SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY WAS SUCH AN AWESOME MOVIE!! I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT, IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED IT YET.
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"Awesome!"
Rocket Raccoon's jaw dropped as his eyes practically sparkled like miniature supernovas. "That is seriously, mind-blowingly awesome!"
Even though he had just watched Rosh pull off the impossible trick of creating a doorway out of thin air once already, seeing it happen a second time was just as shocking. His bushy tail twitched excitedly behind him, sweeping the dusty Xandarian pavement.
"I don't care what it takes, I've got to get my paws on one of these!" Rocket couldn't tear his eyes away from the shimmering golden portal. "This thing is absolute gold!"
Folding his arms across his chest with a smug, confident grin, Rocket turned to his trusty partner in crime. "Am I right, Groot?"
...Silence.
Rocket blinked. "Groot?"
He slowly turned his head, expecting a hearty nod of approval. Instead, he found the giant, walking tree-humanoid completely MIA from the conversation.
Groot had crouched down by the edge of the street, totally ignoring Rosh's magical door. Instead, he was happily poking a patch of glowing, hyper-colorful Xandarian wildflowers with one massive, bark-covered finger.
"I am Groot," the gentle giant rumbled softly, a serene, innocent smile stretching across his wooden face as the flowers swayed gently under his touch.
The sight was so incredibly childlike and peaceful that it instantly shattered the badass, high-stakes atmosphere Rocket had been trying so hard to build.
Rosh couldn't help but crack a smile. It was honestly pretty amusing. Despite standing several meters tall, weighing as much as a heavy-duty truck, and possessing enough raw physical strength to rip armored military vehicles in half like wet paper... Groot could sometimes act exactly like a clueless toddler. He was strangely, undeniably adorable.
Rocket, on the other hand, buried his face in his furry paws, groaning loudly.
"...Unbelievable," he muttered.
Stomping over, Rocket grabbed Groot by one of his thick, vine-wrapped arms.
"Groot! Quit playing with the local weeds! You're completely ruining our professional reputation here!"
He yanked the massive tree away from the flower bed, using every ounce of leverage his tiny frame had. He looked exactly like an exhausted older brother dragging a mischievous younger sibling away from a toy store display.
Groot tilted his heavy wooden head to the side, his massive, deep-brown eyes blinking with pure innocence. "I am Groot?"
He genuinely had no clue what he had done wrong.
Rocket let out a long, slow, defeated sigh. "I swear... one of these days, you're going to drive me completely over the edge."
Once he managed to get his blood pressure back down, Rocket pointed a sharp, warning claw directly at Groot's face. "Alright, listen to me very carefully. The second we step inside this guy's shop, the Babysitter Protocol is active. That means, you keep your wooden hands completely to yourself, no touching random, shiny, or expensive-looking stuff, absolutely no wandering off into dark corners, and for once in your life, try not to act like you fell out of the nest yesterday! "
Groot nodded obediently, his face completely serious. "I am Groot."
Whether any of those rules actually registered in his brain was a completely different question, but Rocket decided it was the best he was going to get.
Satisfied enough, Rocket whipped back around to face Rosh, his manic excitement returning in a flash.
"Alright!" He excitedly rubbed his paws together, a sharp, toothy grin plastering his face. "I'm ready. I've been dying of curiosity ever since you pulled that door trick. So what are we waiting for? Lead the way, pal!"
Rosh offered a polite, welcoming gesture. "Right this way."
He stepped aside, inviting them toward the glowing, golden doorway. Rocket didn't hesitate for a single second. He strutted right through the portal, his oversized weapon bouncing on his back. Groot, keeping his promise to stay close, ducked his head and stepped through right behind him.
Finally, Rosh crossed the threshold, stepping back into his own domain.
*Click!*
The golden door quietly swung shut behind them. A single heartbeat later, the shimmering portal dissolved on the streets of Xandar, leaving the bustling alien plaza as if nothing had ever happened.
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Inside the Home of the Devil Fruits
When Rocket opened his eyes again, the dizzying, sun-drenched streets of Xandar were completely gone.
In their place stood a vast, incredibly elegant, and pristine reception hall. The polished hardwood floors were so clean they perfectly reflected the warm, ambient lighting overhead. Lining the walls were beautifully crafted shelves, displaying a variety of bizarre, colorful fruits covered in mesmerizing spiral patterns.
The entire space carried a quiet, deeply refined, and mysterious atmosphere. It was a complete 180-degree turn from the chaotic, noisy alien marketplace they had been standing in just seconds ago.
*Click!*
Behind them, the sound of a latch settling into place echoed in the quiet room. Rocket instinctively spun around on his heel, his hand flying to his holster.
"...Huh?"
The glowing golden doorway had completely vanished. In its place was a solid, seamless, perfectly normal wall.
Rocket stared at it, his brain short-circuiting as he marched over and began aggressively tapping and scratching at the surface.
*Knock! Knock!*
It was completely solid. No hidden seams, no holographic projections, no high-tech cloaking fields, no wiring, no buttons, and no active energy signatures. The portal had simply... ceased to exist.
Rocket scratched his furry head, completely baffled. "...Okay. Now that is officially creepy."
Having traveled across half of the known galaxy, Rocket had seen his fair share of high-tech gear. He'd used teleporters, jumped through cosmic wormholes, mapped out jump gates, and played with all kinds of wild, alien technology. But this? This completely broke every single rule of engineering he had ever studied. It didn't just bend the laws of physics; it flat-out ignored them.
Realizing he wasn't going to solve the puzzle by staring at the wall, Rocket finally gave up and turned around to face Rosh. His sharp, black-masked eyes quickly swept across the luxurious shop, cataloging every shelf, every high-end piece of furniture, and especially the weird, glowing fruits.
"Alright, smooth-talker," Rocket said, crossing his arms and squinting. "Where exactly are we? Because I am ninety-nine percent sure we aren't on Xandar anymore."
His intense curiosity was practically bubbling over. Just what kind of insane place had this mysterious merchant dragged them into?
"Welcome back, Manager!"
Elizabeth's cheerful voice floated out from the back office as she stepped into the main lobby, a neatly stacked pile of inventory documents cradled in her arms. "I was actually just about to organize today's—"
Her voice cut off mid-sentence.
She froze dead in her tracks, her fingers locking up. The heavy files in her arms slid dangerously, nearly spilling across the pristine floorboards, before she desperately caught them against her chest.
"...Wait, what?" she whispered.
She blinked once. Twice. Three times. She seriously wondered if she had accidentally inhaled some weird experimental fumes from the back room, or if her eyes were playing some incredibly trippy trick on her.
Standing right next to Rosh were two of the absolute strangest, most logic-defying creatures she had ever laid eyes on.
The first one was a pint-sized, furry little guy who looked like a cross between a raccoon and... well, something way more intense. He was standing completely upright on his hind legs, wearing what looked like highly advanced, customized military-grade tactical gear. Oh, and the craziest part? He was actively grumbling and muttering in perfect English.
But the second guest was somehow even more impossible to process.
It was a towering, colossal humanoid tree. Thick, twisting wooden branches formed its massive arms, and rough, ancient bark covered every single inch of its body. Yet its face moved with incredible, fluid expression, and its giant, soulful brown eyes blinked with an unmistakable warmth and intelligence.
'Oh my gosh...' Elizabeth's heart skipped a violent beat. 'What am I actually looking at right now?' Her thoughts instantly spiraled into pure, unadulterated chaos.
'Is that a raccoon? No... maybe it's a rabbit? No, wait, that is definitely a raccoon. But why on earth is it walking on two legs? And why does its vocabulary sound like a grumpy New York taxi driver's?' Her gaze slowly, horizontally panned over to the giant, gentle tree monster standing right beside the trash panda.
'...And why is there a literal, walking oak tree standing in our waiting room?!'
The whole scene was so deeply surreal it felt like she had stepped straight into a sci-fi comic book.
Fortunately, Rosh caught her stunned, wide-eyed expression immediately. He let out a soft, reassuring chuckle, his easygoing vibe acting like an instant anchor.
"Elizabeth," he called out softly.
She snapped out of her trance, her posture instantly straightening. "Y-Yes, Manager?"
"No need to be nervous," Rosh said, gesturing toward the two bizarre newcomers with a relaxed wave of his hand. "They're just customers."
He paused for a microsecond, adding in a completely casual, matter-of-fact tone, "Customers from another planet."
'...Another planet?'
Elizabeth repeated the words in her head, her voice coming out almost like a broken robot. Her eyes, if possible, stretched even wider.
For a solid five seconds, her brain completely refused to boot up.
'Another planet? As in... space? As in... outer space?!' She slowly looked back at Rocket, who was sniffing a nearby display case. Then she looked at Groot, who was curiously touching his own nose. Finally, her eyes landed on Rosh, who stood there looking like he had just invited some neighbors over for afternoon tea.
A massive wave of realization hit her, and her thoughts began racing at a million miles an hour.
'The Manager... he's already doing business with aliens? His reputation is so legendary that it has spread beyond Earth's boundaries. Customers are actually traveling across the endless void of the galaxy just to buy Devil Fruits from him?!'
The more she processed it, the more utterly legendary Rosh seemed to her. Her respect, admiration, and borderline worship of her boss skyrocketed to a whole new, orbital level.
'As expected of the Manager, even aliens can't resist his products.'
Taking a deep, grounding breath, Elizabeth's professional training kicked in. She smoothed down her uniform, straightened her spine, and plastered a warm, flawless customer-service smile onto her face.
"Welcome to the Home of the Devil Fruits," she said, her voice smooth and welcoming. "It is an absolute honor to have both of you in our establishment today. Please, follow me."
She politely swept her hand toward the luxurious reception lounge, guiding them toward the comfortable leather sofas.
Rocket let out a sharp, toothy grin as he strutted past her. "Well, well." He gave Elizabeth a slow, approving look from head to toe. "Aren't you a cute little maid? Thanks, doll."
Elizabeth's professional smile instantly froze solid on her face.
'...Maid?'
A furious, burning blush exploded across her cheeks, rushing all the way up to the tips of her ears.
'He called me... a maid?!'
Her romantic, overactive imagination immediately leaped off a cliff. 'Did the Manager introduce me to the galaxy that way? Does Rosh... secretly think of me as his personal maid? Is that how he views me? Is that why this space-raccoon said that?!'
Before she could stop herself, her thoughts had already sprinted light-years ahead of reality, painting wild, dramatic scenarios in her head. Her face grew so incredibly red that she looked like a ripe strawberry.
Meanwhile, Rosh remained completely, blissfully unaware of the absolute soap opera playing out inside his assistant's head. After everyone had settled into the plush leather seats, he turned his calm, golden gaze toward her.
"Elizabeth."
She practically jumped, snapping out of her wild daydream and standing straight up. "Yes, Manager?!"
"Could you please bring over the illustrated Devil Fruit Encyclopedia? I think our new guests would love to browse through today's available stock."
"Right away!" Elizabeth squeaked, hurrying off to the archives without a single moment of delay, desperately needing to cool down her blushing face.
A minute later, she returned, carefully balancing the heavy, beautifully bound, and golden-embossed catalog. She walked over to the coffee table and gently placed it down right in front of Rocket's twitching nose.
"Here you are," she said, her voice finally steady and polite. "Our complete, updated collection."
Rocket's furry ears perked straight up in an instant. His intense engineering and mercenary curiosity had officially reached its boiling point. He practically lunged forward, reaching his sharp-clawed paws out to grasp the edge of the book.
Rocket practically threw himself onto the edge of his seat, eagerly flipping open the heavy, gold-embossed catalog. The very moment his eyes swept across the first few glossed pages, his pupils dilated to the size of coins. His entire face lit up with a mix of manic curiosity and pure, unadulterated shock.
"...Hold on a second," Rocket muttered. He slowly looked up from the page, staring at Rosh as if trying to see if the guy was pulling his leg. "You're telling me all of these are actual, physical products? Like, real things sitting in a vault somewhere?"
He glanced back down at the vivid, swirling illustrations of the fruits, his tail twitching so fast it was practically a blur of gray fur.
"You literally just take a single bite out of one of these weird-looking things... and boom, you permanently unlock a superpower?" Rocket let out a low, breathy whistle. "Oh, that is absolutely beautiful."
Then a sudden realization struck his tactical brain like a punch. His ears pinned back as his eyes snapped right back to Rosh.
"Wait! The door!" Rocket pointed an accusatory, excited claw at the shop owner. "That crazy, physics-bending portal trick you just used to bring us here... did that power come from one of these fruits, too?"
Rosh leaned back in his chair, his smile calm and knowing as he gave a slow, confirming nod. "It absolutely did."
"Now that..." Rocket murmured, shaking his head in absolute awe. "...is what I call a serious upgrade."
Unlike most of the stubborn, narrow-minded humans back on Earth, Rocket didn't need a twenty-minute scientific lecture to accept how Devil Fruits worked. He didn't sit there questioning the biology, demanding chemical breakdowns, or claiming it was impossible.
To a guy like Rocket, this made perfect sense.
He had spent his entire life traveling across the deepest, weirdest corners of the galaxy. He had seen high-tech military civilizations with weapons that could crack planets, ancient, glowing cosmic artifacts that defied the very concept of gravity, weird, god-like alien races who could manipulate energy with their minds, and spiritual, magical forces that made science look like a joke.
In a universe as wild and chaotic as Marvel's outer space, a magical, swirling fruit that granted you supernatural abilities wasn't even the weirdest thing Rocket had seen this week. Sure, it was bizarre, but in the grand scheme of cosmic reality? It was totally plausible.
While Rocket was completely losing his mind over the catalog, Groot had absolutely zero interest in the printed pages. Reading books just wasn't his style.
Quietly slipping away from the lounge sofa, the giant tree-humanoid wandered off into a corner of the pristine reception area. He stopped right in front of a beautiful, leafy decorative potted plant sitting on a sleek glass stand.
Crouching down to eye level, Groot smiled warmly, his eyes filled with pure, gentle curiosity. He reached out one massive, thick wooden finger and incredibly gently stroked one of the green leaves.
"I am Groot," he rumbled in a soft, affectionate whisper.
The little houseplant swayed gently back and forth under his touch. Whether it was actually trying to communicate with him, or simply reacting to the sudden breeze of his massive hand, no one could really tell. But to Groot, he had just made a brand-new friend.
Rocket, who had paused his reading to grab a glass of water, looked up just in time to witness the incredibly embarrassing scene. He slowly lowered his cup, staring flatly before burying his face entirely in his furry paws.
"...Are you seriously doing this to me right now?" Rocket groaned, his voice dripping with utter exhaustion.
He let out a long, dramatic sigh that seemed to drain his entire body.
"Groot! Bud! Can you please, for five minutes, stop making us look like a couple of total amateurs?" Rocket hissed, throwing his arms up. "We are trying to conduct a highly professional, high-stakes interstellar business deal here, and you are over there trying to start a support group with a common houseplant!"
Groot turned his massive wooden head, blinking his large, soulful brown eyes with complete, heartbreaking innocence. "I am Groot."
"...Of course you are," Rocket mumbled, instantly throwing his hands in the air.
He knew from years of personal experience that arguing with Groot when he was in his peaceful, nature-loving mood was a completely losing battle. Turning back to Rosh, the little raccoon gave a helpless, deeply apologetic shrug.
"Look, my partner is a great guy, but he's... well, he's a little simple-minded sometimes. Let's just pretend he isn't completely ruining my street cred, alright?"
Rosh only smiled, highly amused by the classic bickering dynamic between the two space mercenaries. "Don't worry about it. He's welcome to make friends with the decor."
With Groot safely occupied, Rocket dove straight back into the encyclopedia, his claws flying as he flipped through page after page. As he delved deeper into the catalog, his skeptical expression gradually morphed into pure, unadulterated fascination.
He couldn't stop himself from giving a running, highly sarcastic commentary on every single fruit he scrolled past.
The Bomb-Bomb Fruit
"Wait, so the user can literally turn their own sweat, breath, and body parts into highly explosive material?" A wild, borderline maniacal grin spread across Rocket's furry face.
"Oh, now that is beautiful. You're basically a walking, talking nuclear warhead. I could blow up so many high-security vaults with that. Definitely putting a pin in this one."
The Venom-Venom Fruit
He flipped the page, his eyebrows shooting up. "Your entire body becomes a factory of highly corrosive, lethal poison? Even your breath is toxic?" He made a face, looking slightly disgusted.
"Ugh. Okay, that is dark. That's pretty messed up, honestly. I definitely wouldn't want to shake hands with a guy carrying that ability. You'd melt your own crew."
The Spin-Spin Fruit
Rocket stared at the illustration of Buffalo's fruit for a solid five seconds in dead silence. "...Are you kidding me?" He looked up at Rosh, completely flat-faced and unimpressed. "So... your power is that you spin. Really, really fast. That's it? That's the whole gimmick?"
He let out a loud snort. "What am I supposed to do with that, pal? Turn myself into the galaxy's most aggressive, armed ceiling fan? Pass."
He aggressively flipped the page, still chuckling at the absurdity of some of the powers.
But despite his sarcastic remarks, the sheer variety of the abilities was working like a charm. Sometimes Rocket would burst out laughing, sometimes he would look genuinely awestruck, and other times he would lean so close to the pages his nose was almost touching the ink.
Without even realizing it, the cynical, hard-boiled bounty hunter had been completely, utterly sucked into the magical world of Devil Fruits. He was totally hooked, his claws twitching with excitement as he eagerly flipped to the next page, desperate to see what kind of mind-blowing superpower was waiting for him next.
Then…
The non-stop, sarcastic running commentary that had been filling the luxurious reception room instantly died. The silence that followed was sudden, heavy, and absolute.
Rocket's clawed hand froze flat against the page. He didn't blink, and he didn't make a single sound. He just stared.
The hyperactive, manic excitement that had been written all over his furry face completely faded away. In its place came an expression Rosh hadn't seen on him before, something quiet, incredibly raw, and deeply personal.
For several long, suffocating seconds, the only sound in the room was the gentle rustling of the decorative houseplant Groot was still playing with in the corner. Finally, Rocket slowly, hesitantly raised his head. When he spoke, his voice was noticeably softer, stripping away all of his usual defensive bite.
"...Manager," he muttered. He slowly lifted a single, trembling paw and pointed a claw toward the bottom of the page. "Is... is this one actually real?"
Rosh leaned forward slightly, his golden eyes scanning the page Rocket was staring at. The answer was immediate. He gave a calm, reassuring nod.
"It is," Rosh replied, his tone steady and certain. "Every single Devil Fruit recorded in that encyclopedia is real. They're all genuine, physical items in my stock."
He looked at Rocket, a flicker of mild curiosity crossing his face.
"Although... I have to admit, I'm a little surprised. Out of all the legendary, world-ending powers in this catalog, that is the one that caught your eye?"
A faint, gentle smile touched Rosh's lips. To be perfectly honest, calling this specific fruit "not very powerful" was putting it extremely politely. If anyone else in the universe stumbled across it, they would probably laugh, call it a useless joke, and flip past it without a second thought.
The fruit Rocket was staring at was the Human-Human Fruit, Model: Plain Human.
When Rosh had first pulled this fruit from the System's inventory, even he had been a bit baffled. He had assumed the System was just playing a bizarre joke on him. But the mechanics of the fruit were entirely real.
Unlike the version eaten by Tony Tony Chopper, which turned a wild reindeer into a bulky, hybrid beast-man, this specific model had a completely different, much simpler purpose.
It didn't create hybrids. It didn't grant combat forms.
If an animal ate it, the fruit granted them a single, permanent gift: a genuine, biological human body.
For an ordinary human being, eating this fruit was worse than useless. It would literally do nothing but strip away their ability to swim. But for a creature like Rocket, the meaning of this fruit was earth-shattering.
Rocket hadn't been born as a fast-talking, gun-toting mercenary. Once upon a time, he had been nothing more than an ordinary, innocent raccoon.
He had been stolen from his home and subjected to endless, cruel genetic experiments, agonizing cybernetic surgeries, and forced evolutionary grafting. His brilliant mind, his bipedal stance, his mechanical genius, none of it had been his choice. It had all been painfully carved into his flesh by scientists who treated him like a piece of garbage.
If he ate the Human-Human Fruit, Model: Plain Human, the mystical laws of the Devil Fruit would completely override his physical biology.
The scarred cybernetic implants, the twisted genetic alterations, and the forced surgeries would all be wiped clean. The trauma written into his very cells would be overwritten. In their place, he would finally get the one thing he had been denied his entire life: a normal, peaceful, and genuine existence.
Rocket slowly lowered his eyes back to the illustration, his ears drooping slightly.
"I get it," he said, his voice incredibly quiet, as if he were talking more to himself than to Rosh. "It doesn't shoot lasers. It doesn't let you fly through the sky or blow up buildings."
A tiny, fragile smile tried to form on his face.
"It doesn't turn you into some big, scary, unstoppable space monster. It just... changes an animal into a regular human."
He spoke casually, trying to make it sound like the ability wasn't a big deal. He tried to sound like he didn't care, as if it were just another random item on the shelf.
But despite how hard he tried to play it cool, his body completely betrayed him.
The heavy, gold-rimmed encyclopedia began to tremble in his grip. No matter how hard he gritted his teeth, his furry paws simply wouldn't stop shaking.
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Next Chapter: From Now On, I'm the Coolest Guy in the Galaxy
Next Next Chapter: Mjolnir Has Fallen
Next Next Next Chapter: A Test of Worthiness
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