Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece. I only own the characters of this story.
AN: Hey guys, welcome to my first One Piece story. I used to write fan fiction stories, but I took a leave of absence to read up and increase my own writing skills. When I first started I was in ninth grade, so my writing was…bad. Now that I've started my first year of college I'm going to try my hand at fan fiction again. My friend and I have been working with this idea for a while, so I hope you all enjoy it.
About the story: This story takes place during the cannon One Piece except one huge difference. All of the characters are original. I've seen a lot of people try to do a "20 years Later" idea, but in my opinion, that doesn't work. Too much has to be explained for the story to really work. So I decided to make new characters, new devil fruit, and new locations. Only three places have remained the same. Now on to the story!
-Split-
It was a beautiful day to be out at sea. The sun was shining, the water was sparkling clear, and the wind was perfect for sailing. With the weather this fine it was hard to be in a bad mood, and this good cheer showed on the faces of the people of Zeral Island. Zeral Island was a small port in the South Blue. The port was great for trade and brought in a fair amount of business. This is where Jason, our protagonist, found himself on this sunny day.
Jason had been wondering from island to island for a couple years now. He was a soul that had lost its purpose. He spent his days traveling out of boredom searching for something he didn't know what was. On most days after a couple bottles of rum it didn't bother him, but on some sober nights it left him awake thinking of his haunting quest.
After arriving on Zeral Island, Jason spent a few hours in the market picking up a few supplies before heading to the local bar. Like usual, Jason decided to drown out his thoughts in couple bottles of rum, but a loud racket from the front of the bar interrupted him at bottle number two. He turned his head to look back at the cause of the noise to see a bunch of angry men surrounding a guy about his age. The guy in the middle had shoulder-length spiky, wild black hair. His bangs covered up any traces of any would-be ears, and he wore a navy blue bandana that covered the top of his head. He wore a navy blue tank top, a black short sleeved jacket that he left open, long black rag-pants, and black steel toed boots. Out of all of this, his most noticeable features were his fanged smile and fierce yellow eyes.
The guy in the middle was smiling cheerfully as if nothing was wrong, despite the fact that the angry men surrounding him seemed to indicate otherwise, "Come on guys. I only want you to pay for a few drinks. I don't have any money on me. Can't you cut a guy a little slack?"
"A few drinks! You left us with a tab for three weeks' worth of drinks!" screamed one of the angry men.
"That's more then I earn in a month!" followed another.
The guy in the middle undeterred continued to try and negotiate a deal, "Come one between all of y'all I'm you guys could handle it."
"Handle it my ass! I've had enough of you! It's about time I taught you what an ass kicking feels like!" screamed the first man.
The guy in the middle tried to look taken aback, "You kiss your mother with that mouth? Then again, you're probably into that sorta thing."
The man, mad with rage, swung with all his might at the guy's temple. With almost no effort the guy leaned his head back to avoid the hit, "Dude that was a lame punch. Course it's probably an effect of all that inbreeding your family seems to be fond of."
The guy turned to the rest of the men, "Are you guys' families affected by the inbreeding too, or do you just like looking at my pretty face?"
The rest of the men, also tired of the guy's insults, foolishly join the first man in attempting to bludgeon the guy. The guy's smile turns into a feral grin as he cracks his knuckles in anticipation of the fight, "Now it's an interesting fight."
The fight, if you could call it that, was not turning out well for the men from before. The guy was dancing around the strikes with ease and was laying out men with one hit. The guy looked like he was thoroughly enjoying himself. Jason could honestly care less about the guy and his stupid bar fight. That was, until one of the guy's victims crashed into the bar and spilled Jason's rum onto the floor destroying the bottle in the process. Not being able to afford another bottle of rum to push himself from his tipsy state into a drunken haze and his only bottle being destroyed before he could start it left Jason in an understandably bad mood.
He stood suddenly causing his chair to make very loud scraping noise across the floor. The noise was so sudden even the bar fight came to a halt. The guy, holding one of the men by the collar getting ready to hit him, just stared as the man slowly turned towards them and spoke with a murderous tone and glared at them, "Who was the one that ruined my rum?"
All the men could feel the killing intent rolling off of Jason, and the ones that were still conscious pointed at the guy wearing the bandana. The guy, seeing the opportunity for a better fight, grinned and pointed to himself, "That was me. Why? What's it to ya?"
"What's your name?"
The guy was taken aback by the question, "What?"
"I need to know what name they should put on your headstone." answered Jason cracking his knuckles.
The guy grinned and thrust his thumb to his chest, "Name's Leonard, Leonard Bane. Friends call me Leo. Well... at least they would if I had any friends, and what's your name mister bandit?"
Jason looked at himself and could sort of see where Leo was coming from. Jason had medium-length wild brown hair, green eyes, and tanned muscled skin. He wore a black haori with white tribal markings, a white sleeveless shirt, tan kakis, white shoes, and had bandages wrapped from his knuckles to his elbows. He did sort of look like a trouble maker, "Name's Jason D. Gale."
"Well Jason", said Leo with anticipation "I think it's time I've taught you your place."
"Please", Jason scoffed "You're a hundred years too early to be facing me, brat."
Leo's eye twitched in anger, "Brat? I'm about the same age as you!"
Jason scoffed again, "There's no way someone as immature as you could be the same age as my eighteen-year-old self."
"See!" Leo shouted in triumph "I'm a year older then you!"
"You're probably just lying, so you can one up me" said Jason rolling his eyes.
Leo's anger was coming out in full force, "Oh, that's bullshi…"
"Halt!" yelled a loud voice to the front of the bar interrupting Leo.
Leo and Jason turned toward the front of the bar and saw around ten Marines standing there. One of Marines, the one that was speaking earlier, continued, "You two are under arrest for disturbing the peace, assault, battery, malicious wounding, and the destruction of property!"
Leo turned to Jason and pointed accusingly at him, "You see what you did now?"
Jason looked furious, "What I did?"
"If you hadn't of interrupted my fight then I would have had enough time to escape the Marines and skip town." Leo yelled.
"And if you hadn't of knocked over my rum I wouldn't even have gotten into this mess!" pointed out Jason.
"Enough! If you surrender quietly we won't have to resort to excessive force!" said the Marine.
Jason and Leo looked at the Marine and then at each other before jetting at the Marine in a blur of speed. When they both reached the Marine they delivered a bone shattering punch to his face. The unlucky Marine flew through two of his subordinates and the front door before coming to a halt in the middle of the street. There was a moment of silence as disbelieve filled the Marines. Soon after, the bar was filled the painful groans and moans of the beaten Marines.
"See, I don't see why you were worried," started Leo, "We beat them easily."
"I wasn't worried about them exactly" said Jason as he and Leo walked out into the street.
"Halt! You're under arrest!"
Jason pointed to the forty Marines running towards, "I was more worried about that."
"Oh…yeah…okay I could see that", said Leo "Don't worry, I got a plan."
Jason rolled his eyes, "Oh I can't wait to hear this."
Leo leaned in as if he was hoping to keep the conversation between just them, "You see, when one of them gets close…I'm going to punch him."
Jason deadpanned, "Once again I'm astounded at your stupidity. Why didn't I think of that?"
"Okay, you didn't have to sound so sarcastic. It's a good plan" said Leo a little put out.
"You know what? You're right. It is a good plan. Just to show how much faith I have in this plan I'm going to go over there and watch" said Jason.
Leo put his hands on his hips in pride, "I knew you'd see things my way. Now sit back and watch the master in action."
Jason shook his head as Leo took his place in the middle of the street, "If only I had some popcorn."
Leo reared his fist back and waited for one of the Marines to get in close. When a Marine from the front of the group drew close Leo unleashed the punch into the Marine's stomach. The Marine went rocketing backwards and knocked over the rest of them like a stack of dominos. Leo turned back at Jason with a smug look on his face, "See, piece of cake."
Jason didn't answer. He just pointed back at the pile of Marines. Leo turned back only to see that all of the Marines, not including the one he hit, were getting back up. Leo turned back to Jason with an annoyed look on his face, "Yeah yeah, I know. Start running."
-Split-
A few hours later Jason and Leo found a warehouse to hide in. They were a bit winded as they had been running for a better part of the afternoon. After they caught their breath Jason turned to Leo and glared. Leo looked back with a questioning glance, "What?"
"That was an AMAZING plan oh great one" said Jason with obvious sarcasm and distaste.
"Okay, so the plan didn't work out exactly like I had intended, but one outa forty ain't bad" said Leo trying to save face.
Jason looked at Leo in disbelief, "You're joking right? You're a walking disaster! I can't believe you haven't walked out onto a minefield yet!"
Leo didn't look fazed by the comment, "I don't see why you're so worked up about this."
Jason shook his head at Leo's laid back attitude, "What do you think will happen when those peons realize they can't catch us?"
Leo rolled his eyes, "What's the worst that could happen?"
There was suddenly a loud crash as a large figure crashed through the wall of the warehouse. Now, Jason wasn't short being at a good five feet eleven inches tall, but the man who had just crashed through the wall was huge. He stood a good two or three feet over Jason and Leo, and his shoulders were wide enough to match. He had a wide and rough face with large sideburns, and his hair was a greasy grayish black. What had caught Jason's eye, however, was the Marine captain uniform the man was wearing. Jason cursed in his head and pointed at the man, "That could happen."
"Well, well, well, what do we have here? I do believe you're the trouble makers that have been giving my men some trouble" said the Marine captain haughtily.
"Damn it" Jason growled then turned to Leo, "You're a magnet for trouble."
Leo just grinned like usual and shrugged his shoulders, "Come on, he can't be that bad. I mean, look at his men. They were pathetic."
Jason just growled and ran toward the back of the warehouse, "I don't have the patience to deal with you right now."
When he reached the back of the warehouse he let out a grunt and punched a sizable hole in the wall. He turned back to Leo and yelled, "If you wanna keep following me, come on, but if not, see ya."
Leo, intrigued by his running companion's sudden show of strength, followed immediately.
-Split-
After a few more hours of dodging the Marine captain and his dogs it seemed that the two had finally lost him and were currently in an alley hiding. They were both tired and were doing their best trying to catch their breath. Jason wasn't as tired as Leo, though, and now that they had time to relax, Leo was able to notice this.
"Why are we even running from the Marines in the first place? We're both obviously strong. Even if that Marine captain was stronger, I'm sure that between the two of us we could be him. Why are you so dead set on running away?" questioned Leo, rather serious for once.
"Hey, you might not mind being as subtle as an explosion, but I'd rather not have attention drawn to myself" said Jason.
"Why? What do you have to be afraid of? If you were a civilian all you would have to of done was turn yourself in and explain the situation" asked Leo confused.
Jason suddenly had an interest in whatever was in the opposite direction of Leo, "Let's just say that the Marines and I are not exactly the best of friends."
"Okay, if we're in this mess together might as well work together to get out of it right?" suggested Leo.
Jason didn't like it but submitted to the idea, "Fine, but once we reach the next island we split up, and you never see me again. Got it?"
Leo nodded with a grin, "Deal."
"Alright, if we're going to get off this island we're going to need a boat" said Jason.
Leo thought for a moment, "I think I saw a boat at a dock near here that shouldn't be occupied or watched right now."
"Alright, go check that one out, and if it's all clear come back here and we'll take that boat to escape" said Jason.
"Alright, I'll be back in a flash", said Leo with a salute.
For a few minutes Jason got the silence he had oh so wanted for hours now. The silence brought forth his old want for rum and old memories he wanted to wash down with it. His musings were quickly interrupted when Leo came back, "Alright, the boat is still there. No one's watching it, and I didn't see any marines. We should be able to get there with little difficulty."
Jason followed Leo, and just as he said, they had little difficulty getting to the boat. It was a medium sized old ship, but apparently still sailable. Preparing the ship to set sail took twice as long, however, because, as it turns out, Leo had no idea how to do anything pertaining to sailing. Thus, Jason had to do everything himself. This took a good forty-five minutes, and the sun was starting to get low. When everything was ready they set sail for the sea. When they reached the edge of the port they let out sighs of relief, but unfortunately, they weren't going to get a break just yet. Cannon firing and the crashing of cannon balls around them alerted them of the Marine ship following after them.
The bigger and faster Marine ship was closing in fast and as it did, a large figure could be made out on its deck. It was the large Marine captain from before. Jason cursed loudly, "How the hell does this guy keep finding us? He just seems to know exactly where we are!"
As the Marine ship kept firing at them increasingly more important equipment was being hit. The old ship just didn't seem to be able to resist any of the cannon balls and just completely gave way to the strikes. Eventually one of the cannon balls managed to tack out their mast. With no way to catch the wind the ship and with no ocean current besides the in and out of the tide, the ship wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. Jason sighed and looked at Leo, "Well, we tried running, looks like we get to do things your way."
Leo grinned and cracked his knuckles, "It's about time. I've wanted to have a good fight since our dispute at the bar."
"Alright, that's fine, but hear me out first" said Jason seriously, "The captain on that ship is called Elliot Burbine. He's one of the tougher Marine captains on the South Blue. Rumor has it he ate a devil fruit. I don't know what it is, so be careful. The plan is to beat him and take over the ship. Once it gets close enough we'll jump onto it. You ready?"
Leo gave a toothy grin, "Born ready."
As they waited for the Marine ship to get close the Marines seemed to notice that their ship was no longer moving, so the Marines stopped firing. When the Marine ship got close for docking Jason and Leo made their move. With a show of strength and agility they jumped onto the deck of the larger and taller Marine ship. Captain Elliot was on the deck with his arms crossed and smiling, "What do we have here? Have you finally decided to give yourselves up? It would be wise if you did. No matter where you go this nose off mine can find you. How else do you think I kept finding you?"
Leo smirked, "Sorry to disappoint you. We're just here to take your ship. As you know, our old one is kinda broken now."
Elliot let out a bellowing laugh, "You little brats really think you have a chance? Let me show you how foolish you really are for choosing me as your opponent."
Elliot threw off his jacket, and suddenly, his body began shift and change. When it was done he looked like a cross between a person and a boar, "I ate the Ino Ino no Mii (Boar Boar Fruit). With it, my strength and sense of smell have increased dramatically. I'm one of the best trackers in the South Blue. Now do you see how hopeless your situation is? There's no way you can beat me, and even if you managed to run away, I'll still find you."
Jason got in a stance and glanced at Leo, "I hope you're as strong as you think you are."
Leo followed suit and grinned, "Funny, I was about to say the same thing."
Elliot suddenly rushed them. Leo jumped to the right, but Jason stayed put. Elliot stretched out his hands as, most likely, to grab then slam Jason. Leo saw that Jason wasn't moving, and was about to yell at Jason to dodge. But it was too late. Just as Elliot was about grab Jason's neck, Jason grabbed both of Elliot's hands and stopped him cold.
Elliot was stunned that his charge was stopped. Try as he might, Elliot couldn't push Jason. Jason let out a feral grin, the first show of emotion besides anger and annoyance since he had arrived on Zeral Island. As much as he tried to avoid it, there really was nothing like the rush of battle, "What happened to all of that strength you were boasting earlier?"
Elliot looked positively furious, "You little runt! You think this is the best I can do? I'll show you what I'm truly made of! Then we'll see if you can be so cocky!"
Elliot continued to push with all his might, but Jason still wouldn't budge. "I think you forgot about me" said Leo from over Elliot's head.
Elliot looked up to see that Leo's arms had become covered in black fur, had grown slightly in muscle mass, and his hands had become clawed. Leo made one hand into a fist and wrapped it with his other hand. He then slammed them down on Elliot's head with extreme strength, leaving a dent on the deck of the ship, "Garouken: Yasei Bakushen (Hungery Wolf Fist: Feral Rush)"
Jason looked over at the smirking Leo's still furry arms, "You ate a devil a devil fruit?"
Leo shook his head, "Not really, it's sorta a long story, but to shorten it up a bit, just think of me as a werewolf."
"A werewolf, huh? Can't say I've ever met one, but you find a lot of strange stuff out on the sea" said Jason rather casually.
Elliot, after finally gathering his wits, started to get up. "Oh, he's getting back up. Mind if I try?" asked Jason to Leo.
Leo waved him off casually, "No of course not, go ahead."
Elliot had finally gotten up, and he if was furious before, he was practically explosive now, "You little shits think you're so tough 'cause you got in a lucky hit? You haven't seen anything yet!"
Elliot reared back his fist before sending it soaring towards Jason's chest. Jason didn't move and let the strike hit him. However, the one hurting afterward was Jason. When the fist finally reached Jason's chest a load clang rang out and Elliot began holding his hand in pain. "Wha-what the hell are you made of?" growled Elliot through the pain.
Jason smirked, "You aren't the only one here that ate a devil fruit. You see, I ate the Kin Kin no Mii (Metal Metal Fruit), so now I'm a metal man. I can turn my body into different metals, so you punching me, was like punching solid iron."
Jason didn't give Elliot a chance to comment. He dropped down onto his back and, using his shoulders and hands as springs, thrust both of his heels into Elliot's chin, sending Elliot skyward, "Kin Kin no: Iron Skyrocket"
Jason flipped back up, and noticing Elliot's landing spot, called over to Leo, "Hey Leo can you send him back over my way?"
"No prob" said Leo giving Jason a thumbs up.
Leo reared both of his still fury palms back and waited for Elliot to fall back down. When was right in front of Leo, Leo thrust both palms forward, released a shockwave, and sent Elliot flying back over to Jason, "Garouken: Boboe Kizu (Hungery Wolf Fist: Howling Cut)"
When Elliot had reached Jason, Jason reared his fist back and punched down. This lodged Elliot halfway into the hole Jason had just made on the deck, "Kin Kin no: Iron Hammer"
Leo came over to admire Jason's handy work, "Looks like mister bacon isn't getting back up again."
Jason nodded, "I was little worried I might not of hit him hard enough. I could've punched him straight through the ship, but putting a hole in the bottom of a ship that we're trying to capture is kind of counterproductive."
When Jason heard one of the Marines drop their gun he finally took note of all the scared Marines. They seemed to be absolutely terrified at his and Leo's strength. Jason decided to play this to his advantage, "You guys have two options. You could try to take me and my friend here on alone, or you could take your captain and kindly get the fuck off our new ship."
After a little incentive, all of the frightened Marines rushed to the life rafts and left along with their unconscious captain. Leo looked in a little disappointed, "Huh…well that was easy."
Jason started walking towards the helm, "Convincing cowards not to fight normally is."
Jason found a few maps and started to look through them. Curious to what Jason was looking at Leo walked up to the helm and looked over Jason's shoulder, "What are you looking for?"
"Well, if I can find a map of the South Blue I can figure what the closest island is, we can begin to make our way to the next destination" said Jason.
After a few minutes Jason seemed to find what he was looking for, "Ah ha, here we go."
"So what's our heading?" asked Leo.
"Looks like we're going to…Gormet Island", said Jason.
-Split-
AN: Well, that's the chapter and the beginning of my first One Piece story "The Mad Dog Pirates". Hope to see some reviews on whether you liked it or not. Any questions about the story will be answered within 24 hours of the message being sent. Until next time.