Uber-Talented Gamer in the Omniverse

A/N:

" ": Dialogue,

' ': Thought,

[ ]: System, Akasha, Minerva,

"Italicized text": Telepathy,

| |: Artificial Intelligence,

{ }: Bounty Posters,

"Bold text": Deathborns.

Before I begin the chapter, I just wanted to say thanks for 1 million views on this novel. I honestly didn't have any expectations about my writing, but I'm glad to know that there's people who'd like to read it anyway.

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Marshall D. Teach POV

Location: Grand Line, Paradise

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

What the hell kind of monster is it that chose to target me?!

*Flashback*

After that white-haired guy told me that I'd lost the Yami Yami no Mi, I wanted to laugh at him. But when I tried to bring its power out, I felt nothing, almost like the Devil Fruit had simply fizzled out of my body. I rushed back to the ship, calling Jesus, Lafitte and Q to come with me. I asked where Van Augur was, but they said they hadn't seen him for a while. I decided that getting the fruit was more important now than finding him and headed onto the ship to check for it.

I searched for it, practically turning the damn ship upside down, but nothing. I cursed the white-haired bastard out, as he was the only one that knew that I'd somehow lost the Devil Fruit. Now the only thing I could do was find him and make him bring back the fruit. I didn't kill Thatch and risk Whitebeard and his crew coming at my neck for this shit.

"Well, well. What have we here?" I heard that bastard's voice, and turned to look at him, only to see Doc Q's head in his hands. "You son of a b-!" Jesus began shouting, only for his entire top half to suddenly disappear. All that happened, and I had no idea what he even did to kill Doc Q and Jesus, which was crazy, considering I have Observation Haki.

"You don't need to worry about me killing you, Teach. Ace is gonna be the one to do that." He said, and his words nagged at me. Why the hell did he think that Ace of all people, would be the one to defeat me?! "No matter where you go, Ace will find you, Teach. It's no prophecy or hope. It's just fact." He said with a smile that sent a chill up my spine.

"Captain, we need to g-!" Lafitte started talking, only for his voice to also abruptly stop. Just like Jesus and Q, he too was now dead. Damn it! It's very likely that this bastard also killed Van Augur. "Why are you doing this?! I never did anything to you, did I?!" I asked him. He looked at me with that same chilling smile. "I just don't like you, Teach." He said calmly.

"You are the quintessential image of a pirate – willing to do whatever, join hands with whoever, screw over whoever, kill whoever, if it means you achieve your goals. It's also the reason why I feel that it's best for everyone else if you are taken off the board for good. So-." He said, then snapped his fingers. "I'm making sure that you have no way to fight against the knife that'll chop down on your neck." I didn't know what he meant then, but damn it, I do now.

Instead of attacking me or wounding me, he lightly waved his finger, and the ship began to drift into the sea. I could only watch as Jesus, Lafitte, Doc Q and that horse of his crumbled to dust. But before leaving, he showed it to me. The very Devil Fruit I killed Thatch for – the Yami Yami no Mi, in his hands. Then suddenly, he vanished.

*Flashback End.*

 I don't know how the hell that monster did it, but my body still has the cons of eating a Devil Fruit, but none of the powers. So now, I'm basically doomed to be adrift until I either run aground, or until Ace finds me. I can't swim or use seastone, and with what little time I've got before Ace finds me, I can't get my Armament Haki up to a level where I can beat him. So much for chasing my dreams.

…

Narrator POV

After Dante had returned to the pier with Luffy, Zoro and Nami, they joined the others on the Going Merry's deck. Dante greeted Robin, Chopper, Usopp and Sanji, then seemingly turned to empty space, crouched and made a patting motion. "Hello, Merry. It's nice to meet you." He said softly, as if speaking to one of his daughters.

The Straw Hats were confused as to what he was doing, seemingly talking to the air. Noticing their confusion, it clicked for the Invictus family that the Straw Hats were still in the early part of their journey, so they wouldn't be particularly sensitive to spiritual phenomena or beings, such as their ship's Klabautermann.

Dante smiled, then released a subtle pulse of energy that impacted spirits of the Straw Hats. The next instant, they turned to look at the childlike figure whose head Dante was patting. But rather than feel any hostility towards the new stranger that seemingly appeared from nowhere onto their ship, they felt an odd familiarity, almost as if the figure had been with them for much longer than they had any idea.

*Merry*

"Since you can see her now, I guess I should introduce her to you." Dante said, picking up the figure. "This is Merry, and she is the Klabautermann of your ship." He said, and Merry waved at the Straw Hats. Robin's eyes gleamed with recognition of the term, but her face scrunched up. "I thought those were just old tales of sailors that spent too much time on the seas." She said skeptically.

"It would shock you to know this, Robin. But a great amount of tales that most people dismiss as simply those, more times than not carry truth, even more so than the so-called logical theories that others make, at least in this world." He said, gently dropping Merry onto the deck. She ran up to Luffy and hugged him, then to Usopp to do the same.

"Excuse me for asking but, what is a… What did you say she was again?" Usopp said as he awkwardly patted Merry's head. "Klabautermann. They're the incarnations of ships that develop a life of their own due to being well loved and cared for by their crew. Essentially, she's a result of you guys caring for your ship… If you call this wreck cared for." Dante said as he looked at the multiple poorly repaired spots on the deck of the ship.

"Normally, they only show themselves when their crews are about to face great danger or when the ship they inhabit is in danger of being destroyed." Dante's words stung Usopp as he looked at the places where he made the admittedly subpar repairs to the ship. "But we're pretty much capable of seeing anything, so I just made it so you can see her." Dante said with a pause that indicated he was about to say something that would be unpleasant.

"But honestly, you guys aren't far off from either of those conditions." He said, then waved his hand. "But that's a talk for another time. For now, to help you guys make your preparations to get to Skypeia." He said, then snapped his fingers. The Leviathan released a tractor beam that functioned as a towing line, as it sauntered over to Jaya's eastern coast.

"Where are you taking us now?" Nami asked as the Going Merry was dragged beside the Leviathan. Dante sighed and created a hologram showing all of Jaya in extreme detail. "Over here. The person who'll help you guys prepare to get to Skypeia lives there." He said, pointing to a part of the coast that looked that was some distance away from Jaya's jungle.

*Map of Jaya*

As they continued moving over the sea, Dante looked to the Leviathan and sighed. "Ready a single cannon." At his command, one cannon emerged from the left side of the Leviathan's hull, sleek, futuristic, and charging with energy. It was mounted on a swivel that allowed it to fire in a hemisphere, giving it greater attack range.

The Straw Hats were confused as to why he suddenly called forth a cannon, until they saw a ship in the distance. The ship was considerably large and had three large trees planted on its deck in place of conventional masts, and three large sails attached to said trees, with the forefront sail having a Jolly Roger with an orangutan-shaped skull with green hair, and the text 'Morinohito' written underneath.

It had an orangutan as its figurehead, and on either side of the ship was a large paddle shaped like an orangutan's arm that held two structures, which were chambers where teams of divers worked from. This was the Utan Sonar, the ship of the Shoujou Pirates, a crew of treasure hunters and undersea explorers that used echolocation, with their crew being named after their captain.

Normally, when the Shoujou Pirates come across a ship on Mouth Bay, they would essentially shake down its occupants for a so-called toll, with the excuse that that area of the sea was their captain's territory. But that was mostly when ships smaller than the Utan Sonar were involved, not when they were faced with a titan like the Leviathan. As their ship approached the Leviathan, the cannon swiveled to face them.

"R… Retreat!!" Shoujou shouted in a cold sweat, as he saw his life flash before his eyes. His crew members, feeling the same fear, turned the ship away from the Leviathan's path in a bid to avoid catching the ire of whoever commanded it.

As the Utan Sonar moved away, Dante spoke. "Well, that's one problem done with." He said, then instructed the Leviathan to move faster, while holding the Going Merry's hull together, so it wouldn't fall apart from the speed. The sudden increase in speed caused the Straw Hats to stumble, with Usopp even tripping and slamming his face on the deck.

"Sorry about that. But look on the bright side, we'll soon be there." Dante said, then looked up. The Straw Hats saw this and looked up, and saw another white-haired girl that looked like Ciel and Saya, except for the fact that her hair stopped at her shoulders. In her hands was the fishbowl where Dante had opted to keep Laboon. This was Sera, the third of Dante and Shiraori's daughter who actually wanted to come out of the Leviathan.

She used Dimensional Maneuvering to jump down onto the Going Merry's deck, right beside Dante, then hugged him. "Can you imagine that? After going through everything I did to give birth to them, it's their father that they hug first." Shiraori said in mock hurt. "Well, if you cooked as well as Dad does, we'd hug you first." Saya said as she skipped over to Sera and began dropping meat chunks into Laboon's fishbowl.

"Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell you. Luffy, that's Laboon." Usopp said, pointing to the fishbowl. "Huh?" Luffy said, then craned his neck to look at Laboon, which for him, meant stretching it to over 3m in length. As he looked at Laboon, he noticed multiple differences from when he last saw the Island Whale. The scars he remembered it bearing on its face were gone, its teeth seemed sharper and its scales sturdier, gaining a similarity to reptilian scales. And of course, it was multiple times smaller than he remembered.

But even with all those differences, he noticed the familiar look in Laboon's eyes and its gentle, playful nature, as well as the scrawled-on sketch of their Jolly Roger that he had painted on the front of Laboon's head. "Long time no see, Laboon." He said with a wide grin. "How'd you get like this? I remember you being a lot bigger." He said, walking up to the fishbowl and returning his neck back to its normal length.

"Dad shrunk him. That way, he's easier to carry around." Sera replied. "Hey… What's your name again?" Luffy asked, genuinely curious, as Dante hadn't told them his name yet. "Oh, that's right. I hadn't introduced myself yet. My name's Dante Invictus. This is my wife, Shiraori." He said, flickering over to her side and kissing her cheek. "And these are three of our little girls; Saya, Ciel and Sera." He said, gently pinching his daughters' cheeks.

"Whoa, how'd you move like that?!" Luffy asked with sparkles in his eyes, while Sanji and Zoro looked on with interest. "Oh, that? That was just a little technique I made when I was about… What, 5 years old, I think." Dante said playfully. "You seem to have left out that your 'little technique' combined two movement techniques from this world with like, seven more from other worlds." Shiraori said, exasperated by Dante's refusal to stop his brand of mischief.

"That… sounds impressive." Robin said, not particularly familiar with the concept of movement techniques. "It is, but he likes to act like it's not, because he instantly masters any skill he even playfully tries his hand at." Shiraori said offhandedly, as if that revelation wasn't something that would crack anyone's sense of reality, while Dante snickered to himself.

"I could teach you guys the technique, but before that, I have a question for you." Dante said, then created an energy construct of a chair. "Are you ready?" He said cryptically, with his hands at his chin. "Sure I am! Bring it on!" Luffy said, but Dante looked at him intensely.

"It seems that you didn't understand my question, so I'll reiterate it. Do you believe that you are ready to face the New World?" He asked, this time with his question going to all of the Straw Hats. All of them went silent as they contemplated, all except one.

"New World, Schmew World. Let it bring whatever, I'll just beat it up!" Luffy said, twirling his arm with a defiant smile. "I see." Dante said, then promptly snapped his fingers. The Straw Hats all fell unconscious, trapped in their own minds, as they witnessed the sheer power and destruction that pirates and Marines within the New World were capable of, as well as the New World itself.

…

In Luffy's mind, a scene showing the capabilities of the Admirals of the Navy played out. Sakazuki, the Admiral otherwise known as Akainu(Red Dog), demolished pirate crews with swiftness and attacks made from magma. Borsalino, otherwise known as Kizaru(Yellow Monkey), moved at massively hypersonic speeds, firing off arrows of light and kicking pirates, both causing massive explosions. Kuzan, the Admiral known as Aokiji(Blue Pheasant), seemed to fight almost lazily, but this was what brought a modicum of fear to Luffy, as Kuzan's attacks froze entire swathes of sea and people near-instantly.

In Zoro's mind, scenes showing swordsmen from around the world performing feats he hadn't even thought that humans would be capable of. He saw swordsmen practically throw their slashes, bisecting hundreds of people in a single blow. Swordsmen releasing slashes capable of cutting mountains and meteors, others capable of releasing tens, hundreds, and even thousands of slashes in the time it would take him to blink.

Nami saw the rage of the sea and the true unpredictability of the Grand Line in terrible fashion. She saw absurd weather conditions tear ships far stronger than the Going Merry like paper, reducing them to driftwood and killing their crews regardless of their affiliation, all because the navigators couldn't keep up with the changes.

Usopp saw battlefield where lives were reaped like wheat, the dead were reduced to statistics, and powerful attacks were thrown around without care for who they hit. He saw races that he had no idea existed tear through each other, with their flesh, blood, bone and organs getting strewn across large swathes of land.

Chopper saw entire crews, islands and even nations collapse to disease. He saw ailments that even with Kureha's training and Hiriluk's medical books, he couldn't even help to treat, let alone cure. He saw people and animals alike lose their lives in droves, as illness ravaged their bodies and resigned them to agonizing deaths.

Robin saw something that she never wanted to see again – a repeat of the same fate that befell Ohara, her homeland. She saw an island that was home to a civilization she couldn't recognize being attacked by the Marines. Their crime was the same as her homeland's; researching the Void Century, a period known as such because all knowledge from that time seems to have disappeared from the face of the planet.

She saw men, women, children and the elderly be ruthlessly murdered by agents of the World Government. Sakazuki launched fists of magma into the air, that upon landing, reaped lives, giving their victims horrifically painful deaths as they burnt alive. The ones that could fight struggled to save who they could, but with the Marines overwhelming them in both firepower and numbers, it was clear that this was going to be a losing battle.

Sanji saw what he could only describe as the worst of humanity. He saw people that betrayed those close to them for profit, people who turned on those that saved them from the jaws of death without batting an eyelid. He was appalled by what he saw, but he knew that such behavior wasn't far-fetched for humanity. He thought of what he would do if he were actually there, capable of intervening in such situations.

As time passed, the scenes that each of the Straw Hats were seeing began to meld into a singular tapestry, showing that what they saw was in fact multiple hypothetical situations that used real people and the capabilities of said people. They turned and noticed each other, as they were originally in isolated mindscapes, but before they could even try saying any words, a bright flash overtook the space, returning them to the waking world.

…

Thirty seconds had passed since Dante sent the Straw Hats into the telepathic illusion that he created, and they had now begun stirring awake, each of them with something of an understanding of the New World and how much danger it posed to them as they were, and how they needed to transform from the motley crew they are now into powerhouses and strategists that could not merely weather the travails of the New World, but thrive in them.

"So Luffy, still think you're ready for the New World as you are?" Dante's voice jolted all of them alert. Luffy, for what seemed like the first time in his adventure over the seas, had an expression of regret. He thought back to the words he said before they all went under, and came to realize that regardless of how much he tried to laugh about it, they were weak.

"No. If what you showed us is what many people there are capable of, then we'll only be going there to either lose or die. If either of those happens, I can't become the King of the Pirates." He said, his hands clenched and his face solemn. "Good to see that you've at least got some level of judgement. Now, would you like to actually be ready to face the New World?" Dante said, spreading his question out to all of the Straw Hats.

Although they didn't answer, as their minds were still occupied by the images they saw, Dante noticed the resolute expressions that each of them carried, even on Usopp and Nami, their weakest members. "Good. For now, let's get off the ship. We're here already." He said, and they all looked around and saw that Shiraori and their daughters were now walking on the shore.

Right at the edge of the coast was a large veneer that depicted the front of an opulent house, with cannons and multiple doors. It was an impressive display, but at the end of the day, it was just a veneer. Behind said veneer was a house, much smaller than the veneer, barely passing half the height of the veneer.

"Who even lives here?" Nami asked as she stepped off the Going Merry. "A man called Mont Blanc Cricket. He's a diver, a treasure seeker, and the descendant of Mont Blanc Noland, known to most as Liar Noland." Dante said as they looked around the front of the house. "Liar Noland. I used to read a storybook of him back when I was a kid." Sanji said.

"Oh? So, you were born in the North Blue, Sanji?" Dante asked. "Yep. I was raised in the East Blue, though." Sanji said, then took a quick drag of his cigarette. "From what I remember, the story is pretty famous over in the North Blue. And while it's called a fairytale, the character Noland was supposed to be a real-life person, or since you've said that the guy living here is his descendant, was real." He said, then puffed out smoke.

"Well, it looks like we'll also get the chance to read that story, seeing as there's a copy of it over here." Dante said, picking up a picture book from a tree stump, that looked like it functioned as a table. The title of the book was Liar Noland, and on the cover was a man with a dopey smile, and a distinct chestnut on his head, on a ship. Dante then went on to read the story out loud.

The story went thus: Noland was from a kingdom in the North Blue, and he lived there over 400 years ago. He was an explorer and was known to speak of adventures so grand and absurd that they seemed like lies. The people back then had no way to confirm whether his stories were fact or fiction.

Upon returning from another voyage, Noland went to the king and told him that there was an island on the Grand Line that had gold stacked as high as mountains, and the king, wanting to verify this, went on a voyage to the island, taking Noland as well as 2,000 soldiers with him. The journey was perilous, as they faced sea monsters and overcame fierce storms.

By the time they reached the island, only 100 of the 2,000 soldiers were left, but even worse, the so-called island of gold only was only a jungle. Rightfully enraged at not seeing the treasure that Noland had promised, the king put him to death. His final words before he was finally executed were: "That's it. The mountains of gold must have sunk into the sea!"

Seeing Noland still make such a declaration, even when faced with death, the king and the people were baffled by how brazenly he lied. At that point, no one believed anything Noland said anymore, as even to his last breath, he couldn't stop lying.

Dante clicked his teeth, then returned the book to the stump. "What a pile of bull." He said audibly. "Huh? What do you mean?" Sanji asked. "It's just another story of people making wrong assumptions and judgements, and the unlucky man who died because they didn't believe him." He said, and with Beri in her eyes, Nami perked up.

"Wait, so you mean to say that there's actually an island where gold is so much it's like mountains?!" She asked. "Yeah, and it's where you guys are planning to go,…" He said, then pointed a finger upwards. "… Skypeia." He said, and turned towards the shore. "You can come out, Cricket. We aren't here to harm or harass you." He said, and a few seconds later, a muscular middle-aged man, with a chestnut on his head distinct to the Mont Blanc lineage.

"Who the hell are you people?" Cricket asked as he reached towards his waist, where a modified flintlock was holstered. "We're here to ask for your help… and help you out." Dante said, then snapped his fingers, manifesting an ingot of gold. "You help them repair and modify their ship, and we'll help you clear Noland's name." Dante said, and Mont Blanc Cricket for the first time in a long time, felt some hope for his quest to clear his ancestor's reputation as a liar.

Chapter End.

Word Count: 4,006

A/N: I have a few ideas for a new cover. You can like them to show me which one you want me to switch to, or comment to let me know if you prefer me to leave the cover as it is.

Thanks for reading!