The McPuffin Part 6

The McPuffin Part 6

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"Come on Ami! There's a festival!" I grinned, dragging the slightly older girl along by the hand. Even if I was physically only six now and the blue haired girl eight, we were both mentally well ahead of our grade levels. Me because cheating and her because holy balls was she smart.

But there was much to be said about playing outside as a kid. Something that Ami didn't do nearly enough of.

"B-But...!"

"No buts!" I giggled like an idiot, pulling her towards the festival. It wasn't something that came to this island very often, only about once a year, and the Eyepatch pirates had come here at just the right time, "We're gonna have fun!"

The island she lived on was decent sized, it had a number of hot springs and geysers on it, as well as a central mountain. There were several decent sized cities on Gin-Mireniamu, but nothing really big. They were on that border between cities and towns, the wealthier districts were more Edo-period japanese style buildings, while the further you got away the more standard template World Government-esque the buildings became.

"O-Okay..." The taller girl ducked her head, jogging along after me as we ran through the streets of her city.

The settlements were spread out around the coast of the island with the largest in the center on the mountain. The festival was in one of the other cities, and while the island wasn't perfectly safe, the pistol hidden beneath my shirt would have something to say about any bandits that thought to mess with two kids.

I grinned, it was a bit of a jog, we'd probably have to slow down for Ami part of the way, but we'd be there within an hour and back before sundown–

"Mizuno Ami! Where are you going?!"

Ami dug her heels into the ground, and while I could have pulled her over, I stopped as well, turning to find an older woman with her hands on her hips.

"M-Mother... I-"

The woman didn't stomp towards us, you can't really stomp very well in a kimono and she seemed too 'dignified' to do so. But she definitely conveyed her displeasure in her walk, her hands balled into fists and clenching tightly around a fan in one hand, "I asked you where you were going. And with him." Her voice practically dripped with venom at that last word.

It was reflexive and silly, but I already didn't like her. I frowned up at her.

"I-I was going to the festival-…"

"And what about your studies young woman?"

… really?

Her kimono was good, but I'd seen enough true nobility quality by this point to have an idea about its real quality. It wasn't true noble quality. She was at best, a merchant.

I stepped in front of her, between Ami and her mother, "She can study when we get back! This only happens once per year!"

Ami's mother, having short, dark black hair and the same striking blue eyes as her daughter, glared down at me, "So this is who you've been associating with, Ami?" I just about flicked her off at that, but that'd be counter-productive so I didn't, "You're the one keeping her away from her studies!"

I snarled, gesturing with my hands as I spoke, "I study with her most of the time that I'm here! But this only happens once a year, you shouldn't keep us from it!"

"And you take up her time as well! Educating a sea rat like you!" she turned her nose up at me, "I didn't stop her because one must always have their projects, but if you're interrupting her studies then I can't let a plebian like you associate with her."

"Woman. Do a basic fucking cost-benefit analysis." I said, chopping one hand into the palm of the other to punctuate the last three words, making the woman bristle in anger.

"Don't you take that tone with me child!" she waved the fan at me threateningly, but I'd seen far, far worse than a paper fan.

"She already studies every day, more so than I would if I had the time, one day off won't meaningfully impact her rate of progression." I gesticulated as I talked, "But this festival happens once per year, missing this one day means that she won't get to experience it at all! Of course she should go!"

"So?"

My brain ground to a halt, and I stared at the woman dumbfoundedly.

"So what if she misses a single festival?" the woman didn't cross her arms, though she did bring up the fan as if to flip it open in front of her face, "She'll thank me when she's older and is the most respected doctor on the island!"

My mouth worked stupidly for a moment, "What? You're fucking trying to trade her present for her fu–"

*Thwack*

I just stared at the woman that Ami called mother in shock. I had barely felt her fan thocking atop my head, I'd taken worse hits than that while playing, let alone while training! Just the sheer audacity-!

"If you were my child I would wash out your mouth with soap!" she said with a sniff, reaching around me and grabbing Ami's wrist and dragging her around me, "Come along Ami, let's get you away from this foul mouthed child."

Bristling in anger, I opened my mouth to shout after her, but I stopped at the look on Ami's face. A pleading look in her eyes as she looked back at me, giving a little shake of her head as she was dragged away.

A brief, silent conversation passed between us, spoken through gestures and expressions as she was pulled away.

'Why not?!'

'She's my mother.'

'She's being unreasonable!'

'But she's still my mother, and she's just looking out for me as best she can.'

'But…'

'I don't want you two to fight… please.'

I sighed, looking down and pinching the bridge of my nose before throwing up my hands, 'Alright! I don't like it, but alright.'

The blue-haired girl smiled, but no matter that it was a little weak it was an honest smile of gratitude, 'Thank you.'

The two of them turned the corner and I grit my teeth in frustration. My little hands balled into trembling fists, "GAH!" With a scream of frustration I took a single lunging kick into one of the buildings on the street, the kick putting a foot wide and nearly two inch deep crater into the concrete wall, "Damnit!"

I couldn't help my friend! I couldn't help her have fun! I couldn't do anything!

"Fucking damnit!"

-oOo-​

"Mm-mm Mm-mmm, hmhm-hmhm-hmhmmm…" I hummed as I walked beside Tom, the 'cape' I wore fluttered slightly. The older man's skin was a shade or two darker than mine, and his black hair was a fair bit straighter, including his biker beard.

I always struggled as to what to call my coat when I had it draped across my shoulders and held in place by the clasps… I tended to just think of it as a cape at that point really.

And I was honestly a bit bored, I'd already done all the fun experimenting and such when I was younger, now I was still in rebuild mode. Still trying to figure out what the fuck I wanted to do with my life now that my family was gone… but that could come after I punched steel into shape.

With my fists. Like a real man!

Mind you, it'd be relatively easy given that my fists were literally steel, further enhanced by haki, but ignore that part. I'd done that before I had my devil fruit ability as training anyways, so it still counted.

Didn't really know what Bonney wanted, neither did Tom, though he'd been amused by it and I had a feeling he was taking the piss. He knew and just wanted to see my reaction.

Eh, I was sure I wasn't getting any hostility from the much larger man, so I was willing to play along.

The two of us were getting weird looks, not that I could blame them seeing as how I, the lean 5'6" guy, was carrying a fucking block of steel, while walking beside the bulky, nearly seven-and-a-half-foot tall Tom. I probably looked 'fun-sized' compared to him, and I was the one carrying the block of steel that was about the size of me. To be fair though, I was physically stronger and faster than Tom even without my fruit, though his raw power approached mine. That, and it was my metal for my work, it was only right I carry it.

Tom had offered to carry it though, which had been nice of him, but I rather enjoyed the exertion honestly. It helped keep me distracted.

We turned a corner, this street somewhere near the transition between straw and the adobe brick buildings. We were in the merchant quarter, with a few restaurants down this street aaaaand there's Bonney. Even if her pink hair and pale skin didn't stick out like a sore thumb, a good fraction of the crew was gathered around her. They were standing in an open air restaurant, flanking Bonney as she stood in front of one of the tables, the kind you were meant to stand at, her back to the two of us.

There was a murmur through the crew and one of them pointed in the direction of Tom and I and–…

… and why was Tom sliding away from me?

Bonney's head whipped around, her long pink hair flaring out as she looked in my direction and I could see the grin from here. It was a surprisingly innocent and cheerful as she beamed, "Jacob? Jacob Jacob Jacob!" I blinked in surprise as Boney practically skipped over to me, grinning like a loon. I don't know where her hat had gone but I wished it well, "Jacob!"

"… whaaaat?" I asked cautiously. I'd never seen the taller woman like this, a look of… wonder and joy on her face…

"This!" she held up a… biscuit…? What?

"Wha-mmph?!" in a blur of speed, she'd shoved the biscuit into my mouth, stuffing my face with it.

I blinked, holding the foodstuff in my mouth with my teeth and looking at her in confusion. The admittedly attractive woman bouncing on the balls of her feet as she made a 'go on, get on with it' gesture, "Come on! Try it!"

She looked like a freaking kid in a candy store, and it was adorable, '… eh, why not?' I shrugged, the block of metal I was holding on my shoulder shifting as I brought my other hand up to cradle the biscuit as I closed my teeth around it, taking a bite of the biscuit-… no, meat pie. Huh.

"Hmmm…" I considered the flavor… it started off salty… then it had this sort of brown sugar flavor mixed in after that followed by this really savory almost gamey flavor… it reminded me of bison mixed with good deer my uncle in my previous life had prepared… I made a 'not bad' face and nodded. This was really good. I swallowed and… now that's an interesting umami based aftertaste… a good one too… "Huh, it's good… pretty damn good really, what is it?"

"McMuffin Meat Pie!" the pink haired woman nearly shouted in excited glee, not giving the slightest fuck about the weird looks she was getting as she gushed.

"… McMuffin?"

"Yes! It's made out of these 'McPuffin' birds on this island! It's salty then sweet then it's just the slightest bit bitter before it's so meaty and flavorful and the aftertaste! It's savory!" She gushed, her hands raising as fists and giving a little shake as she almost squee'd, "I've never heard of a savory aftertaste like that and these birds are native!"

I nodded some, absorbing the info as I swallowed another bite of the meat pie, "Mm… very neat… how much do they have?"

"That was the last one!" she lamented, giving a little angry shake of her fists, "They're supposed to be really hard to find and catch!"

"Huh…" I blinked, tilting my head up in thought and staring at the clouds for just a moment as I processed that. Knowing Bonney's love of food, and how delicious that was compared to supposed rarity, basic supply and demand said they'd have a high price and Bonney had both the means and the motivation… Without looking back down, I guessed, "You blew a good bit of your budget on buying all they had and ate them all, didn't you?"

"Yes." She said without the slightest bit of shame, making the corner of my lips quirk upwards before her hands grabbed me by my leather vest, bringing my gaze back down to her own, her purple eyes nearly sparkling, "And we're getting more before we leave! We're making a pizza using them!"

I hummed thoughtfully as I considered that. A classical pizza might not work out super well… though that'd depend on the marinara… yeah, definitely marinara… though… hm… mushrooms…? "That could be interesting… though it might be a challenge to do it justice…"

"So we'll need a lot!" she said almost excitedly, giving me a little shake in likely unconscious excitement, which drew my attention to the fact that her face was probably less than two feet from my own, "We'll go get them ourselves!"

Another bite of the meat pie… and it was almost gone, a sads. It could be interesting… it'd be a good opportunity to study the island and its history… especially without going out and screwing people over. We could even make money if we brought in other stuff we didn't want like apex predators hides or other tasty animals… though I still had all of my equipment to rebuild… I swallowed, "Sounds like a plan. Where do you plan to start?"

"That's where you come in!"

"Wait, wha-Ack?!"

Bonney had spun on her heel, one hand still in my vest as she began to tug me along towards the Cake… only problem was that I'd been balancing a stack of steel sheets bigger than I was on my shoulder! My meat pie holding arm pinwheeled desperately as I stumbled forwards–! Suddenly being tugged off balance with nearly a ton of steel on my shoulder was not a good idea–!

*BOOM*

The ground actually shook just a bit as the block of steel dropped end first, planting itself into the dirt and the sudden anchor put a rather harsh stop to Bonney's momentum, "Ack-!" Suddenly stopped by her grip on my vest, Bonney's feet slipped out from under her and both of us dropped to the dirt, the sudden and unexpected changes in momentum further throwing off my balance. Bonney landed on her ass, but me?

I face-planted.

Was able to save those last few bites of meat pie though! I held it up to avoid dropping it in the dirt, which probably looked pretty comica–

*WHUMP*

The fist of the slabs of steel I'd forged out fell right on top of my back with a thud, cutting off my thoughts as I flexed my body into metal.

And then the rest of the stack fell.

*Clang-! Clang! Clangclangclangclang!*

"The hell was- fuck! You okay?!"

"… ow."

-oOo-​

"So, these are basically penguins…? That means-"

"They like ice, obviously! But this is a summer island…"

I glanced up at Daniel as we looked over the local maps of the decent sized island, "… I was going to say that it means they probably either prefer ice or rocky regions and are probably near a major body of water…"

There was an ice pack strapped to my head because of all of the metal. I hadn't been metal for the first one, so it'd bruised. Gonna have to prioritize reflexively turning into metal it seems. Thankfully, I was tough enough that a single slab of steel landing on me while unprepared wasn't that big of a deal.

… still sucked though.

"… penguins don't go with rocks…"

"You don't know your penguins then," I said, looking back at the maps, "Warm water penguins, which we're probably dealing with a variant of here, tend towards more rocky places on coasts. Sadly, it's not what I'm familiar with and this variant could be really different, but it's were we should start looking."

"There's a couple major rivers near this town," Bonney said, looking over the map with us, "But the maps don't detail whether they're rocky or not."

The three of us were trying to plan out where the heck we were going to search. Daniel was the most navigationally oriented of us, though Bonney was pretty good as well. I was mostly here for my knowledge of animals, though I was plenty able to read a map... just, y'know, don't ask me to draw one. We were arranged around the table in Bonney's cabin, looking over the maps Daniel had picked up on the islands geography. Daniel had put his usual dark red coat with gold trim on, it was the classic pirate coat really. Though I found it amusing that his normally shoulder length wavy brown hair was basically pure friz in this humidity and heat. He was a little crazy wearing the damn thing, but at least he wasn't so crazy as to wear long pants at the same time. Though the long tail of the jacket looked weird when contrasted with a T-shirt and shorts.

Bonney though was in her normal white top, short shorts, suspenders, and boots with the bit of frill at the tops. She'd ditched the stockings and jacket and hat for now it seemed. And it'd be a lie to say that I didn't appreciate the exposed midriff. That said, I could definitely understand, the long sleeves of my shirt were rolled up to my elbows and I'd opened up my leather vest, not to mention leaving the V-neck of my shirt unlaced because it was hot.

"So we'll split up into groups to cover them better!" Bonney said with a pump of her fist.

"In what way?" I prompted the captain. Captain Billy wasn't prone to flights of whimsy, though my momma had at times. This could be interesting, and I was admittedly getting swept up in Bonney's eagerness, but still… "Because just saying 'split up gang' isn't likely to work out."

She pouted slightly, straightening and crossing her arms underneath her breasts, tapping her foot as she glared at the map, "Mmm… alright. We'll send out groups, at least one member of the boarding party with them as well as one person who knows how to use a map."

The boarding party was Bonney, Casey, Daniel, Jaime, Lucca and Wallace. I… sort of counted. Though I probably did for this… and I did want to study the island… but I had so much stuff to rebuild and remake. Tools and beakers and burners oh my, "I'd like some time to finish getting my stuff prepared, I finally have enough material to work with."

"Like what?" Bonney asked, looking at me.

I turned my head, "Bullets, presses, tools, the works."

"Hm…" she hummed thoughtfully, turning back to the maps for a moment before she asked, "How long will it take?"

"Give me a day or two and I'll get the basics, though I'd like longer." I wasn't heavily invested one way or another really. I wanted my equipment back, but this could be fun, and I could run from anything that would otherwise have required said equipment.

Bonney thought it over, pursing her lips briefly before nodding, "Get it done then. Take two days and get what you can done… I'm pairing you up with Jaime, the two of you should be able to cover the most distance on your own."

"Fair enough," I nodded, "So how many groups and where are we going? These are the places I'm seeing as likely candidates on this side of the island…"

-oOo-​

"Hey, Ironhide."

"Mm?" I grunted at Bonney inquisitively as I guided Lucca through the motion of making a brass shell casing.

"You're good at making shit right?"

I paused, looking up at the Captain of the Cake and raising an eyebrow at her. She was sitting in one of the few open spaces on the tables in my workshop/laboratory, kicking her feet back and forth with a beer in one hand and a mostly eaten slice of pizza in the other hand, her cheeks and nose a slight pink from the alcohol.

She frowned at me, "What?"

"I'm showing one of your men how to make an entirely new kind of bullet of my own design with a machine of my own design," based off of what I remember from my grandpa's gunsmith room from my past life, and what I'd rediscovered through trial and error over almost fifteen years, "And you are sitting in one of the only clear spots in this place that isn't one of the two chairs or the bed." While I still had a lot rebuild, I'd already made a lot of basic stuff like racks and my microscope and a Bunsen burner and a few flasks, "I think it's fair to say I'm a little good at making shit."

At that, Bonney quite articulately flicked me off with the pizza hand, "Just asking asshole."

"Mhm, and why are you asking?" I prodded, even as I gave Lucca a thumbs up for his efforts. The man was hesitant, but that was a good thing given that we were working with black powder and mercury fulminate.

"You any good at fixing shit?"

"Pretty good," I stood fully, looking to her as I picked up a rag to wipe my hands of the machine grease, "Depends on what shit we're talking about though."

Bonney frowned, the dab of lipstick on her lips twisting in thought. She mulled it over, taking a bite of her pizza to buy herself time. I raised an eyebrow at her as I finished wiping my hands off. Eventually though, Bonney set down her beer and reached into her shorts pocket. It took some awkward but very eye catching stretching to fish the item out of the little pocket, but she did and held it out as she swallowed, "What about this?"

Now thoroughly curious, I gently took the… brooch? Brooch. I held it in both hands, looking it over. It was actually quite fancy, somewhat oval, with a picture inside behind glass… no, painting behind some glass… a painting of an eye and the accompanying eyebrow and cheek… a beautiful brown eye, hard and yet caring, angular face, flowing blonde hair off to the side of the face. It was a really good painting in a really nice brooch. It was gold and lapis lazuli… pretty expensive honestly.

But the back was loose, the ring you'd slip a chain through was bent out of shape, and the glass was cracked, the leafery was fading…

"Yeah… I can probably fix it up some, though I'll have to basically remake some of it, and I'll need to use up some of our gold…" I said, turning it over in my hands and mulling over the options I had. I briefly considered asking why, but I felt it was rude, if she wanted to tell me, she would, "If you wait a few weeks I might be able to… mm… no, that'd be stupid."

"What?"

"Was about to offer to incorporate some seastone into it to make it nearly indestructible, but duh, Devil Fruit user." I said in amused self-depreciating humor. It was a stupid thing to offer before I knew the exact interaction of the substance with an Ability user. The Eyepatch Pirates had never had a devil fruit user, and the only ones I'd met I'd killed.

"No kidd-ing..." She started to smirk before she paused, blinked a few times, and then her jaw half dropped, her eyes narrowing, "Wait… you can get seastone?"

I shrugged, carefully handing the brooch back to her, "With some luck. It's not terribly hard to harvest if you've got the right equipment," said stuff being haki-infused Rankyaku chisels and a diving suit to get to deposits deep underwater, "Just time consuming and requiring a bit of luck to find a deposit. Though I'll have to be more careful now that I have an Ability."

Holding the brooch in her hand, the pizza dangling loosely in the other, Bonney stared at me, "… fucking hell, I have got to stop being surprised when you say shit like that."

I couldn't help but smirk, "That'd probably be a good idea."

*SPLAT*

"Ack! Why'd you have to throw your pizza at my face?!" I smeared it off, the grease dripping onto my shirt, muttering to myself, "At least you didn't kick me…" Pausing, I licked my lips, "… mm! Pepperoni!"

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The McPuffin Part 6 End