Episode 1: Waking up from the barrel
AN: I'm not exactly going to follow a chronological order - it just seemed logical to explore the possibility of Luffy being manipulative or shrewd from the beginning and it really seemed possible (haha).
"Heave-ho." The strained voices of the men struggling to haul a large barrel out of the sea rang out.
"Man this is heavy, it's a wine barrel isn't it?" A masculine voice said as he pulled on the rope attached to the barrel.
A boy who was in the barrel rubbed his eyes from sleep and yawned quietly, waking up upon the vertical jerks of his barrel.
"Trouble! It's a pirate ship!" The watchman called out, sounding the alarm.
Ah, this is great, not only did I get rescued, more pirates are also in the vicinity! This going to be so fun! The boy in hiding mused.
He tensed as the barrel was carelessly thrown to the ground as the men scrambled to make preparations for the oncoming attack, fortunately the container did not break, exposing his prone form in the middle on the deck.
Instead, the ship was under fire as it swayed erratically due to the barrage of cannon fire, and thus the barrel was thrown violently around the ship, banging into walls, furniture and down the stairs.
He lost all sense of orientation as the world spun around him, almost knocking him out cold.
A particularly violent impact that rocked the ship put him immediately on the alert. Moments later, someone approached, murmuring under his breath and rolled his barrel around.
He got up to pay attention as he heard more voices voting to open the barrel. Here's my chance.
He crouched and got ready as he listened in.
"Well, just wait, I'm gonna smash the barrel open right now."
Snickered inwardly at how this will play out, thought of his opening line as he adjusted his body within the confined space
There was a sound of something moving through the air in fast speed and then a rough sounding voice grunted. The impish boy started counting down.
"Hrmmm..." Three.
"Rrghhhh..." Two.
"Raaaahh!" One!
He exclaimed with a loud voice as he quickly shot up with both fists clenched outwards, angled at where he heard the slob who was going to bash his barrel in "Ah! What a great nap!"
With a loud crunching sound, his right fist collided with the lower jaw of the unknowing victim and sent him flying, his plan was a complete success as he effectively knocked out his intended target. He turned with an innocent poker face towards the sound of a man crashing to the ground.
He stared at the unconsciousness man, "Huh? What's with him?" the two lackeys in front of him were shocked to the core as the supposed 'waking up yawn' had unintentionally put their huge leader to sleep. What was more surprising was that it was a lanky youth that had the air of… Nothing threatening.
Their shock was interrupted by the youth's voice, "Who are you guys?"
"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?" They roared in outrage at the nonchalant question.
"That person's gonna catch a cold if he sleeps there." The young man continued.
"You're the one who did that..." They started tearing up at the ridiculousness of the situation.
One of them raised his sword to him, "You bastard, do you intend to screw with us knowing we are pirates?" he threatened with a low voice.
But he missed his moment as the target has already turned around and started asking for food. Further enraged by his lack of attention, all caution was thrown to the wind as they aimed for an overhead killing strike.
"DIE!"
The Straw-hat smirked from the corner of his mouth as his ruse had worked successfully, the shadow of his namesake covered his eyes as he turned to face their attacks.
He waited for the flimsy metals they were using as swords and in one smooth motion, struck at their rustiest point and broke them, the top halves dug into the ceiling above.
He smirked inwardly, his plan had gone perfectly.
He had heard four different voices talking when in the barrel, three had walked into the first guy while he was rolling the barrel somewhere, hearing the din outside as a fight broke out, the first guy must either be either an important guy that can be missed during the fight or a weak one that came over here to avoid the fighting.
He felt a plan coming into his mind as he calculated their positions and assessed their strength from what he can feel and hear from the barrel. He made sure to knock out the strongest among them in one hit to avoid a scuffle.
After that came the other two, he turned to where the weakest of them were supposed to be and started engaging him in a nonchalant conversation, riling up the two lackeys and putting their guard down before breaking their weapons and thus, fighting spirits.
"W-who the hell are you?" They were scared shitless and stammered as they sank to their knees at the unexplainable scene before their eyes.
"Me? My name is Monkey D. Luffy. Nice to meet'cha."
~ To be Continued ~
AN: Please feel free to leave comments, suggestions or ideas. Drop a note on what scene you want most to be shown here! Interpreted for good or worse! (most probably worse XD)
Next up: 'Episode 0: Deciding to Travel in a Barrel'