"Hey-Hey! Easy! Easy!" Gerard grunted as he was suddenly tossed from the small boat, and dumped onto the wet sand. These last couple of days had not been kind to Gerard. He had the misfortune of turning up on Amazon Lily, and island of women who did not seem to have a fondness for men. To top it all off, everyone on the island possessed haki, which made thing very, VERY difficult for the logia.

In the end, Gerard had been captured, and it was only due to a misunderstanding that Gerard was spared from execution. They had apparently thought that Alisa, his navigator, had captured him and brought him to the island as a trophy. She convinced them to spare him, but they still decided there had to be something done with him.

So they decided to exile him. Apparently this was an island full of dangerous beasts, and a good place for dumping poor hapless men. The women who brought him here watched him as he sat on the shore, his hands bound together. Sure, he could slip free of those bonds any time, but doing so was reckless. Especially when they had haki.

"Enjoy what time you have left man," one of them said in a sharp tone, before she and the others pushed their small boat out and began rowing back to their ship, anchored some distance away. Sure, Gerard could fly, but he could only go so far, and the only ship around was the kuja ship. Gerard was stuck there.

All he coul do was sit there, grumbling as the kuja left him to die here. Only when they were a good distance away did he finally stand up and slip out of the bonds. At least they were nice enough to leave his hat and cane.

In the Calm Belt there lies an island called Rusukaina, it has giant beasts with monstrous strength that surpasses many among the normal seas. This was also the mysterious place were someone had been dropped off many years ago by an unknown scientist whose name had been lost in the ages in translation and translation. This scientist had made a lot of breakthroughs in his days, but the one he's most prominently known for was his cloning experiments which was also his main focus. He almost never succeeded, actually he only succeeded once and that was when creating a Kuja woman. The woman got the ID of 7173 as that was the experiment number she was when she was successfully created.

She got all the major aspects of a kuja, she got their signature haki unlocked, she got the perfect body and was also really tall standing at around 8 feet. Everything went wrong though when the scientist trusted in her albeit too much after she got a consciousness of her own. She override the code that had been placed into her and escaped with the Nikyu Nikyu no Mi, a fruit that had been trusted to her by her creator to be delivered across the sea seeing that her strength was nothing to laugh at. After consuming it and getting found by the scientist she got cryofrozen and dumped at the island of Rusukaina.

Several years passed and the scientist eventually died, and now the ice is about to melt in the dire cave that she was left in, she's about to start to wake up again. As her eyes glinted in the blue-black dark cave she started to realize that she didn't know where she was. Her body feeling restless but also not stretched enough for her to be reliably comfortable. She stretched and stretched and before she knew it she could walk pretty comfortably again. She saw an opening in the grim cracks of the cave entrance and ran towards it slowly accelerating towards her top speed, faster and faster before becoming as fast as a bullet!

She ran and ran across the island seeing fierce beasts that tried to kill her and plants that tried to eat her guts out but one thing didn't connect with her, she had heard someone scream at people nearby, maybe it was worth checking out? As she got closer and closer to the supposed screams she saw a cage, it was quite big and made out of seastone so this person might be a devil fruit user! As she stood right outside of it she asked a simple question to the creature, he didn't look like one of her kind though so she was genuinly interested about where he came from. "What are you? And why are you here?" she said with next to no emotion as she looked towards him, even if she had a gas mask on her face at all times she could still be heard pretty normally, her hoodie and hat squishing down her face to make it almost as hidden as the stars on a cloudy night.

Gerard grumbled to himself as he looked around the cage he found himself in. Well, it made some sort of sense for them to have seastone. After all, Amazon Lily was controlled by a Yonko, and if anyone outside of the marines had access to the stuff, it was them. He could feel the stone around him, weakening him and robbing him of his Devil Fruit abilities. If anything came along that could open the cage, he would be easy pickings.

And speak of the devil, something did approach. Or rather, someone. A rather tall woman wearing a hood, hat and gasmask approached him out of the jungle. And here Gerard thought that he was the only human on the island. Was she a prisoner here too? No, that couldn't be right. She wasn't locked up like he was.

When she asked him what he was (not WHO), Gerard cocked an eyebrow. He leaned back against the cage, wincing from the pain in his shoulder, where he had been shot by a haki infused arrow. The shoulder of his jacket was still stained red with blood. "I'm a man of course," he replied, curious as to she didn't recognize him as a human, "And I'm here because I stumbled upon Amazon Lily uninvited."

She looked upon the wonderful "man", she had of course heard about them before and seen many but this one was different, he was dressed like a true gentlemen, and she didn't ask him what he was because she had never seen something like it, but rather asking who because someone normal shouldn't be trapped in a cage of one of the most rare materials of this planet! This man had to be something different for them to actually want to put all that down on him, maybe he was just someone that wasn't welcome and they just presumed the worst or maybe he actually has grave and great powers? Of course she wouldn't know until she freed him or he got free, so she thought she only had one choice.



As she looked towards the cage she realized that she cant effect seastone, or well, take it out with her skills but maybe there was a way to get him out of there? As she got closer and closer she slipped her hand through the space between the vaults and made her right paw look straight into the eyes of the dapper man before quickly going for a hit towards him before telling him "If you got a thing, do it NOW!" she screamed as she tried to make contact with him to make him fly out of the vaults on purpose, if anything she could always drag out the pain from his body later and they could always find something to make medicine out of something out here. If it were to touch his body now he would get sent flying through the bars hopefully getting him out which was exactly the thing that Valentine wanted.

This place was weird after all, the island was filled with dangerous beasts and huge types of animals making it nothing to look down upon, it is though a great spot for training which she hoped that she could get done whilst she was still stuck on the island. Plus she had to talk more to this person as he seemed strong, cause otherwise why would they maim him like that? Interrupting his movements throughout this world? Did he know haki? Was he something to fret? She wouldn't know until examining him further, this training could do her some good as well though as she needed to wake up more from her long time slumber, and taking out a few beasts on this island would hopefully be enough, with the help of this gentleman they could probably do it pretty effortlessly.

The woman before him didn't seem to respond, at least at first, looking over him before approaching the cage. As she slipped her hand through, Gerard took notice of the pay pads on the palm of her hand. Wait, was this person a Devil Fruit user, like himself? She shouted out for him to do his thing before her palm hit him square in the face.

It all happened very quickly. As the pads touched him, he was launched off his feet, the brief disconnection from the seastone floor allowing him to assume his gaseous form. A good thing too because he found himself shooting back at high speed, through the bars of the cage and outside. Imagine what would have happened had he remained solid? The gas man went flying back before bouncing along the sand, assuming his solid form before sliding to a stop.

The Dandyman quickly looked over himself, making sure nothing of him was missing. Nope, he seemed completely intact. And hell, even that cage he was in seemed unharmed. Gerard wasn't entirely sure just what the hell had happened, but it got him out of the cage, so that was one problem done.

"Well," he said, dusting off his coat as best he could, "That's certainly one way to escape from a cage. Thanks for that.." He looked over at the masked woman, still curious about what her deal was exactly.

"Noo.. problem..." she said as she started blushing slighty, she was pretty shy by nature even if it hadn't shown before, but now when he was outside the cage she could actually interact with him a lot more freely, touch him, be around him... it all felt too weird, it made her think of him as an actual person again according to her shyness. It annoyed her but at the same time charmed her that her senses had returned to her, she hadn't been here too long after all. "Hey, I got a question for ya... Why-" she said as she got interrupted by a nearby dangerous roar bellowing out from the nearby jungle. This sounded like it was nothing to joke around about, as this thing seemed to be truly dangerous whatever it might be. As the sounds got closer and closer her spine started shivering in excitement for a real fight! It had been so long since she had fought anything worthy of mentioning, and now she's woken up in a paradise like this? This was heaven, she was sure of it. Large bird like creatures flew out of the woods in front of her as she readied her battle position raising her fists and putting herself in the common martial artist pose with a threatening message to it. "By the way, we never introduced ourselves, I'm ID-7173, but most prefer to call me Valentine" she said towards the man without even turning to watch him in the eyes whilst saying it, but instead focusing deeply on the jungle to be able to defend from this savagery that called out her name from the rumbling tree tops.

She cracked her knuckles as she awaited the answer from the man and the footsteps got closer and closer to their location and she was ready for this. At least she hoped she was.

Gerard gave a small smile, pleased to be free from the cage. Though he couldn't notice something in her voice. Was that...shyness he detected? This mystery girl who freed him was being shy now? Gerard would have chuckled, but he felt that would have been rude.

But before their little conversation could continue, they were interrupted by a fearsome roar, and one growing closer. It seemed that the wild animals of the island had come across them, or one was just particularly angry. Either way, Gerard was REALLY happy to be out of that cage now. He moved over towards the woman as she shifted into a fighting pose, introducing herself as ID-7173, or 'Valentine'. A strange name, though Gerard wasn't going to ask, at least not now.

"A pleasure to meet you Miss Valentine. Gerard Sinnet at your service."

At that point there was a loud crash, and what appeared a massive bear burst from the trees. The mass of fur, teeth and anger let out a roar as it focused its beady eyes on the pair of them, seeing easy prey. And normally, it might have. But these were no ordinary folks.

Gerard gave a small smirk. Unless this beast had Haki, he didn't really have anything to fear. He took a step forward, pointing his cane towards it. "Tell me my dear, how does bear for dinner sound?" he said to Valentine without looking at her.

And then, a burst of flame erupted from his cane.

"Sounds... delicious~" she said with a very cute tone directed towards the gentleman before she saw that another bear was coming other than the first one, meaning they had two opponents to fight off... unless... she took cared of it. When the idea blistered in her mind as she saw her companion take care of the other bear she started to run to accelerate to max speed before dodging a flurry of bear attacks before she dashed to the second bear. As she appeared in front of the second bear she raised her hand high up in the air before slapping the bear across its bear face, and just like that in a moments pass its as if a super super small typhoon took up the bears spot before disappearing, and the bear was gone.

"I've handled one of them, you got the other?" she screamed across the field as she ran to a more secure spot before watching the man fight the bear in an epic, royal fight against one of the higher ups of the jungle versus the one that she recently saved. She thought that they grow up fast but then she realized that he isn't her child, and thus started to think about why she would care really other than him being strong and being created by a gas like substance? Was it the Gasu Gasu no Mi? Maybe the Moku Moku no Mi with color changes thanks to some sort of scientist work? Ough so many possibilities and so little time she thought to herself before being stuck on the conclusion that it's his business either way, and thus she doesn't really care in the end anyway.

As she sat down to rest herself she proceeded to watch the gaseous man fight the bear using contraptions and the like, his cane seemed to be able to shoot she noted and his gas can take many abilities... which was all very interesting...

The bear roared and reared back, the flames from Gerard's came slightly singing its fur. Meanwhile, it seemed like another bear was joining the party, which Valetine took on and dispatched with a scary amount of ease. Easy on the eyes AND powerful to boot. Very nice.

Though right now, Gerard had his own bear to worry about. The bear roared and charged, bringing a paw up to strike at him, just as Valentine called out to him if he could handle himself. The bear's paw swiped through him, his body shifting into gas before reforming, unharmed. "Yeah, I think I've got this," he called back with a smirk. Suddenly, a blast of air around Gerard knocked the surprised bear back, not really harming it badly, but more stunning it.

The bear let out a vicious snarl as it pulled itself back up, ready to take another swipe at the gas man, only to get a face full of poisonous gas. The bear bellowed out, swinging its paws to try and clear away the stinging fumes. Through barely open eyes, it failed to notice the stream of flames coming from Gerard's cane.

There was a loud blast and the bear fell onto its side with a crash, his face charred from being in the center of that fireball. It wasn't dead per se, just rendered unconscious. And really, that was all Gerard could really ask for to be honest.

With their opponents dispatched, he turned his attention to Valentine. "Well, this is certainly a way to meet now isn't it?"

She chuckled a bit to the Gerard's comment before answering his question with "Yeah it most certainly is! You got interesting powers gas man!" she said as she chuckled albeit a lot more than before whilst wondering if she could take him down if worst comes to worst. The bear had been knocked unconscious by his powers though with the gas and the flames, which she thought was actually pretty damn cool!

"I'll go get firewood for that thing, if you hear a loud blast its probably just me getting some wood." she said as she walked straight into the forest as calm as ever. She was ready for the worst though and she always was seeing as she was supposed to be a high ranking officer in some schmucks army to conquer anything and all, not because she abides by those rules but still it serves as a fact. Walking through the quite nice and warm summer weather, as she wandered through the burly and quite cumbersome jungle she started to notice roars and birds flying off, screaming, and all types of sounds. These animals weren't normal after all, seeing that gigantic bear was probably around 5-10 meters tall, and she thought that after encountering that thing there should be more like it, and probably animals other than bears that are that freakishly huge!

She started to think more and more about what island she was on, and the only ones she could think of was Little Garden and Rusukaina, both pretty horrible spaces but in Little Garden there were actual volcanoes, so this might actually be the safer place as she hasn't heard an eruption yet at least. As she got closer and closer to her destination she started counting the last few meters. "395... 396.... 397.... 398.... 399... 400 meters!" she said as she counted for her attack to be safe distance away from Gerard, just in case he was just a show off. As she raised her hands in the air a projectile started forming in the image of a huge paw bubble. It grew bigger and bigger before becoming just about 10 meters in diameter over her head with her palms next to it before shrinking down to a small, 30 centimeter diameter ball. "Yush, lets do this" she said as she targeted a section of trees just about a hundred meters away. "Lets see if those gets demolished completely and how big the safe range is of this thing..." she said as the projectile flew closer and closer the trees, before coming one hundred meters total and exploding in a huge blast the size of 300 meters diameter, as it exploded she repulsed the air behind her and shooting herself forward to escape the blast.

When she returned to it there was mostly just a crater left, but outside of it trees had fell, all the trees around this 300 meter diameter crater had been knocked down thanks to the heavy windforce, which made it a lot easier on her and saved her quite a lot of time! As she wandered back with several trees over her head she wondered to herself. I wonder if Gerard heard that?.

skills used:

Gerard grinned at the compliment. It was always nice to be appreciated for his abilities. He couldn't help but think back to Joey, the boy with the dinosaur zoan. He had always seemed so amazed when he saw anything new. He hoped the kid was looking after himself.

When Valentine offered to get firewood, Gerard nodded with a smile, then raised an eyebrow when she mentioned an explosion. This girl was getting more and more interesting. First helping him escape seastone, then making that bear disappear, and now explosions? He really should ask what Devil Fruit the girl possessed.

As she left, Gerard sat himself down on the unconscious bear. He had to be ready incase the massive ball of fur woke back up. A couple of whacks from his cane should do the trick. As he perched on his furry seat, he took the opportunity to look out at the ocean before him. He kept thinking about his current position. He had been the ruler of an island, an up and coming star. And now he was stuck on a deserted island in the calm belt. Granted, it was a deserted island with a really attractive woman, but still.

He propped his head on his cane as he thought of Alisa and the guys on the Steamer. Were they able to get off of Amazon Lily alright? Were they on their way here now? Or had something horrible happened to them? No, he couldn't think like that! He had faith they were on their way here now. Maybe when they got here, Valentine would like to come as well. How had she gotten onto this island anyway?

Suddenly, there was a thunderous explosion. The whole island shook from the blast. Gerard spun around to see the remains of a shock wave some distance off. The thing was enormous! Animals and birds screeched in panic as the roar died down. Gerard almost sprang to his feet before he remembered what she said.

"Ok, keep calm Gerard. It's probably Valentine. Nothing to worry about," he said to himself, sitting back down on the bear. "Besides, whatever was caught in that blast is probably in pieces right now."

At that point the bear began to stir, roused by the explosion.

WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!

And the bear was down again.

As she got closer and closer to the campsite she saw her manly companion use their last opponent that they beat, or well he beat, though to be fair she at least took one down, she started seeing him on a throne, or well a bear throne which she found quite fitting for him for some reason. This person seemed pretty extraordinary for a "normal" man. A gas man, made out of whatever, it might even be as cool as her fruit, but she didn't like to boast about her powers all that much, seeing as she had been frozen for who knows how long as well didn't help with this as she doesn't remember much, especially not her power levels.

Did this man know how to sail? Or was he carried here by someone else? By who? What type of ship did they have and most specially where in the hell where they? When were they?? She wouldn't know seeing her cryofrozen adventure. It was something weird about it to her, falling asleep and waking up in all of this, what had she done to deserve something like this? Maybe it was all good and greatly in the end but that doesn't mean she enjoyed the travel to this time. Waking up in a cave wasn't as glorious as she thought her life would be at the end after all. As she drove closer and closer to the camp the 12 trees she carried on top of each other in groups of bulk atop her shoulders weighed heavier and heavier even though her strength handled it pretty glamorously.

"Hey Gerard, this should be enough for that giant thing over there that you've obviously made your throne. If you got the time we could always talk a bit now, get to know each other you know, cause I'm pretty interested in how you ended up here after all, and you're probably interested in my power. How about we prepare that thing and sit around the campfire?" she said towards the unbelievable dapper gentleman before her, more talkative than usually. She thought about him hearing the explosion was a thing or if she had counted alright to keep it out of his worries but no doubt that was nothing to think about, thinking about power can happen later.

It wouldn't be long before Valentine returned to the campsite, and needless to say, Gerard was impressed by the strength she displayed, carrying those trees around like they were nothing. He eyes widened slightly at the sight. "Woah." he murmured softly.

With the firewood collected, it was time to get dinner started. A shot through the eye of the bear with his cane gun put the beast down permanently. Unfortunately he didn't have a knife on him, so there was really no way to skin the animal. Maybe Valentine had one. He proceeded to drag the massive bear towards the campfire (a display which showed strength was Not Gerard's strong point) and took a seat on the sand while while the bear was prepared.

"Well, if you want the full story," he began to explain, "I had turned up on Amazon Lily, looking for a partner of mine. Unfortunately the kuja there don't exactly take kindly to men just turning up on their island. So they chased me around, shot me," He gestured to the blood stained shoulder of his jacket, "And captured me. Thankfully my navigator stopped them from killing me and decided to simply dump me here on this island to die. He turned to look out towards the sea. There was still no sign of the steamer. "I hope they got off the island safely." he murmured.

He shook his head and turned his attention back to Valentine. "Well, it's your turn. How'd you end up here? And I'm curious about that Devil Fruit you've eaten." Once the bear was ready, a burst of flame from Gerard's cane would start the fire.

As the flames roar from the lit fire in front of her the campfire crackled and sparked in front of her. It seemed like before she had been frozen she was really hungry cause her stomach was growling more than the bear at one point, at least she thought so. It was as if nothing could stop her anymore after having started cooking the bear and gulping down the savagery meat with some juices from nearby plants that didn't seem dangerous at all. It tasted sweet in a sense as she broiled it up and served it between her and Gerard. "Well, I don't remember a lot of my life and how it played out during my years other than me being a creation of some kind, of some scientist. A lot is blurry, and what I know is mostly limited right now to me being frozen solid in a cave where I wandered out of to find you. I really wanna discover more of why I'm here in the world and such but as of right now I have no idea.." she said as she scrumbled around in her pockets and such, before finding an eternal log pose, "Seems like I have this log pose to Trost, some island you know maybe?" she said as she talked to the dapper man without looking up as she polished the compass like contraption.

"I also know that I was supposed to be some person of importance in this scientist or maybe someone else army because of my devil fruit, which is the Paw Paw fruit, allowing me to repel anything from these paws that I have on my palms, which include pain and fatigue even, which I'm trying to figure out if it allows for things such as sadness or happiness to be surged out of people as well as that would be quite useful to have." she said without taking any merit of any pause before sighing a bit and scratching her eyes before continuing, "So well, the explosion you heard before was a super compressed air bubble exploding in a 300 somewhat someish diameter,
and when I blew that bear away I simply transported it somewhere else for the moment being..." she said as she took a big sip of the juice before letting it slip down fully to continue on, "and well, I can also do that thing I did with the bear, to other people and even myself,
allowing travel to be quite... nice actually. Other than that I seek to get out of this island soon, as I got a normal log pose as well..." she finished as she took up the other log pose in her pocket which seemed to be a normal one meant for paradise and the new world alike. Hopefully this person could help her out of here as she didn't know at the level she would float above the sea when transporting herself maybe risking encountering sea kings on the way that could devourer her whilst she slept in the bubble that flew her over to a new island. Plus she had just woken up, she doesn't like risking things and would much rather stay alive than risk it to get out of this place in an instant as this person actually was... quite nice.

infoz: