SOL INVICTUS
Chapter Five: Beat Down
Zoro rolled his eyes at the posturing of this thug and his lion. Wasn't he even embarrassed? Trying to beat up a scruffy little dog like this just to get at some pet food.
"Lions are carnivores, you moron," the swordsman snapped. He casually grasped the hilts of his two swords and distributed weight forward to his right foot. "They don't even eat pet food. Now move."
The moron made a dumbass face at him. "I know more about lions than you ever would, stuuupid! Right, Ritchie?"
"Whatever, you freak show. Just get out of my way. I need to find Buggy and his pirates."
"Why are you looking for Captain Buggy? Thinking of joining us?" The furry freak threw back his head and postured some more. "Hahahaha! Sorry, but we don't accept weaklings!"
Zoro ignored the insult that would have gotten the other man killed a month ago. "Captain, huh... I guess that justifies me doing this."
In a flash, two swords emerged from their black sheaths and he kicked off from packed dirt with only a burst of reflected light as fanfare. Just as the swordsman crossed his arms to strike, he remembered Luffy – 'if you can avoid it...' – and he twisted the blades around so the dull sides faced outwards.
Two distinct bodies thudded to the ground behind him.
(It was good training, after all. To be a great swordsman was rather similar to being a good lover; you had to be as gentle as you were forceful, and Zoro knew he needed a bit more practice with the first than he was comfortable with.
The day he learned to strike with the blade of his sword without killing was soon. He could feel it in his very marrow, could see it in the molten, burning umber of his captain's eyes, could taste it in her warm blood that had willingly anointed Kuina's sword.)
Zoro sheathed his swords with a flick of his wrists and turned to the dog. "I don't suppose you know where Buggy is?"
The small white animal just stared calmly at him.
"Ah, guess not. This freak came from the right, so he's probably over there..." Zoro walked down the street and turned left.
Luffy rounded the corner to anxious shouts and muted barks.
"What—who did this?! Shushu, are you hurt anywhere?"
No! she thought. The pet store… It isn't already…?
"Luffy?" she heard Nami calling worriedly as she rushed down the street to find —
A perfectly intact series of buildings, an unharmed white dog, one shocked old man, and an ugly ass pirate collapsed on the ground next to his equally ugly lion. Luffy felt a glow in her chest when she spotted the rise and fall of Mohji's furry back. Zoro had actually taken her suggestion – because it certainly hadn't been an order – to heart, and that made her really happy.
"Hey! You kids over there! Do you have any idea what's happened here?"
"Sorry mister, but we just got here as well..."
Luffy left Nami to talk to the old mayor and bent down to pat Shushu on the head. "I bet you were really brave, huh? Protecting your treasure from a big thug like that."
The little dog gave a soft whuff and butted into her hand, tail thumping against the ground.
"Yeah." A faint smile curled her lips. "Your old man would have been proud."
"Hey, Luffy, shouldn't we be looking for that Zoro guy?"
"Oh, you're right! I bet he's completely lost by now. Shushu, have you seen my friend? He has a black bandanna and three swords, real tough looking."
Shushu barked in agreement.
"Which way did he go?"
The dog considered her for a moment before tottering to his feet and slowly ambling towards the other end of the road.
"Shushu, what are you...?"
"Hey, mister," Luffy began. She turned to Boodle with a grin. "This is a really great town. So don't worry, okay? Because I'll protect it for you."
"H-huh?"
Luffy grabbed Nami's hand and pulled her after the waiting Shushu, leaving an absolutely bewildered old man in her wake.
"Ah, Zoro, there you are!"
Said man turned at the familiar voice. "Luffy, you gave me bad directions."
"Huh?" Luffy cocked her head and scratched behind her ear. "I did? That's weird, I don't remember giving any directions."
"That's because you didn't," sighed Nami. "You're both idiots. Buggy's by the tavern, on the other side of town. How'd you even get over here?" Luffy was bending down and talking to the dog – Shushu or Chouchou or something – so she took the chance to snidely add, "Is your sense of direction like a beast's too?"
To her surprise, Zoro didn't react to the insult. "You're still here, huh? What did Luffy say to you?"
"That's—that's between me and her."
"I don't know why Luffy is so insistent on your being our navigator, but…" He angled her a dark look. "I don't trust you."
She shot him one right back. "And I don't trust either of you. The moment 'Captain' reneges on her word or gets in my way, I'm making good on her promise of tossing her overboard."
Zoro smirked. That sounded awfully familiar. Would Luffy make such promises with all of her future crewmates? It looked like the entire crew would be forged by oaths on the Captain's life at the rate this was going.
Well, that was her decision. It wasn't his business how freely she gave her life away, after all. It only mattered how she decided to use his.
Luffy suddenly stood up, her waving hand infringing upon the glaring match being held between her only crewmates. "Bye, Shushu! Thanks a bunch!" She glanced between Nami and Zoro and tilted her head. "What are you guys doing? You look constipated."
The way the swordsman watched his captain wasn't quite devoted, but it wasn't hostile either. A marked difference from the vicious look he had directed at Nami – and indeed, at most other people he met. "Nothing at all. Weren't we supposed to go find that Buggy guy?"
"Oh yeah!" Luffy bounced on the balls of her feet – another part of her anatomy bounced with her, Zoro couldn't help but notice - and bounded down a random direction. They waited. A few moments later, she sheepishly shuffled back and rubbed the back of her head as she asked, "Where did you say Buggy was, again?"
In an uncomfortable display of coordination, both the first mate and navigator rolled their eyes.
"Nami."
The navigator glanced at Luffy with a question on her lips.
Nami was still uncomfortable with calling anyone her captain, particularly in the security of her own mind. Sure, she called Arlong that in front of the fishmen on occasion, but that was lip-service. She didn't mean it. If she called Luffy that right now, she still wouldn't really mean it, so she didn't bother.
"Buggy probably has a lot of treasure hidden somewhere, right?"
"Oh, yeah! That's right, he's got a whole bunch stored away in a warehouse."
"Can you handle getting all that by yourself?" While Zoro and I dispatch the Buggy Pirates went unsaid.
"It should be fine, I can take care of a few thugs on my own. I might need help carrying all of it though."
"That's okay. We'll come help after we're done."
"Wait, how are we going to split this? A third to each of us?" If the girl said any less, she would leave immediately.
"Hmm." Luffy put a finger to her chin. "I think you should have all of it. What do you think, Zoro?"
Nami stopped and stared at Luffy with wide eyes.
"I don't mind," the swordsman said. He looked bored out of his mind, like they weren't talking about giving up what was sure to be millions of beli.
Millions! Not even a few thousand, millions!
Nami's eyes flicked back and forth between the two. Was this a trick? A test? Were they trying to see how loyal she was? But that couldn't be it; she'd explicitly told them that she wasn't, and the Demon had already made it clear that he knew it too.
She considered Luffy's absent gaze, and decided the girl might be enough of a chump to do such a thing. But what was Roronoa Zoro's game? Why would he be willing to give up his share?
Maybe they were just idiots?
Just to clarify, she repeated, "You're going to give all the treasure. To me."
Roronoa didn't even spare her a glance. "We have enough supplies back on our boat. It's not necessary at the moment."
"Yup!" The pirate girl looked at her with eyes that were all of a sudden not so absent. "You need it, don't you? For your goal."
Or maybe Luffy was making good on her promises, and Zoro was following his captain's lead.
"Well... In that case, the warehouse is that way." She separated from the group and lifted a hand in parting. "See you when you're done."
Nami allowed her lips to curve up in the corners as she walked away.
Maybe... maybe this time she had found something truly good.
Luffy considered the seemingly innocuous tavern that loomed at the end of the street. She could just go and attack... But that would cause a ton of property damage, and she'd already said that she would protect this town. And she couldn't leave behind any beli for the civilians either, since she'd promised it all to Nami.
What was key here, she decided, was getting rid of that stupid cannon before it was fired at the town.
"Hey Zoro, how are you with cutting metal?"
He looked thoughtful. "With these two," he began, tapping the two black swords, "Maybe an inch of iron. With this one here though..." His thumb flicked out the tsuba of the Wado Ichimonji and flicked it back in an instant. It looked a bit like an established habit, Luffy thought. "A half foot or so. I haven't tried anything thicker before, but it might be possible."
She perked up with sparkling eyes, amazed. "Really?! That's so cool!" She blinked and then lightly slapped her cheeks. "Ah, not the time..."
Zoro smirked at the praise. "What did you want me to cut?"
"Cannons. I only know of one, but Buggy might have more. I need you to make it so that none of them will work."
She had no clue how one went about destroying cannons, but slicing them through seemed like a safe bet. In fact, he probably didn't have to sever completely through the iron to make it dysfunctional; only the key components. Luffy ignored the niggling in the back of her mind that said something was strange about Zoro's awesome ability, because her fingers were itching and someone was going to have to pay for the bruises littering Shushu's skin, visible even through layers of fur, and the villagers currently corralled over on the connected island, kicked out of their own homes by these inconsiderate intruders, the older men and women wondering if this town would be levelled to ashes like the last one had been, if their children and grandchildren would have to stagger through the pain of losing a lifetime of stored memories as they had because of some lowdown, dirty pirates.
"I'll find a way," said her first mate, drawing Luffy's attention away from the slowly simmering anger in her gut.
She flashed him something that resembled a smirk but was rather too devious to be labeled such. "How about we drop in and give them a nice little surprise?"
He raised a brow. "What do you mean?"
"Hold on tight!"
"Oi, Luffy—!"
She wrapped an arm around the swordsman's waist and streeeetched the other up to the ledge of the open roof where the Buggy Pirates were sure to be partying.
And Zoro said, "Shit."
With a giddy cackle she shot the both of them up so that they flew high over the edge of the building. They spent several breaths airborne, weightless and free, before gravity called in its debt and they began to fall. Luffy spotted Buggy gaping up at them from his makeshift throne and recalled her arm from Zoro's body so that she could reach for the clown instead. The swordsman seemed to have decided to make something about of her recklessness and had drawn his swords in the moments she had looked away.
As Luffy's hands grabbed the wooden frame of the large chair, her first mate started to spin his weapons. The two of them fell as only weapons of mass destruction could do, Zoro descending in a lethal tornado of blades and her own feet set to ram several tons of force in Buggy's dumbstruck face.
Impact.
With incoherent shouts sounding from the rest of the roof, Luffy straightened in the midst of a cloud of sawdust and wood chips, a groaning pirate captain under her feet.
But not the whole captain. A head rolled along on the ground, not directly damaged but eyes wide and protrudent and lips rolled out in pain.
That's far creepier in real life, she thought to herself.
The brush of fabric against her bare ankles caught her by surprise. Two floating hands grabbed her legs in a bruising grip and tossed her off as the main body began to twitch back to a sitting position.
"Woah," said Luffy. She arched herself backwards and caught the ground by her hands to flip onto her feet.
"What the flashy fuck was that?!" roared the decapitated head. It was floating now, and reattached to the rest of himself with a plop. He spat out wads of blood on the ground between grimaces.
"Huh. You're pretty sturdy. Guess it'll take a bit more than that."
"Of course it'll take more than that if you want to kill the flashy me! But wait, who are you?"
Luffy opened her mouth to answer before dropping to the ground as a hand clenching a knife flew over her head. "Bastard! You fight dirty!"
"And you don't?!" Buggy snapped back, a blood vessel swelling angrily on his temple. He cradled his chest area with a handless arm. She'd probably broken a rib or five, Luffy thought. Good thing she'd changed trajectory at the last second, or else she would have missed entirely.
"It's not my fault you react so slowly." Luffy jumped high into the air to avoid several more knives and grabbed a far off tent pole, visibility slowly improving under the hazy yellow blanketing their near vicinity. She tightened the rubber of her arm to snap her forward, whizzing straight past Buggy with an arm extended in a clothesline. It would have been called Gomu Gomu no Sickle had she been inclined to announce herself.
"Ha! You missed!"
Except she hadn't. As she flew through the air and rounded the pole back towards the other captain (bowling over a couple dozen Buggy pirates as she did so), she coaxed the strands of rubber in her right arm to weaken their elasticity, allowing the significant centrifugal force to stretch her further and further out until she was just at the right length to slam her forearm into the other man's throat. By the look on his face, he realized it too.
"Bara Bara emergency escape!"
Luffy smirked, having expected that. With a moment of intense concentration, belied only by a single blink, she cross-linked the long chains of polyisoprene molecules in her left knee and shot forward the vulcanized rubber to slam into his groin.
Pain drew concentric circles in black pupils as a high keen erupted from Buggy the Clown's throat.
So she fought a little dirty too. It wasn't like the guy didn't deserve it. He would have hurt Shanks's hat, given the chance, so she couldn't manage to scrounge up any sympathy for the blood sputtering out of his lips, or the tears streaming down his cheeks, nevermind that he would have done the same if given the chance and who was she kidding she felt pretty damn lousy for being so lowdown. He hadn't actually done anything to her, not like he had to the other Luffy.
"Aha... sorry," she said sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck and skidding to a stop. Her right arm snapped back to her side as Buggy squeaked out a response.
(She was willing to bet her gomu gomu he wasn't saying "It's okay".)
Too distracted by the horrific – and unfortunately hilarious – vision of agony before her, Luffy didn't realize that both of Buggy's hands were still missing.
Every year, on November first, Shimotsuki Village held a festival to celebrate the onset of their namesake. This being East Blue, the actual frost wouldn't come until December loomed over the horizon, but that was all the better for enjoying the day of merriment. Or so the adults had said. Zoro had been coaxed to take part once, just once, by battling Kuina for the 1827th time. There had been a wager then, that Zoro would attend the festival with Kuina the next day if he lost.
At the time he had wondered why the other guy wanted him to go to something frivolous like that when Zoro could be training, but now, eleven years later, he knew that it was because he had been the only one even close to being considered Kuina's friend. After all, no child wanted to associate with a boy so frighteningly devoted to the sword, who lived and breathed blades and nothing else – except one similarly fervid. Only he had been stupidly persistent enough to insist on battling the dojo heir over and over and over again.
He had lost. Miserably. It might have been his childish imagination, but Kuina had seemed even more of a challenge than usual.
The two of them had stayed until the very conclusion of the festival, somehow managing to turn everything into a competition: who could catch the most goldfish (Kuina), who could eat the most takoyaki (Kuina), who could score the most rings (Kuina), who could triumph in several games of karuta (Kuina), who could win the most luck games (Zoro), and finally, who could collect the most confetti.
The last one had been a tie. Zoro still remembered the mess they had made on the floor of the dojo, where they had brought their spoils to compare. The two had accused the other of counting falsely and gotten into fisticuffs over it —or rather, Zoro had thrown a punch and the other boy had gleefully given him a matching bruise, the resulting brawl scattering colourful spirals of paper amidst tightly woven straw.
Kind of like now, actually. Except there was no one to pound his face in like Kuina had done, and the paper scraps were replaced with groaning pirates, strewn on their backs like gaudy ornaments no one wanted.
Destroyed cannons littered the roof, each roughly hacked into two with several dozen swings of Kuina's sword. There was a thin shroud of tan partially concealing Luffy from view. Zoro contemplated going to help, but then nudged a Buggy pirate with the toe of his shoe – some idiot named Cababi or Dabaji who seemed to fancy himself in the same league as Zoro – and decided if she was weak enough to lose to the man leading these clowns, she didn't deserve to be his captain.
As if in refute of such a thought, the lower half of a body that was decidedly not Luffy's came flying out of the dust. Following close behind was the dismembered upper body, his face a mask of fury and not a little pain. The girl herself tore out after it, scowling as she chased the flying torso to the edge of the roof.
Zoro's eyes flickered towards the stump of a waist a few feet away and determined that yes, those were probably that other guy's legs trotting away from him. Well, Luffy had warned him about Buggy's devil fruit abilities, though it was much more freakish to actually see it in action.
The former bounty hunter watched as Buggy's torso flew off the roof, and Luffy grabbed onto it before it could leave. The clown pirate only flew higher and lifted the two of them off the roof as he whizzed in the direction of the warehouse, where that conniving witch would be.
Ah. That made sense; there was no way the treasure obsessed Buggy the Clown wouldn't have set an alarm in the case of thieves.
But while his captain took care of that...
Zoro strode over to a nearby sack and emptied the contents onto the floor. He then drew his sword from its black sheath and set upon Buggy's lower half with a vicious grin.
He'd never made sashimi before, but he reckoned it'd be much the same.
"Flashily let go of me! You straw-hat bastard!" Buggy thrashed in the rubber net she had made with her fingers to make sure that no parts of him would be flying off without her.
Luffy stretched out a foot and hooked it on a lamppost, but Buggy just kept straining forward until it slipped off. The warehouse was too near the tavern for her to be able to do much to stop him; the least she could do was hold on tight and be there to protect Nami.
"No way! We're in the middle of a fight! You can't just run off!"
"What fight?! You just came out of nowhere and attacked me! I can flashily run off as much as I like!"
They were coming onto the warehouse now, just as Nami stepped out of it with a large bag of something.
"You damn unflashy thief! Don't touch my treasure!"
The girl glanced up with alarmed eyes as Buggy picked up speed. The two hands that had shot off earlier flew into sight from within the bowels of the building with several knives clutched between their fingers. They were each pointed to Nami's unsuspecting back.
Luffy's eyes widened and then narrowed as she made a split second decision.
"DON'T TOUCH MY NAVIGATOR!" she roared. Using Buggy's own momentum against him, she used her netted fingers to swing him back and push herself forward. As she fell towards Nami, she sucked in her gut and concentrated.
Wider... Stretch more, more, more...!
More!
Luffy settled around her crewmate just in time; all five of the approaching knives sunk into the rubber girl's back, cutting straight through her skin and becoming trapped mere inches from their original destination.
"Luffy!" Nami crawled out from underneath the protective bubble of skin and rubber and hurriedly snatched the knives out. Luffy relaxed and allowed her torso – stretched out thin like the fabric of an inflated balloon – to contract back to its usual shape, barely paying any mind to the gashes going straight through her as she sat up. "You idiot! You didn't need to do that, I would have deflected them!"
Chocolate brown eyes noted the long staff that lay next Nami's bent legs, and an enlightened look came upon her face. "Ah!" Luffy exclaimed, bringing down a fist on her open palm. "I see. That's actually a pretty good tactic, isn't it?"
"That's the only reasonable tactic!" Nami snapped. But despite the heat in her voice, her hands fluttered worriedly over Luffy's stomach.
Luffy just grinned at shot to her feet. "Don't worry about that, Nami. Just focus on Buggy for now."
"What, you mean him?"
"Yup, him!"
She blinked.
The man who had refused to go down from even an extreme groin shot was the same man who was passed out a few feet away, his eyes twirling and a large bump erupting from his head. Boodle stood over Buggy with a steel bat still raised in both hands and a shocked look on his face.
Zoro lingered beside a little ways away from both of the men, looking both amused and worried. There was a large bag slung over his shoulder.
"I-it worked… I actually managed to protect the town from Captain Buggy!"
Luffy blinked, equally surprised, and then threw back her head and laughed. There was a dismayed cry from Nami at the spurts of blood that spilled over her hands as she attempted to wrap the wounds up. "You sure did, mister! Good shot!"
"I didn't think it'd be so easy," the old man mumbled, looking confused.
"Oi Luffy, I've got the rest of his body here." The bag was tossed to her feet and Luffy perked up.
"Wow, Zoro! You're great. How'd you know?"
"Know what?"
"What we have to do next!" Luffy reached in with both arms and fished around for Buggy's feet. She then grabbed the limp, dismembered hands laying a few feet away and tried to puzzle them together. "Huh, I guess it doesn't really work when someone else does it." She glanced up. "Zoro, can you go get me Buggy's head?"
He readied a sword. "Just the head?"
"Yup."
There was a shout of outrage from beside her. Luffy turned her head to see Nami looking horrified and a little betrayed. "Buggy's already knocked out! He can't even do anything! Why do you have to kill him on top of it?" She began to mouth something else – Luffy could read the words 'I thought you were...' being formed by her lips – but seemed to think better of it before those words were given voice.
"Shishishi, silly Nami," said Luffy, her smile softening. "Buggy won't die. He's just going to go on an adventure so he can learn to appreciate his nakama."
"Look closely, Navigator." Zoro tossed Buggy's head at Luffy's feet as she worked on tying up the rest of the limbs together.
She watched her new navigator do a double take at the twitching torso currently being wrapped up in thick ropes. "It's— it's moving!"
"Yep." Luffy rolled the package of body parts behind Nami's knees and pushed her shoulders down. "I need you to sit on this for me."
"This— feels— disgusting," the girl said faintly, still shocked.
Luffy glanced at Boodle, wondering why he was so quiet, and realised he was gone.
"The old guy said something about going to get the other villagers," Zoro commented casually from the doorway of the warehouse. "Probably to flush out the rest of these pirates. Though we've already done that."
Is Zoro... psychic? she wondered in awe, staring at where her first mate had been standing. He wasn't even looking at her! That was so cool!
"Uh, Luffy—" Nami began.
"WHO ATTACKED THE FLASHY ME FROM BEHIND?" roared a familiar voice. "WAS IT YOU, STRAW-HAT?!"
Ah, he was so loud. She dug a pinky into her ear. "Nope."
"Then who was it?! After I'm done with you, I'm going to kill that bastard!"
Oh, that was probably bad. He could come back after he recovered his body, after all. "I lied," Luffy backtracked cheerfully. "I did it. Guess you only have to kill me, huh?" Her grin took on a taunting edge. "That is, if you can."
"Why you—! Bara Bara parts assemble!"
She chortled at the horror on his face when he realised he was several feet closer to the ground than he should be.
"Nishishi... Is Chibi-Buggy ready for an adventure?"
Panic manifested on his entire face. "Wait! Wait, wait, wait, Mugiwara—"
Luffy threw her arms far behind her.
"—can't we come to some sort of understanding? I haven't even done anything to you!"
"Gomu Gomu no..."
"WHAT DO YOU WANT? GOLD? TREASURE? I'LL GIVE IT TO YOU!"
"Bazooka!"
Chibi-Buggy shot into the distance until he was just a twinkle in the sky. Luffy shaded her eyes and whistled at the distance. "Nice."
Nami jumped to her feet. "W-what—what the hell was that? And earlier too!"
"Gomu Gomu no Bazooka!" Luffy told her with a grin and a cheesy thumbs up. She was met with a twitching eyebrow and a flick to the forehead.
"I wasn't asking for the name!"
"Shishishi!" Luffy grabbed a cheek and stretched it out. "I ate the Gomu Gomu no Mi, so I'm a rubber human!"
"Gomu Gomu... no Mi?"
"It's a Devil Fruit," said Zoro as he came back out of the warehouse with two large sacks in each hand. "Yo Luffy, there're three more back there."
"Okay!"
Luffy skipped into the warehouse as Nami said, "I thought those were myths!"
The three of them walked back to Luffy's fishing boat, which they learned was docked next to Nami's own stolen ship. A large bag of treasure was balanced precariously – and rather ridiculously – on top of Luffy's face, and she held another in each hand. Her head was tilted almost completely back and she couldn't see where she was going, but Nami's delighted giggles were near enough to follow.
The treasure swayed. She swayed with it.
Zoro, walking behind her, tapped her lightly on the head with a sword handle. His other arm had been using his four bags as substitute weights, last she saw. "Why didn't you tell the old guy what really happened? Buggy wouldn't have gone down like that if you hadn't beaten him up beforehand."
"Nah," she said. "It's the best feeling, you know... knowing you've protected something you love. The mayor deserves that. He was really brave, to risk his life like that for his village." Because in any other situation, Buggy really would have turned around and killed him. The old mayor had thought that could happen—had expected it, from his reaction. But he had done it anyway. "Besides, he was the one who took down Buggy. Not me."
"... If you say so."
She couldn't see his expression, but she imagined Zoro was giving her one of those side looks he was so good at.
Whatever. It was true. She would have stuck out her tongue, but he wouldn't have seen it anyway.
Luffy's stride paused for a half second when she heard Nami shout in alarm. She calmly lifted the sack off of her face and continued walking.
There was a crowd of villagers gathered at the docks, makeshift weapons in their hands. An old man at the front of the crowd stepped forward at their arrival with a grave expression.
"Are you the ones who defeated the pirates at the tavern and destroyed the cannons?"
Zoro stepped forward and stood at her side with a wary glare, while Nami slyly sidled behind them.
Luffy cocked her head. "And if we are?"
"I see. In that case, there is only one way we can respond."
All three of them tensed as the mob surged forward as a whole... and bowed.
"Thank you! So much!"
Well there was her plan to leave quietly shot to hell.
"Truthfully, we weren't really sure how to repay you," and here Nami began to step forward with gleaming eyes, but Luffy put a hand on the other girl's arm and shook her head. "But we decided that the universal currency would have to work."
"Universal currency?" Nami asked, clearly thinking of gold. Skypiea would shock her, Luffy thought. In more ways than one.
"Ahaha, there's really no need to go so far," Luffy rubbed the back of her head. She'd actually have preferred the angry mob. That would have been hilarious, and exciting, and awesome.
Actually, she was beginning to really want one of those, now that she thought about it.
Next time, she promised herself. She would definitely find a way to be chased by an angry mob next time.
"We've got the food!" the mayor's voice called. He and a group of villagers trotted up to them pulling a cart full of crates and barrels.
"Food?" Luffy perked up immediately. "What kind of food? Salad?"
"You might want to look away," she heard Zoro saying to the crowd. "We ran out of lettuce a while ago..."
"Erm, yes, the fresh vegetables are in these three crates—"
"Mister! You're the best!" Luffy attacked the old mayor with a hug and then descended upon the large crate as a flock of ravens would upon the carcass of a great beast.
In other words, it was not a pretty sight.
"I'll eat salad," she mumbled through a full mouth. "And become Pirate King!"
Zoro sighed and tilted her hat to shadow her bulging face from the wide eyed spectators.
Notes —
Important commentary: You may be thinking, "Wait a second, Zoro can't cut thick iron at this point! He said Luffy's steel cage bars were too thick to cut!" (He can't cut steel very well yet, iron is just easier. And he can't hear the breath of things, he's just doing this through brute strength. Wreck it!) Actually, this is a notable point about this world's background.
The Strawhat Pirates are all going to be starting out slightly stronger than they were in canon. That is, all except Luffy, who will be physically weaker than canon!luffy. She won't actually be weak persay, she'll just be a bit less of a tank in comparison to canon!luffy.
This is all a consequence of Luffy being born as a girl, which caused a backlash in the One Piece universe. To be precise, it's all Ace and Garp's fault. In canon, Luffy is a cute but bratty little boy who runs away from his gramps and argues with his big brother at the first chance he gets. So Ace can beat him up all he wants without guilt, and Garp has no compunction against throwing the kid into all kinds of ridiculous situations 'to make him a stronger man'. This Luffy is just as cute and just as bratty, but she's much cuddlier... and she's a girl. Which forces Ace to subconsciously pull his punches a little – just a little – and Garp just can't look into those big brown eyes and throw her into that tiger's den (because who else will willingly cuddle with him and go "Grandpaaa! I missed you~!").
The OP world can be rather chauvinistic. You can't honestly say that gender equality is a big thing there. Lucky for her, our Luffy is a tad more clever than original Luffy and a helluva lot more informed, so this isn't generally a problem.
(Edited December 2016.)
[05/18/17: beta'd by beribboned. the dum bun i conned into marri]