After collecting Hatch's bounty the... I need a name for this crew. Dud and crew chose to get back on course to the Grand Line.
"And Vorstin takes the champion ship again," announced Dud dejectedly.
"I almost had her," growled Fredric; he was hooked.
"Honk," said the queen of racing condescendingly, getting a rise out of the normally stoic first mate.
With Herbie being Herbie, the crew had a lot of free time. When Fredric found out about all the features, he lectured Dud about what was generally the common practice, after which Fredric spent some time in the workshop setting up his tools and found himself bored, at which point he was introduced to racing, and well, we see the outcome of it.
The current ranking was Vorstin, Herbie, Fredric, and Dud. Vorstin and Herbie regularly switched spots, the bird being surprisingly good at racing.
"We should go to bed. Did you pick a room?" Dud asked as he stood up and stretched.
"Yeah," said Fredric as he joined him as he headed to the living quarters.
Dud lay on his bed as he silently brought up the Gacha like a chore he needed to get done and saw two notifications.
{Achievement: New Blue Island.
1X Bronze ticket} X2
{Achievement: False member.
1X Bronze ticket}
{Achievement: First member.
1X Gold ticket}
He raised an eyebrow at the False member notification and shrugged as he realized it was about Hatch, he engaged them the tickets more like levers in his psyche.
Bronze:
[Larger than Life]
|Common Trait|
People feel like your presence is larger than it should be. Even if you are a head shorter than them, it will still feel like you are towering over them.
[Match]
|Trash Ability|
Allows you to light a small flame on your fingers, barely qualifies to be a lighter.
[Novice Driving]
|Common Skill|
You know how to drive most vehicles; you are no expert, but you won't fall off your bike or start driving into pedestrians.
Gold:
[Clone]
|Epic Ability|
It allows you to clone yourself and operate your bodies as a hive mind; you can use your abilities from anybody you control, but creating and maintaining clones costs energy, with this energy cost rising exponentially with each clone. Every time a clone is killed, a portion of the damage they took is reflected back on you.
"Huh. Neat," said Dud softly as he drifted to sleep.
Dud's sleep was disturbed by another worldly sound resonating deep in his bones. Since Herbie wasn't raising alarms, he figured it wasn't anything dangerous and went to the deck and lost his breath. They were surrounded by mountains, moving, singing mountains.
Dud's heart swelled with awe, his eyes misted as he witnessed one of the largest creatures on the planet.
"First time seeing a continent?" asked Fredric as he came to stand next to Dud with a smile on his face.
"Huh?" said Dud intelligently.
Fredric opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and simply gave Dud a shoulder pat and joined him in whale watching.
Dud broke out of his stupor long after the Island whales disappeared to the deep oceans.
"What was that?" Dud asked Fredric in awe and childish excitement.
"That was a continent of island whales," replied Fredric with a smile.
Dud opened his mouth to ask more questions but was stopped by Fredric raising a hand and stopping him.
"I don't know much about them. You are better off asking a marine biologist about them if you want to know more."
Dud frowned and lit up like he had a great idea. "I know who is going to be our next crew mate!"
"Let me guess. It's a marine biologist?" asked Fredric with a deadpan.
"it is a marine biologist!" agreed Dud with the enthusiasm of a kid describing his ideal team.
"We will have to head to Unac then."
"Is that the place where we are going to find our marine biologist friend?"
"Yep, it is an island that specifically caters to maritime research and so attracts a lot of scientific attention."
"You heard the man, Herbie! To Unac!" announced Dud and received an enthusiastic beep and a concerned beep.
"What happed to Vorstin?" asked Dud as he hurried to the bridge. Fredric shook his head and followed his captain.
A few minutes later. In the galley.
"Nothing will happen to you while I am here, Princess," reassured Dud as he carried Vorstin like a baby. Vorstin gave him a soft, scared honk as she buried her face in his chest.
"Yes, the world has big loud creatures, but I won't let them hurt you. I am always going to take care of you, and nothing can hurt you as long as I am alive." Dud reassured his familiar only to receive a worried and harsh honk.
"Here, let me show you something," he said as he placed her on the table. She panicked and tried to run onto Dud only to be confused as she spotted 2 of him; both of them grinned at her with mischief.
"See! I can explore and"" stay by your side all the time," they said together.
"WHAT THE HECK?!" yelled Fredric, pointing at the Duds. Heh, Duds.
"Well, I guess I owe you an explanation," said one of the Duds as the other carried Vorstin, who was still figuring out the two-dud situation, to her nest.
"Yeah, no shit! What the heck are you?" asked Fredric as he took a seat opposite of Dud.
"You know what devil fruits are?" asked Dud as Fredric calmed down a little.
"Yeah, they are these mystery fruits that grant you weird powers that are worth millions. I know Vorstin has eaten one, which is why she can lay golden eggs. I thought you had one that lets you create portals, but that doesn't explain you making a copy of yourself. 'Explain yourself' was left unsaid.
Dud opened his mouth but then stopped. He had a choice here; he could play off Fredric's answer and blame it on devil fruits, but that would be a lie and not something he could reasonably manage, or he could just not explain and brush it off, which would be awkward and destroy whatever trust/companionship they were building, or he could tell the truth as he understands it without revealing the gacha and the tickets. Something about revealing the existence of the gacha filling him with dread.
Fredric made a difficult face and was about to say something when...
"I woke up in Scrap Town 4 months ago with no memories to me other than my name and general common sense." "Dud," said stopping Fredric.
"I have something in me that randomly gifts me devil fruit-like abilities and items that either replenish themselves or have mysterious power or both and {familiars}. {Familiars} are animals and things that have some degree of intelligence or are alive like Vorstin and Herbie," said Dud gesturing at the ship.
"That's it?" asked Fredric, sounding disappointed after he waited for a few moments for Dud to continue.
"What did you expect?" asked Dud, surprised and kind of offended.
"I thought you had some sort of gross ritual where you ate the flesh of devil fruit users to steal their powers and were gathering those powers to become super strong." "Fredric said, disappointed."
Dud's face filled with disgust. "I am not a monster, thank you very much. What exactly do you think of me?" demanded Dud.
"An idiot with no purpose drifting around with power you don't understand."
Dud opened his mouth to argue, then shut it because it was true.
"Fair," agreed Dud, grumbling.
"So, is reaching Laugh Tale something you decided on, or is it something forced on you?"
"Something was forced onto me because of a combination of factors that are way too complicated for anyone to even understand or believe," said Dud as his face turned stony.
"Say, you are believing my words too easily."
"I am good at reading people, and Herbie isn't something anyone in the current era can even think of. Besides, what choice do I even have? I want to stay in this crew, and the contract prevents us from harming each other. Speaking of, is that one of the powers gifted to you?
"Yep."
"Huh. If there is nothing else..." said Fredric as he rose to go to his room. He had a lot to think about.
"I can grant people a weaker version of some of my gifts." Fredric sat back down and stared at Dud with absolute focus.
"Next time lead with that and also explain!"
"One of my gifts is to give a weaker version of some of my gifts to people; I can only grant one gift per person, and I can only grant a gift twice before I have to revoke it from a previous person."
"What 'gifts' can you give me?" Fredric said with eyes shining.
"There is... I will make a list, and can we discuss it tomorrow? I am tired," said Dud as he suppressed a yawn.
"This isn't over, and if you get any new powers, I want to know." Fredric said as he left.
"Sure," said Dud after him.
A few moments later, Vorstin was curled up on his side, his clone dismissed, and he opened the gacha for the last time to get it out of the way.
{Achievement: Sail with the continent.
1X Gold ticket}
He engaged it and got:
[Cheshire Cat's ring]
|Uncommon Item|
{Black souls} - A gold ring with the engraving of a cat that looks suspiciously smug. When wearing this ring, you are immune to falling damage even if you drop from 100,000 kilometers.
Dud dismissed it and went to sleep.