Chapter 1: Romance Dawn… Of a Certain Sort, I Suppose

AN: I've had this in my document files for a good while and I finally decided to get around to doing something with it. I don't exactly have the clearest of directions for this thing, but while The Most Cursed of Hands is my main serious project, this is more of a fun side project for me. I do have some plans for the future of this story, in any case. I hope you enjoy it.

Also, I don't own One Piece. That honor goes to the great and honorable Goda-sensei-san-sama. Hallowed be his name. *does the sign of the cross and kisses an icon of Oda Eiichirou, then puts it back on an altar filled with candles, images, and holy relics* …What? Don't look at me like that.

-0-

It's a clear day in the East Blue. The sun is shining. The seagulls are doing whatever it is seagulls do. The sea kings are nesting. And a particular Marine vessel has just narrowly avoided being swallowed up by a vortex in the middle of the ocean. A perfectly ordinary day, really.

Somewhere in these waters, a semi-notorious band of sea marauders lurks, awaiting their next victim. Their captain: the infamous (sort of) "Iron Mace" Alvida, worth five million beri. It's just like any other day on both ships. The pirates drink and party while a cowardly pink-haired boy cleans up after them and the marines try desperately to conserve their food supply as a shirtless monkey boy is having an impromptu eating contest with himself and winning.

Up in the crow's nest of the Marine vessel, a low-ranked nobody spots a ship in the distance. He pulls out his telescope to get a better look at it and nearly soils himself upon spotting the other ship's Jolly Roger. For a moment, he tries to gather his wits about him and scrambles to replace his telescope with a megaphone.

"All hands on deck!" the marine yells. "All hands on deck! We've got p-pirates at 12 o'clock!"

Upon hearing this, the men on deck drop what they're doing and begin preparing for battle. Cannons are loaded and aimed, rifles readied, swords drawn. Meanwhile, in the mess hall of the ship, the aforementioned monkey boy is casually ignoring the preparations being made and the general state of chaos the ship is currently in in favor of the ridiculously oversized leg of meat that he's eating.

Over on the pirate ship, the pink-haired boy spots the Marine vessel in the distance and breaks out in a cold sweat. While he'd wanted to join the marines, he's not so certain that they'll actually let him if they catch him on a pirate ship, so while the other pirates are drinking and failing to notice the marines approaching, the boy makes for the storage room and hides himself in a barrel.

The commander of the Marine vessel, one Lieutenant "Ironfist" Fullbody, is calmly issuing orders, not personally all that concerned about the pirates before them.

"Fire!" he orders once the cannons are loaded and aimed. There's a series of loud booms and several black spheres go flying toward the ship, signaling the start of the battle and bringing the marines to the pirates' attention for the first time. Most of the cannonballs miss, but one manages a direct strike, punching a hole in the hull of the pirate vessel. The whole upper deck of the ship is in chaos as the pirates prepare for battle.

"Damn it!" yells Alvida. "Where is that good-for-nothing freeloader?!"

"I think I saw him sneak below deck, ma'am!" says one of the no-name pirates on deck.

"When this is all over, I'm gonna shove his head so far up his ass he'll be able to see daylight!"

Her rant is cut short as another cannonball pierces the hull. A few of the pirates are below deck trying desperately to patch the previous hole when the second cannonball flies in and rearranges their body parts. Meanwhile, above deck, a couple cannons have been readied.

"Fire!" yells Alvida.

Most of the cannonballs sent toward the Marine vessel end up falling uselessly in the ocean, but one lone cannonball pierces the hull. Upon entering the ship, it just so happens to end up inside the mess hall, where the monkey boy is still feasting, and directly collides with the leg of meat that he was chowing down on. The boy bites air and the meat is sent flying across the room and straight through the wall, into the ocean beyond. It takes a moment for the boy to process what just happened, and once he does, he's seeing red.

Up on deck, the two ships have now gotten close enough to each other that the pirates have begun boarding the Marine vessel. However, they get more than they bargained for as the marines on deck push them back without much difficulty. Pirates are falling left and right with minimal injury to the marines, and Alvida decides it's time for her to step in.

"If you want a job done right, you've gotta do it yourself," she grumbles impatiently upon setting foot on the deck. As soon as she lands, she swings her mace and immediately fells at least half a dozen no-name marines. A bigger marine, a massive beefy guy by the name of… Oh, whatever. Do you really care what this guy is called? No, of course you don't.

He's wielding a scimitar as he rushes at Alvida. His sword is blocked, with some effort, by Alvida's mace. The two clash for a moment, neither being able to overpower the other, as more marines fall and Fullbody looks on with boredom at the scene.

"Huh, maybe I should step in," he says, and begins to make his way to the land whale that's invaded his ship. However, at that moment, a shirtless monkey boy with a white Marine jacket wrapped around his waist and grease staining his mouth and chin barges through the wall of the mess hall, completely ignoring the perfectly functional door right next to him (and leaving a large, monkey boy-shaped hole in the wall, which a group of marines immediately get to work fixing), looking far more intimidating than a boy that silly-looking has any right to. The battle is stopped dead in its tracks by the sudden bizarre intrusion.

"Okay," the boy says, voice eerily calm. "Which one of you decided it would be funny to launch a cannonball at my meat while I was eating?"

The marines on deck are bewildered and scared, though they don't know why, and the pirates are confused by the display.

"Are you talkin' about me, boy?" Alvida says gruffly, still in the middle of her clash with beefy scimitar guy, and drawing the odd boy's attention to her. The boy silently walks toward her, fists clenched. Upon reaching the two combatants, the boy casually pushes beefy scimitar guy out of the way and catches Alvida's mace with his bare hand. Beefy scimitar guy is shocked while Alvida looks perplexed by the fact that the boy stopped her attack so easily.

"What the hell?" she says. She pulls her arm back for another attack and launches it at the nuisance in front of her, thinking that'll do the trick. However, what actually happens is that, upon making contact with the boy's skull, the mace shatters into a million pieces like it was made of cheap plaster, and Alvida's entire life suddenly begins flashing before her eyes as she realizes the terrible mistake she's just made. The boy picks up his foot, raising his knee to his sternum, and unleashes a brutal side kick to Alvida's stomach, sending her flying off the Marine vessel and straight through her own pirate ship, causing the pirate ship to be split in half by the sheer force of the kick, kicking up massive cascading waves of salt water and beaching a couple dozen fish in the process. Everyone else on the ship is taken aback by what they just saw, and all the pirates on board immediately throw down their weapons and surrender.

"What in tarnation?" asks one of the no-name marines on deck.

"So," says the boy, causing everyone, even Fullbody, to tense up a bit. He looks around, significantly more calm and monkey-like than before, sucking in his lips. "Who's in charge of these pirates anyways?" For a moment, everyone on deck stares at him in bemusement, and then simultaneously, everyone face-faults.

"Damn it, Luffy," says Fullbody, trying his best to cover his grin and stop himself from laughing. "That was – haha – the pirates' captain you just – BAH HAHA – kicked overboard, dumbass."

"Oh," Luffy says. He looks around at all the other pirates on deck. "So, do you guys have any meat?"

The pirates, however, are too scared to say anything, and Luffy is impatient, so he simply jumps off the deck of the ship and, just as he's about to plummet into the water, he kicks the air and actually manages to gain height, which causes several pirates and marines alike to soil themselves. Using this technique, he makes his way to the pirate ship in search of food. Upon landing on the half of the ship that contains the passage below deck, he makes his way toward the storage room. He completely fails to notice the chattering barrel below deck, instead diving immediately into the refrigerator and gulping down giant hunks of meat whole. After a minute of this, the top of the chattering barrel slowly lifts up to reveal the pink-haired boy, who's just noticed that the battle is already over.

The boy stares as Luffy shreds through meat like a grinder and says, "A-are you a marine?"

Luffy stops eating for a moment when he thinks he hears someone talking, looking around for the source of the voice. He looks directly behind him and finally sees the pink-haired boy in the barrel. He cocks his head to one side, scrunches his eyebrows, and sucks in his lips, trying to figure out what to make of the strange boy.

"What are you doing in there?" he asks after a long stretch of silence.

"Oh, th-this?" the boy stutters. "I w-was hiding. I didn't want those p-pirates to force me to fight. I… I've always wanted to join the marines and I didn't want those marines to think I was with the pirates, you see."

Luffy looks at him contemplatively, his brain working on overdrive. "You wanna be a marine, eh?" he says. "I'm a marine."

"You really are?" the boys asks excitedly, but then takes a moment to absorb Luffy's appearance. "But wait, if you're a marine, then why aren't you wearing a uniform?"

"Hm?" Luffy asks, looking down at his haphazardly-put-together outfit. "I am in uniform, see?" he says, pointing at the wrinkled blue pants, the grime-covered boots, and the greasy jacket tied around his waist.

"But it's not on right," the boy says, but it falls on deaf ears as Luffy goes back to tearing through meat at vomit-inducing speeds. "So, um," he says, "if you're really a marine, do you think maybe I could join you guys?"

Luffy stops eating for a moment to eye the boy curiously, the gears in his brain working on overdrive. "Nah," he finally says, "you're no fun." The boy looks at the ground, defeated.

"So, that's it, huh?" he says dejectedly. "After everything I've been through, I don't even get to live out my dream."

Luffy's ears perk up and he appraises the boy a second time. "Well," he says, "to be honest, with an attitude like that, you'd be better off just going back home."

"You don't have to say it like that."

Luffy sets his meat down, wipes his hands off on his jacket, walks up to the boy, and dope slaps him across the face.

"Ow! Wh-what'd you do that for?" the boy asks, bewildered.

"I told you, with an attitude like that, you're better off going home. If you set a dream for yourself and then give up before you've even managed to start, then what was the point of even setting the dream in the first place?" The boy looks up at Luffy, shocked and speechless. "If you have a dream, you should go for it, no matter what anyone says. You should fight for it tooth and nail."

"Y-you really think so?" the boy says, tears suddenly streaming down his cheeks.

"Well yeah, duh," says Luffy like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"Do you have a dream like that?"

Luffy grins a wide, toothy grin, meat still stuck in his teeth. "You bet! You ever hear of a guy named Monkey D. Garp?"

"Isn't that the great marine hero that took down the pirate king?"

"Yep! That's my gramps!" Luffy proudly exclaims. The boy is blown away at the revelation. "My dream is to be an even greater marine than he is! I'm gonna take down all the Yonko and all the revolutionaries, I'm gonna find the One Piece for the Marines, put an end to the Pirate Era, and then I'm gonna become the Fleet Admiral of the Marines and be a greater marine than Gramps ever was! That's my dream. To be the best, like no one ever was."

"But… but that's so unrealistic!" the boy shouts. "Do you have any idea what that means?! Aren't you worried you'll die?!"

Luffy conks him on the head. "Haven't you been listening? It doesn't matter if it's realistic. It doesn't matter if I die in the attempt. Even if I fail, even if I end up dead, all that matters is that I gave it my best shot. As long as I'm doing what I love and fighting to accomplish my dream, then I don't mind dying."

The boy's eyes turn to stars and he looks at Luffy with newfound admiration and respect. "Wow." The boy looks into the distance, imagining his own dream. He bursts out of the barrel and raises his fist to the air. "Yes, you're right! I'll… I'll do it! I'll be a marine! I'll be the best marine I can be! I'll even… I'll even… I'll even become an Admiral! I'll become an Admiral or I'll die trying! And then, when I've done that, I'll capture that stupid Alvida myself!"

"That's the spirit. Shishishi," says Luffy. The ship suddenly creaks ominously and Luffy remembers that the ship is probably about to sink.

"Whoa, wh-what was that?" the boy asks, reality cock-slapping him in the face. The ship quakes violently, sending the boy tumbling to the floor.

"Oh yeah, I might've kicked the ship in half. We should probably get back."

The boys jaw hits the floor at the revelation. "Y-you did what?!"

"I kicked that dumb whale lady into the ship and it split in half." He knocks on the wood of the ship for effect. "This ship must be made of some pretty weak stuff to split that easily. I'm amazed it's still floating." He looks at the boy, who's still bewildered to learn that Luffy kicked a ship in half. "What? She launched a cannonball at my meat. I couldn't just let it slide."

"But you –"

He's interrupted in the middle of his thought by Luffy grabbing him by the scruff of his neck and plucking him up off the ground. Luffy then grabs the last remaining leg of meat that the pirates have, and darts out of the storage room. Once on the edge of the deck, he takes a quick bite of meat before jumping off. The pink-haired boy scream at the top of his lungs and asks if Luffy is completely insane, but is cut short again as Luffy kicks off the air and jumps casually over the ocean, causing the boy's jaw to nearly unhinge from dropping so hard.

"H-how are you doing this?!" the boy shouts manically.

"It's called Geppo," Luffy says through the meat he's chewing on. "It's one of a bunch of secret marine techniques my gramps taught me."

"That doesn't – oof! – explain anything – ow!" the boy shouts over the deafening wind in his ears and through the momentum of Luffy's casual defiance of conventional logic.

When Luffy lands back on deck, he lands hard enough that the momentum knocks the boy out of his hand and to the ground, knocking him unconscious. Somehow or other, his glasses stay firmly planted on his face. Meanwhile, a large group of marines have finally managed to succeed in fishing the unconscious body of Alvida out of the ocean and onto a life raft, which is currently being hauled up to the deck. The remaining pirates have all been tied up and are being led down to the brig.

Fullbody eyes up the unconscious boy that Luffy has dropped onto the deck of the ship. "Who's this?"

"Huh?" Luffy says intelligently. "Oh, this is… uh…" He kneels down next to the boy and says, "Hey! What's your name?" When the boy responds by drooling onto the deck, Luffy grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him violently to and fro, knocking his head against the deck a couple dozen more times, causing him to develop a large bump on his forehead.

Finally, the boy wakes up (somehow). "Huh, wuh?" he babbles incoherently. He looks up from the floor and sees the pristine uniform and officer's coat of Lieutenant Fullbody and his eyes widen in fear. "Oh crap! M-m-my name's C-Coby, sir! Please don't arrest me! I'm not with those pirates!"

"What were you doing on that pirate ship, then?" Fullbody asks, an eyebrow raised.

"I was… uh…" Coby hesitates. He doesn't want to say he'd been kidnapped by the pirates because that would make him look weak. The marines wouldn't accept someone who couldn't even carry his own weight against a few no-name pirates. "I was stowing away on their ship. And I was, uh, gathering information on them. Yeah, that's right!"

"Performing reconnaissance on a pirate ship by yourself with no backup is pretty reckless, kid. You could've been killed. You know that?"

"Y-yeah," Coby mutters. "B-but I w-wanted to prove to myself that I had what it took to become a marine."

"Oh? You want to be a marine, do you?" Fullbody rubs his chin thoughtfully. "Luffy, is what he's saying true?"

"I don't know about all that re-condiment stuff, but he did say he wanted to be a marine." Luffy scratches his chin. "Although, I did find him skulking inside a barrel."

"Aha!" Fullbody shouts, a broad grin on his face. He picks up Coby, puts him in a headlock, and noogies him. "The old barrel trick. I know it well, my man. You'll fit in just fine around here."

Coby doesn't know what's going on, and he's still scared out of his wits, but he can't help the stupid grin that spreads across his face and the tears streaming down his eyes. This is the happiest day of his life!

"Shishishi. Good job, Cody!" Luffy says, giving him a thumbs-up. Coby is so happy that he doesn't even bother correcting Luffy's mistake.

The next thing he knows, he's in a uniform and helping a group of grunts patch a hole in the ship's hull. In the background, Luffy is plowing his way through the large group of fish that he'd inadvertently managed to catch when he beat Alvida, as fast as the ship's chef can cook them up (and sometimes even faster).

All in all, Coby is having a pretty good day.

Of course, that ends the moment he's handed a mop and told to start scrubbing the disgusting bathroom. It's on this day that Coby realizes that "Chore Boy" isn't actually a rank in the marines.

Still, at least he isn't on a pirate ship anymore. It's a start.

A short distance away, on a small raft, a young woman with bright orange hair is practically in the fetal position, she's so scared. What she's just witnessed… She's never seen anything like it before, and she doesn't know what to make of it. 'That boy,' she thinks. 'The things he did. There's no way he's human. No way in hell.'