I was quite happy and proud to see the positive response to my first One Piece one shot, that I've decided to make more one shots of Luffy at certain, diverging moments with the Mirror-Mirror Fruit at his disposal that are also "up for grabs" as it were like the Mysteries of the Sea stuff Primordial Vortex puts up and I would appreciate if they operated under similar roles as well. Meaning no massive dosages of angst, bashing, or yaoi. I mean no offense for those who operate in fiction, fanfiction, and real life with the same-sex romance stuff in hand for men, but it's not my thing. Not that I don't sometimes see a good character in fiction who's solely into members of his own sex, but as a male Human being, I prefer lovely females.
I've got a Pat-r-eon account with which I post fanfiction first going to FFN and elsewhere, and I'd appreciate it if I had more patrons there. You can see the link in text on my profile. Anyway, I have at least two more ideas for these Mirror Human one shots and another for a Darkness Man Luffy short, but I'd appreciate if I got some ideas of what to write next with either Devil Fruits or otherwise, so long as it's canonical. I'll be sure to organize them all in certain lists like this one for each Devil Fruit.
I can't say I'll use every idea that comes, in fact, it's probably best if you send them to me by PM to prevent spoilers from the reviews, but I swear to look over and consider each proposal.
Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece, Eiichiro Oda does.
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Past the Gazing Glass
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The Fairest Pirate of them all
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"Alvida is the ugliest, fattest, most putrid-smelling haggard excuse of a woman pirate for all time!"
Coby could've just complimented Alvida, helped her against the Straw Hat-wearing mockery of piracy who had the gall to go against her, or at the very least, run away like the typical coward she had long known him as. Instead, he signed his epitaph.
"That's it, you little brat!" The self-proclaimed most beautiful woman in the world yelled to her reckless double-crosser as she brought her trademark Iron Club upon his head.
"Reflection!" Exclaimed a voice which Alvida recognized as the Straw Hat boy's. In a flash, just before the Iron Club would've impacted on Coby's head, a mirror formed in Luffy's hands which blocked the blow. "You might want to get back, Captain Whale!" He warned with a laugh.
Seeing something coming out of the mirror, Alvida only had ample time to dodge to her left before a similar Iron Club appeared to crash into the Lady Mary's deck. Getting angrier due to Luffy's insult and counterattack, Alvida was prepared to charge at him again before she saw her reflection in the mirror and became still. In the mirror, the woman she saw wasn't remotely as beautiful as she would've liked, but could indeed be described as a whale, given her obesity. And the gaudy sense of clothing didn't help much either.
"No." She said quietly before her voice got louder. "No! This is some dumb funhouse mirror, it has to be!"
"What are you talking about?" Asked Luffy, confused. Coby didn't seem to expect this sort of reaction either. "If this was a funhouse mirror, it would be curved, don't you think?"
"No!" Screamed a distraught Alvida in denial as the more emotionally hurtful memories of her past came back to her with a vengeance. "I can't be ugly! I can't be! I can't be ugly! I'm the most beautiful woman in the world!"
"Wouldn't that be Boa Hancock, though? Asked Luffy with a sheepish smile. "Then again, I also heard that the Mermaid Princess of Fishman Island is also gorgeous for someone so young who doesn't leave her own room more often, if ever."
"No!" Alvida screamed once more before she went down on her knees and started to sob rapidly, shocking the two boys near here, waking up her downed crewmen from their unconscious states, and catching the interest of an orange-haired thief on the Miss Love Duck, who, against her better judgement, went back from the rowboats to see what was going on.
"Wow." Stated Coby, an expression of pity forming on his face. "I knew there was a story behind her crazed sense of vanity, but this looks terrible. I've spent two years of my life living in fear of her, and right now, I can't help but be sorry for her. That's just wrong, isn't it?"
Luffy sighed and placed his hand on Coby's shoulder before replying. "It's not wrong, Coby. It actually proves you're a person, and the thing about people is that even with the best intentions, we can make dumb mistakes, but that doesn't mean we can't change to improve ourselves. It all just depends if we're given the chance to grow. I really think if more people on the right side of the law recognized that just because a person may act illegally doesn't always mean they're bad at heart and that more criminals realized that there are some things more important in life than money and revenge, a lot of the problems this world embodies wouldn't be around for us to deal with."
"Yeah." Coby said with a sad smile, unaware that the orangette on the Miss Love Duck heard their talk from afar and had a contemplative look.
"Uh, Mr. Luffy, you're not going to kill us, are you?" Asked one of the Alvida Pirates, fearfully.
"Oh, what's the point, you little suck-up?!" Asked Alvida, rhetorically. Taking a break from her crying, she then said. "Looking back on my life, I realize now that I've been nothing but an awful failure in every sense of the term at everything! I wish I was dead!"
Before anyone could comment, Luffy walked towards Alvida, and slapped her, stunning everyone nearby into silence.
"Don't you ever say those words again for as long as you live!" He yelled straight into her shocked face. "I spent up to seven years having one guy doubting his worth just because of a bunch of drunks talking about his dad, even when they probably never met him, and I'm not going to stand by while you're going through a similar crisis!" Taking a deep breath, he then told her calmly with straight eyes. "Alvida, being beautiful isn't always about physical appearance. Inner beauty should be just as important as well. And while you have made some bad decisions, I can tell you started out like I have begun my journey now as, a dreamer."
"A dreamer?" Alvida asked wide-eyed.
"Yeah." Luffy affirmed with a smile. "Being well-known, rich, and powerful are all well and good, especially if there's a large amount of meat in the mix, but what inspired me to become King of the Pirates is the ideal of boundless freedom to enjoy with great comrades. Dreams have the power to inspire people to go above and beyond their limits. You know my dream and Coby's, what's yours?"
Alvida sniffled, but wiped away her tears and stood on her two feet. "I don't know anymore. I lied to myself throughout the years that I was dead drop gorgeous when I should've already known that I wasn't. When I was little, everyone around my age always made fun of my eating disorder and the result that came with it while those older thought that I was just abnormal. Growing up, I thought I could one day surpass big shot pirate women like Big Mom and Boa Hancock, and yet, I'm not even strong enough for the first half of the Grand Line, aren't I?" Giving way to a miserable sigh, Alvida then told Luffy. "I know what you're trying to say, Straw Hat, and I'm thankful for it, but I don't know if I should keep bothering with dreams and pirates and all that anymore."
"You're scared of failing when you try?" Luffy asked which Alvida confirmed with a nod. "Well, don't bother being scared. If all people do is try, it points out that they don't really believe they can succeed. That's why I will be King of the Pirates, and even if I fail, I'll die knowing I did the best I could."
"Luffy's right, Alvida." Coby said with the first genuinely encouraging smile sent her way. "The journey should probably matter more than the destination. And it wouldn't be right if only a few and not everyone got the chance to do great things."
For the first time since her cruel wake-up call, Alvida showed a real smile. "I thank you both, boys. I'm… sorry for all the trouble I brought towards the both of you."
"I never thought I could or would ever forgive you, Alvida, but then again, I never thought my biggest hero would be a candidate for the title of King of the Pirates." Coby said with a laugh as the tense atmosphere died down.
Luffy scoffed lightly, but kept his smile. "Please. Being an actual hero is one of the reasons I chose not to become a Marine. It's a Pirate's life for me. I just like to show some standards."
"Hey, who's that?!" Exclaimed one of the Alvida Pirates. Following that man's gaze back to the Miss Love Duck, the entire pirate crew as well as Luffy finally noticed the orangette carrying the sack full of treasure.
Realizing all eyes were on her now, the thief sweat-dropped and tried to placate herself. "Now I can explain." She then ran straight back to the rowboats, hoping to escape. Unfortunately, Luffy quickly appeared in front of her at a high speed and with what felt like an unleashing of willpower, she fell unconscious.
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After a few hours of seafaring on the Miss Love Duck, the Alvida Pirates, accompanied by Luffy, the recently freed Coby, and the girl named Nami, arrived at their landbound base on Goat Island. After incapacitating the would've been thief, Alvida offered to give the three a fair share of her crew's accumulated treasure and the use of her secondary ship, the Yacht Heart, to travel to Shells Town where Luffy would see if the Pirate Hunter incarcerated there would be interested in joining his crew and Coby would enlist in the World Government's Navy. Although Alvida's desire to make up for her misguided wrongs was sincere, Luffy could tell from using his Observation Haki that she still had some self-doubts about her strength as a pirate and even feared that she'll never find love. A few understandable insecurities, but nothing that action and words won't solve, especially if the "emergency fund" he heard about from her crew mates was really what he thought it was.
His most pressing concern was actually for the people of the Commi Islands where Nami came from. Using the Mirror World's mirrors, he was able to find out about Nami's predicament with the Fishmen pirate crew captained by the duplicitous Arlong and after a tense talk with her, Luffy was able to earn a form of understanding with her: she'll help him search for a strong crew of his own, and when they're ready, they'll come face to face with the Arlong Pirates. It wasn't that he was afraid of facing the self-righteous, anti-Human Fishmen on his own, he just recognized the concept of strength of numbers, especially when each number was strong enough to fight a Fishman on his/her own. Considering that Coby was determined to become a Marine, Luffy also hoped that he could use the time he would spend with Nami to win her as his navigator.
"So, let me get this straight, Luffy, the mirrors in that pocket dimension of yours can identify and give backstory on everything, everyplace, and everyone?" Coby asked as the two boys walked into the deeper part of Goat Island alongside Nami and Alvida to find the defeated Pirate Captain's "emergency fund" which, according to Alvida, was a very valuable treasure with a special nature that she had been saving for when money was at its lowest for her crew.
"Only if all that knowledge stuff has been said before in the vicinity of other mirrors and the mirrors themselves aren't encrusted by Sea-Prism Stone or covered by actual water." Replied Luffy with a grin. "Apparently, since the Mirror-Mirror Fruit and its potential uses aren't listed much, there aren't a lot of mirrors like the former example outside places like Totto Land and the Government's top locations, so I've seen a lot on my downtime."
"But you don't use the Mirror World for traveling vast differences?" Asked Nami with a raised eyebrow.
"I thought of doing that more often, but then I realized, if I did that, the journey wouldn't be so cool as it's supposed to be."
"If your Devil Fruit power's not widely known, how is that the Government and Big Mom know what to do about their mirrors?" Said Alvida that time.
"From what I understand, those Government jerks have been studying Devil Fruits for ages and Big Mom's eighth daughter has been trying to get my power for herself for years."
Nami looked a bit grossed out. "This Big Mom person has at least eight daughters?"
"Actually, she's got almost a hundred kids added up from more than forty husbands." Answered Luffy with his tongue sticking out in disgust just as his traveling companions groaned in equal disgust as well.
"Please tell me you're not going to get close to her once you get to her doorstep." Half-pleaded Coby.
"If you mean become her subordinate, no. It wouldn't be fair much if I became a rival pirate's lackey, only to stab them in the back. Honestly, a large part of me would rather get married once I become King of the Pirates. That way, any wife I have would be known as a Queen of the Pirates."
"That makes sense." Commented Alvida before she made a smirk. "Although, judging by your words, you're thinking of having more than one Queen."
"Well, I wouldn't want to be tied down by common rules on marriage any more than I'd want to hurt any admirers I'd get." Luffy said with a knowing smile before he saw Nami glaring at him. "But I wouldn't force anyone to be my wife and I think I'll stick with just twelve women or under, so long as it's even or something. I admit it's still a work in progress."
"You probably don't even know the first thing about loving women, do you?" Giggled Coby.
"Do you?" Countered Luffy which then shut up Coby with a look of embarrassment.
"Anyway, we made it." Said Alvida as they arrived at a lone tree stump. Walking closer to it, she then removed the face of the stump as easily as one would open a door before she pulled out a banana that was colored white.
"I just knew you had a Devil Fruit!" Cheered Luffy as Nami and Coby did what they could do not to gasp.
"I didn't know if it would offer a good power, so I kept it under wraps." Explained Alvida. "The average Devil Fruit is worth one hundred million berries, after all."
Nami's look of shock quickly turned to one of greed. "Oh, I can just smell the money already! We'll take it!"
Before she could grab it however, Luffy kept her at bay with his arms. "Hold it, Nami." He ordered firmly enough to make her stop and listen. "I know the importance of money as the next guy, but if that Devil Fruit really is powerful and finds its way to an enemy like Arlong, it could mean trouble for us in the long run." Nami's eyes widened at that, but she nodded in acceptance. "Now, before any of you get any ideas, let me see what kind of Devil Fruit it is first." Forming a mirror the size of an average sized Human, Luffy turned to the three near him and said. "Keep the Fruit in the mirror's vicinity until I'm out of my personal space. I'll know what it is shortly." Then he entered the mirror before reappearing with a smile after one minute. "All right, I just figured out what it's supposed to do, and I think Alvida should be the one to give it a go."
"Huh?" His three new friends exclaimed.
"You want me to eat it, Luffy?" Asked an uncertain Alvida. "I, uh, I don't know if I should."
"Alvida, don't try it, just do." Encouraged Luffy.
Looking into his soothing eyes and remembering his words from the Lady Mary, Alvida showed a strong smile and took a bite from the Devil Fruit. It tasted terrible, but she swallowed it regardless. In an instant, her entire body seemed to have been caught on fire which concerned Nami and Coby before she eventually felt herself feeling lighter than before and the intense discomfort died down. Looking back to Nami and the boys, Alvida was surprised that all three of them were blushing in her direction.
"What's wrong?" She asked.
Luffy wasted no time in forming a mirror. "See for yourself." He said to her with a sincere smile. And when she did, she was shocked beyond belief to the point of tears of joy.
"I'm physically flawless now!" She cheered.
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After explaining the strengths and weaknesses of the Smooth-Smooth Fruit as well as its side effect of smoothing out a person's freckles and excess fat to the now transformed Alvida, Luffy spent half an hour with her testing her new immunity to attacks and considerable speed for skating. She was able to grasp much of what she could do now, but it appeared that she now needed her Iron Club to deal out her own attacks even more than before. This didn't dampen her newfound spirits, however, and Luffy was confident with the right amount of training and actions, she would be ready to leave the East Blue to seek new challenges elsewhere in a few years at most. He was confused why her cheeks were red at some points that had her staring at him, though.
Upon returning to the rest of the Alvida Pirates, Alvida's response to her crew's reactions was mixed. On one hand, she was proud to be genuinely complimented for her looks. On the other hand, however, she didn't resist clubbing them nonlethally for being "lustful hypocrites". Although, one sentence of hers brought confusion to the males and a look of contemplation on Nami's face.
"The only man I want is the first one who's been truly kind to me and not afraid of disciplining me!" She declared with a blush.
Nonetheless, after a quick look at Roronoa Zoro's condition at Shells Town, Luffy decided to stack up on supplies for the Yacht Heart's trip to there, even if he was embarrassed by the overly feminine appearance of the ship to Nami's amusement. Just when he was ready to say thanks and farewell to Alvida, though, she asked him a peculiar question.
"Tell me something, Luffy, if you had the opportunity to make your own pirate fleet, would you take it?"
That brought Luffy to hurt his head slightly when he thought it over much to the misfortune of everyone's sweat. Eventually, he answered. "I think I'd have mixed feelings about that, Alvida. I'm not against getting a lot of help, but I wouldn't want to place my dream over everyone else's."
"What about a larger crew?" Alvida said with a different, but somewhat similar, question.
"Well, so long as they all know how to take care of themselves in a fight, with or without any training I'd give them, I guess I'd be open to that at least." Luffy then showed a look of confusion. "Wait a minute. Why are you asking?"
Alvida then showed a wide, seductive smile. "Because I want to learn more about improving myself with the one I love." It didn't take long for the jaws of everyone but Luffy to drop at that statement.
"Um, who do you love, exactly?" He asked unsurely.
Instead of answering with words, she answered with a kiss to Luffy's lips. Too stunned to respond, Luffy just blushed until she pulled away with a giggle.
"Well, looks like Coby was right about you." She said with a happy face. "You have a long way to go before you know more about love."
"Uh, uh, not that I'm not flattered or whatever, but you got to admit there's an obvious age gap between us." Stuttered Luffy.
"Perhaps, but I'll probably won't find an interesting man like you anywhere else." She said with a grin before she went down to her feet with a pleading, wide-eyed gesture. "Please let us be together."
Controlling his temperature, Luffy then formed a mirror around Alvida's size and handed it to her nearby crew mates. Sighing briefly, he then replied. "How about this? While I recruit Zoro and train Nami a bit, you'll inspect your own crew and test their loyalty until I check back with you through this mirror. If they don't shape up in a week, you'll disband this crew and join me on your own. If they prove themselves trustworthy, though, then I guess I'll have to give the Pirate Admiral thing a shot much earlier than I thought I would."
"I accept, my love!" Cried Alvida in complete joy as she hugged Luffy tight into her bosom.
"This is too weird." Whispered an uncomfortable Nami to a shell-shocked Coby.
Coby would've nodded at that, normally, but instead grew a wisecracking smirk and asked. "Are you jealous?"
He quickly earned himself a bonk on the head with that remark.
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Hope you all liked this. It's kind of disappointing that Alvida isn't used much as a love interest for Luffy, or at the very least, an ally. I didn't expand on much partly because I didn't have much imagination power at the time to illustrate Luffy's reaction to Nami's tragic backstory among other things and partly because I didn't want people to think I was going to take this up for myself. I like the Mirror-Mirror Fruit, but I want to work on other things in my long term One Piece stories for the future.
For those interested in using this concept, please keep it in character and write accordingly as you go. You can make it an even, sizable harem if you want, or you can make this solely Luffy/Alvida. It's your choice, of course. Although, rest assured, it might get complicating once Hancock is introduced, but that's my opinion.
I based the name Past the Gazing Glass on a work of Lewis Carroll which I'm sure many of you know in some manner. Other the depiction of the more beautiful Alvida, I chose the name of this one shot due to Luffy's good judge of character. I'll think I put different characters in the FFN info slot for plot reasons, if you all know what I mean. For those of you who didn't of the Mirror-Mirror Fruit until, allow me to say that you don't need to feel looking things up in advance.
The next idea for this won't up for a while, unfortunately. Got to write it down, after all. But I can give you a hint what it's about: it partly takes revolves around an Irish-sounding place in a sea that should be opposite of the East Blue in terms of name. Good luck with figuring it out.
By the way, if Sanji was given superpowers at birth, what do you think he'd be like? I was thinking he would manipulate wind and be called Sky Blond, but he wouldn't necessarily have to be an antagonist. I was asking because of things I'm thinking for the future. Don't be afraid to look things up in advance.
