The Castle Part 4

The Castle Part 4

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"… what the hell is this?"

I looked up from the apparatus I was working on, finding my momma poking a sealed box with wires on either end, "Hm? A battery."

Momma looked at me curiously, "… what's a batry?"

"A way to create an electrical charge." I said, trying to arrange the thin glasses and the clamps. The trick was how to store the stuff for later use since it was a gas... kind of difficult since I was working with basic stuff here in the hold of the Patch with stuff I'd picked up from the last village.

"Baby… you can create electricity with this?" My momma asked in surprise as she stared at the box battery.

"Very little. It's mostly an experimental tool." I actually couldn't remember which end was positive or negative based on structure, but I knew that the negative end would end up grabbing the hydrogen so this test would be a double whammy. Proving that those laws functioned similarly here as they did in my home… no, my original universe. Can't think of it as home anymo– "GACK!"

My momma had grabbed my ear and twisted, "What did I tell you about being a scholar?!"

"Ack! I'm trying to confirm stuff a book said–" An even harder twist, "Gah! I'm trying to confirm if I can make a fancy power system for the ship or not!"

She eased up a bit on my ear and I only had to twist my spine a little out of alignment to keep it from being torn off, "How so?"

"If it's right I can make a propeller to help us sail even when there's not wind!" I said quickly, trying to get my ear untwisted as quickly as possible.

An indeterminately long pause OF SUFFERING later, my ear was let go, letting me collapse to the floor, clutching my poor, abused ear. My momma put her hand on her hip, "I am not happy with you little man."

"My chores are done!" I protested, pushing myself back up onto my feet, "I already did my training and all my chores are done. I wanted to do this!"

"Little kids are supposed to be having fun, not building… bat-rise!"

"But this is fun to me! I mean look!" I scurried over to the box, "Look!" Grabbing both of the metal caps my shaggy brown hair suddenly stood on end as I grinned.

"Baby…?" my mother said with concern.

"And this!" I gestured at the apparatus I'd been working on, "This tube should fill with a gas that explodes and this one should be pure breathable oxygen!"

"Explode?" my momma asked worriedly.

I held my hands close together, "Liiitle explosion. And I'll be wearing eye protection and something around my neck so the glass shards can't hurt me."

Momma frowned, and my grin faltered. And she kept frowning. I looked down at the floor, scuffing my foot, "I think it's cool."

After a moment, a warm hand settled on my shoulder and pulled me in for a hug, "Alright baby… you can play with your bat-rise things… but only after you've already completed your chores and your training, and only if you promise me you'll be safe."

"Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a cupcake in my eye," I promised, pantomiming the motions, "I don't want to lose fingers or an eye by not being safe."

Momma bopped me atop the head, "Don't you dare!"

-oOo-​

"What the fuck is CP9?"

Bonney, still a child, was sitting on my thigh as we watched the 'kids' go on a 'scavenger hunt'. That included sneaking into the moat to grab the stuff they'd thrown into it. Thankfully, this moat wasn't used as a reservoir for the castle's waste.

"Cypher Pol 9, a top secret intelligence and assassination arm of the government. They're, to a man, masters of all of the techniques you've seen me use and then some." Her hands bunched in her thigh high socks, "For scale, I'm maybe Expert level."

At that, Bonney stiffened, "… oh." There was silence in the clearing aside from the play of children. She turned to look at me warily, "And they're coming for you?"

"Maybe?" I said with a cringe, "I don't think so." I was comparatively small fry, and not exactly the kind of target assassins aimed for, "But given how powerful the top three members are, it's not something I'm eager to risk. How long until the Log Pose locks on to the next island?"

"Four days." She said.

"Tchshhh. That's... problematic. I'd rather not give them that long to think about what to do..." or get a hold of the Marines and pass it on that I'm alive and on the island...

"We can't leave until then," Bonney hissed. And we couldn't. In the Grand Line, the only way to safely navigate between islands without sailing blind was to use the special compasses that had to lock on to the next island in sequence, without that you could sail until you died of lack of supplies. "And I wanted to stay here long enough to bleed these stupid tribes dry."

"Then I've got to hide. I don't want to find out what they'll do."

Bonney bit her thumb, kicking her feet as she sat on my thigh, looking out at the actual kids playing along with her crew. We were sitting on a stump near the edge of the clearing that the kids were playing in, I'd basically dragged her over here to have a talk. She'd wanted me to help make a distraction, she'd used her considerably greater speed to sneak out of the castle. They'd found the treasure room, gotten in, and stuffed various bits of treasure into their outfits. But that was nothing, Bonney wanted to create a distraction and draw the guards on the walls away to allow the crew free-er reign to secret stuff out of the portholes and into the moat.

Problem was that not only was I hesitant to make that big of a distraction int he first place, I didn't want to draw any more attention to myself. The crew were grabbing some powder from the ship to set up on one of the opposite walls so that the 'kids' could throw some of the treasure out the windows on the opposite side or otherwise stow them away for later retrieval.

Bonney's head turned, her pink hair flaring out at the sudden motion, "Ironhide, does he know you're a part of my crew?"

I blinked, thinking about it, "Mmm... no. I don't think so." Then I scowled at her as I hissed out, "And they wouldn't even know it was me if you hadn't shouted my name."

She elbowed me with a snarl, "How was I supposed to know you'd told him your personal name?!"

"How did you think it was a good idea to shout my family name?"

The kid-sized Captain growled for a moment, but I held her glare with one of my own. With a snort, she turned away again, pouting, "Give me a break, not used to having crew members with recognizable bounties."

"You'll have to get used to it if you expect me to stay. I prefer to keep my head down unless it's absolutely necessary otherwise."

Bonney made an unhappy noise in the back of her throat, "Alright! I'll turn you into a kid and you can sneak back to the Cake. They won't be looking for you like that."

"Right." Really got to get into the habit of thinking with Devil Fruit. Useful shit is useful. Also, no swimming. Meep. Gotta address that. "I can stay on the ship and get some work done, though I'll be taking over a portion of it for my workshop."

"More guns?" she said excitedly.

"More guns."

"Eeeeeeheeheeheeee~" she clapped her hands adorably.

---

"Mmm." I hummed as I looked at my clothes as I walked with Kid!Bonney out into the forest. 'Need to figure out wtf to do with this since they don't change…'

"Hey, Ironhide," I looked at the shorter captain walking beside me, her hands behind her head, "How much is your bounty…?"

I turned back to my outfit, tugging at it, "Mm, last I knew it was 20 million belly, alive only."

*Whump*

I stopped, turning to look at the pink haired captain… who had tripped and fallen flat on her face, "Bonney…?"

Flailing for a second, she pushed herself up to stare at me in shock, "Twenty million?!"

"… yeah?" I raised an eyebrow at her, "That's nothing serious in the Grand Line."

"That's… that's more than mine."

"Huh…" I blinked. It made sense honestly, this was her at the start of the Grand Line rather than at the Saboady Archipelligo of 120,000,000 belly. But still, she didn't get over 20 mil? "That's surprising."

She blinked a few times as she struggled up before frowning and standing fully, "You're stronger than 20 million though…"

"So are you." I pointed out, "Even without your Devil Fruit, you're probably worth around 30 to 40 million belly. But your Devil Fruit is essentially an instakill. You should be worth a lot."

"I've been trying to stay out of their notice!" Bonney snapped, and I could help but grin.

"Tcheheh, so have I."

She pouted, "Still not happy that you've got a higher bounty than me."

"Tchehehaha…" I chuckled, "For people like us who try to avoid bounties, I'd say that you're the one who's actually winning since you've avoided more attention than me."

There was a moment of silence from the captain before a grin spread across her face, "Guess you're right Ironhide." She looked about quickly, "Now let's get you transformed. I'll change you back when I get back to the ship."

I nodded, "Alright."

---

I looked stupid.

Bare feet pattered against the ground as I jogged through the little town on the way towards the isle in which the Cake was docked.

Holy shit did I look stupid.

I'd rolled up my pants legs and looped my belt twice and everything but I still looked bad. My jacket was wrapped around my shoes and currently being worn as a backpack because the thing was horrendously oversized now. Going from five foot eight to four foot flat was frustrating.

'Where is everyone…?'

It was weird that there were so few people out and about in the town despite it still being early evening at latest.

Felt like I was swimming in leather and cloth– oh, there was everyone. First guess was that most of the town's population was gathered around something… a few dozen people, maybe thirty…

'… what are they gathering around…?' Feeling a niggling concern about the possibility of someone being abused, I launched myself upwards, leaping atop one of the nearby buildings. Super glad that I'd been trained since I was itsy bitsy.

"Look at this!" There was a large man at the center of the crowd of people, holding up a fruit high above his head.

… that's a devil fruit.

"Which one is it?"

And this time I don't need to eat it to survive!

"What are you gonna do with it?"

… there's no way I had enough cash to buy that thing, especially as a kid. And it was probably Jello-face's anyways…

"Are you gonna eat it?"

…

"No way! I'm gonna sell it!"

'Momma. Ima 'bout to make you proud.'

My legs bunched up and I closed my eyes, **feeling**.

"How much do–"

"Soru!"

"–you think–"

The world turned into a blur of lights as I shot through the air, grabbing the object from the man's hands in passing before launching off again just as my feet touched the ground.

"–you'll get for it?"

And now I've got a Devil Fruit. And I'm falling through the air about fifty feet up and I don't think my kid body can do geppo… please be able to do geppo.

"Wait, what-?! Something snatched it out of my hand?!"

"Geppo!" There was a muffled whump as my legs snapped out but… yeah, that didn't work.

"I- I thought I saw a kid…"

Shit.

There was a small boom as my iron-transformed legs hit the ground well outside of the crowd, "Huh? What was–?"

"Soru!"

As a kid, there was no way I could keep up this pace for long, but all I needed to do was get some distance between me and the town without them being able to really see me well.

I had to suppress a giddy little squee as I rushed off towards the bridge. I had a Devil Fruit… and this time I get to do SCIENCE to it!

...

Yay!

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The Castle 4 End