CH2: Fruit

Commander Crohn, the new leader of Marine Base in Alghero, the 91st branch, pulled out a pen wrote down Victor's name.

At the same time Victor and Perona walked towards The Black Axe Bar. Meters away Victor groaned and turned to Perona, "Perona, you go home first."

Perona looked at Victor with a bit of worry in her eyes: "Are you gonna be ok? I can stay too! I've practiced with my ghosts a lot!"

Victor ruffled the pink-haired girl's hair and smiled: "Don't worry, it's just an regular award ceremony. You know what to do"

After making sure Perona had left, Victor's eyes turned cold and he pushed the door into the bar. Although it was still early afternoon the bar was nearly full, Victor walked straight past bar and it's bustling customers and pushed open a door towards a compartment, his vision widened, as the internal compartment of the Black Axe Bar, specially prepared by the Coral Organization for its gang cadres, was deceivingly spacious.

Inside, there was a largely empty luxurious round table. Only a square box is in the center of the table. A few people stood behind the table, they are all cadres of Coral.

There was another person sitting comfortably on the sofa behind the table.He's chest and arms were wide and even while sitting down you could tell he was tall, a cigar lay in his mouth, and he had short purple hair held together by a golden pin.

He didn't get up when he saw Victor push the door in, instead he inexplicably smiled and said: "My best subordinate, dear Victor, did you count it? Although a bit complicated I'm sure it was easy for you wasn't it?"

"You've overestimated me, Boss. Cartman didn't want to hand over the money, so I sent him for a swim…" Victor paused slightly "..as per the rules"

The man's brows angled into a frown,"That waste dared try to steal from me?! Did he think I wouldn't know?! He's lucky death was his only punishment!" Victor chose not to comment

"Anyway, you've done a great job in Katsuri Town, you've got everyone convinced! And as promised I got it for you. After all I agreed to your request!" As he said that, he pushed the box on the table in Victor's direction, and a smile spread across his face "Open it, it's worth a billion Berri! A true treasure of the sea!"

Victor ignored the smiles of the people around him, and slowly opened the box. There, lay a blue cantaloupe like fruit lying quietly in the box. It was small and covered with jagged stripes.

The surrounding officials sneered, after all Boss Piping had already told them what the power of this fruit was. Generally speaking, only a very small number of people can distinguish between the powers contained in Devil Fruits based on their appearance, but this fruit was an exception.

It is know island-wide as a 'waste fruit' or the zipper zipper fruit. The fruit, as the name suggests, allows the person who eats it to become a zipper person, who can then open zippers on objects in contact with their body.

Six years ago, a Marine Lieutenant-Commander ate the fruit by chance.As a result, he not only got a near useless ability with no attack potential, but also became a dry duck.

After he was killed in a skirmish the fruit reappeared out at sea years later and Pipping the leader of 'Coral' obtained it. At the time, Pipping already had Buru Buru no mi model: Buffalo, so he instead chose to try and sell the fruit for a good price, but after 3 months, not to mention 100 million Berri, no one would even buy it for even 30 million.

After a few inquiries, he learned that because the deeds of the Lieutenant-commander Marine were so famous at the time, everyone who had the money to buy it also knew what it looked like, why would they spend 100million on a mobile storage when they could just use a crate? Even worse the so called storage couldn't swim! In a world where the surface is 95% covered by water who would take that risk?

After many failed bargaining attempts, Piping had to deposit the fruit in his own vault, eventually forgetting it.

Victor had taken the initiative to join Coral with his sister Perona two years ago, and completed a plethora of difficult missions with near unmatched skill. The most amazing one being when he was alone in Katsuri a month ago, being ambushed and then severely damaging six cadres and the Underboss of the "Suleyman Family", another big gang in West Blue, causing the "Suleyman Family" to instantly lose nearly all of its top combat power. In desperation, they had to make concessions towards Coral, leading to huge benefits.

According to the rules of the gang, Victor's credit if it were turned to Beri, would be worth 100 million, but Victor, who has always seemed indifferent towards the reward of Berri, instead requested to get a Devil Fruit.

But Pipping had already been weary of Victor for a while now, fearing being usurped by his own subordinate, he refused to give Victor a devil fruit that could give him a massive upgrade in strength, yet with Victors increasingly dazzling achievements outright refusing would be challenging the rules of the gang, which would lead to even more problems.

When Pipping was contemplating his dilemma, one of his subordinates reminded him "Boss why don't you just give him the useless one you have? It'll shut him up without making him stronger!"

Pipping had bellowed when he heard his subordinate, of course! Even if Victor knows the power of the fruit, he'd have no choice but to satisfied, he wanted a Devil fruit after all!

Pipping then immediately went to make arrangements, bringing together the members of the gang and holding an award ceremony. He even gave him an early gift and let Victor personally go deal with Cartman who had been embezzling the gangs money, after all Pipping knew Victor had wanted to kill him even before the rogue molested Peron

In the secret apartment of the Black axe Bar, as everybody watched, Victor took no liberties and immediately bit down on the fruit, sure enough it was as disgusting as the legends said but his complexion never changed.

He had already steeled himself for this moment, after all everything was going as planned, for 2 years he had worked and schemed to get himself in this position, and now finally in his hands lay the zipper fruit, a special paramecia a fruit rarer than even the revered Logia Devil fruit! Victor couldn't stop the grin appearing on his face, first goal accomplished!