Rite of Challenge Part 1

I was completely stunned that they did that, granted it was only us 4 in here all by ourselves so they could get away with it, but stunned none the less.

"Hehehe that look on your face is priceless" Hancock said while laughing at my face with her sisters chuckling in behind her.

"Alright quit messing with me we can have more fun together when I'm all healed up, by the way what's with all the commotion outside?"

"Oh it's just the other women of the island all want to come and see a legendary man is all." (Hancock)

"What am I like an exotic animal to them or something?"

"Basically, after all almost all the women on this island have never left the island and have lived here all their lives here and most of us die here as well." Marie said with a somewhat sad look.

"I still don't understand why your tribe don't leave your island and stay here all your lives."

"Truth is it wasn't till about 50 years ago that we started to really domesticate the Yuda to use for travel to leave our island because of the calm belt being full of Sea Emperors and that the Yuda were there natural predators of them, to even increase the population we needed to send the youngest and most beautiful warriors out to sea on the one day of the year the sea kings disappear making it possible for anyone to pass through the calm belt to the south blue safely in search of men to be captured and be used for well, making babies with the whole tribe, but with the Yuda we don't need to do that now, if anyone wants to go out and find a man all they need to do is pass a rite of passage out to the seas to find there own man, and when there with child to come back and raise the child with the rest of the tribe." Hancock said as she explained a bit of history of the Kuja tribe to me.

I was a bit stunned at that *back then they kidnapped men and made them basically breeding stock, to some they'd find that dark and wrong, but then they only died 1 of 2 ways, old age or snu snu and frankly I probably wouldn't mind going out like that.* I think those thoughts getting distracted by that.

"You're thinking something rude or something about the kuja aren't you?" (Sonia)

"What? No, no I'm just surprised by the culture of the kuja and the ways they lived here." But I could tell Sonia wasn't buying it, but quickly gave up on pressuring me.

"So anyway that's why all the girls are all interested in seeing you." (Hancock)

"Well I wouldn't really mind meeting them, but not now, not till I've healed up then they can meet me, or at least when I can move around more than right now just give me a few days and I'll all be healed up." Which isn't a issue with my bodies new evolution to the form known as Flame King.

"Are you sure? They can be… aggressive…" (Sonia)

"Aww are you girls getting jealous that I'll be around other women?" I said with a smirk

"WHO'D GET JEALOUS OVER YOU?!? Come on girls let's leave him and go get something to eat." Hancock says as she turns away I grab her by her hand and pull her back to quickly give her a peck on the cheek before letting her go.

"Don't forget to grab me some too" I say while I wink at her and she just begins running out of the hut blushing hard while her sisters stay looking at me all conflicted like.

"You want a kiss too?" I say as they both shyly nod at me and so I kiss them on the cheeks and they go running out blushing just like there big sis.

*Man aren't they just cute* I then return to resting my body for the days to come.

.

..

…

4 days later

I finally feel like my old self again, actually even better and stronger than before I then began to stretch cracking my back and rolling my shoulders before I headed for the door to see the island for myself for the first time.

And to describe it as breathtaking wouldn't do it justice, the healers hut was on the edge of the city so it was in an area that viewed the tropical jungle that surrounds this city, the mountains on Amazon Lily was in the shape of multiple snake heads with the name of the tribe carved into the side of the mountain, down below lies the palace in the center of the city with a arena lying on the outskirts and a fort like structure surrounding the palace and city area. But as soon as I got my bearings I was instantly surrounded by Amazon warriors with one that I assumed to be the captain approaching me. "Greetings Vargas, savior of the princesses, the princesses and the elders wish to have you come with us to meet with them." And based on the body language I still wasn't exactly welcome here, even the captain doesn't like me but is acting polite so I didn't mind cause I knew it would be like this.

"Alright, please lead the way." She then nodded at me and we and our entourage of other Kuja warriors on our way to the palace.

Along the way I got to see the city and the kuja going about there daily lives, shopping, chatting, eating, just enjoying there lives. But they all began to notice me, currently I was wearing my original outfit with some more additional armor on with me now wearing a flame red cape on my back with the currently extinguished Dandalga on my back as we finally arrived at the palace there is where we met the girls who were arguing with the elders of the tribe there names were Elder Blossom, Elder Nightshade and Elder Rose.

(A/N I'm gonna shorten there names to E.B, E.NS, and E.R to make it easier or just there names excluding the elder parts as for there looks gonna use Ran, Rindo, and Kikyo as the templates for the elders but them in there late 40's early 50's as there looks as I can't find any characters to choose from, if anyone has better suggestions I'll change it to someone else)

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE CANT STAY?!???!?! HE LITERALLY SAVED US FROM THE GORGON, And he even already gave us the presents for the rite of marriage so we have every right to allow him to stay here!" I could hear Hancock shouting at the Elders.

"Listen here you little brat! We follow tradition here, we are grateful that he saved you three from that monster, but even if he is betrothed to you three and you accepted of your own will we can just ignore tradition, since he is well he must leave the island, that's final!" (Rose)

"Then it would be fine if I have the right to challenge the traditions of the Kuja for the happiness of both me and my fiancées right?"

"You wish to initiate the rite of challenge upon our traditions to stay on this island?" (Blossom)

"That and the rite of initiation as well."

"Impossible that is only aloud for women only and tribes or clans that wish to merge with the Kuja." (Nightshade)

"Well I can say for a fact I am the last living descendant of the Firebrand clan and as you said any clan or tribe can merge with the Kuja regardless of gender." I said with a smug look on my face.

"GRRRRR….. fine we will have you complete 3 trials, the trial of challenge were you have to take on all the strongest Kuja in the tribe, excluding the princesses of course since they would just forfeit if we forced them to fight you, then the rite of passage you must go into the snake pit full of deadly snakes for one full hour, the catch is you can't hurt or kill any snakes and must sit in the center of the pit the entire time, and lastly the rite of skill, while using your skill of fire you must climb the mountain and traverse across the lava pit to the other side to prove your clans strength against fire and whether it is valuable to our tribe." The three said listing off the challenges

"Alright I accept all of those challenges that the Kuja are willing to throw at me."

"Very well, since you're so eager let's begin with the rite of challenge, this determines whether you stay on this island or if you're evicted because you'll only survive by having strength on this island."

"Then lead the way." I say as I follow behind the elders with the sisters and the warriors following behind.

(A/N if you're wondering what is the whole him being the last of his clan thing is about it's a part of the sisters lie that he's the last member of a monster hunter clan that specializes in fire arts, just so that makes more sense)

So we then went to the arena to start the rite of challenge.

When we arrived at the arena we had attracted a crowd along the way wondering why the three Elders and the three princesses were leading the infamous man to the arena. After the three elders and sisters took there place looking down upon the arena they announced to the crowd

"Ladies and Snakes! Welcome to the Arena today we have a special treat for you for as you can see in the arena, this man here has issued the Rite of Challenge to challenge our way of living that we have kept in tradition for thousands of years to be allowed to live on this island with the rest of us and become a part of the Kuja tribe due to him being the last of his clan."

The crowd were at the start against the challenge but wavered after realizing I was the last of my clan and started to understand why it was accepted due to the condition however…

"Also he has done the rite of marriage by tradition with the princesses, and as you can see by there beautiful snake jewelry they accepted."

With that it went back from sadness for my situation right back to anger and outrage that I was trying to steal their princesses from them I could hear the women shouting and cursing at me for stealing there princesses from them, it was so loud and annoying I had to shut them up.

"SHUT YER TRAPS!! IF YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH ME COME ON DOWN HERE AND SEE IF YOUR BARK IS AS BAD AS YOUR BITE!!!" I said as I smashed my blade into the stage causing a fire wave to spread across the stage shutting them up real quick.

It then got real quite in the arena real quick until several women jumped and fell into the ring to challenge me, they all ranged from many different shapes and sizes, tall to short, fat to slim, smooth to toned skin but there were only 5 out of the 30 of them that I felt I needed to take seriously, first was the captain of the guard a slim shapely woman wearing a metal armor bikini with pauldrons on the shoulders with a white cape with the symbol of the kuja on it, she was standing at around 6'2 in height with blonde short hair and brown eyes while using a spear as a weapon (Marguerite's mom),

next was a very short woman of about 4'6 in height wearing a skin tight one piece swimsuit while wearing her cape in a hood style and instead of the normal white it was all black while she was holding a dagger in each hand and from what I could tell they were covered in a very toxic snake venom,

besides her stood a giant of a woman roughly 15 feet tall with a massive frame that made her look fat but I could tell that it was mostly muscle under all that mass wearing a cape that was too short for her height and a bikini that was stretched to the point of breaking but still being able to barely hold on to her massive sized frame, her weapon of choice was a giant club made out of a huge tree with metal spikes sticking out of the end of it,

Then we had this woman who I could tell just from looking at her that she was a battle junky, long wavy red hair with deep blue eyes with a nicely tanned skin wearing a black and red bikini with with a red cape just like mine, she stood around my height of about 5'10 but her body was covered in scars that she didn't even try to cover up because she wore them with pride in front of everyone and her weapon of choice was the scimitar.

And lastly we had well a very average looking woman, nothing real special about her, brown hair and eyes, average looks wearing some very bland looking bikini with white cape combo with her standing at 5'6 while she was using a sword as her weapon, the thing that put her up there on who to take seriously is that her presence was so lacking that I might forget that she's there making her a huge threat because of I lose focus for a second on her she'll easily be able to sneak up on me and take me down almost like she was born to be an assassin or something like that.

And these women thanks to the crowd shouting there names are in order of appearance.

Captain Clementine

Poisoner Dahlia

Giantess Lila

Berserker Iris

….

They actually didn't say the last girls name, so I pointed to her with my blade, "And what shall I call you by?"

"….. Tulip…"

"Then I'll call you Ghost Tulip then"

"…. That's very rude to ca-" but she was quickly cut off by the announcement from the elders

"Now that all the participants have entered the arena to challenge the challenger then we can say without further ado…."

"LET THE BATTLE COMENCE!!!!"