Two days before he had to depart and get back to his duties, Garp gave me a full day of rest and had a medic from his ship treat my wounds for a bit. I found out why as we ran deep into the forest. “That village is too soft for you to be able to keep growing stronger. So, I am going to have you stay with some acquaintances of mine until the next time I can come by and continue your training.” Garp laughs.
I had stopped mouthing off to him a few days into his ‘training’ as I didn’t want any more cracks to the skull from his ‘Fists of Love’, so I barely gave a huff in response.
We had started off bright and early and it still took us past noon to reach the destination. A medium sized quaint house in the middle of a clearing, with Mt Corvo prominently being shown high above the tree tops to west. When we got there, a woman who had definitely let herself go to pasture was sitting in a chair out front. Long orange hair, slightly open collared white shirt, shades of green crisscrossing her pants with a big brown belt holding them up. Wide shoulders, wider than many barbarians that I knew, but her arms were like sticks. Rolls of fat trying to cover up the belt, with small legs ending in very tiny feet. Lastly was the face that looked like one too many bricks had found their mark, she was that ugly.
“This is Dadan. She and her family will be taking care of you when I’m not around.” Garp says without a care in the world.
“You already foisted that troublemaker Ace upon us, we won’t take another.” Dadan screams as she gets in Garp’s face.
“You will if you want to avoid a lengthy prison term, you and your boys.” Garp yells right back at her. At the mention of prison, she folds like a house of cards, meaning from what I can infer that there is history that Garp is holding over her head, forcing the compliance.
“Who is Ace?” I piped up with a question.
“He’s a year older than you, though not much stronger than you if that. You should get right along.” Garp comments.
While Dadan and Garp continue to talk, I wandered to where I hear the constant thunk of something hitting a tree. I found a boy not much older than me, with short black hair, an orange shirt and yellow shorts. He was hitting the tree with a pipe. He turns to me as I step closer and swings the pipe at my head. Now I had a fast reaction time before the bit of training with Garp, and it only got better afterward. Without moving, I simply leaned back out of the way, with the pipe barely making the air whistle as it passed right in front of my face. Now I wasn’t going to just let him trying to hurt me go unpunished, so after the pipe had barely completed its arc from left to right, my right fist plowed into his face, hitting him with enough force to not only make him drop the pipe, but also him to fly through the air to hit a tree as I sent him flying back.
“Why’d you hit me? He screamed out in a childish manner, sitting up from where he landed, hand rubbing at his jaw where my fist had mostly caught him, only a small amount of blood showing that I had broken the skin.
“Are you stupid? You tried to crack my skull open with that pipe. You deserve that hit and more.” I replied, arms now crossed over my chest.
Hearing the commotion, Garp and Dadan are on hand to hear my reply. “Looks like you two are already getting along, fantastic.” Garp laughs.
The next week is spent getting into a routine. Turns out besides hunting for my own food all the time, I'll also have to share with Dadan, Ace and the others. In addition, there are chores to be done to keep the house clean, which while I briefly learn about, I quickly skip out on in favor of training. Ace, the boy who tried to brain me, thankfully goes off to do his own thing. Being out here in nature, and away from prying eyes, more progress is made. It takes way more effort than I ever remember from growing up on my prior world, but I can finally manifest elements. Growing a small sapling, creating embers in my hand, throwing a few sparks of lightning, and creating water. There must be a few specific differences between this world and my prior that I don’t exactly understand. I know my mana reserves are greater, my control better than when I was ten when I was first training, even physically I’m head and shoulders above, so why is it so difficult. Despite this, I’ll keep training. Shanks, Garp, Whitebeard, all are measuring points against my dream.
One time while training, I spotted Ace going past what was told to me as the Dadan Clan’s territory boundary. Curious I decided to follow him discreetly, with unknown to me at the time was that my mana was helping to lessen my presence. After maybe ninety minutes, I could see the huge twenty-meter-tall walls of the Goa Kingdon in distance. Ace slowed to stop and greeted another kid like they were the best of friends. ‘Sabo’ as I overheard the name, had short blonde hair, though most of it was covered by a black top hat with blue hexagon shaped goggles resting on the brim. The rest of his clothes, while a bit dirty and ratty, still seemed much more fancy compared to just about anything I had seen before, such as blue overcoat with the sleeves rolled up, a white ascot, and heavily scoffed shoes that used to have a shine.
After chatting for a minute, they moved on, their destination, somewhere behind the walls of the Goa Kingdom. Their way to get into the Kingdom proper wasn’t a secret tunnel or anything like that, they just strolled in through the wide-open portcullis, where there wasn’t a guard in sight. To me with my experience that screams all kinds of wrong, after all what kingdom would purposely leave one of the main ways to get in, unguarded. I shake that thought from my head and continue following them. We pass through what is definitely a slum area, the building all ramshackle, pieces missing with odd repairs here and there. Then we come upon a smaller but no less impressive fifteen-meter-tall wall. This one has guards at the portcullis, and sentries on the walls, Still following them from the rooftops, I see them having to go through a secret passage into the part of the kingdom where the average to higher class people reside. There I finally see what they have come to do, steal. Sabo distracts a shop owner, while Ace pilfers money and food. The shop owner, realizing quickly what is going on, calls for the guards. Sabo and Ace take off running, the ill-gotten gains shared between them. They look like they are going to get away clean, until someone dumps their trash out of a window. This causes Sabo to lose his footing, skidding around till his head thuds against some stonework, dazing him. I see Ace look back at the sound, and he slows down as his mind is torn between getting away or helping his friend. Though I have no dog in this incident, my heart is moved with the indecision. I jump down from where I was on a rooftop, tearing up some bricks as I go. With a one, two, three, the guards go down from being brained with good aim. I then get Sabo to his feet, and we hurried after Ace. We ran, catching up to Ace, then knocking over the guards at the gate to the slums a few minutes later. We don’t stop running till we are outside the outer wall. A quick look and no guards are found to still be chasing us. We move out of sight of the main path, Ace and Sabo bent over gasping as they try to catch their breath, while I have no issues as my heartrate quickly returns to normal.
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“What the hell was that Luffy? Where did you come from?” Ace yells at me after he stops gasping.
“I followed you from Dadan’s territory. You who seemingly doesn’t get along with anyone, has a friend. A close enough friend that if you had turned around to help him, you both would have been caught. I saw the indecision on your face as you slowed down. That is what convinced me to help you. Now I have a question for you. Why stealing?” My voice is calm, as I wait for an answer.
“We need money to follow our dreams. We plan to find One Piece and the weaker of us will become subordinate to the stronger who would become the King of the Pirates. That way we can be free to do what we want.” Ace says.
“Why a pirate, the stigma that goes along with being named a pirate will make it harder to remain free. There will always be those close-minded folks that lump all pirates together as being bloodthirsty murderers, along with other despicable acts that they are known to commit. Though being a pirate is an easy way to get your name out to the world, the trouble naturally attracted doesn’t make that worth it to me. I know the good kind of pirates (as far as I know), and though many of the same goals resonate, I prefer the term adventurer as my main future label. “I say, my words calm and clear.
I think my words get through to Sabo and Ace as they take a few minutes to think, but Sabo’s next words prove me wrong. “No, pirates are the best, hands down end of story.”
Though our words differed in the end on application, my actions started a bond between us, while Ace and Sabo already had a good foundation. So, from then on, we worked together. Turns out that Sabo and Ace had only been stealing for a few months, even then maybe once a week at most to lessen the chance of getting caught. Other days they spend on training to get stronger, with Ace sharing a lot of the wisdom that grandpa Garp forcibly imparted to him over the last few years. Though Sabo had been working hard to catch up to Ace’s level, our first all-out spar ended with me as the victor. Grandpa Garp visited us a month later. Even with the three of us working together, we still couldn’t make him fight us at even ten percent of his actual strength, showing once again how much farther we had to go. Garp also told me and Ace of a big revelation, the identity of my father, who was his son. His name was Monkey D Dragon. Garp knew a lot about him, being a Vice-Admiral had many perks, information being one of them. The most significant thing about Dragon was that he is the leader of the Revolutionary Army. They are an anti-World Government organization. While that kind of explains why my father has never been to visit me, it doesn’t explain why I was left here and not taken with him and my mother when they left Dawn Island. Garp also refuses to explain why he told personal, important information regarding me while Ace was present.
I found out why, two weeks later, just as Sabo’s secret came out. We picked the wrong place to steal from this time. A pirate crew, the Bluejam pirates, were apparently hired to safeguard the ship we were breaking into. Far beyond the common guards, these guys had plenty of fighting experience. Ace had lost his pipe and Sabo his hat from the same sword swing. This sword had something special to it, as Ace’s pipe had broken many a sword wielded by the guards, so the pipe shattering after a particularly vicious blow from Bluejam, gave us pause. The rest of the pirates were head and shoulders above Higuma and his mooks, as my bruises attested to, though of my opponents, ten were already groaning in pain on the ground but most had only a few broken bones, hell none of them were dead or on death’s door. The pirate crew were guarding barrels, though we weren’t able to see what was in them before being attacked. Bluejam had focused on Ace and Sabo. Even as things were, I still had a few trumps cards that not even Ace or Sabo knew about, but right now I’m not in such dire straits as to being forced to use them, yet anyway. A few more minutes later and we had managed to get out of the ship, Ace and Sabo bleeding from several cuts, big and small, and me feeling like Garp spent several hours tenderizing me at his lowest setting. If I had to, I could still fight for a bit more, but either way I wanted to eat a whole hog, then sleep like the dead for at least two days. As we were leaving the port area, very much in a hurry, a voice sounded out, “Sabo is that you? It’s been over a year since you disappeared. It’s time for you to comeback home where you belong.” The man says. Sabo pauses in shock, with me and Ace doing so as well. The man in question is dressed extremely fine, better than anyone I have seen, in this life or the previous. Any more of his words are lost as Bluejam emerges from the ship, and then we get back to running till we are long out of hearing range. We don’t stop running till we get back outside the outer walls where we proceed to collapse in exhaustion.
I wake up in the morning, bruises are still mostly there but they have started to fade a little. Ace and Sabo have some food ready; their sword wounds having been already treated thanks to our supply of medicine. “Ok Sabo, time for the truth. Ace told me that you said you didn’t have any parents, that they were dead after their ship sunk not too far off the coast. So, who was that man?” I ask, eyebrows wiggling in a bit of confusion.
“I lied because I didn’t like the mentality that they were forcing me to have. Mainly that the low-born and other lessor folk only existed to serve the nobility, that nobles could use and discard them at will with no consequences whatsoever. Another almost as high reason that I ran away, was when I learned that they didn’t really care about me, that they cared more about how they could use me to raise their status in life. They were going to try and get a marriage arranged between me and a girl that was at least four pegs higher on the ladder than they were. All I was to them was a meal ticket. So, I snuck out one night with just the clothes on my back and haven’t looked back once.” The anger in his voice when talking about his reasons was fiery and passionate.
“Good to know that me and Luffy aren’t the only ones keeping secrets. My full name is Portgas D Ace, and my father is the greatest pirate of them all, or rather he was. My father’s name is Gol D Roger.” Ace reveals his secret, and mine and Sabo’s jaws are like ‘goodbye’ as they drop out of sight faster than we can blink at that revelation.
A few minutes after getting my jaw under control and now it is my turn. “Ace already knows this, my father is the leader of the Revolutionary Army, Monkey D Dragon. But that is far from my only secret. One other secret that not even Gramps knows, is that I’m a merged soul. Before I was Luffy, I was a great warrior, possibly the best one that my world had ever seen. I ended up in a draw in my final confrontation. Sometime later as just a soul, I came across Luffy’s tiny little flickering soul. He was just born and already he was dying. It was a new chance for me, so I somehow managed to merge with his wisp of a dying soul. His childness keeps me grounded, while my experience allows me grow stronger, quicker as I already know many things that don’t work, and many others that do. Six weeks ago, I joined the bond that we now have. That bond is strong but will remain strong only as we work together. Later, as we separate to chase our own dreams, the bond will still exist. Brothers, not by blood, but by passion.” I hold my fist out and Ace and Sabo press theirs to mine.