Prologue

Majestically, the enormous passenger liner, named "Golden Mary", was gliding into the harbor of Red Leaves. The latter being a lovely, middle-sized town on the coast of Sherry Island, located in the South Blue.

On the left and right the ship was flanked by two equally impressive marine battle ships. After all, this convoy was one of the few possibilities for the average, law-abiding citizens to get from one Blue to the other in a relatively fast time, for example, to visit relatives or friends, crossing a less dangerous part of the Grand Line and the Calm Belt in the process.

Enabling all of this was the Sea Stone on the hull of those vessels, and a certain amount of money from the passengers aboard the Golden Mary.

With a huge splash, three enormous anchors sank into the slightly more of a dirty green than blue harbor water sparkling in the sun, while screeching seagulls drew their circles in the clear blue sky above it.

The long and exhausting journey of the Golden Mary had, for now, come to an end.


The ship had barely arrived when a few hard-boiled sailors already jumped down onto the pier and tightened additional ropes to secure the ship. Afterwards they started to prepare the gangways for moving out so that the normal passengers could leave the ship in a relatively comfortable and orderly fashion, one after another.

Men in dark blue uniforms requested the on deck pouring crowd to stay calm and wait until said procedure was finished.

The intended order however was abruptly disrupted when one of those men suddenly screamed, "Hey, what'cha doing up there, boy? Stop it right now, don't ya dare to take one more step!"

But, skilfully ignoring this command, one of the passengers couldn't – or didn't even want to – wait any longer. First, two large bags thudded onto the pier, shortly after followed by their laughing owner, who didn't seem to mind jumping the three meters downwards, pressing his hat tight onto his head, so that the fresh sea breeze wouldn't catch it and carry his headgear back out into the open sea.

After the impact, he remained slumped for a little while, the shadow of his straw hat covering his face, before he pushed it back and straightened up.

"You little rascal, what did you do that for?!"

The person in question turned around to the enraged staff and waved up to them, widely smiling. "Thank you very much for the nice ferry ride! See you again!"

And with those words the boy, who looked to be around seventeen and who didn't even seem to notice the puzzled gazes of the other passengers seized his two carpetbags and started running towards the town in a visibly good mood.

That is, until his stomach started to complain only a few minutes later on.

All his plans, if he even had such to begin with, went down the drain and made room for the much more important search of something nice to eat, preferably meat.


A few minutes before the incident on the harbor, two completely different men were heading for the city gates of Red Leaves overland.

But they were likewise drawing attention and puzzled looks from passers-by, though they didn't even have to act conspicuously to earn them. Simply their eccentric outfits were enough.

"This damn bastard, he'll be a dead man if I get my hands on him! Oh please, let him be in this town!"

The one talking was a tall man in a wavy dark fur coat, who otherwise didn't wear anything on his torso aside from a few leather straps and, attached to them, a pistol and dagger.

"Don't worry, I'm quite sure he won't expect us to chase him all the way down to Red Leaves by foot just so that you can tear him apart limb by limb. Neither would I for that matter,"was the calm and honest response of his companion, a fair-haired man, who hid his face behind a white and blue striped mask.

At the time they reached the city gates,the first guy tousled through his red hair with his dark painted fingernails. "I guess the most effective way would be for us to split at this point to pound the streets and taverns in the area. You turn right, I'll go left. We meet again at dawn, down at the harbor, alright?"

The other one nodded as an answer, before he followed the command.

His comrade meanwhile clenched his fist for a last time, burning anger in his dark red eyes. "Just wait, you quacksalver, if I catch you, you'll wish you never so much as laid your eyes on me!"


Actually the two men were spot on concerning the location of their target. To be more specific, right now he was having a nice little shopping tour through the weekend market in between the city walls of Red Leaves. A sword casually laid against his shoulder, he was rummaging in the impressive display of the local herb-woman.

Just as he decided what he would want for his own collection a loud cry coming from three stalls to his left, grabbed his attention, "Don't touch that if you can't afford to pay!"

"But I'm hungry and I don't have any money," came a voice in reply to that, at least as loud as the former, but much more sniveling.

"Not my problem, pal."

The swordsman on the herb-stall grinned while he glanced at the little leather pouch in his hand. Its contents had been earned fast and in a not completely honest way.

Because of this he decided that he could be generous today.

After pouring around three third of its content into his own pockets, he struck out, aimed and threw, and subsequently acted as if nothing had happened at all, while paying the herb lady and afterwards strolling away innocently from the scene.


The leather pouch hit its target exemplarily, nearly shooting its beloved hat away in the process.

Most likely the pouch would have fallen to the ground shortly after, hadn't the reflexes of the lucky victim been fast enough to intercept its fall with its right hand."Huh? What's that?"

After rubbernecking around for a little bit to find out where the thing in his hand had come from, the boy couldn't resist his own curiosity any longer and decided to take a look inside. Just seconds later he started to smile and handed the thing over to the dumbfounded salesman. "Give me everything you can for the stuff inside it. I'm starving."

First the man was a little hesitant, but since no one seemed to want to claim his money back, he decided in favor of his business and ultimately simply nodded.

He was a baker by trade and he had quite the creative wife who could combine more or less everything, from fruit up to meat, with his products. Together with the little financial motivation, two main reasons which enabled him to serve the boy with the straw hat quite a diverse and alluring menu of pastries.

"Do you need a sack for carrying all this stuff, boy?"

The black-haired kid simply grinned, while stuffing the first pastry into his mouth. "You don't have to bother with that. I'm hungry now," he responded.

And in front of an amazed baker and equally amazed curious onlookers, who stopped to watch the strange scene, the pastries started to disappear in the mouth of the boy one after another in an incredible number.

Just minutes later the straw hat wearing boy was rubbing, visibly satisfied, his globated belly. "Wow that was good." After a little musing he glanced down onto his bulge and added sorrowfully, "But a little bit more meat would have been even better." And then sulking: "But who knows if I would have survived till I found someone selling such tasty and big amounts of meat."

A dark, long shadow fell over the boy who, at the moment, was sitting comfortably on the ground and made him turn his head around towards its origin, looking up to it from big, innocent eyes.

"Even if you had found something else, no one would have thrown money against your head and you wouldn't have been able to pay," a monotone voice instructed. "It was destiny itself which lead you here to this stall."

The voice belonged to a tall blond, whose white cloak was fluttering in a moderate breeze.

His red eyes found the gaze of the baker while he put forth his hand.

"If you do not mind, I would like to have two loaves of bread. The probability that I am going to get another opportunity to buy something here on this day is less than fifteen percent."

While his own gaze was still fixed on the baker, he asked randomly, "How may I help you?"

His words referred to the black haired boy, who was apparently fascinated by the stranger's sword, his gaze switching back and forth between the weapon and its owner.

"Your sword is funny. It kinda looks like it has a straw hat – ya know, like mine!" he laughed.

The tall man only threw a short glance onto the person, who didn't hesitate to laugh about the deadly weapon of a complete stranger. Then the blond turned around, his already paid bag of breads in his right hand,and left the market place with big steps.

Left alone with the baker, the straw hat boy seemed a little puzzled, while he listened to the musing of two gossiping women, not even a meter away from him.

"Wasn't that Basil Hawkins? You know, the magician out of the North Blue? But what's he doing here? Didn't they already mention months ago that he would set sail with a pirate crew towards the Grand Line?"

"Don't tell me you didn't hear the news! Apparently he ascertained that the chances of betrayal by his own captain were over eighty-three percent, so he simply… Uwaaah!"

A frightened scream left the lips of the woman, when her field of vision was suddenly filled with the face of the black-haired boy.

"Is this Hawk-guy strong?" he asked snoopily.

She only nodded, unable to express herself in words, and the adolescent left as fast as the wind, towards the alleyway in which he had seen Basil Hawkins disappear through before.


"Hey, wait for me!"

"I am waiting."

"Huh?" An honest smile formed on the lips of the straw hat boy when he realized that Hawkins was leaning only meters away on a lithic wall. In front of him cards, which seemed to fly in the air thanks to strange, straw-like threads.

The red eyes of the magician wandered towards the young man.

"The cards said the probability that you are going to tell me something interesting and useful is quite high. Hence I decided to wait here for you, intrigued. Now then, why did fate decide for our ways to cross again?"

If Hawkins had had eyebrows, he would have most likely knitted them, when the boy put forth his hand. "You are weird," the kid declared. "Actually I wanted to start with it in the East Blue, right after our holidays in the South. But the South Blue is as good a place as any other. A little warmer though. Maybe it is even a little bit more exciting here, than in my original plans."

"I must admit, I am not exactly able to relate to your words."

The youth rubbed his neck. "Ah, sorry. Do you want to join my crew?"

Immediately the blond turned to his cards once again and started sorting them, while asking in a monotone voice, "And who is this man, who thinks himself worthy enough to obtain someone like me as a member for his crew?"

The boy folded his arms, his grin somewhat wider. "My name is Monkey D. Luffy and I'm going to be the Pirate King," he announced confidently.

For a while there was just silence between the two men. Then Hawkins abruptly stashed his cards inside his white cloak and pushed himself off the stony wall. "I am going to think about it. And inform you on my decision when we meet again tomorrow. My answer will depend on the circumstances of our next encounter."

Luffy didn't seem really enthusiastic about the proposal. "You promise?"

The other man nodded shortly before he turned around and left, ignoring the yelling of the straw hat boy, since the probability was quite high that everything else would fall on deaf ears anyways.

"Cool, that you want to join! See you tomorrow!"

After shouting this, Luffy, his arms still folded, tilted his head, musing, while asking himself, "But what should I do in the meantime, until he joins?"


AN: Hello,

I'm glad you decided to click onto this fanfic and I hope you didn't regret it. In case you're prowling around in german fandoms as well, you might have even recognised it (though I might change it here and there a little bit, because I'm not satisfied any longer with some of the stuff my old 'blueeyed raven'-self two years ago came up with). Anyways I finally decided to start translating my own story into english.

It's a strange feeling writing in another language and having to look every now and then into a nearby dictionary. Brings you back to the good old school days xD I don't know what I would've done without my betareader...

I really hope you enjoyed the prologue and were satisfied with the way I executed the so far introduced characters.

Just a little spoiler ahead of time: You're gonna see some more supernovae in the near future, because I'm a huge fan of the bunch and simply had to start writing this fanfiction back in my old days as soon as I realized how most of them fit perfectly in those typical "positions" on board a pirate ship in the one piece world (eg. navigator, carpenter, cook)

Another big thanks to my betareader zealousfreak27 for having the patience to deal with me.

And yeah, I think there is not much more to say at this point.

Until the next chapter then ;)