naruto power up during first series...

[Andy2kk]

Can anyone think of any fics where Naruto powers up before Shippuuden, having his friends seeing him use that power? Either by finding about the Shadow Clones ability earlier or using Kyuubi's
four tailed power. During the Second part of the Chunin exam, or a bit later.

Another fic was where Naruto uses the Kyuubis power from an early age. He uses it so that it burns his skin off, which heals very quickly. I think he had Sakura and Kiba on his team. I'd appreciate any help!

[Shanami]

Dunno if this counts, since it seems to be aiming at blowing the series completely out of the water.
Naruto Unchained by Voider is one of the *very* few Naruto fics I can stand, even counting crosses with series that I like. Generally, I think Naruto goes a bit too much into the DBZ route, where people gain the ability to do insanely ridiculous things (honestly, having the ability to torture someone for 100s of years in the span of a second with nothing more than eye contact...) so I tend to avoid it (with the exception of like 3 Ranma crosses that I like). This one, however, is a pure Naruto fic, but he bonds with Kyuubi before the series even really gets started (I think, again, I'm not that Naruto conversant).

The things I like about it are that Naruto isn't a wimp, he sticks up for himself, and the fic seems to be going interesting places.

That said, if you are looking for it to follow the series, don't bother reading it. But, he does get shadow clones really really early. He actually manages to have friends, and he looks like he's going to be insanely powerful by comparison to the Naruto in the canon.

If I can think of more, I'll let you know, but most that I've enjoyed are serious Ranma crosses that focus way more on Ranma than Naruto.