The McPuffin Part 1

The McPuffin Part 1

-oOo-​

"This… is safe right…?"

I looked up at Casey, the rotund man sat on the bed in Akira's office, "Hm?"

"Eating the fruit… it's safe right?" Casey, as an adult, was just under six foot tall and 280 lbs with a surprisingly low body fat percentage for his appearance. He looked chubby. And right now he had a thermometer in his mouth, a pressure cuff on his arm, and a few wires connecting him to the surrounding equipment.

"Bonney and I are okay, and we did." I smiled, "This is just so we have try to understand the process a bit better."

"What… what's it like?" Casey asked, staring at the fruit on the counter.

"It tastes horrific," I said with a grin as I double checked his blood pressure, "I call them Devil's Bunghole Fruit for a reason. But otherwise… it's not much. Any changes it makes aren't super obvious." I trailed off, looking up at him, "We don't have to do this now if you're nervous."

"No!" Casey nearly bolted up, eyes wide.

I blinked in surprise, giving him a funny look.

Slumping, Casey looked at the floor, "I… I want this…"

"Hng?" Akira asked as he passed me the X-Ray, and I slipped it into the clipboard beside me.

"It's… I'm not really good at anything…" Casey said, fiddling with his fingers, "I've always dreamed of being a pirate, of being a great one with a huge bounty… but I… I sucked. I've spent years on ships, trying to learn everything, trying every job, trying to find something I was good at… but I'm horrible. I can only kind of do things now…"

"Hng."

My eyebrows shot up and I looked at the doctor in surprise, even as Casey ducked his head, "Wait, really?"

"Hng." He confirmed.

That made me look at Casey, pointing out, "That's more jobs than I know how to do to an acceptable level. And I grew up on a ship." And had the added benefit of 25 years of being a dedicated super-nerd in a society considerably more advanced than this one. My science wasn't Vegapunks 5 centuries ahead, but when I got going I could manage two or three.

The larger man met my eyes, "It took me fifty years to get to being average… I kept looking for something to be awesome at, to get a title for being so good at it." A small frown appeared on his face as he looked down at the hands he'd clenched in his lap, "I want to be something like 'Gun-toting Casey' or 'Seven-Death's Casey'… not just… Casey Tibbs… that guy."

He raised his eyes to look at the devil fruit on the counter, "A Devil Fruit… an Ability… those make you special just by having it. I want that…"

I was quiet for a moment before I smiled and gently pointed, "You are aware this is a Jello fruit and you'll probably be called something like 'Jiggly Casey' right?"

"Urk-" Casey made a face, before his eyes hardened and he grit his teeth, "Still better than just being 'that guy.'"

"Fair enough," I said, with a small smile.

"Hng."

"And I've got mine done as well," I said, double checking the list, "Alright then." Setting the clipboard down, I picked up the plate with the Devil Fruit on it.

"Are we done with the tests?" Casey asked hopefully.

"Sorry, no," I said, handing the plate and silverware to the larger man. "We'll have to do a round of them afterwards to see what the changes are."

"Great," the cowboy-hat wearing man muttered, taking the plate.

"Could be worse. You could have to eat more than one bite of this."

He gave me a confused look and I grinned, "They taste that bad. Trust me."

-oOo-​

"Alright, now, let's go over the basics here. Roukushiki are the Six Techniques that Marines use to amplify their own abilities and physical power. True masters train their entire lives, but it's possible to achieve a moderate amount of success with them with 'just' some intense training." I explained, standing on the deck of the Cake as we sailed forward. Most of the crew was assembled before me, Bonney included.

"There are technically seven techniques, but I've only reverse engineered six of them." I told the assembled crew, pacing in front of them, "The techniques are, in order: Kami-E, Tekkai, Shigan, Soru, Rankyaku, and Geppo."

"Kami-E is flowing like a reed in the wind, the deliberate control and relaxation of all of your muscles. But what makes it powerful and useful is the control required. You can guide your motions. Bonney! Up and at'em, we're demonstrating."

Though she snorted, the pink haired captain stepped up, "Demonstrating what?"

I spread my arms, palms out, "Hit me."

"Uh-huh."

I grinned, "Well. Try to hit me."

Bonney blinked once before grinning evily and cracking her knuckles, "Oh, you are asking for it Ironhide."

"Yeah, but you're not delivering," I taunted with a grin, forcibly relaxing my muscles.

Her leg snapped out at my head, and I let the air pressure of the blow move me out of the way, allowing it to swing through the space my head had been an instant before with a soft swish~ Bonney snorted, putting her foot down, "Tch. Big deal. You can dodge."

"Mhm. Right," I said, hanging in that awkward position, "Hit me."

The entire crew gave me a funny look, "Are you crazy?"

"Bon bon," the little gold ring in her cheek twitched, "Hit me."

"Oh…" her voice was a lot lower this time, and a lot more dangerous, "You are asking for it Ironhide."

I cringed just a bit, feel like I hit a nerve there– Oh hello foot, nice to meet you.

I was leaning back almost bonelessly, pushed about by the pressure of first one kick, then another, and another. Without moving my feet, my upper body twisted one way and then another, practically fluttering about like a blade of grass in a hurricane. Bonney's arms went up for balance as she began to swap out between legs, a growing snarl on her face.

"Kami-E is the most basic of the techniques…" I talked as I dodged, my voice calm. There was a strange staccato to my speech though due to the flexings of my diaphragm at these speeds, "But it's a pain to train. At its core, it's the control of your muscles and being able to deliberately relax or use only the ones you choose."

"Jowls!" Her boot flew past my face, the air pressure making me spin in the air and off of my feet momentarily, "Tch-! Tenderloins!" a kick at the back that I spun out of the way of, "Ribs!" Her leg swept hard from the side at my torso and I bonelessly limbo'd beneath it, "Tenderizer!"

Her back foot was planted with a resounding sound before her lead leg blurred into motion, resembling nothing so much as Chun-Li's classic spamming kick, Bonney's jet black heel lashed out at me rapidly, and all to no effect as the air pressure of her attacks pushed my effectively weightless body out of the way on their own. "Now… I'm very good at this. This is the only technique I honestly feel like I've mastered… it's also extremely hard to manage an offense while you allow your body to do this, and a skilled opponent can use it to move you around the battlefield since you just go with an attack rather than–"

Bonney did a leg sweep and I forcefully exhaled, floating like a piece of paper as I allowed my legs to be swept out from under me. Going through a handless cartwheel, I drifted back down to the deck lightly. The crew gaped, and Bonney looked up at me in disbelief from her crouch, "How the hell?"

I grinned, "Not so stupid now is it?" She still looked ready to get back to trying to hit me, so I held up my hands in surrender, "Sorry Captain. Needed to demonstrate. You get to actually hit me with the next one though." With her looking slightly mollified by that, I turned back to the assembled crew, "Kami-E is the first step in learning the other moves, since they all require amazing control over yourself to accomplish. The next is Tekkai."

Turning back to her, I put my arms at my sides and flexed, "Now, give me a kick."

This time Bonney didn't hesitate to strike at me. The straight kick slamming into my bare chest with a solid whump. I could only sort of feel it in my skin, not any deeper.

"Tch-!" spinning into a roundhouse, Bonney's leg flew at the side of my head.

"Tekkai!" I flexed harder and her boot slammed into my cheek about as effectively as you'd expect a normal person's one to against a tree. Though holy hell was it louder.

"Okay, so you flex hard…?" Daniel piped up.

"At its most basic, yes. But there's a fancy bit of training and focus to it and flexing all of your muscles extremely simultaneously." Specifically, it was about synchronizing the twitches of your muscle-fibers throughout your body. How they figured this out on their own I have no idea, but I'd figured it out over time. The trick was training yourself to do that. "As the name implies, you're effectively turning yourself into iron based on your muscular strength."

My right eye was suddenly covered by black shoe as I turned my eye and that side of my face into metal, "Mind you. I can actually turn into metal when someone attacks my eye. One of the flaws of the technique. It also can't stop bullets or swords until you reach absurd levels. It's best used against physical blows."

"Asswipe." Bonney muttered, giving me another kick to the face.

Her boot still pressing against my cheek, I continued, "Now, the next technique is Shigan. Essentially, you extend a finger and punch someone with it. There are a couple tricks to doing it involving muscle control, but it's basically using your finger like a bullet. Concept is simple, but it takes a lot of training." I couldn't have done it without turning into metal.

Bonney pulled her foot away and I continued, "Soru is the fancy disappearing trick I do. This one is hard to do, you basically kick off the ground ten times in an instant and snap the other leg out to stop yourself."

I flexed my legs and a quick spasm launched me off of the ground in a blur, the movement making a small -fwsh!- sound. My other foot extended as I came to a stop at the railing to the left of the crew on deck. They blinked at the space I'd occupied in surprise, though Bonney was placed to see the action, she'd seen it before. When I spoke though, it made the group jump, "You don't need to get all the way to ten times in an instant to get the disappearing effect. But a part of the number of kicks is the control over your direction and distance."

I had an idea on a way to combine my metal form with the technique to go faster, greater strength plus my current speed and a harder kick-off…

"That," Bonney said, pointing at me, "I want to learn that."

"You've got to learn at least Kami-E and Tekkai first. Soru requires some bits of the technique and conditioning you learn from those techniques."

The Captain… my Captain, frowned, but I shrugged, a neutral expression on my face, "Nothing to change it. It's like counting to ten, you can't get there without going through one and two."

She crossed her arms under her breasts and looked away with a snort.

Sighing, I continued, "Rankyaku is creating a compressed blade of air from a quick motion, normally a kick, combined with your intent it creates a blade that is fired."

Turning, I chambered a kick before rolling the leg out like a whip, the tip of my foot snapping upwards and releasing a faint blue crescent that flew through the air, cutting a gouge out of the railing as it sailed off over the ocean.

"Could… could that be done with a sword?" Jaime asked, the pear-headed man fiddling with the handle of his rapier.

"Yes." I confirmed, "It's an advanced technique, but it's possible. It's technically doable with anything provided you get it moving fast enough. But it helps if the thing is sharp."

I had a theory that Lucci's ability to 'fire' Shigan as a ranged attack was really derived from a combination of Rankyaku with the physical ability to do Shigan and his claws.

"What's the last one?"

"Geppo is essentially a double jump."

"That's how you fly!" Wallace exclaimed, shuffling back a bit.

"Flying is the wrong word, though that's an effect. You're kicking off of the air." I crouched before jumping straight up, a good fifteen feet of bullshit. Bunching my legs midair, I snapped them out in a bunny-hop like motion, the action causing a little puff of smoke from the shockwave created and allowing me to push off of the shockwave.

The crew of the Cake watched as I hopped every few seconds in mid-air, slightly angling my hops to match the Cake's speed, "This is very useful, but it's tiring."

"How is it not flying?" Tom called up from the deck.

"You're jumping midair, you don't have control after you jump." Unlike in video games, you couldn't control your jumps midair without another use of Geppo, which positioning could make difficult.

"Looks like flying to me!" Bonney called up, and I flicked her off, dropping to the deck.

Landing with a loud thud, I shook out my legs, "You learn it and tell me it's flying."

"Teach it and I will!"

I started to roll my eyes, but then smirked, walking over towards her, "Go limp."

Bonney blinked, "… what?"

Stopping just in front of her, my back foot planted and my lead foot lashed out in a fast but light kick, my boot basically tapping her in the face.

Her hat fell from her head and she stumbled back, grabbing her mouth, she glared up at me and I grinned just a bit, "Go. Limp. The pressure of the attack should push you out of the way."

"You ass–" the tip of my boot blurred forward again, this time deliberately to the left of her head, and Bonney dodged to the side, her hair flaring out from the kick.

"Like that!" I encouraged cheekily, "Just looser. Loosey goosey."

"You're a fuck!" she snapped, and I raised an eyebrow at her.

"You kick me all the time, woman. That was a fucking love tap and you know it." She growled and I met her gaze unflinchingly, "Seriously though. Go as limp as you can while standing. And that goes for everyone! Spread out some and pair up. The main combat use of the ability is to not get hit, and that's how we're training it."

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The McPuffin Part 1 End