OP: AMP Ch. 215

Most of the Straw Hats chose to eat more Devil Fruits.

Shira was first up. After consuming two additional fruits, she'd gained the ability to create a wider variety of mushrooms, smaller spores for airborne attacks, massive specimens for defense, and everything in between. More importantly, she could now transform into her element rather than waiting to be struck. Being able to disperse into spores at will was a hell of an upgrade for survivability.

Vivi's Whisper-Whisper Fruit evolution came next. Two more fruits expanded her range dramatically and granted her the ability to solidify her whispered connections. Distance no longer mattered, once she established a link, it wouldn't fade until she consciously severed it. The crew could now maintain constant communication across an entire battlefield.

Nami's situation was different. The Rumble-Rumble Fruit was a Logia-type, which meant diminishing returns kicked in fast. She could only handle one additional fruit before her body reached its limit. The changes weren't as dramatic as the others, but what she gained was precision. Her ceiling and floor both shifted upward, better control, smoother manipulation of electricity, and more refined techniques.

Two hundred million volts was her current cap. With an enchanted golden apple boosting her? Five hundred million. When Marcus took direct control of her body and channeled power through her? Two billion volts became achievable.

Where her true maximum lay remained unknown, her body had hit its threshold, so further testing would just hurt her. But honestly, this was more than enough firepower.

The rest of the crew needed to die first. That's where things got complicated.

Chopper had made his choice. He wanted to strengthen his Human-Human Fruit. Which meant experiencing death and resurrection to reset his Devil Fruit connection. Everyone had expected him to revert to his base reindeer form afterward. What they hadn't been sure about was whether he'd lose his intelligence along with it.

When Chopper came back from death, he was indeed just a reindeer again. No hybrid form or human intelligence visible in his eyes.

But after a moment of panic, Vivi's Whisper-Whisper Fruit proved invaluable. Though Chopper couldn't speak anymore, his thoughts were still human. His mind remained intact even as his body reverted to animal.

"It's so weird," Chopper's mental voice came through Vivi's connection, sounding distressed. "I can think, I can remember everything, but my brain feels slower. Is this what regular animals experience all the time?"

It took Marcus two full days to convert enough Human-Human Fruits for Chopper to proceed. During that time, the reindeer remained stuck in his animal form, able to think but trapped in a body that couldn't express those thoughts naturally.

The experience gave Chopper a new appreciation for what his Devil Fruit had done to him. His Rumble Balls had always interfered with the fruit's wavelength, tricking it into treating him more like a human who'd eaten a reindeer fruit. But he'd been so focused on combat transformations that he'd never properly developed the human side of his abilities.

When the two days had passed, he became the first carbon-based organism among the Straw Hats to successfully consume four Devil Fruits. Why the specification? The Shichiseiken didn't count, since she was a sword and already had numerous enchantments

The second Human-Human Fruit gave him exactly what he'd hoped for. All seven of his former Rumble Ball transformations became accessible without needing the drug. He could shift between them at will, strengthen specific body parts on command, and even enter his Monster Point without the usual loss of control.

The third fruit wasn't as dramatic, it just boosted all his physical stats across the board. Stronger, faster, more durable. Straightforward but effective.

The fourth fruit introduced something unexpected. He gained precise control over every part of his body at a cellular level. His muscles, bones, even his fur, everything responded to his mental commands.

And if he combined that level of control with a Rumble Ball on top of it?

He could temporarily transform into a fully human form. All his fur would vanish, replaced by human skin. The transformation was brief, only about three minutes before exhaustion set in, but during that window, he was genuinely human.

The form he took was... interesting. Maybe because he'd always thought of himself as small and cute, his human form appeared as a seven or eight-year-old boy. But he could instantly shift that form, bulking up into a massive two-meter-tall muscle-bound brute. He could even switch to a female body if he wanted to, though that felt deeply weird to him.

Bon Kurei went next.

After revival, he'd had options. Marcus had offered him Zoan-types that would complement his fighting style, like a vulture fruit for aerial mobility, a mantis fruit for blade-like limbs. Both would've made him significantly more dangerous in combat.

He'd refused all of them.

"The Clone-Clone Fruit isn't the strongest power out there," Bon Kurei had said firmly. "But it's mine. It's what makes me... me. I'm not giving that up for strength."

So he ate three Clone-Clone Fruits instead.

The second fruit let him copy not just physical appearance and attributes, but also Devil Fruit abilities for a limited time. When he transformed into someone, he could use their powers. The duration was short and the copies were weaker than the originals, but it was still an incredible upgrade for infiltration and surprise attacks.

The third fruit removed his biggest limitation. He no longer needed physical contact to copy someone's form. A single glance was now enough to perfectly replicate their appearance and body structure. Physical contact was still required if he wanted to copy their strength or abilities, but for pure disguise work? He was now one of the most dangerous infiltrators in the world.

"This is fabulous!" Bon Kurei struck a pose, having copied Marcus' appearance just by looking at him. "I can be anyone now, darling!"

Robin had hesitated the longest.

Her Flower-Flower Fruit was already incredibly versatile. She couldn't imagine how it could improve further. What more could sprouting body parts possibly do?

But curiosity won out in the end. She accepted Marcus' offer.

The death and resurrection process hit her harder than she'd expected. When she came back without her Devil Fruit, the loss hit her hard. She hadn't realized how much she relied on her extra senses. Without them, the world felt small and claustrophobic. She'd gotten so used to perceiving her surroundings from multiple angles that going back to just two eyes and two ears felt like being blindfolded.

She ate three Flower-Flower Fruits.

The second fruit gave her something she'd desperately needed: preset execution. Instead of consciously controlling every single limb she sprouted, she could now set them to automated routines. Sprout a hundred arms, give them a basic instruction pattern, and they'd execute it without requiring her constant attention. It was like upgrading from manual control to having macros. The automated limbs were somewhat stiff and predictable, but it freed up her mental bandwidth enormously.

The third fruit gave her "Bloom" and "Full Bloom."

Bloom reduced the stamina cost of her larger techniques by about eighty percent. Those massive tree-like structures she could create, the ones that drained her completely after a single use? Now she could maintain them for extended periods.

Full Bloom was more disturbing. Any limb created by her powers could now sprout additional body parts from itself. Arms growing from arms, eyes sprouting from hands, legs extending from torsos at impossible angles.

She could grow a single hand from a surface, then have that hand grow another full torso vertically, which could then sprout more limbs at different angles. The geometric possibilities were mind-bending. Combined with her preset automation, she could create sprawling networks of interconnected body parts that moved with their own semi-autonomous logic.

She demonstrated, growing a chain of arms that stretched across the room, each one connected naturally to the next. It looked similar to Luffy's stretching, but the mechanics were completely different.

Then came Alvida and Kira.

Both refused.

Alvida's refusal came from fear.

Was the Slip-Slip Fruit strong? In her opinion, it was one of the weakest Devil Fruits out there. If she could choose freely, she would probably trade it for something with better combat applications. But she couldn't. She wouldn't. Because everything she had now came from this fruit. Not just her appearance, but the fact that she never gained weight no matter what she ate. The confidence she finally had in herself. She was terrified of losing that.

Nobody mocked her for it. They all understood.

Kira's situation was different. Marcus had encouraged her to refuse.

Why?

He explained what he'd noticed. When he possessed Alvida and pushed her power to its awakened state, he could clearly hear the Devil Fruit's presence. It was like a sort of resonance, a voice in the back of his mind.

But Kira's fruit? The resonance was incredibly faint, barely detectable.

Combined with the fact that the fruit had been sealed under stone for so long, showing signs of degradation and energy dispersal that shouldn't have been possible for a real Devil Fruit… He thought the fruit might be artificial. Like the artificial Azure Dragon Fruit that Vegapunk had created. It had the abilities of the real thing, but it was fundamentally a copy.