Ch 29 - Porche Pt 2

[Porche POV continues]

When I arrived at the village I was greeted by the sight of Jacks and our crew being tied up by the villagers.

When they saw me arrive, I was immediately surrounded by weapon wielding villagers, and I didn't really put up much of a fight.

Firstly, I was outnumbered and weak at the time, not able to do anything even if I wanted to, and secondly, I had no motivation to continue pushing forward in life, if I was captured and sent to Impel Down by the Marines, then I would consider it my punishment for surviving what Foxy hadn't.

However, contrary to what I believed would happen at the time, Cade-kun came to my defense, not directly mind you, but he did state that I was the one who killed Jack and rid the village of the problem of dealing with him.

Therefore, when the surrounding villagers heard him, they assumed that I was a bounty hunter or something, I didn't really have the energy nor the will to say otherwise.

Therefore, I was led to my own shack and stayed there for a whole week straight.

Mostly crying and mourning and thinking of my past decisions and what went wrong in order to lead to this. I came up with one answer, I was weak, and I nor Foxy had any strength whatsoever to dictate our paths in life.

And coincidentally, just when I thought this, I looked out of the shack window and saw the man which I now know as Cade-kun, running laps with a few rocks tied behind his back.

I was immediately intrigued by what he was doing, because from my point of view, the slow-slow powers he showed were quite powerful on their own, so there's no way that someone so strong is working so meticulously in order to get stronger right?

So, I then stepped out of my shack for the first time in a week and asked him why he would do such a thing.

And the answer he gave me blew my mind.

Apparently, he was boasting that he was strong, which I myself believed, until the old village chief reprimanded him due to his false sense of reality, which eventually led to them having a sparring match, which the old village chief apparently won with ease.

When I heard this, I was amazed!

Not at the fact that Cade-kun lost per se, since he was clearly quite weak physically at the time, I mean I could do what he was doing at the age of 13, but still, for an old man to defeat someone with a strong devil fruit like Cade-kuns?

It blew my mind and blew away any preconceptions right out of the water that I previously had of the world.

Therefore, from then on, I followed Cade-kuns example and worked out vigorously.

And, one day when I was doing upper body exercises Cade-kun confessed to me his background, that he was actually a young master of a family in the East blue, and that his uncle was a marine Commodore, and that he actually arrived here in West blue because the ship which they used to cross the Calm Belt, something that I didn't know marine ships could do, was actually attacked just as they crossed, and as every strong marine was fighting the enemy force, Cade ran away using a row boat, something that he admitted to feeling guilty about, but in the end the fear got to him and he ran away.

Unluckily for him, what followed was a rain of bullets that, while completely missing him, hit the boat, so it began to sink. He quickly rowed away from the enemy as fast as he could, and in the end, it seemed that they didn't really care for him, because they let him go.

However, the small row boat was sinking quickly, yet according to him, by the time he was prepared to die in the vast sea, he suddenly caught sight of a small island not too far away, so he swam as hard as he could to reach said island.

He got to it, barely.

And that's when he apparently found the Devil Fruit on the beach, ate it, and suddenly spotted the conflict that was taking place not far away from him, which again leads back to where we currently are.

Anyways, what he confessed is that due to being the nephew of a commodore, he got to have certain privileges that common folk don't have.

One of them is being allowed to rummage through his uncles' personal papers when he was bored, something that his lazy uncle supposedly allowed because he didn't really care too much about what a 15-year-old teen could do with the knowledge.

And there he read about a martial arts style known as the Rokushiki, which are the following: Shave (Soru), Iron Body (Tekkai), Tempest Kick (Rankyaku), Finger Pistol (Shigan) Moonwalk (Geppo), and lastly the Paper Arts (Kami-e).

With the knowledge of these martial arts and how to perform them, he made a deal with me.

He would teach me these martial techniques and help me get strong, and in return I would follow him on his future adventures, be it as a marina, pirate, revolutionary, or anything he chose.

I didn't really have to think about it all that much, Cade-kun was a very attractive and interesting man, he intrigued me, and he was also the one that ultimately gave me a second chance at life.

So, without hesitation I vowed that I would follow him as my new boss, and maybe something more in the future.

Anyways, six months later, we left Lily Island and traveled towards Ballywood Kingdom, a place that I really like, in order to not only enjoy some free time, but to apparently recruit our new member, Carina, who he once again found about through marine reports.

Throughout our voyage to the island, we had a blast, we partied in the boat, we got much closer and regularly snuggled, and we even fought and killed some scum of the sea.

We even lost our virginities together in that voyage, an activity that we have been regularly repeating from then on.

However, when we got to the island, we quickly found a problem in our plan: Carina, our supposed new member, was being wanted for stealing something of great importance from the Royal Family.

Hearing this I was quite hesitant to continue our quest to acquire her companionship, but in the end, it was Cade-kuns decision, and so I followed his orders.

We searched for almost a whole week, until we found her, unharmed and singing on stage to a crowd of zealot fans.

We eventually got in contact with her and convinced her to follow along with us on our journey, and to support Cade-kun on his quest to steal a manual of a powerful martial arts style from the widely known Chinjao Family.

Something that I myself found crazy, but oh well, I chose to follow this crazy man, and that's what I will do.

Anyways, unfortunately for us, Carina's business with the Island wasn't over, she actually had yet to complete her operation, and what an operation it was.

Apparently, what she stole is something extremely valuable, a mythical devil fruit, something that Cade-kun told me about, and if what he said is true, this fruit could go for billions on the market.

Anyways after Carina found out more about the fruit from Cade-kun, she eventually decided she actually wanted to retrieve the fruit and eat it, for all of the amazing powers and abilities it granted to its user, a decision that I completely support, and now here we are, about to ambush and beat up the fat man and his three muscle balloon guards.

But just as we were moving, something strange happened, an ornate knife landed in between Carina-San and the rest of the party, and 5 gray clad individuals suddenly appeared out of thin air.

Luckily Cade-Kun immediately reacted by using his newly dubbed Slow-Flake Beam, which is actually an amazing technique, even if the naming could use some work.

I momentarily closed my eyes at the time, so I got to witness the results.

1 of the 5 individuals actually escaped from his technique, and not long after, I saw a red-haired woman appear in front of Cade-kun.

Making a strange pose and presenting herself in a unique manner, followed by immediately attacking Cade-Kun.

However, I wasn't worried, he's been working his butt off for almost 8 hours a day in order to get stronger, and stronger he became, I have full confidence in his victory, so I decided to let him battle it out while I go and protect Carina-san and knock out the remaining opponents.

However, just as I was about to take a step towards their direction, a large macabre looking projectile flew by me towards the direction of Carina-san and the rest of the frozen group, intending to impale and butcher them.

When I saw this happen, I didn't hesitate and used shave, which I learned not long ago, in order to get in front of its path, I then tried to hold it off for a second, until I realized that the sharp object just would not stop no matter how hard I tried, therefore I quickly brought back the end of my new slick black baton, and whacked the object to the side, changing its course in order to miss the frozen Carina-san, and hitting one of the gray clad individuals near her.

I looked at the direction it was fired from and there, in the shadows, was a humongous humanoid rat-like creature, looking at me as if I just butchered his whole family or something.

And with that malicious look I saw on the creature's face, I knew my first battle was upon me.