Rising Tides

What if Luffy didn't eat the Gum-Gum fruit, but instead ate a different fruit? A unique fruit?

Smarter, Stronger Luffy. LuffyxRobinxBoaHancock. Some small elements of Naruto

-Story Start!-

"I'm going to prove to you all that I'm going to be a pirate!"

The town's citizens looked on in amusement, as Luffy stood on a bow of a ship holding a knife. They all assumed that he was going to do something completely idiotic, but none of them expected it when he cut himself under the eye.

"Owww!"

"Luffy! You get down here right now!"

"Shut up! I can take the pain! Then Shanks will have to admit that I'm strong enough to join his crew!"

Eventually, the townspeople manage to coax Luffy unto the dry land and force a bandage under his eye. Luffy sulked for a while, under he remembered he was going to meet up with Shanks today and sprinted over to the bar.

"Hey! Shanks! Did you see what I did today? Can I join your crew yet?"

"Ha! You can't handle being a pirate! Your still a kid, and you can't swim!"

"Hey! All I have to do is just stay onboard, and not be dumb! I'm great at fighting too! My punch is as strong as pistol fire!"

"Awww shut up! We both know that's not true! And you're always dumb."

"Am not!"

"Am too!"

Shanks crew and the other occupants of the bar looked on in amusement, while Luffy and Shanks argued over Luffy's "abilities".

Luffy eventually gave it up, and just sneaked drinks of sake while Makino wasn't paying attention.

As Luffy got hungry, he saw a little chest that was on one of the tables and opened it. When he saw weird red fruit inside, he swore Gramps had told him about something similar before. But he ignored his intuition and ate it anyway. After all, Luffy is a kid controlled by his stomach, not his brain

Shortly later, a group of mountain bandits bursts into the bar, demanding a barrel of sake. Unfortunately, Shanks and his crew had already drunk all that the bar had.

The mountain bandit, showing a wanted poster of himself, claimed that he had a bounty of 8,000,000 bellis.

Shanks, being a carefree guy, apologized, and offered them the last bottle of sake. The mountain bandit, about to smash the bottle unto Shank's face, felt a primal fear rise up inside of him, telling him to move. NOW!

As the guy jumped as fast as he could out of the way, a hand engulfed in flames, grazed his ribs. The force behind just that was sufficient to break them, as apparent from the loud CRUNCH audible in the room.

Everybody in the bar was all extremely surprised, but no one more than Luffy himself.

'Holy shit. I was just trying to impress Shanks! My punches aren't this powerful! What is even going on?'

As the bandits grabbed their boss and ran, they shouted out one last message

"You're gonna regret that you bastard! We'll burn this town to the ground!"

Shanks and his crew ignored the bandits and were currently much more interested in Luffy.

"Alright, Luffy. What the hell did you just do?"

"Nothing! I was just made, and everything just felt confusing! I honestly don't know!"

"Wait a moment…"

Shanks felt a sinking realization that this was probably…

"Roo! Check the fruit!"

As Lucky Roo waddled over and checked inside the chest, he knew that it was empty as soon as he picked it up.

"Luffy… did you eat a red fruit with dragon heads all over it?"

"Yes… oh shit that a devil fruit wasn't it?"

"IF YOU KNEW THAN WHY DID YOU EAT IT?"

Shanks' entire crew stared on in disbelief.

"I don't know! It looked tasty. What's so bad about it anyway? Was it poisoned?"

"Of course not you dimwit! But it was the Mera-Riku-Fruit! One of a kind! Once you eat it, you became a literal fire dragon! You will still be human, but you can fly short distances, and you can control fire. You also have the strength of a dragon!"

"That's amazing! Sorry, though, guess I shouldn't have taken it, but what's the harm?"

"So you're fine with dying at the slightest contact with more than 20ml of seawater?"

"Wait, what? Why didn't you start with that!?"

Luffy proceeded to run around in a blind panic trying to vomit the fruit back out.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

After that fiasco, Luffy calmed down, and realized that his new power was insanely cool!

'Yay! My fruit is both a Logy whatever type and a Para-something fruit that Gramps told me about! Damn it though, I should have paid more attention. How do I use these abilities?'

Luffy originally decided that he was going to go buy some meat, as he suddenly had an insane hunger. As he was running to the store, he realized that he was going quite a bit faster than usual. Like a lot faster. He ran the entire mile and a half to the butcher shop in just under two minutes, but now he couldn't feel his legs, as he felt an enormous amount of hunger.

As soon as the butcher saw Luffy, he gave Luffy his entire breakfast: A large steak, along with 2 big bowls of rice. It was more than enough for the butcher, who was a grown man, but Luffy ate all of it and still looked hungry.

"Kid, what happened to you? You know if you're ever hungry you could always come to any of us. After all, it takes a village to raise a child."

"I don't know! I running here *Burp*, oops sorry, when suddenly I just started feeling so tired. By the time I got here, I couldn't feel my legs. What happened to me?"

"Kid, you looked like you had one foot in the grave."

"What? But I run here every day!"

"Alright kid, I'll call the doctor, just stay here."

" No! I'm fine now! I swear!"

"Kid, don't be difficult. Just wait here."

Luffy made a disgusted looked face and ran away until he realized that the butcher was blocking the door. The butcher looked like he was considering grabbing Luffy and just bring him to the doctor, but decided it was too extreme.

"Hey, how about this. We'll comprimise. I'll call the doctor from those pirates that

you're so fond of, the doctor isn't in town anyways."

"Shank's crew?"

"Yeah, him. He seems like a pretty reasonable guy."

"Fine."

After all of that, the butcher finally called the Red Hair Pirate's doctor.

As soon as the Luffy explained what was going on to the doctor, the doctor looked like he was about to faint.

"Luffy. Are you absolutely sure that you felt this way?"

"Ummm. Yes? Is that bad?"

"Tell ya what. I'll call Shanks over, he'll explain this all to you."

The doctor walked into the hallway and after explaining the situation, Shanks was at the shop in less than a minute, looking more serious than Luffy had ever seen him."

"Luffy. This is really bad. Here's the thing, that Mera-Riku fruit only has a 1% chance to do this. Ever since it first exsisted, random people have eaten it, ones who weren't strong enough to handle the power. They died instantly."

The butcher, looking at the pale look on Luffy's face, decided that he should probably speak up for him.

"So what's gonna happen to Luffy here? He hasn't died yet. Can't you guys do some weird surgery on him?"

"It's not that simple. To put it simply, the fruit evolved so that when people eat it, it wouldn't release all of its power. However, on the rare occasion that someone strong enough eats this unique fruit, the fruit rewrites their bodies. If they aren't strong enough to endure it, they die. However, I can manually override this. However, you will forever lose the power."

"What's the survival rate on this?"

Luffy looked pained to ask this, as he knew that it probably wouldn't help his courage to know.

"Well… its a lot less than 1%"

"That's a death sentence! Take it out of the boy! He can't survive this bullshit!"

The butcher looked livid. He had grown close to Luffy and didn't want to see him die to something as dumb as this.

"Sorry, but that's Luffy's decision to make. If he wants to keep it, I won't do anything. I will say though, that hundreds of people have undergone this, and only one has ever succeeded."

"Are you insane? I use to think quite highly of you Shanks. As a pirate, you were always fair, and never picked fights. The entire village did. But now? I see through your disguise. You're just like all of them! You are no better any other pirate! You're perfectly fine with watching a child die!"

"It's his decision. We aren't going to stop him from achieving his destiny."

The butcher looked like he was about to punch Shanks, but held back.

"This boy isn't dumb. There is no way in hell that he'll listen to your bullshit!"

Luffy looked pained, but his hand traced over his scar, and he knew what his decision was going to be. Gramps was going to be disappointed.

"No. I'll do it. If this is what it takes to be a pirate than so be it! But if I survive, you're taking me into your crew!"

"Spoken like a true pirate! Sure, if you survive, I'll let you into my crew. But only to train. Once you're nine, you're coming back here."

"Deal."

And with that final statement, Luffy blacked out.

AN: Hell Yeah! New Story! I really like the idea of this one, and I hope you guys do too! I'm not too sure if I should have a training chapter, or if I should just skip it. Tell me your thoughts in the reviews I guess. Maybe I could just skip it, and do flashbacks I guess.

I'm writing a lot more now, so expect a new chapter for HBK on Saturday.

Leave a review! And... cya!