King Cosmos

One Piece: The Next Voyage

"Yeah, yeah; you're a dangerous woman with a dark and mysterious past. We're all very intimidated." The sarcasm and exasperation in Shigeuchi's voice should have been clear and obvious, but you couldn't always tell with some people; in either case, the pirates surrounding Lexi with swords and guns pointed her direction certainly didn't seem intimidated. He didn't bother to say that if she had decided to attack there probably wouldn't be as many bodies as she thought there would be, or that one of the bodies would surely be hers; there was no need to antagonise her more than he already had.

It was a little disappointing that the girl hadn't reacted more to the loss of her knife or the fresh cut on her hand, he'd give her points for keeping a strong poker face, but it was clear that this conversation was about over.

"Well, I'm afraid we're not going to be able to hand the prince over to you." Raising both hands up, Shigeuchi stood in a pose that almost suggested he was surrendering in spite of his words and tone saying the exact opposite. He didn't move to draw his sword and none of the crew moved to attack her; they couldn't, or wouldn't, so long as she continued to hold a knife to her hostages throat. They'd have to pick up more work if he died, after all. "But I can't just let you kill one of my crew either, so I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

In an instant Shigeuchi swapped himself with the crewmember in Lexi's grip, placing himself within her grasp and with a knife to his throat as the other pirate took his place in the circle. He'd rotated himself around as well as trading places with the hostage so that his back was to Lexi's chest and his raised hand was in perfect position to grab her knife hand, his fingers wrapping around her wrist with an iron grip that held the blade away from his skin. With his other raised hand he brought his arm back, driving an elbow back towards the assassin's stomach and hoping to strike her before she could react.

@ladyonyx04

One Piece: The Next Voyage

“Ha, I didn’t expect you to be so precious about it. If the idea of kidnapping and ransom bothers you maybe you should find another line of work, or does slitting throats not bother your conscience as much as a peaceful abduction?” This wasn’t going to end peacefully, not if they couldn’t get past this impasse; they weren’t going to give up the prince and leave empty handed, Nikko would never allow such a thing, and this girl wasn’t going to let them leave with him either. One of them was going to be disappointed and Shigeuchi wasn’t planning on it being him.

“We’re pirates, lass. We’re going to act like it.” He reached out and touched a finger to the hilt of a knife nestled in the waistband of the crewmember standing next to him. In doing so he confirmed its location in his mind, allowing him to target it with his power. “You’ll have to do this and worse if you want to survive out at sea.” The poisoned blade in Lexi’s hand disappeared, instantly replaced by the mundane dagger belonging to the man at Shigeuchi’s side. Depriving the girl of a familiar weapon was one thing, depriving her of an unknown poison another, but the fact that the knife was backwards in her grip and that she was now holding the weapon by the sharp edges was the real kicker.

@ladyonyx04

One Piece: The Next Voyage

“The prince will be returned back home, safe and sound, in a few days.” Shigeuchi wasn’t going to insult the girl’s intelligence by pretending he didn’t know what she was talking about, not when they weren’t exactly trying to hide the fact they were responsible for the kidnapping and not when she had a dagger to a crewmember’s neck. Of course, he didn’t bother to say what would happen if their demands weren’t met, but even then the prince himself would be fine; he’d be days away in Water 7 with them when the bomb planted in Alabasta went off in seven days’ time. “Until then, he’ll be staying with us I’m afraid. No negotiating, unless you’re saying you’ll pay his ransom here and now?”

Shigeuchi shifted position, subtly moving his hands to rest on his hips so that they would be closer to the sword at his waist. “Is there any way I can convince you to walk away from this without bloodshed? You and you’re captain can’t take us all on by yourselves.”

@ladyonyx04

One Piece: The Next Voyage

I'd assume not honestly, but for the purposes of this RP where it really only affects my character, I'm fine with that limitation. I think powers like Trafalgar's and Sugar's that affect a person directly would still work since from what we've seen water doesn't stop a power from working, i.e. it doesn't remove a power's effect after it has been applied, it just stops someone from using their power in the first place.

One Piece: The Next Voyage

@ladyonyx04 Lexi couldn't be swapped because of the water, so it was taken into consideration. If the water evaporated then that protection would go away; looking at the wiki it's actually any kind of water that causes a Devil Fruit user to lose their powers, not just salt water, i.e. it's the water not the salt that matters.

There's a lot more to that weakness than I thought. Moving water like rain or waves won't have any effect, but standing water of any kind will. Devil Fruit uses with more than half their bodies submerged will lose their strength but having any amount of their body in contact with standing water will cause them to lose their powers, unless the properties of their bodies have been changed by the Devil Fruit in some way.

One Piece: The Next Voyage

So, that’s where that Devil Fruit ended up.

Shigeuchi watched as Kuroda left the ship, disappearing in a flash of light as he reappeared by the young woman on the docks. He began to distract her, by which he meant drawing his swords and attacking the other Logia-user with a half-hearted swing, engaging the water-manipulating woman in combat. The older pirate watched as the youngster fought with the clear intent to delay rather than actually hurt his opponent, while the girl dodged and spent more time talking than trying to fight back. He let out a sigh; the fact the upstart had managed to get his hands on that fruit of all things was a bit concerning given his attitude so far. If he tried anything, like trying to oust either himself or the captain for example, then it wouldn’t be as simple as throwing him overboard and letting him cool off on his way back to shore, they’d have to kill him.

He’d have to give the kid The Speech soon and hope that it sank in. Power didn’t automatically mean authority, but if he didn’t realise that himself and accept it then there would be problems.

Nikko gave the order to depart, breaking away from the docks in a more literal sense than normal. The Golden Lion MKII would head out to sea first, gaining some distance from their attackers before deploying their balloons and taking to the skies; they didn’t need to win this fight after all, just escape, and the longer they spent tethered to the dock the more time the Royal family or the marines would have to mount a rescue. It meant leaving Kuroda behind, which Shigeuchi would be fine with, but unfortunately the upstart could fly back to the ship before they got too far away.

A gunshot rang out on the docks and Shigeuchi turned his attention back to the fight between the light and the water to see the former take a bullet through the shoulder. That the bullets drew blood either meant that Kuroda still wasn’t used to his Devil Fruit power and hadn’t turned intangible in response to the attack or that the shooter had imbued the shots with Haki before firing. Shigeuchi scanned the dock for the gunman, expecting to see the white uniform of a marine or another crew involving themselves in the fight; he saw nothing of the sort however, nothing but a panicked crowd of bystanders running for cover. It was perhaps a lone gunman, but a one gunman that could use Haki was a problem he didn’t want to deal with.

It was a kind of rule that Logia-users who were new to their powers thought themselves invincible until they had their first run-in with a Haki user, at which point they either learned a harsh lesson in life or died. Kuroda may have just learned that lesson, Haki was a rare skill even in Paradise after all, but judging from the way he continued to attack rather than panic or freeze up suggested he was familiar with it already.

A commotion on the deck dragged his attention back to the ship. Turning his head he saw the assassin, the young captain’s so far only confirmed crewmember, holding one of their own crewmembers hostage. She had made it aboard somehow, sneaking onto the boat before they could leave the docks and now holding a knife to someone’s throat.

With an exasperated, drawn out breath Shigeuchi drew his sword and pulled a nearby crewmember in front of himself, lining the two of them up so that he could see both the pirate and Lexi at the same time. Raising the sword above his head and placing both hands on the hilt, Shigeuchi prepared to cleave through the crewmember before him with one stroke. “Don’t move.” He reached out with his Devil Fruit ability, attempting to wrap both the pirate and Lexi with his power and swap their positions and cut the assassin down before she knew what hit her.

He tensed his muscles and drew power into his arms, the blade of his sword turning black as he imbued the weapon with Armament Haki just in case, and made the switch.

The power fizzled out and Shigeuchi stopped the blade a millimetre above the pirate’s collarbone before he could cleave his own crewmember in half. With a huff he sheathed his sword and pushed the somewhat shaken crewmember aside, forcing his way through the disgruntled pirates until he stood at the front of the circle of guns and swords surrounding Lexi. “Nice trick, whatever it is. Captain’s busy, so you get me instead; what do you want?”

@ladyonyx04

Digimon Hackers: Jormungundr

“Oh, what now?” Before Reiko could think of a suitably scathing response to the fact Manaka had forgotten to give them their objective, alarms starting blaring out across the server for all to hear. Her head snapped up and began to turn to look every which way in the empty corridor they stood in as she looked for some indication of what was going on; she didn’t think that she and Harumi were to blame, so the alarm was probably due to something the other group had done, but just because they weren’t the cause didn’t mean they didn’t need to be concerned.

If people were looking for intruders then their flimsy cover, which so far consisted of the fact that Reiko was wearing a hoodie that she had found back stage, would be blown as soon as someone questioned who they were. And if the audience began to spill out of the auditorium into this corridor and saw them out here alone they may not even bother to ask questions. “We need to get out of the open like this. We’ll look too suspicious for being the only people not listening to the concert when the alarm went off.”

Reiko’s gaze fell on the sign leading to Siren’s room and had an idea. If Siren was the person on stage then her room was probably empty right now and if she was the leader of this group, or at least someone important, then this list Manaka wanted might be there as well. It was also most likely guarded and the first place Siren would check after an alarm, but they were critically short of options right now. “Damn it. Let’s go this way.” Reiko grabbed Harumi by the sleeve and began tugging her in that direction.

One Piece: The Next Voyage

@ladyonyx04 No, I'll edit it. I misread your post and didn't realise Lexi had gone off by herself.

One Piece: The Next Voyage

Shigeuchi slumped down once the switch had been made, falling back into a chair that had been set up behind him for just that purpose. To be completely honest, swapping someone he could only see through a live video feed with an object in front of him was something he wasn’t sure if he could do and he wasn’t sure if he Devil Fruit ability had a maximum range to it or not either. His Kōkan-Kōkan No Mi seemed to work on anything that he could see, limited only by the range of his vision, and in his many years of having it he thought he had tested the limits of what it could do; he needed a clear image of what he could see for one thing, along with a sense of the distances involved, and moving objects were harder to target. He’d used a telescope or a pair of binoculars to extend his range before, but he thought that using a television would be pushing things a little; apparently not though, as the young prince stared starry-eyed around the deck at the various criminals, vagabonds and cutthroats surrounding him.

It took more out of him though, that was for sure. Or maybe it was just his age catching up to him.

“Looks like the Prince won’t be any trouble; I guess those stories of Luffy being friends with the Queen back in the day were true.” Shigeuchi turned to look at Nikko out of the corner of his eye, before raising his voice to be heard by the rest of the crew and the prince. “Prince Vivian, you’ll be our guest for the next few days; don’t cause any trouble and this will be a nice, peaceful trip for you to tell your mother about later.” He left it up to his imagination what would happen if he did cause them any trouble. “Crew, prepare the royal chambers for the Prince; we’ll leave as soon as he’s stowed away.” Several crew members began moving around, heading below deck to make sure the prince’s cell was ready for their new prisoner.

In a few moments the deck was abuzz with activity, crewmembers either leading the prince away or taking part in the preparations to leave; they couldn’t actually take off until Nikko closed the door to his chamber, but there was a lot to do before the Golden Lion MKII was ready. Those who weren’t moving were instead standing guard and as Shigeuchi looked around the ship he saw one of the men standing at the decks edge trying to get his attention.

He stood and walked over to him and as he reached the railing the guard pointed off the side of the ship towards the crowded docks. Or more specifically he pointed towards the two young and persistent women from the bar, Caitlyn’s white hair standing out like snow in a desert town; even if the girl’s hair wasn’t as distinctive as it was, the obvious use of her Devil Fruit power would have been enough to give her away; a wide patch of clear space grew around her as people moved away from her and her dangerous abilities. The other girl was nowhere to be seen, but no doubt she was skulking around somewhere.

“Tch, I’ll give them points for effort, but they really need to learn when to call it quits. Hey! New guy!” Shigeuchi turned and fixed his glare on Kuroda; the young man had followed them onto the ship, but as far as Shigeuchi was concerned he had yet to be accepted onto the crew. “Consider this your audition. Keep that girl busy until we’re ready to take off and I’ll make you a junior member of the crew.”

@Reflection@ladyonyx04@KillBox

I, the Demon King, Will Summon My Own Damned Heroes!

Well, that was considerably more dramatic than he’d expected. The Flame Lance shot out of his hand with more speed than his previous attempts, the more concentrated spear of energy almost seeming to pull itself through the air with its drill-like rotation towards the stream. It also didn’t explode once it had bit into his target like it had previously, though that might just be because the spitting and steaming water hid what was happening. The skill message popped while the water was still boiling away quickly followed by the level-up message he was hoping to see.

He didn’t need to read the description to know that the spell cost more Mana than a regular Fireball as he felt his reserves drain considerably as the spell left his hands. That it was faster than a regular Fireball was also evident, but the note that it could potentially lower his opponent’s defence was interesting. Due to its cost it was a spell that would be best used sparingly, either to crack opponents with strong defences or to hit opponents which were too fast for his other spells to hit. Costly or not, it added yet another tool to his kit, another solution to a potential problem that may show up in the future, which is exactly what he wanted.

Speaking of his tool kit, with his recent level-up he had another five skill points to spend and given their imminent meeting with a potentially dangerous Goblin tribe he planned on using them to prepare for any eventualities that may happen. His skill list hardly looked any different than it had a few moments ago, so he was able to ignore the information displayed to him having already thought about what he wanted to spend his points on. They were about to enter into negotiations with a group of creatures native to this world, his first non-hostile encounter with something that wasn’t reincarnated like himself, and he had a Charisma skill that was close to completion that might come in handy in the upcoming meeting; normally he wouldn’t want to spend points on anything that close to ranking up by itself but considering he hadn’t seen any progress in the last day and a half he felt okay in this case. He could also spend some points in ranking up his Alert skill, just in case these Goblins tried anything sneaky.

“System: show current experience.”

Before that however, there was something he wanted to check. He knew that creating skills gave him experience, and ranking them up might do the same, but did purchasing skills with points also give him experience? He would assume not, but given that he now had a rare opportunity to find out for certain, he was going to make use of it.

“Put one point into Charisma. Show experience again.”

It would be interesting to see what the results of this would be. If buying skills gave experience, even if it was less than what you would gain when earning the skill through natural development, then they might be able to use that in an emergency somehow; not to mention that if spending one or two skills point could trigger a level-up and thereby gain them five more skill points, that would be a net gain no matter how you looked at it. And if it did give less experience than creating a skill normally then that would give them more reason to try and create skills naturally wherever possible.

“Put four points into Alert. Show experience again.”

At this point Oberon wasn’t sure if ranking up a skill gave any experience at all, but with this he would hopefully soon find out. He knew, or could assume at least, that learning new skills granted about 10% experience from what he had seen, though that would likely change over time as he grew in level and more experience was required. He had no evidence that the same was true for ranking up an existing skill and even after this he wouldn’t know if buying a new rank gave the same or less experience. Since his skill list showed him that he had a couple of skills that were very close to gaining a new rank however, it wouldn’t take him long to find out.

The Sprite raised a hand and created a Mana Orb before reaching out with his Mana Shape ability to start moulding the orb into a different shape. He had no goal in mind, no spell he was trying to create, Oberon just wanted to exercise Mana Shape until a system message appeared. He began by flattening the orb down, the circumference growing as the sphere was compressed and the sides bulged out; when viewed from the top it would look like a perfect circle still, but while viewed from the side it would appear to be an oval, one that was quickly growing longer and thinner as it was squeezed flat into a disc shape. Once it was mostly flat Oberon would work on the edges, pressing them flat so that the border of the disc was sharp rather than round and making the Frisbee of Mana look more like a large pizza cutter. In his mind the Sprite couldn’t help but picture a circular saw blade and even though he had started this with no aim in mind he began to think about how he could work the Mana into that shape.

The edges would need to be serrated, but doing so would require finer control and shaping of the Mana than Oberon had done previously; up until now he had really only worked with simple, geometric shapes after all. He focused on the flat disc hovering over his hand, imagining the shape he wanted it to take as he used Mana Shape to etch teeth into the rim of his creation. If at any point he received a notification about Mana Shape ranking up he would request to see his experience again, even as he became increasingly distracted with his newest idea.

Action Report

Requested to see current level experience
Spent one skill point on "Charisma"
Requested to see current level experience
Spent four skill points on "Alert I"
Requested to see current level experience
Used "Mana Shape I" on "Mana Orb II" to create flat disc of Mana with serrated edge
Requesting to see current level experience if "Mana Shape I" ranks up

@Zeroth