This story may be familiar to those who read The Forbidden ANBU Files, as I posted the first chapter of a variation of this story in there. This was the original. That being said, I realised that Luffy was too OP in this, and while I intend to do a One Piece story sooner or later, either a pure fic or a crossover, it's not happening any time soon. Still, I hope you enjoy this story anyway. I'm just posting what I did of it before I decided not to continue it for your reading delight...
WARPING BOUNTY HUNTER LUFFY
CHAPTER 1:
THE NAVIGATOR GIRL AND THE WARP BOY
The orange-haired girl cursed as she struggled to keep the small boat from capsizing as the Sea King attacked. She was regretting coming so close to Dawn Island. She was hoping she could come ashore at Foosha Village, wait out the massive storm she knew was coming from her preternatural skills in meteorology, and then head back out to sea once it had passed. Instead, she had to contend with this damned oversized ornery eel that seemed set on making a meal of her, even though she doubted she would be anything more than a mere snack to it.
As the massive creature decided it had enough of her trying to evade it, it reared up over her ship, its maw open in a snarl. The girl dived desperately out of the way, but the force of the impact sent her flying. Not into the water, but then again, hitting one's head on the rail wasn't that much better, seeing as it only delayed the inevitable. And the impact all but bifurcated the boat, ensuring that, even if the creature didn't kill her, it would sink, consigning her to a watery grave. After all, a concussion was not conducive to swimming, even if she was close enough to shore to warrant it…assuming she didn't have a monster hungry for human flesh after her, anyway.
Through swimming vision, darkness eating at the edges, the girl watched as the massive Sea King peered at her, ready to gulp her down. Tears trickled from her eyes as she thought of her sister and those in the town. Those that she had failed, leaving to the not-so-tender mercies of a monster, and the Marines said monster had bribed into looking the other way. All those dangerous thefts from pirates…for nothing.
Suddenly, there was a yell of, "Vworp-Vworp: Space Prison!" And then, a spinning wedge of darkness seemed to spin out of the very sky. It seemed to hit the Sea King, and absorb it, until the wedge showed, for a brief moment, the Sea King, frozen in an instant, before it spun away(1). There was the thump of feet on the deck near her, and she found herself looking into a face looking at her in concern. A boy, about her age, with dark hair and eyes, wearing a battered straw hat on his head, and with a scar just below his left eye. "You okay?" he asked.
"Head hurts…" the girl moaned. Not an intelligent thing to say, admittedly, but she was in pain and concussed, so she could be excused.
The boy nodded, before moving over to the damaged part of the hull. "I'll have to get you to shore. Vworp-Vworp: Transmat!"
Before her disbelieving eyes, she saw her boat and everything on it begin dissolving into square-like particles that seemed to shoot into the sky. She nearly screamed when she saw her own body do the same thing…only to reassemble itself, along with the boy and her boat, on a nearby beach. "Shishishi!" the boy giggled. "It worked!"
The girl was normally not one to faint, but the shock of experiencing all this, combined with a concussion, conspired to make her do so. The last thing she saw was that damned smile on the boy's face…
Consciousness drifted tantalisingly through her mind, and it took the girl a while to realise that she was still alive, and capable of recognising that fact. However, it was the smell of soup tugging at her nostrils that confirmed it. She wasn't sure they served soup in the afterlife, or at least not in Hell. Not unless the damned were amongst the ingredients, anyway. And she could hear the sound of rain and the rumble of thunder.
Her eyes flickered open, to be greeted with the boy from earlier, smiling gently. "Hey, you're awake," he said, his smile widening. "I'm glad about that."
The girl blinked. She hadn't always been welcomed so warmly, even by non-pirates. But he seemed well-meaning. So she offered a tentative smile of her own. "Me too." She winced as a spike of pain jabbed through her head.
"You'll probably have to stay here for a few days at least, if not more," the boy said. "Aside from the concussion you got, well, the Lord of the Coast really did a number on your boat, and it'll need repairing."
The girl fought down an understandable surge of panic. If they discovered her hoard of coinage, the monies she needed to pay off that monster…would they let her keep it? And she realised that someone had dressed her in pyjamas…suggesting that someone had seen her tattoo. With an effort, she calmed herself down. The boy then said, "The doctor said you might have memory loss or something from that knock. You…do remember your name? What you were doing recently?"
"Of course I do," the girl said.
"Well, what's your name then?"
"Why don't you tell me yours first? You're a stranger."
"Oh, sorry. I'm Monkey D Luffy," the boy said with a grin. "And what about you?"
"…I'm Nami."
"That's a nice name," Luffy said, with a sincerity that seemed oddly endearing to Nami. "I'm sorry if I scared you with what I did earlier."
Nami blinked. Thinking back to what happened, she thought about it, before she said, "You didn't, I was just…astonished and surprised. Let me guess…a Devil Fruit?"
His smile widened. "Yep! Ten years ago, I ate a weird Devil Fruit, one nobody really knew what it'd do. A couple of people think it might even be a Logia! I've been meaning to use it on the Lord of the Coast for a while, but I've been training to master my powers, and, well…" His face fell briefly, before it brightened again. "Gramps would probably call that a field test or something like that."
"Gramps?"
"My grandfather, Monkey D Garp," Luffy said.
Nami felt a chill at those words. This boy was the grandson of Admiral Garp? One of the strongest, if not the strongest, Marines in the world? She hoped she was mistaken, and that he meant another Garp.
Something must have shown on her face, because he moved to reassure her, patting her hand gently. "Hey, don't worry. Gramps and I don't agree on a lot of things. Anyway…I saw you in trouble, so I decided to see if I could save you."
Nami frowned. "But…if you ate a Devil Fruit, how did you get over to me in the first place? Did you use a boat?"
"Nope. Vworp-Vworp: Transmat!" He disappeared in a blizzard of black, square-like particles that shot through the roof…and then descended near the door, reassembling themselves into the grinning boy. "My Logia is something to do with warping space. That's how I got to your boat, and how I got you and your boat to shore. As long as I've been there, or I can see it clearly, I can warp back and forth. Handy, huh?"
"Very," Nami conceded, once she stopped gaping. "And thanks for helping me, Luffy."
"Shishishishi…no problem!"
"So, am I in Foosha Village?"
"Yep. What brings you here?"
"Well, I knew a storm was coming. I needed to find land, obviously, and, well, I headed here. But that damned monster attacked." A crack of thunder overhead punctuated her point. "I don't want to get caught out in that."
"I don't think anyone wants to be out on the open ocean during a storm," a woman said, bringing in a bowl of soup. She had dark hair and wore a bandanna. "I'm glad to see that you're awake. How do you feel?"
"Like something passed through a shark's guts," Nami muttered.
"You're lucky to be alive. The Lord of the Coast doesn't normally bother larger vessels, but smaller ones…Luffy's been meaning to deal with it for some time."
"Nami, this is Makino. Makino, this is Nami," Luffy said, introducing them. "Makino works here at Partys Bar."
Makino placed the bowl of soup, and the tray it was on, onto Nami's lap. Nami, after a moment, began spooning the soup into her mouth. She had to admit, it tasted good. "Thank you," Nami said.
"You're welcome. Luffy, look after her for the moment. There's customers coming in, especially with the storm, so it's going to be busy."
As Makino left, Luffy looked at Nami as she gingerly fed herself. Makino had taken Nami's clothes off, and dressed her in spare pyjamas (she had Luffy leave the room for that, having him go and have dinner), though that did little to conceal the size of her breasts. She was rather beautiful, though Makino had remarked, in passing, about the strange tattoo she had seen on Nami's left shoulder. A pretty face, albeit somewhat pensive at the moment, framed by orange hair.
After she finished her soup, Nami put it aside, and then looked at Luffy thoughtfully. Luffy was, occasionally, clueless when it came to how some other people felt…but he knew she was worried. Had there been something precious on the boat that had sunk? Did she have someone waiting for her to come home? Of course, he tried to remedy that in a somewhat blunt manner. "So, Nami, what were you doing sailing around alone?"
Nami looked shocked at the question, and a small part of Luffy, the most sane part of his mind, kicked himself for being incredibly tactless. After a moment's consideration, Nami said, "I'm…what you might call a pirate thief. Pirates steal from others, and, well, I relieve them of their ill-gotten gains. I was between jobs when that storm hit."
"So…you steal from pirates?" Luffy asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, yeah. Why? You have a problem with that?"
"Depends on the pirates, really," Luffy said. "I mean, some pirates are nice guys. About ten years ago, Red-Haired Shanks used this village as a port. My hat once belonged to him, and, well, he saved my life from drowning. Lost his arm to the Lord of the Coast. And he took my eating the Devil Fruit he intended to sell rather well, though he at least had the Gum-Gum Fruit left to sell. But others…once, I wanted nothing more than to be King of the Pirates, find the One Piece Gol D Roger left behind. But what do I want to do as a pirate other than that? I've actually been thinking of becoming a bounty-hunter, like Roronoa Zolo. I mean, I don't want to become a Marine. My gramps put me off that. But being a bounty-hunter…well, it means freedom, plus, I can still become the best, while getting rid of the pirates who hurt people. I can really rake in the Berries that way. Plus, I can still look for the One Piece anyway."
He noticed that Nami had become thoughtful at this. "So…you don't have a problem with me stealing from pirates who hurt other people?"
"Pfft, of course not! Even when I wanted to be King of the Pirates, I wanted to beat guys like those up! People who take over a town, terrorise the people while the Marines do bugger-all! Yeah, I heard the stories." Luffy blinked when he saw that Nami's eyes were glistening with tears. "Umm, Nami, are you all right?"
Nami didn't answer him. Instead, she said, "Luffy…do you mind if you leave me alone for a bit? Please?"
"…Okay. I'll get Makino to come and check in on you later," Luffy said. "I'll see you later, Nami…"
As the boy left, Nami began weeping quietly, thinking of her village, the village Arlong had turned into his own personal base. She thought of her mother, murdered by Arlong, and of her sister Nojiko, still living in fear. She thought of that useless, corrupt bastard Nezumi, that Marine Arlong had bought off. And she thought of Arlong, that monstrous bastard of a Fishman who had turned her into his slave, making maps for him to use.
Luffy had, albeit inadvertently, reopened those wounds, though these were wounds that never truly healed. But the way he spoke of such situations…even as she wept, Nami realised that she might have a potential ally, one with powers and a desire to stop Arlong.
The question was, though, could Nami bring herself to ask for his help?
CHAPTER 1 ANNOTATIONS:
That is, indeed, the question.
So, there you have it. A smarter Luffy with a different Devil Fruit and different ambition, and a chance encounter with Nami that could lead to something more. Yes, we're sailing the good ship Luffy/Nami.
Now, for a bit of explanation for the Vworp-Vworp Fruit. The original idea, the Kamui-Kamui Fruit, came from mellra for a Naruto crossover. They wanted a Devil Fruit with many of the powers of a Mangekyou Sharingan, plus elements of Janemba's powers from the Dragonball Z movie Fusion Reborn. I adapted some elements of the Kamui-Kamui Fruit (namely the Kamui ability and the Janemba portal and materialisation abilities), and included the warp ability from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, though in combat, the warp ability will look more like Janemba's own ability.
I nearly called it the Warp-Warp Fruit, but a cheeky flash of inspiration hit me, as the Devil Fruit names in Japanese are onomatopoeia, or sound words. I decided to call it the Vworp-Vworp Fruit, after the standard onomatopoeia used in Doctor Who comics for the TARDIS' distinct sound. As an added bonus, I also used, for one of Luffy's abilities, the term transmat, the standard term for a teleporter or Star Trek-style Transporter in Doctor Who. Transmat is derived from 'transmission of matter', if you're wondering what the hell a transmat has to do with teleportation.
1. I had in mind the Time-Scoop effect from the original version of Doctor Who: The Five Doctors, though the Phantom Zone effect from the Richard Donner Superman film might be better known…