gabriel trudged down the mountain slope and began to make his way down into the thick forest reaching out with his vibration sense as he did so to feel for any Lapahn, it didn't take him long to find them, apparently the big tree was their home and he was walking right into their territory.

'great, just what I wanted' Gabriel thought to himself with a grin as he kept pushing forward, he would have phased to pass through the snow to make walking quicker but he realised that would be a bad idea. While it might make things quicker it would also be a one-way trip to getting frost bite. Phasing wouldn't let him ignore temperatures as far as he knew so he had to be wary of extreme heat and extreme cold, either would still affect him even if he phased to avoid the physical aspect.

As he got closer and closer to the huge tree, he could feel more and more of the Lapahns were gathering ahead of him possibly to defend their home. Gabriel just kept his pace and let their numbers build, he didn't want to arrive and have to wait for more to show up, this way he could complete the quest and get the devil fruit all in one go.

After another twenty minutes or so of walking Gabriel finally came into the clearing where the great tree stood and he wasn't disappointed by what he saw the huge evergreen stood at least a good eighty feet tall in the air and the clearing was filled with Lapahns by the dozens, all of their baring their fangs and claws at him.

At the back of them all at the base of the tree Gabriel could make out a hole in the ground that went under the tree and in front of it stood the three Alpha's clearly the last line of defence.

Gabriel smirked as he rotated his shoulders, "this should be fun, it's pay back time you over grown rabbits" he said before he rushed forward at the same time as the first wave of Lapahns leaped into the air towards him.

Balling his fists Gabriel lashed out avoiding the spot where the Lapahn would land before going back in to deliver a vibrating fist to its side with all his strength, the impact launched the overgrown rabbit several feet back and into the snow.

Gabriel grinned seeing his newfound strength show some results, before he disappeared with Soru to avoid several more of the furry bastards coming down on him.

He reappeared several feet away and rushed forward as he pulled his staff out of his inventory, he knew better than to use his swords, while he could do more damage with them he didn't want to kill these fur balls, just get some pay back. And with that in mind he ran into them swinging his staff out in front of him the heavy iron staff combined with his much higher strength send the bunny's airborne as he began to beat his way through wave after wave of them, it was rather comical in fact as in just a few minutes the clearing now was practically half emptied with the remaining Lapahn keeping their distance from him while the others that had attacked him were half buried in the snow from where they had landed.

Gabriel smirked as he twirled his staff, he may not be able to use his devil fruit powers with the weapon just yet but he was more than skilled enough with it to keep up with these guys especially when he took the rest of his skills into consideration and the fact that none of them could hit him when he phased.

"Come on is that all you've got ya overgrown hairballs" Gabriel called just before he felt his vibration sense warn him and he jumped to the side as he avoided the three Alpha's coming at him. Apparently, they had decided that the others weren't up for the task of taking him on and had come at him themselves.

Gabriel grinned, "Finally" he said before he rushed forward with his staff in hand and swung it at the first of the huge Lapahn ready to get into things. Only to be surprised when his staff was blocked by the Lapahn's arm, and the thing did not even look phased by his attack.

'Tekkai….. well fuck this might just be harder than I thought' Gabriel thought as his vibration senses relayed to him that the Alpha's muscles had become denser before his attack had hit making his attack ineffective, but Gabriel couldn't help but grin, "let's see what your made of Buggs bunny" he said before balling his fist and throwing it forward vibrating at full strength as he went on the offensive.