Little Garden, Grand Line

Only wearing some shorts, I slowly performed a sequence of punches while keeping my balance on the bulwark of the Going Merry. Tightening my hold on the small rope net that turned a couple of cannonballs into the equivalent of dumbells, I twisted my wrists, forcing them to accept the increased tension from the added weight, and I bobbed backward a bit, my feet finding an easy purchase on the wood as I repeated my sequence of movements.

"Land ho!" Usopp's voice rang over the deck, and given that Nami didn't holler her orders, I realized that I had a rare opportunity.

In my previous life, I had never been a great martial artist or some genius of fighting: frankly, violence did never touch me directly. Sure, as a kid I had taken a box course, and a basic, judo one, but I was no Mr. Miyagi. Still, I was banking everything on the nature of the world I was in. Constant effort and life-threatening fights were what was necessary to become truly strong: and the more risks I took since my first fights in the East Blue, the more I grew.

I had still the oddly oval face of the original Coby, but with the harsh training regime that was Zoro-inspired, and food regulated by Sanji, my body was changing, and not only because I was in the middle of the growth spurt that turned the meaningless background character of the manga in a fully-fledged secondary one.

I took a deep breath, and then began a quick sequence of jabs, the dumbell-cannonballs in my hands throwing off my balance something fierce: I could almost feel it. My core muscles were burning at a constant simmer, while my shoulders were howling in pain, and I could feel my fingers twitch occasionally while I pushed through the pain.

Technically, there were a lot of parts in a human body where a single strike would prove itself lethal or at the very least crippling: liver, eyes, throat... but in this world I was, a technique meant very little unless you were in a swordsman's duel. No, what mattered was the sheer, dumb will to keep going forward.

And the only way I knew to train willpower was to keep pushing. In every situation, the only thing I allowed myself to do was to push my limits: there were crates to move? I'd do it at record time. Sanji allowed me to help in the kitchen while he taught me on the side? I did so with the utmost focus I was capable of, even knowing that I'd never be able to compete in that field with our blond cook.

With Usopp, it was almost a competition: who'd be able to figure out the cleverest trick? The most complex piece of machinery? Since our departure from Loguetown, our focus had been split between growing his arsenal, and dismantling Smoker's motorbike to see what made it tick.

Finishing my set of repetitions, I jumped off the bulwark, my legs absorbing the impact so smoothly that there was almost no sound when my bare feet impacted the wood, and walked towards the whole main mast of the Going Merry, securing my training weights to a bit of rope that had been put there exactly for that purpose.

Leaning my hand against the smooth wood, I felt myself grinning: "How's it going, Merry?" It was hard not to care about the fate of the home capable of carrying us through thick and thin, and seeing the lack of many of the glaring repairs that had been needed in canon, I couldn't help but smile. Stopping Luffy from ripping the mast off the ship had sent me flying, literally, but it spared our caravel some grief.

The world appeared to me like some sort of a meaningless blur, as I had taken off my glasses during training, but I was familiar with everything on the Marry to associate the splashes of color with their respective objects. Besides, that too was a form of training, and maybe it'd help me unlock Observation Haki thanks to the unholy cloud of sheer bullshittery that constantly surrounded Luffy.

Unwinding maybe thirty meters of rope, I secured a noose around the mast and grabbed up a harpoon from the stack of weapons that we kept on the ship mostly because that was what pirates did, rather than an actual need for those. "Oi, Zoro!" I kicked the sleeping swordsman in the thigh while I began securing the rope around my torso in a way that let me free to move, "Want to go fishing a Sea King?"

Off to the side, Vivi's expression was impossible to describe with mere words, but I didn't really care for it: she wasn't an actual member of the crew, Alabasta was far off still, and besides enjoying the occasional eye-candy, her constantly worried mood coupled with her shrill voice only managed to annoy me. Our entrance in the Grand Line had followed the path that I already knew it would: Merry's left bulwark was kept together by wooden planks and nails as I had managed to make the caravel turn before her figurehead could break at the neck when we impacted against Laboon, Luffy had gone ballistic and we ended up eaten, only to meet with Crocus.

Whiskey Peak had been fun enough, even if I had been out of the count for the battle against Mr. Five and Valentine: while I had kept my wits enough to fight the mooks of the Baroque Works, there were just so many that I had been overwhelmed, and I now sported several smaller scars that matched the bite-like one that described a half moon on my left thigh. At least I managed to get the ship filled with everything useful before sailing off.

Still, we were now aware that Mr. Zero was Crocodile, and Nami still fed the delusion that we'd be paid for helping out Vivi. I'd need to figure something out: I didn't like the princess on the basis that she was a princess, and the whole logic of sending the only heir undercover really didn't make sense, while I kind of remembered that there had been a moment in which Luffy pointed out that people in wars tended to die, Oda had chosen the route of deepening the friendship among the Nefertari and the Straw Hats, the obvious, underlining point was that while a pirate had the freedom of only enjoying the finer aspects of life, a ruler's job was to find the balls needed to pick the least bad option when none of the options were good.

Alabasta was kind of mandatory to recruit Robin, which was fundamental to let Luffy have someone capable of reading the Poneglyphs in the crew, and so I had done nothing to steer us away from that particular clusterfuck. I had even gone so far as to hold my tongue when the 'Devil Child' had made an appearance on the Merry and gave us the Eternal Pose to Nefertari's kingdom.

Of course, it had immediately been destroyed, and we were slowly going towards Little Garden, not that anyone else knew it. There were so many ends to tie up that I didn't know where to begin: ultimately, each member that joined Luffy was by the power of the plot destined for a happy ever after. Chopper was easy enough: I hardly wanted Nami to fall sick, and I was more than confident in Luffy's charisma or my words to get him on board.

Minimizing damage to the Merry was another must: frankly, seeing her reduced to a glorified lifeboat had offended me, but as far as solutions to keep her seaworthy... I was still empty-handed. And Robin... fucking hell, she'd been given the fucking worse background of every one of the others. I grimaced while I thought about it: the nature of Ohara's massacre rubbed me the wrong way. In a world where personal power basically meant all that couldn't be determined by birthright, a world complex and mysterious, with a complex and undoubtedly fascinating history... had been erased. Why? Because of fucking power plays by those that were born with too much and knew nothing had decided to destroy a place that held 5000 years of accumulated knowledge. It was worse than the fate of Alexandria's library, and Robin was all that was left of that.

If only to spite those that wished the destruction of knowledge for the sake of their own interests, I wanted Robin to have the family that the Straw Hats could be for her, and maybe spare her the whole heart-wrenching shit that would happen at Eines Lobby.

"Come on, I am serious." I raised my voice a bit when Zoro kept snoring, and he actually woke up. I hardly wanted to change the whole world, that was what Monkey D. Dragon was for, but the good people that we met along the way... It would leave a sour taste in my mouth if my existence caused them undue harm. And differently from Vivi, I actually liked the two giants of Little Garden. This brings us to the current situation... and I'm already regretting it.

"What?" the swordsman's hand closed on his white sword while I hopped onto the bulwark and Vivi quietly ran to find Nami, knowing that we'd never stop to listen to her.

"I looked into my crystal ball, and the path of my vision led me to this moment in time." I walked on the bulwark until I reached one side of the Merry's middle deck, and stretching, I caught one of the tangerines from the tree I had bought back on Nami's island, quickly peeling it and eating it whole. The crisp juice galvanized me after the tiredness from my constant exercise tried to make me crash, and I tied to the chain link forged against the bottom of the harpoon another long stretch of rope. "If you manage to pull me on board, I can help to drag whatever we get on the harpoon to the Merry."

Zoro gave me a bloodthirsty grin that I couldn't help but match: "And you want to be bait?"

"Well, I don't trust Luffy to not send the Sea King flying with me inside, Nami is about to stop us from providing food for the crew, Sanji will be needed for the cooking, and I hope that you're capable enough as a swordsman to kill the beast without cutting the rope, or me, for that matter." my grin became mocking while I turned my head towards the endless sea of the Grand Line. To my eyes, it was a single shifting blue-green stain, and I couldn't for the life of mine point where the sea ended and the sky began. With that landscape under my lacking sight, I decided it would be a good time to tease Zoro into doing what I wanted: "Of course, if you're not strong enough to pull back the rope with what we'll fish before I drown, well..."

I didn't even feel the kick that flung me from the Going Merry: I only noticed the slight throbbing of one side of my left buttock while the wind rushed me by, and keeping my hands tight on the harpoon I had taken, I let out a single bark of laughter before holding my breath. This is insane just as I like it.

Of course, only when I crashed among the waves I realize that the water was fucking icy despite the warm weather above the waves.

Grand Line. I let out my breath in a silent scream while I swam back to the surface in time for the rope to tense up and begin dragging me behind the Going Merry. Figures.

Still, I managed to breathe: one hand held the rope, the other the harpoon, and while I fancied I could hear Nami's shouts accompanied by the dull echo of her fists impacting on his skull, I tried to focus. With my muscles cramping up because of both the cold and the sudden thermal shock, I forced myself to move. Tendons opposed my will while even my bones screamed in protest.

I smiled at the pain, and pushed through.

Just when my legs began to move, following the imperative that ruled the world of One Piece, the waters opened under me, and the world went dark while I heard the too-deep rumble that could only belong to an enormous creature of the sea.

Dragged by the sudden current, the only thing I could do was to hold on and twist about, swinging wildly with my chosen weapon until I felt the fleshy resistance of the creature under my weapon and the coarse surface of what I suspected was a vast stretch of its tongue under me. Holding my breath, I let go of the rope secured around my chest and, once I was sure, I plunged the harpoon as hard as I could.

The thick length of Iron managed to pierce the flesh, and what I could confirm was a tongue rolled beneath me, slamming against a wall of opening teeth, which let in enough light for my eyes to see. Still holding my breath, I refrained from swimming immediately to the surface, and instead stuck the harpoon between the towers that were its teeth.

As it closed its mouth in a rage, the creature only managed to embed the pointed side of the weapon in its upper gums, leaving me temporarily trapped between what passed for lips and a closed wall of teeth if only for a moment.

My arms and knees were deeply scratched as I was pushed again against its closed teeth, only for the creature to spit me out when the pain of the harpoon registered: I was spun without control for several times before I spotted one of my bubbles climbing downward after it left my mouth, which made me realize that I was upside down.

As my blood rushed through my veins and charged with adrenaline, I kicked and swam until I reached the surface, the rope that still tied me to the Merry helping a lot along the way. I was being dragged powerfully through the water while the waves immediately around me became choppy and angry, declaring the impending rise of the monster that had tried to devour me.

Before I could truly realize what was going on, I was being dragged on board of the Going Merry, and while my teeth began to chatter and my ears ring because of the adrenaline rush, I couldn't help but laugh: the ship buckled almost violently, and my ears picked up on Luffy's cheery declaration that he was going to nock out our dinner.

Our cannons fired for maybe the first time, and while Usopp spouted his nonsense about being the greatest sniper ever, Vivi draped a towel over me tht I immediately discarded as I jumped to my feet: "My Glasses?"

Dumbfounded, her blurry shape handed something over, and I quickly turned the world around me from splotches of colors into a well-defined painting: in front of the Merry there was the green-covered, volcano-equipped Little Garden, while behind us: I could only laugh. Mostly because I was still alive.

The truly massive creature was a snake-like in appearance with a feather-like pattern to its green, iridescent scales: the horse-like mouth however was filled with straight teeth that by miracle only hadn't already cut the rope securing the harpoon stuck into its gums to our ship.

With the increasingly shortening distance between us, I walked to Zoro's place and started to pull on the rope, freeing him to get started on flying slashes that traveled towards his prey.

All the while, Nami was crying in anguish at our foolishness while Sanji failed to keep up her spirits, mostly because he was thoughtfully planning how to prepare such a massive amount of food in a manner that didn't offend his impossibly high standards. He didn't know yet that I planned to have a couple of guests for dinner.

Luffy's eager laughter and cries of "MEAT!" covered up the trashing of the Sea-King and the thunk Vivi made when she fainted on the deck.

My muscles burned like never before, the skin of my forearms and knees was scraped bare, and the only thing I wished for was to keep going. The mere effort should have killed me twice over, the tropical-like breeze that was now coming from the island helped some, but my body only wished for rest. Of course, I denied it.

There was too much to do for me to rest just yet, so I kept pulling, shrinking the distance between us and the Sea King in a negligible manner, while I observed the deep indentations caused by Luffy's attacks, the cracked scales caused by the cannonballs, and the gouges that kept opening on its hide thanks to Zoro.

Still, my heart was beating like a hammer, and I wanted to laugh: I can't believe I actually survived that.


Nefertari Vivi had seen a lot of things in her life: her schooling had been deep and broad, and what she had decided to do in order to protect her country had opened her eyes even more. Finding herself relying on pirates was merely the last in a long list of surprises: but this last one topped them all.

Vivi had fainted when it appeared clear that Coby wasn't going to be pulled to safety before his ill-conceived hope manifested itself. Pirate Hunter Zoro seemed only happy at the risk of one of his crewmates falling into the maw of an immense beast, and while the navigator had tried to order the men to desist, with the weather calm and the next island in sight, the captain himself had vetoed that: his excitement to great to be denied, and the idea of the pink-haired insane kid acting as a bait too funny and interesting for him to dismiss Coby's effort.

She came to her senses with the sun beginning its sunset, her ears assaulted by a white noise belonging to a deep jungle and the rambunctious, awed laughter of none other than Monkey D. Luffy, who fell backward from where he sat on a tree stump on the shore after Coby performed one of his many card tricks.

"Ugh..." she climbed to a seated position from the hammock that had been casually slung between the main mast of the Going Merry and the bulwark, and made her way towards the side of the ship, turning her head as if on a swivel, she couldn't help but gasp: from the look of things, while she was unconscious, the pirates had managed to reach the island, and what she had originally dismissed as a nearby hill was nothing else but the Sea King they had successfully 'fished'.

Her head went dizzy once more, but she forced herself to remain awake, her hands gripping the bulwark until the knuckles turned white: turning on herself, she took notice of how Nami was off towards the end of the ship, hugging her tangerine trees while asking them for guidance for the sheer insanity that the crew she belonged to had performed. I can't really blame her, can I?

Still, they were all wasting time: her country needed Vivi, and while she wouldn't have survived without Luffy's help, she'd give her life a thousand times over if it was what it took to save Alabasta.

"You woke up just in time for the party." a familiar voice made her jump back from the bulwark, on which was perched like some odd bird the pink-haired boy that was responsible in first place for the massive delay caused by the 'fishing' session. Not that Luffy didn't play a part in destroying the eternal pose to my home.

"The party?" she stammered as an answer while she tried to figure out what he was getting at: unlike the other members of the Straw Hat Pirates, Vivi couldn't quite place Coby. In their own ways, they were all very direct and focused. It was easy to see what Nami would do once you kept in mind her greed for money, Zoro seemed uninterested in anything that wasn't a good fight, Sanji cared for cooking and wooing women, not necessarily in that order, and Usopp was a sweet, charming in his own, childish way, pathological liar, who had nevertheless loved the opportunity to fire at the Sea King from a safe distance.

Coby was always spoiling for a fight, but he didn't want to go into a spar against anyone until there was a doctor on board, he followed dutifully Sanji's commands while in the kitchen, and religiously obeyed Nami when she hollered her commands about sailing. He often played with Usopp, and entertained Luffy with magic tricks, apparently acting as a baby-sitter that kept the rubber boy from creating havoc on the Going Merry. And Vivi only knew that he wanted to explore. To be the first to do impossible things... and that he eyed her like an adult would eye a misbehaving child.

While she was distracted, the pink-haired boy that didn't seem to care for her had left his captain behind in order to climb again on the Going Merry: he was now thankfully fully dressed with grey cargo pants tucked in sturdy-looking leather boots and a long-sleeved blue shirt. "Yes, the party." he tilted his head as if she was stupid, "We fished a Sea King and the Merry carried us to yet another island, we have much to celebrate for... I can strike a tune or two, but I'm not confident enough to sing about for a whole evening: so it will be sea-king-based banquet followed by storytelling. My guess is that we'll need to spend some time hunting before sailing again, as we're likely to wipe clean the hull from anything edible."

Vivi's wide eyes turned towards the massive Sea King's carcass that rested on one side and she choked on her spit: "Wouldn't that be a waste...?"

"You should simply be thankful that we didn't use Carue as a bait... yet. And I wouldn't worry about wasting food." Coby's grin was just too wide for her to be comfortable, but before she could scramble for an answer, she noticed it.

The white noise of the jungle had completely vanished, replaced by a rumbling cadence that matched steps that surely belonged to another massive creature, and as Vivi turned towards the origin of that sound, she couldn't help but notice the smug grin on Coby's face.

The trees crashed under immense feet, birds flew away in fright, and the earth shook: from deep inland, it came a pair of titanic voices

"Gegyagyagyagya!" Vivi looked at the one producing such a sound, but her brain refused to accept what she was seeing: "Brogy! There will indeed be a banquet tonight!"

"Gababababababa!" another figure replied, "Of course Dorry! Usopp wouldn't lie about a great adventure! Gababababababa!"

Walking easily towards the shoreline, dragging heavy weapons behind them that were digging a trench slowly filling with lava from the closest volcano, there was a pair of giants: given the small figures present on their shoulders, which from their colouring the Nefertari Princess could guess were Zoro, Sanji, and Usopp, she could tell that they stood in the ballpark of twenty meters of height. And still her mind

"That is mighty prey indeed for people as small as you are!" the first giant, Dorry, was a well-built giant with a long beard: he had a dark purple cloak draped around his bare shoulders and an helmet that went over his eyes and the bridge of his nose.

"We'll feast together tonight, and tomorrow, you'll bear witness to our ever-lasting duel! Gababababababa!" the second giant, Brogy, had a mane of blond hair matched by his beard, which was shaped like an axe's blade, and beady eyes that shone from above a pig-like nose. He wore a red overall with golden button straps, fur linings, a leather strap around his right shoulder and another as a belt. His legs were covered by yellow pants with black stripes and fur linings at the bottom, yellow shoes. Secured at his waist was a red helmet with two horns, which swung back and forth with each step.

Vivi's nerves gave up once more, and darkness swallowed her.


Unsurprisingly, everything is easier when you have two giants helping with the grunt work: under Sanji's direction, they had carved a path for the lava in one of the secondary volcanoes to the shore, which now constantly let up a column of steam as the incandescent material met the water, and with Zoro's dedication to prove any slight to his skill wrong, precise cuts of flesh had been cut from the Sea King.

I kept Luffy entertained while he was on 'meat defending duty', which was the only task appealing enough to his sensibilities that he'd restrain himself from wildly looking for an adventure on Little Garden. Surely enough, there was a pile of tigers, dinosaurs and whatnot off to the side before I heard the approaching giants and decided to force Nami into enjoying the moment.

To see her despair because of something insane I had given life to was amusing, but as the sunset began, she had started to bring down my mood too. Chatting with the princess long enough for her to faint again was hilarious, but knowing Sanji, I had grabbed her before she could smack her head on the floor and placed her safely in the women's cabin. Which, given that Vivi wasn't part of the crew, was Nami's room more than anything else.

Dorry and Brogy were as loud and boisterous as the manga depicted them as, Usopp fell in love with their tale, Zoro nodded in understanding, and Sanji was a bit too exhausted to really care. The giants had reached us at the sunset, their help had been invaluable to have enough heat to cook the massive amounts of food we had, as, despite my challenging words, our resident swordsman couldn't cut a kilometers-long trench capable of creating a river made of lava.

We had eaten, we had sung off tune, and we had exchanged tales. The giants had brought barrels of their own ale to wash down the food we provided, and everyone, sans Vivi, had fun. The banquet almost-turned-revelry lasted the whole night, and in the gry light of the dawn, my eyes shifted between the nodding off mountains that were the seated shapes of the two giants towards the knocked out shape of Sanji.

"I would have preferred your help in the kitchen than having to figure out how to cook an entire Sea-King, Coby." he had muttered to himself while lighting up a cigarette.

"I looked deep into my crystal ball, and I had the feeling..." he scoffed before I could complete my bullshit, but I persisted, "How many cooks in the world can say taht they cooked an entire Sea King on a prehistorical island?"

I snorted to myself as I ended up sending him off with Zoro and Usopp, which in their company felt rather safe, in order to collect what herbs and plants he could in order to either season or preserve the massive amount of food we had obtained with my fishing attempt. The blond cook's refusal to waste food had been enough to get him going.

"There are volcanoes deeper inland." I mentioned to the swordsman, "Can you truly call yourself a blade master if you can't even cut dirt? What kind of man refuses his help when it is necessary to feed his crew?"

"You're just as bad as the witch."

I wanted to actually laugh at Zoro's snoring shape: I never tried to be sneaky about my manipulations, and I earned myself Nami's same monicker when I managed to get the swordsman to do as I wished.

Getting that sending them off on their own was foolish, as they'd end up killing each other, or with Zoro getting lost, Usopp hadn't required much to go with them. As Nami and Vivi were out of the picture, ti was either him or me.

"Well, if you have enough faith in your tricks to keep Luffy from going on a rampage across the prehistorical island, dragging towards us every predator under the sun, I'll go with Zoro and Sanji." I shrugged as casually as possible and began to walk away.

"Wait!" the long-nosed sniper puffed out his chest despite the cold sweat that run down his back, "Thinking about it, I, the great captain Usopp..."

Our sniper was draped in a cloak next to a bonfire, and his stomach was visibly stretched as he had tried to match the giants to 'prove his worth'. He could be endearing when he wasn't childish, and I could only respect anyone with such a pathological amount of fear choosing to brave the seas.

"I suppose you could go adventuring..." I sighed tiredly, seeing my captain's face light up immediately.

"Okay!"

He was about to gallivant away when I kept talking: "I guess there will be nobody to witness my super secret magic trick, which I can only perform during the sunset on the days in which I have been almost eaten by a Sea King..."

I could visibly see the indecision on Luffy's face, the moment in which his impulses fought against the conditioned answer I had cultivated into him since our first meeting, and I went in for the kill: "And all alone, I will never be able to defend the mountain of meat we fished from the scavengers..."

"I WILL PUNCH THEM ALL!"

Monkey D. Luffy rested not far from a bonfire, his legs almost completely disappearing under the mountain that his stomach had become gorging himself on the Sea King. He too had competed against the giants for the amount of food ingested, and had acquitted himself admirably. Nami for her part had warmed up to the giants once she understood that they wouldn't be eating us anytime soon, and she had retired to the Going Merry at some point, the stress of the day catching up to her.

I turned the tonfa in my hands with a wan smile: I had taken one from Gin back at the BaratiƩ, sawed off the weighted end, and got Usopp to fix the end of Smoker's jutte to it. The length of metal had an ugly iron patch with steel bolts that covered the junction between the two materials: it wasn't as strong as a true forged junction, but it would have to do. I simply had to jab with the point instead of swinging too hard, lest the only weapon we had capable of harming Crocodile broke.

Tilting the weapon in my hands, I wondered about the future: was what I had done enough? Was it too much? It didn't escape my attention that Aokiji let the Straw Hats go at their first meeting only because Zoro had saved Smoker on Luffy's orders: there wasn't enough time for us to become strong enough to deal with an admiral, and even if I stumbled upon the Devil Fruit to end all Devil Fruits, I'd never learn to use its power fast enough to counteract a man of his experience. No, I had to engineer a situation in which Smoker owed the Straw Hats his life, or change completely our route, but on the Grand Line, that wasn't as easy as one would have thought... and I still didn't know what to do about the Going Merry. Fuck, there is always another problem, isn't there?

With a tired sigh, I stretched backwards until my back popped, took a deep breath, took off my glasses, and rose from my slumped position against a cleaned up vertebrae of the Sea King I acted as a bait for, only to walk towards the forest and securing the tonfa in a small harness I added to a belt on the small of my back.

I was halfway done pissing when something rustled from behind my back, and I simply reacted: after all, I was expecting them.

My free hand grabbed my weapon and I sidestepped, slashed with my sea-prism stone-tipped tonfa extended with all the violence I was capable of: as luck wanted it, arms that I had been training to throw punches with cannonballs tied to them moved like whips, and I heard a wet crunch.

In the grey light of the rising dawn and the faint, flickering one of the dying bonfires, I only saw a dark shape crumple to the ground. Knowing that it wasn't a member of my crew, I finished pissing on it, delighting in the sounds of a man that was suffocating because of a collapsed trachea.

"Mr. Five!" the high-pitched voice of Miss Valentine rang from the darkness, fucking up whatever stealth our attackers had enjoyed, just for a wave of what I assumed was wax to roll over our small encampment... and be casually smacked back by Dorry's swinging arm, which remained covered by the substance while he yawned and awoke completely.

Then everything happened kind of fast: the prospect of a battle roused Zoro from his alcohol-induced sleep, while the distraught female voice of the Baroque Works agent acted like a shot of pure adrenaline into Sanji's heart, which made the cook rise to his feet and immediately attacking what he suspected was the most likely source of Valentine's scream.

So, while Zoro and Sanji beat each other, Dorry began to fully awake, and I tackled to the ground the slim yellow-ish shape that was jumping towards the fallen form of Mr. Five, only to feel like I had run headfirst into a fucking wall.

The woman had clearly used her Devil Fruit power to momentarily augment her density in a clever sort of way that I had never witnessed in the manga, and I was sent careening off into the forest.


When the chaos exploded around him, Usopp immediately rolled to his knees and sneakily made his way out of the incoming fight: with his senses alerted by the screams and the sudden brawling between the still groggy Zoro and Sanji, his sharp eyes spotted the pink-haired form of his fellow tinkerer be shot off among the trees by a slip of a girl dressed in yellow that he immediately identified with what Coby had told him of a certain 'Miss Valentine'.

And while his knees naturally started to wobble, he felt a tentative grin appear on his face, his mind going to a very precise stretch of a conversation he had a few days before with the unofficial first mate of the Straw Hat Pirates.

"You're not stupid, and you're not insane." Coby spoke matter of factly, "You're super weak when it comes to anything that isn't sharp-shooting, and you're a lousy liar, so, unless you are put against an idiot, you can't talk your way out of being pummeled to death."

"W-w-w-whatever do you mean?" only the mention of being pummeled to death was enough to make his teeth chatter, "I a-am the G-great..."

"It only makes sense to have fear." the pink-haired pirate lowered his glasses as he truly met Usopp's gaze, "In your shoes, I'd be the same. Luffy is both too stupid and strong to feel fear, Zoro is too strong to feel threatened, and both really don't care about being alive if they cannot chase their dream, Sanji is strong, and has suffered enough that he knows there are far worse things than death, while Nami spent eight years terrified out of her skin for her people rather than for herself, and now that Cocoyashi Village is safe, everything is easier for her."

"W-w-what about you?" the sniper of the Straw Hat Pirates had seen the amount of abuse that Coby subjected himself daily, he had seen how ready he was to throw away his life, laughing in the face of pain and wounds.

His knowing gaze had returned then, this time accompanied by a crooked smile: "I know that Luffy's luck won't let me die, and in order to be stronger tomorrow, I chose to do the insanely dangerous feats, and the soul-wrenching training, today."

The long-nosed pirate felt his jaw threaten to fall to the floor: was that it? He simply hoped that he wouldn't die? Was that what it meant, to meet your opposite? Was Coby the embodiment of optimism just how Usopp was the quintessence of Negativity?

"In any case, I have a working plan to help you, if you're interested?" the bespectacled kid raised an eyebrow, almost tauntingly, "In time, it'd help you become stronger..."

"Wha...?" was he truly going to deliver the answer for Usopp to reach his dream? "Of course I'm interested, please tell me!"

Coby's hands closed around the narrow shoulders of the other pirate, and his eyes carried a serious weight behind them as he spoke: "Use your fears."

"What?" the words didn't really bring with them the key to spiritual enlightenment that the long-nosed man had hoped for: "What does that even mean?"

"Prepare for every fear that comes to your mind." the pink-haired pirate replied quickly: "From the most likely, to the least likely: prepare weapons, armor if you must, projectiles, and plan for ways to use each of them in more than one situation. For example, the worst thing that can realistically happen to you, is to find yourself in close quarters against someone that can ignore your attacks."

"Then I'd be screwed!" Usopp grabbed his hair tightly, almost pulling them free of his skull: the memory of how exhausting it had been to fight against that Fishman near Arlon Park was still clear in the sniper's head, and just as Coby had pointed out, it had been sheer dumb luck that his opponent had been so stupid as to fall for his trick of the 'Rubber Band of Doom'. Still, he had managed to win back then, hadn't he? Sure, it had required some creative thinking, but he had set the Fishman on fire, and then hammered him into unconsciousness.

The long-nosed pirate slumped his shoulder, and asked with a defeated tone: "And what can I do if that happens again?"

"Train yourself to run away." the answer was given so easily, so quickly, that Usopp had to clean his ears and ask for a repeat. 'Train yourself to run away'.

"From a distance, you have the advantage, no?" the rhetorical answer was accompanied by a crooked smile, and an increased light shining from those knowing, knowing eyes: "So train your lungs and your legs. Maybe prepare some tools to scale quickly, because from up high, you're all the more effective as a sniper."

A notebook was already been filled with plans and ideas... only for everything to come crashing down when the enthusiasm Coby had affected Usopp with slammed against something that even he didn't have an answer for: "But what if they're immune to my attacks?"

"Leading them to one of the crew capable of fighting is an option, but you could get them killed if they were already busy facing someone that requires their full power." just like that, an option was given and discarded, only to be replaced by another: "Instead, you could tire the enemy out by keeping at a distance, and slowing them down with attacks that affect their surroundings."

"Like spiked caltrops!" Usopp was familiar with the tactic, had he not used some of that against the Kuro pirates?

"Or demolishing buildings in a strategical manner." Coby shrugged, "You've got better eyes than mine, it's up to you to see where to strike and how... I can only give ideas. For example, you could also find out a way to hide effectively: some kind of camouflage... It's something that is better to ready before it's needed in battle, but its up to you to figure out for what kind of environment you'd be preparing for, or if you can change the surrounding environment to match a disguise you already have."

Those were all fantastic ideas, and Usopp wanted to kick himself for not realizing those points earlier: he looked at Coby with eyes full of awe and his heart filled with determination. "Are... are you actually... a genius?"

The pink-haired boy let out a full belly laugh at that question, immediately shooting it down: "Nah, it's just the way I think: preparation prevents piss poor performance and all of that jazz..."

Usopp gave him a long, searching look at that words: after all, the only tool that Coby had somewhat tinkered to have on his own person was the modified tonfa that had taken the sniper days to figure out. And as an answer to that searching gaze, the pink-haired pirate had limited himself to smiling, refusing to elaborate on the obvious choice of not using tools to fight.

But just like the waves of even the meanest Blue, Usopp worry and fears rose once more, eclipsing his newfound bravery: "But what about Sea Kings, or super storms? What if someone curses me with black magic..."

"Prepare and act on those things you can affect, or will be able to affect." Coby smiled wanly as he tilted his head, "This is adulthood in a nugget, I think. The rest..."

"The rest...?"

"Leave it to fate. And trust that in the heat of the moment, you'll be able to think of something new standing on the shoulders of the solutions you already have ready." the pink-haired pirate left the cabin waving his hand, "You did defeat a fishman on your own already, no? It's merely a matter of widening your arsenal."

Usopp felt his face stretch into a mockery of a smile as he looked around from behind the safety of a fallen trunk that had been previously used as a bench for the pirates, and his hand plunged into the depths of his growing bag of tricks in order to fish out the sea stone prism manacles that he had found with Coby on the saddles of Smoker's three-wheeled motorbike.

In a flurry of movement, he could perform only thanks to his deft fingers, the manacles were open and added to a thin strip of rope that was balled up, ready to explode on impact. His heart hammered in his chest as if it wanted to flee from the ribcage, but Usopp forced himself to act. After all, he was prepared for it, wasn't he? Devil Fruit users weren't really uncommon on the Grand Line, as the 'afterparty' on Whiskey Peak had proven. He was ready.

He took a deep breath, and then rose from his position, slingshot ready, and flung, as if he had done it a thousand times before. Coby was just staggering our of the woodwork while the giants began to wonder what do do about the strange candle man that had tried to cover them in wax, Zoro and Sanji' fight was slowing down as the cook realized that the pink-haired pirate was to blame for the woman's cry, but everything faded to the background.

Usopp's eyes were focused on his quickly crafted projectile despite the lacking light of a dawn that hadn't decided yet to fully appear. His heart stilled just before his attack struck: the sea stone manacles slammed just over the kidney of the woman with the strength of a well-placed punch, and the thin rope exploded in a mockery of a net that secured the Devil Fruit User contingency number one to the sniper's target.

With a pained, breathless grunt, the girl fell, her power silenced by the sea prism stone, and her body bound by an attack that had been meant exactly for that. In a few seconds, he had won. And not because of Coby's intervention either: Usopp had been the one to plan, he had been the one to prepare, and he had been the one to execute the whole thing.

With his wavering smile turning from the grimace it actually was into a full-fledged grin, he stood tall and landed a foot on the fallen trunk: "That's right! I won! I, the Great Usopp..."

Then Sanji kicked him in the face for daring to harm a lady, and everything went black.


AN

Yeah, I'm jumping here and there, aren't I? The only way for me to not become stuck is to use meaningful interaction scenes with the single members of the crew while offhand mentioning some of the stuff that happened in the meantime.

Laboon and Whiskey peak are utterly worthless once you know the key details, and so I cut them off. I hope I managed to repurpose Little Garden in a concise manner that didn't destroy the wonder of the two Giants, while massively underlining the first changes offered by Coby's presence.

This chapter is a bit of a mixed bag: I placed a shred of training accompanying Coby's plans and self-reflection about his goals and hopes, which I hope managed to give him some personality, along with an act that only someone as mad as him could perform. Fear isn't really a thing when you know the kind of batshit insane luck that surrounds Luffy, while I consciously held back on shaping a meaningful, soul-defining conversation between the MC and any other character.

I will place one in the next chapter, which contains the first true divergence point from canon while it will hopefully drag us all the way to Alabasta. Still, I'd like to know if you're interested in the story when told like this: with the next chapter, I'll try to make you readers also invested in the characters, rather than merely curious about the sequence of events.

The fight after the banquet is kind of underwhelming, I know: the only way I could think of to not have serious injuries among the crew was to take Mr. Five out early, because a literal explosion-man is by definition fucking invincible unless there's Luffy's luck around to intervene, which is what went on here.

Having fights happen in first person in One Piece is kind of hard, moslty because there is very little to describe while keeping the manga's style: it always comes down to a slugfest, to who is stronger and has the greater will, or to a complete beatdown. Given the small impact that this fight has on the characters (as with two giants perfectly healthy, there was no way to have Mr. Three do anything meaningful, so we don't get to see Zoro's insane and cool 'I'll cut off my legs'), I opted to rush through it. Forgive me?

Is Coby banking too hard on the fact that members of Luffy's crew don't die? Is it too deadpool-ish thanks to his knowledge that it's all a manga? Let me know what you think, as I am well in time to adjust the style before we begin with the original story!