Wind, Sun, Whirlpool
by
S.S.I.M
Summary: They had made a mistake. A grievous error. One that cost them their friends... their precious Nakama. Yet, another mistake may be their redemption. When captured, and given only the choice to be test subjects, they can do nothing else, but hope for the best. (A time travel fiction)
Prologue: One Wish
Bound, gagged, shackled to cold unyielding stone walls.
How had it come to this?
To this breaking captivity.
Everything had been going so well. They had defeated Doflamingo in Dressrosa and got seemingly away. Yet, they had been tricked.
The marine fleet they had believed to have escaped from had been but a small part of a much larger contingent that had laid in wait further up their path.
In the cover of the night, they converged on their ship. Armed with specialized tranquilizer darts, that had been coated in sea-stone, several brave marines stormed the Thousand Sunny.
Perhaps if they hadn't been so tired from the events in Dressrosa the outcome could have been very different.
Disoriented and overwhelmed, they had been easy pickings once the heavy hitters had been tagged. Luffy had been the first one down. His chest littered with blue-tinged darts full of sedatives.
It wasn't long before the rest had been drugged and captured.
A short while later, they had woken up in sea-stone cages to the sight of a grinning marines.
They were to be the new lab rats for Dr. Vegapunk; never to see the shimmering sea again, never to taste the sweet bliss of freedom and salt on the wind.
Usopp shed bloody tears as he had begged his captain and friends forgiveness for falling asleep while on watch. None of them had the chance to say they forgave him before a nameless marine put a bullet through his head. He blamed himself until the end.
It had been a warning to the rest. If they so much as toed an inch out of line, they would suffer the same fate as their beloved sniper.
The infamous Straw-hat Pirates had been defeated.
Luffy looked on helplessly as they carted his shipwright off to the unknown deeps of their prison. Franky was never seen again.
Chopper and Brook had been next. One day they had woken up to find there was two missing cages in the iron tight room. The lovable doctor and silly musician were never returned.
Then the inevitable happened.
The remaining crew had been split up at long last. Nami and Robin were taken. The three men had seethed and rattled at their cages as the proclaimed Monster Trio saw two more members of their crew disappear out the steel door.
Once they were gone, other marines came in and finally took them out of those abominable cages to only shackle them to the walls of their prison.
Time passed, yet they had no clue just how much of it did. There was no window in the grey room. Only a single bulb provided light. The air was stagnant and suffocating.
Their meager, tasteless meals were brought at erratic times and they all knew it was drugged to keep them weak and compliant. Something that Sanji despised as a cook. Yet, he had known starvation and ate his food, as did Zoro and Luffy, without complaint once the hunger grew too strong.
Luffy watched as the once fiery eyes of his strong Nakama dimmed, and faded slowly day by day.
He hated it.
They were losing hope of one day being free. If he was honest with himself, so was he.
He hated this uselessness.
Hated that he had been yet again too weak to save his precious friends.
It reminded him of how he felt when Ace had died.
He wanted nothing more than to take it all back; to go back to the beginning and start it all over again.
What he wouldn't give to relive that one moment in his life where everything changed.
The day he ate the Gum Gum Fruit.
He wanted to beat that no good mountain bandit, and make sure Shanks never lost his arm.
To train harder and be strong enough to prevent his brother Sabo from leaving them. He had always wished to be a pirate, yet he never became one.
How Luffy loathed to think about his other great failure. Ace. His brother, Ace. He had died to protect him.
Now, he was trapped in a cell with no knowledge if his other crewmates were even alive.
A failure... that was all he was.
He didn't sail to the end of the New World.
He couldn't protect his Nakama.
He wasn't going to become the King of the Pirates.
He had failed them. Everyone who had ever placed their trust in him, he had failed them.
After he had made that earth shattering acceptance, Luffy couldn't remember how long it was before the iron door opened once again and the one man responsible for their captivity was before them for the first time.
"I hope you three have been enjoying this lovely accommodations."
A bitter silence fell between them. No one uttered a word. They didn't have the strength, but to only weakly glare at the man.
"Oh, not going to speak now are you? Well, that's all for the better. Wouldn't want you three to struggle now would we."
He waved his hand and three darts shot out from behind him.
As the most feared trio slowly lost consciousness, they heard their jailer mumble one final sentence under his breath. "I never wished to do such things, but my hands are tied Strawhats. I hope you'll forgive me someday."
Pain was the first thing that their fogged brains were able to register, then slowly a faint beeping noise began to sound clearer and clearer as their languid bodies acclimated to their sudden awakening.
Their entire bodies felt as if they were on fire. They were also so very tired, and weak. If they could, the Monster Trio wished to sleep and forget the past weeks of their imprisonment.
A light breeze ruffled their greasy, unkempt hair; caressed their dirt streaked faces. The air was fresh. It was so beautifully clean that they inhaled deep breaths to reassure themselves that it wasn't tortuously stale as before.
Gradually, they blinked open their eyes and winced at the vicious attack of light on them. Adjusting to it, they each tried to relax their stiff bodies to immediately realize that they were no longer bound.
Their aching limbs laid free of shackles at their sides. With arms as heavy as lead, the feared monster trio steadied themselves upright on their battered arms.
A wave of pain flooded their senses. Holding their aching heads, the three pushed themselves into a sitting position, wincing even more as their bodies hurt much more than their burning retinas.
This room was different they concluded as the room came into a shaky focus. A cold concrete floor laid beneath them. The walls a lifeless, striking white. It was incredibly bright, forcing the trio to squint.
They rubbed their sore spots, all the while confusion reflected onto their features and disturbing their thoughts.
There was a small clicking sound and a booming, raspy voice echoed from over head.
"Straw-Hat Luffy, Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro, and Black Leg Sanji. I, Dr. Vegapunk, am giving you three the chance of a lifetime. You only have to accept my offer."
An explosion of anger rushed through the blond haired cook. "There's no way, we'll agree to anything shitty scum like you ask!" Sanji fumed as he struggled to get to his feet as futile as that was at the current moment.
Forcing the pain from his protesting limbs, the raven haired captain managed to stand himself on his knees. "Where's the rest of my crew? Tell me you bastard!" Luffy demanded, his face scowled in a fearsome glare as he searched for the source of the voice in the vacant room.
"Now, now. Settle down. We don't have much time Straw-Hats."
Zoro t'ched, his already short patience beginning to thin. "Time? What are you talking about?"
A sharp cough caught their attention. "Yes, well you see. I didn't want to capture you, but as a show of good faith to the Marines, I had to keep you and the rest of your crew contained here in my lab."
Luffy's lips thinned into a straight line as his eyes darken. He once again asked with a much more dangerous tone, "Where are our friends?!"
Vegapunk could only sigh, his tone more resigned as he spoke, "Your friends are no longer with us."
Dread filled his heart and his blood ran cold at the answer. He vaguely heard the choked gasps of his two remaining crew mates beside him. "No, you're lying! They can't be dead!"
Even as he spurned the doctor's words, the rubber-man felt pain wash a new within him. His chest ached at the thought of his precious Nakama meeting their end.
He had already lost Usopp. He didn't know how much more loss he could take.
Before Luffy could respond, chuckling echoed all around them, causing the three tense pirates to stiffen even further.
"Oh no, my boy, they aren't dead. They're simply not here in my lab anymore, I mean to say."
Luffy's eyes widened as relief flooded through him. "Then where are they?"
"At the new marine headquarters in the New World. I'm afraid I don't know the exact location. Yet, it would hardly do you three any good since as of tomorrow you three will be pronounced dead an-"
Outraged exclamations from the trio of pirate's cut off the doctor.
Vegapunk waited until they calmed down before resuming, "You didn't let me finish. Such impatience..." He scolded them and then continued, "Now as I was saying, tomorrow you three will be taken by the Marines. However, I have perfected a new artificial devil fruit."
The genius inventor paused a moment expecting to hear another bout of exclamations, but upon hearing none he resumed, "You three are going to eat it."
It was then that the trio was riled up exponentially. Sanji's incensed sentence catching the doctor's attention. "What, you shitty bastard!? A devil fruits power can't be shared by three people! Besides, Luffy already has one!"
The sudden sound of a booming snap shut them up.
Having gotten them to quiet, Vegapunk spoke once again. "Ah yes, but this is no ordinary Devil Fruit. No, this beauty is my ultimate creation, the 'Time-Time Fruit'!"
The green haired swordsman frowned, his instincts ringing alarm bells at him. "Time-Time Fruit? What does it do?"
"It allows the user to travel back in time. Amazing isn't it?"
A disbelieving snort escaped the blond chef. "More like impossible. You're insane, you damn old man."
Even though the trapped Straw-Hats couldn't see the doctor, they just knew he must have been sulking. He had stopped talking to them. The silent treatment it seemed.
Zoro and Sanji rolled their sunken eyes at the older man's childish actions. If he didn't want to talk then that was fine by them.
The silence stretched on until Luffy's voice broke it. "Can it really? Will it really send us back?"
"Yes, it can."
Luffy frowned at the quick assertion. "How can you be so sure? Has someone already ate it before?"
"Well, yes. Someone has."
Now, intrigued Zoro jumped in. "Who?"
"I have."
Sanji sneered. "Bullshit! You just said you had perfected it!"
The aged doctor cleared his throat before responding, "What I meant is that I had found a way for more than one person to travel back. It's much more difficult than just doing it for one you know." Vegapunk huffed.
Luffy slowly nodded, a skeptical look on his face. "Alright, let's say you're telling us the truth. How does it work?"
"I'm glad you asked. The fruit uses the consumers willpower. Their Haki so to say. The stronger the resolve, the further back one can travel."
"What happens once we're back? Do we keep our older bodies?" Zoro couldn't help but ask. He really wanted to have both his eyes working again.
An amused chuckle left Vegapunk at the inquiry. "No, your physical bodies remain here in this time. Your souls merge with your past selves. All the memories and experiences you have go with you."
The room grew silent once more. This crazed scientist may very well be telling them the truth.
The swordsman and the cook were at a loss of words. Sanji hesitantly opened his mouth to say something, but Luffy beat him to it.
"I'll eat it. If there's a chance to go back and change all this, I'll take it!"
Seeing the familiar burning resolve in their dark haired captain's eyes, Zoro and Sanji shared a knowing glance before twin smirks appeared on their faces. They nodded in agreement. What else could they do, but follow their captains lead.
"Excellent! Now one more thing. Don't let anyone know you're from the future. My fruit is unknown to the World Government and I would like to keep it that way. With that said, on the table behind you is the fruit."
Surprised, they looked behind and were shocked to see three bright yellow swirly fruits on a wooden table, a table that hadn't been there a few minutes ago.
Pushing the furnitures sudden appearance from their mind, the remaining Straw-Hat pirates picked up the palm sized fruit.
They turned and faced each other.
Luffy hummed pensively. "I'm going back to the day I ate my devil fruit, so I won't meet you guys until ten years from then."
A wistful smirk quirked at Sanji's lips. "Ten years then... That's ironic. Around that time, the shitty geezer opened up the Baratie. That's when I decided to go back."
Zoro sighed and met his friends gaze's with determination burning in his eyes. "For me, it'll be about eleven. I'm going to prevent Kuina's death."
A wide, genuine grin filled with hope and excitement bloomed on the famed Straw-Hat captain. "We'll have to train harder than ever before. So be ready! I'll find you guys like I did the first time, and then we'll head for the grandline to find the rest of our Nakama!"
Sanji and Zoro gave the grinning man a nod of agreement with confident grins of their own.
With that promise, they each were about to take that fateful bite of the yellow life changing fruit when Vegapunk stopped them.
"Hold on! Straw-Hat, you're going back twelve years?"
Luffy nodded. "Yeah. That's right!"
"Then as a gift for the hurt I've caused your crew, go to Wasure Island in the East Blue. There a guard will ask you for a code. Tell them Code Override 1062."
Luffy nodded, a part of him growing in excitement at the prospect of a new island. "What happens after that?"
"The guard will take you to your gift. I suggest you go before... umm... Let's see here..."
The rustling of papers and rummaging through drawers echoed loudly through their room.
"Oh, yes, here it is. Now, go before November seventh in the year of your tenth birthday or your gift will no longer be there. I wish you luck Straw-Hats and if you ever come across me again please tell my past self that experiment TTX-3 was successful."
The trio agreed and with one final departing grin, the three bit into the fruit.
In a flash, a blinding light consumed them and then the world turned dark.
He felt like he was floating. Just aimlessly lingering in the air with no direction, no purpose... Only simply being.
It was so peaceful, so amazing. He didn't want it to end, but like all good things it did.
Reality came crashing down on him all at once.
A seven-year old Luffy suddenly snapped his head up in surprise. He looked up at his surroundings with wide eyes, curious to see where he arrived. It was a tavern filled with drunken pirates chugging down sake and a certain green haired bartender staring at him with worried eyes. His own orbs widened to the size of saucers.
Party's Bar.
And then he heard it. A rough boisterous voice he hadn't heard in what seemed like ages. He was forced to hold back bittersweet tears at the sight of the man who gave him the first push towards his dream.
Red-haired Shanks.
"Yo, Luffy! You alright there buddy? You just suddenly fell asleep, what gives?" Shanks dark eyes peered down at him with concern.
The youngest Monkey couldn't stop the wide grin that formed across his face.
He was back.
Vegapunk's fruit had actually done it. Over a decade back in the past and Luffy knew that now he would prevent the fatal end his crew had met. This time everything was going to be different!
"Shanks! The weirdes-" Yet before the time-traveling captain could continue he was cut off when the tavern doors were slammed open. The room became silent at the sudden intrusion.
A scruffy, samurai looking bandit swaggered in followed by a gaggle of men. Luffy glared at him, the man who tried to kill him as a child and tried to humiliate Shanks, but forced himself to ignore him. This part of his life he could care little for at the moment.
He turned around instead in search of the chest that contain his future devil fruit. The purple swirling fruit was located right about where he remembered it being.
Luffy took a big bite of it the moment Higuma, the mountain bandit, slashed the bar counter.
Anger was beginning to form within him as he was forced to watch his past replay before him. He couldn't reveal his strength yet and continued to munch on the fruit. The taste was just as horrid as he remembered and he briefly wondered why he had ate it all even after tasting just how awful it was. 'My kid self sure was dumb...'
Once the confrontation between Shanks and Higuma ended, the mountain bandit left with thundering steps. The red haired pirate picked himself up from the ground while his ever helpful crew laughed at the sight of him dripping in sake and covered in glass slivers.
After the bandit's mockery, Shanks expected Luffy to speak out in anger, but the boy was oddly quiet during the whole exchange. He turned his curious eye's towards him and his stomach plummeted when he saw the empty chest in front of his young friend. 'He didn't...'
"Eh? Shanks you okay?" Luffy asked with a tilt of his head. He knew exactly what was going through the Yonko's head, but he remembered what the crazy doctor had instructed them.
No one could know that they were from the future. If the bandits hadn't interrupted when they did, the former Straw-Hat captain knew he would have spilled the beans. He almost had actually.
Shanks grabbed him and shook him roughly by the shoulders. "Luffy, did you eat that fruit inside the chest?"
"Yeah! It tasted terrible though." The raven head scrunched his nose at the reminder of the repulsive flavor.
"No! That was the Gum Gum Devil Fruit! You'll never be able to swim again!" Then the worried pirate, tipped the boy upside down and shook him like a rag doll. "Spit it out, now!"
Yet, it was all futile as Luffy's body fell towards the ground leaving stretched rubbery legs still being held in Shanks calloused hands.
Ever eye in the bar widen in shock at the sight. Luffy laughed and bounced himself up and down like a paddle ball. "This is awesome!"
Shanks smacked him over the head. "You dumbass!"
All the while Luffy's joyful laughter echoed throughout the room.
Hello! I'm new to this whole fanfiction thing. I've read plenty, but never wrote my own. Yet, I have written stories before so hopefully my story won't be filled with errors.
I recently got into this whole One Piece fandom and I can now say that I regret not getting into it sooner. I missed out on a lot. So yes, this is another time travel fic, but I aim to make it at the very least a decent one!
Now I also want to point out that this story will include a larger crew than the original. Plus, I cry bloody tears just thinking about Ace's death so that's not happening here. My heart wouldn't be able to take it!
Well that's all for now. Please let me know what you think and have a super fantastic day (or night)! :D
