Author's Note: Wow, I can't believe the great response I've gotten to this story on just chapter one! Thank you guys so much! A lot of fantastic advice as well, and a bunch of great ideas! This chapter was going to jump to Zoro, but I think I'm going to go ahead and include the Koby/Alvida arc first, just 'cause I really want to write this!


Koby, a small, rather weak looking cabin-boy to the evil lady pirate, Iron Mace Alvida, sat curled up on the beach, crying and trying desperately to muffle his sobs so none of Alvida's pirate crew would hear him. He didn't want this. He didn't want to be here. He hated his life.

As he whimpered and wiped at his red, swollen eyes, he noticed something funny bobbing in the water. A barrel? Probably rum or something from a capsized ship. As he watched, it got caught in a wave and washed onto shore, leaving a long stretch of shoved sand to testify to the weight inside.

Maybe he could give it to Alvida's crew. Get them off his back for a while? Maybe? It was worth a shot. Besides, they'd be furious if they found up he'd passed on free booze for them.

He walked over to the barrel and examined it. It looked fairly solid and not waterlogged at all. Still in really good condition, so it probably wasn't in the sea water that long. He knocked on the side, wondering if it would sound hollow.

The knocks sounded hollow, not at all like they should on a heavy barrel filled with liquid. But it was the second noise that really threw him.

A loud yawn. He frowned. Was he hearing things? Something or other stuck inside making weird noises?

"Who is it?" called out a muffled voice from inside the barrel, sounding all the world like someone answering a knock on their door.

His mouth dropped open in shock. Someone was inside the barrel?

His shock wouldn't stop there.

"Where am I anyway?" continued the voice, and he heard the sounds of yawning and stretching. "Awfully small bed. Oh, yeah! The whirlpool!"

"Whirlpool?" whimpered Koby, not sure whether to be alarmed, terrified, or just plain freaked out.

"Heeheehee!" giggled the voice. "I'm in a barrel~! It's warm in he~re!" it continued, singing. "But way too small!"

After that, with a colossal smash, something burst out of the barrel, reminiscent in a freaky way of a chick hatching from an egg. Koby could've sworn he heard the creature say something like "Yatta!" as it broke out, but that didn't really make any sense… did it?

A weird looking… oh my god, a girl stood in the wreckage. She had huge, rather strange eyes, a straw hat over sloppy dark hair, a really tight red vest (his only hint that this was a girl he was looking at), denim jeans rolled up to the knees, and unbelievably non-seaworthy sandals. The girl stood there, stretching as if waking from a really good nap. After a minute she looked around and noticed Koby, smiling in an enormous way that showed way too many teeth.

Koby skittered backwards in the sand. This wasn't a girl! This was some kind of monster!

"You knocked?" asked the girl, squatting down facing Koby, who had fallen backwards and never bothered to get up. "Name's Luffy. I'm going to be Pirate King. And you?"

"K-Koby. W… wait a second! What are you talking about? F-first of all, girls aren't kings! They're queens! Second, to be pirate king in the Golden Age of Piracy, you'd have to be equal to Gold Roger! It's impossible! What, you're looking for One Piece?"

The girl tilted her head. "Stupid. Why should the Pirate King be called anything but the Pirate King? The king is the best, right? And I'm gonna be the best pirate." Then she smiled that huge smile again. "Nice ta meet ya, Koby. So, I'm gonna be Pirate King. I've embarked on my great adventure to collect nakama for my pirate crew." She laughed delightedly. "Too bad it go interrupted when my rowboat got sucked into a whirlpool! Luckily I had this barrel I'd stuffed with meat." She grinned at him excitedly. "So, what are you? Besides short and weak?"

Koby's mouth dropped open. "Hey!"

The girl looked puzzled. "What?"

"I… I… I can't help being short! And I wasn't crying because I was weak! I… I'm going to be a great Marine one day!"

Luffy nodded seriously. Or, rather, she appeared to be trying to be serious. "I see. Your training is… weird. Much better than my grandfather throwing me off that cliff into the forest, though. So you were abandoned here to raise yourself and become a strong Marine?"

"NO! I was captured and forced to be a cabin boy by…"

"KOBY!" shrieked an all-too familiar voice.

A shiver ran down Koby's back.

"Forced?" asked Luffy, frowning. "Is that good training for Marines? I'd much rather be a pirate."

"NO!" cried out Koby, actually forgetting Alvida in trying to knock some sense into this stupid girl. "I'm trying to escape! I have a boat and everything! Once I escape, then I can become a Marine and lock up Alvida forever! That…"

"Lock up who?" demanded that same voice from earlier, though now much closer.

Luffy looked up to where the sand turned to dirt as it sloped inland. And she saw… Her eyes widened. "Sugoi! So cool!"

The hugely obese pirate lady preened at the impressed aura coming off the strangely dressed girl. "Impressed at my beauty, flat little baby girl?" she bragged, sauntering and posing in a way she thought showed off her curves. Well, it did, but those weren't exactly curves people wanted to look at…

"I've never seen someone so ugly!" continued Luffy, in that awestruck tone.

Alvida's mouth dropped open. Behind her, every one of her fifty-strong crew (of all men) gasped.

"Or fat! So incredibly fat! Koby – look at her! She's HUGE!"

Koby's mouth was practically on the ground in horror.

Luffy's eyes sparkled. "Big as… as four barrels! No, as… as ten! BIGGER than my boat! At least five times my boat! A hundred times! SOOOO cool!"

Alvida finally found her tongue. Her face was flushed red in rage. "Do you mean to insult me girl?"

"Insult?" Luffy looked at Koby. "Was I insulting her?"

Koby managed to jerk out a terrified nod.

Luffy looked back at Alvida. "Yes!" she shouted to the fat lady.

"You! You skinny little twerp! Flat little… little… ARGH! You think you're prettier than me?"

Luffy didn't need to think about it. She nodded easily. "Any girl's prettier than you," she replied happily, as if she was carrying on a wonderful conversation with a dear friend. She frowned and tilted her head. "Well, any girl under 500 pounds…"

Alvida had had enough. She raised the enormous iron mace for which she's received her pirate name and charged.

Koby screamed and grabbed the weird looking girl to try yank her aside. He was a coward, but not even he could leave even the weirdest looking and stupidest girl in the East Blue to face the wrath of Iron Mace Alvida.

He couldn't move her. Instead, he ended up looking like a crab clinging to the girl's waist as the Iron Mace slammed down, half flattening the girl's head beneath the straw hat.

Koby shrieked in absolute panic, expecting to be drenched in blood and the body to topple right over.

Instead he heard a giggle. Which soon erupted into a full laugh that rang through the stunned silence.

"Does~n't hurt!" sang the girl cheerfully, grabbing the enormous iron mace and casually yanking it from a stunned Alvida's hands. She tossed it over her shoulder, far off into the ocean somewhere.

Alvida raged and charged forward.

"GUM GUM…" shouted Luffy, sidestepping Alvida and flinging an arm back. Koby's mouth dropped open as that arm continued stretching on and on at least fifteen feet behind Luffy. Alvida was in too much of a rage to even notice.

"PISTOL!" shouted Luffy, and slammed her closed fist forward in a punch that slammed Alvida in the gut and sent her flying far off into the distance.

Alvida's pirates stared as the huge blimp of their pirate captain sailed over their heads and off, possibly miles inland. Their eyes turned as one to stare at Luffy, then someone screamed. They all turned tail and ran off screaming after their pirate captain, leaving Luffy and Koby on the beach.

Koby turned to stare in shock at the weird girl. "You… You… How did you…?"

"I'm a rubber girl. Wanna be my nakama?"

"HUH?"

"That was the lady you were trying to escape from, right? So you can go now."

"WHAT?"

Luffy frowned. "You don't want to be my nakama?"

Koby shook his head roughly, trying to see if this was all a dream or what, but nothing was changing. And the weird girl was watching him with big, pleading eyes.

"Luffy, I… No! No, you said you're going to be a pirate, right?"

"Yes. I'm a pirate. I'm going to be Pirate King."

"Queen."

"King."

"Whatever. I'm going to be a Marine! I can't afford to be friends with pirates!"

"Oh. So you're staying with the fat lady?"

"What? NO!"

"So we're going then?"

"Yes!"

"Yay! You're joining my crew!"

"NO!"

"So we're not going?"

"We're going!"

"Yay! Thank you! Where's your boat?"

"Huh?"

"Yosh! Here we go!"

Luffy grabbed the much shorter Koby by the collar of his shirt and started dragging him off down the beach, clearly looking for a boat.


Author's Note: Lol! Sorry, I know I'm not supposed to like my own stuff this much, but I just love Luffy so much when he's acting like this! Not exactly a full chapter, so consider this a bonus as a thank you to everyone! Next up, we meet the terrifying bounty hunter Zora!

Oh, and please pardon my terrible Japanese and feel free to correct me. Only Luffy will be using Japanese phrases, and only because I feel these little phrases are so integral to the character.

As always, I'm totally open to ideas! I really don't want this to be just a rewrite of the original series, but something entertaining and fun! Hope you enjoyed!