You read the summary.
Now read the story..
This chapter is really angsty but I swear it will get better.
Disclaimer: By the way I'm not Oda.
Usopp and the Messed up Timeline 1: Death is not the end.
"Do not go gentle into that good night, old age should burn and rave at close of day; rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, because their words had forked no lightning they do not go gentle into that good night."
Dylan Thomas
Usopp walked along the beach of Raftel with dried tears in his checks, red eyes and a sore throat from having been crying for God knows how long.
He was wrapped in the straw hats flag, Luffy's flag. The flag with his best friends Jolly Roger, the same one he had drawn for him 9 years ago when they started their pirate adventure, and now said friend had reached his dream only to die on a fight against Akainu the fleet admiral of the navy.
The least he could say Luffy had taken his revenge for Ace by taking Akainu with him to the world of the dead and for that and being able to protect his crew Luffy died with a smile on his face. He would love to say the same for the rest of the crew.
After the ring leaders on both groups died a great battle rage on between the pirates and marines, but unlike them the marines did not hold any feeling for the dead of their leader other than surprise he was defeated.
While the Straw hats were having a meltdown over Luffy's dead Kizaru had taken over control of the marines and was now leading them to defeat the pirate group and even though Zoro did the best he could to keep himself together and lead the group he was definitely not Luffy and there was nothing he could say that would help them regain their composure.
At first it seemed like the swordsman was the only one who could fight but Brook and Robin join in on him to protect the others quite quickly, it was only after Robin was shot on one of her actual arms by a laser beam of Kizaru that Sanji moved from his spot on the floor crying in his knees and charge into action, not much later followed by Franky.
Although the five of them where strong they weren't a match to the army in front of them while being disorganized, mad and grieving at the same time. It was only after seeing how all of them were getting really hurt Chopper stopped crying and turned into his monster point but this time with three rumble balls, causing the monster effect to grow exponentially and losing control of it, just like his first times using it, going on a rampage to the front lines and crushing marines without care for his own well-being, this last part proving to be fatal soon enough when on a combined effort from Fujitora and Kizaru Chopper was pinned to the ground with gravity and shot until he stopped moving.
The dead of the not-so-little creature was of course not unnoticed by the crew and all of them attacked with double the anger from before. Zoro had rushed to the front line where the reindeer had died cutting literally in half anyone who dared to cross his path and crashing his swords against Fujitora. Meanwhile Nami and Usopp had finally started to fight and both of them were sprouting plants and storms on the field to unbalance the fight for the marines and although they were doing a great job and where well covered by their friends no one was able to stop the bullet that went through Nami's chest taking away her life.
Usopp who was by her side kneeled down and hold her on her last moments shivering and crying from losing the second closest person to him. Nami had been the sister he never had and as she was she had helped him plan how he eventually was going to propose to Kaya. He hugged her and cried on her chest breaking down not knowing what to do having lost Luffy, Chopper and now Nami but was snapped out of this when he was kicked over his head by Sanji.
At first the sniper was taken aback calling Sanji insensible for not letting him grieve but soon bite his tongue at his rash words. He knew everyone else was grieving too, he knew probably Sanji was doing it harder than everyone else and that he only keep it together and kicked him so that they would fight, because if they didn't they would most certainly lose more members, and they were not really excited by that thought.
He got up and started shooting marines again and for a while they thought they could make it, they thought they could actually pull it off and defeat the marines without worrying they would lose any other member since there fewer and fewer marines on the island by the minute. But as they were approaching the ship hell rose on them.
The last admiral that he couldn't believe they didn't notice wasn't there at the beginning appeared in front of them having destroyed the Thousand Sunny and holding the dead body of Franky in one of his hand by the face since he had gone ahead to prepare a Coup de Burst. Now they were all faced at the same time by three admirals and a few left marines while they were just five. When Usopp saw this realizing they had nowhere to go he almost gave up but on a coordinated effort of Zoro and Brook they were able to take the live of the recently revealed Ryokugyu but in response to this Fujitora tried to attack Usopp behind his back but thanks to his Observation happy and Robin's assistance he was able to escape the attack.
Sadly Robin couldn't escape completely the attack of Kizaru that came from behind her and even though Sanji did his best to stop it Robin still lost one her real arms to the attack which prompted Sanji to go on a rampage against said Admiral but the straw hat's chef was far too tired and hurt. Even fighting with all he had he seemed to be about to be defeated by the much more rested Kizaru, seeing this Usopp started shooting the admiral but just like it had happened once before he was unable to hit the man and his bullets only went through light since with all he had in mind he was unable to use his Armament Haki the way it was meant to be.
But just in that moment when everything seemed to be lost Zoro jumped in action and went straight for Kizaru managing to pull him apart from Sanji and make a clean cut on him with Haki taking one of his legs and even though this finally seemed like a victory it was at that moment that everyone remembered they had another enemy when they heard a loud cry behind them and turned to find Brook having been crush by Fujitora's gravity. Feeling hopeless but finally getting enough grasp of his emotions Usopp started firing at Kizaru and coating his plants with Haki.
Zoro understood this and instead ran on the other direction aiming to kill Fujitora once and for all. Regrettably no one was really focusing their Haki on watching for other potential enemies so a group of three Pacifistas were able to protect Kizaru from Usopp's shots and before the sniper was able to start firing again the admiral had already side stepped the Pacifistas and himself to shoot at Zoro, hitting him right on the heart. Usopp started screaming fear creeping on his spine that this was it for Zoro and in anger started shooting at the Pacifistas knowing he was the only one standing properly.
Sanji got back up when he saw Zoro getting shot to attack Kizaru once again. The fight was so fast that Usopp was not sure of how it happen but in the end Kizaru ended with Sanji's leg through his chest while Sanji had numerous holes on his thanks to the light shots. Once again Usopp lost his focus as he watched Sanji falling to the floor dead. It was only when he heard Zoro shouting he came back to his senses realizing the swordsman hadn't died and instead activated his Asura and had just now cut Fujitora in half but not two seconds later Zoro fell to the floor also dead.
Usopp was about to fall to the floor giving up on everything when he heard his name being called out turning around to see the Pacifista still on his feet about to kill Robin so he shoot him with one of his strongest Pop Green and then rushing to Robin's side asking her if everything was over now and she said yes, she said he had done great, that Luffy would be so proud of him. Usopp tried to tell her to stop talking, that he was going to find a way to help her but she said it was far too late and besides she didn't had anything to live for anymore so he should not worry himself, he should only look after himself, that she didn't mean to be meddling but she knew how he longed to be able to be with Kaya and marry her, so he should worry the most about how to come back to her.
When Robin died Usopp became the only person on the island of Raftel. During the next few days he buried his friends and prayed for their souls, while also burning the bodies of the marine admirals and burring the rest of the marines. He decided that the lower ranking marines deserved to have eternal rest since they had no choice as to what to do about all this and even then Smoker did refuse to participate, but he decide to just bury them since they had not an ill will against his friends, but the admirals, he just found despicable the fact that they all killed his friends and that they didn't even as much as question what the World Government told them. So after finishing with all the bodies on the island he decided it might be time for starting on a raft to get out from there so he headed to the wreckage of the Sunny to get everything he may need, but he couldn't. He was just incapable of doing a raft to get out from there, he couldn't do it.
When he finally stopped crying and remembering all that had happened he was sure if he had fell asleep or if he had just been on some kind of hallucination but he found himself on the coast close to where he had buried his friends wrapped on their flag. He cleaned his nose which was dripping and decided to head for the main building of the island where he had left every supply he had found.
As he walked in he remembered how Robin said as they docked the ship here that this was probably one of the cities of the ancient kingdom. He couldn't care less about all that now. The ancient kingdom, history it had never had had anything to do with him, Robin was the one to care about that, but she was gone. The only think he cared at one point was the One Piece to crown Luffy.
That was when his mind started to drift and remembered how when they were in front of the treasure chamber to unveil the One Piece was when they started hearing the cannon shots from the marines leaving the chamber unopened. Usopp started to run. He had to open the chamber. He had to at least give Luffy a piece of his treasure, there had to be at least a crown somewhere in there, he had to get a crown for him to put it on his grave to testify he became pirate king.
When Usopp finally got to the chamber door and open it he was unable to see anything, it was just so dark that he had to pull a piece of wood from his bag to light and use as torch. With his fire he was finally able to see some kind of wall written in an unreadable language, great just what he needed a complex puzzle that was probably only solvable with the help of a woman who had just passed away a few days ago. He decided that if he could not read this thing he would at least find some way to open it so he started pushing rocks on the wall trying to find some way to open it until he finally did, there was a rock in a shape similar to that of his best friends hat and when he pushed it the wall opened in to revealing now another chamber that lighted itself and that by all means seemed empty.
"What the!?" Usopp cried in annoyance. "Oh no, no, no, no, no! You can't seriously be telling me there's nothing here that this was just some kind of trick and that we did all this for nothing!" Usopp was shouting now, running on the circular room trying to find something, anything. He had to found just something that would make him feel like they at least did all this for something so he really wasn't paying all that much attention to where he went and as he crossed through the middle of the room he stepped on a stone with a crown on it. He noticed when the stone was pushed down and looked around, waiting for something to happen but nothing was opening, there was no gold falling from the sky or anything but then it happened. He heard a voice.
"Congratulations new pirate king, if I say so myself!" Usopp shivered a little and start turning his head everywhere afraid of who was talking to him since clearly there was no one there.
"Who is this? Where are you!?" Usopp was afraid but at the same time angry, was there a person here, why didn't he notice before with his Haki and was he by any chance toying with him?
"My name is Gol D. Roger." Stated the voice shocking Usopp and before he could retort saying how that was impossible the voice continued. "My spirit has lived here ever since I died waiting for the moment of my successor to come so that he can accomplish everything that the will of the D. has left unfinished on this world for so long." Usopp didn't knew what to believe but he knew this was his queue to cut in.
"Wait, wait, wait. I'm not your successor. I'm don't even have a D." Usopp stated preoccupied agitating his hands in front of him dismissively.
"No you must…Wait you don't have a D.? Just who are you and how did you get here to Raftel then?" Roger asked the long nosed now seriously concerned as to how a simple man had gone to the island.
"I'm "Sogeking" Usopp, I'm the sniper of the Straw Hat Pirates. My captain is your successor and he has a D… or more specifically, he had a D." Usopp started explaining the former pirate king with sadness on the last part. "We were ambushed by the marines when we got to the island. We fought as hard as we could but… but everyone died. I'm the only one left." As Usopp finished the story for the former ghostly pirate king a few tears started to escape.
"What!? But that can't be!? I refuse that outcome!" Roger shouted as he listened to how his successor had been killed by marines.
"You can't refuse the fact they're dead!" Usopp now screamed at him annoyed by the idiocy of the comment and the fact that it was so alike to comments he remembered from Luffy himself. Seriously what was with this guys? Was it a must for the pirate king to be a complete moron?
"Alright I know sorry. But seriously Usopp this is a serious problem you know? When I became pirate king I read the wall that you just came through and in that besides another spirit just as myself from the times of the ancient kingdom explain to me a lot of thing about the world and especially about the World Government and it was basically a need for me to overtake it but I couldn't at the time because…" At this point Usopp interrupted Roger with what he was about to say.
"Because you only had a year left to live."
"What? How did you knew that?"
"We met Rayleigh on our journey." Usopp stated plainly giving a small smile that he didn't even knew if the spirit of Roger was able to see.
"So you met Rayleigh? How is my old pal doing?"
"Well last time I saw him he was pretty good, but I don't know about how happy he will be when he hears his apprentice is dead." Usopp said making a frown at the thought of Rayleigh going on a rampage to destroy what was left of the marines. Usopp wasn't proud of it but was kind of happy at the thought, he might even join in with him, maybe Shanks and his dad joins too, also maybe Law, Sabo and Jinbei too, damn the rest of the marines were so dead and they didn't even had anyone strong left.
"So he trained my successor? That seems suiting. But regrettably he didn't do it well enough." Roger stated plainly his idea pulling Usopp out of his thought of revenge.
"Hey he did the best he could! He was Monkey D. Luffy and he became pirate king so have respect for him!"
"Yeah, yeah. I don't disrespect the kid. It's just that he needed to outlive this fight. It was a must. The world needed it, you were spot on, that's indeed what I said to the spirit of the ancient kingdom that I was dying and I couldn't help them since I was sure it would take more than a year to overtake the World Government. But they explained how important it was and how the time was running out so I propose that with my dying breath I would start a new bigger era of pirates, of people who looked for freedom outside of that granted by the World Government to find them a new Pirate King, someone else who could uphold the fight against the World Government for them."
"And that one was supposed to be Luffy?" Usopp wondered about this, it didn't make sense, in the end if what they needed was someone who was strong, had a D. and wanted to fight the government Luffy's dad would make much more sense.
"Now that you mentioned the name of your captain he was the grandkid of Garp and the son of Dragon wasn't he?"
"Yes, I suppose there was never many people with the last name Monkey does it?" Then Usopp panicked at the thought. "Luffy never had kids! He didn't leave his will just like you did with Ace! How will we be able to found a new pirate king? His line and your line are over…" As Usopp finished his line he realized he was talking to a ghost and that Roger probably didn't knew Ace was dead so he had just spouted some information without thinking.
"So it was a boy? I told Rouge to name him Ace if she gave birth to a boy and Ann if she gave birth to a girl." Usopp shut his mouth kind of guilty at it, here he was having a conversation with the former pirate king like it was nothing and he just told him the name and gender of his son in the same sentence he told him he was dead. "So he died? That indeed is a problem. If the world is going to be saved we need at least one free D."
"Wait how are you not distressed about the information of Ace?" Usopp asked worried this guy truly never cared about his son? Was everything Sabo and Luffy said that Ace felt true?
"Well I never met him and don't get me wrong I did cared about him, that's why I asked your captain's grandpa to take care of him so that he would not be seen as a monster just for being my son, but now that I know he sadly passed away I can look forward to meeting him on the afterworld where I'll meet his mother again too since I've chained to this place ever since I died." Now Usopp felt kind of guilty he really couldn't read this guy. He was a goof like Luffy sometimes but other times he was much smarter and more mature.
"So what can we do? I mean if we look enough there might be another D. out there. Now that I think about it I do know another one, Trafalgar D. Water Law, he was another contender for the One Piece and he was an ally of us he could help you out or maybe Luffy's dad can, Dragon's been leading a Revolution already and he's a D. too."
"They won't do. The will of the D. The will that can transcend blood and cause a storm is not just about the name. Is about the freedom of the person. Your captain probably understood that the freest person in the ocean was the one to become Pirate King because this is the position directly opposed to the World Government and for that you need absolute freedom where they have absolute justice."
"So we would literally need another Luffy? But the best we could do is to wait for Law to have kids or another D. to reveal himself." Usopp started giving ideas as he kneeled down on a crouching position, he was getting tired from all this conversation and he was remembering he didn't eat in the end.
"That won't do. As I said before there's just not time. I'm not supposed to reveal much to people outside of the D.s but I'll trust you since you were one of the trusted men of my successor and the man that's supposed to save this world." Usopp swallowed at this worrying, what was he getting himself into? Was it really ok for him to know what was meant to be heard only by Luffy?
"Wait, are you sure it's okay? Won't a lightning fall over me for this or anything because I'm not the chosen one?"
"Most probably not. But we will take our chances." Said Roger dismissing the worries of Usopp by keep talking. "You should know that the time is getting over because the only way the people of the ancient kingdom can keep themselves as spirits trying to stop the World Government is by a technology they developed long ago which allows the travel between dimensions through your different lives on this dimensions. This works in the way they can keep in check the World Government, meaning the Gorosei and the Tenryutbito, to mostly keep themselves to certain areas, mainly Marie-Jois since most people don't have access to this place. This is why they take so much slaves from the places they come down to, they're afraid that the people that gets close to them is actually someone who comes from another dimension to kill them."
"But how is this even possible? And how do they know about this?" Usopp was really surprised and confused by what he heard.
"Well how this works escapes me to be honest. But the government is informed of it from the time they took over the ancient kingdom. But the battery or whatever that powers this device will run out of energy, it only has a few years left and then the dimensions won't be connected anymore and the World Government will be able to come down and truly govern the world just the way they've always intended."
"Then how can we stop it and how many time do we have left?" Usopp now shot up from his position on the floor to get finality on this matter.
"Well time, we must have about 11 years on every universe, maybe more, but in this case we would rather be pessimistic, that's why we can't wait for this Law to have kids. And how can we do it, well you will do it actually."
"What? Me!? But I thought that you needed Luffy?" Usopp was taken aback by the words of Roger what was he supposed to mean by that? "Can't you just send someone from the ancient civilization to the other universe to tell Luffy everything he needs and to train harder and have more crewmates?" Usopp hated to say those words, but it was proven, they needed to be stronger and numbers wouldn't had hurt on that freaking war of thousands against nine.
"The thing is that like I said all the people from the ancient civilization are spirits they can only be so much time on the real world and in the same manner as I'm now unless they take over someone's body but it would actually hurt the plan to have us influence directly to Luffy since what we need is absolute freedom from him so he has to take all his decision without we intervening."
"Then what difference does it make if you send me to change things on the other universe? I would still be influencing him." Usopp didn't really get the point then.
"The difference is you would be his nakama. You wouldn't just be someone that we took control once and influence the decision of Luffy, you would actually be his friend apparently just pushing him to be stronger, asking him if they could make more people join him, you would just making a few changes in the way he handles the crew to the unknowing eye but you could be saving the future."
"I get it. Instead of playing teacher or something like that I'll just be his friend giving him advice." Usopp gave it some thought and it actually sounded like a great plan, besides he would get to see his friends again but wait, wouldn't another universe just be at the same time as them, when they reach Raftel? "Wait but then if I go to a different universe wouldn't it just be the same? Won't we at the same moment?"
"Not really apparently in different dimensions the universes are not exactly the same, there are some where the time has run differently or that has messed up timelines where for example I just became pirate king and your captain is probably already dead." Roger said this with a kind of annoyed tone.
"Wait but then how will we pull it off?" Usopp was starting to think maybe it was not such a great plan.
"Look kid don't dread on it too much. This guys from the ancient Kingdom are really smart, they'll send you to a universe where you can actually get things done since it's not going to be such an insane timeline. So are you in?"
Usopp couldn't help but think how insane this all was, how truly he couldn't be sure of what was going to happen or if would end up on an insane universe but what he did knew was one thing, if there was even the slightest chance to see his friends again he sure as hell was in. "Of course. Just send me already I can't wait."
"Well you will have to stand right in the middle of the room and press the button you used to awake me for a while. The guys from the ancient kingdom have already calibrated the thing for the universe you have to go, when you activate the mechanism you will change places with the "you" on that universe so that you will be able to stay."
Usopp was excited he had never felt so excited without being afraid before in his live, after what happened, after losing them all he was going to be able to meet them again. Usopp was so happy when he started pushing the button with his foot. After some seconds of pushing he suddenly saw a bright blue light that shone all around him starting to blind him, it was like being in a tube of some kind, he felt like being sucked and all he could see was different colors but he couldn't actually make out form or images until it all went black.
He couldn't help but wonder why everything was black what happened, had he died? Had the universe he had gone to been destroyed? What was going on? Until suddenly he heard his name being called it felt kind of distant until he felt some pressure on his chest and something going up his throat. Cough. He started coughing and he knew the feeling, he was coughing water. He finally was able to open his eyes and was met by people calling his name.
"Usopp we're glad you're okay" "We thought you were dead" was all he heard around.
SO...That was the first chapter.
I hope everyone liked it and if you did or not tell me on a review.
For the people that might read this and are also reading "What If? ASL Pirates"know that I will eventually update chapter 8, I've about half of it or more the thing is I just don't have the energy to write Laboon's mini arc, but you know what? I'll do the chapter and then explain myself.
Sorry about that rant. Thatnks for reading and I do intend on updating this faster, this plot hit me so hard! So don't think I'll just abandon it.
Bye I'll update the soonest.