One Piece: Overlord Buggy

Both Rem and Xetalona were looking at me, Rem thinking through my words, and Xetalona's face softened from major concern to only slight concern.

"So.. you really want to help?"

"Of course! Because I made it my problem! And now I'm stuck with having it as such! But I shall try to fix them to the best of my abilities!"

"Okay.. if you say so.."

"Now! Uh..."

At that moment, Taki started to stir from her unconscious state in the chair. Seeing this, Xetalona physically recoiled, as if not wanting to be attacked out of the blue again, which was a very valid thing. Taki then put a hand to her head, groaned, yawned, then leaned foward some before falling back into the chair, and opened her eyes. Met immediately with a gaze from Xetalona, Taki took on a confused look before she realized that something was off. Literally, as her hood was not on her, completely exposing her ears and fox body.

Following that realization, she immediately went and reached for her hood, and dragged it over her face, essentially hiding her looks. She curled a little before looking from under the hood toward me and Rem, and then Xetalona.

"... Bugs?"

"Yes Taki?"

I myself was getting ready for any possible thing that could happen, ready to knock her out just in case.

"... Did she see?"

"Your actual appearance?"

"... yeah..."

"Yep."

"..."

"...."

"... Bugs?"

"Yes?"

"Why am I... In another... spot?"

"Do you not remember what happened like 20 minutes ago?"

Her eyes shifted to indicate her trying to remember, and then she looked directly back at me, holding the edge of her hood, pulling her legs against her chest.

"... I think so..."

Yawning once more, she let go of the hood and looked slightly down.

"Okay then, Taki. What do you remember?"

"I... I woke up... and it sorta felt... it felt like I turned into my... OTHER form... but this time was different..."

"It felt like you went into your Sulong form? How's that possible? You didn't go into your Sulong form though?"

"I don't know... But.. it wasn't the feeling of being IN Sulong.. it was the feeling of looking at the  full moon... I felt tired... more tired than before... I-I'm still tired..."

"I did notice you were tired. And you're still tired? Do you know why?"

She immediately looked away, and it was obvious there was a reason. I turned to Rem, as if asking "Do you know why?" With as concerned a look as she could give, Rem shook her head no, and I turned to Xetalona. After noticing my gaze, she averted her own away from Taki, and then looked at me as if I was asking something stupid. Finding it a lost cause after remembering her story, I then turned back to Taki.

With a more stern voice, I asked again.

"Is there a reason Taki?"

After a couple seconds, she didn't answer, which meant I was gonna ask once more, but I was stopped by Taki herself. She took her hood off, and looked at me directly, a mess of expressions, all combined into a single one that I could not understand.

"... You said that I could get stronger..."

"Yeah? But what does that have to do wiiii... Ooooohhhh. That would make sense."

Rem's voice rang in the room: "W-what?" It wasn't loud, but it was audible, so I did hear it, but I was going to explain.

"I did tell you that you could, as a matter of fact, would, become stronger. Can I make an assumption on how, or do you just wanna tell us?"

"..."

"Okay, I'm gonna take that as an 'I can make a guess'!"

I stood up, still ready for anything as a precaution.

"Well, I can only assume that you were training your Sulong form, but... Did you perhaps decide that you wanted to get stronger by training your Sulong form every night?"

She was slightly taken aback by my guess, which brought down my own confidence in my guess.

'Was I wrong?'

".. I have been.. doing that. How did you...?"

"I couldn't come up with much else, I mean, Haki? You have a little experience, but definitely not enough to use it..." I turned my head to her, and stared at her now surprised face. "... I'll hopefully help you with that later..."

I then walked around for a second, only going around in a circle before sitting back down.

Xetalona whispered to me "What was that?"

"That was.."

'Dang it! Another habit from my old life! Good thing it wasn't much.'

".. just something I do."

I then turned away from Xetalona back to Taki.

"Where was I? Oh right. You don't have enough Haki experience yet, and your training with your moons is a normal occurrence, so you training your Sulong form was the easiest answer. But how?"

"You don't know?"

"What?"

"You don't know... how I'm training?"

"... Oh, no, I know how. You use the moons and have them artificially put you in Sulong form. What I meant was: how does this connect to you doing that to Xetalona?"

"Uhm... I might have been training that way for the past couple days...."

I had a questioning look for a second.

'So, why would that training do something like this? I mean, Sulong really only happened when a mink looks at a full moon, so.. but, what could cause it to happen? Wait a second, is there an actual repercussion for OVER-using a Sulong form? Perhaps like, an outburst?'

"Taki? Do you know of any repercussions for using your Sulong form more than once a month? Better yet, once a full moon?"

"... No? The only stuff I know about my own race is from what you told me.."

"Hmm. Okay then. Well, having something wrong because you have used your Sulong form more than once in a full moon would probably be the best answer rather than having a second personality..."

I took a quick look at Taki, who was now visibly calming down, but I wasn't done.

"Taki, there is something else."

"What?"

"Why were your eyes  turning white?"

"They were..." She lifted a hand to right under her eye. "... turning white?"

"Yeah, they weren't fully white, but they were almost entirely. Don't know why, so do you know why?"

She took a gulp of air before thinking.

"Mm.. maybe it was why I felt like I was turning into my Sulong form? It might be that thing I felt was off?"

"Maybe..." I took a quick look around the room at Rem and Xetalona, who were both concerned, before returning my vision back towards Taki. "... Anyways, whatever it was, I think it might be best for you to not train your Sulong form outside of full moons."

"But I-"

"I'm not done. We should wait a couple days to see if it happens again, and if it does, it's something else besides your training. If it doesn't happen again, then it was your training. Either way, that Sulong Training should be put on hold until we figure out a way for you to.. not hurt people after a couple days."

"O-oh. Okay..." Taki slightly dejected, turned her head before whispering "I wanna get stronger still... So I don't have to depend on you for strength..."

A small smile formed on my face, and I turned back to Rem and Xetalona.

"Well, that's basically taken care of."

"Uh.. not really..."

"Ahem.. it will be taken care of within a couple days... should, at least..."

"W-what now?"

Just one swift check of Xetalona, her eyes weren't trusting Taki as much as she showed physically, even with some reassurance from me.

"Uhm.. I mean, we could work on redesigning the ship.. I'll need to make some scaffolding for my own, so the retromoding of Royal Deck into a flying and sailing ship, a hybrid, can be worked on! Maybe we can bring some stuff out to my ship? I could help you with learning how to design while I build that scaffolding above a cliff!"

"Wha.. what's 'retro.. modding'? And what's 'Sulong'? You used Sulong a lot, so what is it?"

"Hmm. Sulong is.. an ability?"

"A secret one?"

"Uhhhh.. more... Exclusive to Taki's race of people?"

"Hmmm. So what's ret-ro-modding?"

"It's kinda like replacing old things with new things, making the old thing look the same, but still being new? That's the best way I can describe it."

"Aha, got it."

She was somehow okay with me at the moment, even after Lucifer came out. I think the reason she was more okay with me was because I didn't actually try to kill her, but it was only a guess.

I then took a second to think over my words, I was just fine, until the daunting task of building the scaffolding came to mind. Not only would it be directly over the edge of a cliff, but it needed to be strong enough to hold a lot of weight. Mostly other pieces of wood. And a lot of it.

"Um.. before we.. do anything else, and maybe finalize any plans, is there a place to get a bunch of wood?"

At first, I think Xetalona was ready for anything other than what I asked, but that was changed to an expression of remembering about wood.

"I know a place.."