Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece or its characters. My own OCs and the plot in this one, though, I do own. Everything else belongs to Eiichiro Oda.

Chapter One
Jacky Wall

6 years after prologue
Dawn Island, Goa kingdom,
Near Windmill village

A rock splashed off and on the water in what seemed an endless circle until it blobbed underwater. This repeated, with new rocks splashing and blotching on the surface while creating gentle vibrations of waves.

It was hot. But it wasn't the steaming hot. It was dry and dirty and you-want-to-do-everything-but-work hot. Thankfully the jungle had more than enough shadowy places, like under this great astrocaryum jauari, for example. The tree offered a much-welcomed oasis from the heat and best of all, was conveniently located near a river.

The day hadn't started in any snug way. First, Dragon had got a cozy wake up call from a rock that had been thrown into his room through the window. Pleasantly, that same rock had been covered with cloth and inside was at least a dozen fire ants. Pray tell how it was possible to get them there.

Second, cockroaches had decided that Dragon's breakfast cereals were the perfect place to lay eggs. Without a muttered word he had swiftly decided he could drink some juice and had moved to another side of the kitchen after getting rid of the cockroach cereal conquest.

Third, while he had been pouring his juice and being mentally busy cursing every possible vermin there is, reading his drink had come to a halt, as the door had broken open and in had run a mouse, a cat and a dog in that precise order. Dragon had stayed frozen in his position as he had listened to the crashes, scratches, meows, chirps and barks echoing throughout the house.

After listening to this about half of a grittingly painful hour, Dragon had finished pouring his juice, drank and spent the next four quarters of the clock running and falling and crashing into things in a less than planned attempt to capture all three invaders. Afterwards as Dragon had stood on the front porch of his house he had concluded that further loitering around his living area would have only made the damage more grave. So he had headed for the woods surrounding Mt Corvo.

Now, sitting at the river Dragon came to the deduction that somehow all the pranks of the morning had been done by Brent and his so-called-gang. The four thugs had been on Dragon's neck for years already just because he was 'weird', not even understanding what the word meant when they heard it from the adults' mouth. That's how children are - always mimicking adults in everything they do.

Dragon threw another rock.

Now there's something he did not understand. Why the hell did they do that? Imitating others like they wouldn't have their own minds and ended up acting like fools and idiots in the process. Devil help if Dragon was forced to behave like that - hell would sooner freeze over.

He threw another rock.

That was when babbling and giggling echoed from the upriver. Dragon hoisted his head towards the sound and after identifying at least one of the voices as one from the aforementioned Brent's so-called-gang's members', he decided to leave the rocks and move on down the river. Or better yet, away from the river.

He wasn't scared or anguished himself over facing the quartet or anything like that, it was just plain too much pain in the ass. They would flaunt and swamp and bark and mock and stir each other and everything else as uneventful that Dragon didn't have time nor resilience for. Which, of course, didn't mean that he would have that eventful day ahead of him either.

Because there really wasn't anything to do. He had explored the jungle pretty much completely already, sometimes even getting lost and having to be forced to spend the night under the starry night sky (or cloudy, if the weather happened to be bad, which for some twisted fate it was most of the time, and we're not even going to discuss how regularly it rained). He had even done a longer trip to the other mountains once, since there wasn't anyone denying him the access to go and no one to start panicking when he didn't show up for supper. He had hiked supposedly two third of Mt Ivaril and Mt Menner in three years of time and hadn't really found anything worth going back for.

Albeit, there was one place Dragon could at the moment go.

The Grey Terminal. This was one place that Dragon hadn't got fed up with yet - there always happened something, especially when the daily trash cargo came in, and sometimes even new people moved there, or rather, were forced to. You never knew what interesting stories they had to tell (although, you never could know which of them were actually true, alike) and what you would find from the gradually growing pile of junk - who knew - sometimes you found things that actually had value (which was rare, granted, as the denizens were constantly going through that same pile).

But you could always have hope.

Of course, the Grey Terminal had real thugs as a down side. And compared to these thugs, the Brent's were like flies. Although at the same time they weren't even really strong. With fast enough legs (and small body, as the thugs tended to be rather big for reason or another) you were able to swiftly get away without breaking a sweat most of the time. You had to have merely courage.

Talking about speed, it didn't help long after you grew older. Partly that's why Dragon trained daily in the jungle. (The other part of the reason was his old man with whom Dragon had the same problem as with the Terminal's thugs, only worse as the geezer even had agility.) The bears, wolves and other animals proved a surprisingly good ground for basic training, as did the differing terrain. The encounters with Brent and his gang and some other children of the village, as well as with the some people in Grey Terminal, added to this training menu and lined a pretty good circle of his every day routine. Though, it was nowhere near enough to even partway counter his father. But it was something.

After deliberating his choices of next destination, Dragon decided on the Grey Terminal. He began moving up the mountain and while he was at it, resolved to get some training done on the way.

Dragon always stayed away from the roads and paths that had carved their standing in the jungle with time. He knew that the mountain bandits used them and really didn't care to encounter them. Also there rarely was any animals along them - and it was more fun this way.

Dragon moved a branch from his way and crunched just enough so that he got under it and continued along. He passed few rivers and slopes before he saw a bear drinking from a pond and stopped in his tracks. Luckily there were bushes between them and Dragon managed to get behind one quietly before the animal noticed his presence.

After observing the bear for a while, Dragon concluded that it was a male. It was the start of summer so he had to tread carefully, in case the male was old enough to mate meaning it would be more aggressive than usually. Dragon drew four quiet breaths, counted his time and watched the bear until attacking.

Taking the animal down wasn't a tough nor easy job. It was something in between. It came to light that the male was not old enough to mate which meant it was not as big as the usual bears Dragon had fought but aggressive it was. It took about ten minutes to get the animal on the ground without killing it.

No, Dragon did not kill the animals he fought and won against. It felt kind of… wrong to kill them. He was, after all, the one who attacked first, not the other way around. Of course, Dragon lived alone, and couldn't really cook and naturally he needed food, so exceptions existed.

After taking the bear down Dragon made sure that it wasn't hurt in any major way and washed his face. God, it was hot.

Getting up Dragon moved away from the pond and continued his trip. Gradually the ground got steeper until he turned left and came to the edge of the cliff that opened a view to the Grey Terminal.

Dragon moved to the side and slid down the hillside.

The stench was nauseating.

But Dragon endured.

It took a good fifteen minutes to reach even a sight of a living person from the hillside towards the centre of the Terminal. The place was vast and what its name said - grey. This was caused partly because of the steaming fog everywhere and partly because of all the broken pipes and ladders and trash cans and pots and plates and pans and, anything grey, really. Hell, you could even find broken metal parts (and some not so broken) of den den mushis' receivers if you just knew what to look for.

The first person Dragon saw was luckily Jacky Wall. Wall was one of those better people in the Terminal and one of the few who actually still had stories to tell. He was slightly bitter and junky old man but genuinely of goodwill despite the first obtrusive impression most people had of him. It was said he had been a noble once, but alcohol had got the best of him and so his parents (as he never got actually married after his fiancé saw the man he was and the woman's family broke the contract) disowned him. After some nights of loitering around he was thrown into the Terminal by the police.

In the years following the sudden change of life conditions, Wall had got rather… cracked. He had literally once cut his own leg off under the knee after 'six pigeons and a shark had had their way with him' and had a wooden leg to at least partway prove it. His descriptions in his stories… often lacked common sense, and his eyes flickered sometimes to weird directions distracting Dragon from the story he was telling. Regardless of his odd wobbling when walking caused by his amputated leg, he did not use a cane. Dragon had once asked why he didn't hone the wooden stick so that it matched better his height, and the old man had noted how Dragon was in need of fashion sense.

Dragon approached the old man and greeted him. Wall twitched, then stiffened before unstiffening and cautiously turned at him. His blue-grey hair a mess and green eyes flapping sheepishly a moment, the ex-noble observed Dragon from toe to head before grinning indiscreetly.

"Ah, rube boy! Learn how to greet a man without startling them!" Wall scolded childishly.

"You say that every time. The problem's not on me but on you." Dragon retorted monotonously.

"…And no basic understanding of human emotions." Wall muttered as he dropped his gaze to wander around the ground and turned back the way he was facing earlier. Dragon squinted his eyes but made no further comment on the matter and walked next to Wall while searching whatever the man was looking at.

A large mass of people (or at least large in the Terminal's citizen's scale) was clustered around something some yards away. Dragon raised his eyebrow and looked up at Wall questioningly. The old man made no notion of noticing him and just fluttered a stray in his mouth, and so Dragon looked back at the group.

They observed the happening quietly, Dragon with interrogative interest, Wall with a bored expression on his face that occasionally changed into a less than amused one. The group shifted and hassled and bustled until a slight peek was offered for Dragon to see beyond the people and on the thing that they made so much fuss about.

But it really was only a slight crack. The sole thing that Dragon managed to register from the chance was something greyish brown. The fussing continued and some people started raising their voices a pitch too high for others' liking until Dragon and Wall had a shouting contest to watch at hand.

This continued about five minutes (after about a minute and half Dragon started looking elsewhere) until finally Wall commented.

"Apparently they found an old cash register," he said to answer the mute question Dragon had raised earlier. Dragon clicked his gaze back to the group.

"What do you mean by old?" He asked.

"Old. You know, the old kind. From the last decade. Or something. Me don't know." Wall answered as if that solved everything. Dragon would have fished more information but knew better than that to try to get it from Wall of all people.

So after a comfortable half a minute had passed, Dragon noted monotonously.

"If it's just a cash register, then why are they making such a fuss about it?" It wasn't exactly voiced in an asking manner.

"Don't ask me," Wall noted back.

Dragon rolled his eyes and turned his gaze again elsewhere. As ten minutes passed the group of people had turned into a battlefield for no obvious reason. And as six more minutes passed, three new people sauntered into the scene, and upon identifying the faces Dragon tensed. The closer the tall figures hovered, the more anxious Dragon became. Wall took note of this, and after a slow time had passed he prompted.

"Yasen doesn't look like he's in a good mood. It's better if you make haste, rube boy."

Despite the tone he used, Dragon took heed of the old man's warning and began imperceptibly treading away from the area. Too slow, he mentally noted as he heard Yasen's deep voice rumble behind him.

"Look, boys, what we have here! The little runt of that marine bastard has come to pay us a visit," and the others laughed at the remark.

"I think we need to welcome him then," another concluded and others concurred.

Dragon grit his teeth and turned his sneaking into leaping. He was able to get away - there was no impugning that. Nonetheless, the hillside ahead of him would prove to be somewhat of an arduous task. The Terminal was vast, so necessarily Dragon didn't need to get away from there and could presumably hide somewhere within it instead.

With this in mind, Dragon turned to the opposite direction from which the three came from and changed his pace into bare mind-numbing running. The three stayed rigidly behind him and Dragon thanked his luck that day because he did not trip a single time as was so conveniently common when you took a walk in a pile of junk.

So why was a couple of grown ups doing chasing a fourteen year old boy? Surely they had better things to do. Like looking for something to eat - and cannibalism surely was not a cultured thing to do in Goa kingdom. Hell, it wasn't characteristic in any country in East Blue.

A positive year back, Yasen and his men had been picking on Wall and some others. Why? Because they had found some a little more than valuable things that Yasen wanted for himself. Law wasn't valid here in the Terminal and frankly what they did didn't really bother Wall. But it bothered Dragon.

So he had taken care of Yasen's greedy measures by stealing his gathered at the time not-so-well-guarded pricey thingys and during the chase that followed when Yasen had woken up for a reason or another, set the ground of the man's little home on fire. Don't ask how. Dragon couldn't comprehend it either.

When he had got captured Yasen had given him a rather good beating of which surviving Dragon was also rather proud. It was a common fact that Yasen had killed many who crossed him. But it was also beginning to be a common fact that he had a hard time with a brat from Windmill village. Just the thought of that made Dragon grin haughtily.

But it did not slower his legs when running away from Yasen once again. In fact, it only made him go faster. No matter how scornful Dragon was of his miraculous escape from Yasen that year ago, he did not by any means want to go through it again.

Yasen was fairly built man, with blond muggy hair and streak eyes. He was at least twice the size of Dragon, standing around at the same height as his father, and if that wasn't enough, Yasen also was the fastest of the people in the Grey Terminal - or at least of the people who were way less than good. It was his own fault for making enemy out of the man, Dragon was aware of that, but what could he say? Yasen had it coming. Even if anyone didn't laugh openly, the half glances at the blond man's way were more than enough amusing for Dragon.

Yasen picked up speed and when that didn't work he threw a random thing at Dragon. It was pure chance that it didn't hit him and to avoid a failed chance Dragon stepped behind a larger stack of junk. After that there was another pile to Dragon's dismay and when he evaded it his speed slowed down. But if that happened to him then it was harder for Yasen and the two.

Dragon glanced their way. Damn. Of course they hadn't followed him to the stacks but stayed on the clearer path. Now they were almost catching up with him. Damn it to hell.

Well if that's the case then he'd just force them to come.

Dragon turned back towards the hillside and silently muted to himself how he'd manage to get up. There would be a mound just farther away to the left that had a better footing and proper places to catch onto, but it was still good three hundred metres away. During that distance Yasen would catch up enough to get a hold of Dragon's shirt when he climbed. But the hillside ahead of him would be more of a citation as there was no proficient proof that the footing ground wouldn't give away. Unless…

Dragon glanced back. As he had hoped, Yasen had followed after him to the stacks when he had turned towards the hillside. That settled it then, Dragon would head for the mound.

During the turn back towards the way he had been heading to, Dragon lost half way his footing on his right leg and his arm grazed painfully a broken end of a metal panel leaving him to trample in his tracks for a moment. He took support from another stack and used it to pace back up. No way in four seasons was he going to stop even for a moment. At the worst case it could cost him his life. Around this time the sun hid behind the clouds that appeared out of nowhere.

It took a few more seconds to get to the mound and when reaching for the first holding, Dragon began to get out of breath. He raised his leg and felt Yasen's hand graze the helm of his shirt but never properly catch it in his hand during the exertion up. Without sparing a look back, Dragon climbed to the best of his agility, and agility he had. It was pure devil's luck from Yasen's side that the mound actually enabled him too to get up the hill. After mentally realizing this Dragon cursed under his breath and after reaching the top continued running for his dear life again. Why did he not perceive that sooner?

It began to get dark.

Not really noticing the drop of pace in his speed because of his panting, Dragon threw all regard away to the way he was going and just fixated on getting the hell away from Yasen. He didn't even reserve a quick look at the man's way for he knew for a fact that he was still there considering his shouting at Dragon's way.

Dragon ran past every and all that came in his way on the self-made path away from the Terminal. Branches splattered on his face and back every now and then but that didn't falter him. Once one of them pitched close to his eye but he just went on. From the sound of things Yasen was catching up again. Around this time the temperature began to drop.

Dragon scampered on and for a moment entertained an idea of climbing into a tree. He quickly forsook this, though, as he heard Yasen only closer this time. But at this rate he really did need to find some place to hide in. They had already covered a proportionate distance and while both of them were breathing heavily, most likely Dragon was the first to run out of stamina as he was smaller. Still, he did last longer than he used to since this wasn't the first time he had been chased by Yasen. Unfortunately the blond man was improving too.

He did not know if the other two were still with them, nor did he frankly care, such was the situation he was in. But the occasionally occurring additional stamps here and snap there might have told him that they were. Also, if he had paid closer attention to his surroundings he would have noticed how far from Windmill village he was, and how close the mountain path was.

Suddenly the voices behind him stopped, and the constant snapping of branches higher than Dragon came to a halt. He did not realize this at first and merely continued leaping and running away. When he did notice he finally allowed himself to look behind him and slowly stopped.

Surprisingly, Yasen had given up, and only now did Dragon detect his rapid heart beat and incessant panting. Trying to calm his breathing down, Dragon leant to his legs and when the world started slightly spinning let himself fall back first on the ground with a thump. Staring up to the now grey sky, everything that was wavering calmed down and so did gradually his breathing too after few minutes. When his heart beat was back to normal he began laughing hard.

At first, that year ago, every time Yasen had chased him Dragon had to hide in the end. This had continued throughout the last year and on to this year's side too.

Today was the first time Yasen actually gave up without having to look for Dragon.

His laughter continued surging and uncontrollable as if he was genuinely happy. Then it began to rain and the laughter died.

It became all quiet except for the splatter the rain made. It was the straight kind of rain, and there was a lot of it pouring down hard onto the ground. The leaves gave in quite easily as if obeying a demand, and a moment it seemed there was nothing beside the rain in the world.

Such foolishness it all. Day in, day out the same routine. Every street was the same, every rock and tree, a river and a pond. All stayed the same most of the time, and the only alteration that happened was seen after tens of years of time. And time was not something that humans had. Animals had it. Insects had it. Even ground had it. But not humans. Humans had a routine, a profession. They adapted to their environment and found the best solution for their income of money. They agreed to most of things because it was easy. Even if not all thought the means justified the outcome, they still kept quiet about it. The peace that the kingdom in which Dragon lived felt so fake it was almost surreal.

Of course he did not know if the feeling he had had any truth to it. He didn't understand completely all the politics, and he didn't even know what was going on in the world, only what he heard frequently from the adults at nights at the bar.

But it all felt like it was true - considering how he was treated. He never understood the reason. His father was liked in the village. Hell, he was somewhat respected even in the marines because of his position as a captain. But Dragon didn't have any friends. The parents of the village warned their children to stay away from him. He was bullied, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle.

The biggest problem were the adults. Or more accurately, the things they said when they thought no one heard them talking about it. Dragon was certain his father knew about it. But he had never been home longer than a month so it was hard to tell if he had talked about it with the people of the village. Nothing changed the facts though - Dragon was alone.

No matter who he knew from the Grey Terminal, they were not his friends. Dragon didn't even like to call them his acquaintances. They were more of an unsorted kind falling somewhere between a stranger and a person-I-met-once. And they were all pretty much older than him. Sure, there were some fifteen to sixteen year olds in the Terminal, but Dragon didn't feel like they were the kind of company he would want to befriend.

Another reason why he didn't have friends was his inability to express himself properly. His way of thought… was a bit weird, he admitted.

When most people saw a tree, they would simply note that it was a tree and maybe muse a moment what species it was. But Dragon would start to wonder how old it was, what kind of days it had seen and from what compass point the wind that carried it to its place came from. Every time it was talked about more theoretical things, everything sounded rational in his mind but when he opened his mouth to voice his thoughts the first part of his answer sounded odd, second he screwed up and the third he forgot. He would often climb up a tree and scope around for birds on branches and then ponder why they stopped there of all places when they could go anywhere. He wondered what clouds were. How they felt like. He had spent hours observing fishes on the banks just to learn to identify the individuals.

He listened to the adults in the bar often nights from a nearby tree to recognize their characteristic way of talking and laughing. Sometimes he heard crying too, and gathered from it that even grown ups shed tears. Everyone had it tough. But the association of a society gave all individuals strength and comfort that no one was alone.

Pathetic.

That one word echoed in his mind like a tennis ball. Like the pouring rain.

It hurt, that much was certain. Sometimes at the late hours of night it crushed. Oftentimes it merely numbed.

But he didn't hold anything against anyone. He told himself not to. Why, he didn't know. All he could grasp from his way of thought was that once he did blame it on someone, there was no going back. And the unknown was scary to him. The comfort of the present moment, no matter how much he obliviously suffered, was much more safe to him than taking the next step. Pathetic, it indeed was. But he didn't know how to not do it like that. So all he could do to lame the strain was to cry.

Half an hour later the rain began to cease. It did still continue in dispersed and cautious triplets as if asking for permission, but the worse of it was gone. The grey atmosphere stayed, but was soon cracked by something fierce when a pissed off yell startled Dragon from his blissful dryness of mental musings.

"Oi, whaddya doing to my carrots, brat?!"

There! The first chapter is here. Some notes, though. "Astrocaryum jauari" is an actual tree. Google it. About the Grey Terminal - it says in One Piece wikia that the correct English translation is Gray Terminal - but I guess that's the American version since in my manga volume it says Grey Terminal and I'm from Europe. So went with that one. (Also it looks better to me.)

I also want to comment that Dragon will have a rather big character development in this fic. And there's actually not that much Luffy's mother - she will appear somewhere at the start (though, not likely in the first three chapters) and then she'll be in more towards the end but there will be a long gap between them where Dragon meets other people. And I mean a lot of other people. Just so that no one starts to ponder about when she'll appear.

And no matter how few will read or review or like this, I will continue with it to the end. The whole idea has been in my head for three years already so I want to get it written.

This chapter was a bit of a long one. Don't know why, don't know how that happened but it did. I myself like reading long chapters more but I've heard that not all do so I apologize to those. The chapters will be differing in length and I cannot guarantee how long approximately each will be.

Featuring artwork of this fic has been posted on my tumblr. The link in my profile.

The one who figures out whose carrots were mistreated (destroyed) gets a cookie.