EXT. ALLEY BEHIND PADDY'S — DAY
The alley is bathed in the sickly, afternoon sun of South Philly. FRANK is sitting on a discarded beer crate, poking at a pile of bruised, purple-ish, and aggressively hairy produce that looks like it was rejected by a dumpster behind a radioactive grocery store. CRICKET stands over him, looking even more skeletal than usual. His skin is a sallow shade of "impended organ failure," and his trench coat is held together by hope and grime.
CRICKET
I'm telling you, Frank. These came off a boat. A foreign boat. The guy at the docks was shaking, man. He told me they're "Cursed Fruits." One bite, and you get... abilities. You get to bend the world to your will.
FRANK (squinting, using a stick to flip a fruit over)
Abilities? What, like, I can pay my taxes with my mind? I can make people stop suing me?
CRICKET
No, like... supernatural power! You could be a god, Frank! You could have the strength of ten men and the agility of a jungle cat! I had a nibble on the way over, and I can already hear the thoughts of that stray dog over there.
(Cricket points at a mangy pitbull. The dog barks. Cricket flinches.)
CRICKET
He says I'm a 'traitor.' He knows too much, Frank!
FRANK (snorting)
It's rotten, Cricket. It's got a film. Look at this—it's got a gray, fuzzy film. That's mold. That's a lawsuit.
CRICKET
That's the magic film! It protects the essence!
Frank picks up a particularly shriveled, bulbous fruit that Cricket used to hide a PCP stash six months ago and completely forgot about. The chemical seep has turned the fruit into a semi-sentient bio-hazard.
FRANK
I don't believe in magic. But I do believe in a scam. These nerds downtown are obsessed with this pirate cartoon. We tell people these are "Devil Fruits." We charge a five-hundred percent markup. "Forbidden" snacks are a goldmine for the bored and the wealthy.
Frank leans in.
FRANK
We bring back Wolf Cola, with Devil Fruit in it.
Frank motions with both hands to the empty room.
FRANK
Wolf Cola: The Official Drink of the Grand Line!
CRICKET (shrugging, his eyes beginning to twitch)
I'll cheers to that. I'll cheers to anything that stops the buzzing in my ears.
FRANK
Cheers. Don't let the seeds touch your tongue, they look like they have teeth.
They clink two pieces of moldy fruit together. Both explode into mushy, gray pieces, spraying a fine mist of spores and PCP-laced juice into the air. Frank doesn't hesitate—he starts shoveling the pulp into his mouth with his bare, greasy fingers. Cricket does the same, licking the "magic" residue off the warm asphalt.
FRANK (muffled, chewing aggressively)
Tastes like... copper and... a basement where someone died.
CRICKET (eyes already dilating into giant, black voids)
That's the power entering the bloodstream, brother! I can see the Grand Line! It's... it's just the Schuylkill River, but it's glowing!
CUT TO BLACK.