One Piece: The Power System

Rein and his crew continued to walk through the desert with thirst taking them over. Fortunately, Nojiko had bought freshwater from Bulwark City, so she was able to distribute some water to everyone. Rein and Erica took some water despite not really craving it.

"Phew, that is refreshing, goodness! I'm not used to any of these conditions." Vindicate gulped the water down almost instantly.

"Don't speak for yourself, my village maybe a nice sunny place but this part of the island is truly harsh." Nami was sweating bullets, which made the bra she was wearing under her shirt visible for all to see.

"Yeah, I can also see your pink bra, not bad." Vindicate said casually, he nodded with his hand on his chin thoughtfully.

"Y-You! Don't look!" Nami tried to cover herself but there was no point in trying, she would eventually have to drop those arms soon.

"Wow, I can't believe Nami would wear such a s.e.xy bra, my gosh!" Kuina cut in and teased, she eyeballed her on purpose wanting to make her feel more embarrassed.

Rein looked over and tossed Nami a towel to cover her c.h.e.s.t area. "You can wipe your sweat with that and cover yourself afterward." It was too bad he didn't have the weather fruit, because if he did he would have made it rain for sure.

"Ah, thanks!" Nami smiled and wiped herself and covered up.

"Darn, Rein, you're no fun!" Kuina wanted to mess with her more but Rein rained all over that.

"Hehe, I got to enjoy an eyeful too, so it's all good!" Rein chuckled and kept walking. Nami's mouth twitched after hearing Rein's comment. Kuina also chuckled and looked at Nami who had a weird smile on her face. Nami wanted to bonk Rein over the head but he was moving faster away from her on purpose!

"Run while you can!" Nami whispered under her breath.

"Erica, you're not sweating one bit, neither are you Rein, what is that all about?" Nojiko looked at Erica and Rein who were speed walking like these conditions were nothing.

"It's because of our Devil fruit abilities that we don't sweat in the type of weather, in fact, this weather doesn't faze us one bit." Erica didn't hide anything and told why they were doing so well. Everyone was confused, what was a Devil Fruit?

"Oh, haha, I'll tell you more about Devil fruits later, I forgot you guys don't know much about those things." Erica scratched her head and turned around.

"This Devil fruit sounds evil." Vindicate whispered to himself, but his voice didn't go unnoticed by Rein and Erica who only smiled and continued walking. It seemed they had a lot of explaining to do when they had the time.

After about twenty more minutes of walking, they saw huge silhouettes in the distance. With Rein's eyesight, he was easily able to see what they were. They were huge pyramids, to be exact, there were a total of three of them.

"Goodness, they must be about 150 feet tall, they're massive!" Rein was astonished, were the pyramids in his world even that big, he thinks not. Hearing what Rein said, they all looked at him seeking an explanation.

"What do you see, I can only see a small dot in the distance." Erica squinted her eyes and tried her best to see further but couldn't see anything. Rein's Zoan type devil fruit had really improved his eyesight by many folds.

"Pyramids, like really huge pyramids!" Everyone gasped and felt delighted, this was especially so for Nami. Pyramids meant treasure for sure, it was in all sorts of books she had read in the past. Everyone else had heard of Pyramids but had never seen them. Everyone was eager to check it out as soon as possible.

"Hmm, do you ever get that feeling that you're being watched?" Vindicate was having a terrible feeling he had felt for a while now but didn't think much about it. But now, it felt stronger than ever, were they being watched from somewhere?

"Watch?" Kuina looked around cautiously.

"Don't look around to alert them that we know about their presence. Besides, it's only a feeling, I'm not sure if we're being watched or not!" Vindicate said quickly, he was always s.e.n.s.i.t.i.v.e to stares or when he was being watched.

"Damn, remind me to knock out a few horses and take them away next time, jeez!" Vindicate complained, he'd never walk so much in his life. He changed the subject unknowingly quick!

"Pfft! Relax, we're almost there anyway, so there is no need to worry." If Nojiko could take it then Vindicate could, was she tougher than him? Vindicate stopped talking, he didn't want to be defeated in perseverance against a person with virtual no fighting power.

Over time, they eventually made it to the pyramids, they looked at the towering pyramids in awe. Rein thought about what Vindicate said about being watched so he was very cautious, he shot out his Observation Haki but saw nothing. The people were either extremely far away or there was no one at all.

"Look, there is a stairway that leads into each pyramid. Do we split up or go into one pyramid at a time together?" Kuina didn't think it would be a good idea to split up at this point or they'd get lost for sure.

"We won't split for this one, it's best we go together for now." Rein said. Everyone had no problem with this and agreed to start with the middle pyramid. The group began to ascend the stairs, it was a good thing it wasn't so high as compared to the actual size of the pyramid.

Once they were at the top, they were met with stone entrance doors. Rein pushed against the door and they slowly started to open up. Once they were open, it revealed complete darkness inside, no one could see anything inside.

Rein formed fire on his hand, thus lighting the hallway up. "Look, there are torches on each wall, we can light them up to brighten our path." Nami spotted the torches on handls on each wall immediately when the room was lit.

Erica hopped right on it and started lighting up the torches with her fire. "This power is just too strange, black fire doesn't make sense at all." Vindicate shook his head, what kind of force was this, it was something not of this world to him.

Nami grabbed one of the torches and followed closely behind Erica, who was lighting the torches on the wall as she advanced. They kept walking down the long and wide hall that almost seemed endless. "I wonder how many calories I burned on this walk, this hallway almost seems like it will last for eternity!" Vindicate touched his stomach, how much weight did he lose?

"Hahaha! Just keep walking!" Rein could only laugh, but he was right, this hall was long as he**! Just when Erica was about to complain as well, they came across a large room that was completely dark.

"Light it up!" Rein and Erica didn't hesitate and shot fire in the darkroom. The room was lit up like the 4th of July and all was revealed.

Suddenly, the room strangely lit up with light by itself right after what they did. The fire they had used was extinguished by some unknown means but the room was bright now so it didn't matter how it happened.

"What is that?" Nojiko pointed to a wall nearby.

"It appears to be some strange symbols!" Erica made a guess.

"Hmm, it looks like a puzzle to me, maybe we have to solve it?" Kuina had seen something like this before in some scroll her dad had.

"It really does look like a puzzle, but how do we solve it?" Right after Rein said that, the platform near the puzzle began to glow blue. On the platform, a number appeared, which was number two.

"Uh! What does this all mean?" Vindicate, like everyone else was just staring at the blue platform with surprise.

"I don't know, but I'll go check it out." Erica volunteered to go first.

"Wait, it might be dangerous!" Rein stopped her, he didn't know what this meant. This was something that wasn't in the series so he was clueless at the moment.

"Rein, it's okay, I won't be taken down so easily, I've been with you all these years and have learned a lot." Erica was very touched and spoke gently to persuade him. Rein played with his eyebrows and looked at the Platform again.

"Sigh, okay, but the minute it looks dangerous, get out of there." Erica nodded softly with a smile and walked up to the platform. Once she stepped on the platform, the number turned into the number one.

"Oh, the number change beneath her, it must mean the number of people that stepped on the platform."

"Does anyone else want to head up there with her?" Rein asked, just when he was about to step forward, Nojiko volunteered to go up. Rein allowed Nojiko to go and the number two disappeared the minute she stepped on the platform.

Suddenly, the platform flashed with a brighter blue light and a barrier appeared around the platform! "What the... we can't leave the platform!" Right as Erica said that, some sort of small pillar came from the ground.

On the small machine was some sort of puzzle, it appeared that they would have to solve it to be freed. As soon as the puzzle appeared, a timer appeared as well, they were apparently being timed on this!

Smash!

Rein formed a flaming sword and slammed hard on the barrier but nothing happened. No matter what Rein and Vindicate did, they couldn't break the barrier. Nojiko and Erica focused on the puzzle they had to solve or else, who knows what would happen?

But once they looked at the puzzle, they almost fell to the ground. "What is this, it's a frigging picture puzzle!" The picture was a picture of some sort of Blue cat with green eyes. Wasn't this easy to solve? However, Erica was too slow, so Nokjiko took over to put it together. There was one piece of the puzzle off to the side to be put in after all the other pieces were put in place.

After six minutes, Nojiko put the picture puzzle together after Erica wasted 2 minutes failing. The timer only gave them ten minutes to complete the puzzle. Suddenly, the barrier flashed green and some words appeared on the ceiling in big green letters.

Congratulations, you've completed the puzzle successfully!

Transferring to Spring Valley!

"What!?" Everyone looked at the words in surprise, who was getting transferred? The barrier began to blink green and suddenly, Nojiko and Erica were warped away!

"What is going on?" Nami's eyes dilated.

Rein calmed down. "I think they were transferred to a special place in the pyramids, perhaps. Maybe solving the puzzle has something to do with it. The place was called spring valley which sounds pretty good." Rein was only speculating, he wasn't sure at all.

Afterward, the platform turned blue again and the number 2 popped up on the platform again. "Do we send someone else again? Maybe if we solve it, we'll be able to transfer to where Nami and Erica are." Vindicate suggestion seemed more realistic, so everyone agreed with this.

Vindicate walked up to the platform and so did Nami. Rein had noticed that Vindicate had a terrible sense of direction just like Zoro so it was best for Nami to be with him. The picture that appeared next was much harder!

"Is this for real, why is it so much more of a challenge than Erica and Nojiko's puzzle?" Vindicate protested, he didn't even know what kind of animal it was. The animal was actually a Chimera, but who would know of such a creature?

Beads of sweat appeared on Nami's forehead. "What is this animal, I've never seen anything like it!" Nami punched the puzzle in anger, she felt cheated. Rein looked at the puzzle and knew exactly what it was.

"It's a mythical creature known as a chimera, it's understandable that you don't know about it. The goat part goes on the back, while it has a lion head with a tail of a snake." Nami and Vindicate listen, what an intimidating creature, its whole body was a weapon, not to mention how fierce it looked.

Both Nami and Vinidcate tried to put the puzzle together as best as they could. Rein could only sigh looking at the two struggle. Maybe Nojiko's luck played a big role in her getting something so easy to solve.

Time ran out and the puzzle wasn't solved! They had failed!

The barrier began to glow a Red color which signified their failure. Like last time, more words appeared on the ceiling of the room. The barrier began to blink red quickly.

Too bad! You've failed to form the puzzle!

Transferring to Dread Forest!

"Gasp!"

"Oh no!"

Nami gasped in horror while Vindicate smiled bitterly, then suddenly, Poof!

Kuina was silent as she watched everyone disappear through this platform, she was a bit worried getting on this thing. The platform returned to its previous color, which was blue, and the number two appeared again.

"A-Are we going to head up there as well?" Kuina was a little afraid of the unknown, she wasn't so sure about this platform.

"We have to, this could lead us to somewhere important." Rein had no choice at this point, once Erica and Nojiko warped away, his choices were taken away. Kuina scratched her head while looking at the platform. After a bit of time, they both ascended the platform.

Like usual, a barrier formed around the platform and a puzzle came up. Rein was easily able to understand what type of animal it was, it was a lion's head. "I got this, there's no need to worry about anything at all." Rein started to move the piece around to solve it while Kuina only watched intensively.

And just like that, Rein solved it.

Congratulations, you've completed the puzzle successfully!

Transferring to the Jungle of Infestation!

"Infestation!" Rein face changed a bit, what did this mean? Kuina didn't like the word infestation at all, it reminded her of bugs which she hated! With a green light, both ported away in an instant.

Dread Forest.

At this time, Nami and Vindicate are walking through a gloomy and slightly foggy forest. "Damn, this place is giving me the creeps!" Vindicate looked around but couldn't figure out where they were.

"Stay close, don't run off, who knows what could be in this forest!" Nami was very scared right now, it was no telling what was here and how they could get out. As they were walking, they came across a field of pumpkins.

"Ah, pumpkins, this place is definitely hunted or something." Nami's eyes were wide, her expression looked grave seeing the field of pumpkins.

"Dang, will we be forced to eat pumpkins for the rest of our lives!" Vindicate picked up a pumpkin, this particular pumpkin, like some that were present, was carved like the typical Halloween pumpkin.

Nami knocked the pumpkin out of Vindicate's hands and said "Don't pick it up, you might get cursed or something! Those things aren't supposed to be carved, someone carved them!" Nami looked around cautiously but saw nothing but fog and eerie dead trees.

"If anything shows itself, I'll just have to shoot it down, that's all." Vindicate also looked around but saw the same thing. Looking around, he noticed another pumpkin but this pumpkin was black with a strange stem, it had some swirls on it as well. This was no ordinary pumpkin from what he could see.

"W-where are you going?" Nami asked as she followed behind him. Vindicate stopped and picked up the black pumpkin.

"This pumpkin, doesn't it look weird, why is it this color with these strange designs on it?" Vindicate analyzed the pumpkin. He also noticed that the stem was completely different from the average pumpkin.

Nami looked at the pumpkin and said, "Hmm, it does look strange, the color is unnatural, it may have rotten over time or something." This was a good assumption that anyone would conclude, but to the trained eye and the experienced people of the world, they would know that this was a Devil Fruit!

"Hmm, I'll hold onto it for now, it would have a terrible smell if it was rotten." Vindicate put it into a bag that was strapped to his side along with his pistol.

"Sigh, Okay, let's search for a way out of here, fast!" Nami was anxious to leave this dreadful forest, it truly lived up to its name. However, they soon heard screeches of horror approaching them from afar.

"Ah! What was that!?" Nami was shocked and hid behind Vindicate. He pulled out his pistols and took aim at the place he heard the screeches.

A fight was bound to break out.