BROTHER ON BOARD
LittlemissTraffy - Thanks for being my first review. I'm glad I was able to make you laugh from the short prologue. One of the things that I like best about One Piece is the humor. The Straw Hats are all so wacky that it makes them unforgettable. In this chapter I introduced a new quirk for Sabo that I hope makes him fit in better with our odd ball crew of pirates.
Black Night Wolf - Thanks. Hope I updated quick enough for you.
Son of Whitebeard - I can't take much credit for the child-like Sabo. But hopefully you'll enjoy my adult Straw Hat version of him.
Night-Of-Mares - I intend to rock the boat with this story so I've got some big changes planned for most of the story arcs in the East Blue Saga.
dhampire712 - Between him and Luffy, Sabo is certainly the more reasonable one. But Sabo will make it clear that Luffy's the Captain while he's just the Quartermaster. Sabo's dream of taking down the Celestial Dragons is going to be difficult to achieve. The World Nobles aren't exactly easy targets and even if he does succeed in taking one down, can you imagine the consequences he'd face?
Alvida –
A cruise ship sailed casually passed a whirlpool in the East Blue.
The ship was large enough that a small whirlpool wouldn't cause a problem for it so they didn't pay it much mind. Two sailors were out on the deck while another was up above them in the crow's nest keeping watch. The East Blue was considered the most peaceful of the world's oceans but this was the Great Pirate Era so a luxurious vessel like this one that was filled with rich passengers could never be too careful.
"AHOY THERE!"
The sailors on the deck of the cruise ship blinked in surprise when they looked down and saw a strange blond-haired young man in a top hat and a long blue coat riding towards them.
Sabo's appearance wasn't strange. It was his 'vessel' that caught the sailors off guard. He was sitting perfectly straight on a barrel and was using a lone paddle to navigate it.
"Hey you, what're you doing riding that barrel?" a sailor called out.
"I was riding a boat with my brother and my girlfriend when we got sucked into a whirlpool," Sabo explained. "Neither of them get along with water so I volunteered to get us to safety. I don't suppose you'd be willing to help a guy out, would ya?"
"Your boat was sucked into that whirlpool?" the other sailor questioned.
"Yup," Sabo confirmed. "The whole thing was destroyed. This barrel and this paddle were all we could salvage before we went under along with the rest of it."
"Here, grab this!" the first sailor said as he threw a rope off the side of the ship. The rope went wide but Sabo still managed to lean to the side and catch it.
"Thanks guys," Sabo said once the sailors had pulled him and the barrel onto the cruise ship. "You're real lifesavers."
The two sailors and the lookout peered down over Sabo's shoulder as he pried the barrel open and pulled out a rifle. They blinked in surprise when they saw only a sleeping young man with a straw hat left inside it.
"I thought you said you had a girl in there?" one of the sailors asked.
"Right," Sabo replied as he stood his rifle up next to him. "This is my girlfriend Bonnie Anne." Sabo turned and addressed his rifle. "Bonnie, these nice guys pulled us out of the water."
All three of the sailors blinked in surprise.
"Uh… that's a rifle…" the lookout felt obligated to point out.
"She's not just a rifle!" Sabo insisted. "She's an Advanced Wheel-Lock Rifle customized with an added scope and revolving action."
"But… but… a gun can't be your girlfriend!" a sailor insisted.
"Sure she can," Sabo said, "What else would you call a beautiful lady that has your back in any situation, stands by you through anything and is dedicated to helping you achieve your dream?"
Once again, all three of the sailors blinked in surprise.
"Anyway, thanks for helping us out," Sabo continued. "I'll let you get back to work. Hopefully your Captain will agree to loan me one of your lifeboats so I can get outta your hair."
With that, Sabo resealed the barrel with his sleeping brother inside then gave it a kick and sent it rolling into the ship ahead of him.
But once Sabo disappeared, the lookout looked up and his eyes widened in abject horror.
A pink ship with a swan figurehead was coming in fast behind them. While the very feminine ship itself wasn't so threatening what was threatening was the black flag that the ship was flying. It had a skull in profile view with a heart on it. That meant one thing, PIRATES!
The sailors had been so distracted with Sabo's nonsense about his rifle/girlfriend that they hadn't noticed the pink pirate ship approaching until it was too late. Now it was nearly on top of them.
"SHIP OFF THE STARBOARD STERN!" the lookout screamed. "THERE'S A PIRATE FLAG ON ITS MAST! ENEMY RAID! ENEMY RAID!"
The sailors scrambled to take action but they were already in range of the pirate ship's cannons.
KA-BOOOM-BOOOM-BOOOOM!
Cannonballs impacted with the water and exploded which made the cruise ship start rocking.
"Whoa!" Sabo yelped and stumbled as the ship lurched. Luffy's barrel rolled off down the hall. "Oh crap! Luffy! Get back here!" Sabo chased after the runaway barrel.
"CAPTAIN! PIRATES!" the two sailors shouted as the burst into the dining hall.
The cruise ship passengers screamed and started to run around the large room in a panic.
"EVERYONE STAY CALM!" the Captain shouted. "STAY CALM!"
The passengers ignored him and continued to panic and ran frantically for the exit.
All the rich passengers of the on the cruise ship were terrified of being robbed by pirates and were now beyond reason and rational thought.
The lone passenger that wasn't panicking was an orange haired girl in a fancy dress. She was pressed against the wall as she watched everyone around her freak out and panic. A small grin formed on her face which showed that this was the moment she had been waiting for.
"FIRE!" Pirate Captain 'Iron Mace' Alvida ordered as her pirate ship continued to blast. the cruise ship with cannonballs as they closed in on it.
Well, all but one of them anyway.
A timid boy with pale lavender hair and glasses stood by the railing of Alvida's pirate ship and looked like he wanted to be anywhere else in the world at this moment.
"COBY!" Alvida called out.
"Uh… yes ma'am?"
"Who's the most beautiful in all the seas?" Alvida asked.
"That-that'd be you… L-Lady Alvida!" Coby stammered.
Alvida smirked and let out a deep laugh. She wore fancy clothes, had dark raven hair but Pirate Captain that made her crew call her 'the most beautiful in all the seas' was fat to the point of being obese and had a gruff, ugly personality that matched her appearance.
Coby stared at Alvida in terror. She was an infamous pirate with a bounty of five million berries. He didn't dare disagree with her. Especially when she was wielding her namesake, a massive spiked iron mace.
Alvida's pirate ship continued its assault on the cruise ship until it pulled up alongside it. The cruise ship was big and luxurious. It was nearly three times the size of Alvida's pink pirate ship but it had no weapons and was manned by a crew of simple sailors. Alvida's men were all hardened pirates.
"GO MEN!" Alvida ordered. "Make them fear the name 'Iron Mace' Alvida! The Pirate Queen!"
Alvida's crew howled as they threw hooks over the railing of the cruise ship and quickly rushed on board. The pirates that were all armed with swords and guns ran rampant across the pirate ship and added reason to the rich passengers' earlier fear.
Alvida turned and saw that one of her crew hadn't left yet. "Coby! What are you doing?"
"I… I'm not good at this sort of thing…" the timid boy confessed as he clung to a rope like it was a lifeline.
"ARE YOU BACKTALKING ME?" Alvida snarled as she stormed over to the terrified boy.
"Please! Anything but the iron mace!" Coby whimpered.
"THEN GET YOUR ASS IN GEAR!" Alvida yelled. She gave Coby a hard kick to the rear and sent him flying over the railing and onto the cruise ship.
Coby went face-first into a wall and dropped to the deck. He was scared to the point of tears but he didn't have any time to recover.
"RAAAH!" Coby turned at the sound of a loud roar in time to see Alvida leap across to the cruise ship with her iron mace hoisted up over her head.
Coby's eyes widened in terror and he quickly ducked down and covered his head.
KRASH!
Alvida and her iron mace smashed straight through the wall that Coby was pressed up against.
"Go make yourself useful!" Alvida barked as she pulled herself out of the hole she'd make.
"Y-yes Lady Alvida!" Coby replied as he ran off to obey.
"Dang it, Luffy!" Sabo complained once Luffy's barrel finally stopped, "How is it that even fast asleep and unable to see where you're going… you still end up where they keep all the food?"
Somehow Luffy's barrel had rolled all the way down to the cruise ship's pantry.
"I guess you'll be safe here…" Sabo reasoned as he stared around the food-filled pantry and took an apple from a nearby barrel. "I'm gonna take Bonnie and go see what all the trouble is about."
Sabo slung his rifle across his shoulders and left Luffy sound asleep in the pantry.
Alvida's crew had managed to gather all the rich passengers and sailors in the large dining hall. There were well over a dozen pirates and they were all armed with sharp swords. No one gave any thought to fighting back.
"We won't take your lives," one of the pirates addressed the passengers, "But we will take your valuables."
Alvida walked in and made a terrifying sight as she towered over her pirate crew, "Anyone who tries to fight back will end up at the bottom of the ocean!"
The orange haired girl hid around a corner just outside the dining hall and smirked. If the pirates were all in here harassing the passengers, that meant their ship was unguarded.
The girl pulled off her dress to reveal a snug blue top, black tights and a black bandana. It was time to get to work. She quickly ran off and didn't hear anything else.
"Alright men!" Alvida called out, "This room's secured. Go make sure there are no stragglers! We're taking everything of value from this ship! Don't you dare miss anything!"
"YES ALVIDA!" the pirates chorused and a batched of them ran out the door.
KER-CHOW!
A rifle went off and Alvida's crew came flying back into the dining hall and crashed to the floor.
Alvida surveyed her fallen crew then glared at the door, "MEN, I DEMAND THAT YOU FIND WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS AND SHOW THEM THE MEANING OF PAIN!"
"YES LADY ALVIDA!" Alvida remaining henchmen chorused as they charged at the door.
"SCATTER BLAST!"
KER-CHOW!
The second wave of pirates met the same amount of success as the first and came flying back into the dining hall and crashed down to the floor unconscious.
Alvida now stood alone in the room filled with shocked passengers and sailors.
"WHO DARES CHALLENGE THE FUTURE PIRATE QUEEN 'IRON MACE' ALVIDA?"
Sabo casually walked into the dining room with his smoking rifle over his shoulder and eyed the fat female pirate.
"Did you just call yourself a Queen?" he asked. "I'm always up for taking uppity Royals down a couple pegs. That makes this easier on me."
"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?" Alvida roared.
"My name's Sabo, I'm the Quartermaster of the Straw Hat Pirates."
"Never heard of you," Alvida scoffed.
"Of course you haven't," Sabo said. "We just set sail this morning. Our ship got wrecked in a whirlpool and some of the sailors on this ship were nice enough to pull us on board. For that reason, I'm going to have to ask you to leave this ship alone. It's under my protection."
"Do you even know who you're messing with!?" Alvida asked angrily. "MEN! Who is the fairest and most beautiful in all the seas?"
"You are… Lady Alvida!" Alvida's wounded crew groaned from the ground.
Sabo blinked. "Do you really force your men to call yourself the most beautiful in all the seas?"
"ARE YOU SAYING I'M NOT?" Alvida demanded.
"Look lady, even if I wasn't in a very happy committed relationship with my rifle, I still wouldn't consider you the most beautiful in all the seas."
"THAT'S IT!" Alvida roared. "YOU'RE DEAD!"
Alvida hefted her huge iron mace over her head and brought it down.
KRASH!
The dust cleared and revealed Alvida's iron mace embedded in the floor… and Sabo casually standing on top of it. Alvida stared at Sabo in sheer wide-eyed shock.
"Missed," Sabo stated.
"WHY YOU!" Alvida snarled as she struggled to pull her mace free from the floor.
Sabo wound up then swung his rifle into Alvida's face with all his strength like a baseball bat. "KNOCK BACK!"
WHAAAM!
Alvida was forcibly separated from her mace as she went flying backwards and smashed through the far wall of the dining hall then kept going and flew off the side of the cruise ship before she eventually plummeted down into the water.
SPLASH!
"AND SHE'S OUTTA HERE!" Sabo cheered. "Mwa, love ya Bonnie!" He planted a quick kiss on the barrel of his rifle then jumped off of Alvida's abandoned mace. He swept his top hat off his head and took a bow before the shocked cruise ship passengers.
"HEY SABO! WHO WAS THAT FAT GUY?"
Sabo turned to see Luffy standing at the entrance of the dining hall with Coby next to him.
Coby stared at Sabo in wide-eyed awe. "You… you beat Alvida!"
"Hey Luffy, glad to see you finally woke up," Sabo said. "Who's the kid?'
"Yeah, that was a great nap," Luffy replied. "This guy's Coby. He wants to be a Marine."
Sabo scratched his head. "And you, a pirate, decided to make friends with him?"
"Aw, don't worry about it!" Luffy reassured him. "He's not a marine yet."
"You saved us!" the Captain of the cruise ship called out. "You managed to beat those pirates! My crew and my passengers are all in your debt."
"Yeah, yeah, and now the rich passengers get to keep all their money," Sabo waved off the Captain's praise. "Those pirate look easy enough to apprehend now so I don't think they'll bother you anymore without their Captain. Look, the only reason we're on your ship is because ours got wrecked in a whirlpool and some of your sailors pulled us aboard. If you can just give us one of your lifeboats and don't tell the Marines that we were here, we'll call it even."
"I… right… of course!" the Captain agreed. "Take any boat you want."
More cannonballs impacted with the water and rocked the cruise ship. But this time it wasn't from pirates. Three ships with blue seagulls emblazoned on their sails were approaching.
The Marines had arrived.
"Hey look, Coby!" Luffy said as he, Sabo and Coby ran along the top deck of the cruise ship. "It's the Marines! You should go see if they'll let you join!"
"Are you crazy!?" Coby exclaimed. "I haven't mentally prepared myself yet! They're more likely to capture me than let me join!"
Sabo stopped in front of a boat. But it wasn't a mere lifeboat. This boat was actually a small skiff with an actual sail and an anchor.
"Hmm… this isn't quite a lifeboat," Sabo noted.
"Who cares!?" Luffy replied. "He said we could take any boat we wanted!"
Sabo shrugged, "Fair enough."
SPLASH!
A couple minutes later, Luffy, Sabo and Coby splashed down into the water in between Alvida's pirate ship and the cruise ship in their newly acquired skiff.
Luffy and Sabo glanced to the side and spotted the orange haired girl from the dining hall. She had just finished securing the large sack of treasure that she stole from Alvida's ship onto her own boat.
Sabo tipped his top hat to the girl then he and Luffy grabbed the oars that were in their boat and started to paddle like crazy.
The tiny boat went off like a shot and sped off across the water leaving behind the cruise ship, the pirate ship and most importantly the Marine Battleships.
"Looks like we managed to get away," Sabo noted a little later. He'd dropped the sail and now they were sailing across clear, empty waters.
"Whew! That was fun!" Luffy remarked.
"Um… Luffy?" Coby spoke up, "If you're after the One Piece… that means you're heading for the Grand Line. That place is called the Pirate Graveyard."
"Yeah, that's why I need a strong crew," Luffy said. "You said something about a Pirate Hunter guy… what's he like?"
Sabo looked up from the map that he'd pulled out from his coat, "Are you seriously considering asking a Pirate Hunter to join your pirate crew?"
"If he's a good person, why not!" Luffy replied.
"I heard he's being held in a nearby Marine Base," Coby admitted.
"Never mind!" Luffy decided. "If he was caught that means he's a weakling."
"No way!" Coby yelped, "I've heard that he's as terrifying as a demon! You can't ask him to join your crew!"
"He might be a good guy," Luffy said.
"He's been caught because he's a bad guy!" Coby exclaimed. "No way! No way! No way! Impossible!"
BONK!
"Why did you hit me?" Coby whined.
"Just because!" Luffy replied.
"Well… the nearest Marine Base is the 153rd Branch in Shells Town," Sabo announced. "It's actually not that far from here."
"ARE YOU CRAZY!?" Coby shouted. "You can't recruit the Pirate Hunter onto a pirate crew!"
"I already told him that, he decided it wasn't important," Sabo said, "Besides, Luffy's Captain. I'm Quartermaster so it's my job to make his crazy whims possible."
"RIGHT! LET'S GO SEE THAT PIRATE HUNTER!" Luffy cheered.
Some distance away, at the Shells Town Marine Base, a lone figure was tied to a wooden cross out in the holding yard. He defining accessories were a dark green bandana and a green sash.
'Pirate Hunter' Roronoa Zoro looked up and stared ahead of him. He had eyes like a demon and gave off an aura that just screamed danger.
Luffy and Sabo were heading right for him.
Yes, I skipped the scene where Luffy met Coby. That won't be the last time I skip something. This is a long series and I've got a lot of ground to cover. If I skip over something, that means it happens more-or-less the same as it does in canon.
Sabo's rifle/girlfriend is named after Bonnie Anne, my favorite companion from Pirate101. She's an anthropomorphic fox with a brogue that's a tribute to real life pirate Anne Bonny. For those of you that haven't played Pirate 101 before, you're depriving yourself but I posted some screenshots of Bonnie Anne the fox and Bonnie Anne the rifle on my Deviant Art account.
Silver signing off