Okay, looking back on it I'll admit that this story needed to be rewritten. It lacked quality and quantity.
Do you really think I would be writing here if I owned One Piece?
I wanted freedom,
Open air,
and Adventure.
I found it on the sea.
~Alaine Gerbault.
They say that man is mighty,
He governs the land and sea:
He wields a mighty scepter
O'er lesser powers that be:
And the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.
~William Ross Wallace
WARNING:
Just because we were dumbasses doesn't mean you can be one too, so DON'T try anything you read about without a good crew to back you up. We were professionals.
The following is a detailed account of the rise and fall of the 12th Pirate Monarch. After declining to include her name anywhere within these pages for safety reasons, the Authoress is still alive and at large today. This book is banned from being purchased, printed, and possessed by order of the World Government. If discovered, this book will confiscated and burned, and the publisher, seller, and owner will be publicly executed without trial.
You have been warned
Prologue: Every Story Needs a Beginning
Our world is vast, mysterious, and overall insane. To claim otherwise would not only be foolish, but utterly ignorant.
The first example that comes to mind is that of the Red Line, the Grand Line, and the Four Blues. If you've ever been to school, seen a map of the world, or read a book you know exactly what I'm talking about. But to everyone who doesn't:
The Red Line is the largest single landmass in the world. It stretches from pole to pole, vertically dividing the entire world into two hemispheres. Unfortunately, it's entire shoreline is made of sheer cliffs and unclimbable mountains, making traveling on it by foot impossible. As such, it is also the most unexplored part of our world, with pieces of it being utterly untouched since it's formation. The only way for other oceans to trade and interact is by either going through the canals on Reverse Mountain, braving the Calm Belt, or going under it. There is one place that humans inhabit, though for the sake of your life, I hope you never see it.
The Grand Line is a stretch of ocean that spans our equator and bisects the Red Line at a perfect 90° angel and as such is tecniqually divided into two oceans. The first half of the Grand Line is called Paradise by those who have sailed it, although you wouldn't actually understand WHY until you've sailed the second part, The New World. To put it bluntly, there is absolutely nothing that is considered unnatural when you are sailing the Grand Line as it is considered both the Pirate Graveyard, and the single most insane and frustrating thing you will ever experience. There are really no words that could paint it in an accurate picture, but my favorite way to describe it is Mother Nature's Asylum for the Strange and Unnatural on Crack.
The Four Blues are the, thankfully, semi-normal oceans of the world. Divided by the Red Line and the Grand Line, they occupy the four quadrants that are left over and were given the names of East Blue, West Blue, North Blue, and South Blue. People from all four of the oceans are diverse, varied, and, more often than not, completely normal human beings that just want to live their lives in relative peace and comfort. And then there are people like me, who are born there, and once they're old enough leave without looking back.
I was born in South Blue on an tiny, peaceful, summer island that would be my whole world for seventeen years of my life. My parents were from two prominent merchant families who's names and products are world renowned.
The first time I ever remember going down to the ocean is when I was two years old.
My father was gone on one of his business trips to another island, so my mother had decided to bring me to enjoy beach for the day. I remember the soft joyful feeling of the sand underneath my feet and in my hands, childishly chasing after the seagulls and crabs that wandered near us, and hunting for starfish and oysters in the tide pools. But what I remember most of that day was the sunset as my mother carried me back up the trail.
I was watching over her shoulders as the sun dipped down to kiss the sea goodnight, painting the skies with it's beautiful golden, red, and purple rays as the sea glittered and mirrored it's masterpiece in thanks. I can pinpoint that moment as the exact time I realized I had found it.
My dream.
My dream of exploring the entire world and recording it's mysteries and secrets.
As I grew up, I learned of the world beyond my island and was enchanted with the tales of the travelers and merchants who had come to talk to my father. They happily indulged me, humoring the sweet little daughter of their bosses whom they probably assumed would follow in their footsteps some day. Looking back on it, I think my parents always suspected that wouldn't be the case. Especially when I confided in them about my dream one day soon after I turned five. They understood my obsession, and admitted to me that I never seemed all that happy on the island.
I came clean to them that evening after carefully thinking over their words. They were right, the island never quite felt like home to me.
No, that feeling was solely reserved for and held by the sea.
After that day I began spending more and more time down on the beach, taking every opportunity to spend my time in it no matter the weather. It was the driving force that made me learn how to swim, and I spent almost every waking moment
The sea has always been, and always will be, my first love. From the rhythm of her heartbeat on the rocks and sands of the beach, to the comforting canvas that painted her waters as the sun rose and fell, and even the harsh storms and squalls that whipped her waters into a frenzy and opened whirlpools that could swallow battleships whole, I loved every aspect of it. Some days, if I listened hard enough, I could swear that I heard the Grand Line calling to me, beckoning me to come and brave it's waters.
When I was seven, the sea introduced me to my best friend. Rouge was five at the time, a little over two years younger than me, and held the Will of D just like I do. It turned out that she had been watching me for awhile, and had been trying to work up the nerve to ask me to teach her to swim, which I readily agreed to do. She was odd for a D however, as she enjoyed the land just as much as the sea, and she hadn't found her dream yet. Still however, it was thanks to her that I managed to resist the siren call of the sea for as long as I did.
When I was fifteen, my parents gave me the greatest gift I could ever get. A little brother. David was a sweetheart, and my only regret about the life I've led is that I couldn't witness him grow up into the powerful and charismatic man he eventually became.
Shortly after I turned seventeen, Rouge gave me a late birthday present that would change my life forever.
A ferry ticket to the island of Lougetown in East Blue.
I packed up everything I owned that night, said goodbye to my family and friends, and boarded that ferry without a second thought or more than a single backwards glance.
My first glimpse of the island was right at sunrise a week later, and to me it seemed like paradise had come to life.
At the time it was the height of navigation and navel travel, being the island that was considered the gateway to the Grand Line, a critical stop before the insanity for Pirates and Marines alike, and a hotspot for crime and lawlessness.
It was there, on that small lawless island, in a little out of the way no-name bar down by the docks, that I met the two men that would give life to my dream, and little did I know that our meeting was an act of destiny itself.
Their names were Gol. D Roger, and Silvers Reyleigh. Two young men that were ready to take on the world with a smile on their faces and a song in their hearts. Roger bought me a drink and we sat down and talked for awhile, getting to know one another.
From the very beginning Roger's entire demeanor could be summed up in one sentence. A fiercely protective idiotic genius that managed to steal the devil's luck and charm for himself. From the moment I met him I could tell without a doubt that he was strong, strong enough to protect those he cared about and chase after his dreams to make them a reality no matter what anyone else would say to discourage him. His dream was one of the hardest to obtain however, as he sought the recently emptied throne of the Pirate Monarch. The throne that had been emptied with the execution of Proxima D. Harribel 'Lightning Dancer' Lucinda five years before, the 11th Pirate Monarch and 5th Pirate Queen since the end of the Void Century and the beginning of the Modern Era.
He and I clicked instantly, bonding over our love for adventure and mysteries, and I will swear up and down that I have never met a better man.
Reyleigh on the other hand was very different, and we were wary and watchful of each other for nearly a month.
Smart and cynical, Reyleigh was a sadistic taskmaster that took joy in driving others insane as they tried to undo his perfectly calm, lighthearted, casual, fun loving, and lazy mask. He was accompanying Roger to see the world as his first mate and obtain the title of the World's Strongest Swordsman. He was strong as well, but unlike Roger he also regarded everything and everyone they came across with a level of caution. He later told me that he had a sweetheart that was waiting for him around the end of Paradise in the Shabondy Arcopalegio with his daughter, the Captain of the Spider Pirates, and Sky Island native, Silvers 'Shakky' Shakuyaku, and Silvers Calypso, who was barely a year old at the time.
I'll admit, I was skeptical of them at first, and rightly so considering the age we lived in, but Roger's charisma quickly drew me in and had me spellbound.
He asked me to be the second person to join his crew as their Log Keeper the next day as I was browsing through the market for a decent weapon, and I instantly said yes.
We were a small crew, that goes without saying, as we only numbered three at the time, but what we lacked in quantity we made up for in quality.
We purchased our first ship, 'The Herald', that same week after recruiting a man by the name of Zeff as our Sea Chef, a man named Crocus as our Doctor, and a man named Gaban as our Melee Specialist and Quartermaster. That very night we painted our flag, the Jolly Roger of the Roger Pirates, and set sail with smiles on our faces, a song in our hearts, and sake in our hands.
That very night as we plowed through the waves, I had the overwhelming and utterly odd feeling that our crew was going to rock the very foundations of the world...
...and boy was I right.