Was inspired to make this challenge after reading This Bites! by Xomniac, CV12Hornet, and The Patient One as well as considering a similarly interesting concept from Chapter 26 of Twelve Red Lines by Vikingr. For a time, I struggled with my lack of knowing how it could all be done, but then I thought to a certain scientist who appeared in a unique manga chapter that is apparently relevant to the larger story, even if his only anime appearance was in a movie that contradicts with said story. Care to guess who? :) Then again, I'll be showing him soon enough in this. :)

To their authors, I hope you don't mind my inspiration from your works and actually enjoy the ideas presented in this challenge. Other than the introduction "chapter" to show the "how" and guidelines, I also wanted to make some additional stuff to depict how it would be done in a Straw Hat Pirate, Straw Hat Marine, Straw Hat Revolutionary, or even a Straw Hat Germa 66 setting to get the gears going for you all, but I'm not sure how I would do it in a individually unique fashion now. But if I do indeed find something to work with, in whatever shape and form, please understand if I don't do anything else but the five above. Anyway, here are the guidelines and disclaimer.

No unnecessary bashing: seeing characters grow up and show hidden strengths is all good until it looks like the writer is purposefully making the character in question look like an unlikable nuisance at best and a complete villain at worst. Trust me, it's best to show both the positives and negatives of those in a story. And since this is an AU, I'm working forward to some people growing up differently, especially in a positive manner.

No slash: I try not to judge people who have different "bonding" preferences compared to mine, but I really don't think that characters that weren't listed as canonically yaoi in nature should be depicted as such. Not that I like gender bending much either.

Keep the content at a controlled level: meaning that it's probably best to be mindful of which direction the story/stories will go. I like straight lemons as much as the next fellow, but given how things all are iffy on certain websites like FFN, it would probably be wise to just walk first before jumping.

Don't shy away from asking me for advice or beta reading: however, I won't dictate your execution as it should ultimately be your decision. I'm doing fine with it so far with digemsmack over their Fairy Tail story which I gave my patronage for, Ascension of the Second Apocalypse, even if they're silent right now.

Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece, Eiichiro Oda does.

[SI]

Snail Interconnection

[SI]

By the tenth year since Shiki the Golden Lion's escape from Impel Down, his scientist, Doctor Indigo, had finalized his development of a new breed of Transponder Snail that would prove most useful to Shiki's future plans of world conquest. These "Indigo Transponder Snails" had the signal strength of a regular snail, the size and wiretapping ability of a black snail, the psychic waves of a white snail, the ability to store images and videos akin to a Visual Transponder Snail, and other potential powers that could very well pull off an information revolution across the world. With such a breed in his possession, Shiki planned to use them to coordinate his future conquests and broadcast his successes for the whole world to envy and fear. However, the Indigo Snails weren't so easily used by Shiki and his crewmates as Dr. Indigo explained that, due to the chemical influx with their natural biology and instincts, they had to imprint on someone they trust and like in order to make use of their abilities for their owner. Having no luck in appealing themselves to the snails, Shiki decided to loan them to a promising crew that offered to test them in the East Blue Sea as a test of becoming subordinates to the Golden Lion Pirates.

Given what would happen in that accursed sea later, Shiki eventually took his frustrations on his direct crewmates as much as himself once he learned that the idiots he entrusted the snails to crossed paths with the Red Hair Pirates of all people.

[SI]

In Makino's bar, a seven-year-old Monkey D. Luffy pouted to himself as his pirate friends laughed at his childish nature. Seeing their attention away from the chest next to him, Luffy, desiring to both see what was inside and maybe one-up Shanks at the same time, opened it to find a group of small snails of a weird blueish/purplish color inside. While disappointed at first that it wasn't food or anything flashy, he saw that the snails appeared to have been hungry and directed his gaze to Makino. Seeing that Shanks and his crew were dealing with a band of mountain bandits, he whispered to her.

"Makino, do you have any snail food I can use?"

Initially confused, once Makino saw the snails, she smiled to Luffy before handing out lettuce to him to give to the snails which they happily took bites out of. However, as soon as one snail gazed at Luffy, it began to emit a form of light from it's eyes for Luffy to see and, once he touched it, interact with it as if it were a machine. With the bar patrons and even Makino unaware, Luffy looked over it before pressing letters to form Shanks' name that then showed him a full list of people named Shanks until he then found the bounty poster of the Shanks he knew and saw that he was worth far more than the jerk who was demeaning him at the time was. When the bandits finally left with the pirates laughing for whatever reason, Shanks then noticed what Luffy was doing before walking up to him in surprise.

"Luffy, how did you do this?" He asked in a shocked tone of voice. "The guys and I tried for a long while for them to open up to us and here you are."

Luffy shrugged unsurely. "They looked hungry, so I gave them lettuce with Makino's help."

Processing it for a moment, Shanks then smiled. "Looks like these Indigo Transponder Snails like you now. Think you're ready to look after these little guys?"

"I'm sure Luffy can be very responsible when he wants to be, Shanks." Makino vouched before smiling broadly. "And I'll be sure to help him as well."

Laughing, Shanks then made a toast to his crew. "To Luffy's unexpected motherhood!"

"What?!" Luffy exclaimed as everyone else laughed.

[SI]

A bit shorter than I planned, but I hope it got my point across at least. I wish I can show the faction-wise scenarios, but I wish I can show the faction-wise scenarios I talked about, especially the moments I thought would be funny, but Human imagination can have its limits, unfortunately. Either way, this can be done on any path the challenge taker likes. Just let me know how it goes.

To be honest, I'm actually surprised that no one seems to have gotten my reference to a certain Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon when I made Straw Hats Underground. Granted, I didn't make it explicit, but you know.

Anyway, I know that I haven't gotten a lot of patrons on Pa-treon, but I hope that I'll get some attention when I make some shorth length stories for the future. By short length, I mean stories that will have a good degree of chapters, A03 exclusive lemons, and other stuff, but not be as extensive as stories like Luffy's Renewed Adventure on FFN for one example. I actually have a new section on my FFN profile for such things. Haven't decided if I want to put another section for future one-shots/challenge interpretations to be made, so let me know what I think in the reviews, so long as it's helpful and appropriate.