"No fucking way," Kevin breathed, staring at the strange, yellow fruit that had materialized in his hand. It was round, covered in swirling patterns, and dotted with cone-shaped spikes.
"Is this body cursed?" he yelled at the ceiling. "Of all the powers in all the universes, I get the one whose only weakness is my main fucking element!"
A small, detached part of him recognized the irony.
If this wasn't his life, he'd probably be laughing.
But right now, he was just bewildered. He'd watched One Piece, a lot of it, he was one of those crazy bastards who'd gotten close to a thousand episodes.
But like most fans, he had no damn clue what most of the fruits actually looked like. He dug through the hazy memories of his youth, trying to recall.
The Gum-Gum Fruit was purple, he thought. The Flame-Flame Fruit was red. He vaguely remembered the Giraffe Zoan was shaped like a banana, but none of that helped him now.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and started quietly cursing his own brain, the entity that had granted this "gift," and the whole goddamn situation.
He couldn't just turn down a free superpower. But losing the ability to swim, his one defining trait as a supe, was too high a price for a useless fruit.
It was one thing if he got a power that gave him a whole new superhero niche. It was another thing entirely if he got something stupid, like the Slow-Slow Fruit.
Actually, Vought would probably love that. A slow supe is a supe breathing knock-out gas, which was a one-way ticket to a cage for "misbehaving" assets. But his career, and the big paychecks that came with it, would be over.
Torn, his mind once again flashed to those comic book images of Black Noir and Homelander's clone. He had absolutely no desire to end up like one of their victims.
Steeling his resolve, he lifted the fruit to his mouth. A moment later, a loud crunch, like biting into an apple, echoed in the quiet room.
"Hmm, this isn't so ba… OH GOD!"
The flavor, which for a split second had been pleasant, suddenly morphed into something vile.
It was like overripe strawberries, extremely overripe strawberries that had been rotting in a dumpster for a decade, violating every health code imaginable.
He fought the urge to vomit, his body tensing as he forced himself to swallow the foul-tasting chunk.
"That was horrible... correction," he choked out, looking at the mostly uneaten fruit in his hand, "it's going to be horrible."
He remembered a fan theory that the strength of the Devil Fruit's power depended on how much of it you ate.
Not wanting to test his luck any further with this body, he grabbed the bottle of expensive booze he'd bought earlier.
He had a plan. He'd take small bites and immediately chase them with a swig of alcohol, using the swallowing reflex to get the pieces down without chewing.
Water would have been the logical choice, but Kevin hoped to kill two birds with one stone: numb his sense of taste and disinfect his insides.
He remembered a wedding from his past life. The guys who hadn't been drinking spent the next day camped out in the bathroom after a night of questionable street food.
The ones who had been drinking as much as they were eating were perfectly fine.
He didn't know of any Devil Fruit user who had died from food poisoning after eating their fruit, but that didn't mean it hadn't happened. It just meant they hadn't lived long enough to tell anyone about it.
When only the pit and a stem with a funny little swirl remained, Kevin had nearly finished his second bottle of alcohol.
His vision swam as he unthinkingly tossed the last remnants of the fruit into his mouth. With a jaunty crunch of the pit, he washed down his peculiar dinner and promptly passed out face-first on the bed.
When he woke up, he was surprised to find he had no hangover.
"Okay, now I'm definitely a supe," Kevin said, sitting up abruptly, his head completely clear.
He went to the fridge, grabbed another can of Fresca, and after refreshing himself, finally tried to figure out what power he'd gotten.
He concentrated, trying to feel something, and an intuitive sense guided him. He held out his hand, and a flash of light so bright it illuminated the entire apartment erupted from his palm.
"Umm, am I the Flash-Flash Man?" he muttered, underwhelmed and a little disappointed.
He tried it again, but this time, instead of a flash, several beams of light shot from his fingertips, leaving scorch marks on the ceiling and walls.
"Now that's more interesting," Kevin said, staring at his hand.
A sense of déjà vu washed over him. On instinct, he made a finger gun and repeated the action.
A laser beam shot from his fingertip, piercing the painting on the wall, the wall itself, the bathroom behind it, and then disappearing outside.
He stared in shock at the perfectly round hole, through which he could see a series of subsequent holes.
He didn't immediately notice the smoke curling up from the artwork.
Cursing, he ripped the smoldering canvas from the wall, ran into the newly ventilated bathroom, and threw it into the sink under a stream of water.
With the fire dealt with, Kevin peered through the hole leading outside and a stupid grin spread across his face.
He hadn't recognized the power at first, but now he knew. The devilish light-light Logia. Pika Pika no Mi.