A humble peddler of wares, the overly-aged 23 year old pushed his shabby cart along. He was in Whiskey Peak, a speck of a town placed on scenic Cactus Island. Night had just begun to fall, signaling the start of bounty hunting season.
Fortunately, this man had nothing in the means of a bounty, and was harmless enough that the citizens for the most part ignored him. Casting a forlorn look into his crate, he welcomed his eternal comrades. The only friends who hadn't left, betrayed, or stabbed him in the back.
Resting his hand on one of the smooth green orbs, Curen quietly sighed. He'd given so much to get here. Money, time, and everything he owned more than once. If not for a winning lottery ticket back in the Four nations, he would have been stuck there forever.
"Now it's just us, my beauties... We'll be safe." The thought of safety was what drove him. For all his life he hadn't been safe. Whiskey Peak was a new life for him. A life away from bald bastards who thought they were gods, simply because they had the luck to be in a prophesy.
Suddenly, a sound echoed through the night. A sound he had heard many times.
Like the tolling of deaths bell, it grew closer and closer, until the call reached straight into his soul.
It was the dreaded call of a teenage animated action hero.
"My name is Monkey D. Luffy, and I'm gonna be king of the pirates!"
Grabbing his cart, the man tried to wheel his cart out of the street, only to find the attempt futile. "NO NO NO NO NO!" Curen screamed, as a teenage boy with stretching limbs shot around the corner.
Fast as a bullet, the boy grabbed Curen's cheap wooden cart, and flung it against the masses of bounty hunters who pursued. The wood shattered, and dozens of his precious green beauties where flung about and trampled underfoot.
Struck by the impossible brutality, Curen could only scream, "MY CABBAGES!" Before the backhand slash of a hunters sword sent him reeling into darkness.