"You've already seen three of them. First is Soru," Luffy said as he demonstrated Soru by running circles around a man who was wearing crab-themed armour with two mechanical pincers sticking out his back on the deck of a pirate ship. They had arrived at an island a few minutes prior where Luffy had quickly befriended a little girl wearing knight armour called Medaka, and after learning that her father, along with many of her villagers, were being enslaved by a pirate called Ganzack, he had decided to help out.
After successfully freeing the people who were being forced to work in a factory to build weapons with Zoro and Nami taking on all the opponents while Luffy concentrated on getting everyone out, only their captain, Ganzack, was left, who Luffy was facing off against. Ganzack fought mainly using his crab-themed armour and pincers which could jab and dent even steel, and could even hold and fire guns. Luffy had immediately thought of Doc Ock when he saw the pincer-like arms and thus started calling him Doc Crab, which infuriated Ganzack greatly as he didn't like to be called a crab. Zoro and Nami were watching from the sidelines as Luffy had said that he wanted to show them some techniques.
It had been just a couple of days since they dropped Makino off and just over a week since Luffy had officially met the two, so he decided it was about time he started telling them about the Rokushiki and Haki. He didn't want to overwhelm them with information, so he eased them into it by explaining the Rokushiki first.
"H-how are you so fast?!" Ganzack exclaimed in shock as he spun around trying to aim at Luffy while he seemingly disappeared and reappeared from place to place.
"Right, so this is where you kick off the ground more than 10 times in the blink of an eye," Zoro nodded as he observed from the sides.
"Yeah," Luffy confirmed stopping next to him, "Next is Airwalk, which is nothing but kicking off the air so hard that it becomes like a platform"
"I still think that that's your devil fruit power," Nami said accusingly.
"Nope, anyone can do it if they train hard enough," Luffy grinned before standing in front of the two.
"There you are!" Ganzack yelled at him as his mechanical crab pincers brought out guns and started firing at him.
"Next is Iron Body," Luffy continued nonchalantly as bullets rained down on him, "You saw this back in Shellstown too. You basically flex your muscles so hard that it becomes as hard as iron." Bullets got crushed at the point of impact and fell to the ground as the two watched in wonder and Ganzack in bewildered shock.
"You just flex?" Zoro asked confused.
"No, I'm sure it's just armour," Nami said before lifting his shirt up and finding nothing. Again.
"Are you gonna feel me up again, Nami?" Luffy smirked and Nami blushed smacking him on the head while yelling, "It's not like that!"
"Shishi anyway, to learn this, you just gotta keep getting hit hard while you try to tense up your muscles"
"I see"
"Next is Kami-e or Paper Art. I just learned the basics of this," Luffy said before he got close to Ganzack who was looking at him in shock.
"Attack me, Doc Crab," Luffy said when he just kept just staring.
"Ahh! Don't call me crab!" Ganzack yelled before his two pincers started attacking him. Luffy let his body loose, his body acting like paper, as he dodged all his attacks seemingly by flowing out of the way. A minute of dodging later, Luffy came back to Zoro and Nami's side without being hit even once.
"You basically just completely relax your body and let it flow like a piece of paper"
"Hm not really my style," Zoro said and Luffy nodded agreeing with him.
"Yeah, but it'll help someone like Nami a lot"
"I guess," Nami nodded seeing the merits of learning it.
"You!" Ganzack yelled from across the deck, "Stop running away!"
"Next is Rankyaku," Luffy continued ignoring him as he pulled his leg back and kicked at Ganzack. Nami, Zoro and Ganzack's eyes widened when a wind blade originated from Luffy's kick and went straight at Ganzack. He screamed turning his back and trying to run away, but the wind blade was faster and slashed him across his back, breaking apart his mechanical crab armour while also leaving a slash on his back. He fell down defeated and Luffy turned to the other two, "Basically, a wind blade. You concentrate on making your kicks fast and precise until a wind slash forms." He then looked at Zoro and added, "You can get the same effect with a sword too"
"…A sword wind slash…" Zoro mumbled, a bit in shock.
"The last technique is Shigan. I haven't learned it but you jab your finger so fast like this…" Luffy said as he thrust his finger in front of him, "…that it leaves a bullet-like hole in the target. I'm more of a punching guy, so didn't bother to learn it"
He then airwalked before continuing, "These are just the basics but you can do way more variations of each of these techniques when you advance a bit and even mix different techniques. Like you can use Soru while airwalking," he said as he moved in space seemingly disappearing from one spot to another as he took down the pirate flag on the ship to signal to the people on the island that Ganzack was taken down before coming back and landing in front of the two. "That's called Kamisori. You can invent more stuff yourself once you get the hang of a few techniques…"
"…I see," Zoro nodded letting out a deep sigh. He remembered Lizz saying that she had heard of these techniques too, so this wasn't something unique to Luffy. 'There are more people who are stronger than me…'
Luffy worriedly watched the two's reaction. Zoro was gripping his swords tighter as he looked frustrated and contemplative at the same time while Nami, on the other hand, had a blank unreadable look on her face.
Zoro was easy to read. He was realizing that Luffy was much more stronger than him, and so, was reevaluating his own strength. It was like he was receiving his wake-up call earlier and from Luffy instead of Mihawk, which would be advantageous for Zoro as he would perhaps have a better mindset while facing Mihawk in the near future. He would still face a near-death defeat from his goal and that would be a much bigger wake-up call for him.
But Nami's reaction was strange. She had a blank look on her face as if she was forcing herself not to think, and Luffy couldn't get a read on her. He wondered what she was thinking about but before he could ask, Zoro spoke up.
"Hey Luffy," Zoro said in a serious tone, "I want to learn wind slashes the most. Soru and Iron Body too"
Luffy grinned nodding, "Let's spar whenever we get the chance"
Zoro nodded gratefully before Luffy looked at Nami, who instantly shook her head seemingly back to her normal self. "You said I have I get hit to learn them? No thanks! I have my amazing shock staff after all"
"Not for all. You can try to learn Soru if you want"
"Hmm no… Seems like it requires inhumane strength to even do that… It's impossible to imagine myself doing that…"
"Yeah, you're more of a gadget user anyway…" Luffy agreed. Straight-up brawling didn't fit her fighting style at all, and he wasn't gonna force anyone to learn something they didn't want to. "Well anyway, if you change your mind, let me know"
Nami agreed before looking towards the island, "Looks like they started celebrating"
"Yeah! It's feast time!" Luffy cheered before he grabbed both of them and started airwalking to the island.
"Sometimes, I feel like you only help people and all because they'll have a party afterwards and you'll get free food," Nami giggled as she held onto him.
"Well, I won't deny I look forward to it!"
"Oh, I'm completely sure that that's the main reason," Zoro added with a chuckle.
"Shishishishi"
"What a strange pirate…" Nami sighed with a fond smile and they soon landed back on the island. Celebrations soon started and Nami and Zoro started partying with the people, but Luffy wasn't actually in the mood for long as he was still stuck thinking about Nami's strange blank look from earlier. She looked fine now as she challenged people to a drinking contest and wiped the floor with everyone, but he couldn't get it out of his head.
"Hmmmm….." He sat on a building tilting his head from side to side as he kept thinking about her and before long, he was having tangential thoughts, a lot of tangential thoughts. Soon, he sighed deeply cursing Leo for making him such a thinker (but also thanking him) before he went to Medaka.
"Hey, kiddo!"
"Luffy!" Medaka, a short young girl with red hair wearing knight armour, cheered seeing him, "Come on, you should eat all you want!"
"I am I am," Luffy chuckled as he patted her head. "But first, do you guys have a Marine Base here?"
"Hm? Yeah, but it was abandoned a long time ago, and the building was occupied by Ganzack."
"Show me the way," Luffy said and the two slipped out of the party as she happily led him to the Marine Base. It was abandoned as she said, but he was only interested in the communications room.
"Hmm, I guess the transponder snails are still here… but we don't have any numbers to the other bases," Medaka said looking around the room for something like a phone book.
"Ah don't worry, I have the number," Luffy said as he dialed Sengoku's number which he had gotten from Makino. It didn't really connect if he just directly called from his own transponder snail. He had to do it from a Marine Base as it had to connect from Marine base to Marine Base, sort of like relay stations, before it finally reached the Marine HQ. And it took a while for the call to connect too during which Luffy sent Medaka away saying that it was going to take a while and she should go back to celebrate.
"Hello?" Sengoku's voice finally came over the snail.
"Yo Sen, it's me!"
"You again? It hasn't even been like two weeks since you last called me," Sengoku grumbled, his voice clearing taking an irritated tone.
"Aww, I can't call you whenever I want?"
"Get to the point, brat, or I'm disconnecting"
"Okay okay, I have two things. First, the base I'm calling from, it's abandoned apparently. People on this island were enslaved for a few years under a pirate called Ganzack. I just defeated Ganzack and freed the people, but they'll still need a good Marine presence here. Send someone good"
"…"
There was a brief silence before Sengoku sighed deeply, "…Okay fine, I'll look into it"
"First, that Makino woman calls asking us to investigate and remove a corrupt Marine Captain," Tsuru's voice came over the snail next, "And now you. Are you doing our jobs for us now? I thought you were gonna give us headaches?"
"Shishi well, that'll come later. For now, the main point I called - I need a favour"
"A favour? What makes you think we'll do you of all people a favour?"
"Please? It's important"
Sengoku took a few moments to think about it before sighing again, "Well, you did just free an island… I'll hear you out at least. What is it?"
"Great. I want you to…"
—
"Thanks for doing this, Sen" Luffy said half an hour later.
"…Hope you aren't gonna keep using me like this"
"Oh come on, Senny," Tsuru interjected and Luffy could feel that she was smiling wide. "If he's gonna do stuff like this, then I'm 100% behind him. Hey kid, if you have a request like this again, call me directly. Here's my number," she said and gave her number out.
"…I'm getting a headache now…" Sengoku sighed, while Luffy and Tsuru laughed, before he added seriously, "Call me when this thing happens. I'm letting you do this, but I still want to know what takes place"
"I don't think I can. I have to call you from a Marine Base always to connect to you, and I won't be in a Marine Base when it happens"
"Just call a nearby Marine Base and ask someone to connect to me by giving them my number that you have. That's it"
"Oh… right, that works… Why didn't you tell Makino this? She said she usually had to go to the Goa Kingdom's Marine Base to connect to you"
"If I told her that she could do that to reach me, she would have called me like ten times a day and screamed at me every time!"
"Shishi yeah, I guess. Well anyway, thanks for this. Bye-bye!"
"Goodbye brat" / "Bye Luffy"
Luffy disconnected the call before sighing deeply. 'That sure was tense… I didn't like talking to him like that…'
He shook those thoughts away as that would happen a bit later and decided he would deal with it when the time came. For now, he went back to the party to find Nami winning a lot of money from drinking contests and Zoro just drinking happily, so joined in. A couple of hours later, the Strawhats left on their boat while the people on the island, especially Medaka, yelled heartfelt thankyous and goodbyes.
"STAY SAFE GUYS! BYE!"
"Ehehehe…" Nami was grinning brightly while counting the small amount of treasure they had taken from Ganzack as they sailed away. "That was a great haul! I'm so rich now!"
"Can you not keep saying 'I' while referring to our treasure," Zoro interjected with a sweat-drop.
"Luffy said that I can keep all the treasure we steal!" Nami snapped at him hugging her treasure closely, "So, yes! This is all mine!"
Zoro looked at Luffy questioningly. "Really?"
"Well yeah, I did say that…"
"…Like forever?" Zoro asked perplexed.
Luffy gulped realizing his mistake. He had said that when they first met without thinking too much about it, but of course, their treasure wasn't going to be 100% hers forever.
"Well… not forever," he hesitantly said looking at Nami cautiously, "She needs a hundred million, so until we make that much, it's all hers… But after we collect that much, we'll divide it fairly!"
Nami wanted to snap at him but she was also caught off guard by the words 'After we collect that much.' By the way things were going, it wouldn't be long before she really collected that much. And life after she collected 100 million and freed her people? She had never given it serious thought. Would she even be with Luffy after she collected that much? She didn't know and before she could go into a thought spiral, she hastily shook her head stopping herself from thinking about it and changed the topic, "A-anyway, we need to head to the Grand Line first. And for that, we need to find Buggy to get that map!"
Luffy sighed in relief thinking he had somehow dodged a bullet and cheered, "Okay, let's go kick his butt and take the map!"
"And his treasure!" Nami added with a cheer.
———o———
2 weeks later, Orange Town
"EVERYBODY! Raise your glasses high! I have the map to the Grand Line and with the power of the Buggy Balls," Buggy cheered as he watched the smoking cannon and the trail of destruction it had left behind in the town where a row of buildings was destroyed, "I'LL RULE THE GRAND LINE!"
"HOOORAYY!"
Luffy landed on top of the bar Buggy was partying on just as he finished his speech and watched as his crew cheered loudly before they began singing, dancing, eating, drinking, and for some reason, a few of them started doing circus tricks like juggling with knives, unicycling, balancing on a ball, and so on.
He didn't care much for them though when he saw rows of tables filled with food and drinks, and instantly went for it seamlessly slipping into the crowd as he stuffed his face in while making his way towards Buggy.
"Yo!" Luffy waved at him as he sat next to Buggy.
"Hm?" Buggy tilted his head studying him, "Who are you?"
"Hi, I'm Luffy. And I'm here to kick your ass and take the map to the Grand Line"
Buggy froze for a second before he started laughing, "Gahahahaha! You are gonna kick my ass?! Hey, men, did you hear what he just said?!"
"Yes, we heard him! Does he think he can defeat the boss?! Hahahaha!" His men also started laughing while Luffy continued eating all the food.
"Yeah," Luffy continued unbothered, "Just wanted to talk a bit before I beat you though"
"You wanted to talk? Gahahaha! I'll humour you. What did you want to talk about?"
"I always wondered how someone who sailed with him, sailed with people like Oden and Rayle-"
Buggy's face paled as he immediately lunged at Luffy and clamped his mouth shut. "How do you know that?!" he whisper-hissed, "Who are you?!"
"Shishishishi"
"Captain Buggy? What's he talking about?" one of the pirates asked, "You sailed with someone before?"
"Ahaha!" Buggy laughed awkwardly waving him off, "He's just joking! This is an old friend of mine and we joke like that whenever we meet. I'll go catch up with him!"
He then hastily separated his upper body and flew to the top of a faraway building while carrying Luffy.
"That scared you'll be found out, cabin boy?"
"Ahh! How do you know that, ya flashy bastard?!" Buggy screamed at him as they landed on a roof.
"Relax, relax, I won't tell anyone. I was just curious. How did someone who sailed under him end up doing lame things like," he pointed at all the destroyed buildings, "this?"
"What do you mean lame, ya bastard! That's the power of my Buggy Ball! It's enough to level a small town!"
"And? What the hell will something small like that do in the Grand Line? You've seen people who can split the sky with just a simple clash. What the hell will a cannonball do to them?"
"Don't pit me against monsters like that, ya bastard! I'm not going anywhere near the New World! I'll stay in Paradise and conque-WAIT A MINUTE! BEFORE THAT, HOW THE HELL DO YOU EVEN KNOW SO MUCH ABOUT ME?!"
"Shishishi calm down calm down," Luffy chuckled pushing his face back as he was agitated and kept getting right in his face as he floated in front of him. "I just happen to know"
"That's not an answer!"
"Damn, you're more snappy than Nami. Just relax, will you? I won't tell anyone. I just wanted to talk a bit before I kicked your ass.
"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU, YA BASTARD!"
"Luffy, Future Pirate King"
"PIRATE KING?! YOU WILL BECOME THE PIRATE KING?! GAHAHAHA!"
"Ugh stop shouting so much," Luffy said as he pushed him back feeling his ears hurt listening to his squeaky voice at such a close range.
"DON'T BE A FOOL! IF A KID LIKE YOU WILL BECOME THE PIRATE KING, THEN I'LL BE THE PIRATE GOD! THIS WOR-"
"Ugh stop screaming in my ears!" Luffy snapped as he punched him in the face and his floating upper body got flung to the side.
"How dare you hit me?!" Buggy growled lowly as he brought out numerous knives. "I kill you!"
"Yeah yeah," Luffy sighed. He really wanted to talk a bit with him, but he was way too excitable.
"Wait a minute," Buggy said as he finally spotted Luffy's hat dangling on his nape, "That hat!" He made the connection between Luffy knowing about his time with Roger and Shanks' hat, and came to the conclusion that Luffy heard about him from Shanks. "That's Shanks' hat!" he said reaching out for it.
Luffy swatted his hand away saying, "Don't touch the hat! And yeah, Shanks gave it to me"
"That damn bastard did huh?" Buggy said as he let out a sigh of relief internally. 'Oh thank god! I was wondering if this kid was someone from the New World but turns out that that damn Shanks yapped about Captain to some kid…'
"Hey! Don't badmouth Shanks"
"That damn bastard ruined my life! I'll badmouth him all I want! He made me lose a 100 million berri treasure and even made it so that I can't even swim! You see, we were both apprentices on Captain Roger's ship and one day-"
"Yeah, I don't need to hear that," Luffy put a stop to it, "I already know. You ate your fruit accidentally, and Shanks saved your life when you fell into the sea."
"Did that bastard say that?! He was the one responsible for making me fall in the first place!"
"Ugh stop, you're irritating… I just wanted to ask about how you turned out like this after sailing with someone like Roger…"
Buggy misunderstood Luffy for someone who wanted information about Roger and his ship's path, so firmly decided not to tell him anything. He never talked about his time with Roger as he didn't want his name associated with monsters like him. People would think he knew secrets about the One Piece, which would attract the attention of other monsters from the New World and the Marines, which would in turn make his life a living hell as he would be imprisoned or chased around. He didn't know if the stranger in front of him was just a kid who heard stories from Shanks or someone affiliated with one of the Emperors, Warlords or the Marines, so there was no way in hell he was revealing anything.
He was leaning more towards him being just a kid who heard stories from Shanks though as no one else really knew that he used to sail with Roger apart from maybe Whitebeard, but he still wasn't taking any chances.
"You want to know about my time with Roger huh?" Buggy said deciding to probe for his affiliation, if any. "And why the hell would I talk to some no-name pirate like you huh?! There's no way in hell I'm talking about my time with Captain with you!"
Luffy sighed, "Well yeah, I guess you have no reason to… let's talk when we meet on the Grand Line then. For now, I'll beat you up"
"Gahahaha! You think you can defeat me?! You're alone here while I have my whole crew!"
Luffy grinned as he looked towards the roof where the Buggy pirates were partying, "Heh, guess they got impatient"
"Huh? What are you talking about?!"
Luffy pointed at the roof and Buggy turned to see an orange-haired girl hyping up all her pirates. "Who the hell is that?!" he yelled as he flew back towards the bar and once he got close enough, he could hear the girl talking.
"Yes yes, that's the way! Form a long chain and you'll get to dance with me!" the girl said and his men cheered forming a long line with each person grabbing the shoulders of the man in front of him.
"Who the hell is that and what is she doing?" Buggy wondered aloud as he watched from the top.
"She's my navigator, Nami," Luffy answered airwalking in place next to him, "And as for what she's doing, shishi you'll see"
Buggy hummed with a hand on his chin trying to guess what Nami was up to and it took him five whole seconds to realize that Luffy was jumping on air next to him. "YOU'RE FLYING?!" he gasped before realizing what it was, "You're using Moonwalk!"
"Yeah, but look down there for now. Nami's finished"
Buggy did look down and found that almost all his men were in a long chain while Nami watched them from the side.
"Okay great!" Nami cheered, "I'll now dance with each one of you!"
"Yeaaahhh!"
She then walked up to the first man in the chain, who was grinning at her, and brought her shock staff out.
"What's this?" he asked curiously.
"You know, I'm on a roll right now," Nami happily giggled bubbling with excitement, "I just took out a massive lion all by myself! Can you believe that?! A massive lion! And I defeated it!"
"Are you talking about Richie?" the lead pirate asked a bit confused.
"Yeah, I think that was its name. And now," Nami cattily grinned, "I'm gonna take you all out too! Heehee, Goodbye!" She turned the intensity dial all the way up on her staff and jabbed it into the lead guy.
BZZZZZZTTTTT!
It was quite a spectacle for Luffy and Buggy who were both watching from above as electricity coursed from one man to the next in the chain like a snake almost instantaneously and each person's body started jerking violently as they got electrocuted.
Luffy watched with a proud smile while Buggy's jaw hung wide open as he gaped at the scene. Unfortunately, somewhere around the halfway point in the chain, the intensity had decreased and one guy managed to snap his arms back losing contact with the person in front of him and thus everyone behind him didn't feel any shocks, but they were too stunned watching the other half getting electrocuted.
Nami maintained her grin as she kept the shock staff in contact with the lead pirate for five more seconds before breaking contact and half of Buggy's crew slumped to the ground unconscious. She then happily pranced to the side and sat on a barrel while the men who didn't get electrocuted glared at her.
"You'll pay for that!" / "You tricked us!" / "What the hell was even that?!"
"You can come out now, Zoro" Nami yelled unbothered by their glares and an irritated Zoro climbed up the side of the building while mumbling, "Why am I the backup?"
"Hehe don't worry, about half are remaining still"
Zoro sighed, "Ehh these guys look weaker than that unicycle guy… man, what a disappointment he was. Don't swordsmen fight with honour anymore?" He sighed once more when the pirates started recognizing that he was Roronoa Zoro and began trembling. "Let's just get this over with"
He brought one sword over his shoulder while holding it with both hands, let out a deep breath, and poured all his concentration into the attack as he swung his sword diagonally in front of him as fast as he could while yelling "Flying Slash Attack!"… And nothing happened. No wind blade originated like he wanted.
He had been sparring with Luffy ever since he showed them the Rokushiki techniques, and as Luffy kept telling him, it wasn't something he could learn within a couple of weeks and would require intense training and plenty of life-or-death battles for him to grasp them.
"What's he doing?" / "Did something happen?" The pirates started muttering causing him to sigh. He then brought out another sword before lunging right into the middle of them and used his normal sword skills to take them all out. Within less than two minutes, he sheathed his swords back after all the remaining pirates were down.
At least he thought he did but suddenly saw two disembodied legs dancing on their own in the far corner near a chair that looked like a throne. "What the heck?!"
"What is it?" Nami asked curiously before she too saw the dancing legs and yelped, "What the hell is that?!"
"WHO THE HELL ARE YA FLASHY BASTARDS!" a loud scream pierced through the sky and Nami and Zoro both looked up to find the upper torso of a man struggling under Luffy's grip and his hands also seemed to be moving completely detached from his body.
"Is that…clown cut in half? And still moving?" Nami asked watching Luffy fighting the upper body. She then looked down back at the legs and realized they were the lower body of the clown. She also realized that the legs weren't dancing but struggling.
"Yeah… Guess that's his devil fruit ability," Zoro said realizing the same thing.
"Hmm…they sure are weird. You think Luffy's power is even more weird, so that's why he hides it?"
"Maybe…"
Meanwhile, Luffy was actually grabbing and tickling Buggy's stomach to keep him occupied. Buggy was going to intervene when Zoro was fighting, so he had grabbed him to keep him in place. But Buggy just separated his hands which went towards Zoro, so Luffy started tickling and pinching his stomach, and the hands immediately came back to defend himself.
"Heh, this is fun!"
"Stop it, ya flashy bastard!"
Luffy did let him go when he saw that Zoro was done with the fight and descended to his two cremates.
"Is this the map to the Grand Line?" Luffy asked as he handed a map to Nami which he had just stolen while tickling Buggy. She studied it for a few moments before nodding excitedly, "Yeah! This is it. We finally have the map we need!"
"YOU STOLE MY MAP?!" Buggy screamed as he descended too and combined with his lower torso while checking his jacket pockets, only to find the map missing. "You thief! Give it back!"
"This is ours now!" Nami said sticking her tongue out at him.
"You seem awfully playful right now," Luffy chuckled seeing her childish behaviour.
"I just took down a massive lion and half the crew of a pirate who has a 15 million bounty! I'm high right now!"
"You took down Richie?!" Buggy yelled again before looking around at the pile of bodies that were on the roof, "Where the hell are Mohji and Cabaji?!"
"You mean them?" Zoro asked pointing a thumb at a nearby building below which Cabaji was lying unconscious with slashes on him, Richie was lying unconscious with its fur sticking out like it was electrocuted, Mohji was lying unconscious with his teeth broken, and across the three of them, an old man wearing leather armour was lying down unconscious while a white dog stood next to him protectively, who barked happily wagging its tail while looking at the three Strawhats.
"MOHJI?! CABAJI?! WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?!"
"Ehh they were patrolling the area when we arrived I guess," Nami explained, "We were talking with the mayor and the dog when they spotted us"
"They recognized me," Zoro continued, "The unicycle guy picked a fight with me so I fought him off"
"The lion tried to go for the dog's pet store, which is its treasure by the way, so I electrocuted it by jabbing my shock staff into its mouth!"
"I kicked the fur-cap guy," Luffy continued, "Then you launched a cannonball at the town destroying a lot of houses. And that's when I came to stop you… And oh! The mayor was going to come to fight you, so I knocked him out too."
They had come a bit earlier to Orange Town than in the story but things hadn't changed much. They had still met Chouchou and Boodle had come to feed him as he did every day. Only two noteworthy things were different. One was that Cabaji had also shown up when they were talking to Boodle, and the other was that Chouchou was friendly with Luffy from the start, which made him wonder why.
"I see I see," Buggy nodded after hearing what happened, "So all that happe-WAIT! WHY THE HELL ARE YOU TELLING ME THIS?!"
"Because you asked"
"Right right, I did as-NO! I DIDN'T MEAN IT LIKE THAT!"
"Shishi you're funny!"
"STOP MAKING FUN OF ME! You think you've won?! With the power of my Chop-Chop fruit, I'm more than enough to kill you all!"
Buggy then separated his whole body into a number of smaller pieces which revolved around his head as he laughed maniacally. "Chop-Chop Festival!"
"You'll be fun to fight!" Luffy lunged at some of his body parts, grabbed them and squeezed them in between his palms making Buggy scream.
"Stop that!" Buggy yelled as he launched a number of knives at Luffy, who swatted away all the knives before lunging at his head. He caught it in his hands before jumping off the roof of the bar and plunged down while holding Buggy's head towards the ground. "Face Smash!"
"You bastard!" Buggy yelled trying to separate his head vertically into two to escape, but Luffy clamped both sides of his head, not letting him escape and crashed into the ground, Buggy's head first. It created a very small hole in which his head got buried while Luffy let go and jumped back grinning.
"You fucking Strawhat bastard!" Buggy hissed as his head floated out of the hole glaring at him. A spinning foot with a razor sticking out of its shoe suddenly came straight down on Luffy, who just side-stepped to dodge.
"Aghhh! Chop-Chop Buzzsaws!" Buggy launched both his feet at him before his hands started throwing daggers at him from all directions.
"This is actually really fun!" Luffy cheered finding a fight to be fun after so long as he kept trying to dodge and punch the different body parts, but they just split before his punch could land.
"GYAAAH! DON'T TAKE ME LIGHTLY!" Buggy screamed as he changed tactics. "You care about your friends, don't you?" he smiled evilly before some of his body parts started heading towards Nami and Zoro who were both watching from the roof thinking 'What a strange fight…'
"This is a one-on-one fight, Buggy!" Luffy said as he used Soru to get in front of his head and pummeled it into the ground again. His body parts stopped advancing towards Nami and Zoro and came back to attack Luffy when he kept punching Buggy's head into the ground.
"Ugh…you…strawhat bastard…" Buggy groaned when Luffy stopped and his body reassembled completely again. "You and that bastard Shanks with your stupid straw hat…always ruining my life"
"Don't insult Shanks or the hat, idiot!"
Buggy got an evil glint in his eyes as he heard that. 'Seems like that hat is precious to him huh? He didn't let me touch it earlier either… Hehehehe!'
"Chop-Chop Festival!" Buggy split into many parts again and this time, all his parts revolved around Luffy. "Gahahah! Let's see what you do when attacks come at you from every angle!" His hands threw knives, his foot with a razor sticking out of his shoe came spinning at Luffy like a buzzsaw, while other body parts made it hard for him to see what was happening around him. And Luffy was enjoying the fight. Not in a 'This guy is strong, so it's fun fighting him' way, but in a 'This guy's power is fun to play around with.'
Luffy kept grabbing different body parts that came near him and squeezed them in between his palms again while Buggy tried to split further. He wasn't using Observation as it would become way too easy for him to dodge everything and so, he relied purely on his eyesight to dodge any attack coming at him. And that was his mistake. He let his guard down treating it like a game and a dagger came out of his blind spot at his head. He dodged it at the last second and then two more daggers came at his head again which he dodged easily too, but froze when he heard a ripping sound.
He instantly turned and saw that three daggers had been thrown at him, not two, and the third one wasn't aiming for his head but his hat that was hanging on his nape. His hat was cut.
"GAHAHAHA! That hat is precious to you, isn't it?!" Buggy laughed having aimed for his hat from the start. "You should take better care of it, Gahahaha!"
Luffy slowly brought his hat in front of him and studied the damage. There was a rip at the top horizontally splitting it and he sighed deeply seeing it. 'I didn't say anything about the hat being my treasure, so thought he wouldn't aim for it… Guess I let my guard down huh?'
He then put it back on his head and lost the jovial nature he had until then before disappearing from everyone's sight.
"GAHAH-" Buggy, who was laughing at him, had his whole world suddenly turn white. One moment he was looking at Luffy putting his hat back on his head and the next, he was on the ground as pain suddenly erupted from all over his body and he felt like he was whipped multiple times. And that's exactly what had happened. Luffy had first punched him in the gut, making his bend in half before he brought both his arms up and smashed his fists on his back pummeling him to the ground. He then grabbed his leg and started whipping him on the ground like a rag doll in a very short few seconds and it was too fast and painful for Buggy to even think about splitting his body up.
And that was the first time either Nami or Zoro had seen their captain get angry. In every fight up until then, he would either have a very bored expression or he would be laughing around messing with his opponents, but this time, he had gotten a blank look on his face when he saw that his hat was damaged and the way Buggy was being whipped told them that he was pissed.
"Wow. I thought nothing fazed him… but he looks pretty mad," Nami commented a bit surprised.
"He did say his hat is his most important treasure… and he even named the crew after it. So, it really must be very precious…" 'Like my Wado'
"Yeah…"
Both had heard him talking fondly about his hat, but watching him whip a man into the ground for damaging it made them truly comprehend that it was his most important treasure.
Luffy stopped after a few seconds and sighed when he saw Buggy was badly bruised and had fallen unconscious. 'Can't get too angry or I'll end up killing him…' He then spun around standing in place while still holding onto Buggy, spinning him around a few times building momentum before letting him go and Buggy got flung far away into the sky.
He sighed letting his annoyance go, which was more directed at himself for letting his guard down rather than at Buggy, and looked at his hat again. 'Should be easily fixed…' he nodded to himself before looking up to see his two crewmates and went to them.
"Nami," he whined presenting the hat to her, "Fix it for me"
Nami was a bit surprised at seeing the massive gap at seeing his blank angry look and the whiny pout he currently had and shook her head with a sigh before taking the hat, "Even you get angry huh?"
"Well, how would you like it if someone stole all the treasure you gathered?"
"I would eviscerate them!" came the instant response.
"And if someone damaged your Wado?"
"I would cut them into pieces!"
"Shishi same for me"
"Okay okay… anyway, this is just a straight cut. It's an easy fix, don't worry"
"Thanks!"
"But I'll do that later. Now, I need to steal all their treasure!" Nami said happily as she went in search of all of Buggy's treasure while Luffy and Zoro relaxed on the roof eating and drinking. Luffy also saw a few Buggy Balls lying around, so grabbed a couple and put them in a sack to take with him thinking that Usopp could analyze and add it to his arsenal.
Nami came back a few minutes later while hauling a big bag of treasure on her back with a really excited gleam in her eyes, "Got to give it to Buggy. He had an eye for treasure at least! There's almost 10 million in here!"
"And what do we do with these idiots?" Zoro pointed at all the pirates who were lying unconscious on the roof.
"Eh the townspeople will take care of them," Luffy waved it off and right on cue, they saw a large crowd of people coming towards them. They spotted Boodle lying down unconscious, asked the Strawhats what happened, Luffy answered, and a minute later, the three Strawhats were running away while the townspeople chased after them.
"Why the hell did you have to tell them that we're pirates?!" Nami groaned as they ran while Zoro and Luffy were laughing.
"Ehh they needed a win," Luffy answered, "They had their homes ransacked by pirates while they couldn't do anything… So, them chasing us out of town will feel like a win in their books"
That stunned both Zoro and Nami with Zoro feeling his respect rise up for him and Nami wondering for the millionth time just how he called himself a pirate… at least, until he opened his mouth again.
"But honestly, I wanted at least one place to chase us out of town like pirates, you know… Everyone just treats us like heroes all the time…" Luffy whined and the two looked at him with a deadpan expression realizing that this was his actual reason.
"Moron! Idiot!" Nami started calling him names as they ran while Luffy laughed.
They ran through the town while the mob chased them and as they neared the dock, Chouchou came to help them. He barked happily at them as they passed by before standing in the middle of the street intent on not letting the townspeople pass.
"Thanks, Chouchou!" Luffy smiled waving at the dog as they passed by him and when it barked happily at him, he could sort of hear the dog saying "Leave it to me!" in return and he suddenly stopped, a bit stunned.
'Was that Chouchou just now?' It wasn't like it was a straight up voice he heard but more of a feeling that it was conveying those words to him. The townspeople showed up then and Chouchou started growling at them not letting them pass while Luffy concentrated on trying to confirm whether he actually heard Chouchou or not, but all he could hear was barking and growling as he kept all the townspeople back. Luffy instantly remembered Grandpa Ryu from the story where his story counterpart also doesn't really hear the dragon but still understands what it was saying, and wondered if that's what was happening here.
"Luffy! What're you doing?" Zoro yelled seeing that he had stopped causing Luffy to finally came out of his thoughts. He spent a few more seconds trying to see if he could hear Chouchou, but had no luck.
"Hmm, strange…" Luffy muttered and started running away again shelving the topic for now. They soon reached the dock, Luffy left about half of Buggy's treasure at the dock while the other two unfurled the sails, and soon, they were sailing away.
It wasn't long before they heard Boodle yelling from the docks, "Whoever you kids are, THANK YOU!"
"No, he ruined it…" Luffy sighed but waved back with a wide smile, "Take it easy, old man!"
—
"Thanks!" Luffy said happily taking his hat back from Nami who had just sewn the cut. It was just a line instead of three gnashes like in the story, and it was almost unnoticeable, so he was more than happy with it.
"Don't handle it too roughly now," Nami warned putting her sewing out back and Luffy agreed putting it back on his head and flicking it back so that it hung on his nape.
"So wasn't this like the eighth or ninth crew we've faced in less than three weeks?" Zoro asked with a smile.
"Yeah, I think so," Nami agreed while she brought out all the treasure they had gathered over the past few weeks and began calculating how much they were worth. "First was the Leaper pirates where Luffy and I met, then Alvida, then came to Shellstown- let's consider Morgan as a pirate too…"
"Then came the bear guy and his crew on Clock Island," Zoro continued.
"Bear King and Clockwork Island," Nami corrected absentmindedly.
"-Then we ran into an actual brontosaurus-"
"Shishi that was fun huh? I said that seeing a brontosaurus was absurd in East Blue and one popped up out of nowhere!" Luffy chuckled before thoughtfully muttering to himself, "Did I tempt fate?"
"It was just a sea creature that had a long neck! It wasn't a brontosaurus!" Nami corrected again. "I think they called it a Plesiosaur"
"It looked like a brontosaurus though"
"Sure sure"
"That led us to meet the crab guy and his crew," Zoro continued.
"Ganzack. And that's the second time we freed an island where people were being forced to build weapons for a pirate"
"Yeah. Then we met that sound guy and his crew-"
"Eldoraggo!" Nami exclaimed happily, "He had so much gold! I gained a fortune stealing from him!"
"Right. Then we met a couple of small-time pirates on the sea who attacked us,"
"And we stole all their treasure!"
"And then we met the clown just now…" Zoro finished, "I've been travelling the seas for a long time and I haven't met these many opponents to fight in such a short interval ever… It would be long weeks of nothing and finally, one good opponent, followed by weeks of nothing again…"
"Yeah, me neither. I stole from like… seven different crews since I met you! That's a record for me!"
"Yeah," Luffy nodded thoughtfully, "It's been fun though"
"I'm not complaining here," Zoro smirked, "I only wish the opponents were stronger"
"Yeah…" Luffy sighed agreeing with him.
A little while later, Luffy noticed that Nami had gone unnaturally quiet as she sat in front of all her treasure, as if in a daze.
"You okay?" he asked shaking her shoulder and noticed that she was pinching herself. She slowly looked away from her treasure to face him and brought a hand forward, "Buggy's treasure. Give it"
"Oh… it's here" Luffy gulped handing her the bag and as he feared, she instantly noticed that it was lighter and hastily opened the bag to find that half the treasure was missing. She snapped her neck at Luffy to ask why there was less treasure but found him closing his eyes and looking away as if expecting a punch.
"…Where is it?"
"I-Uhh… I kinda…left… around half of the treasure back at the town…"
"…You did what?" Nami asked dumbly.
"A part of their town was destroyed!" Luffy hastily explained himself, "They'll need it to rebuild!"
Nami blankly stared at him for a few seconds before going "Oh" and nodded with a sigh, "Well, okay then…"
Luffy waited for the eventual punch from her but nothing happened as she just moved on, adding Buggy's treasure to her stash and then went inside the cabin to put it away safely.
'Hmm…' Luffy just observed her wondering what was going on with her but she soon came out of the cabin looking like she was back to normal again as she groaned, "Ugh, are we getting a ship any time soon? This boat's becoming too small to hold all my treasure"
"Yeah, I would like more space too," Zoro added from where he was sleeping against the mast.
"Yeah, we'll get a ship next!" Luffy said deciding to deal with Nami's earlier behaviour later.
"More crew members too," Nami added, "We need supplies, recruit more people to handle the ship…We need to plan if we're heading to the Grand Line, you know. We can't just go there unprepared!"
"Yes, yes, we'll do all that"
"And more importantly," Zoro sat up and pointed at the sail of the boat, "That has to go"
Nami's face scrunched up in disgust as she too looked at the sail, "Yeah, I want to burn this fucking thing…"
"Hey! It's not that bad…" Luffy whined as he looked at the sail too but if he was being completely honest with himself, even he couldn't deny that it was bad. What the three were talking about was the Jolly Roger that Luffy had painted on the sail of their boat a couple of weeks prior. They had been sailing for a while and sailing without a Jolly Roger seemed wrong to him, so he had quickly painted the Strawhat Jolly Roger on the sail of their boat. And it was an atrocity.
It vaguely resembled a skull, but rather than the skull of a human, it looked like the skull of an imaginary ugly creature that came straight out of Eldritch Horror with rows of disjointed teeth sticking out in every direction and an elongated skull that was deformed in various places. And the Strawhat on top of its head looked like a piece of rock more than anything, so the Jolly Roger vaguely resembled the scene of a rock falling on the skull of an ugly uncanny creature.
Leo had absolutely no experience in painting anything, so his memories did nothing to improve Luffy's artistic skill. If anything, it made it worse as he tried to imitate some really vague painting tricks he remembered from watching painting videos and the result turned out to be much more disastrous than that in the story.
"…It's just a temporary placeholder…" Luffy mumbled softly as the three kept staring at it. "Once we get a proper ship, we'll get a proper Jolly Roger too…"
"The sooner the better," Zoro said seriously, "I refuse to sail under such an ugly flag"
"It gives me nightmares…" Nami shuddered.
"How does one even mess up so bad in drawing a skull?"
"I know right? I thought he was purposefully making it bad but turns out, he was seriously trying to make a Jolly Roger"
"My eyes burn every time I look at it"
"You can make a dog hold a paintbrush and it'll do a better job than this"
"Fine goddammit!" Luffy snapped as the two kept piling on the insults, "Why don't you paint a better one then?"
"No no, I've suffered having had to lay my eyes upon this abomination," Nami sighed woefully, "So others have to see it too and suffer with me!"
"C'mon it's not that bad…"
"You need better eyes then," Zoro rebuked.
"Ugh fine…" Luffy pouted his shoulders slumping down, "I know it looks bad. Just wait until we get a ship…"
Nami giggled seeing his pouty reaction and cheerfully sang "Aye Aye Captain~" as she set the course for the next island.