Chapter 3

As the fat man attempted to "run", his paper body slipped away from the snake, and reformed his body. He was waddling as fast as his body would allow, which was more like a slow jog, but damn, that's the fastest he has ever had to move his body.

The snake was confused for about 2 seconds, then it began chasing the fat man who was hobbling away from it. It took about 4 seconds to catch up, and perform a sort of whip with its tail that was so fast it whistled in the air, completely bisecting the fat man... or not, his body reformed as he seemed to not notice the lethal strike made against him.

The snake kept this up for about 10 minutes, trying everything in its arsenal, fangs, body, tail, head, and even knocked a tree on him, but nothing seemed to work.

"OHGODRUNFORMYLIFEI'MGOINGTODIESOGODHELPMEAHHHHHH!" Tunnel vision is crazy, ain't it? Anyways, partway through his panic, he had seen a beam of light, and thoughtlessly rushed towards it.

After bursting from the jungle, at what looked to be the same spot he had entered from, Everton kept running, snake in hot pursuit. As he was running, he must have forgotten the skeleton with the loaded weapon, or he may not have tripped over it.

*Twang* *Thunk* Everton had barely any time to register the noises he was hearing before putting one of his feet in the rising tide, suddenly overcome with a bout of weakness on top of what had been present. As he was mentally screaming, the snake, now with a hole in its throat, barreled Everton over, straight into deeper water.

-0-

3 hours later, Everton woke up on the same beach.

Just much more wet, bruised, battered, and worse for wear. And hungry. And a new unpleasant feeling, what is this one, thirst? And thirsty. So many horrible things that I have to experience. And I have to breathe peasant air. Why me? I'm too tired, maybe I'll find food tomorrow.

All of this, and the sun hadn't set yet.

-0-

After waking up fro his short nap, that hunger and thirst stuff made itself known again. *Growl* "So... hungry... thirsty... awwwwait, water gets rid of thirst, right? And the ocean is full of water, right? I am a genius, not that I doubted that."

Everton then decided to spend the next 10 minutes crawling his way to the ocean, and put his face in to drink. Two things, the ocean is really, REALLY salty, and now he is just sprawled there, face first in the ocean, not moving. Until the tide receded 10 seconds later at least.

*Cough Cough Cough* "WHY IS THAT SO SALTY! AND WHY CAN'T I MOVE IN THE OCEAN!" Sadly Everton has no idea what the drawbacks to having a devil fruit are.

For a while, he just sits there blankly, coming to terms with his impending doom, looking around at his prospective graveyard full of scrap, shipwreck and... wooden boxes?

Everton scrambles over to what looks like a small wooden box emblazoned with the standard Marine logo, with its lid cracked off. He digs through it haphazardly, throwing items out, and into the sand behind him.

"Food ration, nope. Purified water, who needs that? A tent, pfft, like I'd need that. Ooo, 5,000 Beri's, I'll keep that! A survival book, nah." It took around the time Everton threw the book away that he whipped around and literally lunged for the food and water.

As he gorged on a week's supply of food and water in one sitting, he thanked the gods in his own way. "If I ever get home, I will never complain if I have to dine at a 4-star restaurant ever again. *Crack* *Rumble* *Boom* 3-STAR! I meant 3-star, I swear!"

As he recovered from his flinch, he looked up, and saw an absolutely massive storm brewing just off the coast, threatening him at a distance.

"....Crud."

*Boom* *Crack*

"That is a big storm. Ok, I just need to go... inside... of... um, there is a house, right?" Everton asked himself. He then recalled that one of these "tents" is supposed to be, like, a movable house? Maybe?

Everton looks around him to find the bundle of cloth he had thrown away earlier. Man is it just me, or is that wind picking up? *Whoosh*

"What's that sound?" Everton turns toward the water where the sound came from, and sees what looked to be a sheet of... cloth... flying away, "Oh no..."

Oh yes, Everton just saw his only shelter just decide to skip town, express flight.

By this time, the storm had started to hit the coast, hitting Everton in rainwater, and making him very cold, and slightly soggy.

Everton then recalled his "adventure" into the jungle. "Hmm, well, there is no sun in the jungle, and there's no sun inside a house, therefore, the jungle is a house!" Using the impeccable logic of a World Noble, Everton waddled back into the jungle a short ways.

"Pufufufufu! I am indeed a genius, how could anyone compare to the likes of me! Vegapunk should be begging me to teach him my genius! Pufufufufu!" Everton, being himself, is now sitting at the base of a tree, safe from the rain, wind, and lightning.

*BOOOOOOOM* "AHHHHHMMMMOOOOOMMMMMMYYYY!"

About 20 feet further into the jungle, a tree has fallen over, charred and on fire.

"Ahem, my bad. Oooo, look, someone put a fireplace here for me! Don't mind if I do!" Everton decided to walk straight towards nature's gift to man, Darwinism- I mean fire. Fire. As the man who is literally made of paper walks toward the now blazing inferno, he stops for a moment. "Man, I wish I had some tea to enjoy in front of the fireplace." And he continued forward.

He stopped about a foot from the towering flames licking outward. "Ahhh, that's more like it. See! This is how you treat royalty!" As Everton was lost in his own head once again, he failed to notice that one of his hands was just a bit too close to the fire.

*TSSS* "Hmm? Wha-AAAAAHHHH MY HAND! IT'S ON FIRE, HOW DARE YOU FIRE, I AM YOUR GOD!" As the fire was committing sacrilege, Everton was swinging his hand wildly, so wildly in fact, that his hand came off of his body, and onto the ground in front of him.

"Well now, that's better... MY HAND, AHHH, MY HAND IS GONE, HOW DARE YOU FIRE, I WILL HAVE AN ADMIRAL DESTROY YOU!!!!" Everton screams, pointing at the fire with his newly reformed hand, but just a little too close for... damn it man.

"AAAAAAHHHHH, MY HAND, AGAIN!!!!"

-0-

After 30 minutes of repeating all of that, Everton comes to a conclusion. "PUFUFUFUFU! I HAVE THE BODY OF A GOD NOW! NOTHING CAN KILL ME! PUFUFUFUFU!"

Now, while you might be inclined to think Everton is a self-serving lunatic, and you'd be right if you thought that, this line of thought, while not usually so extreme, is actually very common among people who have eaten logia devil fruits.

People who have eaten logia fruits are nearly invincible unless they encounter something that can directly counter their fruit, i.e. Paper<Fire. Or someone that uses Armament Haki, a very advanced technique of weaponizing your spirit and will. But Haki doesn't usually show up until you enter the New World, so the chances of Everton running into anyone who can use Haki, is about the same chance that his delusions will be broken.

As Everton was reveling in his new godhood, he saw something in his narrow cone of vision being illuminated by the fire that hasn't spread due to the downpour above him. Berries. Red berries growing on a bush.

Now, If Everton had decided to take or read that survival booklet, and if he can read, he would quickly find out that these berries are extremely poisonous. But, since he didn't, he waddled over and started eating berries by the handful.

"Pfufu...*NOM*...fufufu...*CRUNCH*...fufu...*GULP*, Ah, that was terrible. Better than before, but terrible. I will get off this island, and take great pleasure in ripping every single plant up by their roots and burning them one by one. Followed by skinning every animal and making furniture of them."

Mere minutes after eating the berries, Everton experienced a sharp pain in the stomach, equivalent to being stabbed.

"*Groan* Why... Me...?" He swiftly fell unconscious, not noticing the figure coming out of the woods.