One Piece : Safety second

The Crooked Island, at least that's what they called it anyway. It was an uninhabited island that was filled with poisonous trees. Hansen and the leftover Fatare knights reached the island the night before and were waiting for their log pose to adjust.

"What about this?"

"Throw it away."

"This?"

"You can't eat that either."

"How about this?"

"Keep it aside, boiling it in water is enough to remove the poison in it."

In a corner of the forest on the island, Hansen was helping to sort out the edible fruits from the poisonous ones. After all, they had to stay here for around a week for the log pose to adjust, at least that was what he was taught.

With the island being filled with poisonous plants and trees, there was no wildlife that could survive on this island. So, a few of the Fatare knights looked for edible fruits or vegetables, and the rest of them had gone to the shore to try their luck with fishing.

"Did you catch any yet?"

"No. And stop asking me that."

The older knight said in exasperation. He had long noticed this newbie's enthusiasm, which was always directed in the wrong direction.

"What about the rest? You think they caught anything yet?"

"How would I know that?"

"Yeah, right. How would you know? Anyway, we're lucky there was fishing equipment on the ship we took, huh?"

"Uh-huh, hopefully we catch-"

"NIHIHIHIHIHI!"

The conversation got cut off midway when they heard manic laughter coming from somewhere. When they turned around to look, they saw a brown-haired boy jump at the rookie knight and chomp his head.

The rookie tried to look up, only to have his eyes get covered by the blood that was dripping down from his head.

"Aahh! Get him off!"

Immediately he started running around, trying to pull Jerry off his head. The commotion soon gathered all the Fatare knights that were around, who looked at the rookie running around in amusement. 

But their fun did not last long, as they noticed somebody else approaching. Looking towards where they were hearing the footsteps from, they saw two men and a woman. Tyke, Yuuki, and Della.

Watching Jerry trying to chew someone's head, Tyke shook his head and said,

"This is what happens when you just put everything in your mouth."

As soon as Tom had smelled Hansen and took off, Jerry tried to follow him but got distracted by a beautiful-looking mushroom. Like the glutton he is, there was no way he wasn't going to eat it.

Of course it ended up being a poisonous mushroom, as the island was filled with them. Experiencing hallucinations, Jerry was chewing the rookie knight's head while imagining it to be a delicious fruit.

Ignoring the guy who was screaming for his life, Tyke cracked his knuckles and said, 

"Let's pull him off after we deal with everyone here."

**********

In another part of the island, Hansen was glaring at a fully transformed Tom, who just finished taking care of all his subordinates. 

Dropping the last one he was grabbing, Tom undid his full transformation, leaving only his feet and hands still transformed, and turned towards Hansen.

"Time to settle the score."

Throwing a look at his unconscious subordinates, Hansen furrowed his brows and asked,

"Not going to use your transformation?"

"For you? Don't need it."

'Looks like he's just as arrogant even after losing.'

Letting out a scoff, Hansen charged at Tom and swung his right fist. Tom ducked under it and swept Hansen's legs. Falling to the side, Hansen turned the fall into a roll and rolled away.

Getting up hurriedly, Hansen looked at Tom, only to find him just standing. It seemed to Hansen that Tom was still underestimating him. Taking out one of his dials, Hansen used it, releasing fog from it.

Tom looked at the fog that was rapidly filling the surroundings. Deciding that this time he would end the fight quickly and not play around, Tom rushed towards Hansen. 

As soon as Tom got closer and swung his fist, Hansen defended with another dial that let out a ball of cloud. Thinking that Hansen was using it to block him, Tom stopped his fist midway and tried to kick him, only to get peppered by hail that came out of the cloud.

Tom guarded his face and jumped back to create some distance. Looking forward, Tom realized that the area was covered with fog now and clicked his tongue.

Closing his eyes for a moment, Tom concentrated, and soon a tail burst out of his pants.

'Tsk, wrong one.'

Normally, Zoan users have only three forms. 

The human form, the user's natural form prior to eating the devil fruit.

A human-beast form, this form combined the characteristics of the human form and the species of animal the Zoan fruit gave them.

And finally the beast form, which was the full transformation into the Zoan-bestowed species.

But Tom was one of the few Zoan users who could willingly change only a certain part of the body. It was something he realized in the recent days after using it so much.

Soon after his tail came out, the area below Tom's eyes began to change. Slowly, a muzzle grew out, a small nose and a mouth on it, and two whiskers coming out of the sides.

Sniffing the air for a moment, Tom got down on all fours and started running in a direction. As he got slightly closer, Tom heard the crackling of lightning and reached out into his pockets.

*BANG*

Hearing the lightning strike something, Hansen thought he had hit Tom. The area around was still filled with fog he released, so he couldn't get a good look. Letting out a few more lightning strikes, Hansen threw away the dial as it ran out of clouds.

With the fog around him mostly cleared away because of the lightning strikes, Hansen tried looking for Tom but only found trees.

As he scrunched his eyebrows in frustration, Hansen noticed an iron rod with a wooden handle stuck to one of the trees. Hansen noticed that the rod was crackling with lightning and realized he had only hit the rod.

Understanding that he was played, Hansen tried looking for Tom. Before he could find him, Tom emerged from behind a tree and punched him in the face, sending him tumbling away.

Hansen spat out the blood that came up to his mouth as he slowly got up and looked at Tom while sneakily taking out another dial.

"The same thing won't work twice."

Hansen activated the dial in his hand as soon as he heard that and let out a lightning cloud. Only to see Tom casually toss an iron rod, which ended up attracting the lightning.

"Looks like it really won't."

Clicking his tongue, Hansen put away the useless dial and braced himself for a tough fight as he looked at Tom.