chapter 4 : why the straw hats never left the maps to Luffy

unkow place

"Luffy left plumeria three days ago, during all this time he kept Walking right to Seaworthy, he followed the map but he was still far from it, he was right now in a desert with no sea at the horizon, fortunualy he got juicy fruits from the whispering woods so he was not deshydrated.

""If i got a ship from Seaworthy I would go to Salineas or the ice kingdom ? I could meet fishmen at Salineas but maybe there is ice cream at the ice kingdom … but salineas could have ice cream … or I could go to mystacore … " declared Luffy to himself while he was walking throught the sand; talking to himself seem weird but he was alone for days so who could blame him.

After another hour a creature from the desert spotted him, two yellow eyes glowed from a dark cove, the beast crawled to the etherian, opened its jaw but when the predator closed it there was not the feeling of crushed bones neither the sensation of eating a prey, the beast seemed confused : where did the etherian wearing a straw hat go ? it was like he teleported.

Suddently she felt a weight on its head and Something was clinging on its nostrils and it was very unconfortable.

" yeah ah !" shouted Luffy on the head of a giant snake and he was having a rodeo, the snake started to think he should have choosen a different target.

0000

At Brightmoon

The queen Jadina was sitting at a table next to queen Angela the leader of the rebellion, Angella was a tall purple woman with pink hair, she had two transparent wings; They were having a meeting about how could they defend themselves from the Horde but it did not went well; they both had differents views at what to do during a war : Jadina wanted to recruit an army of wizards and Angella to preserve what still remain free from their enemies

- we can't just defend ourselves, if we don't build an army as strong as the horde we're going to be enslaved, killed ; we need more power ! yelled Jadina

- "Why did you come back ? asked queen Angella while she frowned to Jadina. "you left the rebellion years ago and you just came back now so what changed ?"

Jadina's expression changed after that, her fury calmed down and she just seemed worried.

"- three days ago, the Horde tried to build a factory in my kingdom and they could have succeded if it wasn't for a rogue cadet…

- A rogue cadet ? Angella raised an eyebrow since it was difficult to imagine how someone who was not even a soldier could change the battle.

- It's a long story about a travel without any preparation, a fire in the woods, a idiot who wanted meat in a kingdom where everyone is vegetarian and pirates.

- Pirates ? Angella anger changed into curiosity, it seemed to be a weird story.

- I know it's weird but that's not the point; I could have die if this kid wasn't here and … I realised that we can't resist to the Horde by doing Nothing against them … we can't just ignore them … we need to built a new rebellion but a greater one that's why we must have wizards from mystacore.

0000

Back at Luffy

The Snake rodeo stopped when the giant reptile hit a cliff, the scaled monster was knocked out from the impact while Luffy was looking in awe at the view of a giant beast's remains, did it came from a dragon; he went down from the snake before walking to it; but the closer he got the mos he heard noise then he entered the mouth and what he saw was a good surprised.

There was a bar Inside of the skeleton with at least fourty people, some of them were anthropomorphic deserts creatures and others had specialities like four arms or antennas; after Grandline it was not weird to him, it was just like a regular day of his past pirate life;

as soon he entered the bar, half of the clients were watching him.

"Sugei, I was thirsty !" shouted Luffy, he really needed of a drink after his travel through the desert … and then everyone were looking at him since most of them got annoyed from it.

Luffy did not pay attention to their glare due to hid Discovery of a new place, he just sat to the bar counter so he could taste what kind of drinks there were.

"- with what will you paid me ? " asked the bartender, a muscular blue skinned woman with four hornes; when she saw Luffy's confused look she added " I know it doesn't seem like we use money here because in the Crimson wastes you trade what you have for food."

- Oh thanks, I don't have money" said loudly Luffy, it made people around him even more Angy, not because he would not pay with money but because no one here was really talkative; someone was even scratching his table with a knife; But the pirate king just unloaded his bag in front of the bartender, there were his horde cadet uniform and fruits from the whispering woods like apples, pears and bananas.

She took an apple before letting a bottle of liquor next to him, fruits were rare in this place after all.

- Arigato !" thanked Luffy before starting to drink, while he was occuped, someone approached him.

"you're an outsider." declared a goat woman, her furr was purple and she was accompanied by a lizard girl with four arms; none of them seemed congenial. "we don't like outsiders here.

" a goat ?" it was Luffy answer and no one expected it. " Why is there a goat where there is no grass ?"

" are you kidding me, that's the only thing you have to said ! I'm threatening you and basically everyone here is going to be hostile toward you and you just say that." yeelled the goat, she was starting to doubt of his mental healt.

Then she was interrupted at the sound of a broken bottle, the goat and the lizard turned their head to the source and saw a tall purple woman with whites hair; they were intimidated by this giant of one point eighty meter of muscle and her angry face

"we didn't mean to annoy you." was all the goat could said before the purple giant threw her away from the bar; after this demonstration of strenght, she looked at Luffy's direction more especially at the uniform.

"You are from the Horde ?" she asked since it was unusally to meet a deserter as Young as him.

"yes, it's were i was reborn."

the woman chooses to not pay attention to the "reborn" part and to concentrate more about the horde.

"- it must have been hard to let a place you kew your whole life

- not really, the food tasted bad and it was really boring at the fright zone so i left to start my pirate life.

- pirate life ?" she raised an eyebrow at that, " Kid you can't be more far away from the sea than here, we are at the Crimson wastes."

- i thought it was unhabited ?

- that's what we want outsiders to thinks." and just after that all the clients had at least one hand on a weapont, it was an obvious threat.

- oh, it explain everything." said Luffy without noticing the threat.

the woman stared at him, eyes to eyes, but Luffy was not annoyed at all, after a momment she laughed.

"i think you're the only one who aswered like that, oh oh … The "it explain everything." … my name is Huntara by the way

- mine is Luffy." he responded.

then she sat next to Luffy, a smile on her face "you know, it's not every days that i can talk to another deserter from the horde, how did it changed since i left ?"

he told her everything of his lonely life in thr fright zone, how he had to work for his huge amount of food, how the seargent weirdly started to loose his hairs a few days after Luffy's trainning, when he punched Grizzlor and finally his adventure at Plumeria.

"you … you … could have set on fire their kingdom .. I wouldn't be surprised if they gave you a fake map … just let me check it" said Huntara betwen laughs

Luffy passed the map to her and when she looked at it her laughter intensified "you went to the wrong direction, Seaworthy is at the east and you went to the north"

both of them laughed at the mystake; after that huntara just told him a way to catchup his delay with enough indication for him to not lost his way again; the pirate king then went back to his Journey without noticing that the goat and lizard were still outside of the bar and looking in awe at the giant knocked out snake.

After Luffy left, the goat talked to Huntara "boss … are we going to rob him ?" she asked.

- no, i like him.

- maybe we should find another scam because i have enought of being threw away from the bar. growled the lizard girl.

- why would you change something who works perfectly. answered the purple woman

yep all of it was supposed to be a scam, everytime that the Crimson vastes has a visitor, the goat and the lizard played the role of two hostiles criminals toward strangers and huntara would come as a "savior" in order to gain their trust and rob them but this time she did not wanted to do it to luffy.

"hony crap, i fogot to warn him about Tung lashor territory !" she suddently exclaimed.

Luffy was on his way to seaworthy, after leaving the bar he followed Huntara's instructions : walk right in front of the right rib of the skeleton until he come to the mountain with the shape of a skull then he goes to the direction of where its left ear would be and he should be at seaworthy.

he did as she said, after one hundred miles he took a cactis and ate a bit of it …. the taste reminded him Something but he did not remember what.

then he felt a sting to his leg, he took off the source of the pain and saw it was a dart, he did not have time to think about it because two seconds later a Strange figure in a desert cloak with a mask came out from nowhere, a sword at the hand.

the figure attacked him but he effortlessy dodget it, the cloaked figure tried again and again but Luffy avoided every hits until he caugh the cloak and threw his adversary away but the stranger just took off the cloak, the attacker turned out to be a brown eyed woman, Luffy frozen when he saw her.

" Nami !? you're here ! how did you get here" Luffy exclaimed as he was suddently in front of her.

the woman was taken by surprise from his outburst, she did not know him and he did not looked sane so she did what everyone would have done : she grabbed a handful of sand and threw it in his eyes "you're in my personal space weirdo !"

"my eyes" sreamed Luffy before he was rolling in the dust, she profited of the distraction to take her cloak back along Luffy's bag but she barely made three steps that an arrow landed in front of her, she raised her head and saw a bunch of lizardmen at the top of the hills around them and all of them looked like murderes; then the tallest one jumped in front of her, it was a pink scaled reptilian with green eyes as tall as Huntara

"Hello, little mouses; Did you know you entered the territory of Tung Lashor, the strongest in the Crimson Wastes, my territory" he said in a threatening way

"Sorry, I was Following this guy from a bar so i could rob him, I didn't knew i was entering your territory … I guess I should leave and never come back here." she answered with an unconfortble look, however he hit the floor in front of her with his wip, before she could move.

" I like blonds … " he started before beeing interrupted by Luffy's complaints

"It hurt …. shhh …. shhhh …. shhh " were the sounds coming out of Luffy"s mouth and most of the gang looked and it and some of them even sneered from it , everyone except Tung Lashor thought it was funny to see a guy who complaints more than necessary, the leader did not liked the show so he took a blowpipe from his pocket and threw two more darts to Luffy, the straw hat boy stopped after that.

" So I was saying ..." resumed the pink lizard

" aaaaaarg ! arlong !" screamed Luffy as he got up, the cactis he ate was like the one from Alabasta and it was a really bad to add the darts' venom in the organism, it usually take hours for the plant's hallucinating effects to take place but with his previous moves and the darts it was enough for Luffy to mistook Tung Lashor for Arlong.

" will you shut up !" yellep the reptile as he whiped Luffy, only to got the whip to roll around his left arm, the pirate pulled the whip, it propeled the lizard toward him and his crocodile face got headbutted so hard he got a bruise.

"why you little !" it ensued a fist fight betwen them, Luffy could not use his haki or fully concetrate because of the drugs but still had the will to fight, not even the fact he was facing an older warrior with a body more developped could stop that. the pink lizard punched Luffy to the face but he replied by one punch to the stomach.

the gang was not planning to help their boss, instead they were enjoyinng the fight, they cheered for Tung Lashor but even some of them cheered for Luffy

" Tung Lashor ! Tung Lashor !

Straw Hat ! Straw Hat !"

"I have enought of this ! " yelled Tung Lashor before he got his claws out, he wanted to finish this fight since he already got a black eye from it, but his arm passed right next to Luffy's head and he bite the pink flesh; the reptile screamed and started to hit Luffy against the Walls but even in a drugged state Luffy could endure it.

then the boy kneeled him on the arm, it broke it in the process, then the pirate tried to punch him again but the lizard bite his forearm althrough it did not stop Luffy from heabutting him and punching whith his other arm.

then a final punch from Luffy was threw and Tung Lashor lost consciouness, Luffy won, he stood up on his opponent's body and cried out his Victory.

the lizardmen were looking at him in awe … most of them followed Tung Lashor because they needed of a strong leader and they just saw someone clearly stronger than him, one of them applauds for Luffy before he was joined by the rest of the gang

" We have a new boss ! the straw hat kid !" exclaimed the stupidest of the gang.

The blond from before was stunned, she just saw a teenager with a lethal dose of drung in the body giving a beat down to one of the strongest inhabitants of the Crimson Wastes before his whole gang suddently joined the said teenager.

After the fight, Luffy fall on his back, whirpools were in his eyes, the cactis' juice and the druggs took effects; so the blond walked next to him and yelled.

" hey, i'm his girl so if you want to follow me you have to take order from him when he is unavailable"

And that's how Luffy took the control of one of the strongest gang in the Crimson Wastes without realizing it.

0000

at the fright zone

"What went wrong" Shadow Weaver repeated to herself numerous times; she used the best way to get a loyal soldier by being the only one in this cursed place to ever give him love, it was her twisted version of love but he was not supposed to know anything else, and yet he left the Horde without remorses, her "love" worthed a sentence on a paper. Oddly enough it was more than what she was expecting from him.

A part of her felt proud that the kid she raised for fourteen years was strong willed enough to leave the Horde,ignore the propaganda and did in one week more damage than the rebellion do in month; he was truly exceptional.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a soldier who abruptly entered her room, even in his helmet she could sense his fear.

"Why are annoying me ?" was her cold answer

"- Shadow Weaver … the troops from the fire kingdom … we got a message from them ...

- why is it so important ?

- It come from their killer.

- What ?" it was unexpected, the firekingdom was an isolated kingdom for years, even before the coming of the Horde, it was supposed to be a weak kingdom like the others but to think it came to this outcome.

"- he want to call you … he is waiting for an answer." declared the frightened soldier.

- give me that." she ordered before she took the pad he was holding, the first thing she saw was bodies, dead soldiers all around and all of them were from the Horde. "I'm here, what do you want to tell me." she went rigt to the point without talking about this Killing.

"Well, you Don't loose your time." said a voice, the camera of the other pad was turned to the face of her interlspeaker, it was a blond man, he was wearing sunglasses and a coat made of … feathers ?

"Who are you ? " she had never see this man before but Something about him was giving chills to her.

"I'm the king of the fire kingdom and when it come to my name I prefere my associates to refere at me as "Joker"."

"associates ?" Killing was an odd way to join the Horde and coming from an orphan abuser like her it means something. "you want to join us ?"

"I'm interested in runestones and their power as much as you and as you can see it should be you who want to join me."

He smiled and to her it was like facing a demon.

Note : hello, I'm sorry if it was a short chapter but I wanted to post it before the new year, so yes Luffy can't read a map , no surprise here, and his new body is far from being as strong as his former.

The girl he met is not an oc, she come from one piece, I let you guess who it was before the next chapter but Luffy's adventure is not the most important point here, it is the consequences of his actions at Plumeria and what happened at the fire kingdom, it will have consequences on the story.

thanks you for reading and happy new years