Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece
Chapter One
Urogue paced in front of the gates to the Marine base. He still wore his trademark grin, but he was anything but happy. He owed a great debt to young Luffy, and he didn't like leaving him alone, especially in a Marine base. Six years ago, the giant man had washed up on the shores of Luffy's home island, close to death. Luffy had persuaded the villagers to nurse him back to health, and the two had become fast friends when Urogue recovered, spending the next few years training to become famous pirates. Luffy had offered to let Urogue be his first mate, but Urogue had turned down the offer. The events that had led to him leaving the Sky Islands had convinced him that he shouldn't have positions of serious authority. Instead, he had taken on the role of swimmer and strongman. Finally, he grew too impatient and concerned to not take action and punched down the gates. His smile grew slightly more sincere as the gates hit the ground. He had managed to knock down the gates to a Marine base with one punch. Now, admittedly, the gates weren't very strong seeing as they were in the sticks of the East Blue rather than the Grand Line, but it was still impressive. It told him just how strong he had gotten since he washed up on the shores of Luffy's home island.
He quickly scanned the courtyard. Coby was immediately obvious-he was standing in the center of the courtyard, struggling to untie the bounty hunter that Luffy had decided to add to the crew. However, and this worried Urogue deeply, Luffy was nowhere to be seen. He walked up to Coby and Zoro, and was gratified to see shock on Zoro's face. "Where's Luffy?" Urogue demanded. Coby didn't look up from the ropes, though the worry was evident in his voice.
"He's in the Marine base." Urogue wished that he was surprised by this, but he really wasn't.
"Why?"
"He and Zoro made a deal. If Luffy retrieves Zoro's swords, then Zoro has to join your crew." Zoro's gaze sharpened at this as he focused on Urogue.
"You're part of that idiot's crew?"
"Yes." Urogue replied, not at all offended by the insult to Luffy. There had been quite a few times where he questioned Luffy's intelligence himself.
"Is he always this stupid?"
"Pretty much."
"Perfect." Zoro muttered, looking at the ground. Suddenly, a large group of Marines rushed into the courtyard from a side entrance. Coby looked up in alarm, but Urogue waved him down.
"I'll take care of this." He told the pink haired boy. "You focus on untying the swordsman." He walked towards the Marines, cracking his knuckles as he went.
"Stop right there!" One of them yelled. To Urogue's surprise, the Marine that had spoken had a metal jaw, and a massive ax for a hand. That must be the Captain Morgan that the townspeople had talked about. Urogue's smile grew. The fact that Morgan and what he assumed was the majority of the base's Marine contingent was out here meant that Luffy was in the clear, at least for a little while longer. He stopped, reached down, and grabbed a post from the chain link fence. He gave it a sharp tug, and pulled the post and a section of the chain link of the ground. The Marines' eyes widened as he swung it like a club, knocking several Marines off their feet. He waded into their ranks, swinging and not giving them time to fire. "Enough of this!" Captain Morgan roared, charging at Urogue, axe hand raised. Urogue turned to face the Marine Captain, fence at the ready.
"Gum-Gum Spear!" Luffy yelled, landing on top of Captain Morgan's head. Urogue gave him a quick once over, making sure that the boy he owed his life to wasn't hurt. To his relief, Luffy was fine, though, oddly enough, he was carrying three swords. "Are you okay Urogue?" Luffy asked, dusting himself off.
"I'm fine Luffy-San." Urogue reassured him. "Tell me though, why do you have three swords with you?" Luffy shrugged.
"I wasn't sure which of them belonged to Zoro, so I just grabbed all of them." Urogue raised an eyebrow. That was surprisingly logical.
"Speaking of Zoro, you better help Coby free him." Urogue said. "I'll take care of these Marines." Luffy nodded and ran past Urogue to the center of the courtyard. "Now then." He said, turning to face his opponents. "Where were we?" To his surprise, the Marines had drawn their swords and were getting ready to charge at him. They were either incredibly brave or their fear of Captain Morgan was so strong that it had made them almost suicidal. Based upon what he had heard around the town, Urogue guessed that it was the latter. Laughing, Urogue waded in, but the Marines had composed themselves and were coming at him from all sides.
"Heaven's Scythe!" He yelled, swinging the fence in a circle and sending the Marines flying.
"You attack my son." Captain Morgan growled. Urogue turned around to face the man. He was deeply impressed that the man, a mere captain from the sticks of the East Blue, could stand after being attacked by Luffy. "Then you invade my base, attempt to free my prisoner, destroy my statue, and attack me and my men. You have all made an enemy of the Marines, and for this, you will pay!" He raised his axe hand to attack Urogue, and the monk got ready to counterattack. This time however, he was beaten to the punch by Zoro.
"Oni Giri!" Zoro yelled, swinging his swords. Urogue was shocked to see that Zoro was using all three of the swords that Luffy had retrieved, with the white one clenched between his teeth. He briefly wondered how Zoro talked with the sword in his mouth, but he pushed that to the side, deciding that it wasn't important.
"Nice one Zoro!" Luffy yelled from across the courtyard, where he was taking care of another group of Marines. Apparently, Morgan had been smart enough to split his forces in an attempt to flank the pirates. If it had been a normal group of East Blue pirates, this probably would have worked. But Urogue doubted that anybody would ever call a crew that was under Luffy's command normal.
"No problem Captain." Zoro replied calmly, as Captain Morgan fell to the ground, bleeding heavily from the wounds Zoro had given him.
Three days later
Urogue hated to admit it, but they were completely and utterly lost. "I can't believe that neither of you knows how to navigate." Zoro groaned.
"What about you?" Luffy demanded. "I thought you were the scourge of the seas."
"I don't remember ever calling myself that." Zoro replied.
"Luffy makes a good point though." Urogue said from his dinghy. The other two turned to look at him.
"What's that?" Zoro asked.
"How did you become a successful bounty hunter if you don't know how to navigate? How could you get from place to place quickly enough to catch people?" Zoro shrugged.
"There was never any shortage of pirates. There are a lot of pirates in the East Blue. It's just that most of them are super weak. So whenever I drifted into a port, I was pretty much guaranteed to find someone with a bounty. Besides, half the time I just took a passenger ship." Luffy's eyes widened and he opened his mouth, but Zoro cut him off. "That's not an option for us though." He said. "We're pirates. And after what we did to Captain Morgan, I'd be surprised if the Marines haven't already posted warnings about us." Luffy's eye widened.
"You mean we might already have bounties?"
"I doubt it." Urogue said, shaking his head. "The Marines wouldn't want people to know that three new pirates took down an entire Marine base and its commanding officer." Zoro nodded.
"It'd cause chaos. Every pirate would be attacking a base, thinking that they were easy targets." Luffy frowned. He didn't understand everything that they had just said, but he did understand the part about not getting bounties yet. His attention was stolen by the sight of a giant bird.
"Hey! Look at that thing! I bet it's got a lot of meat on it!" The other two men looked up, shading their eyes.
"Probably. But how are we going to catch it?" Zoro asked. "We don't have a gun." Luffy grinned, and drew his fist back.
"I've got this. Gum-Gum Pistol!" His arm stretched up, latching onto the bird. Suddenly, his eyes widened, and he snapped up, flying towards the bird. Urogue and Zoro stared in shock and horror, their eyes wide, as the bird flew off with Luffy. "Help!" He called his voice already faint with the distance.
"Luffy-san!" Urogue yelled, grabbing the oars in his dinghy and rowing as quickly as possible.
"That idiot!" Zoro cursed, doing likewise. "Why didn't he just let go?" He demanded.
"Even Luffy-san knows that Devil Fruit users can't swim." Urogue called back. "He was already past us when he reached the bird's head, so if he had let go, he would have landed in the ocean." Zoro nodded. That made sense. "Of course, knowing Luffy-san, it's entirely possible that he just didn't want to let go of the 'meat'." Urogue admitted. Zoro scowled. That made more sense, considering what he knew about the rubber boy.
A few minutes later, something strange happened. Again. Three men surfaced from the ocean and threw themselves onto Zoro's boat. They all drew swords and attempted to take the boat from him. Zoro sighed, and drew his own swords. He beat them all within the space of a minute and forced them to row the boat for him. "Sorry sir." They all whined. "We didn't realize who you were." Zoro rolled his eyes.
"Whatever." He growled. With the three men, they soon caught up to Urogue. Urogue glanced over at Zoro's boat and the three men rowing curiously, but he said nothing. He'd see stranger things as the traveled, especially if he stayed with Luffy. "So…" Zoro began, leaning back in the front of the dinghy, folding his arms behind his head. "Why were you three in the ocean anyway? It's way too far from any island for you to have swam." Urogue listened as the men explained that they had been tricked by an orange haired girl. She'd pretended to be close to death in a rowboat, and had offered a large treasure chest in exchange for help. The three men had leapt onto her boat, eager to check out the treasure, only to find that it was empty and that the girl had stolen their boat. Urogue's eyes widened as they then described how the girl had predicted with perfect accuracy the small storm that sunk the rowboat. He and Zoro exchanged a look at this. "Sounds like she'd make a good navigator." Zoro mused, voicing his and Urogue's opinion.
"She'd make a better corpse." The man in the middle said, while the other two nodded vigorously. Zoro sighed and sat up straight.
"How far is it to the next island?" He asked casually, stretching.
"Not much farther." The man in the middle assured him. "It'll take fifteen minutes at the most."
"And it's straight ahead? No course changes?"
"None."
"Thanks." With that, he kicked them off the boat, sending them flying. "Did you hear that?" He asked Urogue, picking up the oars. The giant man nodded and stepped up the pace.
True to the man's word, they arrived at the island within fifteen minutes. They avoided the port, instead setting down on a beach on the west side of the island. "Okay, let's split up." Urogue told Zoro, climbing out of the dinghy and grounding it. "You go east, and I'll go west." The green haired man nodded his agreement, and then immediately headed west. Urogue sweatdropped, but decided not say anything, heading east himself instead. So long as they were both looking for Luffy, everything was fine.
Urogue eventually did find Luffy, half an hour later. He was in a cage being attacked by a lion. "Luffy-san!" he yelled, charging at the lion. "Heavenly Hammer!" He yelled, punching the lion in the face and sending him flying. He turned to face Luffy. "Do I even want to know how this happened?" He asked, ripping the cage open. Luffy stepped out of the cage, smiling.
"I got captured by a guy with a big nose, but then Zoro and Nami saved me!" He told Urogue happily. "Of course, now we have to go back and get the map from big nose." Urogue stared, and then sighed. He wished that just once, Luffy would summarize things so that they were less confusing, not more confusing.
"What?" He demanded. "Who's Nami? What map? What big nose?" A young girl with orange hair, and an old man in armor walked up to them.
"I'm Nami." The girl said nervously, looking up at Urogue. Luffy nodded vigorously.
"Yeah, she's our new navigator!" He told Urogue, excited.
"Really?" Urogue asked, surprised.
"No!" Nami yelled, looking angry. "He just decided that!" Urogue nodded. He knew what it was like to have Luffy decide something regardless of reality. The girl composed herself, sighing heavily. "Anyway, the big nose is the pirate who's attacking this town, Buggy the Clown. He has a map to the Grand Line, and the idiot here wants to steal it."
"It's not a bad idea." Zoro said, walking out of a nearby building. To Urogue's surprise, Zoro seemed to be heavily wounded.
"What happened?" He asked, concerned.
"What, this?" Zoro asked, surprised. "It's nothing, don't worry about it." Urogue and Nami both frowned, but said nothing. It was best not to question a man's assessment of his wounds if you weren't a doctor. "Anyway, Buggy is one of the most dangerous pirates in the East Blue." Zoro continued. "Taking him down would definitely help our notoriety. And that map would be extremely helpful." Urogue nodded thoughtfully. He agreed with Zoro.
"What do you say Miss?" He asked, turning to look at Nami. She looked thoughtful.
"Well, I do need a way off this island. And you guys aren't nearly as bad as most pirates. And Buggy has a lot of treasure." She frowned, thinking it over. "Fine. I propose an alliance. You three take out Buggy and his crew, and I'll steal the treasure and the map." Luffy nodded, shaking her hand, and Zoro turned to face the old man.
"Stay here old man." He commanded. "We'll take care of everything for you." The man shook his head, looking offended.
"No way! I'm the mayor of this town, and it's my duty to help protect it. If I let you young ones take care of everything for me, I'd be neglecting my duties. Besides, I don't take charity."
"Sir." Urogue said kindly. "You're not a trained fighter. We are. You'd just get in the way."
"Besides." Nami said, cutting the mayor off. "It's not charity. We're getting paid in Buggy's treasure and his map."
"And another dinghy." Urogue said. Everyone turned to stare at him. "What? We only have two dinghies right now. I take up one, and Zoro and Luffy take up another. We'll need another for Nami. Unless of course, she plans on swimming the whole time." Nami shook her head empathetically.
"No, no, you're right." She said.
"Yes he is." The mayor said sadly. They all turned to look at him. "I'm no fighter." He continued. "I'd just get in the way." They all nodded.
"Yes, but that doesn't make you a bad leader." Urogue assured him as Luffy, Zoro, and Nami all walked in the direction of Buggy's center of operations. "After this is all over, the townspeople will need someone to help them rebuild. That's your purpose." The mayor brightened up, nodding.
"Thank you young man, you're absolutely right."
"Always glad to help, Urogue said, turning around and rushing to catch up to the rest of his crew. "Do we have a plan?" He asked when he reached them. Luffy nodded.
"Yep. We find them, we beat them up, and we leave."
"Nice and simple." Zoro commented, nodding. "I like."
"Are you crazy?" Nami yelled. "That's a horrible plan! Where's the strategy in that?"
"It's a little late to come up with a better one." Zoro said, pointing at the building directly in front of them. To Nami's horror, they had reached the building that Buggy had commandeered without even realizing it.
"So, Strawhat, Zoro, you return." A clown that Urogue assumed was Buggy said. "Are you here to ask for mercy?"
"No, we're here to beat you up." Luffy said, folding his arms. Buggy looked taken aback for a moment, and then he laughed.
"You think that you pitiful idiots can take me out?" He laughed. "I am Buggy the Clown, terror of the East Blue! You're just a lowly band of thieves!"
"We're not thieves!" Luffy yelled, looking offended. "We're pirates!" This pronouncement was received with silence, and then more laughter.
"Enough of this bad comedy!" Buggy commanded. "Fire the Buggy Ball!" The clown's crew loaded the cannon, and then fired it directly at Luffy. Luffy simply smiled and stood his ground, and then inhaled deeply.
"Gum-Gum Balloon!" He yelled, inflating his stomach to massive proportions. Zoro and Nami's eyes bulged as the cannonball bounced off of him and back into the building.
"Don't worry me like that." Zoro muttered. Nami was much more shocked, having never seen Luffy stretch.
"What are you?" She demanded. Luffy shrugged.
"I'm a rubber man." He said simply, not understanding her confusion.
"He ate the Gum-Gum Fruit." Urogue explained. "It turned his body into rubber." Nami sighed.
"What have I gotten myself into?" Nami moaned. Four figures stood up from the wreckage-three humans and a lion, all protecting themselves with the bodies of other crew members.
"Captain, this is the worst embarrassment in our crew's history." One of the three figures, a man with very weird hair and a scarf said.
"You!" Another man, this one with…fur? All over his head yelled, pointing at Urogue while the lion next to him growled. "You're the one who hurt Richie!" The lion roared and bounded towards Urogue, tackling him and slamming him into a building. The furred man, Mohiji, ran after the lion. Urogue pushed the lion off of him, standing up. He brushed himself off and inspected his clothes. He was surprised to find that the lion's claws had actually ripped through his robes and cut him.
"Wild Storm!" Mohiji yelled. Reggie obeyed and began circling around Urogue, slashing at him with its claws. Urogue stood there for a moment, and then pulled off the robe.
"I'll admit, I'm impressed." He told Mohiji. "I didn't think that I'd have to do this this early in our travels. Heaven's Strength!" Mohiji and Reggie both stared in horrified awe as Urogue began to expand, growing even more muscular and becoming eight feet tall. Urogue's grinned widely as both man and lion began to back away. "Heaven's Hammers!" He brought both fists up and smashed them down on their heads, knocking them unconscious. Still smiling, he shrunk back to his normal size, picked up his robe, and put it back on before heading back to the others. They'd gotten a navigator, quite a bit of gold, and Urogue had been able to justify going all out. Today was a good day.
Marineford, one week later
Monkey D. Garp, hero of the Marines, sighed and put down the reports. This week had not been good. First a base had been taken out by two rooky pirates in the South Blue, and now another had been taken out in the East Blue, also by rooky pirates. To make matters worse, the captain of the crew, if you could call three people a crew, was his own grandson, Luffy. It had been bad enough when he only had Ace to worry about, but he now had to worry about Luffy who was promising to be just as troublesome as his father and his brother. Surprisingly, some small part of him was proud of how strong Luffy had become. He sighed again and pulled out a bottle of sake. He'd never thought that raising children would continue to be stressful after they grew up and moved on.
Author's notes.
Hey guys, thanks for reading this! Here are just a few general notes to clear things up for you
As you may have noticed from what Garp said about a base in the South Blue being attacked, this story takes place at the same time as my other One Piece story, the Nightblade Pirates, which details the adventures of another crew also searching for the One Piece, captained by Jade from Victorious. If you haven't read it, and you plan on continuing to read this story, I would recommend that you read it too, as the Nightblade and Strawhat Pirates will meet and work together occasionally. It's not necessary and I'll try to make each story work on its own, but it will probably clear things up for you.
Also, I have skipped over anything that Urogue's presence didn't change. This will grow less obvious as time goes on and the presence of the Supernovas grows, but I just didn't feel that repeating what the series already showed us was necessary. If this upsets you, feel free to say so in the review section.
Finally, while Nami does appear to join the crew, this will only be for the duration of the East Blue Saga. My goal is to depict the changes to each arc that comes with replacing the Strawhats with the Supernovas, and I didn't think that anything I'd shown so far would have caused Nami to not be where she was in the series. And don't worry, Nami won't completely drop out of the series, and neither will any of the other original Strawhats. I will explain why they don't join the crew, and they will be referenced again as the story goes on.
Once again, thanks for reading and please review! I'll try to update as soon as I can. Thanks!