Devil Fruit Denial! Learning the Hard Way!

[Fox]

Rosie sat in her office, going over the incident reports and hospital records of her recruits. From what she had gathered and seen for herself, Daniel had newly acquired a Devil Fruit. As far as she knew, it was undocumented. Or rather, no one had had a chance to study it in the ensuing chaos. But since her duties looked fairly clear for the foreseeable future again, she had a little spare time to walk him through what being a Devil Fruit user meant. She was certain that it was frightening for the unprepared.

She was, however, beginning to despair at just how many of her recruits were Devil Fruit users. They were supposed to be uncommon in the Blues, but in the 22nd Division, they attracted all of them. She made a mental note to put in a regulation for the ratio of Ability Users to non-ability users on a ship. At this rate, they were going to need diving suits installed for the rescue of overboard Marines.

“Goodness…”

She muttered to herself under her breath with no small amount of exasperation. Her mind wandered, wondering how many sinking Ability users you’d need to sink a ship of the Betelguese’s size. Hard to tell. And not really a hypothesis worth considering for longer than a moment. Daniel was the latest of the Devil Fruit users and the newest of the bunch to it. From what she could tell, it was some kind of Zoan. Having one herself, she supposed that she’d be the best teacher, which was why she had called him to her office.

A knock sounded at the door, which prompted Rosie to lift her eyes from the mounds of paperwork to the door. She reclined back in her seat, folding her hands over her lap. It wasn’t Vaun or Kurt, as the two of them would have just barged in with different extremes of energy. This was probably Daniel.

“Come in, come in.”

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Rosie | #fad7f6 | Post Count: 1

[Mr. Moon]

Daniel #1

Rosie summoned him, just hearing about it for another recruit from their division made Daniel anxious. He rarely came into contact with the Ensign, except the first day he joined 22nd, and then few days later, when she helped to save them during the botched night patrol, but from what he remembered of her, she was a stern, unforgiving and…well quite scary woman. And to top that, he also thought he know why she was looking for him. It had to be about the maps he “borrowed” from the captain´s drawer without his permission…or knowledge. Did he forget to close that drawer? Or did he perhaps the door? Did someone see him? Or did captain Hertz have the maps arranged in a specific order and found out himself? He didn´t know but what he knew was that the woman is going to eat him alive for that.

Well, there was no reason to delay the inevitable, so with the face of someone who was going to his execution, Daniel walked through the main barracks of the 22nd Division to the place, where Ensign Lovelace had her office. Standing in front of it, he silently knocked on the door, waiting for her invitation, which came right afterward.

“I am so dead…”

He whispered, entering the door.

“Ensign Lovelace, Seaman Recruit Ortiz is reporting for duty at your command.”

While he made sure his voice will be strong and calm, Daniel´s face was pale as death when he saluted the pink-haired woman, while standing in full attention. To his surprise, she didn´t look angry, more like tired or perhaps frustrated, but that didn´t have to mean anything. After all, scary people like her were very good at hiding their true thoughts and intentions, he remembered that well from dealing with the mother´s side of his family.

[Fox]

Daniel walked into her office looking for all the world like a puppy with its paw caught in the treat jar. Or, perhaps more accurately, a boy on his way to the gallows. This immediately made Rosalyn raise an eyebrow, suspecting that perhaps he did not know what this was exactly about. She was a little curious as to what prompted such a reaction, so instead of immediately reassuring him, Rosie leaned over her desk and knit her fingers together, resting her chin on them. She let him stew for several long moments before reclining back into her chair, setting her hands on her lap.

“At ease, Ortiz,” she said, “Before we begin... Is there something, perhaps, you’d like to tell me?”

She asked the question pretty much immediately. Rosie saw no need in senselessly dragging this out to prolong the Seaman Recruit’s suffering. Someone earnest like Daniel was a terrible liar, and would likely rather die than take a secret to his grave. Or at least, that was Rosie’s impression of him from his behavior and his service records. She supposed that she would see for herself his mettle and exactly how much prodding she would have to do before he broke down.

Rosie hadn’t interacted much with Daniel yet, so this was a good opportunity to see how his mind worked in most circumstances. If she was to mold him into an exemplary Marine, she needed to know what she was working with. Especially with his newly acquired abilities. The young could still be shaped and molded. Only adult scoundrels deserved her total and complete loathing.

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Rosie | #fad7f6 | Post Count: 2

[Mr. Moon]

Daniel #2

Daniel was entering his superior officer´s office expecting the worst. As he crossed the threshold, to the room, his head was filled with the numerous rumors he heard about the woman in front of him, that were spread mainly by members of the other divisions stationed at Tequila Wolf.

“It´s just rumors, just rumors…”

He repeated for himself while giving Ensign Lovelace the military greetings and waiting for her verdict. To his surprise, she didn´t look angry at him, but her nearly impenetrable poker face wasn´t making it easy for him.

“She knows it! She knows everything!”

A tiny voice deep inside of him started screaming in panic, while his more rational self was trying his best to calm him down.

“Yes, she does, but doesn´t look angry, so maybe if I explain it to her…well everything better than playing dumb I guess…”

Daniel sighed for himself before straightening his back to make a report.

“Yes, ma´am I would like to report unauthorized entrance into Captain´s Heartz office and unauthorised use of his maps of the East Blue. I committed these offenses against discipline during a mission to question a relative of a notorious pirate that is working on the bridge that was assigned to me and Chore Girl Mari by Captain Heartz. After gaining the necessary insight I returned these maps back to their place but that´s not an excuse for entering the office of my superior officer without his knowledge and borrowing his property, so I will accept my punishment.”

The young recruit paused for a moment, realizing that he was probably more honest than he should be when he mentioned Mari´s name, and quickly added.

“Also for the record, I would like to state, that at the time I entered Captain Heartz´s office, Chore Girl Mari was guarding the person we were questioning and didn´t take any part in this offense, nor did she know where I get these maps from ma´am!”

[Fox]

Rosie knit her hands together and leaned forward as Daniel explained himself. What came next was not something that she had been necessarily expecting. Nor did she particularly care that much about it. While, yes, it was an issue to enter a superior officer’s office without prior authorization, Daniel seemed to understand that what he did was wrong and would likely ask permission next time.

“It is good you confessed to me,” Rosie said, pretending as if she’d known about this all along. Daniel seemed to be under that impression anyway, and she saw absolutely no reason to correct that. “As such, your punishment will be light. Just a few extra shifts of cleaning duty. Mari, of course, will not be punished. In the future, I expect you’ll come to me or Captain immediately when you need anything, so we can provide whatever support we deem necessary. I am here to help you grow into outstanding Marines, so do not be afraid to call on me.”

Rosie scribbled down a note to add Daniel to an extra cleaning shift when Rakka wasn’t scheduled to train. She didn’t actually want to punish Daniel after all, and a cleaning shift when Rakka was training? Well, that would take hours to clean if Rakka didn’t do so himself. That issue handled, Rosie looked up at Daniel.

“That’s not why I called you here though. I called you to discuss your newly acquired Devil Fruit abilities.”

Rosie pulled up Daniel’s file and rifled through the papers.

“We’ll need to document them and then train you on their use. My understanding from Captain Hertz is that you have some type of Zoan, so I’ll be tutoring you on its use as well as outfitting you with an auto deploying life preserver of my own design in the case that you do fall into the water.”

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Rosie | #fad7f6 | Post Count: 3

[Mr. Moon]

Daniel #3

The young marine was standing in attention expecting the punishment that was inevitable. As he expected, Ensign Lovelace already knew about the crimes he committed and so the only thing he could do at the moment was pray his confession would protect him from the harshest punishment and hopefully shield Mari as well. With all the crazy stories he heard about his superior officer, the thing he was terrified of the most was the possibility that she would choose him as her lab assistant. Not that he would believe everything Francis from the 25th Division was telling him during the lunch, but…let´s say he would prefer to keep as far away from that place as possible.

Fortunately, it was nothing of that sort and the young marine was only assigned for an extra cleaning duty with the added assurance that if would ever need some additional assistance he could always ask either captain Hertz or ensign Lovelace for it.

“I…thank you Ensign!”

He exclaimed, saluting her again and getting ready to leave when the pink-haired woman suddenly mentioned that that wasn´t the main reason she summoned him there.

“A Devil Fruit?”

He asked confused, almost as if her words activated some hidden switch deep in his head that simply pushed all these painful memories away.

“Oh, you mean that fruit from the patrol incident.”

Daniel smiled, looking somewhere behind Rosie´s shoulder.

“I am terribly sorry Ensign, but I am afraid that fruit was spoiled or something. It tasted really terribly and the only thing I got from it was some strange visions and stomachache. No strange powers at all.”

The young recruit said, drifting deeper and deeper into his denial with each word he said.

“So if you excuse me. I would like to go back to my duties.”