Alvida stepped through the portal and looked around in surprise.
"Where is this? This isn't where we came through before."
"Marcus, come in. I'm ready," Kira's voice called out from somewhere ahead.
Alvida froze.
Come in? Ready? Things were moving this fast?!
Her heart started racing. Had Kira made the first move already?
She peeked around the corner and spotted Kira standing near another portal entrance, her cheeks flushed bright red.
"Come out, Alvida. I can see you hiding there."
Well, shit. Busted.
But Alvida didn't hesitate. She walked out boldly, head held high. She hadn't done anything wrong, if anyone should be embarrassed, it was these two sneaking off together.
When she emerged and saw that both of them were still fully clothed, she felt a bit relieved.
"I just saw you two suddenly heading back to the Nether, so I got worried about Kira."
Marcus didn't seem bothered by the excuse. Kira, however, kept her head down and said nothing.
"I just heard something about 'come in' and 'I'm ready'..." Alvida raised an eyebrow suggestively. "So what exactly are you two up to?"
Kira's face turned an even deeper shade of red. "I wanted Marcus to do the soul possession thing for a bit."
"Oh!" Alvida sucked in a breath. "Didn't think you had it in you. That's some kinky stuff."
She'd only ever fantasized about that kind of thing in her head, this girl had actually gone and asked for it.
Marcus rolled his eyes, clearly understanding what Alvida was implying.
Kira's blush spread all the way to her ears as she hurriedly explained. "It's not like that! I just wanted him to help me develop my Devil Fruit powers! I've been training my body, but when it comes to using my fruit... I have no idea what I'm doing. I still can't even figure out how to do that fire-breathing thing he mentioned."
"I don't want to just be the girl who can fly around. I want to help fight."
"That's it? Here I thought something interesting was finally happening."
"Why the hell are you disappointed?!" Marcus blurted out before he could stop himself.
Alvida sauntered over and draped her arm around his neck. "Because I'm disappointed you didn't make a move on her, obviously. Her body's not tempting enough for you? Want me to give you a hand?" She pulled back slightly. "Or are you just not interested in either of us?"
Faced with Alvida's sudden boldness, Marcus found himself completely out of his depth.
"Haha! Look at you! You've already seen everything, but you're still...."
Make a move? If it were just Alvida alone, he might've already done something. But with Kira standing right there...
He turned to look at her, hoping for some kind of rescue from this situation.
She was covering her eyes with both hands, but she'd spread her fingers so wide you could see right through them. That apparently wasn't enough either, because even the wings on her back had folded in around her like a shield, though not completely closed.
She looked like a startled quail trying to hide.
He had no words.
"Hahaha!" Alvida laughed freely, her whole body shaking.
There was no denying it, she had become seriously attractive since her transformation. Every movement radiated confidence and sensuality that she'd never possessed before.
She ran her fingers through her hair, suddenly becoming more serious. "Actually, even if she hadn't said anything, I was planning to ask you myself. That thing you told me before about air resistance, I didn't really understand it. You said to activate my ability all over my body except for my feet, but I don't feel like it's made much difference."
The sudden shift to business caught Marcus off guard, but he recovered quickly and decided to explain properly this time.
"When you run forward, you feel wind pushing against you, right?"
"Yeah."
"So if you make your skin smoother, that reduces the wind resistance. That's the basic concept."
Alvida nodded slowly, but Marcus could tell she still wasn't quite getting it.
"Alright, let's do a demonstration."
He pulled out an ender pearl and threw it about a hundred meters away. The familiar disorienting sensation of teleportation pulled him across the distance instantly.
"Run from where Kira is to me. Don't use your ability."
Alvida didn't hesitate. She crouched slightly, then exploded forward using Shave.
One hundred meters in 1.33 seconds.
"Now do it again, but this time use your Slip-Slip Fruit."
Alvida reset her position and ran again, this time activating her Devil Fruit power to make her skin completely frictionless.
One hundred meters in 0.9 seconds.
"That's the difference. About a 30% speed increase just from reducing air resistance."
Alvida blinked in surprise. She'd honestly never paid attention to the specifics before, but there really was a difference.
"Even though we can't see it with the naked eye, there's actually something in front of us called air resistance. The faster you move, the greater it becomes... hmm, you're both looking confused."
Marcus switched to a simpler analogy. "When you're underwater, it's harder to move, right?"
"Obviously."
"And the faster you try to go, the more you feel the water pushing back against you?"
Both women nodded in unison.
"Air works the same way. The resistance is way weaker than water, but it's still there. And once you break the sound barrier, the resistance shoots up dramatically."
"Sound barrier?" Kira asked.
Another term they'd never encountered before.
Marcus spent the next few minutes explaining the concept of the speed of sound and what happened when objects moved faster than it.
"You know when someone cracks a whip and you hear that sharp snapping sound? That's because the tip of the whip is moving faster than sound, it's literally breaking the sound barrier. Geppo works on the same principle, by the way."
After that explanation, both of them looked like things were starting to click into place.
"So here's the thing about your Slip-Slip Fruit," Marcus continued, looking at Alvida. "If your physical strength isn't that great, the effects will be minimal. You'll just have smooth skin that's nice to look at."
Alvida shot him a flat look at that comment.
"But," Marcus went on, "if your speed is already high enough to approach the sound barrier, and then you activate your ability, with the same physical strength, you'll suddenly be moving significantly faster and hitting much harder. The stronger your body becomes, the more powerful your fruit's effects will be. It's likely a multiplicative effect, not additive."
He smiled, pleased with his explanation.
Alvida's lips twitched. "If I was already that strong, it wouldn't matter what fruit I ate. I'd be powerful regardless."
Marcus could only shrug. "True enough. If you had Big Mom's physique, any fruit would be terrifying in your hands. Even something like the Calm-Calm Fruit would be absolutely broken."
"The what fruit?"
"A fruit that creates zones of complete silence. Hm... any fruit can become incredibly powerful as long as the user improves themselves. The fruit just gives you options, but it's your job to make those options deadly."
Alvida frowned, clearly thinking hard about something. "So there's no other way to develop my fruit? Just get stronger and hope the effects scale up?"
Marcus looked her up and down. "Actually... there might be another approach. Want to try something?"
Before she could answer, he activated Soul Possession.
Alvida felt Marcus' presence entering her body. She didn't resist. She willingly relaxed and handed over control of her body, curious to see what he had in mind.
The instant he took control, her entire demeanor changed. Her posture shifted, her weight distribution altered, and she lifted her left leg in a way she never had before.
"Huh. So it can be done like this."
Then, using her body, he performed a perfect Rankyaku.
A thin, compressed air blade shot out from her leg, slicing through the air and smashing into a nearby obsidian pillar.
"Did you feel that? The leg positioning, the way I channeled the force, the timing of the kick?"
Alvida took back control of her own body, staring at her leg. Even though she'd surrendered control, she could still sense everything her body experienced.
"The essence of Rankyaku is all about launching a vacuum blade through an instant high-speed kick. With your Slip-Slip Fruit, you only need to slip a tiny portion of your leg's resistance while keeping the rest normal. Of course, you still need perfect coordination between your body's strength and the technique."
Alvida immediately tried to replicate what she'd just felt, but all she managed was an awkward spinning kick that looked more like a dance move than an attack.
"Ugh... it's the same body! Why can you pull it off so easily while I can barely control my own leg?"
"Simple. You're a rookie. Practice more."
"Marcus!!!"
Alvida's face flushed, but she couldn't really argue. He'd just demonstrated the technique using her own body. The evidence was pretty damning.
Kira had been watching this whole training session with pitiful eyes, like a puppy that had been promised a walk but then forgotten.
Marcus noticed and patted the girl's head. "You know, if you don't speak up, nobody's gonna know what you're thinking. Haven't you heard the saying about the squeaky wheel getting the grease?"
Kira nodded enthusiastically. "Then it's my turn! Come inside me!"
The phrasing made both Marcus and Alvida pause awkwardly.
Marcus sighed and activated Soul Possession again.
"You wanted to breathe fire earlier, right?"
"Mm-hmm!"
"So in your mind, what kind of creature breathes fire?"
Kira thought for a long moment. "A... dragon?"
"Then become a dragon."
The transformation began immediately.
In that instant, light exploded across the Nether. Scales erupted across Kira's body as she swelled, transforming from a young girl into something truly massive.
"ROAR!"
A red dragon raised its head and let out a loud cry.
The creature was huge and terrifying. Sharp, crystal-like horns swept back from its skull. A fiery glow burned beneath its throat. When it spread its wings, the ground seemed to tremble. But the eyes were what truly commanded attention. Bottomless and black as the void, they looked as though they'd seen the world take its first breath.
On the ground, Alvida stood completely frozen, staring up at the dragon.
When her gaze met those black eyes, a crushing pressure slammed into her chest.
"What... what the hell..."
The dragon's jaw cracked open, revealing a building glow of crimson light deep in its throat.
"ROAR!!!"
A pillar of fire erupted from its maw. The concentrated inferno slammed into the landscape, and in the distance, massive explosions of fire rose into the sky.
The sheer heat was overwhelming even from this distance. Alvida had to shield her face with her arms.
But as the echoes of destruction faded, the dragon's red scales dimmed and shrank, the massive body withering like a flower in fast-forward until Kira's small human form reappeared.
Her legs immediately gave out, and she crumpled to the ground, gasping for air like she'd just run a marathon.
"Kira!" Alvida rushed forward. "What happened? Are you okay?"
Marcus returned to his own body, looking slightly winded himself. "She's just exhausted. Transformation based purely on imagination drains stamina like crazy. If you understand the creature's biological structure, or if your willpower is strong enough to maintain the form, it costs way less energy."
He knelt beside Kira, checking her pulse. "She'll be fine. Just needs rest and probably a lot of food."
Kira couldn't speak, too busy sucking in huge lungfuls of air, but her eyes were still shining as she stared at the distant flames.
Alvida looked between the destruction in the distance and the collapsed girl on the ground.
"Jealous?" Marcus asked with a slight grin.
She punched his shoulder, but there was no real force behind it. She let out a long sigh. "Yeah. I'm jealous. That kind of power... it's on a completely different level from what I can do."
Marcus pulled out a golden apple and handed it to Kira, who bit into it weakly. Color immediately started returning to her face.
He looked out at the still-burning explosions in the distance. He'd originally planned to transform Kira into Kaido's Azure Dragon form. After all, there was a perfect template already existing in the world, and it wouldn't be too far from people's expectations.
But when he actually started the transformation, the image of Igneel just popped into his head. And since the Zoan fruit worked off pure imagination anyway… why not steal from another anime?
That's how the earlier form had come about.
But there was something he hadn't mentioned to the others. At the exact moment of transformation, He had felt like he'd broken through some kind of barrier. And for just an instant, he could've sworn he heard something. It sounded like distant wailing.
The transformation had been too brief to investigate properly. And the intense physical drain afterward had left him barely able to do more than breathe out that single pillar of flame.
"When your Devil Fruit awakens one day, your abilities could easily rival what we just saw. Might even be harder to defend against," he said, trying to cheer Alvida up
"Don't patronize me." Alvida sat down heavily on a piece of netherrack. "There are clear gaps between different Devil Fruits. That's just reality."
She'd lost the excitement from earlier.
Marcus scratched his head. Comforting women wasn't exactly his area of expertise. But he decided to be completely honest rather than offer empty reassurances.
"I'm not trying to make you feel better. I'm being serious." He sat down beside her. "Based on what I know about Paramecia awakenings, when your fruit finally awakens, it'll probably have external environmental manipulation. Let me give you an example."
Alvida looked at him skeptically but stayed quiet.
"Luffy's fruit, when it awakens, should turn everything around him into rubber. Your Slip-Slip Fruit could theoretically make anything you touch completely frictionless. Now imagine what would happen if you made the air itself frictionless."
Alvida frowned, trying to visualize it. "The air becomes frictionless? I don't really understand what that would do."
"Then think about breathing. Air flows into your lungs, right? But if that air is perfectly frictionless, it would slip right back out before your lungs could absorb any oxygen. Your opponent would basically suffocate while breathing normally. That's sealing their breathing. And if you make the ground frictionless too?"
"They'd lose all traction," Alvida said slowly. "No foothold means no way to generate force for attacks or dodges. They'd be helpless, sliding around like they're on ice but with no way to stop."
"Exactly. Your enemy becomes totally vulnerable while you can walk on the frictionless surface just fine because you're the source of the effect." Marcus smiled. "So don't sell yourself short. Your ability has serious potential once you master it."
Alvida smiled slightly, nodding, but her expression soon clouded over again. "But Devil Fruit awakening is dangerous, isn't it? I've heard people can lose themselves."
The topic of awakening had come up several times among the Straw Hat crew. Sanji knew the most about it, being the only member who'd actually read through a Devil Fruit encyclopedia that included information about awakening risks.
Devil Fruit awakening could be incredibly dangerous. If the user couldn't resist the will embedded within the fruit itself, they'd lose their personality, their memories, everything that made them who they were, becoming nothing more than a mindless beast acting on instinct.
Among the three types of Devil Fruits, Zoan fruits awakened most frequently, followed by Paramecia, and finally Logia fruits which almost never awakened.
"Don't worry about that. Paramecia users either don't awaken at all, or they awaken normally. Being taken over by the fruit's will... probably won't happen with your type."
"Why did you suddenly sound so unsure at the end?" Alvida shot him a flat look.
Marcus winced. He really couldn't give her a solid guarantee, and he knew exactly why.
For over twenty years, everyone had called Luffy's power the Rubber Fruit. And then one day, out of nowhere, it turned out to be the Human-Human Fruit, Model: Nika. A completely different fruit with a mythical Zoan classification and a literal god's will inside it.
If it had just been a normal Paramecia awakening, sure, maybe he would've gone from Gear Fourth to Gear Fifth with some environmental rubber manipulation. But instead, he'd transformed into Nika, and everything about Luffy's personality had seemed to shift toward embodying that guy. His laughter, his combat style, even his cartoon-like physics-defying movements.
And there was one more thing that had confirmed Marcus' suspicions about Nika's influence.
Luffy was the only person he couldn't possess.
He'd tested it, and had immediately felt a powerful rejection. Which meant that Nika's will truly existed within Luffy. After all, Soul Possession was fundamentally a form of control. And Nika, the so-called Warrior of Liberation... well, control was literally the antithesis of everything that he represented.
Marcus kept all these thoughts to himself, though. No point in worrying Alvida about theoretical risks she'd have no control over anyway.
"Just focus on getting stronger first. Worry about awakening when you're strong enough for it to be a possibility."
Alvida snorted but seemed to accept the advice. She looked over at Kira, who'd finished the golden apple and was now sitting up.
"That was amazing," Kira said weakly. "Can we do it again?"
"Absolutely not," Marcus and Alvida said at the same time.